[Lingtyp] NP + PP construction
Raffaele Simone
rsimone at os.uniroma3.it
Tue Sep 29 10:26:36 UTC 2020
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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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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--
===============
Emeritus Professor, Università Roma Tre
Hon C Lund University
Membre de l'Académie Royale de Belgique
Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France
Accademico della Crusca
===============
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