[Lingtyp] NP + PP construction
Timur Maisak
timur.maisak at gmail.com
Mon Oct 5 07:01:07 UTC 2020
Dear Ian,
in Russian, sentences like
1. **Ya v dom*
1SG to house.ACC
`Intended meaning: I’m going to the house.’
are quite normal in the appropriate context.
E.g. imagine a dialogue between two people who meet in the street:
*- Privet, ty kuda? *[hi you.sg where]
*- Ja na rabotu, a ty?* [I on work and you.sg]
*- A ja v kino! *[and I in cinema]
- Hi, where are you going?
- I <am going> to my work, and you?
- And I <am going> to the cinema.
Best,
Timur Maisak
пн, 5 окт. 2020 г. в 07:55, JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>:
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> Thank you for the comments you left regarding my question on verbless
> construction/non-verbal predicates/ellipsis/any of the many other names it
> is called.
>
> The general viewpoint seems to be that it is in fact fairly common around
> the world.
>
> It seems to me however that we must distinguish the case of *zero copula *from
> other cases of verbless constructions, as some languages allow the two to
> different degrees.
>
> For example in Russian (1) is acceptable but (2) is not (correct me if I’m
> wrong):
>
> 1. *Ya student*
>
> 1SG student
>
> `I am a student.’
>
> 1. **Ya v dom*
>
> 1SG to house.ACC
>
> `Intended meaning: I’m going to the house.’
>
> So it seems necessary to me that *zero copula *should be distinguished
> from *zero verb*.
>
> But as Mark pointed out, a language that allos zero copula is also likely
> to allow zero verb.
>
> Also, as Siva mentioned, it’s interesting and remains the open question
> why the article must be elided for the sentence to be more natural (*Legs
> off the table* compared to *your legs off the table*).
>
>
>
> From Hong Kong,
>
> Ian
>
>
>
> *From: *paolo Ramat <paolo.ramat at unipv.it>
> *Sent: *Sunday, September 27, 2020 4:49 PM
> *To: *Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>
> *Cc: *JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>;
> LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] NP + PP construction
>
>
>
> 1) Ital.* Superman alla riscossa ! *(could be a head title in a
> newspaper. Very often journals announce their news in these form).
>
> 2) Ital. *Giù le gambe dal tavolo !* (imperat.)
>
>
>
> Actually, non verbal predication is known in many languages: see above all
> Kees Hengeveld, *Non verbal predication.* De Gruyter. And look in Google
> at "non-verbal predication" for further literature.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Paolo
>
>
> prof. dr. Paolo Ramat
>
> Università di Pavia (retired)
>
> Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
>
> Accademia dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
>
> 'Academia Europaea'
>
> 'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
>
> piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
>
> ##39 0382 27027
>
> 347 044 98 44
>
>
>
>
>
> Il giorno dom 27 set 2020 alle ore 07:24 Alex Francois <
> alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
> dear Ian,
>
>
>
> > *I wonder if there has been any literature on the construction where
> there is no verb, but only an NP and a PP*
>
> Interesting question.
>
> In English, those constructions are particular: they are arguably
> elliptical in some way, exclamative – or hortative – rather than
> declarative…
>
>
>
> Yet in many languages, including from the Oceanic (Austronesian) family, a
> construction {NP + PP} is simply the normal syntax for a declarative
> statement, where the PP is the predicate itself.
>
>
>
> Thus *Mwotlap* (Oceanic; Banks, Vanuatu) would have this:
> (square brackets = limits of the predicate phrase)
>
> (1) * Imam mino [**mi **tēytēybē].*
>
> father my with doctor
>
> “My father is/was with the doctor.”
>
>
>
> (2) * na-tan̄ nōnōm [**lelo** siok].*
>
> Art-bag your inside canoe
>
> “Your bag is in the canoe.”
>
>
>
> Likewise, *Araki *(Oceanic; Santo, Vanuatu) says:
>
>
>
> (3) *Sari nene [**m̈ar̄a **m̈aji]*.
>
> spear this for fish
>
> “This spear is for fish.” (i.e. it's designed for fishing)
>
>
>
> *Teanu *(Oceanic ; Temotu, Solomons) would have:
>
>
>
> (4) *Datilu [**pe **Iura]*.
>
> 3dual from Vanuatu
>
> “They were from Vanuatu.”
>
>
>
> These are all prepositional predicates, translated in English as *BE* +
> prep. (is with, is in, is for, were from…)
>
> Their syntax is typical of languages of the "omnipredicative" type (cf.
> Launey 1994 about Nāhuatl), languages where the predicate slot can be
> headed by various lexical classes — unlike European languages, where the
> predicative function in declarative statements is basically restricted to
> verbs.
>
>
>
> Those languages which, like European languages, restrict predicativity to
> the class of verbs, need a copula (like a verb BE) to turn non-predicative
> phrases into a predicate: with > "I *was* with them"; happy > "she *is*
> happy"; rice > "this *is* rice"; home > "we *were* home".
>
>
>
> This operation (turning a non-pred phrase into a predicate) is arguably
> the main function of copulas (cf. Lemaréchal 1989, 1997); this is the *raison
> d'être* of *être*.
>
> In omnipredicative languages, words like *with*, *happy, rice* and *home* would
> simply head the predicate, making the whole copula operation superfluous.
> This is why a typical property of omnipredicative languages is to lack a
> verb Be in the first place.
>
>
>
> NB: in languages where the predicate is clause-initial, you will have the
> reverse order {*PP* NP}. Example in Tahitian:
>
>
>
> (5) *[Nō tō'u fenua] teie mā'a.*
>
> from my country this food
>
> “This food is from my country.”
>
>
>
> Here again, the preposition (*nō*) is the head of the predicate.
>
>
>
> Some references:
>
> - *Launey*, Michel. 1994. *Une grammaire omniprédicative: Essai sur la
> morphosyntaxe du nahuatl classique*. Sciences du Langage, Paris: CNRS.
> - *Lemaréchal*, Alain. 1989. *Les parties du discours, Syntaxe et
> sémantique*. Linguistique Nouvelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
> France.
> - —— 1997. *Zéro(s)*. Linguistique Nouvelle. Paris: Presses
> universitaires de France.
> - *François*, Alexandre. 2005. Diversité des prédicats non verbaux
> dans quelques langues océaniennes. In Jacques François & Irmtraud Behr, *Les
> constituants prédicatifs et la diversité des langues*. Mémoires de la
> Société de Linguistique de Paris. Louvain: Peeters. 179-197.
> - —— 2017. The economy of word classes in Hiw, Vanuatu: Grammatically
> flexible, lexically rigid. In Eva van Lier (ed.), *Lexical Flexibility
> in Oceanic Languages*. Special issue of *Studies in Language*. 41 (2):
> 294–357.
>
> __________
>
>
>
> I realise that these Oceanic constructions look perfectly parallel to your
> English examples [*Your legs off the table!*], and yet the syntactic
> similarity is only superficial.
>
> The contrast – whether syntactic, semantic or pragmatic – is worth
> exploring.
>
>
>
> best
>
> Alex
>
> Alex François
>
> LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS–
> <http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
> <https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
> –Sorbonne nouvelle
> <http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
> Australian National University
> <https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
> Academia page <https://cnrs.academia.edu/AlexFran%C3%A7ois> – Personal
> homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2020 at 23:07, JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>
> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I wonder if there has been any literature on the construction where there
> is no verb, but only an NP and a PP, such as:
>
>
>
> (1) Superman to the rescue!
>
> (2) Your legs off the table!
>
>
>
> Of course, not only in English, but in any language. I would appreciate
> your help.
>
>
>
> From Hong Kong,
>
> Ian
>
>
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