The acquisition of numeral classifiers and optional plural marking in Yucatec Maya

2009 ◽  
pp. 91-110
Author(s):  
Barbara Pfeiler
Keyword(s):  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Numeral Classifiers ◽  
Plural Marking

Non-inflectional plural in yucatec maya

2021 ◽  
pp. 484-496
Author(s):  
Lindsay Butler
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Determiner Phrase ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Derivational Morphology ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Additional Support

This chapter examines the morphosyntactic properties of optional, non-inflectional plural marking in Yucatec Maya. Evidence is presented that suggests that the non-inflectional plural in Yucatec Maya adjoins to the Determiner Phrase rather than heading the Number Phrase as in better-known languages. Plural marking cannot occur inside of compounds, derivational morphology, or on a prenominal adjective. Additionally, it can adjoin to the second linear noun of a conjoined noun phrase and modify either or both of the conjuncts. The results of a sentence production experiment with speakers of Yucatec Maya are summarized and provide additional support for the Determiner Phrase–adjoined hypothesis. The Yucatec Maya facts are discussed in the wider context of cross-linguistic variation in the typology of plural marking and the implications for linguistic theory and models of language processing.

scholarly journals The syntax and morphology of nominal modification in Ògè

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Priscilla Lola Adenuga
Keyword(s):  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Short Forms ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
General Number ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Open Class

This dissertation investigates several aspects of nominal modification in Ògè, an understudied language of Benue-congo spoken in Àkókó Northwest in Nigeria. The study focuses on two areas of nominal modification namely, Nominal Attributive Modifiers (NAMs) and the strategies of number marking. The discussion and analysis of NAMs in the language reveal that Ògè belongs to the group of languages which lacks adjectives as a lexical category. NAMs are nominal and they are derived from an existing lexical category namely, verbs. Predicative modifiers and NAMs have forms that are similar to the long and short forms (LF & SF) of adjectives in languages in which adjectives form an open class, for example, Russian, SerBoCroatian (BCS) and German. Based on the Minimalist program, the dissertation reveals that unlike Russian, BCS, and German in which the discrepancies between the two forms of adjectives are related to definiteness (as in the case of BCS) and Agree, the discrepancies in the two forms of modifiers in Ògè are related to the fact that Ògè lacks adjectives and resorts into the nominalization of stative verbs in order to derive attributive forms. Using the analyses of adjuncts according to Truswell (2004) and Zeijlstra (2020), the dissertation proposes that NAMs are adjuncts in a modification structure while they are heads in possessive and genitive constructions. In addition, I propose that NAMs are attributive-only modifiers which modify the NP rather than the DP. The dissertation also investigates the strategies of number marking in Ògè. Unlike languages in which number marking is obligatory in the nominal domain (Hebrew, German, English), nouns in Ògè are not always marked for number. This means that nouns in Ògè have general number. The general number nature of nouns in Ògè is like that of the nouns in modifying plural marking languages namely, Halkomelem, Korean, Yucatec Maya and Yorùbá. However, I argue that unlike the modifying plural marking languages in which the Number Phrase (NumP) is not projected, NumP is projected in the nominal spine of Ògè, claiming that NumP bears an interpretable number feature which values the uninterpretable number feature in D. Argument in support of this comes from the interpretation of the noun in the presence of òtúro (an element which translates to the plural definite interpretation of the noun). I analyze òtúro as a plural determiner which occupies the D-head in the syntax of Ògè. The dissertation argues following Alexiadou (2019) that the locus of the occurrence of the marker of plurality in the nominal spine does not depend on its interpretation as a plural morpheme, rather, the locus of the occurrence of the element that is sensitive to the plural interpretation of the noun depends on other parameters which are definiteness, specificity and animacy.

scholarly journals Numeral classifiers and number marking in Indo-Iranian

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chundra A. Cathcart ◽  
Andreas Hölzl ◽  
Gerhard Jäger ◽  
Paul Widmer ◽  
Balthasar Bickel
Keyword(s):  
Transition Rates ◽  
Posterior Distributions ◽  
Alternative Possibility ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Numeral Classifiers ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phylogenetic Model ◽  
Plural Marking

Abstract This paper investigates the origins of sortal numeral classifiers in the Indo-Iranian languages. While these are often assumed to result from contact with non-Indo-European languages, an alternative possibility is that classifiers developed as a response to the rise of optional plural marking. This alternative is in line with the so-called Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin (henceforth GSS) generalization. The GSS generalization holds that the presence of sortal numeral classifiers across languages is negatively correlated with obligatory plural marking on nouns. We assess the extent to which Indo-Iranian classifier development is influenced by loosening of restrictions on plural marking using a sample of 65 languages and a Bayesian phylogenetic model, inferring posterior distributions over evolutionary transition rates between typological states and using these rates to reconstruct the history of classifiers and number marking throughout Indo-Iranian, constrained by historically attested states. We find broad support for a diachronically oriented construal of the GSS generalization, but find no evidence for a strong bias against the synchronic co-occurrence of classifiers and obligatory plural marking. Inspection of the most likely diachronic trajectories in individual lineages in the tree shows a stronger effect of the GSS among Iranian languages than Indo-Aryan languages. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that the association of classifiers and optional number marking in Indo-Iranian is neither solely the effect of universal mechanisms nor of the contingency of local contact histories.

Crosslinguistic and experimental evidence for non-number plurals*

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Kay Butler
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Determiner Phrase ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Plural Marking

In this paper, I find support for the idea that plural marking shows variation across languages but can still be captured in a universal syntax (Wiltschko 2008, 2011). The proposal that the plural morpheme heads the Number Phrase (Ritter 1991; Bernstein 1991; Valois 1991; inter alia) is not adequate to account for plural marking in all languages. Wiltschko (2008) proposed that plurals may merge either as heads or adjuncts to various projections along the spine of the Determiner Phrase (DP, NumP, nP and the root). I provide syntactic, semantic and experimental evidence that the plural morpheme in Yucatec Maya is adjoined to the DP. I highlight evidence from other language types for variation in the syntax of plural marking, and I discuss how this variation might be constrained in particular ways. The implication of these findings is that identity of function does not imply identical syntax or semantics. Keywords: plural marking; Number Phrase; Determiner Phrase; Yucatec Maya; sentence production; morphosyntactic priming

Effects of education on the production of plural morphology among bilingual speakers of Yucatec Maya and Spanish

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-319
Author(s):  
Lindsay K. Butler ◽  
Rosa María Couoh Pool
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Conceptual Information ◽  
Set Size ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Plural Marking

Abstract Yucatec Maya differs from many better-known languages in that it has optional plural marking. In a psycholinguistic study of the production of optional plural marking with college-enrolled speakers of Yucatec Maya, Butler, Jaeger, and Bohnemeyer (2014) found that conceptual number information influences the production of optional plural marking. Since the participants in the Butler et al. (2014) study are not necessarily representative of speakers of Yucatec Maya, we examine the effects of conceptual number information, via the manipulation of set size, while factoring in the effects of age, education and language use variables on the production of optional plural morphology among bilingual speakers of Yucatec Maya and Spanish speaking in Yucatec Maya. In addition to finding effects of conceptual information, we found that education, but not age, significantly influences the production of plural morphology in Yucatec Maya. Participants with higher levels of education were more sensitive to conceptual number information.

Mass/count

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Gillon ◽  
Nicole Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Count Nouns ◽  
Measure Phrase ◽  
Plural Marking

This chapter investigates the mass/count distinction in Michif. In many languages, mass and count nouns are distinguished via the (in)ability to occur with plural marking, the (in)ability to occur with numerals without a measure phrase, and the (in)ability to occur with certain quantifiers (Jespersen 1909; Chierchia 1998). However, these diagnostics do not apply to all languages. For example, in Inuttut (Labrador Inuktitut), none of those diagnostics distinguishes between mass and count nouns, but there are other diagnostics that do (Gillon 2012). This chapter shows that Michif displays a split: in one part of the grammar, the three diagnostics distinguish between mass and count nouns, and in another part, the diagnostics do not. This shows that Michif disambiguates between French-derived vocabulary and Algonquian-derived vocabulary, which complicates the notion that the Michif DP is French (Bakker 1997).

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