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The Noun Phrase in the Languages of South America

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301220 Olga Krasnoukhova Olga Krasnoukhova Olga Krasnoukhova The Noun Phrase in the The Noun Phrase in the Languages of South America Languages of South America This dissertation presents the first cross-linguistic study of the Noun Phrase in the indigenous languages of South America. It builds upon a considerable amount of data that have recently become available for languages in this continent. Based on a sample of 55 languages, this study gives a novel account of the syntactic, morphosyntactic, and semantic properties of the NP. For example, the analysis shows that personal pronouns commonly receive the same possessive markers as nominal possessors, which implies that a fully grammaticalized category of possessive pronouns is rare in South American languages. In addition, the new South American data only partly confirm typological claims Languages of South America The Noun Phrase in the for tendencies in the NP domain. For instance, a morphologically distinct class of adjectives is found in many languages of the sample; however, this class is often small, and the dominant way to encode property concepts is with verbs. Finally, this study also includes a discussion of the geographic patterning of structural features in the NP, evaluating the assumption that there is a major typological split between so-called Andean and Amazonian languages. The analysis shows that most of the features cannot be attributed to either of these larger areas. It also demonstrates, however, that there is some evidence for a broad structural division of languages into the western part of the continent (corresponding to the Andean sphere) and the rest of the continent. One of the features that define this split is the parameter of alienability. ISBN 978-94-6093-084-3 The Noun Phrase in the Languages of South America Published by LOT Trans 10 phone: +31 30 253 6006 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lotschool.nl Cover illustration: designed by Vladimir Krasnoukhov & Olga Krasnoukhova ISBN: 978-94-6093-084-3 NUR 616 Copyright © 2012: Olga Krasnoukhova. All rights reserved. The Noun Phrase in the Languages of South America Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. mr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 4 juli 2012 om 13:30 uur precies door Olga Vladimirovna Krasnoukhova geboren op 19 april 1978 te Moskou, Rusland Promotor: Prof. dr. Pieter Muysken Copromotor: Dr. Mily Crevels Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. Leon Stassen (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen / Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldof, Duitsland) Dr. Jan Rijkhoff (Århus Universitet, Denemarken) Dr. Ana Vilacy Galucio (Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi / MCT, Brazilië) to my parents: Vladimir, Valentina, Lucien, Anna and Janne Table of Contents Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Aims of the study 1 1.2. Background 2 1.3. Approach and sample 7 1.4. Overview of the following chapters 11 CHAPTER 2. THE NP QUESTIONNAIRE 13 2.1. Questions related to NP structure 14 2.1.1. Constituent order within the NP 14 2.1.2. Agreement within the NP 17 2.2. Questions on modifiers within the NP 19 2.2.1. Articles, demonstratives 19 2.2.2. Attributive possession 22 2.2.3. Property words 27 2.2.4. Numerals 30 2.3. Other issues 32 2.3.1. Nominal number 32 2.3.2. Noun categorization devices 35 2.4. Summary 39 CHAPTER 3. DEMONSTRATIVES AS NOUN MODIFIERS 41 3.1. Syntactic possibilities of demonstratives as modifiers 42 3.1.1. Direct modification 42 3.1.2. Relative clause construction 47 ii 3.1.3. Non-integrated constituents 48 3.2. Constituent order 50 3.3. Agreement 52 3.4. Definite / indefinite articles 54 3.5. Summary 55 CHAPTER 4. ATTRIBUTIVE POSSESSION 57 4.1. Locus of possession marking and markers of possession 59 4.1.1. Locus of possession marking 59 4.1.2. Morphological markers found on the possessed (head-marking) 60 4.1.3. Morphological markers found on the possessor (dependent-marking) 62 4.2. Possession patterns 63 4.2.1. Head-marking patterns 63 4.2.2. Dependent-marking patterns 71 4.2.3. Double-marking pattern 78 4.2.4. No morphological marking 80 4.2.5. Other types: Free marking and floating marking 82 4.2.6. Possession strategies and the geographical component 84 4.3. The (in)alienability parameter 86 4.3.1. Presence and formal realization of (in)alienability 86 4.3.2. Alienability and the locus of marking 88 4.4. Constituent order in possessive constructions 96 4.5. Summary 98 CHAPTER 5. NOMINAL NUMBER AND MODIFICATION BY NUMERALS 101 5.1. Nominal number 101 5.1.1. Availability and occurrence of number marking 101 5.1.2. Formal realization of number marking 105 5.1.3. Semantic distinctions in number marking 106 iii 5.2. Numerals as modifiers 110 5.2.1. Morphosyntactic properties of numerals 111 5.2.2. Types of nouns (Rijkhoff 2002) 117 5.3. Further issues 124 5.3.1. Agreement in the NP 124 5.3.2. Constituent order 129 5.4. Summary 132 CHAPTER 6. PROPERTY WORDS 135 6.1. Introduction 136 6.2. Morphological characteristics of property words 138 6.3. Languages with a morphologically distinct class of adjectives 142 6.3.1. Criteria for adjective status 142 6.3.2. Adjectives in different functions 144 6.4. Languages without a morphologically distinct class of adjectives 149 6.4.1. Property words: category of nouns 150 6.4.2. Property words: category of verbs 153 6.4.3. Property words: category of adverbs 156 6.4.4. Encoding of property concepts with classifying elements 158 6.5. Further issues 159 6.5.1. Constituent order 160 6.5.2. Agreement 162 6.6. Summary 165 CHAPTER 7. THE NP AS A UNIT 167 7.1. Identifying an NP 167 7.2. Languages with evidence for integral NPs 169 7.3. Languages that have non-integral NPs 177 7.4. Syntactic constituency of different modifiers 181 iv 7.5. Order of modifiers inside the NP 185 7.6. Summary 190 CHAPTER 8. NOMINAL CLASSIFICATION 193 8.1. Introduction 193 8.2. Languages with prototypical gender systems and noun classes 196 8.3. Languages with prototypical classifier systems 199 8.4. Multifunctional classifier systems 204 8.4.1. Properties of multifunctional classifier systems 204 8.4.2. Discussion of the properties 207 8.4.3. Geographical distribution of nominal classification systems 217 8.5. Summary 218 CHAPTER 9. MORPHOSYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF DEMONSTRATIVES 219 9.1. Syntactic properties of demonstratives 220 9.1.1. Syntactic distribution of demonstratives 220 9.1.2. Language types according to the morphosyntax of demonstratives 225 9.2. Semantics of demonstratives 231 9.2.1. New semantic features 231 9.2.2. Classification of new semantic features 246 9.2.3. Overview of all semantic features in the sample 248 9.2.4. Morphological realization of semantic features 252 9.3. Summary 253 CHAPTER 10. CONCLUSION 257 10.1. Properties of the NP and its constituents 257 10.2. Reflections on typological claims and tendencies in the NP domain 260 10.3. Geographical distribution and areal patterns 261 v 10.4. Future research 266 APPENDICES 269 Appendix 1. Overview of possession patterns 269 Appendix 2. Properties of multifunctional classifier systems 275 Appendix 3. Semantic features of demonstratives 283 Appendix 4. Maps 295 References 307 Samenvatting in het Nederlands 321 Curriculum Vitae 325 vii Acknowledgements First of all, my gratitude goes to my supervisors, Pieter Muysken and Mily Crevels, who gave me the chance to explore this topic, and who have been my mentors during many years. I would like to thank Pieter for always being generous with his knowledge and ideas, for all his insights on the topics discussed in this dissertation, and for his unfailing positive-thinking and encouragement. Pieter’s role in my academic development started with the inspiring classes he taught, and I have been grateful ever since for the possibility to learn from him. Pieter, thank you for all the opportunities that you have given me! I would like to thank Mily for her huge contribution to my training, which also started long before this dissertation. Mily’s expertise and advice at every step were invaluable, and I am grateful for her dedication, support, friendship and trust, and for her guidance throughout the whole project. Mily’s incredible eye for detail, and her careful comments on many versions of each page of this work were crucial to avoid many pitfalls. Pieter and Mily, it was an honor, and a great pleasure, to be able to work in your team! I am indebted to many colleagues and friends who have been so generous with their time, in sharing their expertise, discussing data with me, providing examples or references, and reading and commenting on drafts of chapters. I am most grateful to the members of my reading committee, Leon Stassen, Ana Vilacy Galucio and Jan Rijkhoff, for agreeing to take on this task. I thank Jan for sharing his expertise on the noun phrase, and for providing very instructive feedback and incisive comments on the manuscript. I am grateful to Vilacy for sharing her knowledge of the Tupian languages, for all her insightful comments on the manuscript, and for her suggestions and advice. I thank Leon for our enlightening discussions, which greatly contributed to this study, and for introducing me to typology more generally. I am honored to have all of them on my reading committee.
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