[Lingtyp] NP + PP construction
Eitan Grossman
eitan.grossman at mail.huji.ac.il
Tue Oct 6 16:42:05 UTC 2020
Hi all,
Stéphane Polis and I discussed this briefly (also some similar and
evidently arguable Russian examples, and some less controversial
Minangkabau examples) in a study of the grammaticalization of future tenses
and related constructions from allative constructions without verbs of
motion.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280172429_On_the_pragmatics_of_subjectification_The_grammaticalization_of_verbless_allative_futures_with_a_case_study_in_Ancient_Egyptian
Incidentally and unsurprisingly, Timur's Russian example works well
transposed into spoken Hebrew.
Eitan
Eitan Grossman
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics
Chair, Department of Linguistics
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972 2 588 3809
Fax: +972 2 588 1224
On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 7:33 PM Timur Maisak <timur.maisak at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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