Nf-part of the SUO in German

[Andreas Nolda]

Hi everybody,

this is a follow-up to the talk I gave last Friday at the DGfS 
workshop "Syntax and morphology multi-dimensional". In that talk, I 
argued that the Nf-part of the syntactic unit ordering (SUO) of 
German idiolect systems should include a classification on Nf called 
"substantivity". This classification contains two classes:

1. Adj[ectival noun form], containing those Nf's which can be used as
   adjectival modifiers (e.g. _ein_1, _einen_1, _rosa_1, and
   _rosanen_1);
2. Subst[antival noun form], containing those Nf's which can be 'used
   as noun' -- in particular as the head of a referential expression
   (e.g. simple forms like _Stoff_1, _eins_1, _einen_1, and
   _rosanen_1, as well as analytic forms like _der_1 _Stoff_2,
   _der_1 _eine_2, and _ein_1 _rosaner_2).

Note that according to my conception, an adjectival word like the 
numeral _ein_[NUM]W can contain forms which are adjectival only (e.g. 
_ein_1), forms which are substantival only (e.g. _eins_1 and _der_1 
_eine_2), as well as forms which are both (e.g. _einen_1). This very 
conception takes up a proposition by Lieb (1983). It is motivated by 
the fact that the semantic effect of the 'use as noun'--i.e. being 
denotable by a noun of a certain kind--cannot be introduced in the 
lexicon since it has to be suppressed in certain accent-related 
meanings in the propositional background (cf. Nolda 2005: 197-203).

Now, given the new substantivity classification, I'd like to propose 
the following, revised Nf-part of the SUO's functional part for 
German idiolect systems (this is where I'm going beyond my talk):

                            Nf
             ,-------------´|||`----------,
           case             |||       Nf-number
   +---+---+---+------+     |||   +-----+---------+
   |   |   |   |      |     |||   |     |         |
  Nom Acc Dat Gen Unsp-Case ||| Sg-Nf Pl-Nf Unsp-Nf-Num
            ,---------------´|`-------,
         gender              | substantivity
   +----+---+-------+        |    +----+
   |    |   |       |        |    |    |
  Masc Fem Neut Unsp-Gend    |   Adj Subst
       ,---------------------´         |
   strength                       definiteness
   +-----+                        +----+------+
   |     |                        |    |      |
  Str Non-Str                    Def Indef Unsp-Def
         |                             |
     'weakness'                   negativity
      +-----+                     +---------+
      |     |                     |         |
     Wk Unsp-Weak             Pos-Indef Neg-Indef

Note that the functional status of the strength classification is 
debatable (cf. Budde 2000: 212).

The unspecifity categories contain the following Nf's:

  Unsp-Case: the predicative adjective forms;
  Unsp-Nf-Num: dito;
  Unsp-Gend: the predicative adjective forms and
             the plural Nf's;
  Unsp-Weak: the predicative adjective forms,
             the forms of nouns which do not inflect for strength, and
             the analytical substantival forms;
  Unsp-Def: the simple substantival forms.

Thus all of the unspecifity categories are 'neither...nor categories': 
they contain forms which are neutral with regard to the relevant 
distinction; they are *not* used in order to reduce syncretisms in 
the paradigms.

What do *you* think about the above classification system?

Andreas Nolda

References

Budde, Monika (2000). Wortarten: Definition und Identifikation. Diss.,
Freie Universität Berlin.

Lieb, Hans-Heinrich (1983). Akzent und Negation im Deutschen: Umrisse
einer einheitlichen Konzeption (Teil B). _Linguistische Berichte_ 85, 
1-48.

Nolda, Andreas (2005). Integriertes Rahmenthema: Zur Syntax und 
Semantik der ‚gespaltenen Topikalisierung‘ im Deutschen. Diss., Freie 
Universität Berlin.
-- 
Andreas Nolda      http://www2.hu-berlin.de/linguistik/institut/nolda/

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Philosophische Fakultät II
Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik