ALT NEWS 15
Frans Plank
linfp at hum.aau.dk
Mon Mar 10 07:38:01 UTC 1997
ALT News No. 15
March 1997
Contents:
1. Membership and Journal
2. ALT Regional Workshop on Malay/Indonesian Linguistics
3. Symposium on Reflexives and Reciprocals
4. New Ethnologue
5. Are Colors Less Adjectival and More Nominal, and Why?
1. MEMBERSHIP AND JOURNAL
ALT now boasts some 275 regular and student members. In the course of
March, all members will receive LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY, Vol 1, Issue 1 as well
as an invoice. These will be sent to you by the publisher, Mouton de
Gruyter. However, all correspondence about membership should reach ALT,
either through its Secretary-Treasurer or through its WWW-page. Owing to
another increase in German postal charges, the inclusive membership fee
will have to be a little higher than anticipated, by DM 10 on average.
2. ALT REGIONAL WORKSHOP ON MALAY/INDONESIAN LINGUISTICS
The Workshop on Malay/Indonesian Linguistics, organized by David Gil
(dgil at udel.edu) and sponsored by the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Centre for
Languages and Translation, the University of Delaware, Department of
Linguistics, and ALT, took place on January 14 and 15 1997 at the Dewan
Persidangan Universiti, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
The following papers were presented:
Session 1 Languages in Contact
"Ayam Tim and Babi Chin: Typological Convergence in Baba Malay",
Stephen Matthews & Umberto Ansaldo (University of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong & Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden)
"Contact Linguistics: The Case of the Language of The Peranakan
Chinese of Kelantan, Malaysia", Teo Kok Seong (Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia)
"Arabic Loanword Trajectories in Malay", Alan S. Kaye (California
State University, Fullerton, USA)
Session 2 Field and Corpus Linguistics
"Notes on Malay in the Natuna Islands", James T. Collins
(Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia)
"A 'Bank of Malaysian and Indonesian Languages': A Modest
Proposal", Ed Anderson (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)
"Towards a Typology of Malay/Indonesian Dialects", David Gil &
Uri Tadmor (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia / University of Delaware, Newark, USA & University of
Hawaii, Honolulu, USA)
Session 3 Phonetics and Phonology
"Tense-Lax Vowels Perception of Malay Speakers Learning English",
Nasrun bin Alias (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi,
Malaysia)
"A Non-Linear Approach to Nasal Spreading in Malay and Indonesian
Languages", Carol Bloomfield (Northern Territory University,
Darwin, Australia)
"When Fusion Fails: Prefix-Nesting in Malay", Ann Delilkan New
York University, New York, USA)
"Stress and Prominence in Indonesian Malay", Ove Lorentz
(University of Tromsoe, Tromsoe, Norway)
Session 4 Syntax: Word Order and Word Classes
"Word Order in Malay Sentences: The Interplay of Communicative
Dynamism and Systemic Ordering", Zahrah Abd. Ghafur Universiti
Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia)
"A Comparison of Some Indonesian Malay and Brunei Malay Syntactic
Structures: Implications for Universal Grammar", Gloria
Poedjosoedarmo (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
"Indonesian Word Classes Revisited", Franz Muller-Gotama
(California State University, Fullerton, USA)
Session 5 Syntax and Semantics: The Verbal Prefixes
"On the Unity or Non-Unity of ber-", Norhaida Bte. Aman
(University of Delaware, Newark, USA)
"Affixes, Austronesian and Iconicity in Malay", Geoffrey Benjamin
National University of Singapore, Singapore)
"The Prefixes di- and N- in Malay/Indonesian Dialects", David
Gil Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia /
University of Delaware, Newark, USA)
Session 6 Syntax
"Apa Yang 'Apa Yang'?", Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon & Norhaida
Bte. Aman (University of Delaware, Newark, USA)
"Particle Movement in Malay", Ramli Md Salleh (Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi,Malaysia)
"Subjectless Sentences in Malay", Mashudi Kader (Universiti Sains
Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia)
3. SYMPOSIUM ON REFLEXIVES AND RECIPROCALS
Boulder, Colorado, USA, August 29-30, 1997
The aim of the symposium is twofold: a reconsideration of the formal and
functional properties of reflexive and reciprocal markers and a discussion
of languages in which the functions usually associated with reflexive and
reciprocal markers are coded by unrelated means. Invited participants are:
Werner Abraham, Alexandra Ajkhenvald, Martin Everaert, Bernd Heine, Suzanne
Kemmer, Ekkehard Koenig, Frantisek Lichtenberk, Elena Maslova, William
McGregor, Pierre Pica, Eric Reuland, Filomena Sandalo, Mathias Schladt.
There are still slots available for a few more papers. If interested in
presenting a paper send an abstract by March 15 (extended deadline), 1997
to Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Dept. of Linguistics, Box 295, University of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA. e-mail:
Zygmunt.Frajzyngier at Colorado.Edu.
4. NEW ETHNOLOGUE
A new, 13th edition of Ethnologue was published by the Summer Institute of
Linguistics in late 1996. Ethnologue, edited by Barbara Grimes, is the
most comprehensive and up-do-date listing of the world's languages, with
information on where each language is spoken, how many speakers it has,
plus a fair amount of other information (alternative names, dialects,
social use, basic typology, etc.). Ethnologue itself is accompanied by
companion volumes: an index, and a family tree. Ordering information can be
obtained on the WWW at: www.sil.org. It is also possible to consult
Ethnologue electronically at this web site. More conventional means of
getting information on Ethnologue:
Summer Institute of Linguistics
International Academic Bookstore
7500 West Camp Wisdom Road
Dallas, Texas 75236-5699 USA
Tel: (972) 708-7404
Fax: (972) 708-7433
E-mail: academic_books at sil.org
5. ARE COLORS LESS ADJECTIVAL AND MORE NOMINAL, AND WHY?
For the benefit of ALT members with an interest in colours,
adjectivehood, or both, here is a summary of what has come out of a
recent e-mail discussion on these topics among Jan Anward, David Gil,
Edith Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frans Plank, and Leon Stassen
(collectively, although not exhaustively, known as POSSE), drawn
by Edith Moravcsik and supplemented by her with a few additional
considerations. (Attributions of opinions upon request.) The various
suggestions are stated in the strongest possible form so as to render
them maximally disprovable.
The headings will be the following:
1. The basic observation
2. Tests of adjectival nominality
3. The crosslinguistic distribution of nominal color
adjectives
3.1. The distribution of the nominal properties
of color adjectives relative to each other
3.2. The distribution of nominal color adjectives
relative to other features of languages
4. Why do color adjectives tend to be more nominal
than other adjectives?
---> 1. THE BASIC OBSERVATION
In some languages, color adjectives are more nominal in
nature than other adjectives. In particular, color adjectives
can often be used in anaphoric NPs without the support of an
indefinite pronoun even when other adjectives require such
support.
E.g. English: A: Which house did Peter choose?
B: a/ Peter chose the green one.
b/ Peter chose the green.
c/ Peter chose the big one.
d/ *Peter chose the big.
Cf. Wetzer 1995, 9: "My own observations suggest that the
color type /of adjectives/ is not as prototypical as the age,
dimension and value types; contrary to Dixon's findings,
colour terms do not always occur in the adjectival class
which covers the other three 'central' semantic types. In
that case, colour concepts are typically expressed by nominal
items."
---> 2. TESTS OF ADJECTIVAL NOMINALITY
The following are possible tests of the nominal behavior of
adjectives:
A/ STEM FORM
a/ polysemy with (or etymological origin from) a noun
which designates an object of that color (e.g. "leaf"
for "green")
b/ polysemy with a noun that names that color itself
(e.g. "Van Gogh's yellows...")
B/ MORPHOLOGY
Nominal inflection in ad-nominal and/or independent use.
Inflectional similarity with nouns my be in terms of
category (e.g. both nouns and adjectives inflect for case)
or even in terms of identity or similarity of the actual
exponents of these categories (e.g. both nouns and adjectives
have "-m" for accusative).
C/ SYNTAX
a/ modifiability by adjective rather than adverb
b/ bare use (i.e., without "one"-like pronominal support)
in anaphoric NP position (subject, object, NP of
adpositional phrase)
---> 3. THE CROSSLINGUISTIC DISTRIBUTION OF NOMINAL COLOR ADJECTIVES
A/ THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NOMINAL PROPERTIES OF COLOR
ADJECTIVES RELATIVE TO EACH OTHER
a/ Bare use in NP position may be the "first" nominal
property, implied by all of the others. For example,
English color adjectives have this property but they do
not have any of the other nominal properties noted
above (other than that color adjectives can also be used
as nouns to designate a color; e.g. "Van Gogh's
yellows...").
So: IF color adjectives have any nominal properties,
THEN they can occur as anaphoric NPs without
pronominal support.
The next two implications (b/ and c/ below) are just
special cases of this.
b/ IF color adjectives are also used as nouns designating
an object of that color,
THEN these adjectives can occur as anaphoric NPs
without pronominal support.
c/ IF adjectives (color or other) have nominal
inflection in adnominal use,
THEN (in most cases) they can occur anaphorically
without pronominal support.
This implication did not come up in the discussion; it
is derived from a survey that David Gil conducted on
the LINGUIST net a few years ago (see Gil 1994).
David was interested in whether the ability of
adjectives to stand alone as NPs in anaphoric use
correlated with the richness of adjectival inflection.
The survey showed that there was a tendency for
adjectives with rich inflection to be able to head NPs
(a tendency only; some adjectives of Punjabi are a
counterexample); but not in reverse since uninflected
adjectives in several languages could also head NPs
(such as Malay, etc.) The languages that emerged in the
course of the survey break down as follows:
I. + rich adjectival morphology
+ adjectives' ability to be head of anaphoric NPs
Dutch
Hebrew
Punjabi (some adjectives only)
II. + rich adjectival morphology
- adjectives' ability to be head of anaphoric NPs
Punjabi (some adjectives only)
III. - rich adjectival morphology
+ adjectives' ability to be head of anaphoric NPs
Hungarian
Estonian
Malay (Peranakan)
Tagalog
Punjabi (some adjectives only)
/Note that in Hungarian (possibly in Estonian as well),
adjectives are not inflected in adnominal use, but
they do take nominal inflections when they are heads
of an anaphoric NP./
IV. - rich adjectival morphology
- adjectives' ability to be head of anaphoric NPs
English
Sinhalese
Mandarin Chinese
Japanese
Malay (Standard)
Punjabi (only some adjectives)
Lezgian
Malayalam
B/ DISTRIBUTION OF NOMINAL COLOR ADJECTIVES RELATIVE TO OTHER
FEATURES OF LANGUAGES
I. IMPLICANS IS A PROPER NAME (individual language name or
genetic or areal designation):
a/ IF a language is GERMANIC,
THEN it shows two characteristics for color adjectives:
- polysemy with a noun referring to that color
- being able to stand in anaphoric NP position
without pronominal support
Note, however, that in German, and perhaps in Dutch,
the second property holds for non-color adjectives as
well, while in English, bare anaphoric use is
restricted to color adjectives (and, interestingly, to
comparatives and superlatives of regular adjectives;
e.g.
a/ They prefer the small one.
b/ *They prefer the small.
c/ They prefer the smaller one.
d/ They prefer the smaller.
e/ They prefer the smallest one.
f/ They prefer the smallest.
b/ In some SOUTH-EAST ASIAN languages (or
Austronesian/Austric?; e.g. Tongan, Chinese, Thai,
Malay, Singlish), color adjectives may require
pronominal support in anaphoric use while other
adjectives may not. In other words, the direction of
preference is just the opposite from that in English
etc.
So: IF a language is (a member of a subset of) SOUTH-
EAST ASIAN (or Austronesian/Austric?),
THEN its color adjectives require pronominal
support in anaphoric use while other
adjectives may not.
c/ NUER (Nilotic); cf. Wetzer 1995, 9:
Names of colors are said to be treated as nouns, as
opposed to other adjectives which are verbal.
d/ CHEMEHUEVI (Uto-Aztecan); cf. Wetzer l995, 9-10:
Adjectives are generally verbal; color adjectives are,
too, but they include a derivational affix which
otherwise functions as a denominal verbalizer.
II. IMPLICANS IS A GENERAL FEATURE
e/ Languages that are in general parsimonious in that
they tolerate zeroing out information (e.g. Chantyal,
Chinese) can use color adjectives anaphorically in bare
form; those that are not of this general type (e.g.
Irish) cannot.
So: IF a language is the parsimonious kind (as defined
independently of color adjective behavior),
THEN color adjectives can be used anaphorically in
bare form.
---> 4. WHY DO COLOR ADJECTIVES TEND TO BE MORE NOMINAL THAN
OTHER ADJECTIVES?
Two alternative explanations have been offered.
A/ Color adjectives tend to be more nominal than other
adjectives because of their nominal origin - i.e., that
they are derived from a noun having that color. (Cf.
Wetzer l995, 10).
Problems:
- Not all nominally-derived color adjectives behave
nominally (e.g. Indonesian nominaly-derived color
adjectives are as verbal as those not so derived).
- There are nominally-behaving color adjectives that
cannot be traced back to a noun (such as English
"red", "blue", etc.).
- The principle does not receive support from non-
color adjectives that come from nouns. In English,
non-color adjectives that are polysemous with nouns can
nonetheless not be used anaphorically without pronominal
support:
A: Which shirt do you prefer?
B: a/ I prefer the blue one.
b/ I prefer the blue.
c/ I prefer the cotton one.
d/ *I prefer the cotton.
These English non-color adjectives that are polysemous
with a corresponding noun work somewhat differently from
color adjectives in other ways as well. In particular,
for the non-color nominally-derived adjectives
("cotton", "brick", etc.), bare anaphoric use is
preferred under two conditions, which, however, do not
affect the use of color adjectives:
a/ It is better if the anaphorically used adjective
occurs with the definite article rather than with
the indefinite one.
E.g. A: Which house did they take?
B: a/ They took the green.
b/ They took a green.
c/ ?They took the brick.
d/ *They took a brick.
b/ It is better if the anaphorically used adjective
occurs in an elliptical, rather than full, sentence,
E.g. A: Which house did they take?
B: a/ They took the green.
b/ The green.
c/ ?They took the brick.
d/ The brick.
B/ Color adjectives may be more nominal than other
adjectives perhaps because they describe qualities
of things that have a more concrete reality. Something
like "strong" may have only a conceptual reality
("strength") but something like "red" has a "physical"
reality.
Question: Is there independent support for color
attributes being conceptually more concrete than
other attributes?
REFERENCES
Gil, David. 1994. "Adjectives without nouns: An e-mail
conversation", EUROTYP Working Papers VII/20:
Conversations on noun phrases, 31-48.
Wetzer, Harrie. 1995. Nouniness, verbiness: A typological
study of adjectival predication. Ph.D. dissertation,
Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (now published by
Mouton de Gruyter, 1996).
NB: ALT News welcomes contributions of this kind. In future, however, we
consider posting such summaries on the ALT web site, with the ALT News only
giving a list of what is available on the web site. THE EDITORS
Bernard Comrie [President]
Linguistics, GFS-301
University of Southern California
Los Angeles,
CA 90089-1693
USA
comrie at bcf.usc.edu
fax: +1-213-740-9306
Frans Plank [Editor-in-chief, Linguistic Typology]
Institut for Lingvistik
Aarhus Universitet
DK-8000 Århus C
Denmark
linfp at uni-konstanz.de
fax: +45-8942 2175
Johan van der Auwera [Secretary-Treasurer]
Linguistiek (GER)
Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA)
B-2610 Antwerpen
Belgium
auwera at uia.ua.ac.be
fax: +32-3-8202762
ALT on the WEB: http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/alt
Frans Plank
Institut for Lingvistik
Aarhus Universitet
DK-8000 Århus C
Denmark
Email: plank at ling.hum.aau.dk
linfp at hum.aau.dk
Tel: +45-8942 2173 (office)
+45-86124405 (home)
Fax: +45-8942 2175
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