5. Tsl.116.12Hook-Pardeshi-2017
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John Benjamins Publishing Company This is a contribution from Noun-Modifying Clause Constructions in Languages of Eurasia. Rethinking theoretical and geographical boundaries. Edited by Yoshiko Matsumoto, Bernard Comrie and Peter Sells. © 2017. John Benjamins Publishing Company This electronic file may not be altered in any way. The author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF file to generate printed copies to be used by way of offprints, for their personal use only. Permission is granted by the publishers to post this file on a closed server which is accessible to members (students and staff) only of the author’s/s’ institute, it is not permitted to post this PDF on the open internet. For any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com). Please contact [email protected] or consult our website: www.benjamins.com Tables of Contents, abstracts and guidelines are available at www.benjamins.com Chapter 11 Noun-modifying constructions in Marathi Peter Edwin Hook and Prashant Pardeshi University of Michigan/University of Virginia / National Institute for Japanese Language & Linguistics We provide a detailed description of the types of noun-modifying constructions in Marathi whose counterparts in Japanese are considered to be structurally comparable. We show that in Marathi, while one type of relative construction and one type of noun-complement clause are formally distinct, there are other types that are identical in form, as in Japanese. Furthermore, the same noun- modifying construction in Marathi has yet other functions (among them are “gapless” relativization and disembedded or insubordinate predication) that are characteristic of their counterparts in Japanese. The data reported in our chapter is taken from published and online sources. Keywords: Marathi, prenominal, participle, gapless, NPAH 1. Introduction Human languages abound with structurally complex expressions for modifying a noun: infinitival structures (pizzas [to go]), relative constructions (the boy [to whom the girl gave a kiss yesterday]), and noun complement clauses (the news [that the prime minister has resigned]). The latter two types of noun-modifying con- structions (NMCs hereafter) are formally distinct in English: the former of the two often involves a relative pronoun (whom) coreferential with the modifiee boy while the latter contains a complementizer (that) in the clause modifying the noun news. These NMCs, especially relativizing NMCs, have received a great deal of attention in cross-linguistic analysis. Keenan and Comrie’s (1977) discovery and elaboration of the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy has played a seminal role in ordering disparate data about what is expressible in which kinds of relative con- structions into a coherent (and testable) scale. In comparative studies of NMCs in Japanese and English Kuno (1973: 235–7) and Matsumoto (1988) argue that the analysis of relativizing NMCs in English doi 10.1075/tsl.116.12hoo © 2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company 294 Peter Edwin Hook and Prashant Pardeshi does not straight-forwardly apply to their functional counterparts in Japanese. According to them, Japanese noun-modifying constructions differ in structure from those in English in that they do not involve a syntactic mechanism of extrac- tion of the head-noun from the (underlying) modifying expression, but are rather a simple juxtaposition of a modifying phrase and modified noun. The relationship between the two is determined by semantic and pragmatic factors.1 Endorsing Matsumoto’s analysis, Comrie (1998a, 1998b) has proposed that many languages of the world can be classified either as English-type or Japanese- type. [Comrie and Horie (1995) argue that Khmer belongs to the Japanese-type.] The English-type, requiring the syntactic mechanism of extraction, is subject to syntactic constraints on what can be extracted. The Japanese-type does not in- volve extraction and hence there are no syntactically definable constraints on the relation between the NMC and its modifiee. The Japanese-type is an amalgam of a clause with a noun and the interpretation of the relation between the two is con- ditioned and constrained by semantic and pragmatic factors. Based on non-stan- dard English data, Comrie (1996) suggests that the Japanese type and the English type can co-exist within a single language. It is within this context that our chapter intends to provide a detailed descrip- tion of those types of noun-modifying constructions in Marathi whose counter- parts in Japanese are considered to be structurally comparable.2 We show that in Marathi, while one type of relative construction and one type of noun-complement clause are formally distinct, there are other types that, as in Japanese, are identical in form. Furthermore, the same noun-modifying construction in Marathi has yet other functions (among them are “gapless”3 relativization and disembedded or in- subordinate predication) that are characteristic of their counterparts in Japanese. 1. For discussion of Japanese see Teramura (1969), Matsumoto (1988), Matsumoto et al. this volume. 2. In the editors’ introduction to this volume what we refer to as “noun-modifying construc- tions” (NMCs) or elsewhere as “prenominal participial phrases” (PPPs), see Hook & Pardeshi (2013), are termed “general noun modifying clause constructions (GNMCCs)”. On the clausal analysis of such modifying expressions linguists differ: some identify them as clauses (Matsumoto and some others in this volume), while others analyze them as nominalized enti- ties which lack some crucial properties of both full clauses and matrix sentences (cf. Shibatani 2009). Yet other views are put forward in Whitman (2013). We will not enter into a debate on the theoretical status of Marathi’s “noun modifying constructions”, but rather confine ourselves to detailed description and exemplification of their functions. 3. The terms “gap” and “gapless” are used in this chapter as convenient abbreviations and are not to be taken as technical terms in senses that they may have in various formal or generative schools of grammar. © 2017. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 11. Noun-modifying constructions in Marathi 295 2. Noun-modifying constructions (NMCs) in Marathi Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the state of Maharashtra, India. Using figures from the 2011 census of India we estimate the number of speakers to be over 82 million. In SOV Marathi postpositions are the rule, modi- fiers precede modified elements, and auxiliaries follow main verbs. The Marathi data presented in this chapter, mined from internet sources, has when necessary been supplemented with native speaker coinages provided by the second author. We discuss two kinds of the prenominal participial NMC, two kinds of its relative- corelative counterpart, the so-called “fused” relatives, two kinds of gapless rela- tives, two noun-complement or fact-S constructions, and some other functions of the participial NMC. 2.1 Relativizing NMCs Relativizing NMCs in Marathi come in three varieties.4 Two of them contain a “gap” in the position of the noun relativized [the so-called “gap” strategy, (1b–c) and (1d)], while the other contains the head noun or a coreferential pronoun in the modifying element [the so-called “non-reduction” strategy or “relative-corel- ative” construction, (1e) and (1f)].5 The second “gap” type (1d) combines features of both (1b–c) and (1e): (1) a. bas čālak-ā-ne dāru pyāy.l-i bus driver-Obl-Erg liquor(F) drank-Fsg ‘The bus driver drank liquor.’ b. [[Ø 6 dāru pyāy-lel-ā] bas čālak] liquor drink-PstPart-Msg bus driver ‘the bus driver who drank liquor…’ c. [[Ø dāru pi-ṇār-ā] bas čālak] liquor drink-PresPart-Msg bus driver ‘the bus driver who drinks liquor…’ 4. See Pandharipande (1997: 76–103) and Dhongde & Wali (2009: 209–30) for general over- views and Junghare (1973) and Kelkar (1973) for a more specific discussion. 5. For two other kinds of gapping NMC (ye.ta varṣ ‘coming year’; ge.la varṣ ‘gone = past year’) cf § 2.4. 6. We use the symbol “Ø” informally to mark the most likely position of the head noun in the most closely corresponding main clause. Such correspondences are to be regarded as conjec- tures or “best guesses”. © 2017. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 296 Peter Edwin Hook and Prashant Pardeshi d. [[Ø dāru pyāy.l-i] to bas čālak] liquor drank-Fsg Corel bus driver ‘the bus driver who drank liquor…’ [see § 2.5] e. [[jyā (bas. čālak-ā)-ne dāru pyāy.l-i] to (bas čālak)] Rel.Obl (bus driver-Obl)-Erg liquor drank-Fsg Corel (bus driver) ‘the bus driver who drank liquor…’ f. [to bas čālak [jyā *(bas čālak-ā)-ne dāru pyāy.l-i]] Corel bus driver Rel *(bus driver-Obl)-Erg liquor drank-Fsg ‘the bus driver who drank liquor…’ The “relative-corelative” type of relativizing construction [(1e) and (1f) above], structurally quite different from the gapping types (1b–d), is described only cur- sorily in this chapter since it has already received a good deal of attention in the South Asianist literature (Davison 2009; Masica 1972), whereas the gap types are the ones that more closely resemble their Japanese counterpart, the primary focus and reference point of this volume.7 We agree with Pandharipande (1997: 76) who observes that the prenominal gap type NMC is preferred to the relative-corelative. Among the gapping types, (1b–c) are the most common. However, a small-scale investigation of prose materials available on the internet reveals that for certain relationships [for instance, those involving quantity, time, or manner] the relative- corelative type of construction is more common, even in the contemporary lan- guage. Moreover, earlier texts show a marked preference for the relative-corelative construction for all positions on the NPAH. A more comprehensive survey is needed if we are to draw conclusions with confidence about the relative frequency of these two types of construction across genres and eras.