[Lingtyp] Morphological marking of non-adjacent adnominal modifiers?

[Larry M Hyman]

I have a question whether anyone knows of a case where all but an
immediately adjacent adnominal modifier are marked with special morphology.



In Bantu languages a common situation is that only a subset of (postposed)
adnominal modifiers phrase with the head noun, e.g. possessive pronouns and
nouns. In the Tiania dialect of Central Kenya Bantu language Kimeru, all
immediate adnominal modifiers phrase with the head noun except
demonstratives and some quantifiers (which makes sense). However, in cases
of multiple postposed modifiers, there is a superhigh boundary tone (S%)
separating each modifier (see especially (34) below). S is marked with the
double acute accent mark  ̋ ,



I am wondering if this is only a phonological phrase phenomenon or whether
anyone knows of a language where non-adjacent adnominal modifiers have
special (segmental) morphological marking? Importantly, the morphology
shows that the second, third etc. modifiers are not appositional (*books
three, new ones’). Applying an analogy to the verb phrase, I think of them
as “oblique”, e.g. ‘books three of new’, but there is no morphological
evidence of this, only the S% boundary tone that is used in other contexts
to mark the end of a phonological phrase, e.g. o-ko-or-er-a mó-re̋mi %
me-bukɔ ‘we have just bought the farmer % bags’.



Here is an extract from a handout of a talk I recently gave on the subject
at a workshop in Berkeley on Definiteness in the Niger-Congo noun phrase
organized by Peter Jenks and Mark Van de Velde.



(28)  Perhaps the structure of the NP (DP) can help us. In the case of
quantifiers, they generally come last, whether they agree with the noun or
not. It seems reasonable, therefore, for them to be phrased separately.
Here again from (10a) is the summary table of modifier combinations in the
noun phrase.



DEM

POSS

ADJ

NUM

QUANT

DEM



√

√

√

√

POSS

*



√

√

√

ADJ

*

(√)

√

√

√

NUM

*

(√)

√



√

QUANT

*

*

*

*





(29)  Word order generalizations (ignoring appositional cases)

         a.     demonstratives must come first

         b.     quantifiers must come last

         c.     possessive pronouns tend to be preceded only by
demonstratives

         d.     the two cells marked (√) are acceptable if emphasis is
placed on the ADJ or NUM

         e.     the unmarked word order therefore would appear to be

                 NOUN + DEM + POSS + { ADJ, NUM } + QUANT



(30)  a.     DEM + POSS          ma-úkú yáa̋ yáákwa     ‘these books of
mine’ (note S on DEM)

         b.     DEM + ADJ             ma-úkú yáa̋ mɛɛ́ro        ‘these new
books’

         c.     DEM + NUM           ma-úkú yáa̋ yátháto      ‘these three
books’

         d.     DEM + QUANT      ma-úkú yáa̋ yɔ́ɔnthɛ˚    ‘all three books’

         Note in (30b) that the S augment does not appear on an adjective
if it is preceded by a demonstrative, hence class 6 *mɛɛ́ro* from /ma-ɛ́ro/
vs.* ma-úkú ya̋mɛɛ́ro* from /ya̋-ma-ɛ́ro/. Would be two determiners.



(31)  a.     POSS + ADJ            ma-úkú yáákwa̋ ya̋mɛɛ́ro           ‘my
new books’        (note S on POSS)

         b.     POSS + NUM          ma-úkú yáákwa̋ yátháto             ‘my
three books’

         c.     POSS + QUANT     ma-úkú yáákwa̋ yɔ́ɔnthɛ˚           ‘all my
books’



(32)  a.     ADJ + POSS            ma-úkú ya̋mɛɛ̋ro yáákwá           ‘my new
books’        (note S on ADJ)

         b.     ADJ + ADJ              ma-úkú ya̋mɛɛ̋ro ya̋manɛ́nɛ
‘big new books’

         c.     ADJ + NUM            ma-úkú ya̋mɛɛ̋ro yátháto
‘three new books’

         d.     ADJ + QUANT        ma-úkú ya̋mɛɛ̋ro yɔ́ɔnthɛ˚          ‘all
new books’



(33)  a.     NUM + POSS          ma-úkú yátha̋to yáákwá             ‘my
three books’     (note S on NUM)

         b.     NUM + ADJ            ma-úkú yátha̋to ya̋mɛɛ́ro
‘three new books’

         c.     NUM + QUANT      ma-úkú yátha̋to yɔ́ɔnthɛ˚           ‘all
three books’



(34)  No case has been found where two modifiers join together in the same
phonological phrase, whether with the head noun or not. Instead, each
non-final modifier gets the HS% tone. This is illustrated in the following
pragmatically unnatural, but logically grammatical series of five modifiers:

    Noun      Dem

     Poss

      Adj

    Num

   Quant

[ ma-úkú

yáa̋ ]PhP

[ yáákwa̋ ]PhP

[ ya̋mɛɛ̋ro ]PhP

[ yátha̋to ]PhP

[ yɔ́ɔnthɛ˚ ]PhP

cl6-book

these

      my

     new

    three

      all

         ‘all these three new books of mine’      A nested structure is
also possible:

[ [ [ [ [ ma-úkú

yáa̋ ]PhP

yáákwa̋ ]PhP

ya̋mɛɛ̋ro ]PhP

yátha̋to ]PhP

yɔ́ɔnthɛ˚ ]PhP

-- 
Larry M. Hyman, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School
& Director, France-Berkeley Fund, University of California, Berkeley
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~hyman
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