LL-L "Syntax" 2003.07.11 (07) [E]

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From: Jan Strunk <strunkjan at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Syntax" 2003.07.11 (05) [E]

Hello,

finally, something that I can contribute as a linguist:
> > > Where genitives are used, several of the local speakers put into
> > > adjectival place phrases that
> > > otherwise would be relative; for example,
> > >
> > > That('s) the ole-guy-who-I-do-his-tax(es)-('s) house.
> > > (That's the house of the old guy whose taxes I do.)
> > >
> > > He('s) the cousin-I-grew-up-with-in-Pushmataha('s) son.
> > > (He's the son of the cousin with whom I grew up in Pushmataha.)
Actually, nothing is put in the place of an adjectival phrase here, at least
not
in the "standard" analysis of this construction.
The bracketing of this phrase should be as follows:
[the old guy [who I do his taxes]]'s house.
That is "who I do his taxes" is a normal relative clause modifying the
noun "guy". What is unusual about this construction is the location of
the 's. Traditionally this 's is analyzed as a genitive case marker on
nouns.
However, this marker has been reanalyzed as a so-called "phrasal affix"
(a kind of clitic) (see works by Arnold Zwicky). That is an affix that is
no longer attached to the head noun of the modifying noun phrase,
but onto the edge of a possibly complex modifying noun phrase.
This is a rather special phenomenon. Other researchers call this 's a clitic
that has developed from the old genitive marker. Another hypothesis is
that this construction developed from or at least was influenced by the
following
construction:

"the man I know his house"

As I wrote some seminar papers on clitic phenomena in German dialects,
I find this issue rather interesting...

> > > How widespread is this feature in American and other English and
> > Lowlands
> > > dialects?
At least Zwicky claims that it is generally possible in spoken American
English.
I don't have the exact references handy now, but a search with google for
"Arnold Zwicky" and "phrasal affix" should give some hits.

> > This type of syntactic structure is fascinating, probably rare in
> > Indo-European, certainly in Germanic.  It is very much like the normal
> > structure in Altaic languages (whose branches are Turkic, Mongolic,
> > Tungusic
> > and, connected on a pre-Altaic level, Japanese and Korean).  Anything
that
> > modifies a noun is packed into the adjectival slot, and this includes
> > complex subordinate phrases.
I also want to disagree here. Why is it packed in the adjectival slot?
There are naturally two possibilities where a relative clause can occur:
preceding
or following the head noun. (Actually there is a third one where the head
noun
is located in the relative clause itself. These are called internally headed
relative
clauses.)  There are plenty of languages where it occurs before the noun
(e.g. Turkish).
There is nothing per se that would make one possibility more natural as the
other.
(Although prenominal relative clauses might be more difficult to process
cognitively...
I am not sure...)
And adjectives can and do also occur postnominally in many languages...
(e.g. French)

> 我不明白老師解決的課題.
> Wǒ bù míngbái lǎoshī jiějué de kètí.
> ("I not understand teacher solve {adj. marker} (lesson-)problem.")
I would rather say that noun modifiers generally precede the head noun
in chinese (maybe with the exception of constructions like:
我去老師那兒.
wo qu laoshi nar, if "nar" can be analyzed as a modifier...)
and that 的 (de) generally occurs between bigger modifying phrases and the
head noun.

I am not sure how main stream chinese linguistics analyzes these
constructions, but such an analysis seems very plausible to me.

Gued gaon!

Jan Strunk
strunk at linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

P.S.: The new homepage is really great...

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From: Jan Strunk <strunkjan at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Syntax" 2003.07.11 (05) [E]

Hello,

some references about works on clitics by
Arnold Zwicky.
Zwicky, Arnold M. 1977. On Clitics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Linguistics Club.

Zwicky, Arnold M. 1985. Clitics and Particles. Language 61.283-305.

Zwicky, Arnold M., & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 1983. Cliticization vs. inflection:
English n’t. Language 59.502-513.

Schoinen dag!

Jan Strunk

strunk at linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

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