3/9/2015

LNGT 0250 Assignments and Syntax • Average score on Homework #2: 23¼/25. • Media: 24/25.

• Tree drawing on homework 3. http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/

• Project groups: Short questionnaire due on Lecture #9 Wednesday. March 9th, 2015

Transition from last class Case and systems

• creates forms from a lexeme. • Nominative‐accusative languages vs. ergative‐ absolutive languages. • Categories for nominal inflection: Number, person, gender/class, and case. • Japanese vs. Greenlandic.

• Categories for verbal inflection: Tense, aspect, voice, and mood/modality.

Japanese: a nominative‐accusative language Greenlandic: an ergative‐absolutive language

John‐ga Mary‐ni hon‐o yatta a. Juuna‐p atuaga‐q miiqa‐nut nassiuppaa JOHN‐NOM Mary‐DAT book‐ACC gave Juuna‐CM book‐CM child‐CM send “John gave Mary a book.” “Juuna sent a book to the children.” b. atuaga‐q tikissimanngilaq John‐ga Kobe‐ni itta book‐CM hasn’t come John‐NOM Kobe‐to went “A book hasn’t come yet.” “John went to Kobe.” (CM = case marker)

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Case and Agreement systems Eastern Pomo • Some languages may have a “split” system, Xá:su:là wí ko:khóya Há: mí:pal śá:ka where they use nominative‐accusative in rattlesnake 1sg bit 1sg him killed some contexts, and ergative‐absolutive in “A rattlesnake bit me.” “I killed him.” others. • Split systems may be based on Wí qa:láma Há: xá:qkákki ‐ Whether a predicate is stative or active (as 1sg sick 1sg bathe in Eastern Pomo), or on “I got sick.” “I bathed. ‐ Tense and aspect (as in Georgian)

Verbal inflectional categories Georgian

Student-i midis Student-i ceril-s cers • Tense student-CM goes student-CM letter-CM writes • “The student goes.” “The student writes the letter.” Aspect • Mood and Modality Student-i mivida Student-ma ceril-i dacera student-CM went student-CM letter-CM wrote “The student went.” “The student wrote the letter.”

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Tense Tense

• Tense can be defined as a relation of event • English:

time to speech time. a. I workØ. (present) • The main distinctions are between past and b. I worked. (past) non‐past, or future and non‐future, though c. I will work. (future) some languages will have finer‐grained • Lithuanian: distinctions within “past” or “future”. a. dirb‐u “I work” b. dirb‐au “I worked” c. dirb‐siu “I will work”

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Tense Chibemba past tense system

a. Remote past (before yesterday): • Chibemba (Bantu) changes the verb to Ba‐àlí‐bomb‐ele “they worked” indicate if the event took place before b. Removed past (yesterday): yesterday, yesterday, earlier today, or if it just Ba‐àlíí‐bomba “they worked” happened. And it has a similarly fine‐grained c. Near past (earlier today): scale for future as well. Ba‐àcí‐bomba “they worked” d. Immediate past (just happened): Ba‐á‐bomba “they worked”

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Chibemba future tense system Aspect

a. Immediate future (very soon): • Aspect has to do with the internal temporal structure Ba‐áláá‐bomba “they’ll work” of an event, e.g., whether it is temporally bounded b. Near future (later today): or not. Ba‐léé‐bomba “they’ll work” Perfective aspect: “He wrote three letters.” c. Removed future (tomorrow): Imperfective (or habitual) aspect: “He writes letters.” Ba‐kà‐bomba “they’ll work” Progressive aspect: “He is writing letters.” d. Remote future (after tomorrow): Ba‐ká‐bomba “they’ll work”

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Aspect Mood and Modality

• Some languages like Egyptian express aspect by means of verbal affixes: • Mood and modality typically refer to a Egyptian Arabic: katab “he wrote” grammatical category through which speakers bi‐yiktib “he is writing” of a language indicate whether they believe • Other languages like Finnish use case‐marking that an event or a state actually occurs, does (accusative vs. partitive) to signal aspect: not occur, or has the potential to occur. Hän luki kirjanACC “He read the book.”

Hän luki kirjaaPART “He was reading the book.”

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Mood Modality

• Indicative mood asserts the truth of a • Modality is typically used with regard to speakers’ proposition, e.g., “It is raining.” expression of degrees of obligation/desire (deontic), • Subjunctive mood typically indicates an or degrees of possibility (epistemic) regarding an attitude of uncertainty on the part of the event. speaker or a hypothetical situation, e.g., “It is John must come tomorrow. essential that it rain.” We really should go now. • Commands are said to be in the imperative vs. mood. John must have left the door open. I believe he should be arriving tomorrow.

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Evidentials Evidentials

• Some languages indicate epistemic modality b. díga apé‐ti by means of morphological markers, called soccer play‐NON‐VISUAL evidentials, e.g., Tuyuca (Brazil and Colombia): “He played soccer (I heard him playing).” a. díga apé‐wi c. díga apé‐yi soccer play‐VISUAL soccer play‐APPARENT “He played soccer (I saw him).” “He played soccer (I have evidence but I didn’t actually witness the game in any way).”

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Evidentials Inflection vs. Derivation

d. díga apé‐yigi 1. Relevance to syntax: soccer play‐SECONDHAND • Agreement on verbs: “He played soccer (Someone told me).” The boy walks vs. the boys walk‐Ø e. díga apé‐hiyi soccer play‐ASSUMED • Case on is tied to being ‘subject of,’ “He played soccer (It seems reasonable ‘object of,’ etc. that he did).” I see him/*he.

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Inflection vs. Derivation Inflection vs. Derivation

2. Obligatoriness: Inflectional features are 4. Iteration: Doesn’t have in inflection at all; may obligatory (any will have a plural form); happen in derivation but rare: derivational features are not (it’s not the case that every noun has to have an ‐ish adjective). *book‐s‐es (to mean ‘sets of books’) *washeded (to mean ‘washed a long time ago’) 3. Change in base: Inflection induces less change in • But: bases than derivation: Post‐post‐modernism destroy  destroyed (but destruction) ur‐ur‐ur‐großvater (German for great‐great‐ broad  broader (but breadth) great grandfather)

Inflection vs. Derivation Inflection vs. Derivation

5. Category change: Derivational affixes typically 6. Order: A derivational affix has to combine change the category of the base, but inflectional affixes do not: with the base before an inflectional affix poison (N) + ‐ous  poisonous (A) does, e.g., refuse (V) + ‐al  refusal (N) free‐dom‐s*free‐s‐dom optimist (N) + ‐ic  optimistic (A) Compare: black‐en‐ed *black‐ed‐en hat (N) + plural ‐s  hats (N) look (V) + past tense ‐ed  looked (V) old (A) + superlative ‐est  oldest (A)

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Inflection vs. Derivation Exercise 1, p. 113

7. Productivity: Inflectional have relatively few exceptions, whereas derivational affixes are restricted to combine with certain bases. • So while plural ‐s can combine with virtually any noun (irregular forms aside), the affix ‐ize can only combine with certain adjectives: modern‐ize, but no *new‐ize legal‐ize, but not *lawful‐ize

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Exercise 2, p. 113

Morphological typology

How do languages differ in their morphological structure?

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Index of synthesis: How many morphemes Index of synthesis: How many morphemes does your language have per word? does your language have per word? Yay: • One aspect of morphological variation has to a. mi ran tua Nwa lew do with synthesis: Some languages choose to not see CLASS snake CMPLT “stack” morphemes on top of one another “He did not see the snake.” within ; others elect to use at most one per word, and many others will fall Oneida: somewhere between these two extremes. b. yo‐nuhs‐a‐tho:lé: • Let us start by comparing Yay to Oneida 3.NEUT.PAT‐room‐epenthetic‐be.cold.STAT (examples from Whaley 1997:127): “The room is cold.”

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Morphological typology: Index of synthesis Morphological typology: Index of synthesis

• On the so‐called index of synthesis for morphological • Some languages take synthesis to the extreme, typology (Comrie 1989), understood as a continuum, marking all grammatical relationships on the verb Yay is considered an , whereas with extensive affixation, thereby creating long and Oneida would be closer to the synthetic end of the complex words that would correspond to whole scale, with English closer to the Yay‐end than to the sentences in languages like English, as in Tiwa Oneida‐end: (example from Whaley 1997:131): men‐mukhin‐tuwi‐ban Isolating <‐x‐‐‐‐‐‐‐x‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐x‐‐‐>Synthetic dual‐hat‐buy‐PAST Yay English Oneida “You two bought a hat.”

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Morphological typology: Index of synthesis Morphological typology: Index of synthesis

• Or Eskimo: • Or Mohawk again, though rather more iglu‐kpi‐yuma‐laak‐tu‐Na ridiculously: house‐build‐intend‐anxious‐reflexive‐I Washakotya’tawitsheraherkvhta’se’ “I’m anxious to build a house.” “He made the thing that one puts on one’s • Or Mohawk (from Baker 2001:88): body (i.e., the dress) ugly for her.” Katerihwaiénstha’ “I am a student. [Literally: I habitually • We call languages like Tiwa, Eskimo, and cause myself to have ideas.]” Mohawk, polysynthetic languages.

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Morphological typology: Index of fusion Morphological typology: Index of fusion One‐to‐one or one‐to‐many?

• Synthetic languages, in turn, differ in whether • But now compare with Ancient Greek: morphemes are easily segmentable or not. Consider lu‐ō “1sg.Pres.Active.Indicative (I am releasing)” this paradigm from Michoacan , for example: lu‐ōmai “1sg.Pres.Active.Subjunctive (I should release)” lu‐omai “1sg.Pres.Passive.Indicative (I am being released)” no-kali “my house” no-pelo “my dog” lu‐oimi “1sg.Pres.Active.Optative (I might release)” no-kali-mes “my houses” mo-pelo “your dog” lu‐etai “3sg.Pres.Active.Indicative (He is being released)”

mo-kali “your house” mo-pelo-mes “your dogs”

i-kali “his house” i-pelo “his dog”

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Morphological typology: Index of fusion Morphological typology

• On the so‐called index of fusion for • Another aspect of morphological typology has to morphological typology, also conceived of as a do with whether languages mark grammatical continuum, Michoacan Nahuatl is considered functions such as ‘subject of’ and ‘object of’ on an , whereas Ancient the head of the clause or on the dependents. Greek would be closer to the fusional end of the scale:

Agglutinative <‐‐‐x‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐x‐‐>Fusional Nahuatl Greek

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Head‐marking vs. dependent‐marking Head‐marking vs. dependent‐marking

• Languages that mark grammatical functions a. John‐ga Mary‐o butta Japanese on heads are called head‐marking languages; John‐nom Mary‐acc hit languages that mark grammatical functions on “John hit Mary.” dependents are called dependent‐marking b. Sak Uwári shako‐núhwe’s Mohawk languages. Sak Uwari he/her‐likes “Sak likes Uwari.” • Compare Japanese with Mohawk. c. Sak Uwári ruwa‐núhwe’s Mohawk Sak Uwari she/him‐likes “Uwari likes Sak.”

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Next class agenda Abbreviations used in the data

• Allomorphy and morphological analysis. Read • CLASS = classifier Lieber Chapter 9. • CMPLT = completive aspect • NEUT = Neuter gender • PAT = Patient (entity affected) • STAT = Stative • NOM = nominative case • ACC = accusative case

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