The Elamite Class Marker System Revisited

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Elamite Class Marker System Revisited The Elamite class marker system revisited Marc Bavant Introduction (1/2) There seems to exist nominal “class” markers in Elamite Noun-noun and noun-verb class agreement is used to perform various functions The descriptions of the Elamite class marker system ● Are not fully consistent with one another, ● Mix observation with conjecture Outline of the presentation ● Typical description sketch ● Class, person, Suffixaufnahme ● The alleged functions of class markers and the actual data ● Is the reconstructed system plausible? p. 2 Introduction (2/2) Main literature ● Grammatical sketches: Labat (1951), Windfuhr (2006), Stolper (2008) ● Detailed: Reiner (1969), Grillot-Susini (1987), Khačikjan (1998) ● Elamite sources: Quintana Cifuentes (2001), Hinz & Koch (1987) Important clues about the language ● Periodisation OE (IIIrd millenium), ME (IInd mill.), NE, AE (Ist mill.) ● Possible dialectal segmentation (Khačikjan 1998:3) ● The Dravidian hypothesis ● Babylonian and OP borrowings ➢ taayaušmi tarma aštu for OP dahyāušmaiy duruvā ahatiy ● Troubles with the writing system ➢ Homophony / polyphony of signs ➢ Many ways to cut a word into syllabic signs ➢ No word divider ➢ Reconstructions ➢ Alphabetisation system used here p. 3 Typical description sketch of Elamite p. 4 Typical description sketch of Elamite (1/8) Windfuhr (2006) ● “The fundamental determinant in both nominal and verbal morphology is the opposition between two genders: animate (person, human and divine), and inanimate (things, concepts). It is marked by personal pronouns, so-called classifiers, and a set of finite endings. Animate gender has three classes: first person (“locutive”); second person (“allocutive”); third person (“delocutive”), and distinguishes two numbers: singular and plural. The delocutive inanimate gender does not mark plural in either nouns or verbs.” Notice: there is no real case category, but... ● An embryonic accusative case for personal pronouns ● Several postpositions ● Development of a genitive case, esp. in AE p. 5 Typical description sketch of Elamite (2/8) Class markers Animate Inanimate ● “Class”: generic term to encompass 1 SG -k animacy, person, number (contrary to 2 SG -t Windfuhr) -me / -Ø ● -t and -n are dialectal (?) or historical 3 SG -r / -Ø (?) variants of -me PL -p Lexical function of class markers ● Agent and inhabitant nouns ➢ lipa- (serve) → lipa-r (servant, subject), lipa-p (servants) ➢ men (crown) → men-ir (sovereign) ➢ hinduš (India) → hinduš-p (Indians) ● Abstract nouns ➢ sunki- (king) → sunki-me (kingship) ➢ lipa- (serve) → lipa-me (service, servitude (Reiner)) p. 6 Typical description sketch of Elamite (3/8) Syntactic functions of class agreement ● Well attested in OE and ME, vestigial in later stages ● Attributive (or possessive) function ➢ men-ir (sovereign), Hatamti (Elam) → men-ir Hatamti-r ➢ nap-ir (god), riša- (great) → nap-ir riša-r (Reiner) ➢ taki-me (life), u (I) → taki-me u-me ➢ rutu (wife), hanik (beloved) → [ taki-me [ [ rutu hanik ] u ]-ri ]-me ➢ sunki- (king) → sunki-p sunki-me-p (Labat 1951, “les rois du royaume”) ● Appositive function ➢ u (I), sunki- (king) → u... sunki-k “I, king” (Reiner 1969:100) ➢ u sunki-k Anzan Šušun-ka “I, king of Anzan and Susa” (Windfuhr) ➢ sunki-r pit-ir aak tar-ir “the king, enemy or allied” ● Predicative function ➢ u (I), sunki- (king) → u... sunki-k “I am king” (Reiner 1969:95) ● And some possible others... p. 7 Typical description sketch of Elamite (4/8) Sketch of the verbal system ● Necessary to see how nominal classes interact with verbs ● Verbal categories ➢ Tense-aspect: imperfective / perfective No real tense, but past / non-past opposition linked with aspect Orthogonal with another opposition: “non-extended” / “extended” Uncertain value: aspectual or modal? ➢ Voice or agentivity? Action / state verbs Transitive / intransitive verbs Most scholars describe Conj. II as “passive” for transitive verbs IMO the existence of an agentive passive remains to be proved ➢ Moods: indicative, imperative (?), optative (suffix) Imperative 2SG/2PL** Identical with Conj. I (2SG or 3SG) Sometimes bare stem Prohibitive: anu + Conj. III Optative (precative) exists in Conj. I and II (perfective) p. 8 Typical description sketch of Elamite (5/8) Sketch of the verbal system (continued) Conj. I ● Forms 1 SG -h ➢ Verbal form proper (Conj. I) Specific verbal endings 2 SG -t Perfective (past), active 3 SG -š Animate subjects only (Malbran-Labat) 1 PL -hu < -h-h ? ➢ Nominal forms of the verb 2 PL -h-t “Past participle”: -k 3 PL -h-š Passive with transitive verbs “Present participle” or “gerund”: -n Passive (Grillot), non-oriented (Malbran- Conj. II Conj. III Labat), active (others) 1 SG -k-k > -k -n-k ➢ e Conjugated nominal forms (quasiverbal) t a 2 SG -k-t -n-t With noun class markers m i n 3 SG -k-r -n-r Conj. II: built upon past participle A Perfective (past) PL -k-p / -p -n-p Conj. III: built upon gerund Inanimate -k -n Imperfective (non-past) p. 9 Typical description sketch of Elamite (6/8) Sketch of the verbal system (continued) ● Forms (continued) ➢ Many details and conjectures make the picture more complex ➢ Extended forms Stem extended with a -ma- morpheme ● Noun-verb agreement ➢ Verb ending In Conj. I: represents the agent (A) or the intransitive subject (S) In Conj. II: represents the patient (O) or the intransitive subject (S) In Conj. III: represents A or S ➢ Resumptive pronouns Verb arguments are often referenced by a chain of pronouns placed just before the verb Something like: ap u in tunih “to-them I it gave” (Grillot, Stolper...) The pronouns are more or less fused phonetically (sandhi) Some scholars consider the last pronoun to be a verb prefix supposed to reference to A or S in Conj. II and III, whereas it is O in Conj. I Would result in a kind of bi-personal conjugation p. 10 Typical description sketch of Elamite (7/8) The verbal system: a non typical recap Conj. I Conj. II Conj. III Conj. IV Built upon Verb stem Past participle Present participle Infinitive Person endings Verbal Class markers Class markers Class markers (animate) (3rd pers. only) Person endings n.a. Ø Ø n.a. (inanimate) Tense-aspect Past perfective Past perfective Non-past imperfective Past perfective Moods rendered • Indicative • Indicative • Indicative • Indicative • Imperative • Precative (with -ni) • Prohibitive (with anu) • Precative (with -ni) Extensibility with -ma Yes Yes Yes ?? Suitable for verbs... • Transitive • Transitive • Transitive • Transitive • Intransitive of • Intransitive of • Intransitive of action? • ?? action action • Intransitive of state? • Intransitive of state Role of the person A / S O A / S A ending Role of the alleged O A / S A / S ? « prefix » Role of resumptive ir Animate O Pseudo-O of ? ? intransitive action Usable in main clause Yes Only if prohibitive, precative or negative Yes (Reiner) p. 11 Typical description sketch of Elamite (8/8) Elements of typological classification ● Ergative, active or nominative? ➢ Diakonoff (1967) classifies it as ergative Though without ergative case Opposition action vs state No direct object category No active vs passive voice opposition ➢ The qualificative “active” seems more appropriate today ➢ Khačikjan (1998) classifies it as “early nominative” Denies existence of action vs state opposition (contra her teacher) Admits relics of ergative and/or active type ● Constituent order ➢ Verb final: neither strictly SOV or OSV because extraposition of arguments and resumptive pronouns blur the picture ➢ But right-branching at the NP level p. 12 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme p. 13 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme (1/4) Is it sound to embed person within a class system? ● Reiner (1969:77) assimilates the Elamite class system to the gender systems of “languages which have several genders that control concord, such as many African languages” ● Noun class systems can be seen as an extension of gender ➢ Usual semantic criteria: Sex, animacy, personhood, ability to think, strength... Shape, vegetal, eatable... ➢ Agreement ➢ One noun belongs (usually) to one class*** ● In Elamite, each animate noun belongs potentially to 4 classes p. 14 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme (2/4) History of introducing person as a nominal category ● Scheil (1901) ➢ Interprets -k and -me as genitive case suffixes in šak šutruk-nahunte-ik “son of Šutruk-Nahunte” siyan pinikir-me “temple of Pinigir” ➢ What about the -k of sunki-k in sunki-k Anzan Šušun-ka ? ● Labat (1951) ➢ «Certains auteurs [e.g. Hüsing (1905)] ont supposé que -k exprimait l’indéterminé et -r le déterminé. Il est plus probable d’admettre que -k identifie la sphère du sujet parlant, alors que -r est l’indice de ce qui est extérieur à cette sphère : sunki-k (moi) le roi, sunki-r (toi, lui) le roi.» ● Reiner (1969) ➢ Introduces the terms locutive, allocutive, delocutive ➢ Does not make it clear what is the criterion for using person in nouns Sphere of the speaker?? Person of the subject (or topic)? “My beloved wife”: inside or outside the personal sphere of the speaker? p. 15 Class, person and Suffixaufnahme (3/4) Suffixaufnahme (Plank 1995) ● Windfuhr (2006) ➢ “Elamite is a head initial language and is characterized by Suffixaufnahme” ● Suffixaufnahme: what it means (in a nutshell) ➢ “In the palace of the king”: Without Suffixaufnahme: palace-LOC king-GEN With Suffixaufnahme: palace-LOC king-GEN-LOC (and variants) ➢ A morpheme from the head is repeated on the dependant It can be any noun category marker (case, gender or class, determinacy...) ● The
Recommended publications
  • An Analysis of Semantic and Syntactic Negation in Oshiwambo and English
    JULACE: Journal of University of Namibia Language Centre Volume 4, No. 2, 2019 (ISSN 2026-8297) An analysis of semantic and syntactic negation in Oshiwambo and English Immanuel N. Shatepa1 Namibia University of Science and Technology Abstract Negation in languages has been documented since the 1970s and 1980s. This paper attempts to explain the negation structures in semantic and syntactic structures of Oshiwambo and English languages. These two languages have two complete negation structures and how they function to achieve negation is far from being similar. The focus of the paper was on the analysis of the sentential negation and how negative particles are used in English and Oshiwambo, a Bantu language. It analyzes and compares the use of full negatives, affixes and quasi negative words to achieve negation in English and Oshiwambo language. The Oshiwambo and English texts/contents were purposely sampled and content analysis was performed accordingly. The analysis shows that Bantu languages share a common rule of negation which is the use of a pre- initial prefix while the rules to changing negative imperative to interrogative or declarative are different between English and Oshiwambo. Keywords: pre-initial, negation, marker, imperative, declarative, integrative, syntactic, semantic, Bantu Introduction A number of studies on negation of English and Bantu languages have been conducted by linguists. Studies by Kim and Sag (1995); Neba and Tanda (2005) and Weir (2013) show that negation differs from language to language. They further state highlighted that since every language has its own morphological and semantic components to express negation, one rule fits all simply does not work.
    [Show full text]
  • Classifiers: a Typology of Noun Categorization Edward J
    Western Washington University Western CEDAR Modern & Classical Languages Humanities 3-2002 Review of: Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Edward J. Vajda Western Washington University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/mcl_facpubs Part of the Modern Languages Commons Recommended Citation Vajda, Edward J., "Review of: Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization" (2002). Modern & Classical Languages. 35. https://cedar.wwu.edu/mcl_facpubs/35 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Humanities at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Modern & Classical Languages by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. J. Linguistics38 (2002), I37-172. ? 2002 CambridgeUniversity Press Printedin the United Kingdom REVIEWS J. Linguistics 38 (2002). DOI: Io.IOI7/So022226702211378 ? 2002 Cambridge University Press Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Classifiers: a typology of noun categorization devices.Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000. Pp. xxvi+ 535. Reviewedby EDWARDJ. VAJDA,Western Washington University This book offers a multifaceted,cross-linguistic survey of all types of grammaticaldevices used to categorizenouns. It representsan ambitious expansion beyond earlier studies dealing with individual aspects of this phenomenon, notably Corbett's (I99I) landmark monograph on noun classes(genders), Dixon's importantessay (I982) distinguishingnoun classes fromclassifiers, and Greenberg's(I972) seminalpaper on numeralclassifiers. Aikhenvald'sClassifiers exceeds them all in the number of languages it examines and in its breadth of typological inquiry. The full gamut of morphologicalpatterns used to classify nouns (or, more accurately,the referentsof nouns)is consideredholistically, with an eye towardcategorizing the categorizationdevices themselvesin terms of a comprehensiveframe- work.
    [Show full text]
  • Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras
    Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras To cite this version: Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras. Romani Syntactic Typology. Yaron Matras; Anton Tenser. The Palgrave Handbook of Romani Language and Linguistics, Springer, pp.187-227, 2020, 978-3-030-28104- 5. 10.1007/978-3-030-28105-2_7. halshs-02965238 HAL Id: halshs-02965238 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02965238 Submitted on 13 Oct 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Romani syntactic typology Evangelia Adamou and Yaron Matras 1. State of the art This chapter presents an overview of the principal syntactic-typological features of Romani dialects. It draws on the discussion in Matras (2002, chapter 7) while taking into consideration more recent studies. In particular, we draw on the wealth of morpho- syntactic data that have since become available via the Romani Morpho-Syntax (RMS) database.1 The RMS data are based on responses to the Romani Morpho-Syntax questionnaire recorded from Romani speaking communities across Europe and beyond. We try to take into account a representative sample. We also take into consideration data from free-speech recordings available in the RMS database and the Pangloss Collection.
    [Show full text]
  • In Ancient Egypt
    THE ROLE OF THE CHANTRESS ($MW IN ANCIENT EGYPT SUZANNE LYNN ONSTINE A thesis submined in confonnity with the requirements for the degm of Ph.D. Graduate Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civiliations University of Toronto %) Copyright by Suzanne Lynn Onstine (200 1) . ~bsPdhorbasgmadr~ exclusive liceacc aiiowhg the ' Nationai hiof hada to reproduce, loan, distnia sdl copies of this thesis in miaof#m, pspa or elccmnic f-. L'atm criucrve la propri&C du droit d'autear qui protcge cette thtse. Ni la thèse Y des extraits substrrntiets deceMne&iveatetreimprimCs ouraitnmcrtrepoduitssanssoai aut&ntiom The Role of the Chmaes (fm~in Ancient Emt A doctorai dissertacion by Suzanne Lynn On*, submitted to the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, 200 1. The specitic nanire of the tiUe Wytor "cimûes", which occurrPd fcom the Middle Kingdom onwatd is imsiigated thrwgh the use of a dalabase cataloging 861 woinen whheld the title. Sorting the &ta based on a variety of delails has yielded pattern regatding their cbnological and demographical distribution. The changes in rhe social status and numbers of wbmen wbo bore the Weindicale that the Egyptians perceivecl the role and ams of the titk âiffefcntiy thugh tirne. Infomiation an the tities of ihe chantressw' family memkrs bas ailowed the author to make iderences cawming llse social status of the mmen who heu the title "chanms". MiMid Kingdom tifle-holders wverc of modest backgrounds and were quite rare. Eighteenth DMasty women were of the highest ranking families. The number of wamen who held the titk was also comparatively smaii, Nimeenth Dynasty women came [rom more modesi backgrounds and were more nwnennis.
    [Show full text]
  • Polyvalent Case, Geometric Hierarchies, and Split Ergativity
    [For Jackie Bunting, Sapna Desai, Robert Peachey, Chris Straughn, and Zuzana Tomkova (eds.), (2006) Proceedings of the 42nd annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Chicago, Ill.] Polyvalent case, geometric hierarchies, and split ergativity JASON MERCHANT University of Chicago Prominence hierarchy effects such as the animacy hierarchy and definiteness hierarchy have been a puzzle for formal treatments of case since they were first described systematically in Silverstein 1976. Recently, these effects have received more sustained attention from generative linguists, who have sought to capture them in treatments grounded in well-understood mechanisms for case assignment cross-linguistically. These efforts have taken two broad directions. In the first, Aissen 1999, 2003 has integrated the effects elegantly into a competition model of grammar using OT formalisms, where iconicity effects emerge from constraint conjunctions between constraints on fixed universal hierarchies (definiteness, animacy, person, grammatical role) and a constraint banning overt morphological expression of case. The second direction grows out of the work of Jelinek and Diesing, and is found most articulated in Jelinek 1993, Jelinek and Carnie 2003, and Carnie 2005. This work takes as its starting point the observation that word order is sometimes correlated with the hierarchies as well, and works backwards from that to conclusions about phrase structure geometries. In this paper, I propose a particular implementation of this latter direction, and explore its consequences for our understanding of the nature of case assignment. If hierarchy effects are due to positional differences in phrase structures, then, I argue, the attested cross-linguistic differences fall most naturally out if the grammars of these languages countenance polyvalent case—that is, assignment of more than one case value to a single nominal phrase.
    [Show full text]
  • Genitive Constructions in Coptic Barbara Egedi
    Genitive constructions in Coptic Barbara Egedi 1. Introduction 1.1. Definition of ‘Coptic’ Coptic is the language of Christian Egypt (4th to 14th century) written in a specific version of the Greek alphabet. It was gradually superseded by Ara- bic from the ninth century onward, but it survived to the present time as the liturgical language of the Christian church of Egypt. In this paper I examine only one of its main dialects, the Sahidic Coptic and I use a transcription which simply reflects the Coptic letters irrespectively of phonological de- tails.1 1.2. UG in the reconstruction of dead languages Natural languages are claimed to have universal properties or principles which constitute what is referred to as Universal Grammar. Accepting cer- tain universal principles and observing the corresponding parameters in Coptic, we can also analyse a language without living native speakers, and explain its structural relations with the help of coherent models. For example, it is considered a universal principle that the projections of lexical heads are extended by one or more functional projections. If we assume that it can be demonstrated in many languages, why could not we suppose the same in the case of Coptic? Indeed, as it will be shown in chap- ter 4, there are at least two functional projections above Coptic lexical noun phrase as well. The aim of this paper is to provide an adequate account of the basic structure of the Coptic NP within the theoretical framework of the Mini- malist Program (a short summary of which will be found in the following section); at the same time, I intend to find the answer to unsolved questions related to genitive constructions.
    [Show full text]
  • Morphological Classes and Gender in Ɓəna-Yungur
    Morphological classes and gender in əna-Yungur Mark van de Velde, Dmitry Idiatov To cite this version: Mark van de Velde, Dmitry Idiatov. Morphological classes and gender in əna-Yungur. Shigeki Kaji. Proceedings of the 8th World Congress of African Linguistics, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, pp.53-65, 2017. halshs-01484016 HAL Id: halshs-01484016 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01484016 Submitted on 6 Mar 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Morphological classes and gender in Ɓə́ná-Yungur Mark Van de Velde1,2 & Dmitry Idiatov1,2 1Llacan (UMR 8135 CNRS – USPC/Inalco), Paris, France 2Research Centre for Nigerian Languages, KWASU, Malete, Nigeria Abstract This paper provides an analysis of the gender system of Ɓə́ná-Yungur (glottocode: bena1260), distinguishing noun classes proper, defined as agreement classes, from morphological classes, defined in terms of number marking on nouns. The gender system is typologically unusual in its symmetry and simplicity. Ɓə́ná-Yungur has three noun classes in the singular and the same three classes in the plural. All logically possible singular-plural pairings are attested, except one.
    [Show full text]
  • Grammatical Categories and Word Classes Pdf
    Grammatical categories and word classes pdf Continue 목차 qualities and phrases about qualities and dalakhin scared qualities are afraid of both hard long only the same, identical adjectives and common adverbs phrases and common adverbs comparison and believe adverbs class sayings of place and movement outside away and away from returning inside outside close up the shifts of time and frequency easily confused the words above or more? Across, over or through? Advice or advice? Affect or affect? Every mother of every? Every mother wholly? Allow, allow or allow? Almost or almost? Single, lonely, alone? Along or side by side? Already, still or yet? Also, as well as or too? Alternative (ly), alternative (ly) though or though? Everything or together? Amount, number or quantity? Any more or any more? Anyone, anyone or anything? Apart from or with the exception? arise or rise? About or round? Stir or provoke? As or like? Because or since then? When or when? Did she go or she?. Start or start? Next to or next? Between or between? Born or endured? Bring, take and bring can, can or may? Classic or classic? Come or go? Looking or looking? Make up, compose or compose? Content or content? Different from or different from or different from? Do you do or make? Down or down or down? During or for? All or all? East or East; North or North? Economic or economic? Efficient or effective? Older, older or older, older? The end or the end? Private or specific? Every one or everybody? Except or with exception? Expect, hope or wait? An experience or an experiment? Fall or fall? Far or far? Farther, farther or farther, farther? Farther (but not farther) fast, fast or fast? Fell or did you feel? Female or female; male or male? Finally, finally, finally or finally? First, first or at first? Fit or suit? Next or next? For mother since then? Forget or leave? Full or full? Funny or funny? Do you go or go? Grateful or thankful? Listen or listen (to)? High or long? Historical or historical? A house or a house? How is he...? Or what is ..
    [Show full text]
  • Basic Linguistic Theory, 2
    Basic Linguistic Theory 2 Basic Linguistic Theory R. M. W. Dixon The three volumes of Basic Linguistic Theory provide a new and fundamental characterization of the nature of human languages and a comprehensive guide to their description and analysis. The first volume addresses the methodology for recording, analysing, and comparing languages. Volume 3 (which will be published in 2011) examine and explain every underlying principle of gram- matical organization and consider how and why grammars vary. Volume 1 Methodology Volume 2 Grammatical Topics Volume 3 Further Grammatical Topics (in preparation) AcompletelistofR.M.W.Dixon’sbooksmaybefoundonpp.488–9 Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 2 Grammatical Topics R. M. W. DIXON The Cairns Institute James Cook University 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ©R.M.W.Dixon2010 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization.
    [Show full text]
  • 0 German Noun Class As a Nominal Protection Device Richard Futrell
    German Noun Class as a Nominal Protection Device Richard Futrell Undergraduate Honors Thesis Stanford University, Department of Linguistics May 2010 ____________________________________ Faculty advisor: Dan Jurafsky ____________________________________ Second reader: Michael Ramscar 0 Gretchen: Wilhelm, where is the turnip? Wilhelm: She has gone to the kitchen. Gretchen: Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? Wilhelm: It has gone to the opera. - Mark Twain, ―The Awful German Language‖ 1. Introduction Grammatical gender, also known as noun class, afflicts about half of the world's languages. Speakers of these languages must mark each noun for its membership in a certain noun class, and must similarly mark elements such as adjectives or verbs that agree with the noun. In over half of these cases, the choice of gender for a noun has no comprehensive systematic relationship to the meaning of the nouns (Corbett 2008), posing a significant obstacle for L2 learners (Harley 1979, Tucker et al. 1968: 312). Some have taken grammatical gender to be superfluous: for instance, Maratsos (1979: 235) calls the existence of such a system ―excellent testimony to the occasional nonsensibleness of the species.‖ A number of researchers have nonetheless defended noun class against the accusation of uselessness, and I will take up that cause in this paper. I will examine the gender system of Standard German with an eye toward detecting function. I claim that noun class serves as a sort of ‗Nominal Protection Device,‘ alleviating the linguistic difficulties inherent in nouns by reducing uncertainty about nouns. Noun class markers help language users predict nouns in a number of ways: they predict the form of the noun, they predict the semantics of the noun, and they predict 1 which discourse referent a pronoun points to in reference tracking (in the sense of Barlow 1992).
    [Show full text]
  • The Noun Class System Of
    UNIVERSITY OF YAOUNDE !! <f:.,;+ e.>, " PA, FACULTY OF LETTERS DEPARTMENT OF 'AFRICIAN AND SOCIAL SCIENCES LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS THE NOUN CLASS SYSTEM OF A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of a Post-Graduate Diploma (Maitrise) in Linguistics BY Irene Swiri ASOBO 8. A. Modern Lefters Supervised by Dr. CarL EBOBISSE (Char@ de cours) September 1989 i Dedicated to my parents, bro-them and sisters, with all my love. C. ACKIIOKLEGEMENT I must acknowledge special indebtedness to my supervisor Dr. Cor1 EBOBISSE for his invaluable contribu- tion ot the realisation of this dissertation. His inde- fatigable patience criticisms and unswerving dcvotion were encouraging especially when I was doubting and discouraged. Llithout his potient guidance this work would not have been acheived. My heortfelt'gratitu8e to fioffessor B.S. Chumbow who assisted and advised me during the writing of this work. My special thanks also goes to Dr. Chia Emmanuel otic? 011 my lecturers who were a source of unwmering support to me. Great thankfulness to my parents Prince snii Mrs V.T. ASOBO for the moral and financial ai& they showered on me. I will like to gratefully 3cknowledge Evclyne Monikang for the wonderful and ucfziling encouragomcnt she gnvc me. She was always a pillar to 1em on. Sincere thanks to 311 my classmates whose camoroderie wc?s a11 T neef-ed to spur me on. All. my friends especially Walters Abie who was always ready to help, Po-po who never stopped to say go on and Dora Mbola for being there when I needed her.
    [Show full text]
  • Bernard Koziróg Współczesne KRAJE BIBLIJNE W Starożytności
    Współczesne KRAJE BIBLIJNE w starożytności Bernard Koziróg Współczesne KRAJE BIBLIJNE w starożytności York University 2015 Recenzent: Prof. zw. dr hab. Wojciech Słomski Redaktor wydania polskiego: Dr Karol Grant-Skiba Redaktor techniczny: Marek Rusek Zdjęcia: Bernard Koziróg Skład i łamanie: Ryszard Augustyn © Copyright 2015 by Bernard Koziróg ISBN 978-83-62161-13-3 Wydawca: York University www.yorkuniversity.us 2015 tel.:Druk: 46 857 13 54 e-mail: [email protected] Podziękowanie Pragnę podziękować wszystkim, którzy pomogli w wydaniu książki. Są to (w kolejności alfabetycznej): Dr Simon Far-Joan Dr Akiva Fradkin Dr Karol Grant-Skiba, Dr Marek Grzelewski, Fundacja „Źródła Życia”, Dr Vladimir Kuryakov Prof. Wojciech Słomski, Red. Marek Rusek Książkę dedykuję mojemu Aniołowi, który uratował mi życie Od Wydawcy 7 Od Wydawcy It is a great pleasure for me to introduce new book written by professor Bernard Kozirog, with whom we have a long and fruitful history of our coo- peration on educational and business issues. First of all, York University’s president and staff would like to congratula- te Prof. Bernard Kozirog on publishing the following book and we are wis- hing every success for its first and next editions. The book is based upon the intellectual development and the long, thri- ving academic career of the author, who is well known in Poland. The readers of the following academic, history book will definitely find it both interesting and accurate, as it is a fruit of a long lasting research in that field. Prof. Kozirog has been a university professor and a loyal permanent partner of York University within the Eastern Europe division.
    [Show full text]