15.1861, Review: Typology/Syntax: Stassen (2003)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-15-1861. Sat Jun 19 2004. ISSN: 1068-4875.
Subject: 15.1861, Review: Typology/Syntax: Stassen (2003)
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Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 13:58:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: ''Nilson Gabas, Jr.'' <gabas at nautilus.com.br>
Subject: Intransitive Predication
-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 13:58:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: ''Nilson Gabas, Jr.'' <gabas at nautilus.com.br>
Subject: Intransitive Predication
AUTHOR: Stassen, Leon
TITLE: Intransitive Predication, paperback ed.
SERIES: Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2003
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-420.html
Nilson Gabas, Jr., MCT-Museu Goeldi (Brazil)
[The announcement to which this review is linked is that of the original
hardback edition. --Eds.]
INTRODUCTION
The book is a careful investigation of cross-linguistic variation in
one of the core domains of all natural languages, intransitive
predication.
Basing his analysis on a database sample of 410 languages, Leon
Stassen (henceforth S) presents a universally applicable model for
defining the domain of intransitive predication in natural
languages. Intransitive predicates are defined as a 'cognitive space',
regarded in terms of four domains: events (X cries), properties (X is
happy), classes (X is a student), and locations (X is in the garden).
Taking these four domains in consideration, S offers a typology of the
structural manifestations of predication in terms of the nature and
number of the formal strategies used in its encoding (Part I of the
book), together with a discussion of a number of abstract principles
which can be used to explain the cross-linguistic variation embodied
by the typology (Parts II and III).
In the final part, S brings together the research results in a
universally applicable model, which can be read as a 'flow-chart' for
the encoding of intransitive predications in different language types.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK'S CONTENT (modified from pages 21-22)
Based on the definition of the domain of investigation given in
Chapter 1, the next three chapters (which together form Part One of
the book) investigate the cross- linguistic encoding options for the
four predicate categories in the domain. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with
the criteria according to which various different types of predicate
encoding can be identified across the languages of the sample. The
result of this discussion is the establishment of a number of
prototypical features of the encoding of different predicate
categories, in the form of different ENCODING STRATEGIES. In Chapter 4
this result is applied to the database of the project, leading to a
typology in which, for each sampled language, the encoding of the four
predicate categories in the domain is specified in terms of sameness
or difference in strategy choice. In this sense, the descriptive
research result arrived at in Chapter 4 consists in the specification
of the FORMAL STRATIFICATION of the domain for each language in the
sample.
Part Two (Chapters 5-8) and Part Three (Chapters 9-13) deal with
specific, residual, problems. A conspicuous feature of the encoding of
the domain at issue is that, in very many languages, more than one
formal stratification appears to be permitted. This phenomenon of
SWITCHING are looked at from various angles in Part Two, and the
principles which turn out to constrain the possibilities of switching
are identified. The chapters in Part Three contain the exploration of
a major typological distinction in intransitive predicate encoding --
namely, the difference between 'verby' and 'nouny' encoding of
property-concept predicates. It is argued that this distinction can be
explained in terms of a principle which S calls the Tensedness
Parameter. The definition of this principle is given in Chapter 9.
Chapters 10 and 11 in Part Three involve a detailed investigation of
the empirical validity of the Tensedness Parameter for all the
languages of the sample. The general assessment is that this parameter
provides a reliable basis for the prediction of 'verby' versus 'nouny'
status of property-concept predicates across languages. S then
concludes Part Three by offering a few speculations as to the nature
of the relationship between tensedness and property predicate
encoding.
The descriptive and explanatory results assembled in the first
thirteen chapters are summarized in Chapter 14, which, on its own,
constitutes Part Four of the book. This chapter presents a model of
the encoding possibilities of the domain of intransitive predication
across the languages of the world. S argues that this domain is,
cognitively or conceptually speaking, the same in all languages, and
that cross- linguistic variation in the formal stratification of the
domain derives from the interaction of a limited number of universal
principles of natural language, which are either formally or
cognitively motivated.
CRITICAL EVALUATION
The book is the result of a massive and thorough piece of work. S
builds up his analysis based on empirical data and upon intense
typological investigation, bringing the reader with an impressive
study of the subject. His concept of STRATEGY (characterized as
prototypical) is an important key to his work, which he takes as the
basis for the postulation of the four strategies involved in
intransitive predication. Each of these strategies would be motivated
by a different factor.
According to S, the verbal strategy (the one associated with
intransitive event predicates) would be identified by the application
of the criteria of agreement, auxiliary and negation, and is motivated
by considerations of semantic relevance and typological markedness
(cf. Section 2.3).
Locational strategy (which prototypically encodes locational
predicates) would be identified by the presence of a supportive,
'locative' item which has the morphosyntactic characteristics of a V,
and has as its defining feature its specific semantic character. For
S, Locative Predicates denote concrete location, and are therefore
sensitive to considerations of locational specification (cf. Section
2.4).
Nominal strategy (the strategy prototypically associated with class
predicates) would be identified by a nonverbal supportive item,
usually a 'zero copula' or have the form of a lexical item which
originates from nonverbal discourse-marking elements ('pro-copula',
'particle copula'). It could be defined as deriving from the universal
encoding properties of identity statements (Sections 3.6 and 3.7).
The definition of the last strategy, property strategy, would follow a
universal principle, called by S 'The Adjective Principle'. This
principle basically states that predicate adjectives have no
prototypical encoding of their own, and that they take either the
verbal strategy, the nominal strategy, or a mixture of both, as their
encoding strategy.
The most interesting part of the book comes from S's search for a
principle that predicts the occurrence of one strategy (verbal) or
another (nominal) as the property strategy of a given language. For
him, languages which make use of the verbal strategy are called A-
languages, and languages which make use of the nominal strategy are
called B-languages. The distinction between them is based on a
parameter which he calls 'Tensedness Parameter', stated as follows (p.
350-351):
(8) Definition of the Tensedness Parameter
(a) If a language has a grammatical category of tense, which
(1) is morphologically bound on verbs, and
(2) minimally involves a distinction between past and nonpast
time reference, then that language is tensed.
(b) In all other cases, a language is non-tensed.
This Tensedness Parameter is employed in the construction of the
following set of bi-directional universal statements (p.357):
(17) The Tensedness Universals of Adjective Encoding
(a) If a language is tensed, it will have nouny predicate adjectives.
If a language has nouny predicate adjectives, it will be tensed.
(b) If a language is non-tensed, it will have verby predicate
adjectives. If a language has verby predicate adjectives, it will
be non-tensed.
The stipulation of the parameter as well as its outcome seem to hold
very well against the range of languages under study, and makes the
hypothesis and its corollaries justly reliable. Nevertheless, S's
conclusions do not seem to be universal. At least one counterexample
for the stipulation of the Tensedness Parameter and for the statement
that no language has a specific encoding for the property strategy
comes from Karo, a Brazilian language of the Tupí family.
Karo, according to S's parameter, is a non-tensed language (tense in
Karo is optionally marked by means of different particles) that has
different encodings for all four types of strategies. In Karo,
encodings of the verbal strategy, the locational strategy, the nominal
strategy, and the property strategy are found, respectively, in the
following examples:
1a. owét
o=wé-t
1SG-cry-IND
'I cried'
1b. wat owã yat ka'a 'a' pe'
wat owã ya-t ka'a 'a' pe'
1SG.POSS mother stand-IND house CL.ROUND LOC
'My mother is in the house'
1c. wat iyõm agóa'pât nãn
wat iyõm agóa'pât nã-n
1SG.POSS father shaman be-IND
'My father is a/the shaman'
1d. cúrem 'õn
cú=tem 'õn
big=ADVZ 1SG
'I am big'
Although the existence of languages such as Karo might disqualify S's
Adjective Principle as universal, it does not place S's investigation
into risk. It only (conceivably) entails additional revision(s) to it.
An additional - perhaps small - problem arises from the fact that
further references about Brazilian Indian languages (the languages
that I am most familiar with) are missing in the sample database -- S
could have been slightly more careful in representing them. For
instance, there are additional references of Macro-Jê languages
available in the literature (Eduardo Ribeiro, p.c.), such as Wiesemann
(1972, 1986), and Maia (1998) which, if added to S's database, could,
in principle, give additional support for his ideas.
Although the lack of references holds up for other families of
languages of Brazil as well, this fact does not seem to diminish the
(vast) contribution S makes to the field of Linguistics through the
publication of Intransitive Predication.
REFERENCES
Gabas Jr., Nilson (1999) A Grammar of Karo, Tupí (Brazil). Ph.D.
dissertation. Santa Barbara, University of California.
Maia, Marcus A. R. (1998) Aspectos Tipológicos da Língua
Javaé. Municy": Lincom-Europa. 90p.
Wiesemann, Ursula (1972) Die phonologische und grammatische Struktur
der Kaingáng-Sprache. Janua Linguarum, series practica, 90. The
Hague: Mouton. 211 p.
Wiesemann, Ursula (ed.) (1986) Pronominal systems. Tübingen: Gunter
Narr Verlag. xxi, 501 p.
Reviews of Stassen 1997: Studies in Language 24:2 (2000), 448-453
(Barry J. Blake).
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Nilson Gabas, Jr. has been working with Brazilian Indian languages
(especially Karo, Tupí) since 1987.
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