LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 19.JAN.2001 (03) [E]

Fri Jan 19 22:08:44 UTC 2001

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 19.JAN.2001 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Edwin Alexander [edsells at idirect.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 19.JAN.2001 (01) [E]

At 07:23 AM 01/19/01 -0800, John wrote:
>  2. Most morphology in German (and probably in most other languages as well)
>has no semantic content and is therefore (following the DNA terminology)
>"junk". For example, in German the combination def art + adj + plural noun
>requires the adj to have the ending -en. But since it is the same for all
>cases and genders it might as well be omitted. Different prepositions take
>different cases (so syntax+morphology) but when a particular preposition
>always takes the same case the morphology conveys nothing additional.

etc.  Several years ago, before you joined, John, I proposed a theory that
one either has post-postitional or pre-positional markers.  I realize that
this is not historically how these things developed, nor does it accurately
describe things, but I find it a handy way of looking at the difference,
since we need to indicate all the different cases one way or the other,
either morphologically or by using prepositions.  It is interesting that HG
has retained both, and, as you indicate, and to the dismay of students of
the language, much of it is redundant.

>The English genitive " 's" is dealt with in David Crystal's "The Cambridge
>Encyclopedia of the English Language", though not very deeply. He seems to
>say that the early (OE/ME) masculine genitive ending "-es" came to be
>interpreted as a form of "his".  etc. etc.

Thanks, John.  I'm still amazed.  I didn't want to think you just made this
up, but to me it seems so preposterous and illogical.

----------

From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammar

John Feather wrote:

> 1. Case markers in German do not significantly affect the
> flexibility of
> word order: there aren't enough of them. For every singular
> der/den you have a die/die and a das/das.

I think you're underestimating the functionality of morphology.
If you actually compare German word order, you'll find it is
more flexible than English, something my students had to
struggle with in learning German.
German in turn is not as flexible as Latin, with its much richer
and more detailed morphology.  One Australian language, Walpiri,
had still defied attempts to describe any fixed word order at
all, last I'd checked.

The morphology of German (and the older stages of Lowland
languages et al.) has redundancies, but there is more function
in that redundancy than you might first suspect:

> 2. Most morphology in German (and probably in most
> other languages as well)has no semantic content and is
> therefore (following the DNA terminology)"junk". For
> example, in German the combination def art + adj +
> plural noun requires the adj to have the ending -en. But
> since it is the same for all cases and genders it might
> as well be omitted. Different prepositions take
> different cases (so syntax+morphology) but when a particular
> preposition always takes the same case the morphology conveys
> nothing additional.

That's not quite so: the adjective ending after the definite
article is -e in the nominative singular (and accusative
singular feminine and neuter).  That right there makes _der
gute_ "the good one", (nominative singular masculine) distinct
from _der guten_ "of/to the good one" (dative or genitive
singualar feminine) or "of the good ones" (genitive plural).
Even the adjective ending -e/en carries some information.

Case ending after a preposition that only takes one case still
contributes some information-  we often don't quite hear all
that a person says, because of background noise, mumbling etc.,
and if you weren't sure if someone said _von_ or _für_, the
ending will tell you.  Every language has massive redundance so
that minor inaudibilities won't stop communication.
   Yes, the case ending in this instance plays a very minor
role, but it does provide some real information; give up the
morphology, and you have to substitute some other redundant
backup device.

> 3. I have just been studying time expressions in Classical
> Greek, which used
> case without a preposition for different time concepts - time
> during which,
> time at which, time for which. An obvious triumph of
> morphology over syntax,
> but it occurs to me that in English, although we can use
> prepositions (and
> other words) in time expressions we can also use simple
> phrases like "next
> week" which can mean more than one thing and still convey our
> meaning. So
> did the Greeks really need their cases?

Every language needs some way to mark grammatical connections
between parts of a sentence: certainly, they could have stripped
the endings off, but they'd have had to put something in its
place, be that a swarm prepositions etc. or sharply reduced word
order.

If you look at the word order of Old English, you'll see just
how much the loss of endings has reduced the flexibility of word
order, e.g. the main verb usually came second, but could come
first for purely stylistic reasons, or it would optionally come
at the end of a subordinate clause, etc.

> 4. Since in Swedish and Norwegian the finite verb has no
> marker for person or number I am very reluctant to attribute
> the oddities of the English verb to a degree of simplification

> which is less extreme than that.

I'm not quite sure what you are saying- which oddities of the
English verb?  There are many.
I am not sure what you want to say with Swedish either:
Swedish/Danish/Norwegian resemble English more than German or
Old English etc. in the restrictions on word order to make up
for the radical simplication of morphological markers.  French
has some verb endings left, but it has still restricted its
freedom of word order tremendously in comparison with Latin.
Shifting the marking between morphology and word order (and
prepositions and other means of marking) is not either/or; most
languages have a mix, and that mix will change over time.
German has traded off some of its earlier more explicit endings
for more constrained word order etc.

In wrap-up:
1.)  even grossly imperfect morphology can retain an
intermediate level of functionality, as we see in German.
2.) the restricted word-order and little function words that
languages like the modern Lowland ones or French etc. work just
as well as the morphological richness of classical Greek etc.,
-but- vice-versa as well: Latin or Hungarian (some 2 dozen
cases!) are no less expressive than Dutch or Chinese.  Stipping
Greek of its endings would make no more or less sense than
putting endings back into English: either would work, neither
would have any strong practical motivation.

Stefan

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: "Grammar"

Dear Lowlanders,

We have been discussing, amongst other things, the theory that there is some
sort of compensatory relationship between morphological marking and syntactic
structure:

"The less morphological markings, the more syntactic markings".

Today I would like to throw into the arena another, tentative theory or
hypothesis that is related to the above:

"The less morphological marking there is, the weaker word class boundaries
grow."

A return of this idea was triggered about an hour ago when I looked at today's
cafeteria menu and found amongst other items "Dilled Shrimp Pasta Salad," in
other words "pasta and shrimp salad with dill."

Yes, we do have the following (and derivatives, e.g., 'oversalted'):

Noun    ->      Verb    ->      Past Part. > Adj.
salt            to salt         salted
pepper          to pepper       peppered
sugar           to sugar        sugared

These are old and common spices (for lack of a better word), and one would
assume that the verbs were developed from the corresponding verbs over time.

Enter today's culinary jargon.  I am aware of the noun "dill" but not of a
verb "to dill" (> past participle -> adjective "dilled"), and nor do any of
the dictionaries I have consulted.  I am a passionate and fairly accomplished
cook and have read tons of cookbooks and the like, but I have never come
across "dilled" before.  It is entirely possible that this is the creation of
an individual or of a group.  This new verb may or may not catch on and end up
in future editions of the various dictionaries.

It seems to be a relatively easy thing to derive a verb from a noun in
English, perhaps because of the scarcity of morphological marking -- the only
one being 3rd person singular "'s" (e.g., "he salts the chicken", "she dills
her potato salad"[?]), past participial "-ed_ (e.g., "he salted the chicken"
-> "the chicken is salted"), and progressive -> nominal "-ing" (e.g., "he is
salting the chicken", "she loves sugaring cookies").  The infinitive has no
suffix in English, only "to ...", i.e., "to salt", "to dill".

In German you have _Salz_ 'salt' > _salzen_ 'to salt' -> _ich salze_ 'I salt',
_du salzst_ 'you salt', _sie sind gesalzen_ (?) 'they are salted'.  You also
have _Zucker_ 'sugar' > _zuckern_ 'to sugar' -> e.g., _der Kuchen ist
überzuckert_ 'the cake is over-sweetened'.  And you have _Pfeffer_ 'pepper' >
_pfeffern_ 'to pepper' -> e.g., _gepfefferter Hase_ 'peppered hare (meat)'.  I
guess it works similarly in Low Saxon (Low German) (_Sult_ > _sulten_, _Peper_
> _pepern_, _Sucker_ > _suckern_[?]) and Dutch (_zout_ > _zouten_, _Peper_ > _peperen_).  However, I feel a person would have a relatively harder time getting away with coining new derivations of this sort (e.g., German, Low Saxon, Dutch _Dill_/_dil_ > *_dillen_).

I asked people around me about "dilled."  They had not heard it before but
assumed that it was an established word.  They felt that it was acceptible
even if it were new.  I do not think that speakers of German, Low Saxon or
Dutch would think so of *_dillen_.

So let us assume that there is a relatively higher degree of liberty, i.e.,
social acceptibility, in deriving such verbs in English, and let us assume
that morphological marking or the lack of it plays a role in this.  Then we
ought to try to find out if this also applies in Afrikaans (vs Dutch), since
this language has even less morphological marking in verbs (i.e., the same
form for all persons, no marking of infinitives, and only _ge-_ for past
participles).  Can anyone oblige?

Also, it would be interesting to find out what sorts of restrictions and
boundaries there are in noun > verb derivation in English (and Afrikaans?).
Surely you cannot say things like "You have over-cumined the chili," "I prefer
my pizza marjoramed rather than oreganoed," or "Try oiling and (sage >) saging
potatoes before you roast them."

I would be interested in other people's thoughts.

Thanks and regards.

Reinhard/Ron

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