Towards a unified analysis of Katcha nominal modifiers

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-160
Author(s):  
Darryl Turner
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Identical Distribution ◽  
Demonstrative Pronouns ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This paper presents a description and analysis of the syntax of nominal modifiers in Katcha. The three main types of nominal modifiers in Katcha, demonstratives, possessive noun phrases and relative clauses, all agree with their head noun in gender, are morphologically marked when their head noun is a peripheral argument of the verb, and can occur in ‘headless’ constructions where there is no overt head noun. In the latter case they have a pronominal interpretation. The paper argues that a unified account of all nominal modifiers can be provided by adopting two premises: firstly, the possessive and relative markers are allomorphs of the proximal demonstrative; secondly, demonstratives in Katcha are pronouns rather than determiners. All nominal modifiers can then be characterized as appositional phrases headed by demonstrative pronouns. This characterization allows the inclusion of the medial and distal pronouns into the system, explaining why they have a different form to all other nominal modifiers, but identical distribution. The final section adds cross-linguistic perspective by discussing the relationship between this analysis of Katcha and the notion of construct state, most familiar in Semitic, but which has been argued to be a concept appropriate to a number of African languages.

scholarly journals prosody of Símákonde relative clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 159-185
Author(s):  
Sophie Manus
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Prosodic Phrase ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
The Relationship

Símákonde is an Eastern Bantu language (P23) spoken by immigrant Mozambican communities in Zanzibar and on the Tanzanian mainland. Like other Makonde dialects and other Eastern and Southern Bantu languages (Hyman 2009), it has lost the historical Proto-Bantu vowel length contrast and now has a regular phrase-final stress rule, which causes a predictable bimoraic lengthening of the penultimate syllable of every Prosodic Phrase. The study of the prosody / syntax interface in Símákonde Relative Clauses requires to take into account the following elements: the relationship between the head and the relative verb, the conjoint / disjoint verbal distinction and the various phrasing patterns of Noun Phrases. Within Símákonde noun phrases, depending on the nature of the modifier, three different phrasing situations are observed: a modifier or modifiers may (i) be required to phrase with the head noun, (ii) be required to phrase separately, or (iii) optionally phrase with the head noun.  

scholarly journals prosody of Shingazidja relatives

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Cédric Patin
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Prosodic Phrase ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
The Relationship

Símákonde is an Eastern Bantu language (P23) spoken by immigrant Mozambican communities in Zanzibar and on the Tanzanian mainland. Like other Makonde dialects and other Eastern and Southern Bantu languages (Hyman 2009), it has lost the historical Proto-Bantu vowel length contrast and now has a regular phrase-final stress rule, which causes a predictable bimoraic lengthening of the penultimate syllable of every Prosodic Phrase. The study of the prosody / syntax interface in Símákonde Relative Clauses requires to take into account the following elements: the relationship between the head and the relative verb, the conjoint / disjoint verbal distinction and the various phrasing patterns of Noun Phrases. Within Símákonde noun phrases, depending on the nature of the modifier, three different phrasing situations are observed: a modifier or modifiers may (i) be required to phrase with the head noun, (ii) be required to phrase separately, or (iii) optionally phrase with the head noun.  

scholarly journals Gli usi dell’articolo e del pro-aggettivo in alcuni tipi di sintagmi nominali italiani a confronto con lo sloveno

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Mirjam Premrl Podobnik
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
Descriptive Information ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Universal Category ◽  
The Relationship

The article focuses on the relationship between postmodifiers in the form of noun phrases, relative and content clauses, and the use of articles or pro-adjectives in the nominal heads. The results of a qualitative analysis of Slovene and Italian texts and their translations into Italian and Slovene are presented, the main purpose of which was to identify markers of definiteness in Slovene and to predict the use of articles in Italian, thus showing the possibilities for Slovenes to express themselves appropriately in Italian. Assuming that definiteness is a universal category and therefore recognisable also in languages without articles (Slovene), and considering the author and the translator ideal speakers of Slovene and/or Italian, the Slovene texts served as the starting point of each analysis, while the Italian texts played the role of control. An article use is defined as cataphoric if the content of the postmodifier contributes to the definite interpretation of its head. Subordinate noun phrases can be divided into conceptual and argumentative. In Italian, the former, expressing a non-entity, are marked by a zero article and form a semantic unit with their heads, whereas the latter, expressing an entity, are marked by an article (included the zero one) and do not form a semantic unit with their heads. Related to definiteness is the restrictiveness of the clause, which consists in the article or pro-adjective determining the head including its postmodifier. Such heads can be both definite or indefinite. The analyses have shown instances of relative clauses that are placed between restrictive and non-restrictive ones. Conveying descriptive information, they occur after the heads preceded by an indefinite article. The definiteness of nominal heads preceded by a pro-adjective or without a determiner in Slovene texts is also discussed.

Remnant-internal relativization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Peripheral Position ◽  
Specific Configuration ◽  
The Right

Chapter 2 investigates a specific configuration (dubbed “remnant-internal relativization”) in which the head noun and some modifier/complement related to it appear discontinuously (as in the so-called split or discontinuous noun phrases). It is argued that the analysis of remnant-internal relativization is of particular interest from the theoretical and diachronic point of view. Theoretically it can illuminate the long-standing debate between the right adjunction and the head raising analyses of RRCs, providing evidence in favor of the latter. From a diachronic perspective, it is argued that the loss of remnant-internal relativization with the modifier/complement in the left periphery of the Portuguese relative clauses might be due to a restriction on movement that emerges inside the DP, which blocks the extraction of the modifier/complement to a left peripheral position.

The correspondence between sentence production and corpus frequencies in modifier attachment

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 879-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Desmet ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Constantijn De Baecke
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Attachment Preference ◽  
Attachment Sites ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Relative Clause Attachment

We examined the production of relative clauses in sentences with a complex noun phrase containing two possible attachment sites for the relative clause (e.g., “Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.”). On the basis of two corpus analyses and two sentence continuation tasks, we conclude that much research about this specific syntactic ambiguity has used complex noun phrases that are quite uncommon. These noun phrases involve the relationship between two humans and, at least in Dutch, induce a different attachment preference from noun phrases referring to non-human entities. We provide evidence that the use of this type of complex noun phrase may have distorted the conclusions about the processes underlying relative clause attachment. In addition, it is shown that, notwithstanding some notable differences between sentence production in the continuation task and in coherent text writing, there seems to be a remarkable correspondence between the attachment patterns obtained with both modes of production.

scholarly journals A Description of Dzә (Jenjo) Nouns and Noun Phrases, an Adamawa Language of Northeastern Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-504
Author(s):  
Peace Benson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Important Data ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Reflexive Pronouns ◽  
Preliminary Study

Dzə [jen] is an Adamawa language spoken in some parts of Taraba, Adamawa and Gombe states in Northeastern Nigeria. The study presented in the article syntactically describes nouns and noun phrases in Dzə. In an attempt to document Dzə and taking into consideration that Dzə is an under-investigated and under-documented language, the result will provide important data to typological research and to linguists working on Adamawa languages. The study adopts a descriptive research design in collecting, describing and analyzing the data. The data was obtained from fieldwork in December 2014, personal observations of daily conversations, introspection and the Dzə Bible. In the article, a brief overview of the phonology and tone of Dzə is provided. It also shows the different kinds of nouns, pronouns and noun phrases in Dzə; simple and complex noun phrases. The language is rich in pronouns, consisting of subject pronouns, object pronouns, reflexive pronouns, interrogative pronouns and possessive pronouns. As it is with most African languages, the elements that constitute a noun phrase occur after the head noun. These elements are articles, demonstratives, possessives, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, genitive constructions (inalienable and alienable possessives) and relative clauses. This is a preliminary study of Dzə and it is open for further research and contributions.

Discontinuous noun phrases and remnant-internal relativization in the diachrony of Portuguese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Internal Position

This chapter investigates syntactic change regarding the availability of split noun phrases in relative clauses in the diachrony of Portuguese. In earlier stages of the language an element that is thematically dependent on the head noun (either as a complement or as a modifier) may not appear adjacent to it but in a relative clause internal position. In Contemporary European Portuguese, noun phrase discontinuity also arises in relative clauses, but only with the modifier/complement in the rightmost position. The word order with the modifier/complement at the left periphery of the relative clause is not allowed. The change is explained as being due to the loss of a left-peripheral position for contrastive focus within relative clauses (and possibly other types of subordinate clauses). Hence, the contraction of clause structure and the concomitant loss of movement are taken to constrain the possibilities of phrasal discontinuity found in earlier periods.

The rise and fall of a rogue relative construction

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Deutscher
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Main Clause

In the earliest attested stage of the Akkadian language, relative clauses were introduced by a pronoun which agreed in case with the head noun in the main clause, rather than with the relativized NP in the relative clause. Such a system is extremely rare across languages, is demonstrably dysfunctional, and has been termed ‘inherently disfavoured’. This article attempts to explain how Akkadian acquired this rogue relative construction, and how the language then managed to get rid of it. I argue that this construction was only an unstable way-station in the emergence of a new relative clause in the language. The final section of the article examines the few parallels from other languages to the Old Akkadian system.

A Religion of Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Concept Of God ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Religion And Ethics ◽  
Religion Of Reason ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter is an examination of Cohen’s main work on the philosophy of religion, his Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums. Cohen’s religion of reason was an attempt to respond to two opposing conceptions of religion: that of the romantics (Schleiermacher, Fries) and that of the Tübingen school (Baur, Strauβ‎). The romantics saw the essence of religion in feeling, the Tübingen school saw it in myth. Cohen tried to rescue the rational content of religion by interpreting it mainly in ethical terms, which he believed to consist in rational imperatives. Cohen’s concept of God is interpreted in terms of the validity of these ethical imperatives and not in terms of the existence of any entity. One section considers Cohen’s re-examination of the relationship between religion and ethics, which now stresses the distinctive characteristics of religion within ethics. The final section criticizes Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Cohen as a proto-existentialist.

The relative verb forms of Cuwabo (Bantu P34) as contextually oriented participles

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-491
Author(s):  
Rozenn Guérois ◽  
Denis Creissels
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
North Western

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

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