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

Sun Aug 20 01:40:07 UTC 2023

Thanks, Randy. I purposely said "adjacent' (head-adjacent), thinking that
there could be a mirror-image case where only the immediately preceding
modifier is unmarked, but it seems you have the opposite situation in
Mandarin.
Of course there are cases where a noun and a modifier take on the same
phonological properties as compounds, which I guess could affect things.

On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 6:26 PM Randy LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
> _______________________________________________
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>
>

-- 
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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