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

[Randy LaPolla]

Hi Larry,
This might have to do with the post-nominal nature of the modifiers and how we process complex structures. In Mandarin Chinese, where modifiers are pre-nominal, the opposite pattern is shown: generally only the modifier closest the head gets special marking, while the other modifiers are prosodically grouped together for easier processing and to some extent also due to rhythmic constraints in Chinese.

Hope this helps.

All the best,
Randy

> On Aug 19, 2023, at 1:56 PM, Larry M Hyman <hyman at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20230820/7103f58d/attachment.htm>