[Lingtyp] NP + PP construction

Sun Oct 4 08:21:02 UTC 2020

Dear All,
In Atong (Tibeto-Burman, Northeast India and Bangladesh) nominal predicates
are quite normal. In example (1), the noun India functions as the head of a
noun phrase, which in turn functions as a predicate. The semantic role of
the noun phrase is that of Location, which is indicated in Atong by the
locative phrasal enclitic <*=chi*> (LOC). The noun phrase also carried the
focus enclitic <*=an*> (FOC). THe phrase can be easily recognised as being
a predicate because of the predicate enclitic <*=ok*> (COS), indicating a
change of state. Note that nominal predicates do not always need to carry a
predicate enclitic.

(1)           te•ewdo Indiachianok

te•ew   =do   {[India] =chi  =an} =ok

now     =top    India   =loc =foc =cos

‘Now, [they are] back in India.’

In example (2), the noun *song* 'village' is the head of a phrase that is
used as a predicate of a modifying clause. This phrase carries four phrasal
enclitics, viz. the locative <=*chi>, *the attributive *<=gaba>,* the
plural <*=darang*> and the topic <*=do*>.

(2)

ning

song

=chi

=gaba

=darang

=do

nem

=t(h)ok

=aidonga

1pl/excl

village

=loc

=attr

=pl

=top

good

=everyone

=prog
'We who [are] in the village are all doing well.'

As can be seen in the table below, nominal predicates can be of different
semantic roles,such as  Direction (nr 3), Source (nr 4), Possessor (nr 5)
or Beneficiary (nr 6). MOB=mobilitative (marking a Direction here),
GEN=genitive (marking a Possessor here), GOAL=the goal enclitic (marking a
Beneficiary here)

*2*

*so**ng=**sa**ng=**gaba*

village=mob=relational

‘those who go to the village’

*4*

*ha**•**b**y**ri=sa**ng=**m**yng=**gaba*

hills=mob=gen=relational

‘those who come back from the hills’

*5*

*nono=m**yng**=gaba*

younger.sister=gen=relational

‘things that belong to my younger sister’

*6*

*nono=na=gaba*

yonger.sister=goal=relational

‘things for my younger sister’

Kind regards,
__________________
Dr. Seino van Breugel
Assistant Professor
United International College, Zhuhai, China
https://independent.academia.edu/SeinovanBreugel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHfiZwqyWC7HfZUAQ1RH1ew

On Sun, Oct 4, 2020 at 1:12 AM Raffaele Simone <rsimone at os.uniroma3.it>
wrote:

> In Latin this is a quite standard procedure: Triste [est] lupus stabulis,
> maturis frugibus [sunt] imbres (Vergil, Bucol. III 80)
>
> Best,
>
> Raffaele
> Il 27/09/2020 10:49, paolo Ramat ha scritto:
>
> 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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> --
> ===============
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> Hon C Lund University
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