[Lingtyp] Optional determination?

Sat Aug 31 17:57:27 UTC 2024

Thanks again, Christian. So I take your answer to be that optional determination is (i) a thing (i.e., it exists) and (ii) does indeed involve a categorical difference between determined and undetermined phrases, on account of the latter, but not the former, being compatible with determiners. This makes sense to me.

But of course, even languages with obligatory determination distinguish between weak and strong determiners, where only the latter strictly exclude other determiners. So it remains to be seen what kinds of determiners are strictly incompatible with other determiners in languages with optional determination. Maybe Zygmunt’s book has the answer to that question.

Best – Juergen

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Date: Saturday, August 31, 2024 at 11:31
To: LINGTYP LINGTYP <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Optional determination?
Oh, if that is the point, then the answer is quite different:

In many languages, a syntagma consisting of a common noun and a syntagma consisting of a common noun modified by an adjective attribute belong to the same category, viz. 'nominal', which is a category that can be modified by an adjectival attribute.
In most languages, a nominal and a nominal determined by a determiner are different categories because the former, but not the latter can be determined by a determiner.

I hope this fits your point better.
Christian
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Am 31.08.24 um 16:12 schrieb Juergen Bohnemeyer:
Dear Christian – No, I don’t share the presupposition you mention at all. Rather, there is a specific role of obligatoriness vs. optionality in the particular case of determination: if determination is optional, then it is presumably the case that both determined (i.e., maximal) and non-determined (i.e., non-maximal) noun phrases can express arguments. My question is whether there is then any other known reason to still treat them as belonging to distinct syntactic categories. I hope this makes sense? – Best – Juergen

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645 0127
Fax: (716) 645 3825
Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)

There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
(Leonard Cohen)
--

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Saturday, August 31, 2024 at 03:57
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Optional determination?
Dear Jürgen,

before considering your specific question, let me ask about its presupposition: If a process is optional, it seems doubtful to you whether it can be considered a grammatical process.

Now if something is (structurally) obligatory, it is grammatical. The inverse does not hold, because although obligatoriness has been regarded by some as the most important feature of grammaticalization, it is not the only one. Moreover, there are degrees of optionality/obligatoriness (s. Lehmann, Thoughts on grammaticalization).

Thus, the grammatical rules concerning determination may say that determiners are optional in certain contexts, but obligatory in others; that if there is a determiner, it has to go in such and such a syntagmatic position; that determiners are chosen from a small closed paradigm and cannot be combined syntagmatically; etc. Compare, e.g., adjectives, for which there are such rules, too; but they are less strict.

During the documented history from Vulgar Latin to the modern Romance languages, articles have been developping from absent to increasingly obligatory. At which point has determination by articles become "a grammatical process"?

Best, Christian

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