DPs and Demonstratives

[Bryan Gordon]

On 2/22/06, Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu> wrote:
>
> The DEM-DET NOUN just isn't possible as a single constituent in Kaw, and,
> I suspect in Dhegiha generally, at least in Dorsey's day.  And I never
> recorded anything like that either in the '70's.  So I think Rory's original
> statement that these are "appositives" or renewed-mention constructions must
> be what is responsible for what he got over the phone with DEM-DET preceding
> the N.  I'd render it "That one, the man" or "That one, the woman", etc. in
> English, where "man/woman" clarifies what "that one" is referring to.


Although apposition is certainly something that should be looked at here, I
would issue a word of caution about using this sort of English translation.
In Arabic and Hebrew, for example, in which there is definiteness concord on
adjectives in NP's, teaching grammars often tell non-Semitic-speakers to
think of constructions like

ha+bayt ha+gadol
the+house the+big

as "the house, the big one." This encourages an appositive conception in the
learner's mind. But these constructions are NOT necessarily appositive; they
are simply what is required by Semitic morphosyntax.

- Bryan Gordon

"That man" or "that woman" would, I think, have to be [[DEM] [wo/man DET]]
> or [[wo/man] [DEM-DET]], with the latter possibly having appositive-like
> properties also.
>
> Bob
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of ROOD DAVID S
> Sent: Tue 2/21/2006 6:21 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: RE: DPs and Demonstratives
>
>
>
>
> Well, dem-det before the noun is absolutely impossible in Lakota, which is
> the only one of these languages I know even a little about.  But then,
> the order we have is always det-dem anyway.  The evolution of the Dhegiha
> articles must be quite different from that of the Lakhota ones.
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> On Tue, 21 Feb 2006, Rory M Larson wrote:
>
> > >  The "comma-like" pause (which probably entails pitch changes as well
> as
> > > just a pause) is exactly what I would expect if this is a two-part
> > > construction.
> >
> > David,
> >
> > I was just on the phone with one of our speakers.  I couldn't quite get
> her
> > to offer nu' s^e'akHa for 'that man' on her own, but when I suggested it
> > she enthusiastically said that that sounded even better than the
> > constructions she had offered.  I got her to say it for me, and also
> wa?u'
> > s^e'dhiNkHe.  Her pronunciation was as I seemed to recall.  I believe
> there
> > is a slight pause/vowel prolongation/drop in volume and maybe pitch,
> > between the noun and the following dem-det pair.  I was wondering how it
> > would sound if the noun were not accented on the last syllable, so I
> tried
> > nu'z^iNga ('boy'), mi'z^iNga ('girl'), and s^iN'gaz^iNga ('child').  On
> > these, she preferred placing the dem-det pair before the noun, as
> > s^e'dhiNkHe nu'z^iNga, etc.  Again, there seemed to be a slight pause
> > between dem-det and N.  I don't know that I have ever seen this
> > construction in the historical literature.
> >
> > Rory
> >
>
>
>
>
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