Gyeli Bare Nouns and Referent Accessibility

Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure

Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility

Nadine Grimm

University of Rochester

Bantu 8, June 4, 2021

Theoretical impact of articleless languages Syntactic: are bare nouns (BNs) real NPs or DPs with a covert D? → NP/DP divide (Bošković 2010) Discourse-pragmatic: how are referents identified and tracked? Semantic/pragmatic: determiners relate to definiteness and referentiality (Lyons 1999, Longobardi 1996)

Gyeli does not have definite nor indefinite articles.

Obviously, this is not a problem for speakers in terms of reference tracking Traditional definiteness tests on bare nouns yield inconclusive results Corpus study reveals availability of other grammatical means Information structure NP marking

1 Introduction The Gyeli language Uses of Gyeli bare nouns

2 Bare noun definiteness diagnostics

3 Reference tracking via information structure

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction The Gyeli language Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Uses of Gyeli bare nouns Reference tracking via information structure The Gyeli Language endangered Bantu A80 language “Pygmy” hunter-gatherers (PHGs) 4,000-5,000 speakers dispersed over an area of 12.500 km2 in Cameroon speakers change their traditional way of life (more sedentary, more farming, less hunting) speakers shift to neighboring languages of farmers different dialects corresponding with different contact languages intense contact with neighboring languages

Basic properties head-initial can combine with POSS and DEM N (POSS) (DEM) subject NPs can be elided → minimally a preverbal clitic that encodes subject agreement and tense/aspect/mood/negation information OR preverbal clitic can be elided in certain TAM categories if noun is present

Gyeli bare nouns function as... arguments adjuncts adpositional phrases N + N possession constructions

Number and BNs Plural BNs cover the same range of grammatical functions as singular BNs, e.g. as arguments

Bare nouns (BNs) serve as arguments

(1) [mùdã]̂ SBJ (á) gyámbɔ́ [lɔ̀lɔ̀]OBJ m-ùdã̂ a-H gyámbɔ-H lɔ̀lɔ̀ N1-woman 1-PRES cook-R ∅7.duck ‘A/The woman cooks a/the duck.’

BNs serve as locative and temporal adjuncts

(2) mùdã,̂ kɛ̂ nà nyɛ̀ [mánkɛ̃]̂ m-ùdã̂ kɛ̀-H nà nyɛ̀ H-ma-nkɛ̃̂ n1-woman go-R COM 1 OBJ.LINK-ma6-field ‘Woman, go with her to the fields,’

(3) [mɛ́nɔ́] wɛ̀ɛ̀ nyɛ̂ nâ mbúmbù mɛ́nɔ́ wɛ̀ɛ̀ nyɛ̂ nâ mbúmbù ∅7.morning 2S.FUT see COMP ∅1.namesake nzíí kì nâ... nzíí kì nâ PROG.PRES say COMP ‘In the morning you will see that namesake is saying that...’

BNs occur in adpositional phrases, both prepositional and postpositional

(4) mɛ́ kɛ́ [nà mùdã]̂ mánkɛ̃̂ mɛ-H kɛ̀-H nà m-ùdã̂ H-ma-nkɛ̃̂ 1S-PRES go-R COM n1-woman OBJ.LINK-ma6-field ‘I go with a/the woman to the fields,’

(5) mɛ̀ nzí dyâ [ndáwɔ̀ dé tù] mɛ nzí dyâ ndáwɔ̀ dé tù 1S PROG.PST1 lie.down ∅9.house LOC inside ‘I was sleeping in a/the house.’

BNs occur in N + N possession constructions

(6) nkwálá wá mwánɔ̀ nkwálá wá m-wánɔ̀ ∅3.machete 3:ATT N1-child ‘a/the machete of a/the child’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Bare noun definiteness diagnostics

a range of diagnostics is traditionally used to understand BNs’ relation to definiteness a BN’s ability to pick out the referent under these diagnostics in an articleless language is usually taken as evidence for a covert D

Traditional diagnostics analyze ‘out-of-the blue’ sentences

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Bare noun definiteness diagnostics for articleless languages

Do BNs cover the functional range of definites?

narrow or wide scope law of contradiction

definite uses (Schwarz 2013) and diagnostics for NP/DP (Gillon & Armoskaite 2012)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Definiteness and indefiniteness

BNs can be interpreted as either definite or indefinite

(7) bùdã̂ (bá) gyámbɔ́ bédéwò b-ùdã̂ ba-H gyámbɔ-H H-be-déwò ba2-woman 2-PRES cook-R OBJ.LINK-be8-food ‘(The) women cook (the) food.’

1 definite (e.g. familiar, anaphoric...) reading of either oneof the BNs 2 indefinite (new referent) reading of either one of theBNs 3 generic reading → Out of context, it seems unclear how identifiability is established, i.e. what is given and what is new information.

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Anaphoric use

BNs are usually used anaphorically, but this is not absolute

(8) nàkùgúù mɛ̀ kɛ́ tísònì. mɛ̀ gyàgá kálàdɛ̀ nà yesterday I went town I bought book and bèsìgá. yɔ́ɔ̀ mɛ̀ lã́ kálàdɛ̀ cigarettes then I read book ‘Yesterday I went to town. I bought a book and cigarettes. I read the/(a) book.’

1 Anaphoric interpretation is default (same book) 2 Given a specific situation in which the book is irrelevant for the story, the interpretation could also be non-anaphoric (a different book)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Scope in BNs

There does not seem to be a preference for either wide or narrow scope interpretation.

(9) mùdã̂ mbɔ̀ mùdã̂ à nzí bíyɔ́ m-ùdã̂ mbɔ̀ m-ùdã̂ a nzí bíyɔ-H N1-woman by N1-woman 1 PROG.PST hit-R mwánɔ̀ m-wánɔ̀ N1-child ‘Each woman was hitting a/the child.’

1 narrow scope: a (different) child 2 wide scope: the (same) child

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Bare nouns under negation

BNs can be interpreted as either having wide or narrow scope

(10) mɛ̀ɛ́ nyɛ́lɛ́ mùdì mɛ̀ɛ́ nyɛ̂-lɛ́ m-ùdì 1S.PRES.NEG see-NEG N1-person ‘I don’t see a/the person.’

1 I don’t see the person. → wide scope 2 I don’t see anyone. → narrow scope

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Interim conclusion on functional range of BNs

BNs in Gyeli do not have an inherent feature of in/definiteness Despite the lack of any overt grammatical material (articles, case), BNs in Gyeli achieve the wide range of interpretations associated with definiteness and indefiniteness.

Establishing referentiality the lack of an overt D does not entail problems in identifying referents in discourse Gyeli has grammatical means to disambiguate potentially ambiguous referents articles are just not one of them

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Occurrence of BNs in natural texts

BNs in the Gyeli corpus frequency: how often do they occur? distribution: where are they? function: what do they encode?

The Gyeli corpus three texts of different genres autobiographic narrative folktale group conversation on different topics about 550 intonation phrases

(Grimm 2015)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Occurrence of BNs in natural text

Methodology distinguish known from new referents determine their syntactic function (SBJ vs. OBJ) not include complicated cases abstract nouns (e.g. wisdom, trouble, hunger) [NN] constructions (‘Bagyeli child’) [N ATT N] constructions (‘cat of friend’) nouns modified by relative clauses proper names idiomatic expressions

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Occurrence of BNs in natural text

Syntactic position Known referent New referent Total Subject 55 5 60 Object 18 48 66 Adjunct (loc, temp, com) 7 19 26 Total 80 72 152

Results BNs are almost equally distributed over subjects and objects BNs in subject position usually have a known referent BNs in object and adjunct position tend to introduce a new referent

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Bare nouns and information structure

Subjects “The subject nominal in most languages, particularly in the main clause, tends to be either definite or generic.”

Objects “The object [...] nominal in sentences, on the other hand, is the one most commonly used to introduce new — referential indefinite — nominals into discourse.” Givón (1978: 295)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Hypotheses

The interpretation of BNs in terms of their definiteness and referentiality is achieved through general rules of information structure (IS). In addition, disambiguation is ensured through other grammatical means of NP marking.

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Defining information structure

Information structure... “is about how speakers structurally encode propositional content with respect to their assessment of knowledge that is (not) shared by the interlocutors in a particular communicative situation.” (Güldemann 2015: 156)

Dichotomies old — new background — foreground theme — comment topic — focus

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Defining topic and focus Topicality “Topicality concerns the status of those entities “about” which information is to be provided or requested in the discourse.” (Dik 1997: 312)

Focus “The focal information in a linguistic expression is that information which is relatively the most important or salient in the given communicative setting.” (Dik 1997: 326)

Different types of focus: “introducing new information into the discourse (information focus), or by standing in explicit or implicit contrast to a set of comparable alternatives (contrastive focus).” (Fiedler 2010: 236)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Gyeli IS positions in a nutshell

Word order is the most prominent means of IS in Gyeli.

Stop V Ofoc X basic word order Stop O Vfoc X object fronting → PCF focus Xfoc Stop V O adjunct fronting → adjunct focus It is Sfoc [...]rel cleft construction → subject focus

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Topic: In-situ subjects

Default interpretation of subject as topic “there is robust evidence in many languages that these default structures [basic SV(O) and S(O)V clauses] actually convey default IS values and thus represent salient IS constructions” “S constituents normally conflate topicality with the semantic role of intransitive subject/transitive agent, leaving the scope of assertion over the following material.” basic linear IS order template of [[TOP] [FOC]]. Güldemann et al. (2015: 159)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Predictability scale of topics

The degree of markedness of a subject influences its status as topic:

→ Scale in Gyeli preverbal clitic independent pronouns bare nouns modified nouns Givón (1987: 177)

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure BN subject as known referent

55/60 subject BNs in the corpus have known referent → definite interpretation

(11) a. yɔ́ɔ̀ nzàmbí wà nû kɛ̃ɛ̃́ ̀ bwãsà,̀ so God 1:ATT 1.DEM.PROX go.COMPL think nyɛ̀ nâ 1 COMP ‘So this God (Nzambi) has gone to think, he [says]:’ b. sá mɛ́dɛ́ mɛ̀ nzí sâ yî ∅7.thing self 1S PROG.PST do 7.OBJ ‘The thing itself, I was doing it [= by sending his wife].’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Example continued

(12) a. mɛ́ pã́ ná kɛ̀ dígɛ̀ mùdì wà 1S-PRES start-H again go see N1-person 1:ATT nû ɛ́ pɛ́ɛ́ 1.DEM.PROX LOC over.there.DIST ‘I try again and go see this person over there.’ b. yɔ́ɔ̀ nzàmbí njí mpù bãã̂ ã̂ ã̂ ,̂ njì dígɛ̀ so God come-R like.this IDEO come look mpù like.this ‘So the God (Nzambi) comes like this [depiction of walking a long distance], comes looking like this.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Inferrable topic

Context: The harvest of palm nuts was bad, so the woman asks her husband’s friend for food.

(13) a. nyɛ̀ náà m-ùdì wãã́ ,̀ mɛ̀ wɛ̃ɛ̃́ ̀ 1 COMP N1-person 1-POSS.1S 1S die.COMPL nà nzà COM ∅9.hunger ‘She: ‘My person, I’m dead hungry.” b. nkɛ̀ nyì nzí sílɛ̃ɛ̃́ ̀ ∅9.field 9 PROG.PST finish.COMPL bédéwò. OBJ.LINK-be8-food ‘The field has already run out of food.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure BN subject as new referent Subject of embedded clause BN subjects can also refer to new participants, but these cases seem to be restricted to subjects of embedded clauses in the corpus where the subject is part of all-new information. Context: Villagers state that they are poor because they don’t have elictricity.

(14) mɛ́ dyúwɔ́ nâ mìntáŋgánɛ́ mí mɛ-H dyúwɔ-H nâ mi-ntáŋgánɛ́ mí 1S-PRES hear-R COMP mi4-white.person 4 nzíí njì mí nzíí njì nzíí njì mí nzíí njì PROG.PRES come 4 PROG.PRES come ‘I hear that white people are coming and coming.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Topic: Object left-dislocation

Left-dislocation serves “to promote a referent on the Topic Accessibility Scale from accessible to active status, from which point on it can be coded as a preferred topic expression, i.e. as an unaccented pronominal.” (Lambrecht 1994: 183) Context: Speaker states that he gets injured by raffia, switches the topic by pointing out that he hurt himself with the machete, then resumes raffia which serves as a left-dislocated object in(15).

(15) ngùndyá, mɛ́ kɛ́ sɔ́lɛ̀gà ngùndyá dyúwɔ̀ ngùndyá mɛ-H kɛ̀-H sɔ́lɛga ngùndyá dyúwɔ̀ ∅9.raffia 1S-PRES go-R chop ∅9.raffia on.top ‘As for raffia, I go chop the raffia ontop.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Focus: BN object as new referent

“narrow object focus reflects a more general fact that many languages possess in this position an unmarked in-situ focus site” Güldemann et al. (2015: 159)

Most BN objects in the corpus (48/66) introduce a new referent.

(16) nyɛ̀ táàlɛ́ bábɛ̀ nyɛ táàlɛ-H bábɛ̀ 1S.PST1 begin-R ∅7.disease ‘He [the healer] started to be sick.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Inferrable (known) object referent as focus

Of course, focus and new information are correlated, yet still distinct.The referent does not necessarily have to be new, but can come from a known pool of alternatives.

(17) lèkfúdɛ̀ à nzí bíyɔ̀ nlô pɛ́ɛ́ le-kfúdɛ̀ a nzí bíyɔ nlô pɛ́-ɛ́ le5-idiot 1 PROG.PST hit ∅3.head there-DIST ‘The idiot was hitting the head [his own] there.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Focus: Subjects

Cleft constructions for subject focus “In many languages, focused subjects require explicit focus marking, whereas focused nonsubjects remain unmarked” Güldemann et al. (2015: 170)

(18) Who eats mangoes?

yíì bwánɔ̀ [bá dé mántúà]REL yíì b-wánɔ̀ ba-H dè-H H-ma-ntúà 7.COP ba2-child 2-PRES eat-R OBJ.LINK-ma6-mango ‘It’s the children who eat mangoes.’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Conclusion on IS

General principles of IS in Gyeli determine the referentiality of bare noun arguments.

Syntactic position Known referent New referent Subject default: in-situ top all-new information in embedded clauses/ cleft construction foc Object in-situ foc/ default: in-situ foc left-dislocated top

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Relating IS and ‘diagnostic’ examples

(19) mùdã̂ mbɔ̀ mùdã̂ à nzí bíyɔ́ m-ùdã̂ mbɔ̀ m-ùdã̂ a nzí bíyɔ-H N1-woman by N1-woman 1 PROG.PST hit-R mwánɔ̀ m-wánɔ̀ N1-child ‘Each woman was hitting a/the child.’

Subject top: ‘each woman’, Object foc: ‘child’ Whether ‘child’ is interpreted as having wide or narrow scope depends on discourse. In order to disambiguate, further grammatical marking of the NP is used.

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure “Aboutness” marking strategies

Definiteness marking demonstratives anaphoric marker contrastive marker Indefiniteness marking negative polarity item numeral ‘one’

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Conclusion

Gyeli does not have articles seems to allow both definite and indefinite readings for BNs, especially out of context uses information structure principles to organize known and new referents uses additional NP marking strategies to track reference

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Selected References

Abney, S.P. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Ph.D. Thesis: MIT, Cambridge MA. Alexiadou, A. et al. 2007. Noun phrase in the generative perspective (Studies in Generative Grammar 71). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Bošković, Ž. 2008. What will you have, DP or NP? In Proceedings of NELS 37. Dik, S.C. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The Structure of the Clause. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Fiedler, I. et al. 2010. Subject focus in West African languages. In: Zimmermann, M. & C. Féry (eds.) Information Structure. Theoretical, Typological, and Experimental Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 234–257. Gillon, C. & S. Armoskaite. 2012. The semantic import of (c)overt D. Proceedings of the 29th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. 337–345. Givón, T. 1978. Definiteness and referentiality. In Greenberg, J. etal. Universals of Human Language: Syntax. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 291–330. Givón, T. 1987. Beyond foreground and background. In Tomlin, R. (ed.) Coherence and Grounding in Discourse. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. Grimm, N. 2015. A Grammar of Gyeli. PhD Thesis: Humboldt University Berlin. Güldemann, T. & S. Zerbian & M. Zimmermann. 2015. Variation in information structure with special reference to Africa. Annual Review of Linguistics (1), 155–178. Jackendoff, R.S. 1977. X-Bar Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure. Cambridge, MA: MITPress. Lambrecht, 1994. Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus, and the mental representation of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Longobardi, G. 1994. Reference and proper names: A theory of N-movement in syntax and Logical Form. Linguistic Inquiry 25: 609-665. Lyons, C. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwarz, F. 2013. Two kinds of definites cross-linguistically. Language and Linguistics Compass 7/10: 534-559. Stowell, T. 1991. Determiners in NP and DP. In Views on Phrase Structure. In: Leffel, K. & D. Bouchard (eds.), 37-56: Kluwer. Wang, H. 2012. The syntactic structure of Chinese nominal phrases. Evanston, IL: PhD thesis.

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility Introduction Bare noun definiteness diagnostics Reference tracking via information structure Many thanks to...

the Bagyeli people (especially Mama David and Ada Joseph), Djiedhjie François, Bimbvoung Emmanuel Calvin, VW Foundation, Tom Güldemann, Maarten Mous, Ines Fiedler, my team members Daniel Duke, Emmanuel Ngue Um and Christopher Lorenz, and Scott Grimm

Nadine Grimm Gyeli bare nouns and referent accessibility