[Lingtyp] NP + PP construction

Sun Sep 27 08:49:11 UTC 2020

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
>>
>>
>> *Disclaimer:*
>>
>> *This message (including any attachments) contains confidential
>> information intended for a specific individual and purpose. If you are not
>> the intended recipient, you should delete this message and notify the
>> sender and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University)
>> immediately. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or
>> the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited and may be
>> unlawful.*
>>
>> *The University specifically denies any responsibility for the accuracy
>> or quality of information obtained through University E-mail Facilities.
>> Any views and opinions expressed are only those of the author(s) and do not
>> necessarily represent those of the University and the University accepts no
>> liability whatsoever for any losses or damages incurred or caused to any
>> party as a result of the use of such information.*
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200927/4a794c89/attachment.htm>