LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 25.JAN.2001 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Ian James Parsley [parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Grammar" LOWLANDS-L, 24.JAN.2001 (07) [D/E]

Folk,

Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com] wrote:

> Tocharian (an Indo-European written language
> in what is now Western China 500-700 AD) got rid of its
> inherited nominal endings and developed another new set derived
> from postpositions  by 500 AD.

Interesting. Is it possible to tell, however, whether there was a
stage in between when syntax (or more precisely 'word order') became
all important?

> Creoles in their creation strip off morphology in a single
generation.

Again, this seems to indicate evidence of morphological
'regularization' (often akin to 'loss'), but not necessarily the other
way around.

> phonological change is deregularizing the regular verbs:
> keep/kept, bend/bent, set/set, hear [hir]/heard [hrd] (is this
> irregular in Scots?).  Some varieties of English tend to drop
> final -t and -d: that phonological erosion will force new
> changes in the grammar.

Now that *is* true, but I still wonder whether the changes will be in
the form of 'new morphology'. I suspect actually that this would force
English to develop a tendency towards using the perfect formation
more.

> Compare the forces of phonological erosion and of regularization
> to geology: erosion wears down old mountains; tectonic and
> volcanic processes thrust different ones up, both going on, at
> varying rates, all the time.  Complexity tends to get shifted
> around.

I agree with this. But again, does it a new 'mountain' of new
morphological endings develop, or are we talking simply about
complexity shifting to other areas of grammar? In other words, is the
development purely cyclical?

> And the extended prepositions you mention keep arising: "on"/"up
> on top of", "behind"/"in back of", etc., plus non-compounds like
> "concerning", "regarding", etc.  The play of erosion and
> retinkering never stops, does it.

My point exactly - but much better made!

Best wishes,
Ian.

----------

From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammar

John Feather wrote:

> Regarding Ron's "salt water," "salt cod.", Stefan  wrote:
> >I'd have to think that the grammarian who called "salt" here
> an adjective hadn't thought the matter through.  It's acting
> strictly like a compound noun.  <
>
> But he then wrote:
>
> >But my Old English dictionary does show _sealt, salt_ as an
> adjective: "oth thone sealtan mere" 'up to the salt sea'.
> Alongside it was _sealten_, which potentially could lose the
> -en during Middle English (compare participles like
> drunk/drunken), giving two established adjectives. <
>
> I'm not sure, therefore, whether he's contradicting himself or
> conceding an uncertainty.

Not contradicting, of course, but rather pointing out the
possibilities.  <salt> as an adjective has a long history, but
it doesn't act like an adjective: who would say _very salt
water_ instead of _very salty water_?
On that topic, I just ran across an ex-noun: a business paper
wrote: "on a very customer basis".  _Customer_ hadn't been an
adjective, but that writer has adjectivized it.  That is just
the kind of grammatical fluidity that Ron had brought up.

The accentual difference that Ron raised looks like an even more
clear-cut way to distinguish de facto adjectives from compound
nouns, a la _bláckbìrd_ versus _blàck bírd_.

We could get into more detail: if I wanted to say that the bird
is particularly black, I could stress the adjective: "That is a
bláck bírd", but both words are stressed, and I lengthen the
vowel in _black_, etc., but the accent test works pretty well.

Here's a counterexample that backs up Ron's point in a
roundabout way: if I'm not mistaken, the Dutch town of Breda is
accented on the _a_, BreedAA.  _a_ is an old word meaning
"river" (cf. Icelandic Hvítá, Jökulsá, Swedish Luleaa, German
Rotach, Aache etc., and Latin aqua “water”)
Thus the town of "Broad River" still has the accent on what had
been the noun, _a_, even though the two words have subsequently
merged.

> Is there a real distinction in English between a "compound
> noun" and a noun+noun phrase in which the first noun has an
> adjectival function?

The initial problem for us when we want to analyze this phrases
is that the adjective and noun look identical.  But the verb and
the noun _can_ look alike, but act very differently
grammatically.  The de facto adjectives and the compound nouns
likewise are distinct in accentuation and whether adverbs can
modify them.

Ian James Parsley <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> Folk,
>
> Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com] wrote:
>
> > Tocharian (an Indo-European written language
> > in what is now Western China 500-700 AD) got rid of its
> > inherited nominal endings and developed another new set
> > derived from postpositions  by 500 AD.
>
> Interesting. Is it possible to tell, however, whether there
> was a stage in between when syntax (or more precisely 'word
> order') became all important?

Not all-important, since Tocharian kept the old verb endings; it
never lost all its morphology.  But using postpositions + what
had been the accusative inherently involved syntax during the
transition.  You could certainly find languages around the
world, though, which did strip off all the morphology.

> > Creoles in their creation strip off morphology in a single
> generation.
>
> Again, this seems to indicate evidence of morphological
> 'regularization' (often akin to 'loss'), but not necessarily
> the other way around.

The irregularity brought about by phonological erosion is a slow
process; I've never heard of it happening abruptly.  Every
generation tinkers just a little, giving the next generation a
slightly different language to tinker with, and after a
millenium, the irregularities build up-- and necessitate
brand-new waves of regularization.

> > Compare the forces of phonological erosion and of
> regularization
> > to geology: erosion wears down old mountains; tectonic and
> > volcanic processes thrust different ones up, both going on,
> at
> > varying rates, all the time.  Complexity tends to get
> shifted
> > around.
>
> I agree with this. But again, does it a new 'mountain' of new
> morphological endings develop, or are we talking simply about
> complexity shifting to other areas of grammar? In other words,
> is the development purely cyclical?

When I said new 'mountains', I only meant other grammar,
regardless of type.  Thinking in terms of just morphology vs.
syntax papers over the eyeball-numbing immense variety of
grammars in the world's languages.  You get messy irregular
morphology, you get agglutination (prepositions, auxillaries
etc. have become endings and are still very regular), you get
languages that rely on syntax, I suppose you could get languages
that use tonal pitch as the main grammatical feature, and you
usually get a mix of these and more.  English uses some endings,
many function words, lots of syntax; Latin used lots of
morphology, some prepositions and auxilliaries, but little
syntax (little syntax for -grammar-, but lots for stylistics).

> > And the extended prepositions you mention keep arising:
> > "on"/"up on top of", "behind"/"in back of", etc., plus non-
> > compounds like "concerning", "regarding", etc.  The play of
> > erosion and retinkering never stops, does it.
>
> My point exactly - but much better made!
>
> Best wishes,
> Ian.

Thanks- collaborative work is what this list is all about!

Stefan who likes grammar in any form it feels like appearing in.

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