PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Se�ie� B - No. 34 THE DEEP SYNTAX OF LISU SENTENCES A TRANSFORMATIONAL CASE GRAMMAR by Edward Reginald Hope Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Hope, E.R. The deep syntax of Lisu sentences: A transformation case grammar. B-34, viii + 192 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1974. DOI:10.15144/PL-B34.cover ©1974 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is published by the Lingui� tic Ci�cte 06 Canbe��a and consists of four series: SERIES A - OCCASIONA L PAPERS SERIES B - MONOGRAPHS SERIES C - BOOKS SERIES V - SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS . EDITOR: S.A. Wurm . ASSOCIATE EDITORS : D.C. Laycock , C.L. Voorhoeve . ALL CORRESPONDENCE concerning PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, including orders and subscriptions, should be addressed to: The Secretary , PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, Department of Linguistics, School of Pacific Studies , The Australian National University , Canberra , A.C.T. 2600. Australia . Copyright (§) E.R. Hope. First published 1974. The editors are indebted to the Australian National University for help in the pr oduction of this series. This publication wa s made possible by an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund. National Library of Au stralia Card number and ISBN 0 85883 110 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page EXPLANATION OF ORTHOGRAPHY vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 1. 1 The Lisu language 1 1. 2 Previous grammars and descriptions 1 1. 3 Raison d'etre for a further grammar 4 1. 4 Factors determining the choice of a base representation 6 1. 41 Order and the subject-object relation 7 1.42 Topic, comment, focus and presupposition 8 1.43 Topicalization and discourse 13 1.44 Theoretical implications 16 Notes 21 CHAPTER II: THE BASE, THE CASES AND THE CASE FRAMES 25 2. 1 The Cases 26 2. 2 The postposition case markers 27 2.3 The Case frames 27 2.31 Case frames incorporating one obligatory case 28 2.31. a +[A_J verbs 28 + 2.31. b [1 - J verbs 29 2. 31. c +[D_ J verbs 30 2.31. d +[0 - J verbs 31 2. 31. e +[F - J verbs 32 2.32 Case frames incorporating two obligatory cases 33 2. 32. a +[A,O_J verbs 33 2.32. b +[A,O J verbs which have alternative specification 34 2.32. c +[A,I_J verbs 37 2.32.d +[A,D_J verbs 37 2.32. e +[A,D_J verbs which have alternative +[A,F_J 38 specification iii iv J 2.32. f +[A,F - verbs 38 2. 32. g +[1,0_ J verbs 39 2.32.h +[I,F_J verbs 39 2.32.i +[D,O -J verbs 40 2.32. j "!"[D,F_J verbs 41 2.32.k +[O,L_J verbs 42 2.33 Case frames incorporating three obligatory cases 43 2. 33. a +[A,D,O_J verbs 43 2.33.b +[A,I,O J verbs 44 Notes 46 CHAPTER III: TOPICALIZATION, FOCUS AND THE ORDER OF NOUN PHRASES 49 3.1 Primary topicalization 50 3.2 Secondary topicalization 54 3. 3 Topics marked by xa 58 3.4 Adverbial topics 62 3. 5 Subordinate clause topicalization 63 3.51 Presupposition-creating topics 64 3.52 Conditional topics 66 3. 53 Causal topics 67 3.54 The deep base of subordinate clause constructions 69 Notes 71 CHAPTER IV: THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASES 73 4. 1 Determiners 73 4.2 Relative clauses 74 4.21 Relative clause PRO-nominalization 74 4. 22 Relative clauses with verbal predicates 75 4. 23 Relative clauses with adjectival verbal predicates 81 4.24 Relative clauses with demonstrative predicates 83 4. 25 Relative clauses with qualificative predicates 88 4.26 Relative clauses with classifier predicates 92 4.3 Complex relative clauses 101 4.31 Relative clauses incorporating demonstrative and verbal 101 predicates 4. 32 Relative clauses incorporating demonstrative and 104 quantificative predicates 4.33 Relative clauses incorporating verbal and quantificative 105 predicates 4. 34 Relative clauses incorporating verbal, demonstrative and 107 quantificative predicates v 4.4 Pronouns 107 4.5 Possessives 111 4.6 Derived nouns 112 4.61 Deverbal nouns 112 4.62 Nouns derived from classifiers 113 4.63 Other nouns with prefix-like PRO-article Y( 114 4.7 Noun features 117 Notes 119 CHAPTER V: COMPLEMENTATION, AUX ILIAR IES AND MODALS 121 5.1 Complement-taking verbs - [+Adj] [+Aux] 122 5.11 [+Adj] [+Aux] verbs which occur in [S,V] propositions 122 5.12 [+Adj] [+Aux] verbs which occur in [D,S,V] propositions 123 5.13 [+Adj] [+Aux] verbs which occur in [O,S,V] propositions 124 5.14 [+Adj] [+Aux] verbs which occur in [L,S,V] propositions 125 5.15 [+Adj] [+Aux] verbs which occur in a variety of 126 proposition types 5.16 Remarks on the complement S types discussed thus far 127 5.2 Complement-taking verbs [+Adj] [±Aux] 129 5.3 Complement-taking verbs - [-Adj] [-Aux] 133 5.4 Complement-taking verbs - [-Adj] [+Aux] 134 5.41 Verbs of motion 134 5.42 Giving, Benefiting and Helping 138 5.43 Trying and Succeeding 143 5.44 Causing, Happening and Becoming 144 5.45 Remarks on verbs discussed in sub-section 5.4 146 5.5 MEANS and PURPOSE 147 5.6 Aspect markers 150 5.61 The continuative 151 5.62 The completive 152 5.63 The reciprocal 153 5.7 Negation 153 5.8 Performatives 156 5.81 The declarative 156 5.82 The interrogative 157 5.83 The imperative 159 5.84 Modal performatives 160 5.9 Complements and topicalization 162 Notes 164 CONCLUSION 166 APPENDIX A: A SAMPLE TEXT 169 BIBLIOGRAPHY 173 MAP : THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LISU LANGUAGE 2 vi EXPLAN ATION OF ORTHOG RAPHY The orthography I have used when citing Lisu examples in this study is based on the following charts of consonant and vowel phonemes : Consonants P t ts k ph th tsh kh b d dz 9 f 5 X h V z " m n I) Vowe ls u e a a In addition I have pos ited the fol lowing suprasegmentals : Palatalization (symboli zed by y) Lab iali zation (symbolized by w) Laryngealization (symbolized by _) Tone: High (symboli zed by ') Mid (unmarked) Low (symbolized by ') Mid-rise (symbolized by Y ) High-fall (symbolized by ') The phonetic realization of certain combinations of the ab ove phoneme s is affected by allophonic variation which is most simp ly stated as a set of informal item-and-process rules which are as follows : (i) Any alveolar consonant phoneme , when it is followed by /-y-/ is articulated in the manner specified, but the point of articulation becomes alveo-palatal or, with many speakers , palatal . With alveolar stop phonemes, the release is affricated if the stop is followed by a i combination /- yi/. To illustrate, /s ya/[fa]; /tya/[ca]; /ty i /[tf, ]. I (ii) The labialization suprasegmental /-w-/ is articulated as a labio-dental fricative when the following vowe l is either I- if or /- u/. i i To illustrate, /p hwi/ [phfv ]; /bw i/ [b v ]; /bwu/ [b vu]. , I I f (iii) The vowel I- if is articulated with simultaneous labio-dental or palatal fricti on when it follows /-w-/ or /-y-/ respectively . To vii i i illustrate, /twt/ [tv J; /tyi/ [tJ, , J. , (iv) The vowel /-u/ is articulated wi th simultaneous labio-dental u fri ction when it follows /-w- /. Thus /twu/ [tv J. , (v) The vowel /-e/ is articulated with lip-rounding in labialized syllables . For instance /twe/ [t0J. (vi) Laryngeali zation is articulated as glottalization of the nuclear vowel in low-tone syllables , and as tenseness of the nuclear vowel in mid-tone syllables . Thus /n�/ [n�lJ; /n�/ [n�3J. (vii) Either one of two adjacent syllabic vowels may lose their syllabicity optionally if they both occur in the same breath-group . The resulting syllab le has both glided vowe ls , and a tone glide . Thus /dye �/ [je�3-1J � [j��3-1J . Where the syllable reduction is usual, even though not requi red, I have joined the two vowels by a hyphen in the Lisu trans cription . In addition to the pure ly phonological rules given ab ove , there are also certain regular morphophonemic changes associated with the DECLARATIVE markers {-�} and {-�}. The rules governing these changes can be stated informally as : (a) When a verb having a laryngeali zed final syllable with mid tone, or a final syllable with high tone , is followed by the DECLARATIVE marker {-�} or {-�}, the syllable reduction which occurs does not result in a tone glide , but in a syllable with high tone . The normal vowel glides occur in the reduced syllable. Thus {b�}{-�} /b�A/; {tf}{-�} /dA/· (b) When a verb having a final syllab le with mid-rise tone is followed by either of the DECLARATIVE markers menti oned ab ove , the result , after syllab le reduction is a syllab le with mid tone onset and high tone coda . Thus {pe}{-�} /peA/. The Lisu trans criptions in this thesis are morphophonemi c rather than phonemic, with a view to keeping the syntax of the examp les as trans­ parent as possible , without having to constantly involve the reader in the unravelling of tone changes. Thus all morpheme s are written with their basic phonemic shape , rather than their phonemi c shape after morphophonemi c rules have applied. The ab ove explanation of the orthography employed in the study is not to be interpreted as an attempt to describe Lisu phonology .