Tsez Syntax: A Description Maria Polinsky Harvard University [email protected] Draft, February 2015 1 Foreword This description of Tsez syntax was created as part of the volume “A Grammar of Tsez” prepared by Bernard Comrie and myself. Because this work is still a draft, chapters are not numbered, and each chapter has its own example numbering. I will be grateful for comments, criticisms, and suggestions. I am immensely grateful to the native speakers of Tsez who have generously shared their language with me over many years, especially Ramazan Rajabov, Paxrudin Magomedinov and especially Arsen Abdulaev and members of his family. I am also very grateful to my friends, colleagues, and students who have commented on various aspects of this work: Elena Anagnostopoulou, Ivano Caponigro, Isabelle Charnavel, Peter Cole, Jessica Coon, Greville Corbett, Diana Forker, Annie Gagliardi, Michael Goncalves, Scott Grimm, Sabine Iatridou, Beth Levin, Nick Longenbaugh, Ora Matushansky, Eric Potsdam, Omer Preminger, Nina Radkevich, Barbara Stiebels, Yakov Testelets, and †Helma van den Berg. Timothy Doner, Caitlin Keenan, and Kenneth Mai have helped in organizing the manuscript and updating the glosses. Some of the work presented here was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. All errors are my sole responsibility. 2 Abbreviations Interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses follow the Leipzig Glossing Rules (http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossingrules.php). Additional abbreviations, not present in the Leipzig list: ATTR—attributive form EXCL—exclamative particle HYP—hypothetical particle IND.EVID—indirect evidence IR—indexical reading OBL—oblique form (a free-standing form) OS—oblique stem SR—shifted reading UNCERT—particle of uncertainty VAL—validator particle Complex glosses consist of two or more simple glosses, divided by a dot, e.g., PST.WIT.NEG ‘Witnessed past negative’. Gender classes are indicated by Roman numerals, with genders I-IV distinguished in the singular, and IPL and nIPL distinguished in the plural. For nouns in absolutive, we indicate gender after the case gloss, e.g., ABS.III ‘Gender III, absolutive’. For those noun phrases whose gender may vary and is determined contextually, it is shown in parentheses, e.g., ABS(.II). Compound lexical items are presented with the = sign, for example, muži=q’ˤuri ‘bedding’, gaga=cagari- ‘be smooth, even’. 3 Contents Part 1: Phrases Nouns Nominalizations Predicates Attributives Adverbials and postpositions Part 2: Clauses Basic clause types Interrogatives Exclamatives Part 3: Sentences Complement clauses Relative clauses Adverbial clauses Clausal coordination: The linking of finite clauses Part 4: Clause level phenomena Agreement Reflexives and anaphora Particles Word order and information structure 4 Part 1: Phrases Nouns Nominalizations Predicates Attributives Adverbials and postpositions 5 Noun Phrase 1 General remarks A noun phrase can be expressed by a pronoun, by a head noun preceded optionally by various modifiers, or by one of a number of nominalized verb phrase structures. The latter are discussed in the chapters on nominalizations and complement clauses. Noun phrases can occur in argument positions or they can serve as complements to postpositions—the latter are discussed in the chapter on adverbial and postpositional phrases. Predicate nominals are discussed in the chapter on predicate phrase. Some examples of noun phrases are given below. Example (1) illustrates pronouns in the noun phrase position: (1) a. Di-q q’ˤanoquno ƛeb (yoł). 1SG-POSS.ESS forty year be.PRS ‘I am forty years old.’ b. Eli sadaq b-ik’-ān. IPL.ABS.(IPL) together IPL-go-FUT.DEF ‘We will go together.’ Tsez does not have third person pronouns; the language uses demonstratives in this function. An example containing two noun phrases expressed by demonstratives is given below: (2) Žed-ä yiła č’aq’ˤir-no. DEM.IPL-ERG DEM.nI.ABS kill-PST.nWIT ‘They killed it.’ (of an animal) The following example has two full noun phrases, both with modifiers: (3) Dä-z ɣˤway-ä yisi uži ћan-si. 1SG-GEN2 dog-ERG DEM.I boy.ABS.I bite-PST.WIT ‘My dog bit this boy.’ NPs can also be expressed by a substantivized adjective (4), participle (5), demonstrative (6), numeral (7), or deverbal noun (8): (4) B-ˤeɣa-t’a-ni-z-ä b-ˤeže-t’a-ni-za-s ħurmat IPL-young-DISTR-DEF- PL.OS-ERG IPL-old-DISTR-DEF- PL.OS-GEN1 respect.ABS.III b-oy-x. III-do-PRS ‘The young respect the old.’ (5) Ø-āy-ru-n-ä magalu eser-si. I-come-PST.PTCP-DEF-ERG bread.ABS.III ask-PST.WIT ‘The one who came asked for bread.’ 1 6 (6) a. Heme-z-ä sis kaɣat y-is-si. DEM-PL.OS-ERG one letter.ABS.II II-take-PST.WIT ‘They (those) received one letter.’ b. Yizi-ra-bi huni-x b-oq-xo. DEM-PL.OS-PL.ABS.IPL road-AD.ESS IPL-become-PRS ‘They get on their way.’ (Ražbadinno, Tawadin: 5) (7) Sida-q micxir zow-s. one-POSS.ESS money.ABS.III be-PST.WIT ‘One person (lit. one) had money.’ (8) Bˤeƛ’-e-z bˤabˤa-n-ä eli b-iz-ir-si. sheep-OS-GEN2 bleat-DVB-ERG 1PL.ABS.IPL IPL-rise-CAUS-PST.WIT ‘The sheep’s bleating woke us up.’ Nominalized verb phrases in NP positions are illustrated below. Example (9) shows a nominalized clause in the absolutive position, and example (10) shows a masdar clause in the sub-ablative form. (9) [Eni-y-ä kid becizi y-āy-ru-łi] elu-r r-iy-x. mother-OS-ERG girl.ABS.II praise II-do-PST.PTCP-NMLZ.ABS.IV 1PL-LAT IV-know-PRS ‘We know that Mother praised the girl.’ (10) [Debe-r neƛ-ani]-ƛ-äy r-аħir-x-ānu reƛ. 2SG-LAT give-MASD-SUB-ABL IV-boil-PRS-NEG meat.ABS.IV ‘I am not boiling the meat just to give it to you.’ (based on Imnajšvili 1963:237) 2 Generic noun phrases Tsez does not have determiners; the meaning of definiteness or specificity is conveyed by several other means, including definiteness marking on noun-modifying adjectives or participles (discussed in section 3.3 below), word order, and the use of demonstratives (see section 4.1 below). Generic noun phrases do not differ in form from non-generic ones. Generic forms of mass nouns appear in the singular: (11) Mesed xiriyaw (yoł). gold.ABS.III expensive be.PRS ‘Gold is expensive.’ If a mass noun is used in the plural form, that form refers to kinds: (12) Elu-s bat’=bat’iyaw akri-bi (yoł). IPL-GEN1 various cheese-PL.ABS.nIPL be.PRS ‘We have different kinds of cheeses.’ Generic forms of count nouns usually appear in the plural: 2 7 (13) a. Bibidoqudi-bi r-exu-s. dinosaur-PL.ABS.nIPL nIPL-die-PST.WIT ‘Dinosaurs are extinct (lit.: died).’ b. Bibidoqudi-bi ānu. dinosaur-PL.ABS.nIPL be.PRS.NEG ‘Dinosaurs are extinct (lit.: do not exist).’ The generic reading is often suppressed in nouns that appear post-verbally, at the right periphery of the clause, as that position is associated with topichood. Compare (13a) to (14), which does not have a generic reading: (14) R-exu-s bibidoqudi-bi. nIPL-die-PST.WIT dinosaur-PL.ABS.nIPL “As for dinosaurs, they died out.” #‘Dinosaurs are extinct.’ As long as the noun phrase appears preverbally, the generic reading can be associated with any case form; compare the generic genitive in (15) and lative/absolutive in (16): (15) K’et’u-s uyno k’onč’u (yoł). cat-GEN1 four leg.ABS.III be.PRS ‘A cat has four legs.’ (16) Xex-zā-r maroženi r-eti-x. child-PL.OS-LAT ice cream.ABS.IV IV-like-PRS ‘Children like/want ice-cream.’ Noun phrases in Tsez are strictly head final, and many of the concepts conveyed by post-nominal PPs in languages such as English are expressed by prenominal modifiers, most commonly genitives and relative clauses (for the latter, see the chapter on relative clauses). In what follows, we will first discuss noun modification by adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals, then turn to quantifiers and measure phrases, and lastly to NPs containing genitive expressions. The order of elements in the noun phrase is addressed in section 9. 3 Agreement and concord in the noun phrase 3.1 Case concord Many (not all) modifiers show case concord with the head noun; the distinction is between the direct form, used with the head noun in the absolutive case, and the oblique form, used elsewhere.1 Modifiers that have two distinct forms include attributives with the suffix –si ( oblique suffix –zo); numerals; a subset of demonstratives (section 4.1); and adnominal genitives 1 We will be referring to this formal contrast as “direct vs. oblique”; we mark only the oblique form explicitly in the glosses. 3 8 (direct form genitive 1 in -s, and oblique form genitive 2 in -z, discussed in section 5).2 The examples below show case concord on an adjective, a demonstrative, a numeral, and an adnominal genitive. More examples will appear in the individual sections. (17) a. sasaqo-si/ža zaman morning-ATTR/DEM time.ABS.III ‘morning time/that time’ b. sasaqo-zo/neł zaman-a-ł morning-ATTR.OS/DEM.nI.OS time-OS-CONT.ESS ‘in the morning time/at that time’ (18) a. oč’ino otaxi nine room.ABS.IV ‘nine rooms’ b. oč’ira otax-ā nine.OS room-IN.ESS ‘in nine rooms’ (19) a. ʕaƛo-s xalq’i village-GEN1 people.ABS.IPL ‘villagers’ (lit.: village’s people) b.