Constituent order

[E. Bashir]

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I was encouraged to see the reply by Narayan Prasad
(who I'm assuming is a native speaker of Hindi) which
listed two meanings for sentence (1), neither of which
had a definite reading for "necklace" (see his
message).  That was my own immediate reaction to this
post, but since I am only a "near-native speaker", I
hesitated to say so until now.

Elena Bashir  
University of Chicago

--- Bob Eaton <pete_dembrowski at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
> Editors:  Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New
> York
>           John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck,
> Germany
> Details:  Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu
> and say: INFO VYAKARAN
> Subscribe:Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu
> and say:
>           SUBSCRIBE VYAKARAN FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME
>           (Substitute your real name for first_name
> last_name)
> Archives: http://listserv.syr.edu
> 
> नमस्‍ते दोसों, 
> 
>  
> 
> I have a question about the implications of various
> constituent orders in Hindi. 
> 
>  
> 
> The following example (from T. Mohanan 1994) is
> considered to be the normal “unmarked” (or
> “canonical”) order for constituents in Hindi
> (where S=Subject/कर्ता,
> O=Object/कर्म, IO=Indirect Object, and
> V=Verb/क्रिया):
> 
>  
> 
>       1.               
>      इला ने à¤
नु को हार
> भेजा।
>      
>       ilaa
>      ne
>      anu
>      ko
>      haaɾ
>      bhej-0-aa
>      
>       Ila
>      erg
>      Anu
>      DAT
>      necklace
>      send-perf-ms
>      
>       {  S  }
>      {  IO }
>      {   O  }
>      {    V    }
>      
>       Ila sent Anu a/the necklace
>      
> 
>  
> 
> Notice how the object can have either a definite or
> indefinite interpretation (i.e. “a necklace” or
> “the necklace”).  She suggests that if you move
> the object from this “canonical” position, it
> loses the indefinite interpretation:
> 
>  
> 
>       2.             
>      इला ने हार à¤
नु को
> भेजा।
>      
>       ilaa
>      ne
>      haaɾ
>      anu
>      ko
>      bhej-0-aa
>      
>       Ila
>      erg
>      necklace
>      Anu
>      DAT
>      send-perf-ms
>      
>       {  S  }
>      {   O  }
>      {  IO  }
>      {    V    }
>      
>       Ila sent Anu the/*a necklace
>      
>       3.             
>      हार इला ने à¤
नु को
> भेजा।
>      
>       haaɾ
>      ilaa
>      ne
>      anu
>      ko
>      bhej-0-aa
>      
>       necklace
>      Ila
>      erg
>      Anu
>      DAT
>      send-perf-ms
>      
>       {   O  }
>      {  S  }
>      {  IO  }
>      {    V    }
>      
>       Ila sent Anu the/*a necklace
>      
>              
> 
>  
> 
> Notice in these two examples that the interpretation
> of necklace must be definite (i.e. “the
> neckless”).
> 
>  
> 
> She then goes on to say that this “shift from
> canonical position” will do the same thing to the
> subject. For which she gives the following two
> examples:
> 
>  
> 
>       4.              
>      सुनार ने à¤
नु को
> हार भेजा।
>      
>       sunaaɾ
>      ne
>      anu
>      ko
>      haaɾ
>      bhej-0-aa
>      
>       goldsmith
>      erg
>      Anu
>      DAT
>      necklace
>      send-perf-ms
>      
>       {     S     }
>      {  IO  }
>      {   O  }
>      {    V    }
>      
>       The/?a goldsmith sent Anu a/the necklace
>      
>       5.              
>      à¤
नु को हार सुनार
> ने भेजा।
>      
>      
>       anu
>      ko
>      haaɾ
>      sunaaɾ
>      ne
>      bhej-0-aa
>      
>      
>       Anu
>      DAT
>      necklace
>      goldsmith
>      erg
>      send-perf-ms
>      
>      
>       {  IO  }
>      {   O  }
>      {     S    }
>      {    V    }
>      
>      
>       The/*a goldsmith sent Anu the/*a necklace
>      
>      
>                  
> 
>  
> 
> My question is, I think it’s the choice of subject
> noun that is causing this effect and I think if it
> were a different noun which more readily lent itself
> to indefiniteness, this final example could have an
> indefinite subject interpretation. Maybe since
> goldsmiths aren’t that common, they don’t easily
> lend themselves to being indefinite (notice in (5)
> that 
=== message truncated ===




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