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Subject name: Linguistics Paper name: Grammatical Categories Paper Coordinator name Ayesha Kidwai and contact: Module name A Framework for Grammatical Features -II Content Writer (CW) Ayesha Kidwai Name Email id [email protected] Phone 9968655009 E-Text Self Learn Self Assessment Learn More Story Board

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Features as Values

3. Contextual Features

3.1. Government

3.2 Agreement

4. A formal description of features and their values

5. Conclusion

References

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1. Introduction In this unit, we adopt (and adapt) the typology of features developed by Kibort (2008) (but not necessarily all her analyses of individual features) as the descriptive device we shall use to describe grammatical categories in terms of features. Sections 2 and 3 are devoted to this exercise, while Section 4 specifies the annotation schema we shall employ to denote features and values.

2. Features and Values Intuitively, a is expressed by a set of values, and is really known only through them. For example, a statement that a has the feature [number] can be evaluated to be true only if the language can be shown to express some of the values of that feature: SINGULAR, , DUAL, PAUCAL, etc. In other words, recalling our definitions of distribution in Unit 2, a feature creates a set out of values that are in contrastive distribution, by employing a single parameter (meaning or grammatical function) that unifies these values. The name of the feature is the property that is used to construct the set. Let us therefore employ (1) as our first working definition of a feature:

(1) A feature names the property that unifies a set of values in contrastive distribution.

To identify a feature, then, we have to be able to unify a set of values by a single property. For example, the values singular and plural may be considered as members of the same set, unified by the property

(informally speaking) ―marks the quantities of items‖. On the other hand, the values MASCULINE and

SINGULAR cannot be unified under a single feature label, because no common property threads them together. Rather, MASCULINE can be unified with FEMININE, by the property ―denotes biological sex‖, under the feature [GENDER].

The number of values that a feature unifies can vary from language to language. For example, the feature

[NUMBER] can have the values SINGULAR and PLURAL in a language like Hindi, but SINGULAR, PLURAL, and DUAL in a language like Sanskrit. Similarly, the feature [GENDER] has the values MASCULINE and

FEMININE in Hindi, but MASCULINE, FEMININE, and NEUTER in Konkani.

To develop an account of features thus requires decisions on at least two levels: At the superordinate level (the level of the [FEATURE]), we must examine whether all features have the same grammatical status and properties. At the hyponym level (the level of the VALUE), the main issue is to explain how and where these values are assigned to individual words, morphemes, , etc.

3 Contextual Features In natural language, the relations of agreement and government suggest that not all grammatical features have the same status – while some features are inherent to certain lexical items, others arise due to the syntactic configuration a lexical item finds itself located in.

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3.1 Agreement Let us begin by examining four sentences from Hindi. The examples in (2) represent – agreement; considering the examples from the perspective of features, we would describe the phenomenon by stating that () verb agreement in Hindi cross-references the features [GENDER] and [NUMBER] of the subject.

(2) Hindi a. ɑdmi ɑy-ɑ c. ləɽke ɑy-e man came-M.SG boy came -M.PL ‗The man came‘ ‗The boys came‘ b. ləɽki ɑy-i d. ləɽkiyɑ ɑy- boy came -F.SG boy came -F.PL ‗The girl came‘ ‗The girls came‘

In technical terms, we call the item whose features are copied to be the controller of agreement, and the agreeing element as the target. Given that the agreement relation is asymmetric – controllers and targets do not both give and receive features—the features we find in the relationship must be distinguished. For the description in (3) to work, we have to assume that the NP is inherently specified for the features [NUMBER] and [GENDER] in the mental lexicon; however, on the verb, these features are contextual, being gained only from the NP which occurs in the subject grammatical function. Let us formalise this distinction between asin (3) and (4):

(3) A feature value that arises from within the element itself is inherent. (4) A feature value that is determined by some other element is contextual.

Agreement is often the only means by which we can infer the inherent features of \NPs in many , as it is not necessary that all such features are morphologically marked. A good example of this is from consonant-ending nouns in Hindi, which do not bear the -ɑ\-i morphological marking typically associated with masculine and feminine nouns in the language:

(5) Hindi a. ɑxbɑr ɑy-ɑ b. ʈren ɑy-i newspaper came-M.SG train came -F.SG ‗The newspaper came‘ ‗The train came‘

Agreement is a relation that can hold in many syntactic configurations, besides the sentence. As the examples from Marwari (Bhati, Godara, Suthar, and Upadhyay, 2013) show, the contextual features of [GENDER], [NUMBER] (and [PERSON]) are available to (6a-b), degree adjectives (6a-b), adverbs (6c-d), and (6c-d) in the language.

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(6) Marwari a. gʰəɳ-ɪ pʰutər-ɪ tɪngər-ɪ very-F.SG beautiful.F.SG child.F.SG ‗A very beautiful female child.‘ b. gʰəɳ-o pʰutər-o tɪngər very-M.SG beautiful.M.SG child(M.SG) ‗A very beautiful male child.‘ c. gɑɖɖ-o moɽ-o tʃɑlj-o cart.M.SG late.M.SG walk.M.SG ‗The cart moved slowly.‘ d. gɑɖɖ-ɑ moɽ-ɑ tʃɑlj-ɑ cart.M.PL late.M.PL walk.M.PL ‗The carts moved slowly.‘

In the framework, that we are developing here, the absence of agreement indicates only the absence of contextual features, and not necessarily inherent ones. As an example take Malayalam, which has no subject–verb or – agreement.

(7) Malayalam a. ɲɑn\əvəɭ\əvən poːyi I\she\he went-M.SG ‗I\He\She went.‘ b. ɲəllɑ kuʈʈi\ pəʈʈi\ səhodərən\ kuʈʈi-gəɭ\ pəʈʈi-gəɭ\ səhodərən-gəɭ good child\ dog\ brother\ children\ dogs\ brothers ‗Good child\dog\brother\children\dogs\brothers.‘

A conclusion that nouns\NPs in the language lack inherent features for [NUMBER], [PERSON] and [GENDER] would be incorrect however. As the distinctions between I, he, and she in (8a) and between the singular and plural forms in (8b) show, these features are specified inherently for nouns. To describe the Malayalam facts correctly, we would therefore like to say that what the language lacks is the contextual feature bundle of [NUMBER], [PERSON] and [GENDER] on attributive adjectives and verbs.

In conclusion, to our preliminary discussion of agreement, let us briefly consider what the distinction between inherent and contextual features has for a definition of the process of agreement. There are two ways that we can visualise this operation. conception could see agreement as a copy-paste operation, by which the inherent features of the controller are copied onto the target, as represented in (8). The alternative conception could be one that sees agreement as a valuation operation that assigns values to unvalued features, as shown in (9). The two conceptions differ significantly – in (8), contextual features do not pre- exist the agreement relation but do so in (9); while (8) conceives the agreement relation as a feature-cloning operation, (9) sees agreement as an operations a feature-setting one, by which the values of contextual 4

features is set to the values of the inherent features in the verb‘s domain.

(9) Ag(8)r eemeAgreementnt as Copy asand Copy Pas tande Paste

(10) Ag reement as Feature-Valuation

(9) Agreement as Feature-Valuation

In this course, we shall adopt the feature-valuation approach to agreement, as this will allow us to describe the prope rties of targets in a more nuanced fashion. For example, a feature-valuation approach to agreement is best aWeble shallto ca adoptpture theour featureconclu-svaluationion that vapproacherbs and to a ttragreement,ibutive ad asje cthistive wills in allowMala yusala tom describe lack co nthetex propertiestual of features. A feature-cloning operation would have to state Malayalam to lack the copy--paste operation altogethertargets, and wini lla thmoreen face nuanced probl efashionms from. Forthe fexample,acts from a p featureredicat-ivvaluatione adjecti vappres inoach (11 )to, w agreementhere the in hise rbestent able to features captureof noun sour do conclusionappear to b thate co pverbsied o nandto tattributivehe adjectiv adjectivese. in Malayalam lack contextual features. A feature-

cloning operation would have to state Malayalam to lack the copy--paste operation altogether, and will then (11) Malayalam a. "facev" ɭ problemsn" ll-" v "fromɭ the ɑfactsːɳ" from predicative adjectives in (10), where the inherent features of nouns do She good-3.F.SG is appear to be copied onto the adjective. ‘She is good.’ a. " v" n n" ll-" v" n ɑːɳ" He (10 ) goodMalayalam-3.F.SG is ‘He is good.’ a. əvəɭ nəll-əvəɭ ɑːɳə b. əvən nəll-əvən ɑːɳə

Ac cordin gly, agr eement canShe be dgoodefine-d3.F.SG as in ( 12)is: He good-3.M.SG is

‗She is good.‘ ‗He is good.‘ (12) Agreement copies the values of inherent features of the controller into the unvalued contextual features of the target. Accordingly, agreement can be defined as in (11):

2.1.2 Go vernment Another (p11he) nomAgreementenon in na t copiesural la n thegu avaluesge tha t ofil lu inherentstrates th featurese need fofor thea d i controllerstinction binettowe theen iunvaluednherent a ncontextuald contextual features is the relationship of government. This notion, carried over from traditional features of the target. notions of case government, describes the form-related changes that the head of a can cause in the other ele ments in its environment. For example, in English, the he when selected as an of either a vCrosserb o-rlinguistically, a preposition ,agreement must surf aceas ai nrelation the for mhas hi mbeen. Th founde head to th holdat co mbetweenpels th isubjectss change and is t erverbsmed andthe objects governor, and the item that changes is called the governee or the governed element. 5 In traditional , a verb or preposition is said to "govern" a specific on the noun phrases that occur as it object (or subject, in the case of verbs). The case paradigms of highly

4 and verbs, as well as within the noun phrase—between possessors and possessed nouns, adjectives and other modifiers and nouns. In some languages, agreement relations may hold between adpositions and their objects, as well as between complementizers and subjects. Agreement may involve [PERSON], [NUMBER], [GENDER], [CASE], and/or [].

3.2 Government Another phenomenon in natural language that illustrates the need for a distinction between inherent and contextual features is the relationship of government. This notion, carried over from notions of case government, describes the form-related changes that the head of a phrase can cause in the other elements in its environment. For example, in English, the pronoun he when selected as an object of either a verb or a preposition, must surface in the form him. The head that compels this change is termed the governor, and the item that changes is called the governee or the governed element.

In traditional grammars, a verb or preposition is said to "govern" a specific grammatical case on the noun phrases that occur as it object (or subject, in the case of verbs). The case declension paradigms of highly inflecting languages like Sanskrit (as shown for the masculine noun agni ‗fire‘ in (12)) are actually descriptions the form of the governed NP, when the verb takes the NP as a subject (nominative), direct object (accusative), indirect object (dative), source or point of origin (ablative), and location (locative). The genitive indicates , i.e. it is the form of the governed element when the governor is a noun.

Although it may appear that the relation of (12) Case Singular Dual Plural government is one that moulds form to suit Nominative əgnis əgni əgnəyəs semantic or functional relations between Accusative əgnim əgni əgnin verbs/prepositions and NPs, the facts of the Instrumental əgninɑ əgnibhyɑm əgnibhis language (as of Greek and ) resist such an Dative əgnəye əgnibhyɑm əgnibhyəs explanation. There is considerable semantic Ablative əgnes əgnibhyɑm əgnibhyəs opacity in the use of even those forms that appear to be associated with a clear semantics– Genitive əgnes əgnyos əgninɑm for example, the ablative case can also be used Locative əgnəu əgnyos əgniʃu for noun phrases when the action occurs "without" a certain noun; a meaning not amenable to a point of origin meaning usually attributed to the ablative. Similarly, the accusative is used for the objects of clearly locational prepositions like near, between, around, rather than locative, and the direct object of the verb love must unexpectedly be expressed in the dative (rather than accusative) case.

Government is therefore like agreement in being contextually determined – the case of an NP can only be determined once the noun is placed in a syntactic environment. It is also like agreement in its asymmetry, only one of the items in the pair of relations undergoes a change in form. However, it is unlike agreement in that we cannot conceive of it as a cross-referencing relation in quite the same way as we could for agreement, as no features appear to be being copied from one element and pasted onto another. Rather, 6 government is best characterized as selection, whereby inherent features of the governor select the contextual features of the governee – e.g., a noun selects that its possessor be in the form known as , a verb selects that its object be inflected for the , etc. Accordingly, we define government as in (13):

(13) A governor selects the contextual feature values of the governee.

Besides the case-forms of selected objects and subjects of verbs and adpositions, a good example of a government is inner/oblique case in Hindi. In Hindi, all nouns in a NP marked for case must depart from their nominative forms to adopt what is known in the literature as an ‗oblique‘ form. (14a) Figure 1. Government and Agreement in Hindi illustrates the forms of demonstratives, adjectives and nouns in a bare NP, and (14b) the oblique forms of all these elements. This alternation is a government triggered one, as oblique forms of demonstratives, adjectives, and nouns arise only when the NP occurs in the context of a case marker (here, –ko)

(14) Hindi a. yeh ləmb-ɑ ləɽk-ɑ this.SG tall.M.SG boy.M.SG ‗This tall boy.‘ b. [ɪs ləmb-e ləɽk-e] -ko this.OBL.M.SG tall.OBL.M.SG boy. OBL.M.SG DAT ‗To this tall boy.‘ c. ye ləmb-e ləɽk-e these.PL tall.M.PL boy.M.PL ‗These tall boys.‘ d. [ɪn ləmb-e ləɽk- ] -ko these.OBL.M.PL tall.OBL.M.PL boy. OBL.M.PL DAT ‗To these tall boys.‘

Hindi also shows that government and agreement can range over the same domain. As we see from (14a) and (14c), the adjective ‗good‘ must match with ‗boy‘ in gender, and the demonstrative with it in number, suggesting that the relation between the elements of the NP to its noun head is a relationship of feature- valuation. By (15b) and (15d), we see that this agreement actually ranges over not two but three features – 7

NUMBER, GENDER, and OBLIQUE. For agreement to take place correctly in Hindi, then, government must precede the agreement relation; otherwise, the OBLIQUE features of the noun would have not been licensed by the time the agreement relation takes place, as shown in Figure 1. Moreover, agreement in Hindi must be seen as feature-valuation by not only the inherent features of the noun (NUMBER, GENDER), but also its contextual features (OBLIQUE). Accordingly, we refine our definition of agreement to (15).

(15) Agreement copies the feature value of the controller to the contextual features of the target.

4. A formal description of features and their values Kibort (2008) makes a first cut between those inherent feature values that are fixed and those that are selected from a range of options. A feature fixed feature value is whether the value is lexically supplied to the element, or whether it has been selected from a range of available values. [GENDER] is a feature that is typically fixed for individual nouns, but [NUMBER] is not; the latter may be selected from a range of values

(SINGULAR and PLURAL). [TENSE] is also similarly a feature selected, as is [ASPECT].

Figure 2. Kibort’s typology of features

Both fixed and selected features can be further typologised, as to whether their values can be described as semantically motivated, formally motivated, or neither (see Figure 2, from Kibort 2008). The values for the inherent selected feature [NUMBER] for example, are semantically determined cross-linguistically. Another good example of an inherent semantically selected feature is that of [TENSE] – in English and Hindi the three encodings of past, present, and future is obviously semantically determined, as is the Bantu further subdivisions between recent and remote past.

The fixed [GENDER] feature in languages that use gender only to encode sex is also semantically determined; however, in others, where the feature at issue is really [], gender may be formally determined beyond a semantic core. Some languages like Afar (Corbett 2007), use phonological criteria to assign the inherent feature value of [GRAMMATICAL GENDER] beyond sex- 8 differentiable nouns (i.e. nouns where the biological sex matters and\or where the sex difference is perceptually salient). Other languages like Russian use morphological criteria.

In Russian, just like Afar, the semantic core is based on sex-differentiability, with all semantically masculine nouns being assigned to the masculine gender, and all feminine nouns to the feminine gender. However, beyond this core, the large residue of nouns is distributed over masculine (e.g., tea, house, magazine), feminine (water, hut, newspaper), and a neuter gender (letter, building, wine). For this residue, gender is actually highly predictable once the declensional class (a group of nouns that pattern together in the they take) of each noun is taken into account. Nouns that belong to declensional class I are masculine, of declensional classes II and III are masculine, and all others are neuter. The basis for the gender assignment of the residue is thus morphologically determined.

Finally, criteria for the assignment in some gender systems would have to be classified as neither formal nor semantic, e.g., Hindi. The two grammatical gender system of Hindi is ultimately sensitive neither to form – e.g., the heuristic ―if –i ending then feminine‖ is immediately challenged by pɑni ‗water – nor (metaphoric) semantics –e.g., the heuristic that big things are usually masculine and smaller ones are feminine is countered by gɑɽi, which is feminine, even though big in size.

We are now in a position to reconsider the working definition of features that we began with in (1). Our statement there really had two parts: one, a statement about how a feature is labelled (it‘s a name given to a unifying property), and the other part was about what a feature comprises of (a set of values). However, the definition does not represent our later understanding that features differ also in their realisation – on the element that bears the feature(s), or on an element that is in an agreement or government relation with it. Let us therefore extend the definition in (1) to (17):

(17) Feature A feature is a set of values in contrastive distribution and the available options for their realisation on linguistic elements. A feature label names the property that unifies a set of values.

This definition of features, as Kibort (2008) points out, may be further specified with regards to the level of linguistic analysis a feature pertains to. We can distinguish morphosyntactic features from morphosemantic ones, as in (18):

(18) a. A morphosyntactic feature is a feature involved in either agreement or government, i.e. its values may be either contextual or inherent. b. A morphosemantic feature is a feature not involved in agreement or government, i.e. its values may inherent only.

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These features are to be distinguished from purely morphological, purely syntactic, purely semantic, and purely phonological features, all of which have a role only at their respective levels of linguistic analysis. The distinctive features of phonology, the EPP-features of , or the re-adjustment\redundancy rules of are thus distinct from morphosyntactic and morphosemantic features, which can intuitively be thought of enabling the distinct levels of morphology, syntax, and semantics to interface with each other.

Turning now to the notion of that we explored in Units 1 and 2, recall that since antiquity, the observation has been that syntactic, semantic, and morphological criteria have been used to identify parts of speech, form-, and word-classes. With the definitions of features that we have arrived at thus far, we are now in a position to develop a version of the standard definition of grammatical category, repeated in (19) from Unit 2, which captures this age-old understanding. This definition is in (20):

(19) Standard Definition of Grammatical Category A form belongs to a particular grammatical category X if and only if: a. It expresses a meaning that belongs to the same conceptual domain of other members of X; b. It occurs in systematic and similar , along with the other members of X, to other categories such as M, N, O, P, Q…; c. Its morphosyntactic expression is relatable (by some rule) to the morpho-syntactic expression of other members of X.

(20) Grammatical Category A grammatical category is a set of morphosyntactic\morphosemantic features that occurs in contrastive distribution with other sets of morphosyntactic\morphosemantic features

In our scheme of things, the key to finding a grammatical category is finding the set of morphosyntactic\morphosemantic features that co-occur as sets. Therefore, much of the discussion in this course will lie in identifying the features involved and the patterns of their co-occurrence. We shall annotate these features according to the following scheme: • Feature labels will be annotated in UPPER CASE enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [PERSON], suitably abbreviated, e.g. [PER].

• Feature values will be annotated in SMALL CAPS, and will be introduced after a colon, e.g. [PER: 2] in privative feature notation. Binary features and feature geometries will be enclosed in parentheses, e.g. [PER: (+2, -1)].

4. Conclusion In this unit, we have sketched out an understanding of agreement as feature-valuation and of government as feature-selection in order to distinguish between contextual and inherent features. We have also finalised a 10 typology of features that will form the basis of our discussion of grammatical categories in this course. We have argued that inherent features may be realised as either fixed or selected on the basis of formal or semantic criteria. Finally, we have used the idea of morphosemantic and morphosyntactic features to define the notion of grammatical category.

References Kibort, A. (2008) "A typology of grammatical features." Grammatical Features. 11 January 2008. Amended 17 January 2008. http://www.features.surrey.ac.uk/ inventory.html. Corbett, G. G. (2007) ‗Gender and Noun Classes‘. In: Timothy Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description: III: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, pp. 241-279. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press COMPONENT 6- ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION 6.6.1. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS Correct Option Q-1 If [PERSON] is a feature, what is the parameter that best unifies its values FIRST, SECOND and THIRD Correct Answer A the reference to the role (speaker/the addressee /person spoken about) of a person in a conversation B the value of the order in which a person speaks during a conversation C the value of the order in which a person is mentioned in a sentence feedback for correct the reference to the role (speaker/person spoken option to/person spoken about) of a person in a conversation feedback for Wrong Answer incorrect option

Correct Option Q-2 Consider the following French noun phrses

la gr d biblijɔtεk the.S.F big.S.F library.S.F ‗the big library‘

lə gr ʒard the.S.M big.S.M garden.S.M ‗the big garden‘

le gr d biblijɔtεk the.PL big.PL.F library.PL.F ‗the big libraries‘

Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the given data? (1) the adjective receives the gender and number agreement features of the noun it modifies 11

(2) the noun receives the gender and number agreement features of the (3) the determiner receives the gender and number agreement features of the noun A (1) and (2) B (2) and (3) Correct Answer C (1) and (3) feedback for correct adjectives and receive the agreement option features of the noun feedback for Wrong Answer incorrect option

Correct Option Q-3 Which of the following conclusions is true for both government and agreement A they define pair relations in which one item of the pair undergoes alteration Correct Answer B they define pair relations in which both items of the pair undergo alteration feedback for correct they define pair relations in which both items of the option pair undergo alteration is a valid conclusion about government and agreement feedback for Wrong Answer incorrect option

6.6.2 FILL IN THE BLANKS Correct Option Q-1 Consider the following sentence from Hindi: ləɽke-ne gɑɽi khɑrid-i boy.S.M-ERG car.S.F bought-S.F ‗The boy bought a car‘

In the given sentence, the verb ‗khɑridi‘ contextually agrees with the subject/object A subject Correct Answer B object feedback for correct The verb agrees with the object option feedback for Wrong Answer incorrect option

Correct Option Q-2 Agreement as feature cloning/valuation is based on the idea that agreement is a copy-paste operation Correct Answer A cloning B valuation feedback for correct Agreement as feature cloning is based on the idea option that agreement is a copy-paste operation feedback for Wrong Answer incorrect option

Correct Option Q-3 Government is contextually/inherently determined Correct Answer A contextually B inherently

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feedback for correct Government is contextually determined option feedback for Wrong Answer incorrect option

6.6.3. TRUE OR FALSE Correct Answer Q-1 In languages that have grammatical gender, the NPs are inherently specified for gender in the mental lexicon Correct True False Feedback In languages that have grammatical gender, the NPs are inherently specified for gender in the mental lexicon

Correct Answer Q-2 When an element A in a sentence that receives the feature value of another element B, A is said to inherently agree with B Correct False True Feedback When an element A in a sentence that receives the feature value of another element B, A is said to contextually agree with B

Correct Answer Q-3 Agreement as feature valuation assumes that unvalued features exist Correct True False Feedback Agreement as feature valuation assumes that unvalued features exist

Correct Answer Q-4 Unlike agreement, government is not a copy-paste relation; it is rather selection Correct True False Feedback Unlike agreement, government is not a copy-paste relation; it is rather selection

6.7. Learn More 6.7.1. Did you know? Description Apart from the spelling of words, the other things pedants obsess over are subject-verb agreement and the use of the accusative case marked person pronoun (me, her, him) in place of the nominative (I, she, he), as in ‗you and me‘ instead of ‗you and I‘

6.7.2 Interesting Facts No Interesting Facts 1. Varieties of a language may differ on the various parameters of agreement. One of the ways

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in which African American Vernacular English for instance differs from Standard American English is on the parameter of person agreement 2. In many languages, like French for instance, the second person plural pronoun is the same as the second person formal pronoun. 3 Gender-neutral noun forms are gradually replacing nouns which otherwise signified natural gender. This explains the use of ‘salesperson’ instead of ‘salesman’ and ‘saleswoman’, ‘flight attendant’ instead of ‘airhostess’, in English

6.7.3 Glossary Starting Term Definition of the Term Related Term Character A Agreement It describes the process of copying the feature value of the controller to the contextual features of the target. C contextual A feature value that is determined by some other inherent feature feature value element is contextual. value F feature the property that unifies a set of values in contrastive distribution fixed feature an inherent feature value that is lexically supplied selected feature value to the element value G government It describes the form-related changes that the head of a phrase can cause in the other elements in its environment. The head that compels this change is termed the governor, and the item that changes is called the governee or the governed element. Grammatical A grammatical category is a set of Category morphosyntactic\morphosemantic features that occurs in contrastive distribution with other sets of morphosyntactic\morphosemantic features I inherent feature A feature value that arises from within the contextual value element itself is inherent. feature value M morphosemantic A feature not involved in agreement or morphosyntactic feature government i.e. its values may inherent only. feature morphosyntactic A feature involved in either agreement or morphosemantic feature government, i.e. its values may be either feature contextual or inherent. S selected feature An inherent feature value that is selected from a fixed feature value range of available values value

6.7.4 Web Links Web Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_(linguistics) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe40YIZo__E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEITWQU2BA4 http://arnoldzwicky.org/2015/01/04/conjugal-visit/ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?rep=rep1&type=pdf&doi=10.1.1.134.5546

6.7.5 Points to Ponder

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No Points to Ponder 1 To identify a feature, then, we have to be able to unify a set of values by a single property. 2 The number of values that a feature unifies can vary from language to language. 3 the relations of agreement and government suggest that not all grammatical features have the same status – while some features are inherent to certain lexical items, others arise due to the syntactic configuration a lexical item finds itself located in 4 the absence of agreement indicates only the absence of contextual features, and not necessarily inherent ones 5 agreement can be seen as a copy-paste operation, by which the inherent features of the controller are copied onto the target, or a valuation operation that assigns values to unvalued features 6 Government like agreement is contextually determined and asymmetric. 7 However, unlike agreement government is not a cross-referencing relation, as no features appear to be being copied from one element and pasted onto another. Rather, government is best characterized as selection, whereby inherent features of the governor select the contextual features of the governee. 8 government and agreement can range over the same domain 9 inherent feature values can be fixed, or selected from a range of options 10 Both fixed and selected features can be further typologised as to whether their values can be described as semantically motivated, formally motivated, or neither 11 Standard Definition of Grammatical Category A form belongs to a particular grammatical category X if and only if: it expresses a meaning that belongs to the same conceptual domain of other members of X; it occurs in systematic and similar contrast, along with the other members of X, to other categories such as M, N, O, P, Q…and it‘s morphosyntactic expression is relatable (by some rule) to the morpho-syntactic expression of other members of X.

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