13.2994, Review: Morphology, Syntax: Harris (2002)
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Subject: 13.2994, Review: Morphology, Syntax: Harris (2002)
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1)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:05:22 +0100
From: Wolfgang Schulze <W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Harris (2002) Endoclitics & Origin of Udi Morphosyntax
-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 13:05:22 +0100
From: Wolfgang Schulze <W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Harris (2002) Endoclitics & Origin of Udi Morphosyntax
Harris, Alice C (2002) Endoclitics and The Origin of Udi Morphosyntax.
Oxford University Press, hardback ISBN 0-19-924633-5, xvi+299pp, USD $90.
Wolfgang M. Schulze, Institute for General Linguistics and Language
Typology, University of Munich (Germany)
[This book has not yet been announced on LINGUIST. --eds.]
1. General Information
The aim of Harris' monograph is to give a detailed account of a
morphosyntactic (or: morphopragmatic) phenomenon that is said to be unique
among languages, namely 'endoclitization'. By this term, Harris refers to
the strategy to place so-called personal agreement clitics into the stem (or
even root) of a verb. This phenomenon goes against standard assumption of
the so-called Lexical Integrity Hypothesis according to which "words are
composed according to morphological principles that differ in kind from the
syntactic principles responsible for the composition of sentences" (Harris
2002:3). More concrete: "[T]he morphological composition of a word is not
accessible to the rules of syntax" (ibid.). In case agreement clitics have
syntactic and pragmatic properties, endoclitization of these clitics into a
verb stem/root would violate this basic hypothesis. Therefore, the existence
of endoclitics has often been denied (e.g. Klavans 1979).
Harris' monograph importantly challenges such views. In order to tell the
General and Theoretical Linguist more about endoclitization together with
its motivation by and its impact on syntactic structures, the author has
chosen Udi as her sample language. Udi is a South East Caucasian (or:
Lezgian) language that is currently spoken by roughly 3.000 people in now
two villages (Nizh in Azerbaijan and Okt'omberi in Georgia). Until 1989,
there has been another important Udi population in the village of Vartashen
(Azerbaijan). Udi has two dialectal variant (Nizh and Vartashen). Until
2001, most linguistic descriptions and analyses of Udi have relied upon data
from Vartashen (together with its variant spoken in Okt'omberi). Data from
Nizh were scant. This picture has changed since the appearance of a
collection of Nizh Udi poems and tales published by Kechaari 2001. In
addition, Udi is documented by narrative texts(both native and translations
from Russian), poems, and samples of the conversational style that had been
recorded over the years 1850-2002. A translation of the Gospels has been
prepared at the end of the 19th century (Bezhanov & Bezhanov 1902, Schulze
2001). Finally, fieldwork data have been collected by Adolph Dirr (1904), by
Vladimir Panc^vidze (1960ies), by Alice Harris and by the author of the
present review.
Typologically speaking, Udi is marked for a number of features that are
alien to its sister (better: cousin) languages (such as Lezgi proper,
Tabasaran, Aghul etc.). These features include the 'personalization' of the
agreement system (instead of noun classification), massive presence of verb
forms marked for incorporation, and the partial splitting of the relational
primitives S (Subjective), A (Agentive), and O (Objective)(see Schulze 2000b
for details): Basically, Udi shows an ergative case paradigm. Nevertheless,
S and A can be demoted to the 'Indirect Objective' domain (S/A > IO) with
verba sentiendi and to encode a potential mood. On the other hand, S can be
promoted to the Agentive function (S > A) to mark a strongly controlling
referent in subjective function. The Objective is marked for one of the two
Dative cases in case the referent is thought to be (textually) definite. In
addition, Udi is characterized by clausal subordination that (in parts)
replaces the East Caucasian standard of participle and converbial
subordination.
2. The book's purpose and contents
As has been said above, the main purpose of Harris' book is to provide
evidence that endoclitization in a synchronically valid technique of
syntactic organization. However, the book goes far beyond this synchronic
issue: It aims at the explanation of why and how the endoclitization
technique arose in Udi. This diachronic perspective is embedded into the
general framework of Diachronic Syntax as presented in Harris & Campbell
1995. Doing so, Harris also exploits comparative evidence stemming from
related languages in the Eastern Caucasus. In order to formulate the
synchronic mechanisms of endoclitization, Harris makes special reference to
Optimality Theory.
The book is organized as follows: A first introductory section (pp.3-19)
states the basic problems dealt with in the monograph. Section Two (pp.
23-165) discusses the synchrony of the Udi agreement system both from a
paradigmatic and a syntagmatic (functional) point of view. This section also
includes an Optimality Approach to the phenomenon at issue (chapter 7). In
section Three (which, in fact, represents the core of the book), Harris
outlines a complex scenario of the emergence of endoclitization in Udi (pp.
169-284). The book concludes with a brief 'Afterword' (pp.283-4), a
comprehensive bibliography and an index.
In sections One and Two, Harris introduces the grammar of Udi which makes
the book more than just a comprehensive presentation of endoclitization in
Udi: As the subtitle of the book suggests ('Origins of Udi Morphosyntax'),
Harris is well aware of the fact that the Udi agreement system is at the
core of the grammatical organization of the language: Agreement controls a
wide range of syntactic and pragmatic properties (focus, verbal valence,
referential tracking, 'subject' alignment etc.), just as it is controlled by
such properties (functional cases, communicative and deictic reference,
Tense/Mood system etc.). Consequently, Harris has to familiarize the reader
with the major features of Udi grammar (including certain aspects of
morphophonology), which makes the book also an introduction into the
(functional) grammar of Udi as such.
In this sense, the first two chapters are compiled from a didactic
perspective. This aspect comes also clear from the fact that here,
interlinear glosses are given only for those forms that are under
consideration. The further Harris progresses in her argumentation, the more
explicit the interlinear glosses become. The depiction of the Udi
grammatical system relies on both standard grammars (there are at five such
grammars ranging from Schiefner 1863 to Schulze 1982) and textual data (note
Harris does not make use of the corpus presented by the Gospels. The new
Nizh materials (Kechaari 2001) were not yet published by the time the author
had finished her manuscript). In general, Harris confirms what has been said
in the grammatical sources. There is, however, one major exception: None of
the grammatical treatments of the Udi agreement system did account for the
functional distribution of personal clitics: These can occur both with verbs
and with extra-verbal constituents as in (1).
[See bottom of file for special orthographic symbols.]
(1) (a) xina"r-en gölö s^um u-ne-k-sa
girl-ERG much bread:ABS eat-3sg-$-PRES
'The girl EATs much bread.'
(b) xina"r-en gölö s^um-ne uk-sa
girl-ERG much bread:ABS-3sg eat-PRES
'The girl eats MUCH BREAD.'
(c) go"lo" s^um xina"r-en-ne uk-sa
much bread:ABS girl-ERG-3sg eat-PRES
'The GIRL eats much bread.'
(The symbol '$' indicates the second part of a verbal stem preceded by an
endoclitic element. Capital letters indicate focused constituents). Harris
is the first who relates the formal distribution of these clitics to a
functional scenario. Accordingly, the placement of agreement clitics is
governed by both properties of the clausal information flow (constituent or
sentence (prepositional) focus) and special features of the constituents.
For instance, certain particles and pronouns that are in 'natural' focus
(negation, adhortative, question) always call for a personal clitic. In case
these particles again have clitic properties, 'piggybacking' can take place:
I use this term to describe the fact that the resulting clitic cluster
behaves as a single clitic (see Schulze (forthcoming) for a detailed account
of the piggybacking process):
(2) (a) g^ar-en s^um-q'a-n uk-sa
boy-ERG bread:ABS-ADH-3sg eat-PRES
'The boy should eat BREAD.'
(b) g^ar-en s^um u-q'a-n-k-(e)sa
boy-ERG bread:ABS eat-ADH-3sg-$-PRES
'The boy SHOULD EAT bread.'
Three Tense/Mood categories always call for a clitic in enclitic position:
The Factitive Future (labeled Future2 by Harris), the Modal (called
Subjunctive by Harris), and the Imperative (usually derived from the Modal).
Harris carefully analyses the distributional patterns in question and
convincingly relates them to a set of (preference) rules that allow her to
give an account of these 'rules' in the framework of Optimality Theory:
"[I]t is shown that this approach can account elegantly for the complex set
of requirements and option for placement of the Udi PM [Personal markers,
W.S.]" (Harris 2002:7).
The fact that Harris succeeded in describing a set of functional conditions
for the placement of Udi agreement clitics can be safely termed a
'linguistic discovery'. Harris has opened the door to a truly 'new'
perspective for the description not only of the Udi system but also of other
systems that, too, show floating agreement clitics (such as some Northwest
Iranian languages, e.g. Northern Talysh, see Schulze 2000b). This
perspective is characterized by the linkage of syntactic and pragmatic
arguments that serve as a descriptive scenario for morphological facts. By
'focusing on focus', Harris shows that the clausal organization in Udi is
heavily dominated by non-categorial, but pragmatic features that bounce back
on nearly every grammatical 'category'. In addition, the pragmatic domain is
also present in the ontology of 'words' in Udi: In Chapter 4, Harris gives
an illuminating discussion of the degree of 'wordiness' of Udi verbs. She
shows that clitization and prosodic features interact to produce
incorporated verb forms. As typologically expected, this process is coupled
with the gradual dereferentialization of the host, compare:
(3) (a) xina"r-en as^-ne b-esa
girl-ERG work:ABS-3sg make-PRES
'The girl does a/the WORK.'
(b) xina"r-en as^-ne-b-sa
girl-ERG work-3sg-make>LV-PRES
'The girl WORKs.'
Harris shows that verb forms marked for incorporation structurally behave
like simplex verbs: The same constraints on agreement clitics apply that are
characteristic for simplex verbs. Nevertheless, Harris correctly observes
that stem-internal endoclitization is blocked with incorporating verbs:
(4) (a) xina"r-en nana-xo xabar-re-aq'-sa
girl-ERG mother-ABL news-3sg-take-PRES
'The girl asks (lit.: takes news from)
mother.'
(b) *xina"r-en nana-xo xabar-a-ne-q'-sa
girl-ERG mother-ABL news-take-3sg-$-PRES
The fact that incorporated elements represent the preferred host of
agreement clitics with sentential focus illustrates that agreement is not
lexically determined but conditioned by pragmatic factors: Incorporated
elements represent the semantic (or: lexical) 'highlight' in complex verbal
structures that then end in rather desemantisized 'light verbs' (LV) no
longer accessible to endoclitics.
Both pragmatic and syntactic conditions have given rise to the fact that Udi
agreement clitics in parts copy the relational properties of their
'personal' trigger: Accordingly, these clitics are 'bipolar': They identify
their host as being in focus and relate it to the referential 'center' of a
clause which then is subcategorized according to the feature 'person' (three
persons for both singular and plural). This 'identifying' property of the
agreement clitics usually is organized in an accusative way (echoed
referents are in subjective/agentive function). In case these referents are
demoted to the 'indirect objective' function (with verba sentiendi), the
clitic echoes this process in Vartashen: Here, the 'Dative' clitics are then
used instead of the S/A-clitics, compare:
(5) (a) xina"r-a s^um a-t'u-k-sa
girl-DAT bread:ABS see-3sg:IO-$-PRES
'The girl sees a bread.'
(b) xina"r-en sa s^um be%-ne-g^-sa
girl-ERG one bread:ABS look=at-3sg-$-PRES
'The girl sees (looks at) the bread.'
Harris (pp.29) calls this constructional pattern 'Inversion'. In Sections
8.2 and 11.4, she illustrates the gradual adjustment of this pattern to the
standard transitive pattern claiming that in Nizh, this process has today
come to its end.
The assumed 'reformulation' of this constructional pattern relates to the
diachrony of Udi morphosyntax (and: morphosemantics). In fact, Harris
devotes nearly the totality of Section Three to the diachrony of Udi
morphosyntax in order gain an explanatory basis for her analysis. Whereas
Chapter Two takes a rule-based perspective, Chapter Three interprets the
data in terms of dynamic or processual features.
The explanatory section is divided into five chapters: In Chapter 8, the
author gives an outline of the morphological history of those forms that are
involved in the make-up of Udi clauses: Case morphemes and agreement
clitics. But note that the title of Chapter 8.2 ('Inherited Case Marking')
is somewhat misleading: Harris does not talk about historical morphology but
illustrates the degree to which the basic case marking patterns in Udi match
those of the cognate languages. Chapters 8.3 and 8.4 take a more
'morphological' perspective: Harris argues that the whole set of Udi
personal clitics "developed from independent pronouns, and this is clearly
correct, even though some problems remain" (p.182). In fact, this claim that
reflects standard assumptions on the origin of Udi agreement markers comes
true for at least the 'oblique' (Dative and Genitive) of the clitics echoing
speech act participants. In addition, the same provenience must be described
for the 'first person' in general. However, the claim is not easy to support
for the remaining clitics. Both phonetic and morphosyntactic problems
heavily weigh upon this hypothesis which is based on a perhaps too
'universal' perspective (see below and Schulze (forthcoming)).
In addition to the standard clitics, Udi knows a distinct clitic to echo a
questioned third person singular referent (Q-clitic). So far, this clitic
has remained unexplained. Harris is the first to propose a diachronic model
that is said to have produced this morpheme (pp.183-6): Accordingly, she
interprets the clitic -a as a reflex of the Persian conjunction 'ya:'
meaning 'or' used in yes/no-questions. As an analogon, Harris takes into
consideration the German pattern: 'Sie bleiben hier, oder?' ('Are they
staying here?' < 'They stay here, or?'). To this we can add the Turkish
pattern 'Ahmet var ya' 'Ahmed is there, or (not)', occasionally used in the
sense of yes/no-questions. However, it should be noted that neither the
German nor the Turkish pattern represent morphologically marked 'questions'.
Rather, we have to deal with shortened 'or' constructions that are marked
for an additional prosodic pattern that produces the yes/no-question. The
same is true for the rare instances, in which Udi 'ya' (~ 'ye')in
either/or-questions. Harris' analysis is based on the assumption that here,
'ya' lost its initial element 'y-' when following a constituent that ended
in '-i'. In a second step, the resulting element '-a' would have been
extended to first yes/no-questions, and later to WH-questions. Note that in
contemporary Udi, '-a' is (longer) used with yes/no-questions. Although
Harris' proposal is rather attractive, it is difficult to support both from
a functional point of view and from the diachronics of Udi. For instance,
the reduction of 'ya' to '-a' presupposes that -i-final constituents were
frequent enough to initiate this process. Although it has been often
observed that less frequent paradigmatic types can induce reanalysis and
extension, we have nevertheless to bear in mind that out of a lexical corpus
of 3.856 Udi words liable to host the 'clitic' '-ya', only 104 are marked by
final '-i' (= 2.7 %). In addition, Harris' proposal does not explain why the
Q-clitic 'replaces' the standard third person singular clitic, as in:
(6) (a) xina"r-en s^um-ne uk-sa
girl-ERG bread:ABS-3sg eat-PRES
'The girl eats BREAD.'
(b) xina"r-en ek'a-a uk-sa?
girl_ERG what:ABS-3sg:Q eat-PRES
'WHAT does the girl eat?'
Obviously, both clitics stand in complementary distribution (except for the
fact that '-a' cannot occur as an endoclitic). This distribution suggests
that both element ('-ne' and '-a') have a common categorial background. This
hypothesis allows relating the two clitics to two different focal strategies
in Proto-Lezgian (as they have, for instance, survived in Tsakhur, see
Kibrik 1999). Accordingly, '-ne' < '*-ni' would have been used in so-called
'knowledge-based' (or: cognitive) focal contexts, where '-a' indicated a
'verificational' (or: indexal) focus (see Schulze (forthcoming) for
details).
Chapters 9-12 concern the origin of the agreement pattern in Udi. In chapter
9, Harris relates the endoclitic technique to the history of Udi verbal stem
formation. Harris carefully discusses possible stem types in Early Udi and
in Proto-Lezgian. Here, she refers to the standard hypothesis that many of
the Udi simplex verbs are marked for so-called petrified class markers:
Accordingly, Udi once knew an agreement system that was based on the
semantic subcategorization of a referential noun in subjective/objective
function. In Udi, this technique is completely lost. Nevertheless, certain
verbs such as 'bak-' 'to be(come)' probably show traces of this paradigm:
Here, the first element '-b-' is seen as a reflex of the class marking
strategy ('b-' = Class III (basically (grow-up) non-human animates and
socially/culturally relevant objects). In addition, a verb stem could be
marked by one or two local preverbs (see Harris 2002:197,218). In order to
account for the 'endoclitic' slot in Udi verb stems, Harris develops four
hypotheses: a) The paradigm of agreement clitics developed in situ: She
dismisses this hypothesis, because she assumes that the Udi clitics "have
developed from independent personal pronouns" (p.211). b) 'Trapping':
According to this hypothesis, endoclisis would have resulted from the
univerbation of formally distinct lexical structures (incorporated element +
verb). In order to account for root endoclisis, Harris refers to a third
hypothesis: c) Simple movement of the 'Person Markers'. Here, it is claimed:
"Intramorphemic positions developed as a result of the intermorphemic
positions which has come about through univerbation" (p.212-3). d) The
fourth hypothesis describes "person markers as the 'slot holder' of
Proto-Lezgian C[lass] M[arker]s" (p.213). According to this hypothesis, Udi
agreement clitics would have taken over the position of the former class
markers that already occurred in endoclisis. Pp. 215-222, Harris compares
the last three hypotheses by referring to the individual history of a number
of Udi simplex verbs stems. She concludes that all three hypotheses "play a
role in the explanation of the origins of endoclisis in Udi".
The chapters 10 to 12 interpret the emergence of the Udi agreement technique
in terms of both a formal and a functional diachrony. Harris argues that
constituent focus stems from older clefting strategies residues of which are
said to be found in Udi sources of the 19th century. To explain this point,
let me quote an example from Harris (p.237-240):
(7) xunc^i-mug^-on xorag-ax-q'un ha"zir-b-esa
sister-PL-ERG food-DAT2-3pl prepare-DO-PRES
'The sisters are preparing the FOOD.'
According to the Cleft Hypothesis, such a construction would have resulted
from the following pattern (note that here, the past tense is used by Harris
in order not to complicate the matter):
(8) *xorag BE [no xunc^i-mug^-on ha"zir-b-i]
food:ABS COP it:ABS sister-pl-ERG ready-do-PAST
'It is FOOD that the sister are (read: were) preparing.'
The structure in (8) differs from that in (7) in that the 'agreement marker'
(originally an anaphoric pronoun) copied the clefted constituent in just the
case form that is expected by the verb in the dependent clause (Objective >
Absolutive). Harris argues that the "process of reanalysis (here of (8),
W.S.) (...) must have consisted of the reinterpretation of the biclausal
cleft as a monoclausal structure" (p.240). In consequence, "the case of the
FocC (= Focused Constituent, W.S.) changed from absolutive to that
determined by its grammatical relation in the monoclausal structure....
[T]he pronoun/PM changed from agreeing with the FocC to agreeing with the
subject" (p.240-1). Harris extensively dwells upon this rather problematic
hypothesis that perhaps is too strongly oriented towards more general
assumptions on the developments of Clefts in the languages of the world.
Contrary to the preceding section of the origins of endoclitization, Harris
does not consider alternative proposals to explain the focal nature of
agreement clitics in Udi. This fact renders Chapter 10 somewhat suggestive.
Readers familiar with Cleft typologies will probably happily refer to this
chapter in order to draw more general conclusions. However, they are
deprived from possible alternative perspectives which would direct their
generalizations to another road (see below).
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that once Harris has taken her position,
which is well formulated, theoretically well-grounded, and empirically
supported by well-chosen examples, the analysis ends in a (by itself)
coherent and (by itself) convincing scenario. It ends in the explanation of
the positional constraints on Udi agreement clitics (Chapter 12). Here,
Harris pays special attention to those Tense/Mood forms that necessarily
call for a clitic and hence disallow constituent focus. The author does not
relate these constraints to a single cause but argues that different
functional and morphological processes have led to the 'same' result. Most
importantly, Harris is the first to suggest an explanation for the fact that
the modal verb forms ('subjunctive' in her terms) are always followed by the
agreement clitics. Accordingly, the modal forms stem from the reanalysis of
sequences marked by a postponed clitic cluster (adhortative particle 'q'a-'
+ clitic). In sum, Harris arrives to describe the diachrony of all
positional constraints and preferences.
All claims and arguments put forward by Harris are easy to read and to
follow. In fact, the book is well organized and full of summarizing
paragraphs that allow the reader to check whether (s)he has fully understood
the by itself rather complicated matter. The main advantage of the book is
that it (also) addresses an audience that is not familiar with East
Caucasian linguistics. The careful (nearly pedagogical) way of familiarizing
the reader with Udi linguistics makes the book a pleasure to read. It
appeals to the analytic interest of reader and to his/her readiness to
re-enact proposals to solve the puzzle of Udi morphosyntax and
morphopragmatics. Harris not only tells the thrilling story of how Udi
morphosyntax may have emerged, but also constantly helps the reader to
locate the analyses in more general theories of language function and
language change.
3. Critique
'Endoclitics' is said to "appeal to theoretical linguists, especially those
interested in the interface between syntax and morphology. It will also be
of considerable interest to historical linguists and students of Caucasian
languages" (from the cover of the book). This quote illustrates the three
basic perspectives the author has taken. It is quite natural that
specialists in either of these perspectives will look differently at what
Harris' analysis is built upon. In my remarks, I will take the perspective
of both a Caucasianist and a Typologist and will leave the debate on whether
the Optimality Theory perspective taken by Harris in Chapter 7 is
appropriate or not to people more qualified than I am. Nevertheless, it
should be noted that Harris' theoretical argumentation heavily relies on the
correctness of the Udi data that represent the bulk of the empirical
background of the book. As has been said above, the corpus exploited by
Harris does not represent the totality of what is currently available for
Udi. Crucially, Harris does not take into consideration the Udi Gospels
(Bezhanov & Bezhanov 1902). In fact, the Gospels represent more than the
half of all Udi data. Although the Gospels are translated from Russian and
thus have to be taken with great care, a closer look reveals that the
morphosyntax of the Gospels (not necessarily its syntax) comes close to what
Udi has been at the end of the 19th century. On the other hand, Harris
heavily relies on the texts edited by Schiefner 1863. Most of these texts,
however, have a rather obscure history. Again, the bulk of these texts is
translated from Russian (and, as for the dialogs even from German (!), it
seems). Contrary to what can be said for the Gospels, we cannot safely
describe the degree of authenticity of these texts. As Dirr (1904:v) says,
Schiefner's work has to be referred to with great caution. More concrete:
"The texts are neither Udi nor Russian from which they are translated. They
resemble so few to the Udi language that I could not continue working with
them with my Udi teacher ..., a native from Vartashen. Frequently, he did
not understand (the texts) and asked me no longer to bother him with these
texts" (Dirr 1904:viii; translation W.S.). This fact is crucial because
Harris assumes that Schiefner's texts "represent a slightly earlier form of
the language, with diachronic change accounting for the difference" (p.134).
Here, it would have been good if Harris had taken a more critical position.
Only if we have additional material that stems from other authors of the
same period we can judge whether Schiefner's Udi actually reflects 'true'
Udi.
The fact that Harris did not consult the Gospels (which can still be
processed by contemporary Udi speakers from Vartashen) has conditioned that
the author sometimes arrives at problematic generalizations. For instance,
she postulates a set of monoconsonantal verbs that do not allow
endoclitization. Among others, Harris refers to the verb 'b-esun' 'to do,
make' (stem 'b-'). On p.219, she claims that endoclitization does not occur
with this verb. However, the Gospels nicely show examples like
(9) be-z-sa
do-1sg-$:PRES
'I do'
be-ne-sa-y
do-3sg-$:PRES-PAST
'(S)he did^Å'
Such forms are rejected by Harris (p.219). However, Matthew 26:10, Mark
6:14, John 8:41; 7:3, 10:38 clear evince the possibility to use endoclitics
with the verb 'besun'. Also note 'be-q'un-sa' (do-3pl-$:PRES) 'they do' in
the native tale Rust'am (1888). Accordingly, 'besun' is not a
monoconsonantal verb, but reflects an older stem '*be-_-'-' (-_- is used to
indicate the endoclitic slot) that again is derived from a root '*-e^'a-'
(preceded by the petrified class marker *b-).
Some of the reconstructions proposed by Harris importantly affect her
general analysis. This holds especially for the origin of the clitics
themselves. As has been said above, Harris takes the position that the Udi
clitics stem from independent (personal or deictic) pronouns. This
hypothesis gives her the clue to establish the Cleft Hypothesis. Without
alluding to the problems raised by this hypothesis itself, it must
nevertheless be said that the proposal has so many phonetic and functional
shortcomings that it is difficult to subscribe to it any longer. Rather, we
should think of an interplay between older focal strategies based on
constituent focus (Proto-Lezgian '*-ni' ~ '-a') and the gradual development
of personal paradigms that started with the first person (a process that is
typical for a number of other Lezgian languages). This assumption allows
proposing an alternative scenario that does not make use of the Cleft
Hypothesis. A simple example is:
(10) xina"r-en s^um-ne uk-sa
girl-ERG bread:ABS-3sg eat-PRES
'The girl eats BREAD.'
< *xina"r-en s^um-ni uk-sa
girl-ERG bread-FOC eat-PRES
According to this hypothesis, the 'local' focus marker '*-ni' once had been
used with all persons (or: impersonally). In 'egocentric' contexts
(involving a first person), it became replaced by the first person pronoun
whereas in the second person, the clitic '*-ni' was (later) accommodated to
the phonetic shape of the corresponding pronouns (see Schulze (forthcoming)
for details).
I have elaborated this point in order to show that Harris' Cleft Hypothesis
takes a perhaps too narrow perspective. The critique of other hypotheses put
forward by Harris is perhaps less relevant for the evaluation of the whole
scenario described by the author. Nevertheless, the reader is sometimes left
with the impression, that Harris has unnecessarily complicated the matter:
For instance, Harris has to describe a rather idiosyncratic sound change
(*-i-q'a- > *-i-a > -ai) to account for the constraint on the modal
('subjunctive') (see above). In a second step, she has to describe a process
of reanalysis (> -a-_-i) to arrive at the actual paradigm of the Udi modal.
Neither the sound change, nor the metathesis can be safely described for
Udi. In addition, the assumed process of reanalysis is without parallels in
Udi. In fact, it is much more simple to assume that the Udi 'Past Modal'
(marked by -ai and followed by agreement clitics) once represented a modal
form for its one (< Conditional), which later (in parts) merged with the
past variant of the standard modal in -a (which itself is taken from the
Imperative). This analysis refers to the functional (or: categorial) cluster
'Epistemic < Deontic' which is crucial not only for Udi but also from the
point of view of a general theory of Modality.
Finally, it should be added that Harris rarely refers to language contact as
a possible clue to understand the morphosyntax of Udi. For instance, it is
out of question that the paradigm of personal clitics has been both formally
and functionally influenced especially by Northwest Iranian languages, but
also by Old Armenian, by Georgian, and, last but not least, by the local
varieties of Azeri. The same probably holds for the emergence of Fluid-O
structures (also know as 'Differentiated Object Marking', DOM) the
understanding of which is crucial for the discussion of focus, as Harris has
convincingly shown herself.
Nevertheless, what Harris tells us is currently one of the best (and most
straightforward) proposals we have at our disposal to approach the typology
of endoclitization in Udi. But we should be aware of the possibility that
progress in Comparative Lezgian (and Udi) linguistics may arrive at a
partially or totally different picture of Early Udi morphosyntax. In this
respect, we should also bear in mind that the recently discovered palympsest
from Mt. Sinai that most likely contains a variant of Early Udi (5th - 7th
century) will probably tell us more about the architecture of Early Udi,
once the palympsest has been read (see Aleksidze/Mahé 1997, 2001, Aleksidze
1998-2000). It may well be that the language of the palympsest confirms
Harris' diachronic assumptions. But it may likewise be the case that the
contrary is true. Hence, Harris' should taken as what it is: A remarkable
and highly professional study in the morphosyntax of Udi that reflects our
knowledge of this language at the turn of the century.
The book itself is well done from a formal point of view. The bibliography
refers the reader to most of the relevant literature; an index helps him/her
to spot points of interest in the text. Unfortunately, the book contains a
number of typographical errors that, however, normally do not affect the
understanding of Harris' argumentation. In sum, we have to praise the author
for having undertaken the enterprise to approach the functional and formal
scope of agreement clitics from both a synchronic and a diachronic
perspective. This book will surely help to make typologists and
theoreticians more familiar with this language, which - as shown by Harris -
challenges some of the generalizations current in contemporary linguistics.
4. Bibliography
Aleksidze, Zaza & Jean-Pierre Mahé 1997. Découverte d'un texte albanien: une
langue ancienne du Caucase retrouvée. CRAI 1997:517-532.
Aleksidze, Zaza 1998-2000. Remarques sur le déchriffrement de l'écriture
albano-caucasienne. RArm 27:423-428.
Aleksidze, Zaza & Jean-Pierre Mahé 2001. Le déchiffrement de l'écriture des
Albaniens du Caucase. CRAI 2001 [in press].
Bezhanov, Semon & Bezhanov, Mikhail 1902. Gospoda Nas^ego Iisusa Xrista
Svajtoe E.vangelie ot Matfeja, Marka, Luki i Ioanna. Tiflis: Typ. Kancelarii
Glav. 1902 (Sbornik Material djla Opisanija Plemen i Mestnostej Kavkaza
XXX).
Harris, Alice C. & Lyle Campbell 1995. Historical Syntax in
Cross-Linguistics Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kechaari, Georgi 2001. Orayin. Baki^: Aze"rbaican Do"vle"t Ne"s^riyyati^.
Kibrik, Alexandr E. (red.) 1999. E.lementy caxurskogo jazyka v
tipologic^eskom ocves^c^enii. Moskva: Nasledie.
Klavans, Judith L. 1979. 'On Clitics as Words'. CLS parasession volume,
68-80.
Schiefner, Anton 1863. Versuch über die Sprache der Uden. Mémoires de
l'Akadémie impériale de sciences de St.-Pétersbourg, VII série, vol. vi.,
no. 8. St. Peterburg: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Schulze, Wolfgang 1982. Die Sprache der Uden in Nord-Azerbaidzhan. Studien
zur Synchronie und Diachronie einer süd-ostkaukasischen Sprache. Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz.
Schulze, Wolfgang 2000a. The Accusative Ergative Continuum. General
Linguistics 37:71-155.
Schulze, Wolfgang 2000b. Northern Talysh. Munich: Lincom Europa.
Schulze, Wolfgang 2001. The Udi Gospels. Annotated Text, Etymological Index,
Lemmatized Concordance. Munich: Lincom Europa.
Schulze, Wolfgang (forthcoming). A Functional Grammar of Udi (to appear 2003).
Symbols used in this review:
g^ = Voiced Uvular Fricative
s^ = Alveopalatal Voiceless Fricative
a" = Palatal /a/
o" = Palatal /o/
e^ = Schwa
e. = Russian 'inverted' /e/
i^ = /i/ without a dot (Turkish)
% = Pharyngealized Vowel
$ = Second part of a discontinuous lexeme
-_- = Endoclitic Slot
About the reviewer
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze is the Head of the Institute for General
Linguistics and Language Typology at the University of Munich. His
research interests are Language Typology, Comparative Linguistics, Cognitive
Typology, and Language Theory. He has done field work in a number of East
Caucasian languages and has published (among others) both articles and books
on Udi as well as on other (East) Caucasian languages. In addition, he has
developed the framework of a 'Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios' (GSS) that
aims at laying the ground for a Theory of Cognitive Typology.
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