Transparency in language A typological study Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6111 Trans 10 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lotschool.nl Cover illustration © 2011: Sanne Leufkens – image from the performance ‘Celebration’ ISBN: 978-94-6093-162-8 NUR 616 Copyright © 2015: Sterre Leufkens. All rights reserved. Transparency in language A typological study ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op vrijdag 23 januari 2015, te 10.00 uur door Sterre Cécile Leufkens geboren te Delft Promotiecommissie Promotor: Prof. dr. P.C. Hengeveld Copromotor: Dr. N.S.H. Smith Overige leden: Prof. dr. E.O. Aboh Dr. J. Audring Prof. dr. Ö. Dahl Prof. dr. M.E. Keizer Prof. dr. F.P. Weerman Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen i Acknowledgments When I speak about my PhD project, it appears to cover a time-span of four years, in which I performed a number of actions that resulted in this book. In fact, the limits of the project are not so clear. It started when I first heard about linguistics, and it will end when we all stop thinking about transparency, which hopefully will not be the case any time soon. Moreover, even though I might have spent most time and effort to ‘complete’ this project, it is definitely not just my work. Many people have contributed directly or indirectly, by thinking about transparency, or thinking about me. I am very grateful to all of them, including everyone I do not thank in person below. It’s true, I could not have done this without you! First of all, I want to thank the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), for generously funding my PhD project, also called research programme 322-70-003. Linguistic research, especially typological research, relies heavily on the knowledge of native speakers and language experts. Without it, this dissertation would be built on sand. Therefore, I want to thank Enoch Aboh, Daniël Boeke, Leston Buell, Michael Dunn, Helen Eaton, Nick Evans, David Foris, Michael Fortescue, Mona Hegazy, Anne-Christie Hellenthal, George Hewitt, Shoichi Iwasaki, Zaira Khalilova, Mohammed Jafar, Baris Kabak, Marian Klamer, Elena Maslova, René van Munster, Sebastian Nordhoff, Çisem Özkurt, John Peterson, Caroline Roset, Ian Smith, Miriam van Staden, and Manfred Woidich for their answers to all my questions. I hope I have done justice to your languages. My study also strongly builds on the work of linguists whose expertise lies in the fields of typology, theoretical linguistics, or linguistic complexity. In this respect, I am grateful to Paul Boersma, Suzanne Aalberse, and Marc van Oostendorp for sharing their thoughts, and thinking with me to solve our shared questions. For the same reason, I want to thank Jenny Audring, Fred Weerman, Enoch Aboh, Evelien Keizer, and Östen Dahl. I additionally thank them for agreeing to be in my committee. I have learned a lot from all of you. ii Lachlan Mackenzie and Eva van Lier were very kind to read my texts and give their constructive feedback, which was helpful, inspirational and reassuring. Those qualifications equally apply to my time in Leipzig, thanks to Martin Haspelmath and Susanne Michaelis, who gave me, apart from new insights into my research topic, a very warm welcome. After having thanked colleagues for their linguistic contributions, I also want to thank them for their personal support and friendship. Many, many people from inside and outside the Bungehuis have helped me through the more difficult days of this project. The Functional Discourse Grammar community has helped me tremendously in becoming a true linguist and showing that there is more to that than competition. Thanks for this, Kees, Lachlan, Hella, Evelien, Wim, Daniel, Lucia, Freek, Arok, Marize, Gareth, Joceli, and Flavia. Furthermore, I am thankful to Anne, Akke, Angela, Anne Maren, Roland, and Rosanne from the board of the Alumnikring Taalwetenschap, for our effective collaboration and the fun meetings (well, dinners). I am grateful to the Unlearnable and Learnable Language group as well, for all the instructive and inspiring talks and discussions, and for providing the opportunity to present my own work and gain organisational experience. I have spent the last ten years studying and working in the Bungehuis and I am very sorry to leave it, as it feels like a second home to me. My gratitude goes to all Amsterdam colleagues, fellow PhDs, and especially roomies, who have made it feel this way. Thank you, Rob, Jan Hulstijn, Jan de Jong, Ingrid, Cecilia, Gerdien, Elly, Katja Chládková, Karin, Titia, Lucia, Lissan, Elin, Konrad, Sophie, Iris, Bibi, Margot, Jan-Willem, Margreet, Joke, Marlou, Katja Bobyleva, Mark, Vadim, Tessa, and all others. I would have been lost without your understanding, kind words, coffee, and especially your jokes. Obviously, one of the most determining factors in everyday PhD life is supervision, and I am happy that my supervisors took my work seriously and were always helpful, attentive and kind. I am grateful to Norval Smith for pointing out shortcomings in things out of my expertise, like English and creoles – always with great detail and an even greater sense of humour. Norval, thank you for all your helpful feedback, iii always on point, even from Vienna. Moreover, I feel blessed that Kees was always just a door away, ready to answer small questions, but also bigger ones. From the beginning of our collaboration, when I was a student, I have always felt that I went into Kees’ office with a problem, and came out of it relieved and full of inspiration. Thank you for that, Kees. Finally, my biggest, warmest and soggiest thanks go to the people who were there for me outside office hours, no matter what. Thanks to all the members of the unsurpassed Ricciotti Ensemble, for making so many people happy, and bringing out the best in me. Sara de Vi, Kim, Lisa, Krzysztof, Rosa, Sofie, Marten, Floortje, Maurice, Sara de Vr, Jildou, Emmie, I am very proud and grateful to have you as my fabulous best friends. Klaas and Sanne, my sweet nymphs, you are the funniest people I know and that has brought much comfort in difficult times. Papa, mama, Sanne, and Eva, I can’t thank you enough. Ik ben zo blij dat jullie er zijn. Enough with the cuddling, now enjoy my book! iv v Table of contents Acknowledgments i Table of contents v List of figures and tables ix Glossing conventions and list of abbreviations xi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Topic and aims 1 1.2 Theoretical embedding 2 1.3 Methodology 3 1.4 Outline 3 2 Transparency in Functional Discourse Grammar 5 2.1 Functional Discourse Grammar 5 2.2 Defining transparency in FDG 12 2.3 Non-transparency in the lexicon 15 2.4 Categories of opacity 16 3 Transparency 21 3.1 Other interpretations of transparency: delimitation of the concept 21 3.1.1 Counterbleeding and counterfeeding 21 3.1.2 Iconicity 22 3.1.3 Homomorphism and isomorphism 24 3.1.4 Transparency of compounds and derivations 25 3.1.5 Simplicity 26 3.2 Earlier studies on one-to-one correspondence 26 3.2.1 Theoretical linguistics 27 3.2.2 Language acquisition 30 3.2.3 Creole studies 31 vi 3.3 Simplicity 35 3.3.1 Absolute simplicity 36 3.3.2 Relative simplicity 40 3.4 Directionality: a continuum of transparency 42 3.4.1 Implicational hierarchy: typology of transparency 42 3.4.2 Diachrony: the transparency of creoles 43 3.4.3 Learnability: the difficulty of opacity 46 4 A list of non-transparent features 49 4.1 Redundancy 50 4.1.1 Multiple expressions of pragmatic information 50 4.1.2 Nominal apposition 50 4.1.3 Clausal agreement or cross-reference 51 4.1.4 Phrasal agreement 55 4.1.5 Plural concord in noun phrases containing a numeral 56 4.1.6 Negative concord 57 4.1.7 Modal concord 60 4.1.8 Temporal concord and tense copying 61 4.1.9 Spatial concord 62 4.1.10 Summary redundancy features 62 4.2 Discontinuity 63 4.2.1 Extraction and/or extraposition 63 4.2.2 Raising 65 4.2.3 Circumfixes 66 4.2.4 Infixes 66 4.2.5 Non-parallel alignment 67 4.2.6 Summary discontinuity features 67 4.3 Fusion 68 4.3.1 Cumulation of TAME and case 68 4.3.2 Morphologically conditioned stem alternation: suppletion 71 vii 4.3.3 Morphologically conditioned affix alternation: irregular stem formation 72 4.3.4 Summary fusion features 74 4.4 Form-based form 75 4.4.1 Grammatical gender 75 4.4.2 Nominal expletives 76 4.4.3 Syntactic functions 78 4.4.4 Influence of complexity on word order 84 4.4.5 Function marking is predominantly head-marking 87 4.4.6 Morphophonologically conditioned stem alternation 89 4.4.7 Morphologically and/or morphophonologically conditioned affix alternation 89 4.4.8 Phonologically conditioned stem alternation 92 4.4.9 Phonologically conditioned affix alternation 94 4.4.10 Summary form-based form features 94 4.5 Summary of the list of non-transparent features 94 5 Methodology 99 5.1 Research questions 99 5.2 The sample 102 5.3 Methodology: implicational hierarchies 108 5.4 Hypotheses and expected outcomes 111 6 Results and discussion 117 6.1 How are non-transparent features distributed cross-linguistically? 117 6.1.1 An overview of the data 118 6.1.2 An implicational hierarchy of transparency 126 6.1.3 Explanations for transparency and opacity 131 6.1.4 Features not fitting the hierarchy 135 viii 6.2 How are redundancy, fusion, domain disintegration and form-based form features distributed cross-linguistically? 140