<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Adding to Alex's post, really, any language that doesn't require a verb in an equative clause is probably going to allow this. <div><br></div><div>Some other Austronesian (but non-Oceanic) examples</div><div><br></div><div><b>No really obviously elided verb:</b></div><div><b>Indonesian</b></div><div>Saya di kampung.</div><div>1SG LOC village</div><div>'I'm in the village.'</div><div><br></div><div><b>Tukang Besi</b></div><div>Te ikami kua wunua-su?</div><div>CORE 1PA ALL house-1SG.GEN</div><div>'(Shall) we (go) to my house?'</div><div><br></div><div><b>Possibly elided verb:</b></div><div><b>Indonesia</b></div><div>Mau ke mana?</div><div>want ALL where</div><div>'Where (do) you want (to go)?'</div><div><br></div><div><b>Tukang Besi</b></div><div>Ke iaku na doe-'u!</div><div>COM 1SG NOM money-2SG.GEN</div><div>'(Give) your money (to) me!'</div><div><br></div><div>And, of course, given the polysemy between '<a href="http://be.at">be.at</a>' verbs and locational adpositions, </div><div><br></div><div><b>Mandarin</b></div><div>他们 在 房子里<br></div><div>tamen zai fangzi-li</div><div>3PL <a href="http://be.at/LOC">be.at/LOC</a> house-inside</div><div>'They're in the house.'</div><div><br></div><div>compare with the same zai in:</div><div><br></div><div>他们在房子里吃饭<br></div><div>tamen zai fangzi-li chi fan</div><div>3PL LOC? house-inside eat rice</div><div>'They're eating in the house.'</div><div><br></div><div>For clues about other languages to examine, a close approximation will be</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://wals.info/feature/120A?v1=cfff&v2=c00d#1/18/154">https://wals.info/feature/120A?v1=cfff&v2=c00d#1/18/154</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>It seems it's ~ half the languages of the world.</div><div><br></div><div>-Mark</div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, 27 Sep 2020 at 15:26, Alex Francois <<a href="mailto:alex.francois.cnrs@gmail.com">alex.francois.cnrs@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">dear Ian,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">> <span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><i>I wonder if there has been any literature on the construction where there is no verb, but only an NP and a PP</i></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Interesting question.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">In English, those constructions are particular: they are arguably elliptical in some way, exclamative – or hortative
–
rather than declarative…</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Yet in many languages, including from the Oceanic (Austronesian) family, a construction {NP + PP} is simply the normal syntax for a declarative statement, where the PP is the predicate itself.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Thus <b>Mwotlap</b> (Oceanic; Banks, Vanuatu) would have this: <br><font size="1"> (square brackets = limits of the predicate phrase)
</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"><font color="#990000">(1) </font><b><font color="#990000">Imam mino [</font><font color="#0000ff">mi </font><font color="#990000">tēytēybē].</font></b></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"> father my with doctor</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"> “My father is/was with the doctor.”</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><font color="#990000"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"><font color="#990000">(2) </font><b><font color="#990000">na-tan̄ nōnōm [</font><font color="#0000ff">lelo</font><font color="#990000"> siok].</font></b></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"> Art-bag your inside canoe</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"> “Your bag is in the canoe.”</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"></div><div class="gmail_default"></div></div><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Likewise, <b>Araki </b>(Oceanic; Santo, Vanuatu) says:</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"><font color="#990000">(3) </font><b><font color="#990000">Sari nene [</font><font color="#0000ff">m̈ar̄a </font><font color="#990000">m̈aji]</font></b><font color="#990000">.</font><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"> spear this for fish</font></div><div class="gmail_default"> “This spear is for fish.” (i.e. it's designed for fishing)</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><b>Teanu </b>(Oceanic ; Temotu, Solomons) would have:</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"><font color="#990000">(4) </font><b><font color="#990000">Datilu [</font><font color="#0000ff">pe </font><font color="#990000">Iura]</font></b><font color="#990000">.</font><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"> 3dual from Vanuatu</font></div><div class="gmail_default"> “They were from Vanuatu.”</div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"></div></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">These are all prepositional predicates, translated in English as <i>BE</i> + prep. (is with, is in, is for, were from…)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Their syntax is typical of languages of the "omnipredicative" type (cf. Launey 1994 about Nāhuatl), languages where the predicate slot can be headed by various lexical classes — unlike European languages, where the predicative function in declarative statements is basically restricted to verbs. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Those languages which, like European languages, restrict predicativity to the class of verbs, need a copula (like a verb BE) to turn non-predicative phrases into a predicate: with > "I <u>was</u> with them"; happy > "she <u>is</u> happy"; rice > "this <u>is</u> rice"; home > "we <u>were</u> home". </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">This operation (turning a non-pred phrase into a predicate) is arguably the main function of copulas (cf. Lemaréchal 1989, 1997); this is the <i>raison d'être</i> of <i>être</i>.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">In omnipredicative languages, words like <i>with</i>, <i>happy, rice</i> and <i>home</i> would simply head the predicate, making the whole copula operation superfluous. This is why a typical property of omnipredicative languages is to lack a verb Be in the first place.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">NB: in languages where the predicate is clause-initial, you will have the reverse order {<u>PP</u> NP}. Example in Tahitian:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace">(5) <b><font color="#990000">[</font><font color="#0000ff">Nō</font><font color="#990000"> tō'u fenua] teie mā'a.</font></b></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="monospace"> from my country this food</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"> “This food is from my country.”</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Here again, the preposition (<i>nō</i>) is the head of the predicate.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Some references:</div><div class="gmail_default"><ul><li><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1"><b>Launey</b>, Michel. 1994. <i>Une grammaire omniprédicative: Essai sur la morphosyntaxe du nahuatl classique</i>. Sciences du Langage, Paris: CNRS.</font></li><li><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1"><b>Lemaréchal</b>, Alain. 1989. <i>Les parties du discours, Syntaxe et sémantique</i>. Linguistique Nouvelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.<br></font></li><li><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1">
——
1997. <i>Zéro(s)</i>. Linguistique Nouvelle. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.<br></font></li><li><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1"><b>François</b>, Alexandre. 2005. Diversité des prédicats non verbaux dans quelques langues océaniennes. In Jacques François & Irmtraud Behr, <i>Les constituants prédicatifs et la diversité des langues</i>. Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. Louvain: Peeters. 179-197.</font></li><li><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="1">—— 2017. The economy of word classes in Hiw, Vanuatu: Grammatically flexible, lexically rigid. In Eva van Lier (ed.), <i>Lexical Flexibility in Oceanic Languages</i>. Special issue of <i>Studies in Language</i>. 41 (2): 294–357.</font></li></ul></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default">__________</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"></div></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">I realise that these Oceanic constructions look perfectly parallel to your English examples [<i>Your legs off the table!</i>], and yet the syntactic similarity is only superficial. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">The contrast – whether syntactic, semantic or pragmatic –
is worth exploring.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">best</div><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><font size="2">Alex</font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><hr style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" width="70" size="1" noshade align="left"><div style="font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;font-family:"Segoe UI",Verdana,"Trebuchet MS",Tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,102,102);font-size:11px;line-height:16.5px"><p style="font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif">Alex François</p><p style="text-decoration:none"><span style="text-decoration:none;font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif"><a href="http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank">LaTTiCe</a> — <a title="ENS" href="http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html" rel="noopener" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">CNRS–</a><a title="ENS" href="https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094" rel="noopener" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">ENS</a>–<a title="ENS" href="http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp" rel="noopener" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Sorbonne nouvelle</a><br><a href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a" rel="noopener" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Australian National University</a><br><a href="https://cnrs.academia.edu/AlexFran%C3%A7ois" rel="noopener" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Academia page</a> – <a href="http://alex.francois.online.fr/" rel="noopener" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Personal homepage</a></span></p><hr style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:tahoma,sans-serif" size="1"> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 25 Sep 2020 at 23:07, JOO, Ian [Student] <<a href="mailto:ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk" target="_blank">ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div></div>
<div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr"></div>
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<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:inherit">Dear all,</span><br>
</div>
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<div id="gmail-m_-4091096418230876592gmail-m_-3843428444346139481id-ca17c194-f324-419e-a95f-82464bef9946">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">I wonder if there has been any literature on the construction where there is no verb, but only an NP and a PP, such as:</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">(1) Superman to the rescue!</div>
<div dir="ltr">(2) Your legs off the table!</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">Of course, not only in English, but in any language. I would appreciate your help.</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
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<div dir="ltr">From Hong Kong,</div>
<div dir="ltr">Ian</div>
<div></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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