LEL 1

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LEL 1

• Syntax 6 Syntactic Typology and Universals
• Peter Ackema
• packema_at_ling.ed.ac.uk

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Outline

• Cross-linguistic variation in word order
• Discourse-configurational languages
• Non-configurational languages
• Syntactic universals

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Recap Word order in English

• The subject is the phrase immediately preceding
  the verb and its complements.
• The object (if there is one) is the first phrase
  immediately following the verb.
• If there is an indirect object, this immediately
  precedes the direct object if it (the indirect
  object) is an NP, and it follows the direct
  object if it is a PP.
• These generalisations hold for discourse-neutral
  sentences
• Maria has read the newspaper already. (neutral)
• The newspaper, Maria has read already.

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SVO, SOV, VSO

• English is a Subject Verb Object (SVO)
  language.
• There are also SOV languages. For example,
  Japanese
• Hiromi-ga Naoko-ni tegami-o
  kaita.
• Hiromi-nominative Naoko-dative letter-accusative w
  rote
• Hiromi wrote a letter to Naoko.
• Japanese is head-final in general
• NP Taro-ga ano ie-o kat-ta toiu uwasa-o
  kii-ta.
• Taro-nom that house-acc bought that rumour-acc
  heard
• I heard the rumour that Taro bought that house.

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SVO, SOV, VSO (contd)

• VSO languages exist as well
• Sgrìobhadh iad an leabhar. (Scottish
  Gaelic)
• write-conditional they the book
• They would write the book.
• daxal-at n-nisaa?-u makaatib-a-hunna
• entered-fem the-women-nom office-plur.acc-their
• The women entered their offices.
• (Standard Arabic)
• VOS, OSV and OVS languages appear to be rare at
  best.

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Case and word order freedom

• German has some case morphology left. Dutch does
  not.
• German allows more word orders in the double
  object construction than Dutch.
• Der Mann gab der Frau den Hut.
• the(nom) man gave the(dat) woman the(acc) hat
• Der Mann gab den Hut der Frau. German
• De man gaf de vrouw de hoed. Dutch
• De man gaf de hoed de vrouw.

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Discourse-configurationality

• In English, you do not need to use a particular
  word order to indicate what the focus (new
  information) of a sentence is.
• You can stress the focused constituent,
  regardless of its position in the sentence.
• Who saw an elephant in the zoo yesterday?
• MARY saw an elephant in the zoo yesterday.
• What did Mary see in the zoo yesterday?
• Mary saw AN ELEPHANT in the zoo yesterday.
• Where did Mary see an elephant yesterday?
• Mary saw an elephant IN THE ZOO yesterday.
• When did Mary see an elephant in the zoo?
• Mary saw an elephant in the zoo YESTERDAY.

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Discourse-configurationalty (contd)

• In some languages, the focused constituent must
  go into a fixed position of the sentence,
  regardless of its grammatical function. The same
  holds for topics, constituents that explicitly
  encode old information.
• For example, in Hungarian the word order is
• topics (if there are any) focus (if there is
  any) rest
• János zsuzsi-nak adott egy könyv-et.
• John Susi-dative gave a book-accusative
• As for John, it was SUSI to whom he gave a book.
• János egy könyv-et adott Zsuzsi-nak.
• John a book-accusative gave Susi-dative
• As for John, it was A BOOK that he gave to Susi.

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Non-configurationality

• Both languages like English and
  discourse-configurational languages show evidence
  that their sentences are hierarchically
  structured. For instance, the subject is higher
  in the sentence structure than the object.
• Mary congratulated herself on her achievement.
• Herself congratulated Mary on her achievement.
• In non-configurational languages any evidence for
  a hierarchical syntactic structure is lacking.

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Non-configurationality (contd)

• What English expresses by syntactic means is
  typically expressed by morphological means in
  non-configurational languages. That is why they
  are sometimes also referred to as polysynthetic
  languages they glue all their constituents
  together into one complex word.
• Men-neki-ure-qepl-uwicwen-mek. Chukchi
• 1pl-imperative-night-long-ball-play-1pl
• Let us play ball for a long time at night.
• Pe-ke-ilot-aan-akin-it-o-to-ri. Turkana
• not-they.cause.me-wash-habitual-dative-aspect-v-pl
  ural-instrumental
• They do not force me to do the washing for
  somebody all the time.

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Non-configurationality (contd)

• Non-configurational languages do not need any
  syntactic subjects or objects in a sentence.
  Instead, there must always be rich agreement
  morphology on the verb that indicates who the
  doer, the undergoer, and so on, are.
• Atééd ashkii yiyii-tsa. Navajo
• girl boy 3sgobject-3sgsubject-saw
• The girl saw the boy.
• Yiyii-tsa.
• 3sgobject-3sgsubject-saw
• She/he saw her/him.

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Syntactic universals

• If in a language the verb is final in the VP (so
  if it is an SOV language) there is a tendency
  that the heads of other phrases are final in
  their phrases as well.
• Therefore, we can state a generalisation like the
  following
• If in a language verbs follow their complements,
  then prepositions follow their complements as
  well (that is, they will show up as
  postpositions). If in a language verbs precedes
  their complements, then prepositions precede
  their complements as well.
• This is an example of a syntactic universal, in
  particular of an implicational universal.

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Implicational and non-implicational universals

• An implicational universal has the general form
  If a language has X, then it will also have Y.
• Another example of an implicational universal
• If a language has SOV as its basic word order,
  then adverbs may intervene between verb and
  object in this basic word order. If a language
  has SVO as its basic word order, adverbs are not
  allowed to intervene between verb and object in
  this basic word order.
• An example of a non-implicational universal is
  the following
• All languages have verbs and nouns.

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Statistical and absolute universals

• Going back to...
• If in a language verbs follow their complements,
  then prepositions follow their complements as
  well (that is, they will show up as
  postpositions). If in a language verbs precedes
  their complements, then prepositions precede
  their complements as well
• it can be observed that not all languages
  adhere to this. It is even possible that a single
  language shows both prepositional and
  postpositional use of the same P
• Ze zwommen in het kanaal. Dutch
• they swam in the canal
• They were swimming in the canal.
• Ze zwommen het kanaal in.
• they swam the canal in
• They swam into the canal.

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Statistical and absolute universals (contd)

• Therefore, this
• If in a language verbs follow their complements,
  then prepositions follow their complements as
  well (that is, they will show up as
  postpositions). If in a language verbs precedes
  their complements, then prepositions precede
  their complements as well
• is a statistical universal.
• In contrast, an absolute universal is claimed to
  be without exceptions.
• Perhaps all languages have verbs and nouns is
  absolute.

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A universal about the Noun Phrase

• In an earlier lecture, we have seen that in
  English Noun Phrases
• the order is
• Determiner Adjective Noun
• and cannot be
• Adjective Determiner Noun
• The latter order is not found in other languages,
  either.
• Apparently
• If a determiner and an adjective precede the
  noun in a Noun Phrase, they must appear in the
  order Det - Adj