University of Tromsø Uit Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics (Castl)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
UNIVERSITY OF TROMSØ UIT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND EDUCATION CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDY IN THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS (CASTL) The Norwegian Nominal System – A Neo-Saussurean Perspective Madeleine Halmøy A dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor February 2010 The Norwegian Nominal System – A Neo-Saussurean Perspective Madeleine Halmøy Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, University of Tromsø, February 2010 Til Erlend Tore Nesset and Denis Bouchard – Denis Bouchard and Tore Nesset, for your untiring corrections, pertinent comments and well placed commas, for your thorough answers, your valuable insights and your different wisdom, for your availability, generosity, encouragements, patience and support, for listening to me, for helping me express what I want, for making me feel welcome to your offices and worthy of your time and interest – I am forever thankful. Without your excellent theory, Denis, this work would never have been conceived, and without your professional nurturing and insisting confidence, Tore, it would never have been born. You are both terrific role models in the way you conduct your own research as well as in the way you treat and respect your students. I have truly been twice as lucky as any PhD.-student possibly could be. I also want to thank my colleagues at CASTL for an inspiring social and intellectual environment – especially all my fellow PhD. students over the years – as well as the administrations at CASTL, at the Faculty of Humanities and at the University of Tromsø for providing excellent working conditions.* I spent two years as a visiting student with Denis Bouchard at Département de Linguistique et de Didactique de Langue at UQAM, Montréal, and thank everybody there for welcoming me. Finally yet importantly, I thank my dear family – mamma Odile, pappa Einar, bror Egil and min aller kjæreste søster, Anne – for their love and support. The strengths of this thesis owe much to others; the shortcomings are mine alone. Madeleine Halmøy, February 2010 * As promised, I reserve special thank yous to my dear friends and collegues who helped me move last week; Björn and Gillian, Kristine and Peter, Christine and Lars, Marleen, Rosmin, Øystein (det er tanken som teller) and Martin (for at innspurten ble god, for ræmfliring i kaoset og kaos i ræmfliringa). For having more important things to do that day, Kaori and Helene! Contents LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 11 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 13 CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL, EMPIRICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS 15 2.1 THEORY: SIGNIFIÉ/SIGNIFIANT 18 2.1.1 ARBITRARINESS AND CONVENTIONS 18 2.1.2 SAUSSURE AND SYNTAX: LINEARITY, LIMITATIONS OF ARBITRARINESS 21 2.1.3 NEO-SAUSSUREAN SYNTAX 24 2.1.4 SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS 27 2.2 THE OBJECT OF STUDY: SYNCHRONY/DIACHRONY AND LANGUE/PAROLE 30 2.2.1 SYNCHRONY/DIACHRONY 30 2.2.2 DELIMITING THE OBJECT OF STUDY IN TIME AND SPACE 31 2.2.3 LANGAGE, LANGUE, PAROLE 31 2.2.4 FURTHER DELIMITING THE OBJECT OF STUDY – THE NORWEGIAN NOMINAL SYSTEM 33 2.3 METHODOLOGY 35 2.3.1 SYNTAGMATIC VS. PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS, VALUE AND SIGNIFICATION 35 2.3.2 THE CONTRASTIVE VIEW 38 2.3.3 THE CONCRETE DATA 39 2.4 NEO-SAUSSUREAN GRAMMAR VS. OTHER CURRENT THEORIES 41 2.4.1 NEO-SAUSSUREAN VS. GENERATIVE GRAMMAR 41 2.4.2 NEO-SAUSSUREAN VS. COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS 43 2.4.3 SUMMARY 44 2.5 CLOSING THE CHAPTER 45 CHAPTER 3 NORWEGIAN NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES 46 3.1 NORWEGIAN NOUNS 47 3.2 THE NORWEGIAN DEFINITE FORMS 51 3.2.1 DISTRIBUTION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE DEFINITE FORMS – DEFINITENESS AS IDENTIFIABILITY 52 3.2.2 “MISSING OR ZERO POSSESSIVES” 55 3.3 THE NORWEGIAN INDEFINITE PLURAL 57 3.3.1 SENTENTIAL DISTRIBUTION AND INTERPRETATIONS OF THE INDEFINITE PLURAL 57 3.3.2 PHRASAL DISTRIBUTION 58 3.3.3 REFERENCE TO KINDS FROM A NORWEGIAN PERSPECTIVE 61 3.3.3.1 Norwegian Indefinite Plurals as a diagnostic for kind reference 62 3.3.3.2 Number and the English Bare Plural, Bouchard (2002) 65 3.3.3.3 (Sentential) Interpretations of the Norwegian Indefinite Plural 68 3.3.3.4 Reference to kinds in Norwegian 69 3.3.3.5 Summary - kinds 71 3.3.4 NON-DEFINITE PLURALS IN DANISH AND SWEDISH 71 3.3.5 SUMMARY: NORWEGIAN INDEFINITE PLURALS 73 3.4 THE NORWEGIAN BARE NOUN 74 3.4.1 NORWEGIAN AND FRENCH – NOMINAL PREDICATION (AND LONE DETERMINERS) 75 3.4.2 NORWEGIAN VS. ENGLISH – UNIQUENESS, INTENTIONALITY, MASSIVENESS 78 3.4.3 IDIOSYNCRATICALLY NORWEGIAN – TYPE READINGS 80 3.4.3.1 Norwegian Bare Nouns, Number and Definiteness 81 3.4.3.2 Norwegian Bare Nouns are Numberable 84 3.4.3.3 Norwegian Nouns and Agreement 86 3.4.3.4 General Number and Subject-Tense Agreement 89 3.5 VALUE AND INTERPRETATIONS OF NORWEGIAN NOUNS 91 3.6 SOME REMARKS AND SPECULATIONS ON VARIATION. 94 3.7 A NOTE ON GRAMMAR AND ONTOLOGY 96 3.8 CLOSING NORWEGIAN NOUNS 98 3.9 NORWEGIAN ADJECTIVES 99 3.9.1 POSITIVE ADJECTIVES – ATTRIBUTIVE USE 101 3.9.2 POSITIVE ADJECTIVES – PRONOMINAL USE 103 3.9.2.1 Pronominal use of the Singular Indefinite Adjectives 105 3.9.2.2 Pronominal use of –e adjectives 107 3.9.2.3 Closing 110 3.9.3 PREDICATIVE USE: AN APPARENT PROBLEM – THE WEAK/STRONG DISTINCTION 111 3.9.4 OVER- AND UNDER-DIFFERENTIATED PARADIGMS – FEATURAL COMPOSITION REVISITED 115 3.9.5 COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVES 118 3.9.6 CLOSING NORWEGIAN ADJECTIVES 125 3.10 A WELCOME CONSEQUENCE – ECONOMIC FEATURAL DISTRIBUTION IN ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVE-NOUN COMBINATIONS 127 CHAPTER 4 NOMINAL FUNCTION WORDS 129 4.1 ON FUNCTION WORDS AND WORD CLASSES 131 4.2 PERSONAL PRONOUNS 133 4.3 QUANTIFIERS 137 4.3.1 THE EN-SERIES 137 4.3.1.1 The semantics of the en-series 137 4.3.1.2 En, ei, et and (de)accentuation 141 4.3.1.3 Special interpretation of en – with a note on man 143 4.3.1.4 Summing up 144 4.3.2 NOEN AND NOE 145 4.3.2.1 The core meaning of noe(n) 146 4.3.2.2 Additional features of noe(n) 149 4.3.2.3 Special interpretations of noe(n) 154 4.3.2.4 Summary 155 4.3.3 NORWEGIAN ALL QUANTIFIERS 156 4.3.3.1 All, alt, alle 156 4.3.3.2 Other all quantifiers 160 4.4 THE DEMONSTRATIVES DEN, DET, DE 163 4.4.1 CORE SEMANTIC OF DET, DEN, DE 164 4.4.2 DISTRIBUTION AND ADDITIONAL SEMANTICS OF DEN, DET, DE 165 4.4.3 OTHER INTERPRETATIONS 166 4.4.4 SPECIAL USES OF DET 167 4.4.5 SUMMARY DEMONSTRATIVES 168 4.5 CONCLUSION 169 CHAPTER 5 SYNTAX – COMBINATORIAL SIGNS AND SYNTACTICALLY COMPLEX SIGNS 170 5.1 THE SIGN THEORY OF SYNTAX: COMBINATORIAL SIGNS 171 5.1.1 SYNTAX AS COMBINATORIAL SIGNS 171 5.1.2 THE MEANING OF COMBINATORIAL SIGNS 173 5.1.3 THE FORM OF COMBINATORIAL SIGNS 175 5.2 JUXTAPOSITION AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF POSSESSIVES AND ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVES 178 5.2.1 THE HEAD-PARAMETER 178 5.2.2 PRONOMINAL POSSESSION 179 5.2.3 DISTRIBUTION OF ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVES 183 5.2.4 AGREEMENT AND UNGRAMMATICALITY: CONVENTION VS. CONCEPTUAL INCOMPATIBILITY 186 5.2.5 DEPENDENT MARKING 189 5.3 SUPERIMPOSITION AND ADJECTIVAL MODIFICATION 191 5.3.1 DEFINITE ADJECTIVAL COMBINATIONS AND DEACCENTUATE 191 5.3.1.1 The role of the demonstrative in the Default Definite Adjectival Construction 193 5.3.1.2 Norwegian vs. Danish 194 5.3.1.3 Definite vs. Deixis 195 5.3.1.4 The sign deaccentuation/-CONTRAST 197 5.3.1.5 Restrictive vs. Descriptive Interpretations of the Default Construction 200 5.3.1.6 Adjectival modification of non-definite NPs 202 5.3.1.7 Closing Remarks 204 5.3.2 INTENSIFYING NOUN PHRASES 205 5.3.2.1 A description of Intensifying Noun Phrases 205 5.3.2.2 The Formal representation of Intensifying Noun Phrases 207 5.3.2.3 Closing Remarks: Prosody and Iconicity 208 5.3.3 OMISSIONS OF THE DEFINITE SUFFIXES 209 5.3.3.1 Omission of definite suffixes in adjectival constructions 210 5.3.3.2 Demonstratives, relative clauses and (in)definiteness 213 5.3.3.3 Def. vs. non-def. after all-quantifiers 216 5.3.3.4 Summary 217 5.3.4 ABSENCE OF THE DEMONSTRATIVE 218 5.3.4.1 Restrictive definite adjectival constructions 218 5.3.4.2 Constructions that require absence of the demonstrative 219 5.3.4.3 Emotive Adjectival Construction 221 5.3.4.4 Vocatives and the Emotive Construction 223 5.4 SUMMARY SUPERIMPOSITION AND ADJECTIVAL MODIFICATION 225 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 226 REFERENCES 233 LISTS OF TABLES, FIGURES AND DEFINITIONS 241 List of abbreviations CG common gender DEF definite DEIX deixis F feminine GN general number INDEF indefinite M masculine N neuter PL plural SG singular 11 Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction The purpose of this thesis is twofold. On the one hand, I wish to test the Neo- saussurean framework as it is presented by Bouchard (1995, 2002, forthcoming) against Norwegian data. An equally important goal, however, is to provide new insight about the Norwegian Nominal System. The investigation also has a contrastive focus, with English, French and the other Mainland Scandinavian Languages as the main languages of comparison. One of the major contributions of the thesis is the demonstration that the Neo- saussurean theory actually works and is adequate for dealing with, and understanding, the intricate relationship between form, meaning and interpretation in the Norwegian Nominal System.