Modern Grammars of Case anderson phần 8 docx

(9.61) a. Hasan o ¨ l-du ¨ Hasan die- PST (‘Hasan died’) b. Ali Hasan- I o ¨ l-du ¨ r-du ¨ Ali Hasan- ACC die-CAUS-PST (‘Ali killed Hasan’) But this does not disguise a systematic associative lexical relationship between kill and die that is parallel to that found with overtly related forms; and this relationship depends on the categorial complexity of kill. Categorially complex forms like kill and pilgrim are thus distinguished from o ¨ l-du ¨ r and the verb thank by disappointing any expectation that expression of a complex item retains in some respect the form of the ‘base’. The complex category is either independently lexicalized from its associated ‘base’ (kill versus die) or the ‘base’ is not lexicalized, has no independent expression, as with pilgrim. Consider now, in a little more detail, a slightly more complex case. The causative relation is again made overt in the Tamil sentences in (18), with overt marking of a causative relation between the two verbs (from Kandiah 1968): (18)a.piììay sooRu uîÔaan child rice: ACC ate (‘The child ate rice’) b. ammaa piììaykku sooRu uuÔÔunaaì mother child: DA T rice:ACC caused.eat (‘The mother fed rice to the child’) And compare the verbs used in the English translation suggested in brackets: there is no expression in the translation of the relationship between the two verbs. But the syntactic disposition of the arguments is the same in the Tamil and in the translation (give or take language-particular diVerences like pres- ence or absence of case inXections). Present-day English feed, however, has a reminiscence in shape, if now only a vague one, of a nominal base, namely that corresponding to the noun food. The relationship is no longer transparent. Compare the Old English ancestors in (19) and (20): (19) And þam he forgifð þone gastlican fodan and them: DA T he gives the:ACC spiritual:ACC food:ACC Groundedness: The Typicality of Case 293 (20) He fedde hie mid godcundum wordum he fed them: DA T with sacred words The fod-/fed-alternation here is part of a general pattern in phonological realization of morphological distinctions associated with causatives and their bases. The causative in (20) does not reXect the syntax of the ‘periphrasis’ in (19), however. The ‘source of the sustenance’ in (20) is expressed in an adjunct introduced by mid ‘with’. The lexical structure of (20) is thus unlike both the syntactic structure in (19) and the lexical structure in (18b), where the ‘sustenance’ is in both instances marked with accusative; the latter are struc- turally similar. And the verb in ( 20) is a contactive in form, with appositive circumstantial. We have diVerently structured verbs in these causatives in Tamil and Old English, and diVerent bases. Present-day English feed shows both syntactic possibilities: (21) a. George fed lies to us/George fed us lies b. George fed us with lies. There are two diVerent lexical structures for feed. Neither a causative status of feed in relation to eat nor status as a causative based on a nominal is transparently signalled (any more). But this should be no bar to recognition of the systematicity of the complex structures associated with even underived items. I stress that this is not to suggest, in any of these instances, that the syntax of lexically complex items is identical to the syntax of ‘periphrases’: this was one of the major problems associated with the transformational (syntactic) der- ivation of such lexical items that was proposed by the ‘generative semanti- cists’. However, the recognition of the syntactic relevance of covert categorial structure for lexical items, as well as that of overtly marked structure (via derivational morphology), is important in the explication of the divergent distribution of semantically non-typical members of a word class. 10.2 The syntactic-categor ial structure of words Anderson (2004c: §2) suggests that the internal categorial structure of words needs to allow for at least the following set of syntactic properties: (22) Requirements on syntactic categorization (a) to facilitate an account of the distributional diVerences among the classes (b) to facilitate the expression of recurrent cross-classes 294 Modern Grammars of Case (c) to facilitate the expression of diVerences in accessibility (markedness) among the classes (d) to facilitate the expression of gradient relationships among the classes (e) to facilitate expression of the relationship between primary and secondary categories I shall not give equal attention to all of these here, but concentrate on the most relevant, (a), (b), and to some extent (c). I shall outline the responses to these demands that have been elaborated within a theory of notionally based grammar that generalizes from what the study of ‘case’ has shown us. 10.2.1 Requirements on syntactic categorization Crucial to a discussion of requirement (a) in (22) is the observation made in §10.1 that the deWning distributional properties of the syntactic classes are not semantically arbitrary. It is not arbitrary that it is a subset of a particular class that Wgures as typical vocatives like those in (23): (23) Porter! Mary! Mummy! Nor that a subset of a diVerent class is what Wgures as imperatives: (24) Leave! Repent! Smile! The typical vocative is drawn from that syntactic class whose prototypical members denote (what are most easily perceived as) entities, the class of nominals; in particular (non-Wgurative) vocatives tend to involve animate, particularly human entities. Imperatives crucially involve members of the syntactic class, the class of verbals, that prototypically denotes (what are perceived as) events, particularly (in the case of imperatives) actions. As argued in Anderson (2004c), and following on from §10.1, it appears that, if we are to come to an understanding of distributional diVerences among syntactic categories, we need to appeal to their notional content— just as in the phonology: . . . if we represented lexical items by means of an arbitrary feature notation, we would be eVectively prevented from expressing in the grammar the crucial fact that items which have similar phonetic shapes are subject to many of the same rules. (Chomsky and Halle 1968: 295; see for example Anderson 2004c; 2004e.). And even non-prototypical items are interpreted as far as possible in accordance with the notional characteristics of their category. Thus, for instance, cere- mony may not be a prototypical nominal, in that its denotatum is not Groundedness: The Typicality of Case 295 obviously more stable or less relational than that of many verbals, but its usual syntax is interpreted as conferring on it the status of a perceived entity. Requirement (a) of (22)—surely a minimal requirement—is met in principle by a theor y of syntactic categories which attributes to them notional, onto- logical content. But satisfaction of the requirement is not compatible with ‘abstract’ categories, i.e. with the ‘autonomy of syntax’. They have nothing to say about the bases for such diVerences in distribution that is not a priori (for example ‘given by universal grammar’). However, the system of (25), based on autonomous syntactic features, is speciWcally designed to meet requirement (b) of (22), ‘cross-classiWcation’, as argued for by, for example, Radford (1988: 146–8), in presenting the by-then- familiar binary-featural representations in (25): (25) Chomskyan primary categories Verb ¼ [þV, ÀN] Adjective ¼ [þV,þN] Noun ¼ [ÀV,þN] Preposition ¼ [ÀV,ÀN] And, certainly, we seem to want to allow for both a noun-adjective ([þN]) and a verb-adjective ([þV]) cross-class, as the system allows. And perhaps we don’t want to provide for a verb-noun cross-class, excluded in terms of (25). However, though the cross-class adjective-preposition is also excluded by (25), the cross-class noun-preposition is allowed. The basis for this diVerence is unclear. Moreover, the motivation of the verb-preposition cross-class provided in (25) is rather shaky. It is again not enough in these cases to show gross distributional similarities. These may be contingent upon more fundamental diVerences. Let me spell this out, in the case of verbs and prepositions, in the lig ht of the development of ‘case grammar’. Prototypical prepositions, or adpositions, are universally complemented by a noun phrase, as the unmarked possibility, at least. Overtly, verbs in English may or may not be complemented by a noun phrase; they may be comple- mented by a prepositional phrase. In some other languages verbs are more uniformly complemented by either a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase. As we have seen, Anderson (1997) interprets this as showing that prototypical verbs are complemented by a phrase type that may be manifested as either adposition-containing or not: functor phrases. The member of the functor category that heads a functor phrase may be manifested by an independent adposition, or inXectionally, or only indirectly, by position of the phrase. This diversity of expression has long been recognized. Recall, for instance, the quotation from Chomsky (1966: 44–5) concerning the Port-Royal Grammar cited in §§2.1.4. Such a distribution takes functors outside the system of lexical categories, into the realm of functional categories (recall §8.1). This is, again 296 Modern Grammars of Case as we seen, not to deny that there are complex prepositions, which incorpor- ate (for instance) nominal elements (beside and the like). But a prototypical adposition, such as at, is a simple functional category. And it does not enter into any cross-class relationships with the other categories allowed for by (25). Adpositions are not a happy lexical category (cf. e.g. Vincent 1999; Baker 2003: app.). Such observations would be consistent with a preliminary system of grounded categories based on simplex features such as that in (26), where functors are distinguished as the null combination of the notional features P and N: (26) Notionally based primary categories I Verbal ¼ {P} Adjectival ¼ {P,N} Nominal ¼ {N} Preposition/Functor ¼ {} The braces enclose the categorial representations. A feature may be present or absent. Adjectivals combine the two features that individually characterize verbals and nominals. In lexical entries, ‘{P}’ means ‘containing P and only P’. It is only when expressing morphosyntactic regularities that we need to distinguish between {P}, the class of verbals, and the class sharing P, i.e. the class of verbals and adjectivals in a system such as that in (26). The cross-class can be referred to by suppressing the curly brackets: verbals and adjectivals belong to the cross-class P, and nominals and adjectivals to the cross-class N, whereas the class {P} is verbal, and {N} nominal The functor category belongs to no cross-classes. The ‘simplex-feature’ aspect of the representations in (26) relates to a number of the requirements of (22), as illustrated in Anderson (2004c). Here I continue to focus on requirement (a). In accordance with satisfaction of requirement (a) of (22), the features of (26), P (¼ ‘predicable’) and N (¼ ‘referentiable’), have notional content. P is associated with the capacity to form a (optimally independent) predication, N with the capacity to refer. P thus requires that its prototypical denotata be relational and dynamic, and N discrete and stable, which enhance these respective capacities. Adjectivals, prototypically associated with attributes rather than events or entities, have denotata that fall between the denotata of verbals and nominals in terms of relationality versus discreteness and dynamicness versus stability, and this is reXected in their morphosyntax. Now, it may be that (26) represents a stage in the acquisition of the syntactic categories of a language like English (cf. for example Anderson ( 2000a), where it is assumed that the syntactic categories are not given as part of ‘universal grammar’, but must be acquired). But the system of (pri- Groundedness: The Typicality of Case 297 mar y) categories appropriate to the adult system is clearly more complex. And the recognition of the distinctive character of functors is an indication of where a major complication lies. We have to distinguish in adult systems between a set of lexical categories and a set of functional categories, the latter of which the functor is a paradigm example Functional categories are char- acterized not by their sharing some substantive property, which would be a notional interpretation of the content of Radford’s (1997a: §2.9)‘þF’, but by their relative poverty of content compared with lexical categories; there is no feature corresponding to [ + F]. This assumption underlies the system of (adult) primary categories proposed in Anderson (1997). This is essentially as laid out in (27): (27) Notionally based primary categories 2 a. Functional categories: Operative ¼ {P} Comparator ¼ {P.N} Determinative ¼ {N} Functor ¼ {} b. Lexical categories: Verb ¼ {P;N} Noun ¼ {N;P} Adjective ¼ {P:N} ¼ (P;N),(N;P) c. Some cross-classes: Verbal ¼ P> Nominal ¼ N> Adjectival ¼ P¼N Adjective-verb ¼ P;N Adjective-noun ¼ N;P Lexical ¼ ; Here the functional categories as a whole are diVerentiated from the lexical in terms of their involving only simple combinations of P and N (including the null combination). The lexical categories all involve combination of P and N, but always involving asymmetries. This is indicated in the representation for the cross-class ‘lexical’ in (27c), where the semi-colon speci Wes asymmetry; the presence of this represents their ‘non-simplicity’. The period in the representation of the functional category comparator insists on this being a simple combination (not involving asymmetries). In the representation for verbs in (27 b) P, to the left of the colon, is predominant over N; in the representation for the noun, the reverse is the case; and the adjective involves a combination of asymmetries, abbreviated as {P:N}. The ‘;’ notation is simply a more compact category-internal expression of a dependency relation. The poverty of notional substance associated with the functional categories underlies, of course, the ‘reduced’ semantics often attributed to ‘non- contentives’, which largely comprise the functional categories, but also the variety of ways in which they can be expressed: their expression does not 298 Modern Grammars of Case require an independent lexical class. Thus, as we have seen (§8.2), Wniteness in English can be expressed by an independent operative word form, as in (28), or as part of a lexical category, as in (29): (28) John may leave (29) John left Functors are no exception in showing a variety of expression. Returning to (c) in (27), we can group operatives and verbs together as verbals, now interpreted as categories showing a preponderance of P, repre- sented P>, where ‘>’ includes both ‘;’ and ‘feature uniquely present’, as respectively in the representation for verb in (27b), and that for operative in (27a). Similarly, determinatives group with nouns as N>. And comparators group with adjectives as showing equal proportions of the two features, with ‘¼’ generalizing over ‘ : ’ (in the comparator representation) and ‘:’ (in the representation of adjectives). Of the functional categories, only the functor, as the null combination, has no corresponding lexical category. (27c) also oVers the speciWcation for the adjective-verb and adjective-noun cross-classes, and, as indicated, that for lexical categories. All the lexical categories have P and N in asymmetrical relationships; this underlies their varyingly strong capacities to be either predicators or anaphoric antecedents (cf. Anderson 2003; 2004b). The functional categories are typically complemented by the corresponding lexical category, as represented in (30), which express defaults: (30) a. {P} ) {P/{P;N} } b. {N} ) {N/{N;P} } (31) a. {P} ) {P/{ } } b. { } ) { /{N} } c. {N} ) {N/{} } And this is true of the non-independent expression in (29) as well as where the functional category has independent expression. (30b), however, deWnes only generic nominals; typically {N} takes a partitive. Functor has no correspond- ing lexical category, but {P} also heads a hierarchy of functional categories in terms of subcategorization, in which functor participates, as expressed in (31). This articulates the central position of {P} in sentence structure. {P} and {N} participate in the two hierarchies: {P} normally takes both a {P;N} argument ( 30a) and a functor phrase (31a), reXecting its relationalit y. Non-generic {N} is limited in (30c) to either governing another {N}, as with deWnites, or { } (partitives)—recall §8.2.2. Groundedness: The Typicality of Case 299 So that, for instance, we can represent (28) and (29) respectively as in (32) and (33) (recall (8.5)): (32) {P/{P;N}} : : {P;N} : : : : may leave (33) {P} {P;N} : : leave | (33) contains a complex, lexically derived category associated with application of the lexical redundancy of (9.46), updated as in (34): (34) Finiteness formation {P} {P;N} {P;N} | ⇔ (34) essentially allows verbs in English to have a Wnite function, though it may be blocked by other factors. 10.2.2 Parts of speech versus categories Some distinctions among primary categories have a basic lexical status; they diVerentiate between word classes or ‘parts of speech’, i.e. lexical classes with a distinctive (though possibly overlapping) membership. As discussed in Anderson (1997:§2.1.4), there are other categorial diVerences that do not encode a diVerence in word class; and these diVerences are realized by diVerent forms of the same word, as with the categorizations in (32) and (33), each of which can be associated with manifestations of, for example, leave, with that in (32) being lexically basic and (33) derived (by absorbing a {P} by Wniteness formation). The representations in (32) and (34) are associated with diVerent word forms—in this case, the morphologically non-Wnite and Wnite forms of the verb, which in this particular instance are syncretized. It may be that in some languages some of the distinctions drawn in (27a, b) are not given word-class status. This is recognizably the case with adjectives, 300 Modern Grammars of Case which are not universal as a word class (for some references see Dixon (1977), Anderson (1997:§2.3.1)). In such languages there is no lexical class {P:N}. But systems even more deWcient in primary lexical class distinctions have been proposed for some languages. SpeciWcally, it has been argued that there are languages to which we can attribute a lexical system, in the present notation, like that in (26), but inter- preted rather diVerently, as in (35): (35) Notionally based primary categories 3 a. Functional categories Operative ¼ {P} Determinative ¼ {N} Functor ¼ {} b. Lexical categories Contentive ¼ {P,N} These are languages which not only lack adjectives but also are alleged to lack a basic lexical verb/noun distinction (for references, see Mithun (1999:§2.3), as well as the rather inconclusive discussion in Anderson (1997:§2.1.4)); lexical predicators are not further diVerentiated. Compare Boas ( 1911)on Kwakiutl: ‘all stems are neutral, neither noun nor verb.’ The existence of such languages remains controversial, and the issues are delicate (see again Mithun (1999:§2.3), as well as Jacobsen (1979); Kinkade (1983); van Eijk and Hess (1986); Jelinek and Demers (1994); Demirdache and Matthewson (1995); Broschart (1997); and contributions to Vogel and Comrie (2000), for ex- ample). And generally, even in languages for which (16) may seem appropri- ate, one can talk of par ticular items having a propensity to occur as one category rather than the other, i.e. preferably to occur as one category or the other. And this is unsurprising, given the ontological basis for the verb/noun distinction. Moreover, description of the syntax of such languages depends on the making of a categorial (even if not lexical) distinction between noun and verb. So at most what one might claim is that the ontological distinction can be grammaticalized as a category diVerence without being lexicalized (as a diVerence in word class). Even then we would have to be sure that our use of distributional evidence is in accord with looking for the behaviour of semantically prototypical poten- tial members of the (potential) classes. If only items that are prototypical in their semantics (with respect to verb or noun) share some morphosyntactic behaviour or restrictions on that behaviour, then we have a case for talking about basic and converted nouns or verbs, and so for a lexical distinction. Thus, Straits Salish, for instance, which has been cited as a language lacking a (lexical) distinction between noun and verb (see Jelinek and Demers 1994), Groundedness: The Typicality of Case 301 may be such a case, given that, as Jelinek and Demers observe, ‘some Salish roots can co-occur with possessive pronouns’ (1994: 698). {N} in a ‘contentive-only’ language, if such there be, may be realized, as in other languages, as a pronoun, or a name, as in Nootka (Swadesh 1936–8): names are grouped by Anderson (1997) with pronouns as non-complemented determinatives. The operative, {P}, may similarly appear as an independent word, like the ‘copula’ in Inland Olympic Salish (Kinkade 1976: 19). But it would also be the determinative and the Wniteness element that allow con- tentives to occur as respectively arguments and (Wnite) predicators, via the derived categories in (36) and (37), alternative expansions (absorptions) of {P,N}: (36) {P} {P,N} | (37) {N} {P,N} | The functional categories, including functors, would provide for the variable syntax of contentives; the categories in (36) and (37) are distinguished by distribution and also usually morphologically. For we would not be saying that such languages lack the syntactic categories ‘verb’ and ‘noun’, but merely a lexical class diVerence between such categories (cf. on this distinction Lyons (1977:§11.2)). As Mithun says of Swadesh’s famous examples illustrating the syntactic versatility of Nootka lexical items, two of which are replicated in (38), ‘there is no question that the Wrst words . . . are functioning syntactically as predicates, and the words that follow as arguments’ (1999: 61): (38) a. mamoÁkma qoÁ?as?i he. is. working the. man (‘The man is working’) b. qoÁ?asma mamoÁk?i he. is. a.man the. working(.one) (‘The one working is a man’) In such a system, however, it has been argued that, despite the variation in derived categorization, basic lexical categories are apparently reduced to one, the only possibility in the system involving combination of the two features. 302 Modern Grammars of Case [...]... in what comes below the locative: in the case of (67a) it is again the deWnite determiner conWgura- Groundedness: The Typicality of Case 321 tion of (68a); in the case of (67b) it is the overt indeWnite (partitive) structure of (68b); in (67c) we have the covert determination of (68c) What all of (67) add to individual conWgurations like ( 68) is the linking of the upper (deWnite) determiner with the... sub-type As an illustration of general ‘part–whole’ syntax, Fillmore (1968a: 64) cites Frei’s example of (46a) (1939: 188 ), where the construction permits an ‘inalienable’ but not an ‘alienable’, as in (b): (46) a Sylvie est jolie des yeux Sylvie is pretty of. the eyes 312 Modern Grammars of Case ˆ b *Elle est bien faite des vetements she is well made of. the clothes See for example Anderson (1971b: §7.36)... Wrst two of these arise from diVerent aspects of Apollonius’s description and from (diVerent parts of) later descriptions of the classical languages, as an instance of which Householder cites Smyth (1956) The approaches listed by Householder (1972a) are: 1 Syntax is the study of the meaning and function of the various inXections (cases of nouns, moods of verbs, etc.) and of the diVerent parts of speech... part of the onomastic lexicon The details of the structure oVered in (56b), justiWed in Anderson (2004b), is not important for our present concerns I add it here simply to Wll out this sketch of the attributives It does, however, lead on to a further observation, prompted by the presence of of Noun complements typically show a lot of neutralization in the expression of functors: consider the role of of... characterization of genitives attempted here, despite what is shared I suggested in 8. 3.2 that something like the representations of the Latin cases in (8. 59) and (8. 64) served as templates for those studying other languages with morphological case I noted there, however, that the representation for the genitive in (8. 59d) did not take account of its attributive function in nominal uses: (8. 59) d genitive... (b): (65) a decisions of governments b the decisions of governments 3 18 Modern Grammars of Case But again the the in (65b) is cataphoric Again, the whole phrase is ‘externally’ indeWnite This parallelism is a nice conWrmation of the appropriateness of assigning to ‘simple’ plurals an ‘absorbed’ determinative structure, parallel to that associated with overt determinatives (as in 8. 2.2) What emerges... subject-matter of the following chapters 11 Argument-Sharing I: Raising I want to confront in this and the following two chapters our last question (for the moment) arising from the case grammar’ tradition Recall again: (5.49) Consequences of case grammar d) the question of derivationality One consequence of case grammar’, it has been suggested in work of the last two decades, is the provision of notions of. .. application of (diVerent) transformations, in the Wrst case of ‘raising’ of the subject of the lower verb into the upper clause, in the second of ‘deletion’ of the lower subject under identity with a ‘controller’ (John) in the main clause—‘Equi-NP deletion’ Latterly, the derivation of (1b) prevalent in transformational grammars, rather than appealing to deletion, has involved ‘control’ by the ‘controller’ of. .. ‘empirical maximum’ ` of primary categories, or even of word classes—i.e of establishing ‘le systeme le plus riche que l’on connaisse’, let alone the ‘absolute maximum’ And the same applies to systems of case , once we move outside Hjelmslev’s primary dimension of directionality 10.3 Nominal structure The development of the notation of §10.2 enables us, in conjunction with the discussion of circumstantials... ancient Greek and Latin grammarians and logicians to refer to class terms of various sorts, including gender, and general terms versus particulars And the Greek geniki ptosis is the ‘general case Insofar as this ‘general case is, as proposed here, involved in the introduction, via the partitive, of what is seen 324 Modern Grammars of Case in the context as a more general term, the traditional Greek term . characterizations of Dative such as (3.10): (3.10) Dative (D), the case of the animate being aVected by the state or action identiWed by the verb. (Fillmore 1968a: 24) 312 Modern Grammars of Case . distribution takes functors outside the system of lexical categories, into the realm of functional categories (recall 8. 1). This is, again 296 Modern Grammars of Case as we seen, not to deny that there. also the variety of ways in which they can be expressed: their expression does not 2 98 Modern Grammars of Case require an independent lexical class. Thus, as we have seen ( 8. 2), Wniteness in English