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Really Martin, do you <i>mean</i> that intonation (prosody) is no
overt marking? Has the "written language bias in linguistics" taken
over for good? Even Bloomfield knew that <i>'black 'bird</i> vs. '<i>blackbird</i>
contrast not just in meaning but also in form - and <i>not</i> because
of the difference in spelling. <br>
Hartmut<br>
<br>
<br>
Martin Haspelmath wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4929C7A9.6050801@eva.mpg.de" type="cite">I
disagree with David and Östen:
<br>
<br>
David Gil wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Re the Västerbotten dialect: I would tend to
agree with Östen Dahl that, as compounds, they don't really belong in
the same boat as true syntactic juxtapositions.
<br>
</blockquote>
Östen Dahl wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I also think that "simple juxtaposition" is
not a wholly adequate label for these constructions, which are rather
to be seen as a kind of incorporation involving among other things
"compound" prosody.
<br>
</blockquote>
Whether "simple juxtaposition" is an appropriate label for Västerbotten
(Swedish) Pelle-äpple 'Pelle's apple' or not depends on the definition
of "simple juxtaposition" as a comparative concept. Typologists are
free to define their comparative concepts in whatever way they want,
and they cannot assume that "juxtaposition" exists as a pre-established
category (innate or otherwise given in advance, independently of the
linguist).
<br>
<br>
Recall that this is how Andrew Spencer and Irina Nikolaeva define the
concept "simple/pure juxtaposition":
<br>
<br>
"by means of pure juxtaposition, without any other morphosyntactic
marking (agreement, adpositions, case marking etc.)"
<br>
<br>
This is not a very precise definition (it is unclear what exactly is
meant by "morphosyntactic marking", and especially by "etc."). However,
the interpretation that many readers would think of first is in terms
of "overt marking" (usually by segmental marking, but possibly by stem
change, as in the Welsh example). But there is no overt marking in
Swedish, so this does fit Andrew's and Irina's definition. Östen points
to "compound prosody", implying that "simple juxtaposition" should not
have "compound prosody". But such a move does not work in typology,
because "compound prosody" is not a universally applicable notion.
Comparative concepts need to be defined in terms of universally
applicable concepts.
<br>
<br>
Östen also suggests the label "incorporation", but how this is
different from juxtaposition is unclear. Often it is thought of in
terms of non-referentiality of the incorporee, but in Västerbotten the
incorporee can evidently be referentil (Pelle-äpple).
<br>
<br>
Martin
<br>
<br>
P.S. I think the term "simple (or pure) juxtaposition" is somewhat
confusing, because it suggests that "complex juxtaposition" also
exists. In fact, however, juxtaposition is universally understood in
the Spencer & Nikolaeva sense: as expression of a relationship
between A and B by putting A next to B without any overt coding.
Juxtaposition is thus "simple"/"pure" by definition.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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