Nominative-Accusative Syncretism and Syntactic Case
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The Term Declension, the Three Basic Qualities of Latin Nouns, That
Chapter 2: First Declension Chapter 2 covers the following: the term declension, the three basic qualities of Latin nouns, that is, case, number and gender, basic sentence structure, subject, verb, direct object and so on, the six cases of Latin nouns and the uses of those cases, the formation of the different cases in Latin, and the way adjectives agree with nouns. At the end of this lesson we’ll review the vocabulary you should memorize in this chapter. Declension. As with conjugation, the term declension has two meanings in Latin. It means, first, the process of joining a case ending onto a noun base. Second, it is a term used to refer to one of the five categories of nouns distinguished by the sound ending the noun base: /a/, /ŏ/ or /ŭ/, a consonant or /ĭ/, /ū/, /ē/. First, let’s look at the three basic characteristics of every Latin noun: case, number and gender. All Latin nouns and adjectives have these three grammatical qualities. First, case: how the noun functions in a sentence, that is, is it the subject, the direct object, the object of a preposition or any of many other uses? Second, number: singular or plural. And third, gender: masculine, feminine or neuter. Every noun in Latin will have one case, one number and one gender, and only one of each of these qualities. In other words, a noun in a sentence cannot be both singular and plural, or masculine and feminine. Whenever asked ─ and I will ask ─ you should be able to give the correct answer for all three qualities. -
The Ongoing Eclipse of Possessive Suffixes in North Saami
Te ongoing eclipse of possessive sufxes in North Saami A case study in reduction of morphological complexity Laura A. Janda & Lene Antonsen UiT Te Arctic University of Norway North Saami is replacing the use of possessive sufxes on nouns with a morphologically simpler analytic construction. Our data (>2K examples culled from >.5M words) track this change through three generations, covering parameters of semantics, syntax and geography. Intense contact pressure on this minority language probably promotes morphological simplifcation, yielding an advantage for the innovative construction. Te innovative construction is additionally advantaged because it has a wider syntactic and semantic range and is indispensable, whereas its competitor can always be replaced. Te one environment where the possessive sufx is most strongly retained even in the youngest generation is in the Nominative singular case, and here we fnd evidence that the possessive sufx is being reinterpreted as a Vocative case marker. Keywords: North Saami; possessive sufx; morphological simplifcation; vocative; language contact; minority language 1. Te linguistic landscape of North Saami1 North Saami is a Uralic language spoken by approximately 20,000 people spread across a large area in northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. North Saami is in a unique situation as the only minority language in Europe under intense pressure from majority languages from two diferent language families, namely Finnish (Uralic) in the east and Norwegian and Swedish (Indo-European 1. Tis research was supported in part by grant 22506 from the Norwegian Research Council. Te authors would also like to thank their employer, UiT Te Arctic University of Norway, for support of their research. -
Introduction to Gothic
Introduction to Gothic By David Salo Organized to PDF by CommanderK Table of Contents 3..........................................................................................................INTRODUCTION 4...........................................................................................................I. Masculine 4...........................................................................................................II. Feminine 4..............................................................................................................III. Neuter 7........................................................................................................GOTHIC SOUNDS: 7............................................................................................................Consonants 8..................................................................................................................Vowels 9....................................................................................................................LESSON 1 9.................................................................................................Verbs: Strong verbs 9..........................................................................................................Present Stem 12.................................................................................................................Nouns 14...................................................................................................................LESSON 2 14...........................................................................................Strong -
PART I: HOMEWORK 1: GRAMMAR from the Book. 2: EXERCISES
1 Winter Semester 2015/2016 Handout 2 PART I: HOMEWORK 1: GRAMMAR from the book. To be prepared for the Lesson 2 you are expected: to read the following material from the book Unit 1: Pronunciation and accent in Latin, p. 1-2; Grammatical categories, p. 3-5; 2: EXERCISES 1. Read aloud: • vertebra, ante, palpebra, medulla, vēna, trachēa, venēnum (2) • sine, pilula, vitrum, inter, spīna, rīma, vīnum, salīva (3) • post, anodus, oleum, prostata, bōlus, prō, prōcessus, dolorōsus (4) • apud, gutta, glandula, uterus, ūrīna, rūptūra, nātūra (5) • aegrōtus, praemātūrus, lagoena, foetor, aër, dyspnoē, diploē, proerythroblastos, coenzymum (6) • felleus, balneum, āreola, aorta, interosseae, pleura, pӯogenēs, euryōpia (9) • celulla, cibus, caecum, cystis, costa, cutis, fasciculus, clāvicula, frāctūra (11) • coccӯgeus, occipitālis, ōscilococcinum, accessōrius, saccus, saccī, vaccīna (12) • caecum, caecī, bucca, buccae, verrūca, verrūcae, thōrācica, thōrācicae, saccus, saccī, coenzymum (13) • digitus, tībia, destillāta, hernia, tunica, audītus (15) • fūnctiō, articulātiō, vitium, īnsufficientia, sānātiō, ōstium, testium, mixtiō, combustiō (16) • aqua, liquor, quadrātus, lingua, sanguis, unguentum, unguis, unguium, inguinālis (17) • resistentia, incīsūra, spongiōsus, basis, crisis, nasālis, pulsus, morsus, mēnsis, plasma (18) • comissūra, prōcessus, scissus, accessōrius, ossa, ossium, hypoglōssus, tussis, pertussis (19) 2. Read aloud the nominative and genitive forms of the nouns. Write down the number of the declension; follow the example: ex: caput, -
From Latin to Romance: Case Loss and Preservation in Pronominal Systems
FLORE Repository istituzionale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze From Latin to Romance: case loss and preservation in pronominal systems Questa è la Versione finale referata (Post print/Accepted manuscript) della seguente pubblicazione: Original Citation: From Latin to Romance: case loss and preservation in pronominal systems / Manzini, MARIA RITA; Savoia, LEONARDO MARIA. - In: PROBUS. - ISSN 1613-4079. - STAMPA. - 26, 2(2014), pp. 217-248. Availability: This version is available at: 2158/891750 since: 2016-01-20T16:23:29Z Terms of use: Open Access La pubblicazione è resa disponibile sotto le norme e i termini della licenza di deposito, secondo quanto stabilito dalla Policy per l'accesso aperto dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze (https://www.sba.unifi.it/upload/policy-oa-2016-1.pdf) Publisher copyright claim: (Article begins on next page) 27 September 2021 Probus 2014; 26(2): 217 – 248 M. Rita Manzini* and Leonardo M. Savoia From Latin to Romance: case loss and preservation in pronominal systems Abstract: The evolution from Latin into Romance is marked by the loss of case in nominal declensions. In most Romance varieties, however, pronouns, specifi- cally in the 1st/2nd person singular, keep case differentiations. In some varieties 1st/2nd singular pronouns present a three-way case split, essentially the same re- constructed for proto-Romance (De Dardel and Gaeng 1992, Zamboni 1998). We document and analyze the current situation of Romance in the first part of the article (section 1). In the second part of the article we argue that the Dative Shifted distribution of loro in modern Italian, accounted for by means of the category of weak pronoun in Cardinaletti and Starke (1999), is best construed as a survival of oblique case in the 3rd person system (section 2). -
AN INTRODUCTORY GRAMMAR of OLD ENGLISH Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies
AN INTRODUCTORY GRAMMAR OF OLD ENGLISH MEDievaL AND Renaissance Texts anD STUDies VOLUME 463 MRTS TEXTS FOR TEACHING VOLUme 8 An Introductory Grammar of Old English with an Anthology of Readings by R. D. Fulk Tempe, Arizona 2014 © Copyright 2020 R. D. Fulk This book was originally published in 2014 by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe Arizona. When the book went out of print, the press kindly allowed the copyright to revert to the author, so that this corrected reprint could be made freely available as an Open Access book. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE viii ABBREVIATIONS ix WORKS CITED xi I. GRAMMAR INTRODUCTION (§§1–8) 3 CHAP. I (§§9–24) Phonology and Orthography 8 CHAP. II (§§25–31) Grammatical Gender • Case Functions • Masculine a-Stems • Anglo-Frisian Brightening and Restoration of a 16 CHAP. III (§§32–8) Neuter a-Stems • Uses of Demonstratives • Dual-Case Prepositions • Strong and Weak Verbs • First and Second Person Pronouns 21 CHAP. IV (§§39–45) ō-Stems • Third Person and Reflexive Pronouns • Verbal Rection • Subjunctive Mood 26 CHAP. V (§§46–53) Weak Nouns • Tense and Aspect • Forms of bēon 31 CHAP. VI (§§54–8) Strong and Weak Adjectives • Infinitives 35 CHAP. VII (§§59–66) Numerals • Demonstrative þēs • Breaking • Final Fricatives • Degemination • Impersonal Verbs 40 CHAP. VIII (§§67–72) West Germanic Consonant Gemination and Loss of j • wa-, wō-, ja-, and jō-Stem Nouns • Dipthongization by Initial Palatal Consonants 44 CHAP. IX (§§73–8) Proto-Germanic e before i and j • Front Mutation • hwā • Verb-Second Syntax 48 CHAP. -
The Finnish Noun Phrase
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Scienze del Linguaggio The Finnish Noun Phrase Relatore: Prof.ssa Giuliana Giusti Correlatore: Prof. Guglielmo Cinque Laureanda: Lena Dal Pozzo Matricola: 803546 ANNO ACCADEMICO: 2006/2007 A mia madre Table of contents Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………….…….…… III Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………........ V Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………………VII 1. Word order in Finnish …………………………………………………………………1 1.1 The order of constituents in the clause …………………………………………...2 1.2 Word order and interpretation .......……………………………………………… 8 1.3 The order of constituents in the Nominal Expression ………………………… 11 1.3.1. Determiners and Possessors …………………………………………………12 1.3.2. Adjectives and other modifiers …………………………………………..… 17 1.3.2.1 Adjectival hierarchy…………………………………………………………23 1.3.2.2 Predicative structures and complements …………………………………26 1.3.3 Relative clauses …………………………………………………………….... 28 1.4 Conclusions ............……………………………………………………………. 30 2. Thematic relations in nominal expressions ……………………………………….. 32 2.1 Observations on Argument Structure ………………………………….……. 32 2.1.1 Result and Event nouns…………………………………………………… 36 2.2 Transitive nouns ………………………………………………………………... 38 2.2.1 Compound nouns ……………….……………………………………... 40 2.2.2 Intransitive nouns derived from transitive verbs …………………… 41 2.3 Passive nouns …………………………………………………………………… 42 2.4 Psychological predicates ……………………………………………………….. 46 2.4.1 Psych verbs ………………………………………………………………. -
Possessive Pronouns As Oblique Dps: Linkers and Affix Stacking
19.3 (2018): 393-425 UDC 81’367.626.2=111 Original scientific article Received on 16.02. 2018 Accepted for publication on 05.11. 2018 M. Rita Manzini Università degli Studi di Firenze Possessive pronouns as oblique DPs: Linkers and affix stacking In many familiar European languages, e.g. German or Italian, possessive pro- nouns agree in φ-features with their head noun. We argue that they are geni- tive pronouns, endowed with an extra φ-features set. As such, they are part of a range of phenomena including case stacking and linkers unified under the historical-typological label of Suffixaufnahme. We express the formal basis for this unification as the Stacking Generalization (Section 1). We then apply our analysis to the narrower domain of facts involving possessive pronouns, specifically in Balkan and Romance languages. We further find that 1/2P pro- nouns present a richer stacking structure than their 3P counterparts (Section 2). We examine this latter fact in the context of a more general phenomenon, whereby the 1/2P vs 3P Person split not only tends to correlate with different case and agreement alignments – but seems to govern the morphological ex- pression of case and agreement itself, in terms of richer vs poorer content (Section 3). Key words: oblique case; genitive; possessives; pronouns; linkers; agree- ment; person. 1. Linkers and affix stacking This section aims at establishing the framework for the discussion of agreeing pos- sessive pronouns to be pursued in later sections. According to a well established historical-typological view (Plank 1995), modifier structures involving both free standing heads (linkers) and stacked affixation (case stacking), are to be unified on the basis of functional considerations. -
From Latin to Romance
From Latin to Romance: Computational Modeling of Syncretism Tyler Lau∗, Maria Polinsky†, and Jake Seaton† ∗Department of Linguistics, University of California at Berkeley, USA †Deparment of Linguistics, Harvard University, USA Overview Structure of the Connectionist Model Discussion • What factors in Late Latin led to the heavy reshaping of • With phonology, frequency,& human semantics /kanis/ ‘dog’ Corpus the nominal system? 454 Latin Vulgate nouns in 6 forms (3 cases 2 numbers) = 2724 total forms • Declensions IV & V fall out in every simulation Phonology Semantics # times each form introduced = log(freq(form))× relative freq(case & num combination) • What minimal information does a connectionist model In training, input of each token (phonology and semantics)× and expected output given to model • With case hierarchy added, final forms converge more a ... and hidden layer adjusts connection weights accordingly need to predict syncretism in the correct direction? k Phonology (396 nodes = 6 6 11) Human Semantics (8 nodes) • Genitive singular drops out completely [-human] × × Analogy driven by factors such as frequency, [-vd] [+C] ... [+vd] [-C] ... ... Each word maximally 6 syllables Nouns coded as: • Genitive plural hardly survives (only example in • Each syllable maximally 6 phonemes (CCVVCC) Male human: first 4 nodes activated Each phoneme coded for 11 features markedness, and morpheme length. (Kuryłowicz 1947, -1 1 ... 1 -1 ... ... 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Female human: final 4 nodes activated history is oblique 3PL pronoun–Fr. leur, It. loro) Bybee 1985, Albright 2008) Non-human: 0 nodes activated • Forms remaining in ≥90% of simulations Hidden Layer (30 nodes): -am > -a F.SG ending in all Romance (> -e in Fr.) Learning takes place in the hidden layer (Goldsmith & O’Brien 1995) • • Changes in Romance have been attributed not only to .. -
Old French and Romanian Declensions from a Word and Paradigm Perspective and the Notion of “Default Syncretism”
OLD FRENCH AND ROMANIAN DECLENSIONS FROM A WORD AND PARADIGM PERSPECTIVE AND THE NOTION OF “DEFAULT SYNCRETISM” ALAIN KIHM1 Abstract. Old French and Romanian nominal inflections or declensions share the property of being apparently uncomplicated as their paradigms consist in only two forms at most: a base form and an inflected form. This outward simplicity, however, results from complex syncretisms. In Old French masculine nouns, the singular subject case and the plural object case are identically inflected, whereas the singular object and the plural subject cases are identical base forms; in Romanian feminine nouns, the singular genitive-dative and the two plural case forms are the same. Such syncretisms raise a descriptive and theoretical issue as they appear to be neither semantically motivated nor fully arbitrary. Drawing on the conceptual and formalizing resources of Word and Paradigm (WP) theory and Paradigm Function Morphology (PFM), the present essay attempts to solve the issue by assuming a third kind of syncretism that involves not the meaningful content of features, but their DEFAULT value. At the same time, it proposes a nearly full treatment of Old French and Romanian declensions in PFM terms. Keywords: case, default, declension, gender, number, paradigm, syncretism. 1. INTRODUCTION As is well-known, only Old French and Romanian among Romance languages kept something of the Latin rich nominal inflection for case and number or DECLENSION. The present study aims to provide a synchronic account of this phenomenon in a Word and Paradigm (WP) framework (Blevins 2006), using the formal apparatus of Paradigm Function Morphology (PFM – Stump 2001; Bonami, Stump to appear). -
Morphosyntactic Alignment, Pattern Replication, and the Classical Armenian Periphrastic Perfect
1 Morphosyntactic Alignment, Pattern Replication, * 2 and the Classical Armenian Periphrastic Perfect 3 ROBIN MEYER 4 University of Oxford 5 1. Introduction 6 The Classical Armenian periphrastic perfect and its unusual construction have 7 posed difficulties for historical linguists since their first detailed discussion in the 8 1903 edition of Meillet’s Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée de l’arménien 9 classique (see the revised edition, Meillet 1936). While the communis opinio still 10 favors an explanation proffered by Benveniste (1952), which likens the Armenian 11 pattern to the Old Persian taya manā kr̥ tam construction, this model cannot ac- 12 count for several problems in the Armenian data; a new model, informed by the 13 shortcomings of its predecessors and taking into account typological and compar- 14 ative data, is therefore necessary. 15 In this paper it will be argued that the most consistent analysis of the Arme- 16 nian perfect construction must interpret it as a synchronically tripartite alignment 17 pattern, resulting from extensive language contact with the Middle Iranian lan- 18 guages; typological irregularities and synchronically deviant patterns are manifes- 19 tations of alignment change under pressure from the non-perfect tenses. 20 After a brief exposition of the Armenian data and the issues associated with it 21 (§2), previous attempts at an explanation of the phenomenon will be summarized 22 and their weaknesses discussed (§3). The Armenian situation will then be com- 23 pared to that in Middle Iranian, especially Parthian, and their differences and 24 commonalities will be set out (§4). FinallY, a new model will detail why a tripar- 25 tite analysis of the periphrastic perfect is synchronically and typologically appro- 26 priate (§5), how far Iranian influence is the likely origin of this pattern, and what 27 other expressions of such influence can be found in Classical Armenian (§6). -
Deriving Inflectional Paradigms 1 Why Does Syncretism Occur?
LINGUIST 216, Morphology, February 8, 2007, Anttila 1 Deriving inflectional paradigms 1 Why does syncretism occur? (1) A fairly transparent inflectional system: Turkish sg pl nom ev ev-ler ev ‘house’ acc ev-i ev-ler-i gen ev-in ev-ler-in dat ev-e ev-ler-e loc ev-de ev-ler-de abl ev-den ev-ler-den (2) A perfectly transparent inflectional system would be: (a) completely agglutinative, clear morpheme breaks (b) semantically completely compositional (c) no homonymy (d) no portmanteau-morphemes (e) no “zero morphemes” (f) no allomorphy (except maybe purely phonological) (g) no declensions or conjugations: all words inflect alike Systems like (2) are rare, maybe nonexistent. (3) Why should non-transparent inflectional systems exist at all? Answer (Kiparsky 2005): Inflectional paradigms emerge as a by-product of the optimal pairing of morphosyntactic categories and lexical items. The transparent one-meaning-one-form mapping can be suboptimal for at least four reasons: • Blocking, e.g. went / *go-ed. • Category hierarchy, e.g. the German genitive plural [–lr, +pl] unifies with both -es:[–lr]and-e:[+pl] and blocking does not help. Solution: Central categories beat peripheral categories, here number beats case, e.g. Arm-e (*Arm-es). • Lack of space, e.g. *Arm-e-es with both [+pl]and[–lr] is ruled out because there is space for only one suffix. Note how this is different from went /*go-ed where both competitors satisfy the category description perfectly. • No such lexical item, e.g. the English lexicon contains no morphemes for [pres.1.sg], [1.sg], [sg], etc.