Linguistic Typology

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Volume 9–3 (2005)

Linguistic Typology Frans Plank

Editor-in-chief

Universität Konstanz, Germany

Peter Bakker

Editorial board

Aarhus Universitet, Denmark

Hilary Chappell

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France

Nicholas Evans

University of Melbourne, Australia

Alice C. Harris

State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA

Larry M. Hyman

University of California at Berkeley, USA

Marianne Mithun

University of California at Santa Barbara, USA

Johanna Nichols


Masayoshi Shibatani

Kobe University, Japan, and Rice University, Houston, USA

Dan I. Slobin


Editorial assistant Editorial address

Wolfgang Schellinger Sprachwissenschaft Universität Konstanz D-78457 Konstanz Germany E-mail: [email protected] Fax: +49-7531-88 4190

MOUTON DE GRUYTER BERLIN · NEW YORK

1st proofs | Mouton de Gruyter | preliminary line / page breaks!

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Contents

Target Article Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes

351

Commentary John Peterson There’s a grain of truth in every “myth”, or, Why the discussion of lexical classes in Mundari isn’t quite over yet 391 Kees Hengeveld and Jan Rijkhoff Mundari as a flexible language

406

William Croft Word classes, parts of speech, and syntactic argumentation

431

Author’s Response Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes

442

Articles Frans Plank Delocutive verbs, crosslinguistically

459

Heriberto Avelino The typology of Pame number systems and the limits of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area 493


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Target Article Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes NICHOLAS EVANS and TOSHIKI OSADA

Abstract Mundari, an Austroasiatic language of India (Munda family), has often been cited as an example of a language without word classes, where a single word can function as noun, verb, adjective, etc. according to the context. These claims, originating in a 1903 grammar by the missionary John Hoffmann, have recently been repeated uncritically by a number of typologists. Significantly, when Hoffmann compiled his massive Encyclopaedia Mundarica several decades later, he reverted to an analysis in terms of standard word classes, though the dictionary entries exhibit highly productive zero conversion. In this article we review the evidence for word class fluidity, on the basis of a careful analysis of Hoffmann’s corpus as well as substantial new data, including a large lexical sample at two levels of detail. We argue that in fact Mundari does have clearly definable word classes, with distinct open classes of verb and noun, in addition to a closed adjective class, though there are productive possibilities for using all as predicates. Along the way, we elaborate a series of criteria that would need to be met before any language could seriously be claimed to lack a noun-verb distinction: most importantly strict compositionality, bidirectional flexibility, and exhaustiveness through the lexicon. Keywords: conversion, derivation, kinship term, Mundari, noun, omnipredicative, precategoriality, proper name, verb, word classes, word formation 1.

Introduction

The possibility that there exist languages lacking a noun-verb distinction is not only the most extreme challenge to universalizing theories of word classes, but it also raises profound philosophical issues about whether all humans find the cognitive distinction between objects and events to be self-evident (cf. Whorf

Linguistic Typology 9 (2005), 351–390


1430–0532/2005/009-0351 c !Walter de Gruyter

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Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada

1956 [1940]). The claim that there are languages lacking a distinct open class of adjectives is now well-established (Dixon 1977,1 Schachter 1985, Croft 2003). But the search for the more extreme case of a language with just a single open word class of predicates has not yielded an uncontroversial example, to the point where the second edition of Croft’s influential textbook on typology and universals states confidently that “one of the few unrestricted universals is that all languages have nouns and verbs” (Croft 2003: 183). Yet the phenomenon of fluid word class membership – of languages claimed to lack a noun-verb distinction entirely, or to have only a very weak nounverb distinction – has recently experienced renewed attention. The longstanding debate over whether the noun-verb distinction exists in certain languages of the Austronesian family, and in the Pacific coast of the northwestern U.S. and southwestern Canada, has recently been resurrected with detailed new analyses by Himmelmann (1991, 2004a, b) and Gil (1995) for Tagalog, by Gil (1994, 2001) for Riau Indonesian, by Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992) for Samoan, by Broschart (1997) for Tongan2 , and by Kuipers (1968), Jacobson (1979), Kinkade (1983), Jelinek & Demers (1994), Jelinek (1995), and Demirdache & Matthewson (1995), among others, for Salish and other languages of the Pacific Northwest. These studies have brought new sophistication to our understanding of the often very subtle issues of analysis required to decide whether these languages merely have a more subtle difference between nouns and verbs, or have a morphological distinction but no syntactic distinction, or have a clear distinction but highly productive rules of zero conversion, or simply have a single major word class of predicates. A typology of ways in which languages may blur the distinction between the major word classes of nouns and verbs will be presented in Section 1.2, and – because debate in this area so often employs incompatible argumentation and terms – in Section 2 we set out some general criteria that need to be met before any claim about lack of word class distinctions can be deemed proven. We then move, in Section 3, to the main part of our paper: a re-examination of the status of the noun-verb distinction in Mundari, another language for which there is a long history of arguments against the existence of a noun-verb distinction. Mundari belongs to the Munda branch of Austroasiatic (Figure 1) spoken in

1. A recent collection edited by Dixon & Aikhenvald (2004) retreats from this position, arguing that adjectives are, after all, a universal class, though not necessarily an open one. Some of the contributors in that volume, however, do not take this position (see, e.g., Enfield’s chapter on Lao), regarding adjectives as simply a subclass of stative verbs. Since the status of the adjective class is not the focus of this paper we do not pursue this issue further here. 2. Though for another Oceanic language, Fijian, the more detailed argumentation in Dixon (1988) makes a clear case that an earlier monocategorialist analysis by Milner (1972) is unsustainable.


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Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes

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Austroasiatic Munda North Munda

[Other Austroasiatic branches] South Munda Kharia-Juang Koraput Munda

Kherwarian Sora-Gorum Gutob-Remo-Gtaq Gutob-Remo Korku Santali Turi Mundari Ho Kharia Juang Sora Gorum Gutob Remo

Gtaq

Figure 1. The Munda languages

northern India by around three quarters of a million people; see Osada (1992) for details. A re-examination of the Mundari case is long overdue, because the renewal of interest in fluid word class membership has not, so far, brought any new data or argumentation to claims that go back to 1903. In fact, several prominent typologists have recently given Mundari as an example of a language with a very fluid word class system: Hengeveld (1992a, b), Stassen (1997), Wetzer (1996), and Rijkhoff (2002, 2003), among many others (see below for further examples), cite Hoffmann’s (1903) Mundari grammar, without any evident reservations, as exemplifying a language where it is impossible to assign words to clearly defined parts of speech. The following quote from Hoffmann (1903: xxi) sums up his original position: Thus the same unchanged form is at the same time a Conjunction, an Adjective, a Pronoun, an Adverb, a Verb and a Noun, or, to speak more precisely, it may become a Conjunction, an Adjective, etc., etc.; but by itself alone it is none of them. It is simply a vague elastic word, capable of signifying, in a vague manner, several distinct concepts, i.e. of assuming a variety of functions.

Many authors have repeated similar positions with regard to Mundari and other Munda languages.3 For example, Pinnow (1966: 101) states:


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Theoretically any word for any concept, i.e., all words, can function as a verb base. Thus we may not speak of a verb in the Indo-European sense. This fact was recognized at an early date and is now generally known [. . .] This phenomenon undoubtedly goes back to very ancient times and can probably be accepted as Proto-Munda.

Hengeveld (1992: 47) characterizes Mundari as a “flexible” language, with a single V/N/A/Adv category; Hoffmann (1903) is the only source cited. And Bhat (1997), in a recent restatement of Hoffmann’s position (again based just on data in his 1903 grammar), concludes for Munda (1997: 249) that “the nounverb distinction can only be viewed as a functional one in this language; it has not been lexicalized as in English and other familiar languages”. Similar statements by the same author can be found in Bhat (1994, 2000: 56–57). To get a feeling for the reasoning behind these views, consider the following four Mundari sentences, which are typical of those used in the above discussion. In (1) buru is used as an argument, with the meaning ‘mountain’, while in (2) it is used as a two-place predicate with the meaning ‘heap up’. To illustrate the other direction of deployment, in (3) the word jom is used as a two-place predicate with the meaning ‘eat’, while in (4) it is used as an argument with the meaning ‘food’. These sentences, incidentally, illustrate the main features of Mundari grammatical organization: there is a clause final predicate with a complex series of affixes for aspect, transitivity, and mood (as well as a number of other categories not shown here), preceded by argument NPs, usually in the order SOV when full NPs are involved (5), though the subject is typically omitted. (1)

buru=ko bai-ke-d-a4 . mountain=3pl.S make-compl-tr-indic

3. See also Sinha (1975). By contrast, Neukom’s (2001) recent grammar of Santali effectively recognizes the existence of a two-way major word class distinction, though so far his analysis does not appear to have been absorbed into the general typological literature. Neukom argues that even though most words can be used in predicate position, “there is a group of lexemes which cannot be determined by demonstratives”, which he terms verbs. He proposes (2001: 17) that verbs constitute a relatively large group, around a third of all lexemes, citing twelve forms as examples – @gu ‘bring’, @iku ‘feel’, b@gi ‘leave’, bOlO ‘enter’, caNke ‘be ravenous’, cet’ ‘learn, teach’, dOhO ‘put’, gitic’ ‘lie, lay’, lO ‘burn’, orom ‘find out’, r@put’ ‘break’, sEn ‘go’. He also invokes the equivalent of our “bidirectional” criterion, pointing out (2001: 13) that “[i]f we assume that there is only one lexeme class in Santali, every lexeme should appear in both positions: in argument and in predicate position”. A difference between Neukom’s analysis of Santali and our analysis of Mundari is that although he does recognize a class of verbs he has no class of nouns; rather, he has a “lexeme or lexeme combination” class which may behave either as argument phrases, or as predicates; it is a little unclear where this leaves verbs, which are certainly lexemes, so that a more accurate term may have been “flexible lexemes”, as opposed to verbs. In any case, this analytic decision reflects in part the greater freedom to use any lexeme as predicate in Santali, though it may also reflect differences in argumentation that we do not pursue here.


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(2)

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‘They made the mountain.’ saan=ko buru-ke-d-a. firewood=3pl.S “mountain”-compl-tr-indic ‘They heaped up the firewood.’

(3)

maNDi=ko jom-ke-d-a. food=3pl.S eat-compl-tr-indic ‘They ate the food.’

(4)

jom=ko nam-ke-d-a. “eat”=3pl.S get-compl-tr-indic ‘They got the food.’

Subjects are cross-referenced by enclitics, normally placed in preverbal position when there is material to host them, as in (1)–(5), but these come after the verb if there is no preverbal material available as host (6a), and there is an increasing trend for younger speakers to place them after the verb even when other material is present (6b). (5)

(6)

seta-king pusi-ko=king hua-ke-d-ko-a. dog-du cat-pl=3du.S bite-compl-tr-3pl.O-indic ‘The two dogs bit the cats.’ a. hua-ke-d-ko-a=king. bite-compl-tr-3pl.O-indic=3du.S ‘The two of them bit them.’ [requires context to establish pronominal reference] b. seta-king pusi-ko hua-ke-d-ko-a=king. dog-du cat-pl bite-compl-tr-3pl.O-indic=3du.S ‘The two dogs bit the cats.’

Though the elements following the verb in examples like these have generally been regarded as suffixes, they are in fact less tightly bound to the root, phonologically, than other suffixes are. Thus monosyllabic words of form CVP add a (non-phonemic) echo vowel when unsuffixed (7), but when a “close” suffix is present, such as the passive suffix -oP, there is no echo vowel and the glottal stop is replaced by /g/ (8). Before predicate inflections the echoic vowel is found and the glottal stop remains unchanged (8b, c). Disyllabic glottal-final 4. A practical orthography is employed here: ng = N, ñ = ñ, q = P, retroflexion shown by capitalization, e.g., T = ú but t = t. Since we employ capital letters to indicate retroflexion, we refrain from capitalizing the initial letters of sentences in this transcription. Phonemic vowel length is shown by doubling the vowel. The “checked” realization of word-final stops, phonetically realized as pre-glottalization or a subsequent nasal release, is phonemically predictable and not shown here, e.g., we write sab ‘catch’ for [saPp(m) ]. In Hoffmann’s works this word would be written with a wedge under the b: [sab]. ˆ


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roots, however, which lack the echo vowel in citation form, convert the glottal stop into /g/, like with passive suffixes (9), so the difference in tightness of bonding is only evident with monosyllables. (7)

a. b. c.

/daP/ /kuP/ /maP/

(8)

a.

kug-oq-ta-n5 -a=eq cough-pass-progr.or-intr-indic=3sg.S ‘(S)he coughed (involuntarily, e.g., through food getting stuck in her throat).’ [kuPu]-ta-n-a=eq cough-progr.or-intr-indic=3sg.S ‘(S)he coughed.’ daru=ñ [maPa]-ke-d-a tree=1sg.S cut-compl-tr-indic ‘I cut the tree.’

b. c.

(9)

a. b.

[daPa] [kuPu] [maPa]

‘water’ ‘cough’ ‘cutting with axe’

setaq [setaP] ‘morning’ setag-aka-n-a. morning-init.prog-intr-indic ‘It grew morning, it dawned.’

Returning to examples (1)–(4), the argument advanced in Hoffmann’s 1903 grammar, and repeated in the above secondary sources, is that the possibility of using words like buru or jom in ways that correspond to either nouns or verbs in English shows that they lack any inherent word class, and that such word classes as noun, verb, or adjective are Eurocentric impositions that cannot justifiably set up for the language. Now it is remarkable that, despite the great typological importance of the Mundari case, the many recent mentions in the typological literature all rely on Hoffmann’s grammar – and that does not even represent the mature view of the author they cite, let alone more recent treatments (e.g., Osada 1992). Hoffmann was a missionary who lived among the Mundari for twenty-two years, and then spent a further thirteen years in Europe revising his massive Encyclopaedia Mundarica for publication after being evacuated from India during the First World War, as a German whose nationality was deemed to make him an unreliable British patriot.6 His grammar of Mundari – the work cited by 5. With intransitive verbs, the passive produces a non-volitional reading. 6. After leaving India Hoffmann was aided by various collaborators in India, who continued the work in the decades following his death in 1928; see Ponette (1990).


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Hengeveld, Stassen, Bhat, and others – was thus a relatively immature work, written in only 1903, and it takes the extreme monocategorialist (or better, precategorialist – see below) position cited above. But by the time he came to work on the sixteen-volume, 4889-page Encyclopaedia Mundarica, with decades of further work on the language behind him, Hoffmann had retreated from his earlier and more radical position: he lists words with word class labels, and in places states explicitly that certain words must be used in particular functions. We will return to this in detail in Section 3.4. In this article we will draw extensively on data from Encyclopaedia Mundarica, as well as fieldwork by Osada carried out in the Ranchi region since 1984, supplemented by focussed checking carried out by both authors with Maki Purti, who speaks Hindi, English, and Japanese in addition to Mundari. This further checking focusses on the two major (possible) word classes of noun and verb. Both sets of additional data necessitate a re-evaluation of Hoffmann’s 1903 claims. The new data we examine shows that Mundari, like all the Munda languages, makes wide use of zero conversion, resulting in frequent heterosemy, i.e., the use of identical forms with different combinatorics and different meanings (Lichtenberk 1991), and this is as true of variant combinatorics within word classes as it is across them. For example, placing basically intransitive verb roots within a transitive predicate frame is a common way of forming causatives. The use of the same affixal forms across word classes is also widespread, such as the use of the same infix -pV- for reciprocals (with verbs) and intensification (with adjectives), or the same bound pronominal forms for possession (when suffixed to nouns), to mark subject agreement (when encliticized to the last preverbal constituent), object agreement (when suffixed after the transitivity marker on the verb), or indirect object agreement (when suffixed before the transitivity marker). A tempting analysis, upon initial inspection of facts of this type, is to see Mundari lexemes as signs whose signifiers are fixed, but whose combinatorics are unspecified, and whose signifieds are only partially specified – in other words, to treat lexemes as precategorial, with some underspecified meaning present in the lexicon, but with the balance supplied from whichever syntactic frame they find themselves in. Hoffmann’s term “a vague, elastic word, capable of signifying, in a vague manner, several distinct concepts” suggests he saw the system in this way, and it is also implicit in Bodding’s (1929) grammar of the closely-related Santali, and in Bhat’s (1994, 1997, 2000) restatement of the Mundari word class problem, on the basis of Hoffmann’s data.7 We shall refer to this class of analyses as precategorial. 7. Additionally, this is essentially the analysis proposed by Schiller (1989, 1992) for another Austroasiatic language, Khmer, within an autolexical framework.


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This may look appealing if we confine ourselves to a few choice cases and do not require that regular and predictable semantic increments accompany the specification of word class. But once we extend our investigation to a wider set of lexical items, and take seriously the requirement that the semantic effects of category specification be fully compositional, and equivalent across semantically comparable items, the most plausible analysis of Mundari is as a language with clear noun, verb, and adjective classes, but a great deal of zero conversion, often lexically idiosyncratic. We conclude that, while languages lacking a noun-verb distinction may well exist – we would love to find one! – Mundari is not a plausible candidate. Along the way, we hope to lay out some explicit rules of argumentation that any seeker of such a language would need to satisfy before they can rest their case. 2.

Ways a language could lack a noun-verb distinction

Because the descriptive and typological literature conflates a number of phenomena under the general rubric of word class fluidity, with confusing consequences for what gets cited as evidence against there being basic word class distinctions, in this section we outline four ways that a language can lack – or appear to lack – a noun-verb distinction, moving from the strongest to the weakest case. Note that these possibilities are orthogonal to the question of which domain of grammar the evidence is drawn from, and that for any one of our four types one needs, in principle, to distinguish morphological from syntactic evidence8 and to leave open the possibility that word classes distinguishable by morphological criteria could be indistinguishable by syntactic criteria (cf. Evans 2000a). Obviously, in the strongest, ideal case of a language lacking a nounverb distinction, words would have the same behaviour both morphologically and syntactically, but it is helpful to be able to use languages where the relevant criteria are only met at the syntactic level. 2.1. Omnipredicative languages We adapt this helpful term from Launey (1994) to describe the situation where all major word classes are able to function directly as predicates without derivation, and with no change of meaning. Note that the description of Classical 8. An anonymous LT reviewer objects to our separation of morphological from syntactic evidence, on the grounds that “most grammatical phenomena examined in typological studies are manifested either morphologically or syntactically or a combination of the two”, and that “grammaticalization theory also argues against any sharp division”. We stand by our separation. Even though syntax can evolve into morphology over time, there are clear distinctions between the two in any synchronic state of the language (leaving aside the possible existence of some awkward boundary cases in particular languages), so that the two provide quite different synchronic diagnostics for lexical categories.


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Aztec for which Launey introduces this term readily recognizes the existence of distinctive word classes, on the basis of the clearly distinct morphological possibilities of nouns and verbs, even though both can function directly as predicates. On our more general use of his term, an omnipredicative language would be one in which all major-class lexical items belong to a single word class of “predicates”, with no morphological differences such as are found in Classical Aztec. The clearest illustration of how such a language would work does not come from a natural language, but from an artificial language, Predicate Calculus, in which the exponents of ‘run’, ‘big’, and ‘man’ are all simply one-place predicates with identical syntactic possibilities: RUN (x), BIG (x), and MAN (x) to express the English propositions ‘x runs’, ‘x is big’ and ‘x is a man’. (Obviously we need to supplement the predicate calculus with a tense logic, as well as appropriate devices for representing definiteness, before the English propositions can be said to be faithfully represented.) Predications can then be nested in appropriate ways to construct the representation of what, in English, would employ a clause with a verbal predicate, and a subject noun phrase made up of a noun and an adjective:9 (10)

Run (x: (Man (x) & Big (x))) ‘(The) big man runs.’

On Launey’s description of Classical Nahuatl this requirement is met at the syntactic but not at the morphological level. Morphologically, nouns are clearly distinguished from verbs by the availability of a series of tense-aspect-mood suffixes on verbs only, as well as a range of other morphological possibilities not shown here (most importantly pronominal object agreement, applicatives, reflexive-reciprocal marking, causatives, noun incorporation) and of the absolutive suffix for (non-possessed) nouns only (11a–c). (11)

a.

Ø-ch¯oca in Ø-pilt¯on-tli 3sg-cry dem 3sg.S-child-abs ‘The child cries.’ (Launey 1994: 29)10

9. It is a frequent assumption that the two main distinctive functions of adjectives – to restrict reference, when used attributively, to achieve copredication with attendant time-boundedness under clausal tense, when used as secondary predicates – can be assimilated to the basic functions of predication and reference (cf. Thompson 1988, Croft 2003). There are of course problems with this assumption, for example explaining the syncategorematicity effects found with many adjectives but not typically with members of other word classes; but we do not pursue these here. 10. We have added interlinear glosses to Launey’s examples, including zero 3rd person singular subject prefixes, in line with other sources on Classical Aztec such as Andrews (1975), and translated his French translations into English.


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Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada b. c.

Ø-ch¯oca-z in Ø-pilt¯on-tli 3sg-cry-fut dem 3sg.S-child-abs ‘The child will cry.’ (Launey 1994: 29) Ø-ch¯oca-ya in Ø-pilt¯on-tli 3sg-cry-p.impf dem 3sg.S-child-abs ‘The child was crying.’ (Launey 1994: 29)

Syntactically, however, both nouns and verbs have equivalent possibilities for being employed in predicate or argument slots: both take (identical) personnumber prefixes for their subjects (including 3rd singular zero), both may serve equally as arguments or predicates, and both nouns and verbs must equally be preceded by the referentializing demonstrative in when in argument roles. (12)

a. b. c.

(13)

a.

b.

(14)

a. b.

ni-ch¯oca 1sg.S-cry ‘I cry.’ (Launey 1994: 42) ti-ch¯oca 2sg.S-cry ‘You cry.’ (Launey 1994: 42) Ø-ch¯oca 3sg.S-cry ‘He cries.’ (Launey 1994: 42) Ø-tzat’tzi in Ø-kon¯e-tl 3sg.S-shout dem 3sg.S-child-abs ‘The baby shouts.’ (i.e., he shouts, the one who is a baby) (Launey 2002: 115) Ø-kon¯e-tl in Ø-tzat’tzi 3sg.S-child-abs dem 3sg.S-shout ‘It is a baby who is shouting.’ (Launey 2002: 115) ni-c-y¯oll¯alia in Ø-ch¯oca 1sg.O-3sg.O-console dem 3sg.S-cry ‘I console the one who cries.’ (Launey 1994: 59) Ø-tlaìiy¯ohuia in Ø-ch¯oca 3sg-suffer dem 3sg-cry ‘He who cries suffers.’ (Launey 1994: 59)

Another omnipredicative-style description of a language is Jelinek’s (1995) analysis of Straits Salish, in which all major-class lexical items are said to simply function as predicates, of the type ‘run’, ‘be big’, ‘be a man’, and so forth. They are then slotted into various roles in the clause, such as argument (‘the one such that they run’), predicate (‘run(s)’) and modifier (‘the one running’), according to the syntactic slots they are placed in. The single open syntactic class of predicate includes words for entities (15), qualities (16), and events


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(17). When used directly as predicates, all appear in clause-initial position, followed by subject and/or object clitics (which may be zero in the case of 3rd person singular). (15)

(16)

(17)

swiPqoaì-l@=sxw be.young.man-perf=2sg ‘You were a young man.’ P@y’=Ø good=3 ‘He is/was good.’ yeP-@-s@=sxw go-question-future=2sg ‘Will you go?’

When used as arguments, all are effectively converted into relative clauses through the use of a determiner, which must be employed whether the predicate word refers to an entity (18), an event (19), or even a proper name (20). (18)

(19)

(20)

Na-t=Ø=s@n c@ sˇceen@xw eat-tr=3.abs=1.nom det fish ‘I ate the/a/some) fish.’ niP s@ Eloise exist det.fem be.Eloise ‘Eloise was born.’ (lit. ‘Exist(ed) the being-Eloise one’) c@s@P c@ t’il@m be.two det sing ‘They are two, the ones who sang.’

For a language to be established as omnipredicative, then, all words not belonging to minor word classes (such as determiners, grammatical particles, and perhaps some closed adverbial classes), should be able to function directly as predicates, and should have equal potential to form referring expressions through relativization or at least the addition of some sort of determiner. A semantic corollary is (i) that the base meaning of words not denoting actions should take the form ‘be [X], be [Y], be [Z]’ (where X, Y here represent meanings typically expressed by common or proper nouns, or adjectives, in languages like English), and (ii) that using words from the predicate class as arguments should produce no further semantic increment than that accompanying relativization in English, i.e., ‘(the) one that (is) P’. Our brief discussion of the Nahuatl and Salish examples is not supposed to indicate that, in either case, the argument for omnipredicativity has been fully established, since in both cases the respective authors admit that there are morphological differences, and in neither case do they carry out a comprehensive


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survey of the open-class lexicon to show that their analysis is completely productive, rather than being limited to a few well-behaved lexemes. Rather, it is supposed to show what an omnipredicative language would look like in principle. 2.2. Precategorial languages The word “precategorial” has been used in a variety of ways in the literature, often rather loosely.11 In this article we will not try and adjudicate between these various uses or analyse all the cases it has been applied to. Rather, for the purpose of illustrating a particular possible organization of word class systems, we will restrict it to the case where – as in omnipredicative languages – openclass lexemes can occur in any syntactic position. However, in precategorial languages it is not possible to state a predicate-type meaning for the lexeme directly; rather there is an increment that is made, according to the functional position it is plugged into. Though he does not use the term “precategorial”, Sasse’s (1993a) account of word classes in Salishan languages and Tagalog, extending Himmelmann’s (1991) analysis of Tagalog, nicely captures what precategorial might be taken to mean in a use in languages that do not preclassify lexemes for predicative and referential use, but mark the difference syntactically by establishing a predicative relation which resembles that of nominal (copula) sentences, and establishing a referential slot by using a special article-like referential marker. [. . .] Both languages are thus able to escape the formation of lexical categories by using these neutral expressions now predicatively,

11. See, for example, Foley (1998). The closest he comes to a definitional-like statement is on p. 24: “Tagalog roots are basically precategorial, neither noun nor verb”. Though this characterization is logically compatible with roots being simply predicates, earlier on the same page he suggests that, in Tagalog, “roots like bigay ‘give’, halu ‘stir’, bili ‘buy’ etc. do not entail argument structure at all, merely some generalized conceptual structure paraphrasable as ‘giving by X of Y to Z’ or ‘stirring by A or B into C at D’ . . . True argument structure as we understand it crosslinguistically would only be introduced when the roots are derived with the voice markers”. This formulation suggests that the most important aspect of precategoriality, in Foley’s view, is that it precedes the association of thematic roles with argument structure. Note that Kroeger (1998) argues against Foley’s analysis of Tagalog precategoriality, on the basis of detailed and exhaustive data from Tagalog and Kimaragang (another Philippine language). An attempt at restoring clarity to the notion is made in Himmelmann (2004a: 129), who (returning to the original usage of Verhaar 1984) suggests restricting it to “precategorial bound roots, i.e. lexical bases which do not occur without further affixation or outside a compound in any syntactic function and from which items belonging to different morphological or syntactic categories (nouns and verbs, for example) can be derived, without there being clear evidence that one of the possible derivations from a given root is more basic than the other one”. As Himmelmann’s wording makes clear, precategoriality would then be a feature of roots rather than lexemes, and is compatible with the existence of syntactic categorial distinctions between nouns and verbs.


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now referentially, just as we use nouns now as arguments, now as predicate nouns in nominal sentences. (Sasse 1993a: 655)

Whereas the omnipredicative position discussed in Section 2.1 sees all members of the major class as basically predicates, the view just cited differs subtly by not pre-assigning the members of the one major class to a predicate role: rather, “predicativity is not inherent in the so-called ‘verbs’, but established syntactically by the juxtapositive linking up with a predication base (‘subject’)” (Sasse 1993a: 661). However, other descriptions of languages that avoid assigning inherent word class categories to lexical items contain at least some examples where the semantic distinction between nominal and verbal uses exceeds the minimal difference suggested by Sasse’s treatment. An example of this analysis is Mosel & Hovdhaugen’s (1992: 76) grammar of Samoan: Many, perhaps the majority of, roots can be found in the function of verb phrase and noun phrase nuclei and are, accordingly, classified as nouns and verbs [. . .] This does not mean that a noun can be used as a verb or a verb as a noun or that we have two homophonous words [. . .] Rather, it means s that in Samoan the categorization of words into nouns and verbs is not given a priori in the lexicon.

Now while the discussion after this quote contains examples where the contrasted uses of a single lexeme only contrast on the predicate vs. referential dimension, e.g., E uô Tanielu ma Ionatana ‘Daniel and Jonathan are friends’ vs. E alofa Tanielu i lana uô ‘Daniel loves his friend’ (1992: 77), it also includes examples where the semantic difference is rather greater, such as the ‘thief’ and ‘steal’ meanings of gaoi (1992: 77), or the ‘fish-rich, fishy, successful in yielding fish’ meaning found with ia ‘fish’ when used in predicate position combined with an intensifier (1992: 78). If the term “precategorial” is to be applied to a situation like this, it can only work by arguing that the meanings of the lexical items are much vaguer before they are plugged into a syntactic context, rather as a Semitic root like ktb can only be given a very abstract meaning outside of a particular binyan. Though we have discussed “precategorial” languages as a separate type to “omnipredicative” because of the frequent use of the term “precategoriality” in the recent literature, we have strong reservations about the provability of such claims, since a convincing model would need an explicit statement of what lexemes, or roots, would mean in such a language, but precategorialist treatments typically state that lexeme meanings are ineffable, outside their particular use in predicate or argument slots. However, since our arguments about Mundari to not depend on this point, we do not go into this critique further here. Where we want to be non-committal between omnipredicative and precategorial positions, we shall use the term “monocategorial” as a neutral term.


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2.3. Broschartian languages Broschart’s (1997) analysis of Tongan12 illustrates another analytic approach to languages in which the semantic result of placing lexemes in referring or predicating environments depends not on a high-level word class category like noun or verb, but rather is sensitive to much more specific semantic categories, each characterized by their own particular pattern of semantic incrementation. For Broschart, the main syntactic distinction is between “type” and “token” expressions, with “token” expressions co-occurring with articles, while “type” expressions co-occur with TAM particles; there is an obvious parallel to more standard analyses in terms of reference and predication respectively. A number of lexical classes differ in the way their semantics is augmented when they are plugged into these syntactic environments and interact with other productive morphological formatives, but these categories reflect semantic groupings like ‘action’, ‘task’, ‘personal relation’, ‘nationality’ etc. rather than the more general groupings (‘entity’, ‘quality’, ‘state/event’) that traditional linguistics aligns with the word classes of noun, adjective, and verb. Though Broschart’s analysis has the appeal of not postulating higher categories (noun, verb) that – at least according to his analysis – do no work for the description of the language, and of accounting for apparent regularities in the semantic relationship between a given lexeme’s differing interpretations in “type” and “token” uses, it comes at a cost: the semantic differences are too great to be attributed simply to the difference between predication and reference. For example, ‘task’ words with meanings like ‘king’ mean ‘act as king’ when used as predicates, ‘language’ words like ‘Tongan’ mean ‘speak Tongan’, ‘tool’ words like ‘hoe’ mean ‘use a hoe’, and so forth. At best, then, the appeal of Broschart’s position is to offer regular principles for polysemous extensions, based on coherent lexical groupings and what are presumably highly efficient and recurrent pairings of increments with lexical groupings (e.g., ‘speak’ with language names, ‘use’ with tools, and so forth), but because of the great range and complexity of the added semantic components it cannot get them to fall out of the frames that the lexemes are used in. 2.4. Rampant zero conversion languages Moving yet further into the realm of lexical idiosyncrasy, in rampant zero conversion languages the vast majority of lexical items of a given form may appear in both predicating and referring syntactic environments with no formal

12. We cite this paper to illustrate a type of approach, rather than to endorse his analysis of Tongan word classes. See Churchward (1953) for a grammar of Tongan that gives full criteria for recognizing three major classes of noun, verb, and adjective.


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signalling of conversion, but unlike in a Broschartian language, the semantic effects of syntactic environment are far less predictable. In such languages – English being a reasonable though not completely thorough-going example – it is traditional to recognize distinct word classes of noun, verb, adjective etc., though some analysts have been reluctant to take this approach to Classical Chinese (see Norman 1988 and Evans 2000a: 724–725 for critiques). English may be used to illustrate: taking the four artefact terms shovel, cup, can, and spearhead and examining their meanings when zero-converted to transitive verbs: the first gives a ‘use as instrument’ meaning (‘shift (coal, etc.) with or as with’),13 the second a ‘form into shape’ meaning (‘form into the shape of a cup (e.g., hands)’)14 , the third a ‘place in’ meaning, and the fourth ‘act like a’ meaning (the fourth battalion spearheaded the attack). Though many regularities can still be discerned in the semantic increments accompanying zero conversion, they are too diverse and chaotic to make it worthwhile to set up single precategorial lexical meanings from which the actual meanings when used in particular syntactic contexts can be derived.15 We have outlined these four somewhat idealized types, which are effectively points along a continuum, in order to furnish a typological framework against which claims of languages lacking a noun-verb distinction can be placed. It is particularly noteworthy that properly assessing a language’s status cannot be done with just one or two lexemes since, with the right single example, a language of any one of these four types can be made to look like an omnipredicative language. A broad sampling of lexical items across a range of semantic categories must be made before any serious conclusions can be reached. 3.

Three criteria for establishing lack of word class distinctions

Since it is only monocategorial languages, from among the types above, that can truly be claimed to lack a noun-verb distinction, we now proceed to formulate three criteria which must be satisfied before a language can be claimed to be monocategorial, illustrating with clear cases from other languages where possible, and then examining the Mundari facts.16 Summarizing these criteria briefly, the (putative) merged classes should be distributionally equivalent (i.e.,

13. This and other English definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary. 14. Though the OED lists the ‘use as instrument’ sense ‘bleed (person) by means of a [cup]ping glass’. 15. For a fine survey of how many unpredictable, context-particular factors may contribute to the reading of zero-converted terms in English conversation (many of which may then go on to become conventionalized) see Clark & Clark (1979). 16. For a broadly similar discussion of these points see Croft (1991, 2000, 2001), particularly the latter. More detailed similarities and differences in our treatment will be mentioned in more detail below.


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members of both classes should have equivalent combinatorics) (Section 3.1), and the semantic results of using a member of one (putative) class in a constructional slot prototypically associated with the other (putative) class should be derivable through strict compositional principles (Section 3.2). A corollary of Section 3.1, which we will discuss after Section 3.2 for expository purposes, is that the effects should be bidirectional (Section 3.3), i.e., members of X should be deployable in the environments associated with Y, and members of Y should be deployable in the environments associated with X. Finally, the preceding criteria should be exhaustive across the lexicon (Section 3.4), i.e., the same tests should yield the same results for all lexemes in the putative class, not just for a few well-chosen ones. We will see that applying these three criteria decisively demonstrates that Mundari is not a monocategorial language. 3.1. Equivalent combinatorics This is the obvious starting point: members of what are claimed to be merged classes should have identical distributions in terms of both morphological and syntactic categories. Note that this has to hold for all combinatorics available to a function.17 Considering our Mundari examples (1)–(4), the claim here would be that both buru and jom have an equivalent distribution: each can combine with the verbal affixes and enclitics, as in the series -ke-d-a ‘completive, transitive, indicative’: each can be the root of the predicate, in clause-final position, but each can also fill the (object) argument slot before the verb, and host the subject clitic =ko ‘they two’. We use the term “prima facie distributional equivalence” to flag a common short-cut in the application of this principle. Rigorously applied, all members of both putative classes should be equally acceptable in both primary syntactic functions as argument and predicate. However, in the flexible word class literature (including on Mundari) one often finds a greater burden of exemplification falling on the use of all types of words as predicate, with much less attention to the converse situation where a range of words are tested for acceptability in argument position.18 As a result, far more of discussion of semantic compositionality concerns predicate uses, so that we hold off on the discussion of argumental uses until section Section 3.3, where we return to under the rubric “bidirectionality”.

17. Cf. the critique in Croft (2001: 30–32) of “cross-linguistic methodological opportunism” – of just using that small subset of tests that fit a particular point to be proven. At the same time, we must confess that the ideal – to test all possible distributional features of the candidate classes – is too large an undertaking to be practical in this paper, and we confine ourselves to a canonical subset of distributional tests. 18. For another critique on overreliance on predicative contexts in arguing against word class distinctions, see Croft (2001: 84).


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3.2. Compositionality The criterion of compositionality – any semantic differences between the uses of a putative “fluid” lexeme in two syntactic positions (say argument and predicate) must be attributable to the function of that position19 – ensures that the meaning of the composed word must be predictable from the meaning of its parts plus the meaning contributed by syntactic function or constructional frame (e.g., predicate).20 For example, in the celebrated Nootka examples in (21),21 originally from Swadesh (1939), their Straits Salish equivalents in (22) (Jelinek 1995), and their Tagalog equivalents in (23) (cited in Sasse 1993a), the difference between the predicate use, meaning ‘dances, is dancing’, and the argument use, mean19. We may apply this principle equally to affixal material, rephrasing it as follows: combination of members of two possibly distinct classes with a derivational or inflectional element having the same form need not argue against word-class differentiation, as long as the differences in denotational effect produced by that element cannot be attributed to interactions of its semantics with that of the base. This reflects the fact that many languages re-use formally identical material with more than one class, though with differing semantic effects depending on the class they combine with – cf. the Indonesian prefix ber- , which can combine with noun or verb bases with quite different effects (basically ‘have N’ with nouns but no clear semantics with some verbs and reflexive semantics with others). The double use of person-number affixes in many languages, marking possession when attached to nouns but encoding a core argument (typically subject) when attached to verbs, is another widespread example. This principle is applicable to one important affix in Mundari: the infix -pV- (where V copies the preceding vowel). This infix is found, in identical form, with words that would be rendered in most languages by two word classes: transitive verbs and adjectives. Pairs indicating the former possibility, where it indicates reciprocal action (Osada forthcoming), include erang ‘scold’, e!pe"rang ‘quarrel’; lel ‘see’, le!pe"l ‘see each other’ and ad ‘miss’, a!pa"d ‘miss each other’, while pairs illustrating the second include marang ‘large’, ma!pa"rang ‘very large’, huRing ‘small’, hu!pu"Ring ‘very small’ and jiling ‘long’, ji!pi"ling ‘very long’. Now the combining of a single infix across all these words could be chalked up as a point in favour of all forms belonging to a single word class here. However, it is difficult to derive reciprocal semantics explicitly and completely from intensification (notwithstanding the occasional parallel in other languages where there is some formal similarity between reciprocal and intensive forms, e.g., Arabic and Tigrinya), or vice versa, so this fact cannot be taken as support for a monocategorialist position. In fact, Anderson & Zide (2001) suggest that these two infixes have different diachronic origins within Austroasiatic. 20. Our formulation is less demanding than that in Croft (2001: 67–XX) and the formulation suggested by an anonymous LT referee, both of whom would also want to exclude the semantic effects of “coercion” to a particular syntactic function, particularly to participant in the nominal use (dancer ! dance). The issue here is whether we want to get the semantics from the construction, in particular the predicate or argument position, or from the lexeme itself. We prefer to leave open a role to syntactic structure in contributing to meaning, though subject to the constraints we spell out below. And since our (weaker) requirement is already sufficient to deal with the Mundari case, as shown in the rest of the paper – so that the stronger requirement would a fortiori deliver the same results – we believe our formulation is sufficient. 21. We return below to more subtle differences between ‘work’ and ‘man’ in Nootka.


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ing ‘dancer; the one who is dancing’ is attributable to the semantic functions of predicating and referring, respectively, that are linked to the predicate and argument (or VP, and NP) positions. (21)

a. b.

(22)

a. b.

(23)

a. b.

mamu:k=ma qu:Pas-Pi working=pres.indic man-def ‘The man is working.’ qu:Pas=ma mamu:k-Pi man-pres.indic working-def ‘The working one is a man.’ cˇ @y=Ø c@ s-w@y’q@’ work=3sg det stat-male ‘He works, the (one who is a) man.’ (= The man works.) s-w@y’q@’=Ø c@ cˇ @y stat-male=3sg det work ‘He is a man, the (one who) works.’ (= The working one is a man.) nagtatrabaho ang lalaki work.at.impf top man ‘The man is working.’ lalaki ang nagtatrabaho man top work.at.impf ‘The one who is working is a man.’

All of these examples satisfy the compositionality criterion, which is a key reason why Nootka, Salish, and Tagalog have become the classic examples of languages challenging the noun-verb distinction. And there are some argument ↔ predicate pairings of Mundari lexemes that at first sight seem to rather comparable to these examples, if one is willing to admit the contribution of aspect markers suffixed to the predicate in composing its meaning. Consider the following three pairs: in (24a) dasi heads a referring expression with the meaning ‘servants’, while in (24b) it occupies the predicate slot and bears the “initiated continuous” aspectual22 marker -aka-, with the meaning

22. Mundari has a complex aspectual system, with four distinct forms in the perfective series, and two in the imperfective series. Here we use somewhat different glosses than those to be found in Munda (1971) and Osada (1992: 94–97). For the four members of the perfective series, the options are a (Munda’s ‘cislocative’, referring to completed actions remote in time, ke ‘completive’, which simply marks completion of an action without reference to any other action, le ‘anterior’, which marks an action completed before some other action, and ja ‘inceptive’, which marks the inception of an action. For the two members of the imperfective series, the options are ta (progr.or for “progressive oriented”) which marks an action in progress but


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‘are (since earlier) working as servants’. Likewise in (25a) baRae ‘blacksmith; member of blacksmith caste’ heads a referring expression, with the meaning ‘blacksmith’, while in (25b) it occupies the predicate slot: it is not outrageous to argue that the meaning ‘become a blacksmith, enter the blacksmith caste’ derives from the interaction of the referring meaning of baRae with the initiated continuous aspect (this caste is considered by the Munda to be beneath them, and the sentence would be used of a man who moved down a caste through marriage or sexual union with a baRae-caste woman; once such hypogamy occurs, the downgrading in caste is irreversible). In (26a) the loanword mastaR, from English via Hindi, is used in a referring expression, while in (26b) it is used as a predicate and, together with the “initiated continuous” aspectual suffix, has the meaning ‘work as a teacher’. (24)

a. b.

(25)

a. b.

(26)

a. b.

dasi-ko=ko kami-ta-n-a. servant-pl=3pl.S work-progr.or-intr-indic ‘The servants are working.’ dasi-aka-n-a=ko serve-init.cont-indic=3pl.S ‘(They) are working as servants.’ baRae-ko=ko susun-ta-n-a blacksmith-pl=3pl.S dance-progr.or-intr-indic ‘The blacksmith caste members are dancing.’ soma=eq baRae-aka-n-a Soma=3sg.S baRae-init.cont-intr-indic ‘Soma has become a baRae [lower caste member].’ mastaR isTuDeNT-ko=eq paRao-ke-d-ko-a teacher student-pl=3sg.S teach-compl-tr-3pl.O-indic ‘The teacher taught the students.’ soma=eq mastaR-aka-n-a Soma=3sg.S teacher-init.cont-intr-indic ‘Soma is a teacher, is working as a teacher.’

With appropriate analysis of the intricate aspectual system, and an account of the contribution of dynamic aspects to the derivation of meanings like ‘work as a servant’, ‘become a BaRae caste member’, and ‘work as a teacher’, examples like these seem to satisfy the compositionality criterion.

oriented to some future end point and aka (initiated progressive) which marks an situation now in force, but focussing on the fact that this current state of affairs has already been initiated. Contrasting the last two, compare dubtanako ‘they are in the process of sitting down’, which is ongoing but oriented to the endpoint of reaching a sitting state, and dubakanako ‘they are sitting’, where the state of sitting has already been initiated.


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But we now consider two types of difficulty, whose resolution requires us to introduce a corollary of the compositionality requirement, that of “compositional consistency”: there should be isomorphic semantic changes in all lexemes placed in a given functional position. Monocategorialists wanting to analyse examples like (24)–(26) above typically appeal to an argument of “coercion” from the constructional slot – i.e., the “extra” semantics is argued to fall out from the function of the syntactic slot (see, e.g., Langacker 1987). But if the extra semantic is indeed attributable to the constructional slot, then all semantically comparable words in the same slot should undergo the same semantic augmentation. For example, if the nominal uses of ‘eats’, ‘drinks’, ‘smokes’ (i.e., things eaten, things drunk, things smoked) are to be derived from the verbal meanings by this argument, then the evidence can only be used to argue for a single word class if it applies to all other comparable words – but one can’t say, in English, e.g., ‘inhales’ or ‘sniffs’ for ‘things inhaled’ or ‘things sniffed’. A complication to applying this corollary comes from the fact that aspectual information on the predicate slot may interact with the predicate lexeme to produce some differences in semantic contribution, or in the acceptability of the new predicate with different aspects. For example, when mastaR occupies the predicate slot it requires the “initiated continuative” aspect suffix -aka, whereas when baa ‘flower’ occupies the predicate slot it combines with the “oriented continuative” suffix -ta, as in (27). (27)

ne daru=eq baa-ta-n-a dem tree=3sg.S flower-progr.or-intr-indic ‘That tree is flowering.’

A monocategorialist could then attempt to attribute this difference to subtle interactions between these aspect types and the nature of the events being depicted: working as a teacher or becoming a BaRae involve an initial transition (entry into the profession or caste followed by a steady activity), while flowering involves a build-up of steps (budding, first buds bursting into flower, gradual extension to all buds on the tree) that, though continuous, are cumuluative steps oriented towards an endpoint of the whole tree being in flower. To evaluate this counter-argument we would need a far better understanding of the complexities of Mundari aspect than we currently have, so we will err on the side of generosity in attributing such subtle differences in semantic increments to interactions of aspect with the Aktionsart of the depicted process. An amended version of our corollary which would tolerate some minor variations in increment, therefore, is that there should be the same semantic change in all lexemes placed in that position, except for semantic interactions attributable to inflections borne by it, e.g., aspect. This


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more liberal attitude, however, does not let the monocategorialist completely off the hook when we push the Mundari data a bit further. First, one still would still need to find an aspect allowing mastaR, BaRae, baa, etc. to be used in the exactly composed meaning ‘be a teacher’, ‘be a blacksmith’, ‘be a servant’, etc. But to express these concepts, which are the ones most comparable to the Nootka, Salish, and Tagalog examples above, a different construction with the copula tan is used, rather than employing the lexical item directly in the predicate slot.23 For example, the word hoRo ‘person; Munda person’ can only be used to predicate the meaning ‘be a Munda’ if it is combined with a copula, as in (28a); if it is placed directly in the predicate position it adds the semantic increment ‘speak [Munda] language’, as in (28b). (28)

a. b.

ne dasi hoRo tan-iq this servant Munda cop-3sg.S24 ‘This servant is a Munda.’ ne dasi hoRo-a=eq this servant speak.Munda-indic=3sg ‘This servant speaks Munda’

Similarly, consider how one says ‘these are servants’. A special construction, taking the form Subj Compl Copula(=Subj.Clitic) must be used, as in (29a).25 But now the copular construction poses problems for the equivalent combinatorics criterion (Section 3.1 above), since it is not available with words which would be prototypical verbs in other languages, like hijuq ‘come’: (29b), for example, is ungrammatical.

23. Mundari has two copula constructions: one, with tan, for identity (equative or ascriptive), and another, with menaq for locative or existential clauses, along with its corresponding negatives bang (3non-sg.neg), banoq (3sg.inan.neg) and banggaiq (3sg.an.neg), though the contrast is confined to the present tense (see also Munda 1971). Both are confined to nominal complements: only nouns and locative expressions, not verbs, can be their complements. The following examples illustrate their contrasting uses: Soma tan-iq [Soma be=3sg] ‘It is Soma’, vs. Soma oRaq-re menaq-i-a [Soma house-loc be.located-3sg-indic] ‘Soma is in the house’. We note one special modern development, based on a Hindi calque, that constitutes an exception to the unavailability of copulas with verbs: expressions of obligation of the type “X has to V” can be formed by putting the subject in the dative and adding -menaq directly to the verb, as in añ-ke senoqmenaq ‘I have to go’ [1sg-dat go-loc.cop], parallel with Hindi mujhe jaanaa hã˜ı). The dative subject, uncharacteristic for Munda, also bears witness to the calqued nature of this construction; see Osada (1999). 24. The 3rd singular subject allomorph iq, instead of eq, is used after the copula and after relative clauses. 25. For further details on the Mundari copula see Langendoen (1966) and Osada (1992), though Langendoen’s analysis differs from ours on some points, e.g., by counting the verb tai as a copula (see, e.g., his example 22), whereas we regard it as a regular intransitive verb, meaning ‘remain’.


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372 (29)

Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada en hoDo-ko munDa=ko tan=ko26 those man-pl headman=3pl.S be=3pl.S ‘Those men are headmen.’ (Langendoen 1967: 84) b. *niku / hijuq-tan=ko these come-cop-3sg ‘These are coming.’ c. *Soma hijuq-tan-iq27 Soma come-cop-3sg ‘Soma is coming.’ a.

The second difficulty comes from the fact that the above examples – which are as close as we get to showcases for a monocategorial analysis – are by no means typical of the whole lexicon. Looking across a wider range of lexemes, it is common for the semantic difference between argumental and predicate uses to way exceed that attributable to the syntactic position, or the small perturbations due to interactions with the aspectual system.28 In such cases we are either dealing with lexical derivation by zero conversion, or with a Broschartian language with specific types of semantic agreement according to the semantic class of the root. Let us give some examples from transitive uses. A common meaning for basically nominal roots used as transitive verbs is ‘cause a(n) N to exist’: examples are bir ‘forest; plant a forest’, lad ‘pancake; make pancakes’, maNDi ‘food; make food’. But frequently conversions of this type take on an additional metaphorical meaning that can no longer be precisely paraphrased as causatives of existence. In the case of (1) and (2), for example, repeated here as (30a, b), the semantic increment ‘gather (so as to resemble a...)’ does not mean simply ‘cause to be a mountain’, or at most ‘cause to become a mountain’, but means more specifically ‘to heap up’. Even though the metaphor it appeals to is rather obviously based on a caused existence meaning, by likening a large group to a mountain, it is nonetheless one specific semantic addition, instead of other imaginable additions (e.g., ‘cause to be tall’, ‘cause to be outstanding’), and must therefore be treated as lexicalized. As further support for the arbitrariness of this increment, note the different effects on the equivalent noun in Sora, namely baru: ‘a hill, forest’, whose corresponding transitive verb 26. For some unclear reason, not all younger speakers accept this construction with plural subjects; speakers of all ages accept this construction with singular subjects. Note that this example is cited in a (transliterated) form of the original example in Langendoen (1966), who writes ‘man’ with a retroflex stop instead of a flap. 27. Note, though, that the homophonous string hijuq-ta-n-iq [come-prog-intr-3sg] is acceptable as a relative clause meaning ‘who has come’. 28. Cf. Neukom (2001: 16) on Santali: “The relationship between the meaning as argument and the meaning as predicate is not obvious, e.g. b@hu means ‘bride’, in argument position, but ‘take a bride for somebody’ in predicate position”.


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is baru: ‘to make a clearing on the slope of a hill in order to grow dry crops thereon’. (30)

a. b.

buru=ko bai-ke-d-a mountain=3pl.S make-compl-tr-indic ‘They made the mountain.’ saan=ko buru-ke-d-a firewood=3pl.S “mountain”-compl-tr-indic ‘They heaped up the firewood.’

If we look at other transitive-predicate uses of words that are, crosslinguistically, typically nouns, we find again rather a wide range of semantic increments. Taking our cue from (30b), we might expect the basic pattern to be ‘cause a(n) N to exist’. Examples are bir ‘forest; plant a forest’, lad ‘pancake; make pancakes’, and maNDi ‘food; make food’. But we also find various pairs where the semantic addition is ‘acquire N’, i.e., ‘cause N to be in one’s possession’; an example is sim ‘fowl; acquire fowls’.29 And with a few words, the addition seems to be ‘do (to obj) as a N does’: thus gaRa ‘river; dig (like a river)’. The analyst might be tempted to respond to the range of semantic increments when nouns are used in transitive constructions – ‘cause (a)n N to exist’, ‘acquire N’, ‘do (to OBJ) as a N does’ – by proposing a Broschartian analysis, in which there is a small but predictable set of increments that is determined by the ontological class of the object. If that were the case, we should be able to hold the lexical subclass constant, and always get the same increment when using it in a transitive frame. But now consider what happens if we examine the use of a range of ‘tool’ lexemes in transitive constructions. For some, we get the ‘instrumental’ increment ‘act upon (obj) using an N’: thus laTab ‘scissors; cut with scissors’ (31). For others, we get the ‘manufacturing’ increment ‘make into a N’: thus kaTu ‘knife; forge into a knife’ and aq-sal ‘bow and arrow; make a bow of something, to turn something into a bow, to call something bow’. Revealingly, in each of these last two cases there is a formally distinct verb denoting the instrumental activity: had ‘cut with a knife’, ToTeq ‘shoot with an arrow’, suggesting that transitive uses will receive an instrumental reading if no special instrumental lexeme is available, but will otherwise receive a manufacture meaning. But there are some lexemes that allow both the manufacture and a specialized instrumental meaning, with a distinct form for the general

29. Hoffmann’s sentence simkedkoale ‘we have acquired (“fowled”) them (fowls)’ is rejected by our informant Maki Purti as ungrammatical, but she accepts the form simkedale without the object marker ko (though with the transitive marker -d- ). The interaction of cognate object verbs like this with object agreement needs further investigation.


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instrumental meaning: kapi ‘axe; form into a hunting axe-head, to strike somebody so or so many times with one’s hunting axe’ alongside maq ‘cut with an axe’. (31)

soma kaTa-re=q laTab-ja-n-a Soma leg-loc=3sg.S cut.with.scissors-incep-intr-indic ‘Soma cut his leg with scissors.’

To sum up this section, when what we would expect to be nouns are used, both in intransitive and transitive constructions, the semantic increment is far from constant. Even though some small perturbations may be attributable to interactions with aspect, many problems remain. It is difficult to account for larger perturbations (‘work as N’ and ‘speak [language] N’ with intransitives, and ‘cause to be(come) N’, ‘acquire N’, and ‘use N’ with transitives). And one needs to account for the fact that an alternative copular construction is needed to use nouns simply as predicates without adding any further aspectual information. Even if the analyst tries to adopt a Broschartian analysis by breaking the lexicon up into detailed classes, in the hope that at least at that level the semantic increment stays constant, they are nevertheless confronted with major variations in semantic increment even within a single lexical class, like ‘instruments’. Overall, then, it is clear that the semantic increments that appear when entitydenoting terms are used in the predicate slot are significantly irregular and noncompositional – something one would expect in a zero conversion language, but not in the other types. The fact that some nouns, when they become verbs, have only minor semantic additions, perhaps accountable for by a sufficiently ingenious enough analysis of the aspectual system, needs to be weighed against the fact that many other nouns undergo much more serious additions. To argue from just a few favoured cases that there are no word class distinctions is like arguing that English lacks word class distinctions because there are a few fluid lexical items – of the type ‘kiss’, ‘whore’, and ‘flower’ – while disregarding either the much greater semantic differences between nominal and verbal use, or the complete unavailability of conversion, with the vast majority of other items. 3.3. Bidirectionality So far we have been concentrating on the use, as predicates, of words which can also function as arguments – or, more precisely, as the head of phrases (NPs) which function as arguments. However, to establish that there is just a single word class, it is not enough for Xs to be usable as Ys without modification: it must also be the case that Ys are usable as Xs. In the history of arguments about single-word class languages, a decisive counter-attack against


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Swadesh’s (1939) monocategorialist position came when Jacobsen (1979), and subsequently Schachter (1985) and Anderson (1985), pointed out that even though either ‘work’ or ‘man’ could fill the predicate slot in Nootka, and even though both ‘work’ and ‘man’ could fill the (subject) argument slot once combined with a determiner (see (21a) above), only ‘man’ can fill this slot without a determiner (Y). This rather subtle evidence against bidirectional equivalence was then taken as evidence for a (rather weak) distinction between nouns and verbs in Nootka: nouns are words that can be used as arguments without determiners, whereas both nouns and verbs can be used as arguments with determiners, and both nouns and verbs can be used directly as predicates. (32)

a.

mamu:k=ma qu:Pas working-pres.indic man ‘A man is working.’ b. *qu:Pas=ma mamu:k man-pres.indic working ‘A working one is a man.’

In the Mundari case, it is common for primary nouns to be used as predicates, though as we have already seen there are many semantic complications. We have also established, so far with just the single example of the prima facie verb jom ‘eat’ used as a noun (‘food’), that it is possible to use at least some verbs directly in the argument slot; this example is repeated here as (33a, b, c). A further example is (33d, e), which first illustrates the predicate use of dal ‘beat, hit’ (33d), then its argumental use to mean ‘a beating with a stick’ (33e). (33)

a. b. c. d. e.

maNDi=ko jom-ke-d-a. food=3pl.S eat-compl-tr-indic ‘They ate the food.’ jom=ko nam-ke-d-a. food=3pl.S get-compl-tr-indic ‘They got the food.’ jom=eq nam-ke-d-a food=3sg.S get-compl-tr-indic ‘(S)he got the food.’ hon-ko=eq dal-ke-d-ko-a child-pl=3sg.S beat-compl-tr-3pl.O-indic ‘(S)he beat the children.’ mid DaNDa dal=le nam-ke-d-a one stick beating=1pl.excl.S get-compl-tr-indic ‘We got one stroke of beating.’

How common, and how syntactically thoroughgoing, are such cases? (Recall that Mundari, nouns, when used as arguments, take no affixes, except for role-


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marking postpositions in oblique functions, that they are able to constitute a complete NP without any determiner, or may be preceded by a determiner, and that the last NP before the verb typically hosts the subject pronoun as a clitic.) Do they represent genuine monocategoriality, comparable to the Salish or Tagalog cases, or are they simply sporadic cases of zero conversion comparable to the the nominal use of ‘drink’ in English ‘Did you remember the drinks’? In fact, though we can use verbs freely as arguments, the vast majority must effectively be converted into headless clauses before being placed in an argument slot. In the case of jom in (33b) and dal in (33e), the lexeme is placed directly into a slot appropriate for a noun, either as the sole word in the NP in (33b), or as the head of the NP in (33e), modified appropriately). Most verbs, by contrast, and all adjectives, can only be placed into an argument slot if they are followed by appropriate aspectual and transitivity markers, and where the referent is 3rd person singular, they must be followed by a special form of the agreement affix, namely -iq instead of -eq, which is effectively a subordinator. (34)–(35) illustrate this construction for the verbs om ‘give’ (34) and susun ‘dance’ (35). (34)

a. b. c. d.

(35)

a. b. c.

om-ke-n=iq goeq-ja-n-a give-compl-intr=3sg.S die-incep-intr-indic ‘the one who gave died’ *om=eq goeq-ja-n-a give=3sg.S die-incep-intr-indic *om=iq goeq-ja-n-a give=3sg.S die-incep-intr-indic om-ke-d=iq goeq-ja-n-a give-compl-tr-3sg.S die-incep-intr-indic ‘the one who was given to died’ susun-ta-n=iq landa-ja-n-a. dance-progr.or-intr=3sg.S laugh-incep-intr-indic ‘The one who is dancing has laughed.’ *susun=iq landa-ja-n-a dance=3sg.S laugh-incep-intr-indic *susun=eq landa-ja-n-a dance=3sg.S laugh-incep-intr-indic

Similar behaviour for adjectives, which display the same restrictions as for verbs in this regard, is illustrated in (36) with the adjective marang ‘big’. (36)

a.

marang-ke-n=iq goeq-ja-n-a big-compl-intr=3sg.rel die-incep-intr-indic ‘the one who was big died’


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Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes b. *marang=iq big-3sg.rel c. *marang=eq big=3sg.S

377

goeq-ja-n-a die-ingress-intr-indic goeq-ja-n-a die-incep-intr-indic

The restrictions just noted appply to verbs used in prototypical argument position, which are the most rigorous testing ground for claims of bidirectional distributional equivalence. When used in complement clauses, by contrast, do not need to take aspectual or transitivity markers, and can appear directly as the sole element of a NP, as in (37) and (38). (37)

her=ko caba-ja-n-a sow=3pl finish-incep-intr-indic ‘They have finished sowing.’

(38)

dub=ko laga-ja-n-a sit=3pl be.tired.of-incep-intr-indic ‘They are tired of sitting.’

In such infinitive-like complement positions, then, we do not find the same idiosyncratic restrictions on which lexemes can occur that we found in the case of jom. However, this is hardly a distinctive characteristic of monocategorial languages, since it is well established that many languages blur the distinction between nominal and verbal characteristics in such non-prototypical contexts (cf. Hopper & Thompson 1984): infinitives often exhibit mixed nominal and verbal characteristics, just as generic or incorporated nouns often exhibit a restricted range of nominal characteristics. It is thus important to apply bidirectional tests to prototypical functions, such as the use as subject arguments in (34) and (35), rather than peripheral clausal functions like purpose or other complements. We can thus distinguish verbs with deverbal conversions, like jom ‘eat; food’, which can be used as arguments with equivalent combinatorics to nouns, from verbs which require special morphosyntactic treatment before they can function as arguments; om is an example.30 So although all verbs can indeed be used directly in “clausal argument” positions, as in (37) and (38), it is the unavailability of all but a limited subset of verbs for direct prototypical argument use, as in (34) and (35), that shows the absence of real bidirectionality in Mundari.

30. There are further restricted contexts in which the verb can be used as a syntactic argument, e.g., en dub-ke=ñ dub-kena ‘I sat and sat for a long time (in the plane)’, lit. ‘that sit-asp I sat’, though even here the aspectual enclitic -ke is present.


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3.4. Exhaustiveness The principle of exhaustiveness states that it is not sufficient to find a few choice examples which suggest word class flexibility. Since word classes are partitionings of the entire lexicon, equivalent statements need to hold for all relevant words in the lexicon that are claimed to have the same class. In recent publications, Croft and Baker (among others) have made similar points: How do we know that when we read a grammar of an obscure “flexible” language X that the author of the grammar has systematically surveyed the vocabulary in order to identify what proportion is flexible? If English were spoken by a small tribe in the Kordofan hills, and all we had was a 150 page grammar written fifty years ago, might it look like a highly flexible language? (Croft 2001: 70) An important typological difference exists only if categorial ambiguity extends to an entire open class of inflectionally similar words, thereby affecting the overall grammar of the language (Baker 2003: 177)

In practice, since it is difficult to check every one of tens of thousands of lexical items, we at least need a large enough sample31 that it would plausibly pick up limits in productivity, and that includes several representatives of as many denotational classes as possible. Many of the influential discussions of word classes in particular languages do not meet this criterion. For example, Jelinek’s (1995) analysis of Salish only considers a handful of lexical items. This is not to say they are wrong, merely that they have yet to supply conclusive evidence, and are at risk of having presented selective data. We will argue that the claimed fluidity of Mundari looks less productive once the full range of data is considered, and in fact Hoffmann himself retreated from the original position (stated in his 1903 grammar) once he was forced, in his gigantic masterpiece, the Encyclopaedia Mundarica, to make an exhaustive analysis of thousands of lexemes. More extensive checks of this type throw up problems for each of our criteria above: distributional equivalence, with its corollary of bidirectionality, and compositionality. We have already mentioned some problems of this type in 31. An anonymous LT referee, echoing Croft’s (2001: 70) question “How many are enough?”, asks whether we would demand 100% conformity. We would, subject to three caveats: (i) obviously there is a difference between what we would demand for an ideal proof, and what can be taken as demonstrated of a given language at a given history in its investigation, since checking all distributional contexts for every lexeme is an immense undertaking; (ii) since our statements are made about the major open classes, we have no problem – in contradistinction to Croft (2001: 70) – with removing small numbers of lexemes into minor word classes (which by definition are finite) where they display distinct combinatorics and/or semantic effects; (iii) we also assume that the major word classes will be further divisible into subclasses (e.g., proper nouns, verbs grouped by aspectual class and so on) and that these will be mirrored in distributional differences at a more specific level.


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Sections 3.2 and 3.3. In this section we push our investigations further by first looking at a semantically targeted sample of lexical items chosen to represent four lexical domains – proper nouns, animal names, plant names, and kinship terms – and then giving statistics on the combinatorial possibilities of two samples from the lexicon – a smaller one included as an Appendix to this paper, and a larger one of around five thousand lexical items carried out by the second author (comprising about 10 % of the attested Mundari lexicon) for which the results are available on the web at http://munda.chikyu.ac.jp/EM/. 3.4.1. Nominal subclasses of limited availability for predicate use. First, proper names, such as Ranci ‘Ranchi’, are unavailable for predicate use (39a), and cannot even be combined directly with the copula (39b). Instead, one needs to place a postposition after the proper noun, then add the copula (39c). (39)

a. *añ-aq oRaq ranci-ta-n-a 1sg-gen home Ranchi-progr.or-intr-indic ‘My home town is Ranchi.’ b. *añ-aq oRaq ranci menaq 1sg-gen home Ranchi loc.cop ‘My home town is Ranchi.’ c. añ-aq oRaq ranci-re menaq 1sg-gen home Ranchi-loc loc.cop ‘My home town is Ranchi.’

Second, it is common in many languages for just a small subset of kinship terms – typically just ‘mother’ and ‘father’ – to permit verbal as well as nominal uses, though even there the semantic increment may be different, with the ‘mother’ word meaning ‘nurture, care for as a mother does’ and the ‘father’ word meaning ‘beget’ (cf. Evans 2000b). Even these two terms, then, violate the compositionality requirement, but in addition a consideration of the full kin term set often reveals that conversion is non-productive: ‘uncle’, ‘sister’, and ‘cousin’, for example, are not available as verbs in English, outside the very special ‘reported vocative’ use: ‘Don’t you “uncle” me!” (i.e., don’t call me uncle). It is clear that any claim, for a language like English, that kinship terms were precategorial because ‘mother’ and ‘father’ can occur in both nominal and verbal slots, would need to be backed up by demonstration that other kin terms exhibited similar fluidity, and here it would quickly founder against a more exhaustive sampling of the data. With some minor differences of detail, the Mundari facts are remarkably like English. A small set of nouns in the domain of kinship have verbal uses, and the semantic increment is irregular. Thus the nouns engga ‘mother’, haga ‘brother’, and geRe ‘man’s sister’s child’ can be used as verbs; in the case of


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‘mother’ the lexicalized semantic addition is minimal, but in the case of the other two it is substantial: with haga ‘brother’, for example, it is based on an extension of brotherhood to all members of the same clan (and note that (41) could still be used between women; the root misi ‘sister’ could not be substituted). (40)

(41)

(42)

engga-oq-ta-n-a=eq mother-pass-progr.or-intr-indic=3sg.S ‘She is becoming a mother.’ ale do in-ku-loq=le we.excl top that-pl-with=1pl.excl haga-ta-n-a brother-progr.or-intr-indic ‘We are in the same clan as them.’ keoRa geRe-oq-ta-n-a Keora maternal.village-pass-progr.or-intr-indic ‘Keora has become my maternal village (following the remarriage of my mother to someone of that village).’

But most kinship terms are nouns only: none of apu ‘father’, misi ‘sister’, boko ‘younger sibling’, baDa ‘elder uncle’, baDi ‘elder aunt’, kaka ‘younger uncle’, and kaki ‘younger aunt’, for instance, can be used as verbs: (43)

*apu-oq-ta-n-a=eq father-pass-progr.or-intr-indic=3sg.S ‘He is becoming a father.’

Third, most names of animals cannot be used as predicates. Examples include seta ‘dog’, pusi ‘cat’, uRiq ‘cow’, tuRu ‘squirrel’, sukuRi ‘pig’, merom ‘goat’, miNDi ‘sheep’, and sim ‘hen’, though the behaviour of this last term is more complex – Hoffmann gives examples of it used as a transitive verb, with the meaning ‘acquire fowl’ – see above – while Maki Purti rejected this use. One of the few animal terms permitting predicate use is kula, which can be used, though only when followed by the passive, with the meaning ‘turn into a tiger’ (in the way people become vampires in European mythology): (44)

soma=eq kula-oq-ta-n-a Soma=3sg.S tiger-pass-incep-intr-indic ‘Soma has become a tiger.’

For the realm of animal nouns, then, Mundari is less productive in its possibilities for predicate use than English, which has, for example, ‘to dog’, ‘to fish’, ‘to bitch’, ‘to chicken (out)’, ‘to snake’, and ‘to pig (out)’, though not * ‘to giraffe’, * ‘to lizard’, *’to dingo’, or * ‘to deer’.


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Fourth, most plant terms cannot be used as predicates, including kaNTaRa ‘jackfruit’ (*kaNTaRa-tana), uli ‘mango’ (*uli-tana), and kadal ‘banana’ (*kadaltana). One of the few plant names that may be used as a verb is jojo ‘tamarind’, which can be used as a verb with the meaning ‘to be sour’. This consideration of four semantic subclasses shows quite clearly that, though for most nominal subclasses (except proper nouns) it is possible to find a couple of lexical items that can be used as predicates, this is a property of specific lexical items and in no way generalizes across all members of the categories, as it should in an omnipredicative, precategorial, or Broschartian language. In fact, the impossibility of certain nouns being used as verbs was noted by Hoffmann himself: the entries in his Encyclopaedia Mundarica for ade ‘ginger plant’, ambuRu ‘Indian hog-plum’, ankusi ‘hook, plough’, awa ‘kiln for baking roof tiles’, and apu ‘father’, for example, state explicitly that these can only be used as nouns. It is significant that this more restrictive view of Mundari fluidity is found in the Encyclopaedia which is both later and more exhaustive than his grammar: it represents both a more considered view, and one that must account for the behaviour of every lexeme, rather than a select few. 3.4.2. Figures from small sample. To give a more quantitative picture of the possibilities of noun > verb and verb > noun conversion, we now give figures compiled from a sample of 105 lexical items, listed in the Appendix. Our sample was designed to include a range of ontological types, including all those covered by Broschart for Tongan: in addition to a range of terms for states and processes, and positions, it included terms for stages (e.g., old man, boy), sex (e.g., man/male, woman), material (e.g., stone, dust), qualities (e.g., bad, good), colour (e.g., red), kinship relation (e.g., father, mother), social domain (family, clan, tribe), body part (e.g., head, foot), instrument (e.g., hammer, axe), product (e.g., pancake, song), manner (very, slow, fast), value/quantity (one, two, part), task (cowherd, smith), time of day (morning, evening), place and geographic features (inside, mountain, river), natural kinds including both plants and animals, provisions (food, drink), days and festivals, names, nationalities and tribes. It also included the key cases discussed by Hoffmann and Bhat, and the words taken from the first two sentences of a sample text about harvesting. For the purposes of the figures below, lexical items allowing more than one function were classified as basically nominal or basically verbal following the analytic decisions in Hoffmann regarding order of appearance in the lemmas of his dictionary, supplemented by considerations of semantic inclusion, such that if one meaning includes the other in its definition (e.g., ‘acquire fowl’ includes ‘fowl’) then it is counted as more basic. Of course the right direction of derivation could sometimes be disputed, but this would only affect the figures regarding direction of conversion, not those regarding whether conversion


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Table 1. ???

Number

Percentage

Noun only Verb only Both noun and verb

772 1099 1953

20 28 52

Total

3,824

100

can occur. Nonetheless, in a few cases where the question of directionality is particularly difficult (rimbil ‘cloud /cloudy’, durang ‘sing / song’, soan ‘stink; smell’) these were not included in the figures. Alongside each term we indicate whether the closest English equivalent allows a parallel conversion. Overall, of the 105 lexical items that include at least a nominal or a verbal use, 74 are convertible, i.e., a little under three quarters. For the 41 basic verbs in our sample, 27 allow nominal use (i.e., around 65%) and 14 do not not; the corresponding figures for the English translation equivalents that were verbs were slightly higher: 29 allow nominal use, 14 do not. For the 64 basic nouns in our sample, 47 can function as predicates, i.e., 74 %. This is a little higher than the comparable English figure of 65 %. Overall, then, around 72 % of the lexical items can function either as nouns or as verbs, a figure slightly higher than the corresponding figure for English, but well short of the 100 % that would be required to establish the lack of word class distinctions in the language. 3.4.3. Figures from large sample. As a double check on the figures in Section 3.4.2, and also because it was biased towards finding word class flexibility by the inclusion of all sample lexemes discussed by Hoffmann and Bhat, the second author examined a much larger sample of more than 5,000 entries, comprising around 10% of the items in Encyclopaedia Mundarica. These were selected by entering all the entries from pages chosen at random throughout the dictionary; out of the 5,000 entries, 3,824 could be used as noun, verb, or both. The word class judgments were basically those taken from Hoffmann, but were further checked with one native speaker (Maki Purti). Because of the large number of items for this part of the study it was not feasible to determine directionality, or the behaviour of their English equivalents. The full list, contained in Osada (2004), is downloadable as a pdf file from http://munda.chikyu.ac.jp/EM/. For the 3,824 eligible items in this sample, we find the figures given in Table 1.These figures give a substantially lower percentage of fluid flexible lexemes than those for our earlier sample, presumably reflecting a combination


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of sampling bias in the smaller sample (through the inclusion of Hoffmann’s and Bhat’s showpiece examples) and a lowered likelihood of the more obscure vocabulary items – present only in the larger sample – of exhibiting zero conversion. They confirm quite clearly that the occurrence of zero conversion in Mundari is of a comparable order to English: it is common, but not available without limit, and there exist large numbers of both nouns and verbs that do not have other syntactic possibilities available to them.32 Our discussion in Section 3.2 showed that the semantic interpretation of convertible words cannot be predicted by general rules, and that though there are a half-dozen typical semantic relationships between the argumental and the predicate uses of lexemes these cannot be predicted from the ontological class of the lexeme. And our discussion in Section 3.4.1 demonstrated that, if we hold ontological type constant to just animal, plant or kin terms, we still cannot predict whether conversion will be available or not. The percentage figures from this extended figures emphasize that non-convertibility is not a sporadic or marginal phenomenon, and that around half of the lexical items in our large sample do not have attested fluid uses. Of course it is always possible that our source fails to record some such uses, but we emphasize that, with its sixteen substantial volumes, the Hoffmann Encyclopaedia constitutes one of the most exhaustive lexical documentations of any non-metropolitan language in the world. 4.

Conclusion

The question of whether languages exist that lack a noun-verb distinction is a fundamental one for typology and for linguistics more generally, since much of the system of morphosyntactic rules is built on the generalizations holding at the level of word class. Since languages without word classes are clearly imaginable – predicate calculus being the canonical example – any finding that languages universally distinguish nouns from verbs represents a major constraint on the form of possible human languages (cf. Baker 2001). Though a number of claimed cases of such languages have been put forward, with some typological accounts (e.g., Hengeveld 1992a, b, Rijkhoff 2002) taking it as established that such languages exist, and though it is clear that in many languages there is only a “weak” noun-verb distinction, we do not believe there exist – as yet – attested cases of languages lacking a noun-verb distinction altogether, according to the highest standards of description and argumentation. 32. Our findings thus run counter to Bhat’s interpretation of the frequency of conversion or fluidity in the Encyclopaedia Mundarica: “Hoffmann considers Mundari words to be of great functional elasticity, having very vague signifying power. He establishes this elasticity of Mundari word, rather convincingly, in his twelve-volume [sic] Mundari Encyclopedia, in which almost every word is shown [italics ours], with copious examples, to be occurring as a substantive, adjective, and also as a transitive and in transitive verb.”


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Because the theoretical stakes are so high, linguists must follow the most rigorous standards of proof to claimed cases, and part of our job as typologists is to establish standardized criteria of argumentation that can be applied across all languages in our purview, at the same time establishing a typology of the different ways in which languages come close – or appear to come close – to lacking this distinction. Our goal in this article has been to re-evaluate one such claimed case – Mundari – in the light of both fresh data, and of more explicit lines of argumentation. Our verdict is that Munda clearly distinguishes nouns from verbs, though (like English, Chinese, and many other languages) it has widespread zero conversion, extending to around 50 % of the lexicon. In fact this finding agrees with Hoffmann’s later view of the language once the compilation of a complete dictionary forced him to extend his analysis to the full lexicon. At the same time, we have sought to spell out three general requirements that must be met before a language can be said to have a single merged class: distributional equivalence that is fully bidirectional, explicit semantic compositionality for argument and predicate uses, and exhaustiveness in the form of a demonstration that these effects hold over the complete lexicon, not just for a few favoured cases. It will be interesting to see how well other claimed “fluid” languages stand up to these tests. Received: 8 September 2004 Revised: 24 December 2004

University of Melbourne Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto

Correspondence addresses: (Evans) Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Australia; e-mail: [email protected]; (Osada) Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan; e-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgements: Our collaboration on this paper was made possible through the University of Melbourne’s Young Asian Scholars scheme, which enabled Osada to spend time in Melbourne, with further assistance from a School of Languages Grant-in-Aid, from a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research to Osada from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (Grant (C) No. 13610677, years 2001–2003), which supported the database of entries from the Encyclopaedia Mundarica, and as a sideline from joint work on reciprocal constructions in Mundari supported by a grant to Evans from the Australian Research Council (Grant: Reciprocals Across Languages). We thank these bodies for their generous support. Maki Purti has assisted us at every stage with her expert native speaker judgments on Mundari. We further thank Bob Dixon, Sasha Aikhenvald, and two anonymous LT referees for their comments on earlier versions of this paper, including an oral presentation in June 2002 at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, LaTrobe University. Abbreviations: 1, 2, 3 1st, 2nd, 3rd person, abs absolutive, an animate, asp aspect, at actor topic, compl completive aspect, con continuous, cop copula, dat dative, def definite, dem demonstrative, det determiner, du dual in suffixes, du dual in enclitics, excl exclusive, fem feminine, fut future, gen genitive, impf imperfective, inan inanimate, incep inceptive, indic indicative, ingress


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ingressive, init.cont XXX, init.prog initiated progressive, intr intransitive, ipf imperfective, loc locative, loc.cop locational copula, neg negative, nom nominative, O object, pass passive, perf perfective, pl plural in suffixes, pl plural in enclitics, pres present, progr.or progressive oriented, rel relative, S subject, stat stative, top topic, tr transitive. The nominal number suffixes in Mundari are written in small caps (du, pl) to distinguish them from the (person plus) number enclitics and verbal suffixes (du, pl) with which they are homophonous.

Appendix: Lexical items included in our sample with summary of conversion possibilities V→N rain wind laugh run hit kick quarrel fight fuck weave eat drink talk give teach see rise die/kill cut with scissor-like motion * lie (posture) (be) drunk

divide, distribute, part evening go come catch throw

Eng. conv.

*V → N

gama hoyo landa nir dal pada eperang gopoeq de(pe)Reb teng jom nu jagar om itu lel rakab goeq laTab

+ cook − cut (with knife) + sow + make + hear, listen + smell, sniff + fall over + be able, can + sit + stand − dawn + bring + flow + take − − + +(kill), −(die) +

gitiq bul n. ‘intoxication’, v.t. ‘to intoxicate’, v.i. ‘be drunk’ haTing

+ +

ayub sen hijuq sab ter

− + + + +

+


Eng. conv. isina had her bai ayum jii baTi daRi dub birid ang au atu idi

+ + + + + + + +

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v/n. (basic meaning and combinatorics difficult to decide) rimbil ‘cloud/cloudy’, durang ‘sing/song’, soan ‘stink, smell’ a Though there is a collocation with this verb which does allow conversion, namely isin basang ‘boil. (v.t.); n. the water in which the rice is to be cooked’; basang = cooking. b Hoffman does not give the nominal use in his Encyclopaedia but Maki Purti assures us it is common.

N→V

Eng. conv.

N −/ → V man; male father nose weaver (place name) council, panchayat or other meeting forest dog pig

koRa apu muu peNae Ranci saba

+ + + +

bir seta sukuri

+ + -

goat cat cattle fig mango jackfruit rice (paddy) fish

merom pusi uriq loa + uli kaNTaRa baba n. hai +

sun fever steal disease, sickness old, old man boy

singgi rua kumbuRu rogo haRam danggRa

+ − + − − −

girl man; person wife, woman, girl stone dust tree mother child brother mother-in-law daughter-in-law head ear foot, leg eye stomach hammer bow and arrow axe knife pancake cowherd smith, blacksmith night mountain

danggRi hoRo kuRi

− + −

diri duRa daRu engga hon haga hanar kimin booq lutur kaTa med laiq koTasi aqsar kapi katu lad mahara baRae

+ + − + − − − − + − + + + + + + + − − −

nida buru

− −


Eng. conv.

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Eng. conv.

Eng. conv.

N→V shade river village clan tribe custom fowl, chicken tiger flower tamarind (and pulp); sour; make sour food grain, rice water meat outsider, Hindu Sunday sowing-time drinking feast

umbul gaRa hatu kili jati dastur sim kula baa jojo

+ − − − − − + − − −

maNDi daq jilu diku etwar herpuna

− + − − − +a

N −/ → V

a ‘Christmas’ is taken as a comparable English word here.

References Adelaar, K. Alexander & Nikolaus Himmelmann (eds.) (2004). The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar. London: Routledge Curzon. Anderson, Steven (1985). Inflectional morphology. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Linguistic Description, Volume 3: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, 150–201. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, Gregory D. S. & Norman Zide. (2001). Recent advances in the reconstruction of the proto-Munda verb. In Laurel Brinton (ed.), Historical Linguistics 1999, 13–30. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Andrews, J. Richard (1975). Introduction to Classical Nahuatl. Austin: University of Texas Press. Baker, Mark (2001). The Atoms of Language: The Mind’s Hidden Rules of Grammar. New York: Basic Books. — (2003). Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns and Adjectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bhat, D. N. S. (1994). The Adjectival Category: Criteria for Differentiation and Identification. Amsterdam: Benjamins. — (1997). Noun-verb distinction in Munda languages. In Anvita Abbi (ed.), Languages of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples of India: The Ethnic Space, 227–251. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas. — (2000). Word classes and sentential function. In Vogel & Comrie (eds.) 2000, 47–64. Bodding, P. O. (1929). Materials for a Santali grammar, II. Mostly Morphology. Dumka: Santal Mission of the Northern Churches. Broschart, Jürgen (1997). Why Tongan does it differently. Linguistic Typology 1: 123–165.


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Churchward, C. Maxwell (1953). Tongan Grammar. London: Oxford University Press. Clark, Eve V. & H. Herbert Clark (1979). When nouns surface as verbs. Language 55: 767–811. Croft, William (1991). Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. — (2000). Parts of speech as typological universals and language particular categories. In Vogel & Comrie (eds.) 2000, 65–102. — (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2003). Typology and Universals. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Demirdache, Hamida & Lisa Matthewson (1995). On the universality of syntactic categories. North Eastern Linguistic Society 25: 79–93. Dixon, R. M. W. (1977). Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language 1: 19–80. — (1988). A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dixon, R. M. W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.) (2004). Adjective Classes: A Cross-linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Enfield, Nick (2004). Adjectives in Lao. In Dixon & Aikhenvald (ed.) 2004, 323–347. Evans, Nicholas (2000a). Word classes in the world’s languages. In Geert Booij, Christian Lehmann, & Joachim Mugdan (eds.), Morphology: A Handbook on Inflection and Word Formation, 708– 732. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. — (2000b). Kinship verbs. In Vogel & Comrie (eds.) 2000, 103–172. Foley, William A. (1998). Symmetrical voice systems and precategoriality in Philippine languages. Paper presented at the 3rd LFG conference, Brisbane. Gil, David (1994). The structure of Riau Indonesian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 17: 179–200. — (1995). Parts of speech in Tagalog. In Mark Alves (ed.), Papers from the Third Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 67–90. Tempe, Arizona. — (2001). Escaping Eurocentrism: Fieldwork as a process of unlearning. In Paul Newman & Martha Ratliff (eds.), Linguistic Fieldwork, 102–132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hengeveld, Kees (1992a). Parts of speech. In Michael Fortescue, P. Harder, & L. Kristofferson (eds.), Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective, 29–53. Amsterdam: Benjamins. — (1992b). Non-verbal predication: Theory, Typology, Diachrony. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Himmelmann, Nikolaus (1991). The Philippine challenge to Universal Grammar. Arbeitspapiere des Instituts für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität zu Köln, Neue Folge 15. — (2004a). The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar: Typological characteristics. In Adelaar & Himmelmann (eds.) 2004, 110–181. — (2004b). Tagalog. In Adelaar & Himmelmann (eds.) 2004, 350–376. Hoffmann, John (1903). Mundari Grammar. Calcutta: The Secretariat Press. Hoffmann, John & Arthur van Emelen (1930–1979). Encyclopaedia Mundarica. Patna: Bihar. 16 volumes. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson (1984). The discourse basis for lexical categories in Universal Grammar. Language 60: 703–752. Jacobson, William (1979). Noun and verb in Nootkan. British Columbia Provincial Museum Heritage Records 4: 83–155. Jelinek, Eloise (1995). Quantification in Straits Salish. In Emmon Bach, Eloise Jelinek, Angelika Kratzer, & Barbara H. Partee (eds.), Quantification in Natural Languages, 487–540. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Jelinek, Eloise, & Richard A. Demers (1994). Predicates and pronominal arguments in Straits Salish. Language 70: 697–736. Kinkade, M. Dale (1983). Salish evidence against the universality of “noun” and “verb”. Lingua 60: 25–40. Kroeger, Paul (1998). Nouns and verbs in Tagalog: A reply to Foley. Paper presented at the 3rd LFG conference, Brisbane.


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Kuipers, Aert H. (1968). The categories verb-noun and transitive-intransitive in English and Squamish. Lingua 21: 610–626. Langendoen, Terence D. (1967). The copula in Mundari. In John W. M. Verhaar (ed.), The Verb ‘Be’ and its Synonyms, 75–100. Dordrecht: Reidel. Launey, Michel (1994). Une grammaire omniprédicative. Paris: CNRS Editions. — (2002). Compound nouns vs. incorporation in Classical Nahuatl. In Nicholas Evans & HansJürgen Sasse (eds.), Problems in Polysynthesis, 113–134. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Lichtenberk, Frantisek (1991). Semantic change and heterosemy in grammaticalization. Language 67: 474–509. Milner, George B. (1972) Fijian Grammar. 3rd edition. Suva: Government Press. Mosel, Ulrike & Einar Hovdhaugen (1992). Samoan Reference Grammar. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Munda, Ram Dayal (1971). Aspect of Mundari verb. Indian Linguistics 32: 27–49. Neukom, Lukas (2001). Santali. München: Lincom Europa. Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osada, Toshiki (1992). A Reference Grammar of Mundari. Tokyo: Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. — (1999). Experiential constructions in Mundari. Gengokenkyu (Journal of the Japanese Linguistic Society) 115:51-76. — (2004). The reexamination on noun/verb distinction in Mundari appeared in the selected entries of Encyclopaedia Mundarica. Unpublished manuscript, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature. — (forthcoming). Reciprocals in Mundari. In Vladimir Nedjalkov & Zlata Guentcheva (eds.), Typology of Reciprocal Constructions. München: Lincom Europa. Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen (1960). Über den Ursprung der voneinander abweichenden Strukturen der Munda- und Khmer-Nikobar-Sprachen. Indo-Iranian Journal 4: 81–103. — (1966). A comparative study of the verb in the Munda languages. In Norman Zide (ed.), Studies in Comparative Austroasiatic Linguistics, 96–193. The Hague: Mouton. Ponette, P. (1990). An Historical Note on the Encyclopaedia Mundarica. Pp. i-xii of Hoffmann & Emelen, Vol. XV. Rijkhoff, Jan (2002). The Noun Phrase. Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2003). When can a language have nouns and verbs? Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 35: 6–38. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1993a). Syntactic categories and subcategories. In Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld, & Theo Vennemann (eds.), Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, 646–687. Berlin: de Gruyter. — (1993b). Das Nomen – eine universale Kategorie? Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 46: 187–221. Schachter, Paul (1985). Parts-of-speech systems. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume 1: Clause Structure, 3–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schiller, Eric (1989). Syntactic polysemy and underspecification in the lexicon. Berkeley Linguistics Society 15: 278–290. — (1992). Parts of speech in Southeast Asian languages: An autolexical view. In Pan-Asiatic Linguistics: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Language and Linguistics, Vol. II, 778–790. Sinha, N. K. (1975). Mundari Grammar. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages. Stassen, Leon (1997). Intransitive Predication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swadesh, Morris (1939). Nootka internal syntax. International Journal of American Linguistics 9: 77–102. Thompson, Sandra (1988). A discourse approach to the cross-linguistic category ‘adjective’. In John A. Hawkins (ed.), Explaining Language Universals, 167–208. Oxford: Blackwell.


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Verhaar, John W. M. (1984). Affixation in contemporary Indonesian. In B. Kaswanti Purwo (ed.), Towards a Description of Contemporary Indonesian: Preliminary Studies, Part I (NUSA, 18), 1–26. Jakarta: Universitas Atma Jaya. Vogel, Petra M. & Bernard Comrie (eds.) (2000). Approaches to the Typology of Word Classes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wetzer, Harrie (1996). The Typology of Adjectival Predication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Whorf, Benjamin Lee (1956). Science and Linguistics. In J. B. Carroll (ed.), Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, 207–219. New York: MIT Press.


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Commentary

There’s a grain of truth in every “myth”, or, Why the discussion of lexical classes in Mundari isn’t quite over yet by JOHN PETERSON 1.

Introduction

Evans & Osada’s study in this issue (henceforth E&O) presenting evidence for lexical classes in Mundari is an important contribution to the general discussion of parts of speech, as it has often been claimed that Mundari is a prime example of a language which does not possess lexical categories. However, as the authors correctly point out, virtually all of the relevant studies which make these claims are based exclusively on highly outdated data in Hoffmann’s older works (e.g., Hoffmann 1903), highlighting the need for new data, especially considering the far-reaching consequences of the claims involved. As I am not very familiar with Mundari, and as the editors of LT have asked me to concentrate in my commentary on primary data from Munda languages, I will focus here on structural criteria, mainly from the South Munda language Kharia, the Munda language I am most familiar with, which is spoken primarily in the central-eastern states of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, and Orissa in India and which borders the southwestern Mundari speaking area, where it is spoken in a number of villages alongside Mundari.1 I will suggest that the semantic heads of predicates and their complements in Kharia, and perhaps in Munda languages in general, are not lexical categories but rather phrasal categories. Hence, by definition we cannot be dealing with lexical classes such as “noun”

1. In addition to a number of other languages, most important of which are Sadri/Sadani and Hindi (both Indo-Aryan) and Kurukh (Dravidian).




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and “verb”. In order to demonstrate this, it will first be necessary to deal with the structure of predicates and their complements in Kharia in some detail. On the basis of these data I will then suggest further areas of research for Mundari. That Mundari may in fact be very similar to Kharia with regard to parts of speech is suggested by data I was able to collect in a brief interview with two Mundari speakers. 2.

Kharia

2.1. Predicates in Kharia Similar to Mundari, Kharia is a predominantly head-final language.2 The order of constituents in the clause is largely “free”, being determined primarily by the relative pragmatic status of the various clausal constituents, although predicatefinal order is the most common. Predicates and their complements, on the other hand, have little freedom with respect to the order of their internal components. Grammatical markers such as case, number, tense-aspect-mood, etc. attach to the last element of the semantic base of a phrase, regardless of its status. The structure of predicates and their complements in Kharia can be summarized as in (1) and (2), where X stands for a semantic base which, as we shall see below, may be either simple or complex. Categories in parentheses are not always overtly marked. (1) (2)

Slots of the non-negated finite predicate in Kharia, simplified: X (v2)(=perf)=tam/voice=pers/num/hon Complement of a predicate in Kharia, simplified: X=(poss)=num=case

As a simple example, consider the structure of the complement of a predicate, i.e., what corresponds to an NP in most languages. The semantic base of the complement of a predicate in Kharia minimally consists of a morpheme which can stand alone as a phonological word. Phonological words in Kharia all have the typical low-high intonation pattern, i.e., the first syllable of the phonological word is marked by a low tone which then rises throughout the remainder of the phonological word. If the word is monosyllabic we find a rising contour: e.g., ròchóP b ’side’, lˇaN ‘tongue’. As this pattern is entirely predictable and non-distinctive, it will not be indicated in the examples below.3 2. The following presentation is necessarily very brief. For further discussion, see Peterson (in press a), upon which the discussion here is largely based, and Peterson (in press b) for a general overview of Kharia. The Kharia data are based on fieldwork conducted during four trips to Jharkhand, India, amounting to about six months altogether. 3. Note that the low-high intonation pattern mentioned above can be overridden by sentencelevel intonation, so that not all phonological words end with a high tone, although all begin with a low tone (cf. Rehberg 2003).


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Table 1. tam/basic voice markers in Kharia

Past (pst) Present (prs) Present Progressive (prog) Irrealis (irr)

Active

Middle

=(y)oP =te =teP jã =e

=ki =ta =taP jã =na

The grammatical markers in (1) and (2) above are all enclitic: they are fully integrated into the suprasegmental pattern mentioned above and, crucially, attach to the last element of the semantic base, regardless of its status. For example, if the lexical head is not overtly mentioned, e.g., if it is known, these markers simply attach to the right-most element of the remaining “NP”, whether a demonstrative, modifier, or genitive attribute. That is, unlike affixes, these markers do not attach to lexical stems. Rather, they attach to the entire phrase, which can of course also consist of a single lexical morpheme. Thus, in (3a), one may assume that the lexical head lebu ‘person’ is not mentioned as it is clear from context (cf. (3b)). (3)

a. b.

munuPsiN rochob=aP=ki=ko east side=gen=pl=cntr ‘the easterners’ munuPsiN rochob=aP lebu=ki=ko east side=gen person=pl=cntr ‘the people of the east’

As we shall see in the examples below, similar comments also hold for the structure of predicates in Kharia, i.e., the grammatical markers to the right in (3) are enclitics which attach to the right-most element of the semantic base, regardless of its status. 2.2. The obligatory grammatical markers Kharia has three grammatical numbers, both on complements and predicates: singular, dual, and plural. There are also three morphological cases: direct (zero marking), the case of subjects and non-definite objects; oblique (=te) marks definite objects, “indirect objects”, and most adjuncts; genitive (=(y)aP), the “adnominal” case, through which one potential complement becomes an attribute in a larger complement. Almost all finite predicates in Kharia are obligatorily marked for tam/basic voice (= active/middle) and all are marked for pers/num/hon. The markers of these categories are presented in Tables 1 and 2.


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Table 2. Person/Number/Honorific status predicate markers in Kharia

Dual (/hon)

Singular

Inclusive 1 2 3

=(i)ñ =(e)m –

=naN

Plural

Exclusive

Inclusive

=jar

=niN

=bar =kiyar

Exclusive

=le =pe =ki / =may

There is a slight complication with respect to the position of pers/num/hon marking: With nonnegated predicates, it is the final marking to the right on the fully finite predicate. With negated predicates whose subject is not the 2nd person singular, it attaches to the negative particle um, which precedes the now partially finite predicate. Thus col=ki=ñ (go=m.pst=1sg) ‘I went’ vs. um=iñ col=ki [neg=1sg go=m.pst] ‘I didn’t go’. Note also that the 1st and 2nd persons singular active past have slightly irregular forms: oP j and oP b, respectively.

The enclitic tam markers in Table 1 may be preceded by markers of Aktionsart, referred to in South Asian linguistics generally as “vector verbs” or “v2s”. Like lexical morphemes, these Aktionsart markers, which probably all derive from independent lexical morphemes, are independent phonological words, receiving the typical low-high intonation pattern, and may also be separated from the semantic base of the predicate (and each other) by the enclitic pragmatic markers, as, e.g., goP ã in (4). (4)

ho-kaó ãoko=ga goP ã=ki. that-sg.hum sit.down=foc c.tel=a.pst ‘S/he sat down.’4

2.3. “Precategoriality” At first glance, Kharia might seem to be a language in which all lexical morphemes are “precategorial” (which I will use in an intuitive sense here). For example, lebu ‘person, man’ can be the semantic head of either a predicate or its complement: (5)

a. b.

lebu ãel=ki. man come=m.pst ‘The / a man came.’ ro ãel=ki. bhagwan lebu=ki man=m.pst and come=m.pst God

4. Examples quoted without a source are from interviews and conversations. Examples given with sources of the type “(BB,1:52)” are from texts which I have collected from native speakers and which will be published in Peterson (forthcoming). Here “BB” refers to the speaker, “1” to the text and “52” to the line of text.


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‘God became man [= Jesus] and came [to earth].’ (adapted from Malhotra 1982: 136) Similarly, the semantic base of a predicate can consist of what would appear to be a pronoun: (6)

(in a play about me and you, in which both of us will be taking part:) “naúak=te iñ=ga ho-kaó=na=iñ ro am=ga play=obl 1sg=foc that-sg.hum=m.irr=1sg and 2sg=foc iñ=na=m.” – “umboP. am=na um=iñ pal=e. 1sg=m.irr=2sg no 2sg=inf neg=1sg be.able=a.irr ho-kaó=oP. am=ga ãirekúar seN=gaP iñ=te director early=foc 1sg=obl that-sg.hum=a.pst 2sg=foc am=na=m.” 2sg=m.irr=2sg ‘ “In the play I will be him and you will be me.” – “No. I can’t be you. The director already made me him. You will be you.” ’

Proper names may also be used predicatively: (7)

a. b. c.

aPghrom ‘Aghrom (name of a town)’ aPghrom=ki. Aghrom=m.pst ‘became/came to be called “Aghrom”.’ aPghrom=oP. Aghrom=a.pst ‘s/he made/named [the town] “Aghrom”. ’

The same is also true of interrogatives, e.g., i ‘what’, generally used as the complement of a predicate, can also function as a predicate: (8)

a. b.

am i karay=oP b? 2sg what do=a.pst.2sg ‘What did you do?’ am i=yoP b? 2sg what=a.pst.2sg ‘What did you do?’

This list could be extended indefinitely. In fact, the only real restriction to this type of flexibility is what might be termed semantic compatability. For example, the loan word úebal/úebul ‘table’ can function as the complement of a predicate with the meaning ‘table’ (n.), in the middle voice with the meaning ‘become a table’ or in the active voice with the meaning ‘turn (something/someone) into a table’. Needless to say, objects seldom turn into tables,


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hence the predicative uses of this lexeme are virtually never found in actual conversations. However, if a proper context can be found (e.g., fairy tales) it is then acceptable, at least to most speakers, in predicative function. In fact, if a lexical morpheme in Kharia refers or can refer to some physical entity X, the meaning is entirely predictable when this morpheme serves as the semantic base of a predicate: ‘become X’ (middle) and ‘turn (something) into X’ (active). This does not, however, mean that the language has no copula. In fact, there are several suppletive copula stems in the language. Which stem is used depends on tense, the inherentness of the trait and whether the clause is negated, and one of these forms must be used if the predicate is stative. In other words, the predicates discussed above, in which tam and pers/num/hon markers attach directly to the lexical head, must be dynamic. If a predicate is stative then the copula must be used with the (bisyllabic) “free-standing form” (see Peterson in press a, b for details). If however the predicate is dynamic, although morphemes denoting ‘become’ (hoy) or ‘make (= turn into)’ (karay) (both of Indo-Aryan origin) can be used, their presence is never obligatory and the grammatical markers can attach directly to the last element of the lexical head, regardless of its status.5 2.4. Phrase-based semantic bases As the following examples show, the issue is in fact more complex than the mere “precategoriality” suggested by the examples above. First, note that genitive case marked “nouns” may also serve as the semantic base of a predicate, as in (9b, c). (9)

a. b. c.

ayo=yaP keciya mother=gen money ‘mother’s money’ ayo=yaP=yoP j. mother=gen=a.pst.1sg ‘[I] made [it] mother’s.’ ayo=yaP=ki. mother=gen=m.pst ‘[It] became mother’s.’

In fact, what in most other languages would be considered complex NPs may also serve as the semantic base of a predicate. Thus the phrases found in (9b, 5. The same is true, incidentally, of “adjectives” in Kharia. Note that any modifier in Kharia, such as maha ‘big’, rusu3 ‘red’, etc., can also function as a predicate with no overt derivational morphology, e.g., maha=ki (big=m.pt) ‘became big, grew’, rusu3=ki (red=m.pt) ’became red, reddened’. For reasons of space, “adjectives” will not be dealt with further here.


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c) can be considered “NPs” in which the “head noun” is not overtly expressed. Consider the following examples: (10)

(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

ubar rochoP b=te col=ki=ñ. 2 side=obl go=m.pst=1sg b. ubar rochoP b=ki=ñ 2 side=m.pst=1sg ‘I moved to both sides (i.e., this way and then that).’ a. ho rochoP b=te col=ki=ñ. that side=obl go=m.pst=1sg b. ho rochoP b=ki=ñ. that side=m.pst=1sg ‘I moved to that side.’ mãgta tamaku ragday=taP j, bãdhna kaúiP j saórakhi lekhe Mangta tobacco rub=m.prog Bandhna little stubborn like han-tiP j u-úiP j khor=ta, kaúiP j jorsãy that-side this-side iter=m.prs little strongly bul=siP. become.drunk=perf ‘Mangta is rubbing tobacco, Bandhna is [walking] here and there as if he is being stubborn, and is quite strongly drunk.’ (Kerkeúú¯a 1990: 24) bides=aP lebu=ki=yaP bharat=yaP lebu=ki India=gen person=pl abroad=gen person=pl=gen rupraN =ki=may. appearance=m.pst=3pl ‘The Indians took on the appearance of foreigners (e.g., by living abroad so long).’ hoãom dinu=jo kongher=te dhoP=na=yaP kornis=oP grab=inf=gen attempt=a.pst other day=add boy=obl muda um pal=oP. but neg be.able=a.pst ‘The next day as well [the witch] tried to grab the boy but could not.’ (BB 1: 52) a.

Finally, quotations can also function as the lexical head of a predicate (this type of predicate will not be considered further in the following discussion): (15)

u buóha=kiyar=te=ko bay jaP b=siP. iãib this old.man=du=obl=cntr madness grab=perf night tunboP “kersoN =e la! kersoN e la!” lo-=na=kiyar. daytime marry=a.irr voc rep voc cnt=m.irr=du


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genitive

dem

functional headcmpl/pre lexical morpheme

quant genitive

quantifier

classifier

Figure 1. Common maximal structure (simplified) of complements and predicates in Kharia

‘My parents have gone mad (= madness has grabbed the old man [and his wife = d]). Day and night they’ll keep on [saying] "Marry! Marry!". ’ (Kerkeúú¯a 1990: 31) On the basis of these data, I would argue that it is better to consider cases such as (5b) above, in which a single lexical morpheme serves as the semantic head, to be something akin to “simple NPs” in other languages, i.e., these lexical heads have in principle the same potential structure as the complex predicates in (10)–(14): The various slots for determiners, modifiers, etc. are simply not filled, just as in (9b, c) the “head noun” is not explicitly mentioned, although these could be filled and the predicate would still be grammatical. In Peterson (in press a) I have suggested the structure shown in Figure 1 (adapted here somewhat) as the simplified maximal structure to capture these facts. In this (purely structural) analysis, any lexical morpheme may serve as the semantic head of either a predicate or its complement (= arguments and adjuncts). It is the status of the functional head (i.e., case for complements and tam/person for predicates) which signals the status of the phrase as either a predicate or its complement, not the semantic base. In sum, the Kharia data sugest a number of areas for further study in Mundari, the two most important of which for our purposes are the following. First, any lexical morpheme can function as the semantic base of a predicate, with no overt derivational (“verbalizing”) morphology;6 if it refers to a physical entity, then it has an inchoative meaning when used as a predicate (‘turn into’, ‘become’). Second, entire “NPs” even if referential as well as quotations may serve as the semantic bases of predicates, again with no overt derivational morphology; in fact, predicates and their complements whose semantic base con-

6. And also apparently as the complement of a predicate, although I will not go into this here for reasons of space. At any rate, the data presented here at least suggest that Kharia is “omnipredicative” and with that “monocategorial”, to use E&O’s terminology.


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sists of a single morpheme can be considered a subtype of the phrase-based type. 3.

Mundari: A new look

On a recent trip to India I was able to conduct a brief interview with two native speakers of Mundari (aged 29 and 30, both male). The purpose of this interview was merely to see if the two criteria mentioned above, namely ‘become X’ with lexical morphemes denoting physical entities and the possibility of phrasal semantic bases, might also productively apply to Mundari. In the following I will briefly discuss the results of this interview.7 The first criterion mentioned above, that of “precategoriality”, is especially important for our discussion, as this is central to E&O. Let us assume for the moment that Mundari does in fact operate at the level of lexical categories, i.e., that we are not dealing with phrase-based categories of the type shown above for Kharia. It was noted above with respect to Kharia that lexical heads which (can) refer to physical entities may also function as predicates provided that dynamicity (‘become’ or ‘turn into’) is involved. The semantics of this construction in Kharia thus make me somewhat skeptical of the applicability of E&O’s theoretical prerequisite that “the base meaning of words not denoting actions should take the form ‘be [X], be [Y], be [Z]’ (where X, Y here represent meanings typically expressed by common or proper nouns, or adjectives, in languages like English)” (Section 2.1). Rather, as in Kharia, it might be the case that in Mundari any lexical morpheme which denotes, or can denote, an entity X can be used as a predicate with the meaning ‘become X’ (middle)8 or ‘turn (something) into X’ (active). For pure stativity, the use of a copula would then be expected. In other words, if the semantic base of a predicate is marked for tam

7. As noted in the introduction, I am not very familiar with Mundari, so that the interview had to be conducted in Hindi. When one conducts such an interview on a language with which one has had little first-hand experience, one is of course treading on thin ice, in this case especially since the dialect of the two speakers I consulted shows some deviation from the variety discussed in Osada (1992), although I have made every effort to check the correctness of my data. These differences include such minor details as the dual form -kin instead of the expected -ki3 and the fact that the predicate is quite often not overtly marked for the subject. As such, they do not directly pertain to the questions I was attempting to answer and should not affect the validity of the data in this respect. 8. In the following, I will simply refer to these two categories as middle and active with respect to Mundari as well as Kharia. This is not to imply that the two categories fulfill the same function in both languages. Rather, it is merely intended to simplify the discussion. Note also that I omit glosses for “subj” and “obj”, as these should be clear from the examples, nor do I indicate vowel length.


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and pers/num/hon, then the predicate would be dynamic,9 whereas the stative meaning E&O are looking for would have to be expressed by a copula. As it turns out, there is at least preliminary evidence suggesting that this is also true of Mundari. For example, the two Mundari speakers I consulted both accepted examples such as (16), which can hardly be considered a “typical verb”. Note that the meaning here is that of being turned into a table, not being a table. (16)

a. b.

bai-ked-me-a. siN boN ga am-ke úebal-e God 2sg-obj table-3sg make-a.pst-2sg-indic ‘God turned you into a table.’ úebal-ked-me-a. siN boN ga am-e God 2sg-3sg table-a.pst-2sg-indic ‘God turned you into a table.’

Although the example with bai ‘make’ in (16) was the first reply to to my request to translate the Hindi example into Mundari, the speakers both accepted the second example as well, merely adding that it did not make the meaning any better. They even explicitly stated that the grammar (Hindi vy¯akaraï) is fine, although the meaning is quite strange (Hindi aj¯ıb), a topic which we now turn to. This example is of course quite far-fetched, semantically speaking, but it is nonetheless grammatical, at least for the two speakers I consulted. In fact, I chose this example precisely for its oddity, as I assume that ‘table’ is otherwise unlikely to be considered a “verb”10 but also in order to rule out any chance of “lexicalization”, i.e., that this “noun” has become “lexicalized as a verb”through frequent use. As what is at issue here is not finding typical examples but rather possible ones, I feel it is certainly justifiable to look for rather “strange” examples such as (16) to see if they can be formed at all, which it seems they can. Turning now to the “noun” misi ‘sister’, which E&O state cannot be used as a “verb” (Section 3.4.1),11 we find that it can in fact be used predicatively with the meaning ‘become a sister’, at least once a sensible context has been found. Although (17a) was given spontaneously as a response to my request to

9. It could also be dynamic without necessarily having an inchoative meaning, such as ho9o ‘Munda; speak Munda(ri)’ in (28) in E&O’s study. As this topic requires further research, I will only deal with the inchoative meaning in the following. 10. This is only an assumption, although a reasonable one, as this lexeme is not listed in the Encyclopaedia Mundarica (Hoffmann & van Emelen (1930–1979 [1998]). 11. Although Hoffmann & van Emelen (1930–1979 [1998]: 2844) cite it in predicative function meaning ‘to address the wife of a brother-in-law by the vocative misi . . . to become such as to be addressed as misi . . .’.


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translate the Hindi example into Mundari, neither speaker had any objections to (17b): (17)

a. b.

iniP añ-aP misi hoba-w-a. 3sg 1sg-gen sister become-w-indic misi-w-a-Pe. iniP añ-aP 3sg 1sg-gen sister-w-indic-3s ‘She became my sister (e.g., when my father remarried to a woman who had a daughter).’

It would seem to me that the lexical morphemes in Mundari which are claimed to be restricted to either predicative-only or compelement-only use should be reanalyzed, in each case also checking for “strange” but possible interpretations such as in fairy-tales and other make-believe worlds, as I suspect that many of these supposedly restricted lexemes will in fact turn out to be “precategorial” once such contexts have also been considered. Example (17) also immediately brings us to the second topic mentioned above with respect to Kharia, i.e., “NPs” serving as the semantic bases of predicates. Note that in (17) the semantic base of the predicate is actually not misi ‘sister’ but rather añaP misi ‘my sister’, i.e., this is a predicate based on a phrase which appears to have the same basic structure as an NP in other languages. Here three more examples. Note that the predicate in (18) is virtually identical to the structure of the predicate in the Kharia example (12) above: (18)

añ hen-saP ne-saP-ken-a-ñ. 1sg that-side this-side-m.pst-indic-1sg ‘I moved to this side and that, walked back and forth.’

As the following two examples show, this should not be considered a case of “lexicalization” as the process seems to be entirely productive: (19)

(20)

en baria jaN -kin-te ne baria daru-jan-a. that 2 seed-du-inst this 2 tree-incep-indic ‘These two trees came from those two seeds; literally: Through those two seeds, these two trees became.’ siN boN ga a-e-ke ne baria úebal-kiP-a. table-a.pst.3sg-indic God 3sg-obj this 2 ‘God turned him into these two tables.’

What is especially interesting here is that, if we are to assume that the semantic head of the phrase is a “noun” then it would seem reasonable to term this phrase an NP.12 As this process seems to be productive, it would result in “rampant 12. This is of course assuming that we are dealing here with an endocentric structure which however, as Figure 1 shows, I do not assume.


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zero-conversion”, to use E&O’s term, to derive the “verb”, but such an analysis is problematic for two reasons. First, to my knowledge there is no other derivational morpheme in the language which unambiguously derives “nouns” from “verbs”.13 Hence, this conversion would be unique, which is highly problematic since it is never overtly marked. As such, one is certainly justified in questioning its necessity, as it only appears to be necessary to retain the noun/verb analysis. Second, even if this were considered a case of zero conversion, it would be of an entirely different kind than E&O are dealing with in their discussion: What serves here as the input for this “zero-conversion” are not lexical but rather phrasal categories. I therefore suspect that Mundari, like Kharia, does not have lexical categories at all but merely phrasal categories, and that what appear to be “simple nouns” and “verbs” are actually based on semantic bases whose phrase consists of a single lexical morpheme. Thus, despite the impressive data collected by E&O, I remain skeptical of any analysis of parts of speech in Mundari which envisions predicates and their complements as consisting of a single lexical head and suffixal markers, as even the scant data I was able to collect suggest that predicates and their complements in Mundari have phrasal, not lexical, semantic bases. 4.

Conclusions

In view of the data given above, I believe that the question of parts of speech in Mundari is far from being settled. Rather, the discussion has taken on an entirely new dimension. Despite the various restrictions which E&O have demonstrated for the formation of predicates and their complements for Mundari (whose relevance to the general discussion is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this brief commentary), it seems to me that before we can discuss the semantic restrictions of a particular grammatical category, we must first demonstrate 13. Pace, Osada (1992: 62–63). First, it has been shown that the cognate “nominalizing” infix -nVin Santali is in fact not a nominalizer (cf. Neukom 2001: 59–60), hence the same might also be true of Mundari. Also, at the very least I would expect that “nouns” derived from “verbs” through -nV- in Mundari can also be used as predicates with the meaning ‘become X’, similar to other lexical morphemes denoting physical entities. Thus, the status of -nV- as a nominalizer appears uncertain to me. Second, the status of the suffix -a-, which is homophonous with one of the genitive markers and which Osada also considers a nominalizer, is unclear to me, since one of its functions is to derive the so-called “independent possessive pronouns” in the singular, such as a2-ag-a- ‘1s-nml-gen’ / ‘1s-gen-nml’ (???), from the simple “possessive pronouns” of the type a2-a- ‘1s-gen’ (adapted from Osada 1992: 66, note: /-/ is realized as [g] in intervocalic position). While we are arguably dealing here with two different homophonous morphemes, it is clear that the status of the “nominalizer” -a- is still not fully understood, as in this case it would derive a pronoun from a pronoun. In the lack of any conclusive evidence that either of these two morphemes (infix -nV- or “nominalizer” -a-) is indeed a nominalizer, I must remain skeptical of such an analysis.


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that this category actually exists and discuss its structure, i.e., a structural analysis must precede the semantic analysis. The exact nature of these phrase-based structures still remains to be explored, but it is unlikely that lexical categories in the usual sense are involved. The term “parts of speech” may still be applicable, but I would argue that “noun” and “verb” are not. In fact, I would suggest that we are dealing here with a major typological distinction between languages, with at least two (ideal) types being found. In the first type we find nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., i.e., lexical categories or “word classes”. This type is well exemplified by most Indo-European languages, e.g.,German, Latin and, perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent (especially in modifiers and determiners), English (e.g., while-you-wait service, the guy I met yesterday’s car). This type may be especially prevalent in predominantly fusional languages, where most phonological words coincide with grammatical words,14 especially if there are fusional aggreement markers for gender, case, etc., but this awaits verification. The second type seems to be rarer and is exemplified by Kharia and, apparently, Mundari. Here we do not find lexical categories, at least not to the same extent as in the better known languages, but rather “phrasal parts of speech”. These phrases can of course have a single morpheme as their semantic base, giving the appearance of a lexical category, such as lebuki in (3b), but these are best considered a subtype of the phrasal semantic base. In such a language it makes little sense to ask what type of lexemes can function as predicates or their complements: These are not marked in the lexicon for use in one or both categories, as it is not at the lexical level that these categories are formed. Rather, one should ask what types of restrictions apply to phrases in these categories, and I assume it is here that the data discussed by E&O should enter the discussion. The terms “noun”, “verb”, etc. are traditionally reserved for lexical categories and in view of the Munda data it would seem best to retain this traditional usage to distinguish it from languages which have phrase-based categories. As there is to my knowledge no generally accepted term for such phrase-based structures, I have chosen to refer to them by their functions, i.e., predicates, complements, modifiers, etc. But at issue here is something which goes well beyond mere terminology as it has far-reaching consequences from descriptive, typological and also theoretical perspectives. It might be objected that I have referred here almost entirely to structural arguments with respect to parts of speech, although the authors have gone to great lengths to demonstrate both semantic and distributional restrictions on the 14. For a discussion of (grammatical/phonological) words from a crosslinguistic perspective, see the various contributions in Dixon & Aikhenvald (2002), especially the introduction.


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formation of these constituents in Mundari. That I have largely ignored these issues should not be taken as implying that I consider them irrelevant. They will of course have to be investigated for phrase-based categories just as for lexical categories, even if it is also just as unclear how they are to be interpreted with respect to phrasal categories as with respect to lexical ones. My point is merely that it is only viable to deal with these restrictions after one has shown that a relevant structure exists in the first place. With respect to lexical categories in Mundari, I am not convinced that this has been shown, and the scant data I have been able to collect on Mundari suggest that it is in fact not the case. But even if restrictions similar to those between “prototypical” nouns and verbs are found to apply within phrase-based structures, we will still be left with the problem of finding an appropriate term for them, although this is a different problem altogether. At any rate, “noun” and “verb” would seem to be highly misleading, since what is involved here are not lexemes, i.e., not the lexicon, but rather phrases, i.e., syntax. I believe we need to take a fresh look at Mundari, taking the two criteria discussed here into account, as the data I have are based on a single brief interview and leave questions such as these unanswered: To what extent is the semantic base of a predicate or its complement phrasal in nature? When the semantic base refers to a physical entity, is a dynamic predicative interpretation always possible (e.g., ‘turn into’)? To test this second criterion we will often have to resort to make-believe stories or fairy tales to allow for possible interpretations, but as this is a discussion of possible structures in the language and not necessarily everyday situations, I feel such a step is justified. There is of course also the question of the “naturalness” of such constructions, i.e., do they sound “odd”? Who uses them and when?, etc. Again, although these are legitimate questions, they should only be posed after determining whether the phrase-based structures are grammatical. In short, E&O have shown that various restrictions do apply to some extent to the formation of predicates and their complements in Mundari. However, I do not believe that this justifies terming these structures “nouns” and “verbs”, as both predicates and their complements in Mundari appear to be based on structures formed at the syntactical level, not in the lexicon. Thus, similar to other authors, I too am highly skeptical of the idea of lexical classes in Mundari, although perhaps for different reasons. Received: 4 April 2005 Revised: 30 August 2005

Universität Osnabrück

Correspondence address: FB 7, Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Osnabrück, D-49069 Osnabrück, Germany; e-mail: [email protected]


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Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Utz Maas and two anonymous reviewers from LT for commentging on earlier versions of this commentary, although I alone am of course responsible for any errors or oversights which it may contain. I would like to thank the German Research Council (DFG) for generous grants which made two of the fieldtrips to Jharkhand, India, possible. Many thanks also to the speakers of Kharia and Mundari who were kind enough to provide me with insights on their respective languages, especially Basil Baa, Rayem Olem Dungdung, Rose Dungdung, Saroj Kerketta, Silvester Kerketta, Anugrah Kullu, Bisheshwar Munda and Birendra Kumar Soy, and also to Dr. Ganesh Murmu for all his help while I was in Ranchi.

Abbreviations: a active voice; add additive focus; caus causative; cmpl complementizer; cnt continuous (“v2”); cntr contrastive focus; c:tel culminatory telic (“v2”); du dual; excl exclusive (1/2, non-singular); foc restrictive focus; gen genitive; gen-part partitive genitive; gen-poss - possessive genitive; hon honorific; hum - human; incep inceptive; indic indicative; inf infinitive marker; inst instrumental; iter iterative (“v2”); irr irrealis; m middle voice; neg negative morpheme; nml nominalizer; num number; obj object; obl oblique; perf perfect; pers person; pl plural; prs present; pst past; quant quantifier; rep repetition; seq sequential converb; sg singular; tam tense, aspect, mood; v2 Aktionsart marker; -w- non-phonemic glide found in certain phonological environments

References Bodding, P. O. (1929). Materials for a Santali Grammar, II: Mostly Morphological. Dumka: Santal Mission of the Northern Churches. Dixon, R. M. W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.) (2002). Word: A Cross-linguistic Typology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoffmann, J. (1903). Mundari Grammar and Exercises. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. Hoffmann, John & Arthur van Emelen (1930–1979 [1998]). Encyclopaedia Mundarica. 16 volumes. Reprint: New Delhi: Gyan. Kerkeúú¯a, Khrist Py¯ar¯ı. 1990. jujhair ã¯a˜ó (khaóiy¯a n¯aúak). [The Battle Field (A Kharia Drama)]. Ranchi: Tribal Language Academy, Government of Bihar. Malhotra, Veena (1982). The structure of Kharia: A study of linguistic typology and language change. Doctoral dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Neukom, Lukas (2001). Santali. (Languages of the World/Materials, 323.) München: Lincom Europa. Osada, Toshiki (1992). A Reference Grammar of Mundari. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Peterson, John (in press a). Languages without nouns and verbs? An alternative to lexical classes in Kharia. To appear in Colin Masica (ed.), Grammatical and Semantic Perspectives on South Asian and Other Languages. — (in press b). Kharia. To appear in Norman H. Zide & Gregory D. S. Anderson (eds.), The Munda Languages (Routledge Language Family Series). London: Routledge. — (forthcoming). Kharia: Grammar, Texts and Glossary. 3 volumes. Rehberg, Kerstin (2003). Phonologie des Kharia: Prosodische Strukturen und segmentales Inventar. M.A. thesis, Universität Osnabrück.


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Kees Hengeveld and Jan Rijkhoff

Mundari as a flexible language by KEES HENGEVELD AND JAN RIJKHOFF

1.

Introduction

In this reply to Evans & Osada (this issue, henceforth E&O), we intend to show that Mundari is one of the languages without distinct classes of verbs and nouns as far as its basic, non-derived vocabulary is concerned. Our contribution is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly presents a typology of parts-of-speech (PoS) systems, followed by a critical evaluation of the three criteria E&O use to establish the lack of word class distinctions in a language (Section 3). In Section 4 we present evidence to support our claim that Mundari has “flexible” basic lexemes (i.e., there is no fundamental distinction between nouns and verbs), thus disputing E&O’s claim that Mundari has clearly definable classes of verbs and nouns. The last section is concerned with a set of grammatical features which correlate with the presence of flexible lexemes in a language. It is concluded that Mundari displays all of the predicted features of a language that does not clearly distinguish between separate classes of nouns and verbs. 2.

Parts-of-speech systems

We agree with E&O that there are no languages “without word classes” (cf. the title of their article). As a matter of fact, we believe that all natural languages have at least one lexical word class. This is seen in Figure 1, which shows that there are two basic types of PoS system: flexible and rigid systems. In languages with a flexible PoS system some or all of the functions of a lexeme in an actual linguistic expression (i.e., verbal, nominal, adjectival, adverbial function) are performed by the same group of lexemes (Types 1–3). In languages with a rigid PoS system (Types 4–7) these functions are distributed over distinct, non-overlapping groups of lexemes. For a detailed discussion of this typology of PoS systems we refer to Hengeveld et al. (2004). The rigid word classes in Figure 1 (verb, noun, adjective, manner adverb) are defined in terms of their functions in constructing predications in the following way: (i) a verb (V) is a lexeme that can be used as the head of a predicate phrase only; (ii) a noun (N) is a lexeme that can be used as the head of a referential phrase; (iii) an adjective (A) is a lexeme that can be used as a modifier of the head of a referential phrase; (iv) a manner adverb (MAdv) is a lexeme that can be used as a modifier of


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Mundari as a flexible language

Flexible PoS systems

Rigid PoS systems

head of predicate phrase

head of referential phrase

modifier of head of referential phrase contentive

verb verb verb verb verb verb

noun noun noun noun

Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 6 Type 7

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modifier of head of predicate phrase

non-verb modifier adjective adverb adjective

Figure 1. Typology of parts-of-speech systems (adverb = manner adverb)

the head of a predicate phrase.1 The reason we restrict ourselves to manner adverbs is that other kinds of adverbs, such as temporal and spatial ones, do not modify the head of the predicate phrase, but rather the sentence as a whole. Note also that our definitions permit all lexemes to be used as the main predicate (see also E&O: XXX). There is, however, an important difference between verbs and other lexemes in that the predicative use is the only unmarked function of verbs, while in the case of other classes of lexemes the question whether or not they have a predicative use does not affect their classification. On the basis of the definitions of specialized word classes above, flexible lexemes may be defined in terms of the combination of functions they may fulfil in constructing a linguistic expression. Full flexibility means that members of a single lexeme class, called contentives, may be used, without applying any derivational process, as head and as modifier of both predicate and referential phrases; non-verbs may be used in all non-predicative functions in contrast with a class of true verbs; and modifiers are lexemes that may be used to modify the head of a predicate or referential phrase. The typology of parts-of-speech systems presented in Figure 1 shows that there are two kinds of language without a noun-verb distinction: one flexible (Type 1), characterized by the fact that its lexemes may be used in all possible functions; the other rigid (Type 7), characterized by the fact that all lexemes are verbs, so that all non-predicative functions can only be realized indirectly through independent predications. Languages with PoS systems of Type 1 and Type 7 are rare, but Samoan (flexible) and Tuscarora (rigid)2 are languages that 1. We use the notion “predicate phrase” not in the sense of VP but to refer to just the predicate and its modifiers. Thus, in He read the book the predicate phrase consists of one element, read.


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come rather close to the types at either end of the spectrum (see Hengeveld et al. 2004 for discussion). Since we believe Mundari is a flexible language of Type 1 as far as its basic lexeme inventory is concerned, we will concentrate on this type of language in what follows. Note, incidentally, that our Type 1 languages are the same as E&O’s precategorial languages, but that our Type 7 languages do not coincide with their omnipredicative languages, i.e., languages in which all lexemes can be used predicatively. This definition ignores any non-predicative (nominal etc.) functions a lexeme may fulfil, which is a crucial element in our definition of lexical word classes. Interestingly, E&O do not seem to regard their division between precategorial and omnipredicative languages to be very crucial, since they subsume both types under the label “monocategorial” (E&O: Secion 2.2). By contrast, we will demonstrate in Section 5 that it is important to distinguish between the two monocategorial subtypes in our classification of PoS systems (Types 1 and 7), as each type is associated with a different set of grammatical features. E&O furthermore distinguish “Broschartian” languages, but Tongan, the language Broschart (1997) discusses, is no different from E&O’s precategorial languages, the only difference being that Broschart presents a detailed semantic classification of Tongan lexemes to explain their grammatical behaviour. We will return to this issue in Section 3 below. We would like to emphasize that there are probably no pure languages, and that each distinct type in this classification of PoS systems should rather be considered as a reference point on a continuum (Hengeveld 1992: 58). Any classification of PoS systems has to take the diachronic dimension into account. Changes in flexible parts of speech first seem to lead to semantic specialization, then to morphological specialization, and ultimately to a more rigid type of PoS system. Therefore languages at best approximate a certain type. There is nothing controversial about this. For example, in syntactic typology a language is classified as an SOV language, even if this is only the dominant or most frequent pattern. Similarly, in order to capture the nature of a PoS system, we have to allow for some fuzziness at the edges. This is accounted for in a more detailed presentation of our typology of PoS systems in Figure 2, which also contains intermediate types. A flexible language is considered to have an intermediate PoS system when its lexeme classes are compatible with two contiguous systems within the hierarchy. This situation obtains when derived lexemes have fewer functional 2. There is no consensus among the experts on the PoS system in Tuscarora and other Iroquioan languages. For example, Mithun (2000) puts more emphasis on certain grammatical differences between lexemes, whereas Sasse (1993a) is more impressed by the similarities. Whoever is closest to the truth, there seems to be no doubt that verbs, or rather predications, take over large part of the job of nouns in other languages. We have classified Tuscarora as displaying an intermediate system of 6/7.


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Mundari as a flexible language head of predicate phrase

Flexible PoS systems

Rigid PoS systems

head of referential phrase

modifier of head of referential phrase contentive

Type 1 Type 1/2

contentive

Type 2 Type 2/3

verb verb

Type 3 Type 3/4

verb verb

noun noun

Type 4 Type 4/5 Type 5 Type 5/6 Type 6 Type 6/7 Type 7

verb verb verb verb verb verb verb

noun noun noun noun noun (noun)

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modifier of head of predicate phrase

non-verb non-verb non-verb modifier modifier modifier adverb adjective adverb adjective (adverb) adjective (adjective)

Figure 2. Typology of parts-of-speech systems, including intermediate systems (adverb = manner adverb)

possibilities than basic lexemes within a language. As we will show below, Mundari represents such a system: it is a fully flexible Type 1 language if its basic lexemes are taken into consideration, but it also has derivational processes that produce lexemes that can be used in all slots apart from the predicate slot, a Type 2 feature. Mundari is therefore classified as a Type 1/2 language (Section 4.2.2). A rigid language is classified as having an intermediate PoS system when the last class of lexemes that is relevant for that language consists of a small, closed class of items. The full classification of PoS systems, including intermediate ones, is given in Figure 2 (cf. Smit 2001). The highest degree of flexibility is displayed by languages that use the same set of lexemes as heads of predicate phrases and as heads of referential phrases. In order to show what that means for the language system, and to illustrate our definitions at the same time, let us contrast this with the situation obtaining in a language with specialized nouns and verbs. In several languages that distinguish between nouns and verbs, members of both word classes can be used as the main predicate of the clause, but only nouns (and not verbs) can immediately be used as the head of an NP without modification. This is for instance the case in Dutch, a Type 3/4 language. Bare nominal lexemes such as soldaat ‘soldier’ can be used as the main predicate


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(1a). The reason to treat soldaat in (1a) as a bare nominal predicate is that it cannot be modified in any way; note that the same form is also used with a plural subject (1b). Of course, the nominal lexeme may also be the head of a predicative NP, but in this case we have a phrasal predicate rather than a bare nominal predicate (1c). (1)

a. b. c.

Die jongen is soldaatN . that boy be.3sg.pres soldierN ‘That boy is a soldier.’ (lit. ‘That boy is soldier.’) Die jongen-s zijn soldaatN . those boy-pl be.pl.pres soldierN ‘Those boys are soldiers.’ (lit. ‘Those boys are soldier.’) Die jongen-s zijn [twee goede soldaat-enN ]NP . those boy-pl be.pl.pres [two good soldier-plN ]NP . ‘Those boys are two good soldiers.’

Verbal lexemes such as zing- ‘sing’ are only used as main predicates (2a), not as the head of a noun phrase (2b). For referential purposes the nominal lexeme lied ‘song’ must be used (2c): (2)

a.

IemandN zingV -t. someoneN singV -3sg.pres ‘Someone is singing.’ prachtigA . b. *De/het zingV was the.c/nt singV be.sg.past beautiful ‘The sing was beautiful.’ was prachtigA . c. Het liedN the.nt songN be.sg.past beautiful ‘The song was beautiful.’

By contrast, in a language with a class of contentives (Type 1), such as Samoan (Austronesian), a lexeme can be both the head of a predicate phrase and the head of a referential phrase (note that “noun phrase” would be a misnomer here, as Samoan does not have a distinct class of nouns). Examples are from Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992: 80, 73, 74). (3)

a. b.

(4)

a.

‘Ua málosi le lá perf strong art sun ‘The sun is strong.’ (lit. ‘The sun strongs.’) ‘Ua lá le aso. perf sun art day ‘The sun is shining today.’ (lit. ‘The day suns.’) E alu le pasi i Apia. genr go art bus dir Apia


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Mundari as a flexible language b.

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‘The bus goes to Apia.’ le alu o le pasi i Apia. art go poss art bus dir Apia ‘the going of the bus to Apia’ (lit. ‘the go of the bus to Apia’)

It is only for ontological (i.e., non-linguistic) reasons that certain Samoan contentives tend to be used more in one or the other function (we will return to this in Section 3 below): Although certain full words seem to be used more as verb or more as a NP nucleus for semantic reasons, there are no lexical or grammatical constraints on why a particular word cannot be used in the one or the other function. (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 73) In Samoan, morphosyntactic clues indicate what particular function a lexeme fulfils. If it serves as the head of the predicate phrase, it will occur in clause-initial position and combine with tense-aspect-mood particles; if it serves as the head of a referential phrase (NP) it will occur later in the clause and appear with an article or a preposition. Mundari is of the same type as Samoan as far as its basic vocabulary is concerned, as we will argue in Section 4. Before doing so, we have to address the issue of which criteria should be used to establish flexibility of a PoS system. This is the aim of the next section. 3.

Establishing flexibility

In their article E&O (Section 3) propose three general criteria that must be met before any language can be said to lack a noun-verb distinction: (i) distributional equivalence, including bidirectional flexibility; (ii) strict semantic compositionality for argument and predicate uses; and (iii) exhaustiveness through the lexicon. In this section we will argue that only the third criterion is useful the way it is formulated by E&O, but that the other two require some modifications. 3.1. Distributional equivalence and bidirectional flexibility E&O (Section 3.1) state that “members of what are claimed to be merged classes [note that the use of the term “merged class” suggests that flexible lexemes have originated as nouns or verbs – KH&JR] should have identical distributions in terms of both morphological and syntactic categories. [. . .] Rigorously applied, all members [. . .] should be equally acceptable in both primary syntactic functions as arguments and predicates”. The problem with this criterion is that its rigorous application overlooks an important consideration that influences the use of a flexible lexeme in one or the other function. Lexemes are put to use to lexicalize conceptualizations of the world required in certain communicative situations in a certain socio-cultural


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context. Since there is no reason to assume that all our concepts are equally symmetrical with respect to predicating and referring functions in a particular language, we may expect certain flexible lexemes to occur more as predicates than as arguments, whereas other lexemes are used more often as arguments than as predicates. This is explicitly stated to be the case in Samoan, which has a class of contentives (Type 1 in Figure 1). Even though there are no lexical or grammatical constraints on the use of a contentive as an argument or as a predicate (see above), there can be differences in terms of distribution and frequency (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 77): Not all roots occur with the same frequency as verbs and nouns. Some roots predominantly function as verbs, whereas others are more likely to be found in the function of nouns. Until now we have not, for instance, found alu “go” in a nominal function [but they do provide an example themselves, see (10) above – KH&JR] or mea “thing” in a verbal function [. . .]. But we hesitate to say that alu is inherently a verb and mea inherently a noun for two reasons. Firstly, we cannot find any functional explanation why alu should not be used as a noun and mea as a verb, whereas, for instance, gaoi “thief, to steal” and tagata “person, to be a person” are bi-functional. And, secondly, previous experience taught us to be careful with classifications. The more texts we analyzed, and included in our corpus, the more items were unexpectedly found in nominal or verbal function.

Statements to the same effect can be found regarding languages with a flexible class of “non-verbs” (Type 2 in Figure 1), such as Ngiyambaa. Here the difference relates to morphological properties rather than frequency of use in a particular function: some members of the class of what are called nominals in Australian linguistics (“non-verbs” in Figure 1) may appear in reduplicated form whereas others never do. As in Samoan, the difference is attributed to non-linguistic factors (Donaldson 1980: 70–71): Semantically, nominals are divided into two groups; those which are not subject to productive reduplication and those which are . . . Nominals which do not reduplicate are normally translated by English nouns, and those which do undergo reduplication are normally translated by adjectives. The possibility of productive reduplication could be advanced as a formal criterion for similarly dividing Ngiyambaa nominals into two sub-classes, nouns and adjectives. But in Ngiyambaa there are no known further differences, morphological or syntactic, as between nonreduplicating and reduplicating nominals. Syntactically, for instance, any nominal which can be a constituent part of a NP can also be the sole representative of a NP [. . .] gi:djan may translate either ‘green’ or ‘(a/the) green one’. To introduce the terms ‘noun’ and ‘adjective’ as synonyms for ‘non-reduplicating’ and ‘reduplicating’ would serve no descriptive purpose elsewhere in the grammar.


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3.2. Compositionality The criterion of compositionality says that “any semantic differences between the uses of a putative “fluid” lexeme in two syntactic positions (say argument and predicate) must be attributable to the function of that position” (E&O: Section 3.2). The discussion of this second requirement is in our view somewhat muddled by the fact that at this point the authors already take it for granted that Mundari has distinct classes of verbs and nouns, and that any semantic differences are due to lexical derivation by zero-conversion. Here are a few illustrative quotations: “The fact that some nouns, when they become verbs, have only minor semantic additions, [. . .]” (E&O: Section 3.2); “In the Mundari case, it is common for primary nouns to be used as predicates, [. . .]” (Section 3.3); “In fact, though we can use verbs freely as arguments, [. . .]” (Section 3.3). The main problem in relation to the compositionality criterion concerns the coercion effect of the syntactic slot on the lexeme, i.e., the placement of a contentive in an argument slot or in a predicate slot is enough to give the flexible lexeme a distinct verbal or nominal sense, respectively. E&O (Section 3.2) state that in the case of truly flexible lexemes “all semantically comparable words in the same slot should undergo the same semantic augmentation”. Due to the possible interference of aspectual and other inflectional affixes on the Mundari predicate, E&O (Section 3.2) then formulate an amended version of the criterion of compositionality: “there should be the same semantic change in all lexemes placed in that position, except for semantic interactions attributable to inflections borne by it, e.g., aspect”. But even then, they claim, the problem does not disappear, since the “semantic increments” of lexemes – when used in nominal and verbal functions – are too varied to be attributable to the syntactic slot. Ideally “there should be isomorphic changes in all lexemes placed in a given functional position”. There are at least two problems with this statement, each of which we will discuss at some length. The first concerns E&O’s assumption that a flexible lexeme acquires some meaning components which it did not have before (“semantic increment”, “semantic augmentation”) when it is used in an actual linguistic expression. The second problem deals with what E&O call “the arbitrariness” of this increment, i.e., the observation that the semantics of (what we regard as) flexible lexemes is “far from constant” when we compare their verbal and nominal senses. 3.2.1. Vague vs. specific meaning. It is important to note that E&O assume that each Mundari lexeme has a distinct verbal or nominal sense (which is then changed through the invisible process of zero conversion). There is, however, another way to deal with the semantics of Mundari words, which we regard as flexible lexemes. In Hengeveld et al. (2004: 539–541) it is argued that


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flexible lexemes are semantically vague. A semantically vague lexeme has a general meaning which covers all the more specific possibilities (Cruse 1986: 51). Several tests have been proposed to distinguish between vagueness and ambiguity or polysemy. One linguistic test involves anaphoric reference with ‘so’. Compare the following sentences: (5)

a. b.

Duffy discovered a mole, and so did Clark. Judith is your cousin, and so is Bill.

The noun ‘mole’ is ambiguous between the senses ‘small burrowing mammal’ and ‘long dormant spy’. This ambiguity is reflected in the fact that anaphoric so in (5a) can only be used with the same sense as the one selected for the mole in the first clause. So a situation in which Duffy saw a small burrowing mammal and Clark a long dormant spy could not be described using (5a). By contrast, if a noun has a vague meaning, such as cousin in (5b), its sense allows for different specifications in the case of anaphoric reference with so (we can find an abstract definition that covers both interpretations: male cousin and female cousin).3 In Hengeveld et al. (2004) we have applied the notion of vagueness to PoS systems and proposed that flexible lexemes are vague, not polysemous. Obviously, when applied to word class distinctions, we are concerned with a more fundamental and abstract kind of vagueness: categorial vagueness, which holds across the various functions a lexeme may fulfil in a linguistic expression. Inspired by Wilkins’s account of noun semantics in Arrernte (Wilkins 2000), we presented an outline of what may happen when a flexible lexeme with a vague sense is used in an actual linguistic expression. Let us suppose that the vague meaning of a flexible lexeme consists of meaning components A B C D E etc. (where A B C etc. can be, for example, features, definitions, descriptions, knowledge structures). By placing the flexible item in a particular syntactic slot the speaker highlights those meaning components of the flexible item that are relevant for a certain lexical (verbal, nominal, etc.) function, downplaying other meaning components. A very simplified representation of this process may look as in Table 1. In other words, it is the use of a vague lexeme in a certain context (syntactic slot) that brings out certain parts of its meaning, giving the category neutral lexeme a particular categorial (verbal, nominal, etc.) flavour. Both the verbal and nominal sense of a flexible lexeme are contained in its (vague) semantics and the context only highlights the meaning components that are already there, giving the flexible item its verbal or nominal flavour. Such an analysis does not lead to any semantic “increment” added by the context (syntactic slot). 3. See for further discussion of ambiguity tests, e.g., Cruse (1986: 49–83), Tuggy (1993), Geeraerts (1993), Dunbar (2001).


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Table 1. Meaning components of Samoan l¯a: A B C D E (see examples (3a, b))

A B C D E . . . Highlighted properties of l¯a: Slot: head of clause + + + Slot: head of “NP” + + + Slot: modifier of “noun” + + +

A C E → verbal meaning (be sunny) B D E → nominal meaning (sun) B C D → adjectival meaning (sunny)

In a way our vagueness account also solves the problem of semantic variation between the verbal and nominal sense of flexible items in use: since each flexible lexeme has its own unique set of meaning components that are highlighted or downplayed when used in a particular slot, we actually expect there to be semantic variation (arbitrariness) between nominal or verbal senses of a flexible lexeme in use. The “problem” of semantic arbitrariness will also be addressed in the next section, but from a different perspective. 3.2.2. Semantic variation. E&O find it problematic that “coercion” from the syntactic slot does not always have the same semantic impact on a lexeme, as in their opinion “there should be the same semantic change in all lexemes placed in a given functional position”. They provide some examples to show that this is clearly not the case. For example (Section 3.2): Let us give some examples from transitive uses. A common meaning for basically nominal roots [sic – KH&JR] used as transitive verbs is ‘cause a(n) N to exist: examples are bir ‘forest; plant a forest’; lad ‘pancake; make pancakes’; maNDi ‘food, make food’. But frequently conversions [sic – KH&JR] of this type take on an additional metaphorical meaning that can no longer be precisely paraphrased as causative of existence. In the case of (1) [(6) below – KH&JR] and (2) [(7) below – KH&JR], for example, [. . .] the semantic increment ‘gather, (so as to resemble a . . . )’ does not mean simply ‘cause to be a mountain’, or at most ‘cause to become a mountain’, but means more specifically ‘to heap up’. Even though the metaphor it appeals to is rather obviously based on a caused existence meaning, by likening a large group to a mountain, it is nonetheless one specific addition, instead of other imaginable additions (e.g., ‘cause to be tall’, ‘cause to be outstanding’), and must therefore be treated as lexicalized.

(6)

buru=ko bai-ke-d-a4 mountain=3pl make-compl-tr-pred5 ‘They made the mountain.’ (E&O: (30a))

4. In this and following examples we follow the ortography and glosses of the original unless otherwise indicated. 5. Note that we gloss the morpheme -a as pred “predicative” rather than as indic “indicative”, for reasons to be specified in Section 5.


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416 (7)

Kees Hengeveld and Jan Rijkhoff saan=ko buru-ke-d-a firewood=3pl mountain-compl-tr-pred ‘They heaped up the firewood.’ (E&O: (30b))

In our opinion E&O’s discussion of the problem of semantic arbitrariness fails to appreciate the difference between conceptualization and lexicalization and, as a result, they seem to treat metaphor as something different from normal language. The conversion from conceptualization into lexicalization is a complex creative process, which involves, among others, metonymy (based on associative relations) and metaphor (based on analogy by transfer of features). All languages are littered with metaphors and metonyms and nowadays these forms of so-called “figurative speech” are generally regarded as an integral part of human language and categorization (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1987, Heine et al. 1991, Heine 1997). Since there are many phases between a new metaphor like surfing the internet and an old (lexicalized) metaphor such as shuttle (nobody makes the link to sewing machines when shuttle is used to refer to the commuter air service between two major cities; Saeed 2003: 15), it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between literal and non-literal language. In other words, metaphor and metonymy (and other manifestations of so-called figurative use of language such as synecdoche) are part and parcel of normal, contextualized speech in any natural language, irrespective of its PoS system. How exactly concepts and lexemes are connected in the process of language production and perception is an entirely different matter that goes beyond the grammatical system as such. 3.3. Exhaustiveness The principle of exhaustiveness concerns the size of the word class: it does not make sense to claim that a language has a Type 1 PoS system if it only has a minor class of flexible lexemes. We agree with E&O (Section 3.4) that exhaustiveness is a relevant criterion, but again only to the extent that there is semantic compatibility between a certain meaning of a lexeme and the occurrence of that lexeme in a certain syntactic slot. We furthermore agree with them that one has to be aware of the possible existence of minor word classes and subclasses within the major word class(es), such as animal or plant names. Taking these caveats into account, it seems that there are indeed languages that meet the requirement of exhaustiveness, such as Samoan, where according Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992: 77) basically all lexemes (“roots”) are flexible (see also the quotation from their Samoan grammar in Section 3.1). An important problem to be addressed is the distinction between systematic flexibility and “rampant zero conversion”. E&O are not the first to argue for zero conversion to explain properties of multifunctional lexemes (see, e.g., Vonen 1994 on Tokelau), but their article does not address some basic questions


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about this process. For example, is there a principled way to distinguish across languages between zero conversion and polysemy? Or, how can we decide unequivocally on the directionality of the conversion? There are no references to studies on zero conversion that address these issues, although some work has been done in this area (e.g., Marchand 1964, Don 2004). In sum, those who advocate the zero conversion analysis will have to provide more evidence to substantiate their hypothesis. In Section 5 we will provide supporting evidence for our own alternative proposal by testing a number of very specific hypotheses concerning languages with a flexible word class. The case of Mundari In this section we will give some arguments in favour of an analysis of the Mundari PoS system as a flexible one. We would like to emphasize that we do not have first-hand knowledge of Mundari, so that, as is common in typological work, we have to base ourselves on published sources. Our arguments will therefore not go beyond those sources and are meant to show what kind of argumentation one would need to establish flexibility. Before turning to this complex issue, we would like to make a few remarks about the history of the subject. 3.4. Some bibliographical notes and corrections At various places in their article, E&O claim that Hoffmann changed his view on the flexibility of Mundari lexemes in between the writing of his Mundari grammar and of his Encyclopaedia Mundarica (henceforth EM), e.g.: Significantly, when Hoffmann compiled his massive Encyclopaedia Mundarica several decades later, he reverted to an analysis in terms of standard word classes, though the dictionary entries exhibit highly productive zeroconversion. (E&O: Abstract) But by the time he came to work on the sixteenth-volume, 4889-page Encyclopaedia Mundarica, with decades of further work on the language behind him, Hoffmann had retreated from his earlier and more radical position: he lists words with word class labels, and in places states explicitly that certain words must be used in particular functions. (E&O: Section 1) [. . .] Hoffmann himself retreated from the original position (stated in his 1903 grammar) once he was forced, in his gigantic masterpiece, the Encyclopaedia Mundarica, to make an exhaustive analysis of thousands of lexemes. (E&O: Section 3.4)

This is a rather serious misrepresentation of the facts. Hoffmann clearly states his own position in the introduction to the EM, when he writes (EM: 8–9):


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I have nothing to add to what I stated in the Introduction to my Mundari Grammar on the subject. There I have shown that Mundari words have still such a great vagueness or functional elasticity that there can be no question of distinct parts-ofspeech in that language. And therefore I stick to the terminology proposed there, which speaks of the function then and there performed by a word in a given sentence.

In the preface to EM, Hoffmann also refers to this particular feature, when he explains how words borrowed from other languages are made to fit the Mundari PoS system (EM: ix): But the Mundas do not merely Mundarize the outer form or the body of the borrowed words, they also Mundarize their soul, i.e., their function or signifying power. [. . .] The Munda [. . .] makes the borrowed words perform the function of nouns, adjectives, transitive or intransitive predicates [. . .]

This means that when Hoffmann gives the meaning of, e.g., a “noun” in EM, what he actually is describing is the meaning of a lexical item when used as the head of a referential phrase, without committing himself to classifying the item in question as a noun. This is an unfortunate but not uncommon practice, one which he applied and explained in his grammar, and one that was later adopted by, e.g., Cook (1965). But this also means that the word class labels that Hoffmann used in EM cannot be taken in the way that E&O interpret them. Hoffmann simply lists the meanings of lexemes that he observed, and indicates in which function the given meaning is available. Only rarely does he explicitly indicate that the use of a lexeme in a certain function is excluded, and we must assume that he did so in a systematic way. This is for instance the case with the lexeme aN ‘dawn’ which occurs with the comment “never used sbstly” (EM: 120). E&O also refer to earlier work by both of us, in which we mention Mundari in passing, indeed quoting Hoffmann’s (1903) grammar. They do not refer to a more recent article (Hengeveld et al. 2004), in which Mundari is for the first time actually part of the sample under investigation and therefore fully analyzed. In this article we also used Cook’s (1965) grammar, not mentioned by E&O. Cook (1965) is a description of Mundari that on the one hand systematizes Hoffmann’s grammar, but on the other incorporates and analyzes data gathered by the author during an eight year stay among the Mundas. In several respects this grammar nicely complements the information in Hoffmann (1903), Sinha (1975), and Osada (1992). 3.5. The classification of Mundari In Hengeveld et al. (2004), we classify Mundari as a Type 1/2 language, which is characterized as follows (Hengeveld et al. 2004: 538):


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In order for a flexible language to qualify as having an intermediate PoS system, its lexeme classes should be compatible with two contiguous systems within the hierarchy at the same time. This situation may obtain, for instance, when derived lexemes have fewer functional possibilities than basic lexemes within a language. Thus, Mundari is a fully flexible Type 1 language if its basic lexemes are taken into consideration, but it also has a derivational process that produces lexemes that can be used in all slots apart from the predicate slot, a Type 2 feature. In order to account for these facts Mundari is classified as a Type 1/2 language.

We will first go into the nature of basic lexemes, and then deal with derived lexemes separately. 3.5.1. Basic lexemes Not only Hoffmann (1903), but also Cook (1965) and Osada (1992) emphasize the flexibility of Mundari basic lexemes: The problem in Mundari morphology is that not only in syntax, but even in the morphological formation of words, a stem occurs now as one part of speech, now another. (Cook 1965: 108) In Mundari a prototypical lexical verb can be used syntactically as a noun without any morphological change whereas a prototypical noun can be verbalized with verbal ending. For example, buru ‘mountain’, jom ‘to eat’ are apparently good candidates for a prototypical noun and verb respectively, but buru can be used as a verb ‘to heap up’ and jom as a noun ‘food’. (Osada 1992: 43)

Both grammars then go on, much in the vein of the EM, to organize the grammar in terms of the traditional word classes. Thus Cook (1965: 108) continues the previous quote by saying that a single lexeme “[. . .] might occur now with the noun suffixes, now with the verb suffixes, now as an independent particle”, and goes on to assign words to lexical classes on the basis of frequency. Osada (1992: 43) also classifies lexemes in terms of traditional word classes on the basis of morphological and syntactic criteria. Both authors actually revert to the same strategy as Hoffmann in his EM, when they call something a “noun” when they want to describe the morphological and syntactic behaviour of a lexeme when used as the head of a referential phrase, and a “verb” when talking about a lexeme used as the head of a predicate phrase, etc. In doing so, they confuse the category of a lexeme with the morphosyntactic properties of a certain functional-syntactic slot. The arguments that E&O bring up against a precategorial analysis are interrelated with their implicit assumption that lexemes denoting physical entities (individuals or objects) are nouns, and that lexemes denoting temporal entities (actions, processes, situations) are verbs. Using their terminology, a major problem they see is that their “verbs” cannot systematically be used referentially denoting a physical entity. This problem evaporates, however, when one accepts that lexemes denoting temporal entities may do so irrespectively of


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whether they are used predicatively or referentially, as seems to be the general rule in Mundari. E&O give the following examples: (8)

(9)

her=ko caba-ja-n-a sow=3pl finish-incep-intr-pred ‘They have finished sowing.’ (E&O: (37)) dub=ko laga-ja-n-a sit=3pl be.tired.of-incep-intr-pred ‘They are tired of sitting.’ (E&O: (38))

E&O (Section 3.3) note with respect to these examples: “When used in complement clauses, by contrast, [they] do not need to take aspectual or transitivity markers, and can appear as the sole element of a NP [. . .]”. Subsequently they discard these examples as instances of infinitive-like behaviour of “verbs”. The reason E&O claim that this counts as an argument against the precategorial analysis of Mundari lexemes is that here the lexeme is not used in a prototypical function (i.e., it is not used to refer to a physical object). In our approach the denotation of a lexeme is completely irrelevant for its classification as a member of a specific word class. It is only the function that the lexeme fulfils in building up a predication that counts as an argument for its classification. The lexemes her ‘sow’ in (8) and dub ‘sit’ in (9) are used as the head and sole element of a referential phrase, and they can be so used without the application of any derivational process. They thus comply just as well with our definition of nouns as they do with our definition of verbs, which means that they are flexible elements. From this we may conclude that some lexemes in the Mundari lexicon have meaning components that only relate to properties of second order (temporal) entities (see Section 3.2.1 on the semantic representation of vague lexemes). Other lexemes in Mundari contain meaning components that only relate to properties of first order (spatial) entities. However, since these semantic features do not appear to impose any restrictions on the referential or predicative use of the Mundari lexeme, there is no reason to recognize distinct classes of verbs and nouns. E&O also consider it a problem that a lexeme that serves as the main predicate sometimes requires the presence of a copula. This, however, is due to the fact that not only bare lexemes but also referential phrases may act as predicates, as illustrated for Dutch above. Given the fact that a lexeme, without affixes or determiners, may constitute a complete NP by itself in Mundari (cf. E&O: XXX), hoRo in (10a) can also be analyzed as a phrasal constituent rather than just a bare predicate, as in (10b):6 6. In E&O’s article, the lexeme hoRo is glossed as ‘Munda’ in one example and ‘speak.Munda’


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Mundari as a flexible language (10)

a. b.

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ne dasi hoRo tan-iq this servant Munda cop-3sg.s ‘This servant is a Munda.’ (E&O: (28a)) ne dasi hoRo-a=eq this servant Munda-pred=3sg ‘This servant speaks Munda.’ (E&O: (28b))

The phrasal analysis of (10a) is supported by the fact that in this construction the predicative expression may be modified, as in the following example, in which the predicate carries the plural subject marker: (11)

en hor.o-ko mund.a-ko ta-n-ko those man-pl headman-3pl.s cop-intr-3pl.s ‘Those men are headmen.’ (Langendoen 1967)

We conclude, therefore, that in Mundari a copula is only required when the predicate is phrasal, so that the presence of this copula cannot be used as an argument in classifying the lexeme occurring within that phrase as a noun. The phrasal analysis of (10a) and (11) goes well with the fact that these constructions have a classifying reading, as opposed to the property-assigning reading of (10b), which is typical of bare predicates in general (Hengeveld 1992). This also explains the fact that there are subclasses of lexemes denoting physical entities with a limited availability for predicate use, such as the proper names, kinship terms, and animal and plant names discussed by E&O. In many cases these lexemes are less likely to be semantically compatible with the property assigning reading of bare predicates. A last major argument that E&O bring up against a precategorial analysis of Mundari is the fact that their “verbs” have to be “converted into headless clauses before being placed in an argument slot”. Examples they provide are the following: (12)

om-ke-n=iq give-compl-intr=3sg.sub ‘the one who gave’ (E&O: (34a))

(13)

susun-ta-n=iq dance-progr.or-intr=3sg.sub ‘the one who is dancing’ (E&O: (35a))

What E&O actually seem to say, in our terminology, is that a flexible lexeme whose meaning components only relate to properties of temporal entities must in the next. Since we fail to see the rationale behind this decision, we have provided hoRo with the same gloss in both examples, viz. ‘Munda’.


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occur in a special construction type when used to denote a physical entity (an agent). This is not surprising, since a bare lexeme used referentially denotes a temporal entity, the activity, itself, as shown above in examples (8) and (9). The headless relative construction is an appropriate solution to produce an agentive meaning. The lexeme in question is used predicatively in order to provide a description of a physical entity (the agent) in terms of the activity this physical entity is engaged in. Once again, there is only a problem if one accepts E&O’s conception of prototypical nouns as denoting physical entities. On the other hand, the same facts can be easily accounted for if Mundari lexemes are regarded as flexible items with a vague meaning. On a more detailed level, E&O’s arguments run into trouble in Section 3.4.1, where they claim that haga ‘brother’ gets the extension to ‘be in the same clan’ in predicative use. EM, however, gives ‘clan member’ as one of the meanings of haga in substantive function, so it is not surprising that this meaning also surfaces in predicative use. 3.5.2. Derived lexemes. All our previous remarks on the classification of Mundari concerned the basic inventory of lexemes. In several languages with a flexible PoS system, derived lexemes show a degree of flexibility that is one step lower on the hierarchy than that of basic lexemes (Smit 2001). This is also true of Mundari. The major derivational process involved is illustrated in the following examples from Cook (1965: 144) and Osada (1992: 62): (14)

a. b. c.

dal dub ol

‘strike’ → da-n-al ‘sit’ → du-n-ub ‘to write’ → o-n-ol

‘a blow’ ‘a meeting’ ‘the writing’

The infix -n- in (14) “transforms the verb root into an abstract inanimate noun stem, which is no longer capable of verb inflection” (Cook 1965: 144).7 Hence we may conclude that there is at least one class of (derived) lexemes that cannot be used predicatively and should therefore be classified as non-verb in Mundari, which shows that the verb vs. non-verb opposition is at least relevant to the analysis of Mundari in the domain of derived lexemes. 4.

Mundari: A flexible language

In previous work we found that there are strong correlations between the PoS system a language employs, and other grammatical features of that language.

7. Notice that Cook assigns the term “verb” rather loosely to a lexeme that has the predicative use as its most frequent one and that “inanimate” does not refer to grammatical but natural gender (i.e., to a property of the referent rather than the lexeme; see Section 5.3.2 below).


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These correlations hold especially for languages with flexible lexemes. We will briefly discuss these features below, showing that Mundari behaves exactly the way one would expect a flexible language to behave.8 We take this to be further evidence for our analysis of Mundari as a Type 1/2 language in Section 4. Note that the predictions we make could never hold for Type 7 languages, which have a single class of verbs rather than contentives. 4.1. Identifiability Since flexible lexemes are not inherently specified for a particular syntactic category (such as “verb” or “noun”) their occurrence in a linguistic expression is potentially confusing. For example, how is the addressee to know whether a flexible lexemes serves as the head of the predicate phrase (verbal function) or the head of the referential phrase (nominal function)? We hypothesized that the grammar of a flexible language contains certain features that help the hearer correctly identify the intended function of a flexible lexeme in a linguistic expression (Hengeveld et al. 2004: 546): The existence of a specialized lexical class in a language, i.e. a lexical class whose members are tied to one syntactic slot, makes it less necessary for this language to mark this slot and the phrase within which this slot occurs syntactically or morphologically; conversely, the existence of a flexible lexical class in a language, i.e. a lexical class whose members may occur in various syntactic slots, makes it more necessary for this language to mark these slots and the phrases within which these slots occur syntactically or morphologically.

In brief, when lexical specialization is absent (as is the case with flexible lexemes) additional disambiguating strategies are invoked, i.e., there is a trade-off between lexical type and morphosyntax. More specific hypotheses tested against data from a representative sample of the world language show that all flexible languages have special word order constraints or special morphological markers to indicate the function of a flexible lexeme (for details we refer to Hengeveld et al. 2004). At the sentence level all flexible languages in our sample turn out to be either (main) predicate final or (main) predicate initial (or in traditional terms that would be inappropriate for truly flexible languages: SOV or VSO). Apparently, flexible languages exploit the highly recognizable sentence-initial and sentence-final position for identificational purposes. Obviously any other position for the main predicate (such as predicate medial or “SVO”) would be problematic for a language without a clear noun-verb distinction if no other

8. For a detailed discussion we refer to Hengeveld (1992), Rijkhoff (2002, 2003), Hengeveld, Rijkhoff, & Siewierska (2004), Hengeveld (forthcoming), Hengeveld & Valstar (no date).


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clues are available (see below). Significantly, there are no such constraints in languages with rigid PoS systems, which from a crosslinguistic perspective can have the main predicate in any position in the sentence. In other words, speakers of a flexible language such as Mundari know that the last contentive is always the main predicate, whereas speakers of Samoan (also Type 1) expect the first lexeme to serve as the main predicate. If a flexible language allows for word order variation, there is always a morphological element to mark the role of a lexeme. For example, in Samoan, placement of any referential phrase in sentence intitial position, i.e. before the predicate phrase, is accompanied by the addition of a morphological marker, the presentative particle ’o. Mundari goes one step further by not only applying rigid predicate-final word order, but also systematically marking every predicate with a morpheme -a ‘pred(icative)’ that has no other function but to mark a lexical unit as the predicate of the sentence. (15)

diku-ñ itu-a-d-ko-a Hindi=1sg teach-asp-tr-3pl-pred ‘I have taught them Hindi.’ (Osada 1992: 95)

Similar things about the disambiguating role of morphosyntax in a flexible language can be said about the phrase level. In flexible languages without a separate class of nouns (Types 1-2/3), the potential functional ambiguity arising from the nature of their PoS system concerns the interpretation of a lexical element as a head or a modifier within a referential phrase, since the interpretation of a non-verb as the head or a modifier of a referential phrase may interfere with its potential interpretation as the head or the modifier of the same or a contiguous referential phrase. For this reason we expect the order of head and modifier in referential phrases to be fixed, unless the language employs a special morphological marker which uniquely identifies the head-modifier relation within the referential phrase (as, e.g., in Tagalog; cf. Hengeveld et al. 2004: 553–554). Mundari indeed displays this rigid ordering of heads and modifiers within phrases, having the modifier preceding the head under all circumstances. No such constraints were found in the languages with a rigid PoS system, in that word order variation among noun and adjective (or among verb and manner adverb for that matter) is not unusual and is not connected with the appearance of special morphological marker. We have already discussed matters concerning the copula. Here, too, Mundari behaves as expected. Since there is no fundamental distinction between verbs and other lexical word classes, there is no need to mark the use of a bare, nonverbal predicate with a copula: all bare predicates are simply contentives. As we saw in Section 4.2.1, only phrasal predicates are given special treatment in Mundari.


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4.2. Applicability In order for a lexical class to be applicable in various syntactic slots, it should have formal integrity, i.e., be formally independent of morphological material specific to a certain syntactic slot, and it should display morphological unity, i.e., there should be no of intrinsic subclasses triggering specific morphological processes. The formal integrity of a lexeme, i.e. its formal independence of morphological material specific to a certain syntactic slot, increases its applicability in various syntactic slots. Flexible lexemes are therefore not expected to show morphologically conditioned stem alternation. In other words, flexible languages are expected to be agglutinative or isolating, but never fusional (Hengeveld forthcoming). The grammars of Mundari show that this language is indeed strictly agglutinating.9 The restrictions on stem alternation also mean that suppletion is absent in flexible languages, and the Mundari data confirm this too. The morphological unity of a lexical class also increases its applicability across syntactic slots. We therefore do no expect morphologically determined intrinsic declension and conjugation classes in a truly flexible language (Hengeveld & Valstar no date). This prediction turns out to be true as well for Mundari (Hoffmann 1903: 5) and all other languages with the relevant flexible word classes we are aware of. For example, a division into grammatical genders is absent in Samoan (Type 1), Quechua, Turkish, and Hurrian (Type 2; see Rijkhoff 2002: 60). Mundari does show differences in the morphosyntactic treatment of animate and inanimate entities, but this is a case of natural gender (a.k.a. “semantic gender”, “biological gender”, or “sex gender”), which concerns properties of the referent in the external world rather than lexical features of a lexeme. One way of expressing natural gender in Mundari is by adding the equivalents of ‘male’ (sandi) and ‘female’ (enga) to the noun denoting, for instance, an animal: sim ‘fowl’, sandi sim ‘cock’, enga sim ‘hen’ (Hoffmann 1903: 7). This strategy is, again, typical of flexible languages. 4.3. Differentiation The degree of differentiation a PoS system displays in terms of the syntactic slots lexical items may occupy is reflected in the degree of semantic differentiation within or between the lexical classes in terms of basic semantic features coded within them. Members of a flexible word classes are not expected to be specified for category specific features such as transitivity and number. These

9. Just one exception to this is reported in Cook (1966: 163), who notes that the stem bano’ ‘not to be, not to exist, not to be present, to be dead’ “has an allomorph bang- used with all animate pronouns.” Arguably, however, this stem has auxiliary status.


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predictions are borne out both in the case of Mundari and other languages without distinct classes of verbs or nouns. 4.3.1. Transitivity Let us first deal with the complex issue of transitivity. We use the common sense notion of transitivity as implicitly or explicitly used in grammatical descriptions, where lexemes are regarded as being transitive when they designate a (dynamic) relationship between two obligatory participants: an agent/subject and a patient/object. All languages with a major, distinct class of verbs have a set of basic transitive lexemes in the lexicon (Rijkhoff 2003).10 By contrast, a basic set of transitive lexemes is absent in flexible languages, such as Samoan: With the exception of a very small class of locative verbs [. . .], Samoan verbs do not require more than one argument, i.e. S or O. If we define obligatory transitive verbs as bi-valent verbs which express transitive actions and which require two arguments referring to the agent and the patient, then Samoan does not have obligatory transitive verbs. (Mosel 1991: 188) If we compare Samoan verbs with transitive and intransitive verbs in other languages where these two categories are distinguished in terms of the number of obligatory arguments, then there are no cardinal transitive verbs in Samoan, i.e. bi-valent verbs expressing transitive actions. Except for a very small class [. . .], all Samoan verbs (including ergative verbs) maximally require one argument, namely S or O, both of which are expressed by absolutive noun phrases in basic verbal clauses. (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 724)

Note furthermore that due to the mono-valency of Samoan contentives, “valency changing derivations do not result in a valency-increase or decrease, but only in valency-rearrangement changing the grammatical relations” (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 729). The connection between the lack of a rigid noun-verb distinction and the absence of transitive lexemes has also been observed by Jelinek & Demers in their work on the Salishan languages, spoken in the American Northwest (cf. also Kuipers 1968):11 10. Rijkhoff (2003) argues that a language can only have distinct classes of verbs, nouns, and adjectives if the basic meaning of lexical items somehow encodes the prototypical properties of temporal and spatial entities (events and things). The prototypical event is an activity that involves an agent and a patient; the prototypical thing is a concrete object. Thus, a language can only have major, distinct classes of verbs, nouns and adjectives if the lexicon contains (i) items that designate a dynamic relationship between an agent and a patient, and (ii) items that designate a property that is specified as having a boundary in the spatial dimension. 11. In the Salishan languages, which are also deemed to have no categorial distinction between nouns and verbs (Czaykowska-Higgins & Kinkade 1998: 35), it is, however, possible to derive transitive lexemes (verbs): “When there is no overt TRAN element, the sentence is [−TRAN]” (Jelinek & Demers 1994: 700).


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The feature of Straits Salish syntax that permits the lack of constraints on the distribution of lexical roots is the fact that the feature of transitivity is not a lexical property of a subset of roots. (Jelinek & Demers 1994: 700)

Sasse (1993b: 654), referring to work by Broschart (1987, 1991) also suggests that there is a connection between non-transitivity and lexical flexibility, when he writes that lexemes in Salishan languages “denote ‘oriented’ [. . .] states of affairs, i.e. they characterize an individual in terms of participant role it plays in a state of affairs, e.g. as an actor or undergoer. It is by virtue of this property that they are able to occur both in argument and in predicate position.” In other words, it is the lack of transitivity that makes it possible for lexemes to be flexible, to be used in verbal and in nominal function in languages like Salish and Samoan. Although there is much research to be done with respect to the argument structure of Mundari basic lexemes (see Footnote 12), it seems that there is no good reason to assume that (a proper subset of the) bare Mundari lexemes are divided into “transitive” or “intransitive” subclasses. The valency of a predicate in an actual utterance is said to be explicitly signalled by an extra morphological marker added to all tense-aspect markers: /-d/ for transitive and /-n/ for intransitive (Sinha 1975: 77).12 (16)

a. b.

dub-aka-n-a-eP sit-asp-intr-pred-3sg.s ‘He is still sitting.’ (Osada 1992: 89) hon dub-aka-d-i-a-P child sit-asp-tr-3sg.obj-pred-3sg.s ‘He has caused a child to sit down.’ (Osada 1992: 89)

12. Hoffmann (1903: 164–165) hypothesizes that the markers for transitivity and intransitivity do not carry much semantic weight: That Mundari should have two differently ending Suffixes for Transitive and Intransitive Predicates is itself very remarkable. Transitiveness and Intransitiveness are not so much objective qualities of actions as subjective modes of conceiving actions. Even such actions as pre-suppose a terminus distinct from the agent may be conceived exclusively in their relation to agent, i.e., as intransitive. Now these subjective modes of conceiving actions are not in other languages expressed by special distinctive formative elements ad hoc. It would therefore be very extra-ordinary if the Mundas had recourse to a special root for the purpose of directly denoting transitiveness, if, in a word, the consonant d represented an original root which could both in form and in meaning differ from n. The consonant d must, I think, be considered as a mere alternative for the consonant n, and the substitution of d for n has been caused solely by phonetic exigencies. Notice that the distinction between transitive and intransitive is neutralized in three of the four present tense-aspects and in both future markers (cf. Sinha 1975: 82). Clearly this is an area where much more research is needed (especially regarding valency changing operations, passive formation etc.; cf. Foley 1998).


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Kees Hengeveld and Jan Rijkhoff c. d.

kumbur.u-kiN=ko sab-aka-d-ki-a thief-dl=3pl catch-asp-tr-3dl.obj-pred ‘They have caught two thieves.’ (Osada 1992: 89) kumbur.u-kiN sab-aka-n-a-ki thief-dl catch-asp-intr-pred-3dl.s ‘Two thieves have been caught.’ (Osada 1992: 89)

4.3.2. Number. In many (but by no means all) languages the unmarked form of a noun that is used to refer to a concrete object is inherently specified for number in that it denotes a singular object. Thus, the Dutch noun fiets ‘bicycle’ refers to a single bike in (17a). If reference is made to more than one bicycle the plural suffix must be added (17b). (17)

a. b.

Waar is je fiets? where is your.sg bicycle ‘Where is your bike?’ Waar zijn jullie fiets-en? where are your.pl bicycle-pl ‘Where are your bikes?’

Not all languages, however, employ “count nouns” of this type. As a matter of fact, crosslinguistic evidence suggests that the majority of languages use transnumeral nouns for concrete objects, i.e., nouns not inherently specified for some number value (Rijkhoff 2002: 146–156). Since codification of grammatical number in the lexeme would make a lexeme “unflexible”, i.e., unsuitable for direct insertion in other syntactic slots, one may hypothesize that flexible lexemes in PoS systems of Types 1 and 2 (Figure 1) are always transnumeral. This turns out to be true for all languages with the relevant PoS systems that we are aware of (Rijkhoff 2002: 42). At first sight one may be lead to believe that Mundari has a plural marker for animate entities (-ko; literally ‘they’; notice that the same form also appears in the predicate complex). This element is, however, probably better analyzed as a clitic 3rd person plural pronoun attached to the phrase rather than the lexeme.13 (18)

a. b.

hor.o-ko man-pl ‘men’ (lit. ‘man-they’) (Hoffmann 1903: 8) bau-ing-te-ko senior.brother-1sg-ben-pl/they ‘my senior brothers’ (Hoffmann 1903: 100)

13. This is not uncommon. Another language using this strategy is, for example, Bambara (Brauner 1974: 26–28; Kastenholz 1989: 21).


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This seems to indicate that Mundari lexemes are transnumeral, which means that, in this respect, too, it behaves just like other languages without a distinct class of nouns.14 5.

Conclusion

We disagree with Evans & Osada when they claim that there are no attested cases of languages lacking a noun-verb distinction. In this contribution we have tried to demonstrate (in Section 4) that there are languages with PoS systems at the extreme end of the flexibility scale (Figure 1: Type 1 or 1/2) and that Mundari is one of them. In addition we have shown that the grammar of Mundari displays all the additional morpho-syntactic and semantic features that correlate with a very flexible PoS system (Section 5). Received: 6 June 2005 Revised: 27 August 2005

Universiteit van Amsterdam Aarhus Universitet

Correspondence addresses: (Hengeveld) Theoretische Taalwetenschap, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Spuistraat 210, NL-1012 VT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected]; (Rijkhoff) Afdeling for Lingvistik, Aarhus Universitet, Bygning 1410, Ndr. Ringgade, DK-8000 Århus C, Denmark; e-mail: [email protected] Abbreviations: 1, 2, 3 1st, 2nd, 3rd person; art article; asp aspect; ben beneficiary; c common gender; compl completive aspect; cop copula; dir directional; du dual; genr general aspect-tensemood marker; incept inceptive; ind indicative; intr intransitive; n noun; np noun phrase; nt neuter gender; obj object; pst past; perf perfective; pl plural; poss possessive; pred predicative (see Footnote 3); pres present; progr.or progressive oriented; s subject; sg singular; sub subordinator; tr transitive; v verb.

References Brauner, Siegmund (1974). Lehrbuch des Bambara. Leipzig: Enzyklopädie. Broschart, Jürgen (1987). Noun, verb, and participation. (Arbeiten des Kölner Universalien-Projekts, 38.) Köln: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft. — (1991). Noun, verb, and participation (a typology of the Noun/Verb-distinction). In Hansjakob Seiler & Waldfried Premper (eds.), Partizipation: Das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten, 65–137. Tübingen: Narr. — (1997). Why Tongan does it differently: Categorial distinctions in a language without nouns and verbs. Linguistic Typology 1: 123–165. Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa & M. Dale Kinkade (1998). Salish languages and linguistics. In Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins & M. Dale Kinkade (eds.), Salish Languages and Linguistics: Theoretical and Descriptive Perspectives, 1–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

14. It might be interesting to add that according to Hoffmann (1903: 21) -ko “is one of the plural suffixes in Chinese” and that Osada (1992: 131), referring to Emeneau (1980: 114), mentions the use of numeral classifiers, which are also found in Chinese and which often correlate with transnumeral nouns.


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Cook, W. A. (1965). A descriptive analysis of Mundari: A study of the structure of the Mundari language according to the methods of linguistic science. Doctoral Dissertation, Georgetown University. Cruse, D. A. (1986). Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Don, Jan (2004). Categories in the lexicon. Linguistics 42: 931–956. Donaldson, Tamsin (1980). Ngiyambaa: The Language of the Wangaaybuwan of New South Wales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunbar, George (2001). Towards a cognitive analysis of polysemy, ambiguity, and vagueness. Cognitive Linguistics 12: 1–14. Emeneau, M.B. (1980). Language and Linguistic Area: Essays by Murray B. Emeneau. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Evans, Nicholas & Toshiko Osada (this issue). Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes. Linguistic Typology 9: XXX–XXX. Foley, William A. (1998). Symmetrical voice systems and precategoriality in Philippine languages. Paper read at the 3rd LFG conference, Brisbane (Australia), 30 June–3 July. Geeraerts, Dirk (1993). Vagueness’s puzzles, polysemy’s vagaries. Cognitive Linguistics 4: 223– 272. Heine, Bernd (1997). Cognitive Foundations of Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, & Friederike Hünnemeyer (1991). Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hengeveld, Kees (1992). Non-verbal Predication: Theory, Typology, Diachrony. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. — (forthcoming). Parts-of-speech systems and morphological typology. Hengeveld, Kees, Jan Rijkhoff, & Anna Siewierska (2004). Parts-of-speech systems and word order. Journal of Linguistics 40: 527–570. Hengeveld, Kees & Marieke Valstar (no date). Parts of speech systems and lexical subclasses. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Linguistics, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Hoffmann, John (1903). Mundari Grammar. Calcutta: The Secretariat Press. Hoffmann, John & Arthur van Emelen (1928–1978). Encyclopedia Mundarica. 16 volumes. Patna: Government Superintendent Printing [Reprint: New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1990] Jelinek, Eloise & Richard A. Demers (1994). Predicates and pronominal arguments in Straits Salish. Language 70: 697–736. Kastenholz, Raimund (1989). Grundkurs Bambara (Manding) mit Texten. Köln: Köppe. Kuipers, Aert (1968). The categories verb-noun and transitive-intransitive in English and Squamish. Lingua 21: 610–626. Lakoff, George (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors we Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langendoen, D. Terrence (1967). The copula in Mundari. In John W.M. Verhaar (ed.), The Verb ‘Be’ and its Synonyms, 75–100. Dordrecht: Reidel. Marchand, H. (1964). A set of criteria for the establishing of derivational relationship between words unmarked by derivational morphemes. Indogermanische Forschungen 69: 10–19. Mithun, Marianne (2000). Noun and verb in Iroquioan languages: Multicategorisation from multiple criteria. In Petra M. Vogel & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Approaches to the Typology of Word Classes, 397–420. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mosel, Ulrike (1991). Transitivity and reflexivity in Samoan. Australian Journal of Linguistics 11: 175–194. Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen (1992). Samoan Reference Grammar. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Osada, Toshiki (1992). A Reference Grammar of Mundari. Tokyo: Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.


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Rijkhoff, Jan (2002). The Noun Phrase. Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2003). When can a language have nouns and verbs? Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 35: 7–38. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1993a). Das Nomen – eine universale Kategorie? Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 46: 187–221. — (1993b). Syntactic categories and subcategories. In Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld, & Theo Vennemann (eds.), Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, Volume XXX, 646–686. Berlin: de Gruyter. Sinha, N. K. (1975). Mundari Grammar. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages. Smit, Niels (2001). De rol van derivatie bij lexicale specialisatie. M.A. thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Tuggy, David (1993). Ambiguity, polysemy, and vagueness. Cognitive Linguistics 4: 273–290. Vonen, Arnfinn M. (1994). Multifunctionality and morphology in Tokelau and English. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 17: 155–178. Wilkins, David P. (2000). Ants, ancestors and medicine: A semantic and pragmatic account of classifier constructions in Arrernte (Central Australia). In Gunter Senft (ed.), Systems of Nominal Classification, 147–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Word classes, parts of speech, and syntactic argumentation by WILLIAM CROFT

1.

Introduction

Evans & Osada (henceforth E&O) convincingly demonstrate that Mundari words differ in their grammatical behavior in various ways, contrary to some earlier accounts that have been frequently cited in the typological literature. However, E&O’s paper is more ambitious than their title implies. First, E&O wish to demonstrate not only that Mundari has words that differ in their grammatical behavior, but that those words form large word classes or parts of speech such as “noun” and “verb”, which can be compared across languages in order to construct typological universals about those parts of speech. Second, E&O also wish to make a more general methodological point, which they explicitly describe in their conclusion: “Because the theoretical stakes are so high, linguists must follow the most rigorous standards of proof to claimed cases, and part of our job as typologists is to establish standardized criteria of argumentation that can be applied across all languages in our purview” (Section 4). Unfortunately, E&O’s article fails in these two more ambitious aims. While this is a harsh judgement, in fact E&O are not different in this respect from most other syntacticians in every theoretical framework; my criticisms are directed equally to the other syntacticians whose analyses they discuss. E&O are simply following standard syntactic procedure. Their criticisms of other syntacticians


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in the article are still highly relevant, but one must point out that E&O do not recognize their own use of the same procedure. Nevertheless, there is substantive research in the typological literature that has made considerable progress in establishing methodological rigor and also a theory of parts of speech. E&O offer three criteria to make the study of word classes more rigorous: (i) distributional equivalence of all members of a putative word class, (ii) semantic compositionality between lexeme and “syntactic position” such as argument or predicate, and (iii) exhaustiveness (again, applicability to all members of a putative word class). I begin with criterion (ii), and then turn to the more important criteria (i) and (iii). 2.

Semantics and word class identification

E&O criticize other syntacticians for allowing semantic shifts in an unconstrained fashion in their arguments against a “noun”-“verb” distinction in other languages. But E&O do not actually specify what the semantics is of any of the constructions they discuss with respect to Mundari word classes, let alone how the use of a word in the relevant syntactic position in the construction would predict the semantic properties of that word in that position. The only discussion of the interaction of constructional semantics with the semantics of the word in the relevant syntactic position is for Mundari aspectual inflections, but they conclude that “we would need a far better understanding of the complexities of Mundari aspect than we currently have, so we will err on the side of generosity in attributing such subtle difference in semantic increments to interactions of aspect with the Aktionsart of the depicted process” (Section 3.2). In other words, E&O do not give “rigorous standards of proof” so that we can evaluate the applicability of this criterion for the Mundari data that they consider relevant here. A much simpler, and genuinely rigorous, solution to the problem of the relevance of semantics to word class is the one I proposed in 1991 and 2001: simply to assume that the meaning of the word should be the same in each construction in which it occurs. E&O briefly discuss my proposal in a footnote, and conclude that “the issue here is whether we want to get the semantics from the construction” (Footnote 20). But the real issue is: what is the significance of semantic shifts that take place when a word occurs in a construction, for a universal theory of parts of speech that is crosslinguistically valid? Many linguists who discuss parts of speech in fact allow any semantic shift to take place (e.g., Hengeveld 1992). E&O criticize these linguists because such shifts are idiosyncratic and not generalizable to all of the members of the word classes (this is largely true in Mundari as well), and therefore not predictable. I agree with E&O; I have made the same criticisms (Croft 1991: 43–45, 2001: 67–75). But the same critique applies to systematic semantic shifts.


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For example, it is taken as evidence against a “noun”-“verb” distinction that a “verb”, which denotes an action when in a predicating construction, will often systematically denote ‘the one that Verbs’ placed in the head position of a referring expression. But it doesn’t have to. In fact, in many languages an action word simply cannot be placed in the head position of a referring expression. Hence occurrence in the head of a referring expression with the meaning ‘the one that Verbs’ cannot be an automatic semantic consequence of the interaction of the semantics of the referring expression with the semantics of the word class. It is simply a language-specific fact of the grammar of a number of languages. What is universal, however, is that there is a way in every language to refer to an action in some sort of referring expression – that is, without a semantic shift. This fact is ignored by the syntacticians that E&O criticize but also by E&O themselves. Moreover, there is a typological universal that reference to an action, that is, a word denoting an action in a referring expression, is typologically marked relative to reference to an object, that is, a word denoting an object in a referring expression (Croft 1991: 74–76). This fact will be discussed in Section 4. Here, I simply note that it is this universal that makes these particular facts relevant to linguistic theory. Similar arguments follow for other common semantic coercions. Equally important, there is also a universal in the crosslinguistic facts of semantic shifts in referring and predicating constructions which E&O’s criterion (ii) does not capture. E&O’s criterion (ii) only refers to a semantic shift; it does not say anything about the directionality of the shift. E&O’s criterion allows for languages in which a predicated action word means ‘do Verb’ and the same word in a referring expression means ‘one that Verbs’. As E&O note, there are a number of such languages. However, E&O’s criterion also allows for languages in which a predicated action word means ‘be one that Verbs’ and the same word in a referring expression means ‘the act of Verbing’. But there are no such languages to my knowledge. Criterion (ii) is too loose to capture the crosslinguistic universal underlying this asymmetry in semantic shifts. I discussed this universal in Croft (1991: 74–77); the statement in (1) is from Croft (2001: 73): (1)

If there is a semantic shift in zero coding of an occurrence of a word (i.e. flexibility) in a part-of-speech construction, even if it is sporadic and irregular, it is always towards the semantic class prototypically associated with the propostional act function [see (2) in Section 4 below for the semantic-propositional act prototypes].

This universal, not mentioned by E&O in their discussion of semantic shifts, implies a crosslinguistic regularity in the behavior of words of different semantic types occurring in the three propositional act construction types. This


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universal cannot be captured if semantic shifts are allowed – as in E&O’s criterion (ii) and many other analyses – and not investigated in themselves as a topic of typological study in their own right. It is crosslinguistic regularities of this type which may allow us to speak of nouns and verbs and construct a universal theory of parts of speech, not just distributionally defined word classes. I now turn to the latter problem. 3.

The distributional method and word classes

E&O’s criteria (i) and (iii) are essentially the distributional method, codified by the American structuralists in mid-twentieth century. The criteria are thus not new, though E&O are right to say that the distributional method is honored more in the breach by contemporary syntacticians. But what happens if one actually is rigorous in applying the distributional method? As even Bloomfield and Harris observed, rigorous application of the distributional method would lead to a myriad of word classes, indeed, each word would probably belong to its own word class (Bloomfield 1933: 269; Harris 1946: 177; Harris 1951: 244, all cited in Croft 2001: 36). An empirical demonstration of this fact was made for French by Gross (1979). E&O do not address this problem. They observe in a footnote that “the ideal – to test all possible distributional features of the candidate classes – is too large an undertaking to be practical in this paper, and we confine ourselves to a canonical subset of distributional tests” (Footnote 17; see also Footnote 31). In other words, E&O believe that doing a truly rigorous distributional analysis would merely be too difficult – not that it would in fact undermine their whole enterprise of establishing large word classes such as “noun” and “verb”. I return to this point below. Instead, E&O select a “canonical subset of distributional facts” – the same solution proposed by Bloomfield and Harris and followed ever since. But this is a type of methodological opportunism (Croft 2001: 29–47), namely being selective about the distributional tests chosen within a language and across languages. E&O do not state anywhere in their article what the “canonical subset of distributional tests” is that they use to establish the word classes “noun” and “verb” in Mundari. One can infer from their discussion that it includes various predication and referring expression constructions. But they also discuss transitive verb constructions and show they differentiate word classes in Mundari (E&O: XXX). Does this mean that E&O believe that Mundari has a word class system made up of “nouns”, “transitive verbs”, and “intransitive verbs”? Nothing in their paper implies that. Instead, they suggest in another footnote that they allow for subclasses of major word classes (Footnote 31). But they do not give any theoretical basis for deciding which distributional tests establish major word classes and which distributional tests establish subclasses of those


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word classes. There are no “standardized criteria”, and no “rigorous proof”. The choices are simply opportunistic, and not even made explicit. The absence of principled reasons for choosing their distributional tests in E&O’s article is the problem that plagues almost all current syntactic argumentation, typological or otherwise. E&O criticize other linguists for using the ability to occur in a simple predication construction as the sole criterion for part-of-speech classes; they consider this test as being insufficient for establishing a “noun”-“verb” distinction. But they give no reason themselves why they include other constructions in their set of “canonical distributional tests”. They cannot argue that all constructions should be included, since they do not do it themselves, and they apparently do not want to accept the logical conclusion of that process, namely that virtually every word will be in its own word class and so Mundari would not have “noun” and “verb” as word classes. So E&O are on no firmer ground in distinguishing “noun” and “verb” in Mundari than the linguists they criticize for conflating “noun” and “verb” in Mundari and other languages. The reason for this is that the criterion (i) and (iii) that E&O use for establishing word classes, i.e., the distributional method, cannot by itself provide a theoretically sound alternative to methodological opportunism, as I argued at length in Croft (2001: Chapter 1; see also Croft 1991: Chapters 1–2; Croft 1999). The distributional method does not give any criteria for choosing “relevant” distributional tests for establishing word classes or other theoretically significant grammatical distinctions. It follows as a corollary to this statement that the distributional method does not distinguish between tests establishing major classes and tests establishing subclasses (Schachter 1985: 5–6; Croft 1991: 45–46; 2001: 363–339). Yet the distributional method is the fundamental empirical method of grammatical analysis; there is no other. Being opportunistically selective essentially does violence to the data. Since everyone is selective for their own opportunistic theoretical reasons, debates on whether there are languages with a “noun”/“verb” distinction, or languages without “adjectives”, cannot ever be resolved. The only way to be genuinely rigorous and true to the empirical facts is to admit all distributional criteria as relevant to linguistic analysis. This is only natural: it is what the learners of any language must do, namely learn all the distributional facts. If speakers do it, why can’t linguists do it in describing speaker knowledge and behavior? But the result of this is that one does not end up with large word classes, as E&O want. Languages simply do not behave this way. Thus, E&O do not present a theory of parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective), because they assume – without any argumentation – that parts of speech are large word classes that exclusively partition the lexicon. My conclusion may sound radical; this is why I labeled an approach that adopts this conclusion “Radical Construction Grammar”. But in fact it is what


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typologists, at least the rigorous ones, have been doing for decades. In Croft (2001, and also 1991), I argue that we must take the tests or criteria seriously that we use for identifying word classes. We cannot simply grab a construction here, a grammatical inflection there, and use them to construct theoretically significant, putatively universal grammatical categories such as “noun” and “verb” or “subject” and “object”. One will not find language universals that way (this is the true failure of formal syntax). The “distributional tests” are at least as important as the grammatical categories and distinctions they produce. But “distributional tests” are grammatical entities in their own right. They are grammatical constructions. I take the term “construction” broadly as is done in contemporary models of construction grammar (Fillmore, Kay, & O’Connor 1988; Goldberg 1995; Langacker 1987; Croft & Cruse 2004), so that ability to occur with a morphological inflection is also a construction (e.g., [X-tnssbj.agr] is a construction). In other words, distributional analysis is identifying the mapping that is found in the empirical data between constructions and the elements (words, roots, phrases) that fill certain roles in the constructions. All I am saying that is “radical” here is that the mapping does not produce a large-scale, exclusive partitioning of the items that fill the roles. Instead, there is a complex, many-to-many mapping between constructions and elements. Put in this way, it should not be terribly surprising or even radical to a linguist. What is not appreciated is that large, mutually exclusive word classes are incompatible with this view. In fact, they are epiphenomenal, the result of selecting certain subsets of construction-element mappings. The reason that this conclusion is problematic for many linguists is that it means that one cannot take a “building block” approach to analyzing complex syntactic structures. One cannot define complex structures as being built ultimately out of a set of atomic primitive categories like “noun”, “verb”, and “adjective”. In fact, we cannot treat “noun”, “verb”, and “adjective” as crosslinguistically universal categories of particular languages. This is why I have used scare quotes around “noun”, “verb”, and “adjective” when referring to claims of their existence as word classes in particular languages. But this does not spell the end of crosslinguistically valid universals of syntactic structure. The complex mapping between constructions and elements is not unconstrained, across languages or within them. In fact, it is governed by universals – exactly the kinds of restricted universals that typologists have been seeking, and finding, since Greenberg’s pioneering work (and earlier). Good typological work carefully defines the constructions and the items that fill the roles in the constructions in a crosslinguistically valid manner, and reveals the universal patterns that govern the mapping. For example, Stassen’s massive study of intransitive predication (Stassen 1997) is precisely that: a study of the intransitive predication construction and the behavior of items that fill the predicate role in that construction.


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Word classes, parts of speech, and syntactic argumentation 4.

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Universals of parts of speech

There is no reason why one cannot do the same typological analysis for parts of speech, and that is what I have done in my 1991 and 2001 books. It does require rethinking parts of speech as restricted typological universals, not languagespecific word classes. The question then is: are there regularities in the mappings between constructions and the items that fill roles in those constructions which correspond with the grammatical intuitions underlying the traditional word class approach to parts of speech? There are indeed such mappings; I referred to some of them already in Section 2. The constraints hold on the mapping between lexical items (words) and the propositional act constructions, that is, constructions that encode the propositional acts by which information is packaged in clauses (see Austin 1962, Searle 1969, and Croft 1991: Chapter 3). These constructions are defined on external grounds and therefore can be identified and hence compared across languages. The propositional act constructions are of course the constructions that figure prominently in discussions of parts of speech, including E&O’s: referring expression constructions, predicating constructions and modifying constructions (relevant to adjectives, not discussed by E&O). Since the universals are specific to the mapping between these constructions and lexical items, we have a principled reason to set aside the distributional facts about other constructions – the crucial missing ingredient from the standard form of syntactic argumentation and E&O’s analysis. For example, the transitive construction discussed by E&O is excluded from consideration because the transitive construction is an argument structure construction: it encodes participant roles, not a propositional act. It is of course possible that the argument structure constructions interact with the propositional act constructions and the items that fill the relevant roles in the constructions. If there were such an interaction, then argument structure constructions should be included in the study of parts of speech. But this is an empirical question, not an a priori one. The constraints on the mapping are the universals that go under the name of typological markedness. Typological markedness is a shorthand name (an unfortunate name, but I have not been able to find a satisfactory substitute) for a set of restricted universals governing the morphosyntactic expression of values of a semantic category, such as the values of the category of (semantic) number, or the different semantic classes of lexical items. The set of restricted universals for typological markedness appears to be the same across different categories, and has been explained in terms of the differential text frequency of the different values of a category (Greenberg 1966; Bybee 1985; see Croft 2003: Chapters 4–6 for further discussion). The structural coding universal is that a more marked value of the category in question is coded by at least as many morphemes as a less marked value.


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Overt coding may be morphological, syntactic or a combination of the two. In this case, the category values we are interested in are the semantic classes of lexical items. Again, these can be identified and hence compared across languages. In my work, and also in Stassen (1997), a subset of lexical semantic classes are employed in crosslinguistic comparison. I examined objects, actions and properties, defined as in (2) below. The hypothesis I propose is that for each of the propositional act constructions, one semantic class is less marked than the other two in each of the propositional act constructions: (2)

propositional act a.

reference

b.

predication

c.

modification

prototypically correlated lexical semantic class objects (nonrelational, stative, inherent, nongradable) actions (relational, dynamic, transitory, nongradable) properties (relational, stative, inherent, gradable)

The universals of typological markedness of course require holding constant meaning of both construction and role fillers. As was noted in Section 2, role fillers that change meaning when used in different propositional act constructions are constrained by the language universal in (1); (1) makes reference to the same typological prototype (Croft 2003: Chapter 6) of semantic class and propositional act in (2a–c). There is a second universal of typological markedness, the behavioral potential universal, that a less marked value of the category in question will display at least as great a behavioral potential (in terms of cross-cutting morphological distinctions or synactic contexts) as a more marked value. This universal captures the fact that in many languages, the nonprototypical occupant of the relevant role in a propositional act construction inflects for fewer categories, or fewer distinctions in the category, than the prototypical occupant of that role (again, holding semantics constant). The universals of typological markedness are implicational in form. One consequence of this property of typological markedness is that languages in which prototypical and nonprototypical members are coded in the same way in a particular propositional act construction, or have the same behavioral potential in a propositional act construction, are not counterexamples to the universals of typological markedness (genuine counterexamples would be the contrary asymmetric coding and behavior). Similarity in structural coding or behavioral potential is the sort of evidence that is taken as an argument against the existence of parts of speech distinctions in certain languages. But in a typological-universal theory of parts of speech, parts of speech are not, in fact cannot be, language-specific word classes. Even if we decide by fiat that word


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classes in a language are defined by occurrence in the predicating construction, or occurrence with a set of person indexation markers, that is not a crosslinguistically applicable category of “noun” or “verb” or “noun+verb”. It is just a language-specific word class. Language-specific word classes are languagespecific and therefore incommensurable across languages as such. They are only commensurable by crosslinguistically valid criteria. Those criteria are ultimately based on external entities (function for morphosyntax, phonetics for phonology). It is only over those external entities, such as the correlations in (2a–c), and the means by which they are coded in languages, that crosslinguistically valid language universals can be formulated. This is only a brief summary of a typological-universal theory of parts of speech; a more detailed presentation is given in Croft (1991: Chapters 2–3; 2001: Chapter 2). The point here that is relevant to E&O’s article is that this typological-universal theory of parts of speech is based on rigorous methods of argumentation and provides an equally rigorous standard of proof. It takes the distributional method seriously, leading to a priori consideration of all construction-filler interactions without ignoring empirical evidence. It offers a principled basis for selecting construction-filler interactions, namely the functions performed by the constructions and the empirical crosslinguistic generalizations that are found with those constructions. It also offers strict criteria for what grammatical properties of those constructions are relevant for the universal theory (structural coding and behavioral potential). The result is that there is a set of empirically well-supported typological universals constraining the interaction of the propositional act constructions – which figure centrally in parts of speech analyses – and semantic classes of lexical items. The interaction is summarized by the typological prototypes of propositional act function and lexical semantic class in (2a–c), the general universals of typological markedness, and the universal in (1). I believe that the typological prototypes in (2a–c) capture the crosslinguistically valid language universals that most closely represent the traditional notion of parts of speech. For this reason, I label the typological prototypes in (2a–c) noun, verb and adjective respectively (no scare quotes), and consider this to be a theory of parts of speech in the spirit of the traditional use of that term. Perhaps due to this choice of terms, my point is frequently misunderstood, and I am taken to be providing a semantic prototype theory of language-specific word classes (e.g., Baker 2003: 14, 293). But (2a–c) are not language-specific word classes; they are combinations of propositional act functions and lexical semantic classes whose grammatical expression in particular languages is constrained by the universals briefly described above. For the reasons discussed in Section 3 and in Croft (2001: Part I), the distributional diversity of linguistic forms and constructions is such that one will not find language universals based on language-specific word classes.


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I believe that E&O’s efforts to come up with a rigorous theory of parts of speech as word classes were doomed to failure, for the reasons presented in this comment. But the alternative models of parts of speech (propositional act) constructions presented by myself and Stassen, while based on sound methodological principles, look at only a very narrow set of lexical semantic classes. What is sorely needed is a study of the behavior of a broader range of lexical semantic classes in the propositional act constructions. E&O refer to an analysis that they have performed of over five thousand Munda lexical items and their behavior as the heads of referring expressions and predicating constructions. This study is of far greater scope than any comparable study in any other language. I would strongly encourage E&O to present conclusions about lexical semantics and predicational and referring constructions that they have drawn from this data. Received: 24 March 2005 Revised: 24 August 2005

University of Manchester

Correspondence address: Dept. of Linguistics, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK; e-mail: [email protected]

References Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Baker, Mark (2003). Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns and Adjectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bloomfield, Leonard (1933). Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Bybee, Joan L. (1985). Morphology: A Study into the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Croft, William (1991). Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. — (1999). Some contributions of typology to cognitive linguistics (and vice versa). In Theo Janssen & Gisela Redeker (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope and Methodology, 61–93. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. — (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2003). Typology and Universals. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Croft, William & D. Alan Cruse (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fillmore, Charles J., Paul Kay, & Mary Kay O’Connor (1988). Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language 64: 501–538. Goldberg, Adele E. (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Greenberg, Joseph H. (1966). Language Universals, with Special Reference to Feature Hierarchies. (Janua Linguarum, Series Minor, 59.) The Hague: Mouton. Gross, Maurice (1979). On the failure of generative grammar. Language 55: 859–885. Harris, Zellig S. (1946). From morpheme to utterance. Language 22: 161–183. — (1951). Methods in Structural Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


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Hengeveld, Kees (1992). Non-verbal Predication: Theory, Typology, Diachrony. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Langacker, Ronald W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Volume 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Schachter, Paul (1985). Parts-of-speech systems. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume 1: Clause Structure, 3–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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Author’s Response

Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes by NICHOLAS EVANS AND TOSHIKI OSADA 1.

Introduction

Our three commentators raise such a host of deep and interesting issues that we cannot hope to answer them all within the time and space at our disposal. To begin with, we would like to thank them for pushing us to articulate the reasons for our arguments more clearly, and for getting us to spell out a number of assumptions and intermediate argumentative steps that we did not make sufficiently clear or explicit in our original article. We will deal with the three commentators one by one, limiting ourselves to a few key points. 2.

Peterson

We begin with Peterson’s commentary, which is the most straightforward, and focus on two key points in his argument. He broadens the empirical base by bringing in another Munda language, Kharia, but we believe that the essential points of our analysis apply there as well. (We also have some disagreements with him about the Mundari data he cites but since they are peripheral to the main argument we do not go into them here.) The crucial flaw in his critique of our analysis is his failure to take on board the criterion of bidirectionality. In Section 3.3 of our original article we make it clear that merely showing that languages are generous in what they allow to be predicates does not demonstrate a conflation of word class distinctions: we also need to go back and look at whether all words under discussion can be employed in argument slots. (Recall that, as we point out in the target article, it was a shift to this bidirectional requirement by Jacobsen, Schachter, and Anderson that underpinned the counter-analysis to Swadesh’s monocategorialist




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view of Nootka.) Yet all of Peterson’s examples, in both Kharia and Mundari, are limited to the question of what words are used as predicates. Without addressing the converse question, of what words can be used as arguments, his refutation of our analysis simply falls short. His point about the difference between phrasal and lexical categories is an important one, and many of his Kharia examples (such as (8b)) suggest that a wider range of morphological elements following the predicate are in fact predicate enclitics rather than suffixes, positioned with respect to the last element of what may be a phrasal predicate (such as ho rochoP b ‘this side’). Treating them as clitics to predicate position readily allows us to explain the acceptability – and prevalence – of a wide range of phrasal elements in predicate position. In Section 1 of our article, we mention that “though the elements following the verb in examples like these have generally been regarded as suffixes, they are in fact less tightly bound to the root, phonologically, than other suffixes are”. It would not be an outrageous analysis to go further and treat them as enclitics, along the lines of Peterson’s analysis – i.e., to restrict the use of “suffix” to what we called “close” suffixes, and call the outer suffixes “predicate enclitics”. We could then analyse these clitics as attached to phrase-level constituents, as per Peterson’s analysis, but leave “inner suffixes” (such as the passive -o) to operate at the lexical level. And it may be an appropriate way to deal with the very common construction type in which inchoative or stative meanings are composed with phrases used in predicate position – and perhaps also with the “quotative” meaning exemplified in his example (12). However, it would be misleading to think this analysis would then account for all examples where basically entity-denoting lexical items are used in predicate slots. As we show in the section “Corollary: Compositional consistency”, the productive semantic patterns by which nouns attract stative or inchoative readings when used as intransitive predicates, and factitive meanings when used in transitive predicates (e.g., ‘pancake’ > ‘make a pancake’), are not the only types of semantic increment we find when we look over the whole lexicon. We also find ‘use as an X’, for example (e.g., ‘scissors’ > ‘cut with scissors’). All Peterson’s examples illustrate the primary pattern whereby predicate use produces the inchoative, stative, or quotative readings, and we cannot comment on whether Kharia is semantically more constrained than Mundari in the range of possible semantic increments. But certainly for Mundari the sort of treatment he proposes will not work once the full set of semantic conversion effects needs to be accounted for. 3.

Hengeveld and Rijkhoff

Hengeveld & Rijkhoff (henceforth H&R) effectively want to propose a further way that a language could lack a noun-verb distinction, not included in our list


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of four – their “flexible” type – and want to locate Mundari within it, along with other languages such as Samoan. They admit, though, that these types are idealized and that Mundari has some features of their “Type 2”. This continues the thrust of previous publications by these authors and their associates.1 We do not find their arguments for this position convincing, for reasons we now spell out.2 Firstly, from the outset they impose the rider “as far as its basic, non-derived vocabulary is concerned”. An analysis of the word classes in any language must be comprehensive, and include all lexemes, not just the non-derived ones. We have already discussed the dangers of not requiring exhaustiveness in Section 3.4 of our paper and need not repeat these arguments here, except to underline that exhaustiveness is just as important in terms of covering the basic vs. derived dimension as it is in terms of covering the full set of lexical items in each semantic domain being surveyed.3 The heart of their objection lies in their imputation of vagueness to the semantics of Mundari lexemes (Section 3.2.1). To make their analysis work, they would need to do two things. Firstly, they would need to succeed in stating what the putative “vague” meaning is; without an explicit representation of this, putative vagueness analyses are mere promissory notes (cf. our critique of precategorial analyses in

1. As H&R point out, we do not refer in our article to a further recent publication of theirs on the topic, which also draws on Mundari data (Hengeveld, Rijkhoff, & Siewierska 2004). This omission reflects the chronology of our paper, submitted to LT in mid-2004. 2. We will not address the issues raised in Section 5 of H&R’s article, dealing with purported typological correlations between Mundari and other “flexible languages”. This is because we do not regard this as a coherent notion, for reasons we spell out below, nor are we convinced by their arguments that Mundari should be analysed as such a language. 3. H&R again discard the exhaustiveness criterion in including Samoan as not having a distinct class of nouns (p. ???, just before example (7)), in this respect following the analysis of Mosel & Hovdhaugen’s authoritative grammar. As their quote from Mosel & Hovdhaugen shows (p. ???), there are in fact words in Samoan that do not appear to be used in argument function (e.g., alu ‘go’) and others that do not appear to be used in predicate function (e.g., mea ‘thing’). Unlike H&R, we do not find either of Mosel & Hovdhaugen’s reasons for downplaying the significance of these exceptions convincing. The first of M&H’s reasons is that “we cannot find any functional explanation” (for these differences) – this is not a valid counter-argument, we maintain, because (i) lack of motivation is the best type of evidence for combinatorical restrictions being conventionalized and not semantically based, and (ii) in any case, observation/description is a separate logical step to explanation, and it is a sufficient goal of a good reference grammar to furnish explicit descriptions, without having to explain every phenomenon (cf. Dryer forthcoming). The second of M&H’s reasons has to do with the provisional nature of the data they were working from, in other words, that their rules were restricted to the corpus they were working with. But this is a general constraint on all descriptions – all formulations of grammatical rules are limited to the corpus at hand, and in that sense provisional – and should not therefore be used to downplay the significance of exceptions, especially when they involve quite common and basic lexemes.


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Section 2.2). We find their arguments here quite unconvincing. Firstly, they do not propose a semantic analysis for any Mundari lexeme. Secondly, even for the Samoan example they discuss (l¯a ‘sun, be sunny, sunny’ – p. 415) they do not attempt to state what the proposed vague meaning is, and within the schematized representation of meaning components they give (in terms of unspecified meaning components A, B, C, D, and E), there is no single element found in all three uses.4 This certainly does not meet the normal requirements for demonstrating the existence of a shared meaning, even on the formulation they give themselves in connection with a true case of vague meaning such as (p. 414): “we can find an abstract definition that covers both interpretations: male cousin and female cousin” (e.g., one assumes, in a formulation like ‘parent’s sibling’s child’ – NE & TO). Secondly, they would need to show that the meaning of words used in particular syntactic contexts accrues the same semantic increment, across all lexemes of the class, in the same compositional way.5 This is not a requirement they accept – see their discussion in Section 3.2.2 – but we believe theirs to be a mistaken position, for reasons we now elaborate. On p. 416 of their comment they remark: in our opinion E&O’s discussion of the problem of semantic arbitrariness fails to appreciate the difference between conceptualization and lexicalization and, as a result they seem to treat metaphor as something different from normal language.

This criticism rests on a failure – common in the cognitive linguistics literature – to give due weight to the difference between lexicalized (conventionalized) and creative metaphor. Of course metaphor and other tropes are not something different from normal language, and of course figurative speech is “an integral part of human language and categorization” (p. 416). However, once a metaphor or other trope has become lexicalized it has created a particular semantic increment that is part of the conventionalized lexicon of the language 4. A further problem is that the standard tests for vagueness vs polysemy that they cite are all set up to deal with lexical items that occur in the same syntactic position (e.g., Duffy discovered a mole, and so did Clark, where the tested item is an object NP in both cases). Adapting these to deal with the case at hand, where one meaning occurs in a predication slot and another in another argument slot, is a non-trivial task. About the closest we can come to testing this is by using an infinitive slot, embedding the tested lexeme under a verb capable of taking both an infinitive and a base noun, like laga ‘be tired of’ or caba ‘finish’. If we do this with a word like jom ‘food; to eat’, in a sentence like jom=ko lagatana or jom=ko cabajana we find that it is in fact not vague: these mean, only, ‘they are tired of/have got tired of the food’ and ‘they have finished the food’ respectively. To express the action meaning we need to use a reduplicated form of the word at hand, which normally has an iterative meaning, e.g., jojom. Thus: jojom=ko lagajana ‘they have got tired of eating’. It is difficult to account for this effect if one adopts a vagueness analysis. (We thank Maki Purti for this additional data.) 5. For Croft this position is still too weak – we take this point up below.


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it occurs in, that must be listed – and defined – as a conventional and arbitrary fact about that lexeme, in that language. A relation of metaphorical or metonymic extension may hold in three ways: (i) between a conventionalized meaning, part of the stable mental lexicon of all or most members of the relevant speech community (and dictionaries that record this knowledge), and a creative extension in context, which is part of an “utterance meaning’ but is not conventionalized”. (ii) between different senses of a word, that are combinatorically equivalent (e.g., their example of mole); here we have a case of a lexicalized polysemic link. An example would be the conventionalized use of a noun to mean ‘many’ as well as ‘mountain’. For a polysemic link (ii) to be found, of course, it must previously have been used by some creative speaker, as in (i), then passing from pragmatics to semantics via a process of structuration, variously known in this case as grammaticalization, lexicalization, or depragmaticization – see, e.g.. Hopper & Traugott 1993, Evans 2003.) (iii) between signs that differ in their combinatorics as well as their meaning, with a lexicalized relation of heterosemy (Lichtenberk 1991). This, as we argue on p. ??? of our article, is the best analysis of the relation between Mundari buru ‘n.: mountain’ and buru ‘v.t.: heap up, pile up’ or jom ‘v.t.: eat’ and jom ‘n.: ‘food’, which have distinct combinatorics in addition to the rather complex semantic relation between the respective senses. In fact, the semantic relationship between the linked senses here involves more than one step in each case, so that a better example would be laTab ‘n.: scissors’ and laTab ‘v.t. cut with scissors’, where there is a straightforward metonymy of the type ‘entity’ > ‘perform characteristic action using entity as instrument’.6 Even though there are a number of widespread crosslinguistic tendencies in the realm of figurative speech, the tendency to confuse trends with universals in cognitive semantics needs to be reined in and tempered with proper consideration of the range of alternative figurative pathways that languages manifest (see, for example, the arguments in Evans & Wilkins 2000 against treating as universal certain patterns of extension from ‘see’ into the realm of cognition). 6. Once we distinguish these three situations, another of their objections to our analysis evaporates, namely the issues of whether there is “a principled way to distinguish across languages between zero conversion and polysemy” (p. 417). To qualify as zero conversion there must be a shift in combinatorics, whereas polysemy is a relation between signs with (i) the same signifier, (ii) semantically related signifieds, and (iii) the same combinatorics. Of course, the issue of combinatorics is intimately tied up with the whole analysis into word classes, so there might appear to be a danger of circularity here. But since the solution to the word class problem must satisfy multiple constraints – those we elaborate in our article – this is not a fatal problem.


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It is an arbitrary and conventional fact about Mundari, which must be learned, that kapi participates in the linked meanings ‘axe (i.e., an entity)’ and ‘form into an axe, make an axe’ in Mundari while its English counterpart axe participates in the linked meanings ‘axe (i.e., an entity)’ and ‘cut, get rid of’. To be sure, in each case an original creative process of entity → process metonymy gave rise to a figurative extension, in an individual utterance. But the subsequent processes of lexicalization then led to the selection of different metonymic links in Mundari and English, each absorbed into the respective langue or lexical system of each language. Though we agree that, in certain cases, “it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between literal and non-literal language”, the cases we discuss are safely on the side of lexicalized use (which is why they appear in dictionaries of these languages), and should not be confused with creative tropes, which are free to be created on-line, free of pre-existing conventions in the language. For this reason we regard any attempt to dispense with the requirement of regular semantic increment as a misguided confusion of the difference between pragmatics and semantics, and would not accept any analysis of word classes in a given language as justified if it fails to measure up on this requirement. Since, additionally, their proposed counter-analysis does not even state the “vague” meanings explicitly, we do not regard it as a convincing treatment of the Mundari facts – nor would we regard as satisfactory an analysis of any other language along the same lines. It follows that, on our view, their “flexible” language type remains an underdefined construct, unless it simply corresponds to what we call a “rampant zero conversion language” – and, in that case, as we argue in Section 2.4, the proliferation of differing semantic increments accompanying zero conversion are too diverse to make it possible to identify precategorial lexical meanings, so that we are driven back into setting up distinct word classes after all. We must also address H&R’s disagreement with our characterisation of Hoffmann’s position on word classes in the Encyclopaedia Mundarica. They are quite correct to cite his brief statement on pages 8–9 saying he has “nothing to add” to his earlier Introduction. However, what is striking is the exhaustive, semantically explicit, and scrupulously accurate listing of attested uses for each lexeme – which is of course what makes EM such a fabulous resource for the study of widespread zero conversion. But in addition to cases where he explicitly states that particular uses are impossible (such as the statement about aN ‘dawn’ (EM p. 120) quoted by H&R) there are many others7 where he only 7. Pace also Bhat (1997: 243-244), who states that in the EM “almost every word is shown, with copious examples, to be occurring as a substantive, adjectives, and also as a transitive and intransitive verb”. In fact the actual attestations of various functional possibilities in EM correlate very closely with the proportions we report on in our article.


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lists nominal or only verbal uses, such as atiri (p. 257) ‘sbst., a cover of an earthen waterpot’ (EM p. 257) or ara_ ‘trs. to tie the special knot by means of whih the . . . carrying net . . . is attached to the . . . carrying pole’ (EM p. 164), from which a nominal can only be formed by infixation: a-n-ara_ ‘vrb. n., the manner of tying this knot’. Whether he explicitly excludes a particular use, or only does so implicitly by not listing it, what is striking is the honesty and accuracy of his coverage: he only puts in uses when he has attested them, and his data correlates amazingly well with what we have been able to check with Maki Purti and other Munda speakers. It is this vast body of robust and detailed data and the labellings he uses with it, rather than the brief statement in his introduction, which we were wanting to contrast with his earlier claim. Moreover, we disagree with H&R that “what he is actually describing is the meaning of a lexical item when used as the head of a referential phrase, without committing himself to classifying the item in question” (as a noun, verb, etc.). In fact he is conscientious about giving a large number of examples in their phrasal or sentential context, and in any case our reading of the passage immediately preceding the section H&R cite (from pages 8–9 of Vol. 1 of EM) suggests he is in fact drawing much more on the distributional criteria (of infixation and suffixation) than H&R’s quote suggests: The bulk of the language consists of monosyllables coalescing into the words that make up a sentence. In this work prefixes and infixes play the main part in the formation of the new words, whereas suffixes and, to some extent, infixes are, in Mundari at least, the main factors determining the grammatical functions performed by the words of a proposition. (emphasis ours – NE & TO)

Before concluding our response to H&R, we would also like to correct a couple of statements in their commentary that misrepresent our position. On p. ??? they bring in the issue of verbs that can be used directly in complement clauses (their examples (15) and (16), = our examples (37) and (38)). In their discussion of why we do not take these as examples favouring a precategorial analysis they pass from a formulation that we would accept – that “here the lexeme is not used in a prototypical function” – to one that we would not – that “i.e., it is not used to refer to a physical object”. We take it as accepted practice in the analysis of word classes that the meanings of words under classification should not be taken into account in the initial stage of establishing word classes, and should only be brought in at the stage of deciding what to name the classes (cf. Evans 2000a: 709–710), and at no stage in our analysis does the denotation of a word play a role in determining what class it belongs to.8 We do, however (p. ???), require that the words we are interested in


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should show distributional equivalence in canonical constructional contexts, so that it is not enough for words to be distributionally equivalent in grammatical contexts which we know from crosslinguistic work (e.g. Hopper & Thompson 1984) tend to blur the combinatoric profiles of nouns and verbs. The contexts at issue here – complements of phasal predicates like ‘finish’ or psych-predicates like ‘be tired of’ – are of this type, and it is for this reason that we do not regard these contexts as establishing a lack of distinction between nouns and verbs in Mundari. A final, minor point regarding H&R’s suggestion (p. ???) that the Mundari plural marker -ko should be analysed as a clitic 3rd person plural pronoun. While there is undoubtedly an etymological relationship between the nominal plural suffix -ko and the 3rd person clitic pronoun =ko, we need to distinguish the two analytically: the first attaches at the right edge of NPs, while the second attaches at the right edge of the constituent preceding the predicate or, if no such constituent is present, to the right edge of the predicate itself (see our example (24b)).9 The distinctness of the two is shown by the fact that they can co-occur one after the other, as in our example (24a). And the absence of examples in which the nominal plural marker – as opposed to the subject pronominal clitic – attaches to a non-noun, casts doubt on H&R’s suggestion that Mundari is a “transnumeral” language.10 Though we have taken issue with the notion of a “flexible” language as a coherent construct in the typology of word class systems with little or no distinction between nouns and verbs, we want to emphasise that this in no way denies the typological interests of the sorts of phenomenon H&R focus on through this term. H&R are right to point out that is an interesting crosslinguistic parameter how far languages permit, or discourage, zero conversion. How far this interacts with other typological features, what proportion of the lexicon it affects, 8. Apart, of course, from the issue of requiring regular semantic contributions by constructional context across all members of a putative class, but this concerns relations between denotations in grammatical contexts, not the denotations themselves. 9. Incidentally, H&R are not accurate in characterizing -ko as restricted to animate entities: inanimate examples are lijaq-ko ‘cloths’ and parkom-ko ‘beds’. 10. Consider the adjective salangi ‘tall’. It is impossible to follow this directly with the plural marker -ko: *salangi-ko=ko kamitana is not an acceptable way to say ‘the tall ones are working’, and one needs to add a head noun like hoRo ‘man’ to make this acceptable: salangi hoRo-ko=ko kamitana. Adjectives may in fact be substantivized by zero conversion, but take an abstract meaning: salang ‘adj. tall; n. tallness’ etc. The only basically adjectival word, marang, which can be followed directly by plural marking -ko is marang ‘big’, but this is a very special use, with the particular meaning ‘older brothers/sisters’. Thus it is possible to say marang-ko=ko kami-ta-n-a, adding -ko to marang, which is basically an adjective meaning ‘big’. However, the meaning of this sentence is more specific: ‘elder brothers/elder sisters are working’, and not simply ‘the big ones are working’. Because of this specific semantics we would argue that this is a particular case of a deadjectival nominal, rather than of the addition of -ko to an adjective.


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and what sorts of generalizations we can detect in the interaction of base lexical meaning with added meaning are all interesting questions worthy of detailed research. 4.

Croft

Unlike H&R, Croft accepts our arguments that Mundari does have word classes. His disagreements with us run in other directions, and we will focus below on four main points. We do not address his criticism that we have not come up with a rigorous theory of universals, with regards to parts of speech: this was never our goal, which was the more modest one of setting up agreed rules of argumentation that need to be satisfied before the analyst can claim to have established a lack of differentiation between major word classes. The four critical points we will address below are these claims of our commentator’s: (i) that in our principles (i) and (iii) we are simply applying the distributional approach developed by the American structuralist tradition and its the generativist successors, with all of its drawbacks; (ii) that we do not give any principled account of how to weight particular distributional criteria, or of how to distinguish between higher-level classes (e.g., verb) and subclasses (e.g., transitive verb); (iii) that we have not shown how the word classes which we have established can be labelled “noun” and “verb” in a way that enables comparisons across languages – which leads into fundamental questions about the crosslinguistic comparability or otherwise of the categories established on intra-linguistic grounds, and about whether it is in fact possible or appropriate to generalize about large-scale classes rather than associating each individual lexeme with its own distinct combinatoric profile; (iv) that the semantic contributions we permit constructional contexts to make are too permissively characterised. (i) Relationship of our principles to distributionalist approaches. Certainly, our arguments are neo-classical in the sense that we wish to retain the strengths of the structuralist tradition. Chief among them is the use of distributional evidence to establish word classes in a way that avoids “notional definitions” which second-guess the question of which meanings are associated with which classes, by assigning words to classes on the basis of their meaning rather than their combinatorics, or on the basis of what class they belong to in some reference language (Latin, English etc.). The wish to preserve this advantage lies behind our requirement of distributional equivalence (Section 3.1), including the requirement of bidirectionality (Section 3.3). However, the form of distributionalism pioneered by the American struc-


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turalist tradition had two serious flaws. Firstly, it considered the study of meaning unscientific and generally avoided the use of semantic criteria. The principle of compositionality that we formulate in Section 3.2, including the corollary of compositional consistency, makes crucial reference to meaning.11 This is not a feature of the American structuralist tradition, but grows out of the more confident approach that linguists now take to meaning, regardless of whether they come from a formal semantic background (and the principle of compositionality has its source in the “rulefor-rule” hypothesis of Montague semantics) or from a background in cognitive semantics, with its interest in lexical polysemy. Bringing semantics into our heuristics in this way has two main advantages: it avoids certain types of undue proliferation in distributional profiles, and it assists in the crosslinguistic matching of word classes set up for each language on language-individual grounds. We consider the first advantage here, returning to the second below. As Croft points out, Bloomfield (1933: 269) and Harris (1946: 177, 1951: 244) were concerned that, if applied rigorously, the distributional method would end up splitting a language’s lexicon into a myriad of tiny classes, asymptotically one class per lexeme.12 Introducing semantics into our heuristics allows to shave off a major cause of apparent distributional chaos, which results from the differential effects of polysemy on the distribution of words.13 Compare the distributions of seed and petal in English. If we cannot refer to meaning, we cannot distinguish the signifiers seed1 ‘flowering plant’s

11. Note in passing that this is not going back on the decision not to employ notional definitions, since we are talking here about the relations between meanings in different constructions, rather than using word-meanings to assign words to classes directly. 12. In his discussion of Bloomfield and Harris in Section 3, Croft also mentions Gross (1979) as giving “an empirical demonstration of this fact” (i.e., of each word belonging to its own word class). This is a misrepresentation of Gross’s position. Gross happily employs the categories of noun and verb, but his argument is directed towards establishing that different French verbs pattern distinctly in terms of their profile of combination with a range of complement types. In other words, he accepts the validity of noun and verb as major word class categories (to which one can, for example, apply the usual tests in terms of the combinability of nouns with articles, and plural suffixes, and of verbs with auxiliaries, and inflectionally encoded person/number/tense/aspect categories), but wishes to argue for the subcategorization of verbs into distinct subclasses when it comes to the more subtle distributional facts that one discovers once one looks at patterns of complementation. 13. We deliberately use ‘words’ loosely here for lexical stems that may prima facie be linked, since this is the point of departure for the sorts of analysis we are considering. Exactly how many lexemes one ends up identifying depends on one’s lexicological assumptions about how to deal with heterosemy and polysemy; in our seed/petal example we use small capitals for what might be grouped together by initial hypothesis (treating meaning in the grossest possible way), and italicized words with numerical subscripts for the sort of final groupings established after separating distinct lexemes in a relation of heterosemy.


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unit of reproduction or germ capable of developing into another such plant’ and seed2 ‘remove seed1 s from (fruit)’. As a consequence, we get an apparent distributional difference between petal and seed: the former combines with articles and the plural suffix -s, but not with auxiliaries or the continuous suffix -ing, while the latter combines with both. But once we admit semantics to our treatment, we split seed into (at least) two signs, in a relation of heterosemy to one another, and seed1 and petal are now seen as distributionally equivalent, since seed1 , like petal, cannot combine with auxiliaries of the continuous suffix -ing. The apparent distributional difference was due to us lumping two signs together into one. (ii) Weighting of distributional criteria; subclasses. On Croft’s view, the application of distributional criteria would lead to a fragmentation into tiny classes – “The result of this is that one does not end up with large word classes, as E&O want. Languages simply do not behave this way” (p. 435) – unless the analyst resorts to “methodological opportunism” by arbitrarily elevating a canonical subset of distributional facts. He criticizes us for falling prey to this malpractice in our analysis of Mundari. Both sides of this claim strike us as very odd, running against the results of grammatical and lexicographic descriptions carried out for hundreds if not thousands of the world’s languages, from English to Russian to Japanese to Kayardild. These descriptions do not simply “grab a construction here, a grammatical inflection there”. Although the exact criteria they use differ from language to language, the distributional tests are not a random grab-bag. A rather restricted set of morphological and syntactic criteria recur in language after language (see, e.g., Schachter 1985), even if the exact set instantiated in a given language varies, and we sometimes stumble on exotica. We also have an ever-clearer idea of which distributional facts predict which others – no-one disputes that incorporation contexts, for example, are a less accurate way of finding out what categories a noun inflects for, than occurrence as the head of a free NP. In other words, some properties of members of a particular class turn out to be excellent predictors of other properties, so that one can set up chains of dependencies between properties, rather than there simply being a rag-bag collection of randomly intersecting characteristics. These chains of dependencies can then be compared meaningfully across languages (cf. Plank 1984). Moreover, the tests correlate clearly with Croft’s typology of “propositional acts”, which is why, in so many languages, definiteness turns out to be a good criterion for nouns, tense and aspect turns out to be a good criterion for verbs, and why comparatives turn out to be a good criterion for adjectives.14 Croft


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has, himself, written persuasively of the rationale for many of these effects, and in so doing has made explicit some of the typological reasons why particular criteria work the way they do. But the judicious privileging of some criteria over others is something with a long history in both descriptive linguistics and typology, and dismissing it as mere “methodological opportunism” overlooks the many perfectly defensible reasons – admittedly not always made explicit – for the choices that are made. The other part of Croft’s criticism concerns the rationale for setting up a nested hierarchy of classes and subclasses, which may also allow for multiple combinations of dimensions, e.g., transitivity of verbs on the one hand, and their aspectual properties on another. Here too, we would argue, standard descriptive practice proceeds from a fundamental and defensible assumption. This is the logical ordering of distributional properties from general to particular, which is used to set up a hierarchy such that subclasses inherit distributional generalizations from superclasses, adding in further distributional criteria of their own. In both Russian and Kayardild, for example, “inflectability for case” establishes a superclass (sometimes called nominals) containing nouns, pronouns, demonstratives, and adjectives; nouns then inherit this property but introduce further properties of their own. Likewise verbs in all four languages have their own profile of inflectional possibilities, but subdivide into transitive vs intransitive (inter alia), dynamic vs. stative in Japanese, and so forth. Again subclasses inherit the distributional characteristics of verbs as a whole, but add additional specifications characteristic of their subclass (e.g., particular limitations on which inflections are possible with adjectival verbs in Japanese). Certainly some words end up with a unique or highly distinctive distributional profile – wuuja ‘give’ is the only Kayardild verb allowing five distinct case frames (Evans 1995: 334), just as rent is the one of very few English verbs that is self-converse, allowing for the rearrangement of prepositions: Bill rented his bike from Kees ↔ Kees rented his bike to Bill. But this does not stop them behaving, at the level of higherlevel generalizations such as their combination with inflectional suffixes or (in English) auxiliaries, exactly like the thousands of other members of their major word class. For these reasons, we see the prospect Croft holds up – of a mapping of distributional properties that “does not produce a large-scale, exclusive partitioning of the items that fill the roles” and which there is instead “a complex, many-to-many mapping between constructions and elements” (p. 436) – as a 14. Of course, neo-structuralist procedures are flexible enough to handle “unexpected” correlations – tense on nouns in Kayardild or Guaraní, or object definiteness on verbs in Hungarian. Our point is that the weighting of some criteria over others is not arbitrary, but motivated by their links to basic clause functions.


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programmatic chimera. While we would not rule out the possibility that a language whose grammar looks like this exists, we are not familiar with a wellworked out description of any language – in the form of a grammar plus lexicon – which employs this sort of treatment, or which shows why it is necessary. (iii) Equivalence of noun, verb, etc. across languages. To begin with, we point out that it was not the purpose of our paper to set out criteria for how major word classes should be matched up across languages. Rather, it was to make explicit the argumentative steps that need to be gone through before establishing that no distinction between major word classes exists. Failure to satisfy these steps merely results in the positing of two (or more) major word classes; what they should then be called is a separate and complex issue. Nonetheless, we believe that once we readmit semantics to our heuristics – and again this is in no way an original claim, having been made by many scholars before us – we get a lever for setting up cross-linguistic equivalences of (some) word classes, something that could not be done under classic structuralist methods. In our view – and we are in fact largely drawing on the same assumptions as Croft here – there are three types of procedure for doing this: prototypical denotations, propositional acts, and conversion effects. Between them, they allow us to address Croft’s questioning of the validity of us naming the classes we have set up in Mundari as “nouns” and “verbs”. The first procedure, pioneered by Dixon (1977) in his study of adjectives, developed by Croft himself in a number of publications (e.g., Croft 1991), and implicitly accepted in our article here, is to line up the distributionallyestablished classes from each language on the basis of what their prototypical denotations are. Here the assumption is that while the boundaries of the category may vary (‘intelligent’ may or may not be encoded as an adjective), the meaning of core members is crosslinguistically stable. If a language has an adjective class, it will include ‘big’ and ‘good’ as meanings, and conversely an established class with ‘big’ and ‘good’ as core members can safely be labelled “adjective” whether or not it includes a word meaning ‘intelligent’. Though Croft, in his discussion of our article, links these “prototypically correlated lexical semantic classes” to “propositional acts” rather than to distributional classes, in fact we can typically argue for a three-way linkage between word classes, propositional acts, and ontological types (e.g., nouns reference objects) as Croft himself argued correctly in Croft (1991). It is on the basis of these considerations that we give the labels “noun” and “verb” to the categories we set up in our analysis of Mundari. The second procedure, which has become such common practice among typologists (including both Hengeveld and Croft) that it is difficult to associate it with any particular investigator, is the use of what Croft labels “propositional act” functions: reference, predication, and modification. Marrying this


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with analyses that permit us to identify marked and unmarked uses of lexemes then gives us a principled basis for regarding some distributional facts as more fundamental than others, a point we return to below. The third procedure, developed by Croft, builds not on the basic denotations of words, but on the semantic and grammatical effects that constructional coercion produces on them, as outlined in his (1) on p. 433. In each case, combining semantics with distributional arguments gives us a firm basis for identifying word classes across languages. It is for this reason that we see it as helpful to produce a set of criteria that draws on the classic distributional methods of the structuralists, but augments them with formulations that draw on semantics where appropriate. (iv) Directionality of semantic shifts. Although Croft agrees with our criticism of approaches that allow idiosyncratic semantic shifts (p. ???), he takes us to task for not tightening up our criterion (ii) to rule out particular directionalities to any regular shifts that take place as lexemes occur in particular constructional contexts. In particular, he claims that while our criterion allow for languages “in which a predicated action word means ‘do Verb’ and the same word in a referring expression means ‘one that Verbs”’ – a pattern attested in a number of languages – it also allows for languages “in which a predicated action word means ‘be one that Verbs’ and the same word in a referring expression means ‘the act of Verbing”’ – an unattested pattern. He goes on to give plausible typological reasons why this pattern should never be found. Is the failure to tighten up our formulation so as to rule this out a mistake? We do not believe it is. The goal of our paper was not to test universal claims, but to formulate rules for the description of individual languages, which can then be fed into the crosslinguistic data base over which universals are tested. If the principles used in constructing individual descriptions would prevent us from recognizing such a language, then the lack of its attestation has no typological significance: it merely follows (quasi analytically) from our descriptive procedure. On the other hand, if the rules of argumentation do not themselves exclude that one could produce such a description, but nonetheless no such grammars are found, then we have a significant typological fact in need of explanation. For this reason we would not wish to revise our formulation, and in fact see it as an advantage that it permits the sort of grammar whose lack of attestation Croft notes. To complete this part of our response to Croft we would like to underline our endorsement of the final challenge he lays down to investigate the word classes of Mundari in more detail than we could here. A rigorous statement of constructional meaning for the various constructions we have discussed, and a categorization of an appropriately large number of lexemes for their behaviour and meaning in each of these constructions, and more – rather than just a judg-


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ment of acceptability and meaning as “noun” or “verb” as we have done here – would be a huge advance on the analysis we have presented, though it is no small task. 5.

Conclusion

Linguistics still has a long way to go before we can claim to have a generally applicable set of analytic practices that on the one hand are rigorous enough that evaluating them is not just a matter of personal taste, or of adherence to a particular theoretical school or areal tradition, and on the other are supple enough to capture the full range of diversity found in the world’s languages. Typologists need convergent rules of argumentation at least as much as any other sort of linguist, since otherwise they will never be sure whether the differences in the descriptions of languages they are comparing reflect true differences between the languages themselves, or mere differences in analytical assumptions on the part of their grammarians. Recent years have seen considerable convergence in descriptive and analytic practices, including steps towards a standardized glossing system (since Lehmann 1982) and a unified ontology that must underly it. We have made less progress in standardizing the practices of argumentation,15 yet until we make these explicit we will be left with a situation where what counts as evidence for one linguist will be deemed irrelevant by another. This leaves our field roughly where microbiology was before Koch’s postulates laid down guidelines for how a researcher demonstrates that infection by a microbe causes disease. Because the assumptions that underly argumentation are so numerous, and interact in so many ways, developing a set of convergent rules of argumentation is a huge task for the field. The very different responses of our distinguished commentators show how far we still are from having an agreed set of rules of argumentation within word class typology. Croft accepts our arguments that Mundari does not have just a single major word class, while Hengeveld and Rijkhoff reject them; Croft takes us to task for being too permissive in the semantic shifts we allow lexemes to accrue within constructions (e.g., interactions with aspect) while Hengeveld and Rijkhoff reject the constraints that we require. As so often in linguistics, whether an analysis is considered convincing

15. There have, of course, been periods in linguistics where the need for these has been discussed particularly overtly – the American Structuralist period, for example, and the early phase of generative grammar (as exemplified by the focus on argumentation in Soames & Perlmutter’s (1979) textbook). A renewed interest in generalized rules of argumentation has much to draw on, thanks to this prior work. However, it must now take into account a number of other crucial developments in the field, in particular the integration of semantics, the distribution of domains of interest across different schools (e.g., polysemy and figures of speech to so-called cognitive linguistics), and our vastly increased knowledge of the world’s languages.


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depends on the assumptions one brings to its evaluation, and we will not have generally acceptable principles of argumentation until we have agreement on what those assumptions are. We hope that the principles we have outlined, both in the original article and in this response to the thoughtful critiques proposed by our commentators, will help to clarify this process. Received: 19 September 2005 University of Melbourne Revised: 6 October 2005 Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto

Correspondence addresses: (Evans) Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Australia; e-mail: [email protected]; (Osada) Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan; e-mail: [email protected]

References We only give those references not already cited in the main article or the commentaries thereon. Dryer, Matthew (forthcoming). Descriptive theories, explanatory theories and basic linguistic theory. In Felix Ameka, Alan Dench, & Nicholas Evans (eds.), Catching Language: The Standing Challenge of Grammar-writing. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Evans, Nicholas (1995). A Grammar of Kayardild. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Evans, Nicholas & David Wilkins (2000). In the mind’s ear: the semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76: 546–592. — (2003). Culture and structuration in the languages of Australia. Annual Review of Anthropology 32: 13–40. Hopper, Paul & Elizabeth Traugott (1993). Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lehmann, Christian (1982). Directions for interlinear morphemic translations. Folia Linguistica 16: 199–224. Plank, Frans (1984). 24 grundsätzliche Bemerkungen zur Wortarten-Frage. Leuvense Bijdragen 73: 489–520. Soames, Scott & David Perlmutter (1979). Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of English. Berkeley: University of California Press.


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Delocutive verbs, crosslinguistically FRANS PLANK

Abstract Delocutive verbs can be defined as verbs derived from a base X which mean ‘by saying or uttering “X” (to someone) to perform an act which is culturally associated with the meaning or force of X’, where X is a variable ranging over types of things that can be said or uttered – 2nd person pronouns and other terms of address, words for asking and answering questions, formulaic expressions for social acts like greetings, various kinds of expressives, characterizations of speech peculiarities. Although originally identified as such in, and illustrated exclusively from, Indo-European languages by Debrunner (1956) and Benveniste (1958), delocutives are not confined to this family, but show a wide genetic and areal spread. The aim of this paper is to delineate the systematic possibilities for crosslinguistic diversity and for historical change in delocutive formations, and in particular to relate derivational delocutives to equivalent syntactic constructions. In such a wider typological and diachronic view, delocutives are seen not to be cases of ordinary quotation, nor a rare peculiarity at the margins of ordinary word formation, but to be one variation on the theme of complex predicates, instructively bearing on the general question of where verbs can come from. Their closest affinities, synchronic and diachronic, are to predications of existential causation (doing/ making, often found to subsume saying). Keywords: causative, complex predicate, delocutive, derivation, expressive, grammaticalization, quotative, verb, word formation 1.

Elusive delocutives

At a first go and roughly following Albert Debrunner (1956) and Émile Benveniste (1958), who almost simultaneously put them on the crosslinguistic agenda, delocutive verbs can be defined as derived verbs which mean ‘to say




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or utter “X” (to someone)’, where X is a variable for derivational bases ranging over types of things that can be said or uttered.1 Latin s¯al¯ut¯are is an example, one of Debrunner’s and Benveniste’s own: derived from the salutation s¯al¯us!, originally a wish for a person’s welfare, the meaning of the noun sálús being ‘health’, the verb s¯al¯ut¯are means ‘to say “s¯al¯us!” to someone’, i.e., ‘to wish someone well, greet someone’.2 To also exemplify from English, the verb in In vain he my-lorded his poor father in the sternest manner (Anthony Trollope, The Warden, 1855) is derived from the term of address My Lord, with 1st person possessive pronoun unchanged like in direct speech (*his-lorded), and means ‘to address by using the term “My Lord” ’, thereby to defining the relationship to one’s addressee as a very formal one. Such verbal derivatives had occasionally been noticed before, and had been clearly understood for what they were, in language-particular or family-particular accounts of word formation. This included Debrunner’s own of Ancient Greek (1917), which was the main inspiration for a short paper by Hans Jensen (1950), who deserves special mention as a comparativist predecessor of Debrunner and Benveniste, finding delocutive verbs also in Hungarian and, abundantly, in Arabic. For Germanic, weak verbs (¯o-class) often seemed to Wissmann (1932: 193–196, passim) to lack proper “roots”, and he instead suggested expressive interjections as the original bases (e.g., Old English wanian, Old High German weinon, Old Norse veina ‘to wail, weep’ < ‘to utter “va/wê/vei”’, 1932: 156–157). Though not limited to one particular language or another, the coverage of Debrunner’s and Benveniste’s eye-opening presentations was confined to IndoEuropean, encompassing ancient and also modern members of that family. Little work has been done since to place delocutive verbs in a wider crosslinguistic perspective. They have here and there been noticed elsewhere too, undermining the impression that they might be a specifically Indo-European possession; but synoptic connections remain to be made. My aim in this paper is not to comprehensively survey the language families or areas of the world as to whether they know or do not know delocutive verbs or also other grammaticalized delocutive formations. This could not be done reliably under present circumstances, given that the category has only been 1. Probably because it was also being used for other kinds of phenomena in language and thought, Debrunner’s term “Hypostasierung” proved less successful than Benveniste’s more specific “délocutif”. 2. The straightforward delocutive interpretation of this particular example, like that of many an other from the Classical languages, has sometimes been contested. For Mignot (1981), s¯al¯us! is a “locution fantôme”, with s¯alu¯e!, the imperative of the corresponding verb ‘to be well’, having been the real greeting formula among the Romans; he assumes that s¯al¯ut¯are was a plain denominal verb, whose derivation, however, will have owed something to the verbal greeting formula.


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distinctly recognized some fifty years ago in a few Indo-European manifestations and is very likely to have gone unnoticed, or unrecognized for what it is, in descriptions of other languages that also have it. A case in point is Dyirbal (Pama-Nyungan, Australian), whose only grammar overlooked them, despite an extensive chapter on derivational morphology; for this language, this oversight subsequently happened to be remedied by that grammar’s own author (Dixon 1977). Again, in the five volumes so far of the Handbook of Australian Languages (edited by R. M. W. Dixon & Barry J. Blake, 1979-2000), delocutive verbs are only mentioned for a single language: Djapu (a Yolngu dialect of northeast Arnhem Land; Morphy 1983: 113–114). Likewise alerted by Dixon (1977), Crowley (1978: 85–86), Donaldson (1980: 80, 238, 242), Austin (1981: 167), Goddard (1985: 219–223), Wordick (1982: 88), and Dench (1995: 160) also find them in Bandjalung (also on the South Coast of Queensland), Ngiyambaa (further away in New South Wales), Diyari and Dhirari (South Australia), Yankunytjatjara (Western Desert), and Yinjtjiparnti and Martuthunira (Pilbara, Western Australia) (as summarized in Dixon 2002: 208). Further Australian noticings would not be unexpected. The Lingua Descriptive Studies Questionnaire (Comrie & Smith 1977), otherwise the most complete grammatical checklist on the market, asks for derivational sources of verbs in terms of word or phrase classes (§2.2.2), but does not specifically mention locutions as bases. Accordingly, very few of the grammars in this by now substantial series volunteer delocutive verbs. From those that I was able to check (about two thirds) only three do: those of Greenlandic Eskimo (Fortescue 1984: 328–329, with a cross-reference to the speech-reporting section, §3), Modern Greek (Joseph & Philippaki-Warburton 1987: 221), and Turkish (Kornfilt 1997: 456). There is reason to suspect that this is too meagre a yield, with delocutives going unrecorded, for example, for the Semitic languages in the series. Also attesting to its rather modest renown, few linguistic dictionaries, encyclopedias, surveys, or even handbooks devoted to morphology have an entry delocutive or as little as a mention of the term or some equivalent in the index. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, compiled by a morphologist (Matthews 1997: 90), is a rare exception. Under the circumstances, my aim here is correspondingly modest: by delineating the systematic possibilities for crosslinguistic variation on the theme of delocutive formations and by suggesting some generalizations about them which appear to be borne out by the evidence available, I hope to raise the language-particular descriptive awareness of delocutives and to stimulate further typological research on their embedding in the fabric of lexicon and grammar. Special emphasis will be given (i) to clarifying the semantics (or also pragmatics) of delocutives; (ii) to situating them within the wider domains of quotation, appellation, and sound reproduction; (iii) to identifying the possible


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origins and fates of delocutive forms; (iv) and to distinguishing the parameters along which delocutive formations can vary, in particular with regard to possible kinds of bases, of exponents, and of (morphological or syntactic) constructions. Far from being the rare peculiarity at the margins of ordinary word formation that they have sometimes been misperceived as, in such a wider perspective delocutives are seen to be just one variation, or one family of variations, on the theme of complex predicates, also bearing on the general question of where verbs can come from. Their closest affinities, synchronically transparent or diachronically reconstructible, are to predications of existential causation (to cause something to come into existence: doing/making, which in relevant languages is often found to subsume saying). 2.

Where to expect delocutives

2.1. Beyond Indo-European A first parameter for crosslinguistic variation of course is whether a language has or lacks delocutive formations – as defined initially, following Debrunner’s and Benveniste’s precedent: delocutive expressions taking the form of derived verbs. (They may also take other forms, as will be seen in more detail in Section 8.) Suffice it to say that variability in this respect is hard to rein in. Even languages that are genealogically and areally closely related can differ widely on this count: only compare German, rich in delocutive verbs, and adjacent Dutch (both West Germanic), devoid of them, with the possible exception of a few verbs based on animal cries; or French and (contemporary) Italian (both Romance), with the latter lacking derivational counterparts of delocutive specimens most conspicuous in the former (namely tutoyer, vouvoyer); or Dyirbal, most productively deriving delocutive verbs from animal cries and some other bases, and its northerly North Queensland neighbour, Yidiny (both Pama-Nyungan, a family allegedly rife with diffusion where genealogical subgrouping is tricky), doing nothing of that kind (Dixon 1977: 29). One safe conclusion, however, is that delocutive verbs are not an IndoEuropean phenomenon: while not universal within Indo-European on the one hand, their genetic and areal incidence is on the other hand far wider than that family and the areas that it covers.3 In macro-areal terms, they are definitely at3. Published work specifically devoted to delocutive verbs in particular languages, adding to the factual crosslinguistic basis laid in Debrunner (1956) and Benveniste (1958), includes Büchi (1995) on Gallo-Romance, Dimitrescu (1961) on Romanian, Létoublon (1980) on Greek, Zagar (1988) on Slovene, Hillers (1967) and Tigay (1999) on Hebrew, Bravman (1968) and Larcher (1983, 1985, 2003) on Arabic, Dixon (1977) on Dyirbal, as well as the occasional grammar. I have not been able to consult the M.A. thesis by Niinistö (2001) on Finnish. Other than descriptive grammars my main source of information has been a questionnaire survey: for credits, and identification of languages thus covered, see the Acknowledgements.


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tested in Eurasia, North Africa and the Near East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas, although there are (possibly large) parts of these areas and (possibly many) members of the resident families where they are missing. They are unlikely to be represented in every higher-level family or area worldwide: they are not universal in even this weaker familial or areal sense. For example, Niger-Congo, reluctant to derive verbs in the first place, shows no indication of morphologically deriving delocutives. In general, however, it would be well advised presently not to be too categorical about their total absence from particular families or areas, even when this conclusion seems confirmed by their absence from none-too-slim reference grammars with a section on word formation. 2.2. Free or implicated? As to structural conditions, there probably are none that would be especially conducive or inimical to this particular derivational category, let alone categorically require or prohibit it – cf. German vs. Dutch, French vs. Italian, Dyirbal vs. Yidiny, with no dramatic typological differences among the members of each pair. Nor apparently are there any conspicuous implicata of having or not having delocutive verbs, other than ones relating delocutive to other kinds of derivational morphology, to be mentioned presently. This will disappoint those typologists thriving on implications and seeking to relate just about everything (“tout se tient”) to supposedly major parameters such as basic word order, morphological type, relational alignment, configurationality, pro drop, verb serialization (well, who knows?), preference for iambic or trochaic meter, stress or syllable timing, or having or lacking tones. As there are no minor parameters either that could plausibly be suspected to tip the balance, delocutive verbs probably have to be conceded to be subject to relatively free crosslinguistic variation. They may well be something a language is free to add to its derivational programme at some point of its history, given suitable formal resources that can be exploited for this purpose, and perhaps given suitable models in a language in contact from which a delocutive form or the idea of it could be borrowed. Naturally, if a language does not provide for any sort of verb derivation, delocutive verbs cannot be derived either. Overall, noun derivation is crosslinguistically more common and more productive than verb derivation; and delocutive verbs would, thus, seem to imply large-scale utilization of derivational morphology in the languages that have them. Whenever languages do derive verbs, deriving delocutives will not be a first priority: verbs derived from nouns will primarily be about engaging in the activities that one typically associates with the things denoted by a noun, and verbs derived from verbs or adjectives will primarily be about changes of va-


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lency (including causative and decausative) and of aspect or aktionsart. But then, saying them is the activity that is typically associated with terms of address or abuse, salutations, questioning and answering words, expressives, etc. (see below, Section 4). From this point of view, delocutive verbs are no more unusual (and perhaps not even worth special mention) than straightforward denominal verbs like ‘to hammer’, ‘to fish’, or ‘to Houdini (out of a predicament)’, meaning, basically, to do what one is supposed to do with an instrument such as a hammer, to do what one needs to do to a fish in order to eat it (catch it), or to behave in the extricating manner that Harry Houdini was famous for. To hint at another typological dimension, though one as yet insufficiently investigated, there are languages with rather few basic verbs, extending their small verbal inventories, not through affixal derivation, but through compounding or syntactic combinations of nouns and perhaps adjectives with a dozen or two of “light” verbs of very general meaning (‘be, have, do, make, let, put, set, hold, get, give, bring, take, show, stand, move, come, go, . . .’): it is in such languages that non-derivational grammaticalizations of delocutivity seem to flourish, among other kinds of complex predicate formation. When Benveniste (1958/1966: 283) asserted: “Ce sont en définitive les resources et la structure de chaque système linguistique qui décident de cette possibilité de dérivation verbale comme de toutes les autres”, what he had in mind merely was that, for any language to have them, there need to be (i) suitable bases and (ii) a lexical need for delocutive verbs. There is a lexical need when relevant meanings want to be expressed in a compact and routine sort of way, rather than compositionally in syntactic constructions, and are not expressed otherwise, that is, through basic verbs or non-delocutively derived verbs. A more fertile consideration for purposes of crosslinguistic or rather crosscultural diversification is how bases qualify as suitable: not just any “locution” does, but only “locutions formulaires”, frequently used and culturally pregnant (Benveniste 1958/ 1966: 279) – and not all cultures might have such salient formulas in equal abundance. 3.

Types and forms of bases

3.1. Base types To elaborate on this parameter of suitable bases, the following types are attested across languages that have delocutive verbs: (i) pronouns of address, distinguished as formal and informal or along similar social or emotional lines; (ii) nouns of (abusive and other) address, including titles, epithets, (core) kin terms, and proper names;4 4. More marginal possibilities under the headings (i) and (ii) are self- and also other-referring


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(iii) words or phrases specialized for performing complementary dialogic speechacts, in particular: (a) words for answering yes/no questions and also for responding to commands (‘yes’, ‘no’, also ‘perhaps’ etc.), (b) words for asking questions (i.e., interrogative pronouns), (c) words for reacting to assertions (e.g., ‘but’, ‘okay’, ‘uh-huh’, ‘oh’); (iv) expressions for performing routine social acts, such as greeting, wellwishing, thanking, warning, permitting and forbidding, supplicating, swearing, cursing, chanting, getting someone’s attention, and maintaining contact between speaker and addressee (on either side) – which formally can be nouns or noun phrases in appropriate case forms, such as nominative, accusative, or vocative, or verbs or verb phrases in imperative or optative or similar mood forms, or special calling forms, or even full clauses; (v) expressives: (a) sound-related interjections or ideophones, (b) conventionalized reproductions of human or animal sounds or calls; (vi) features of pronunciation characteristic of dialectal or other linguistic varieties or of individual speech peculiarities, including fillers for the pauses when one’s speech is halting. With the exception of (vi), essentially all these types of bases figured in Benveniste’s study (1958), in one example or another. The focus of Debrunner (1956) had been on social-act delocutives (iv), but he too exemplified most other types at least in passing. This is possibly a closed list, then, comprising what arguably are the most salient types of “locutions formulaires” across languages or rather cultures. To illustrate these base types from a single language, German (with a little help from Russian), so far as possible with examples which are not especially far-fetched and which demonstrate the two morphological exponents used for this purpose in this language (suffix -z and zero derivation):5 (i)

jemand-en du-z-en / someone-acc.sg “du”.nom.sg-deloc-inf / sie-z-en “Sie”.nom.sg-deloc-inf

expressions. Pronouns of 1st person and names of speakers/writers themselves have been mentioned as bases of delocutive verbs; but these are probably nonce formations. When there are honorific distinctions for 3rd person pronouns, these forms could conceivably also serve as delocutive bases. 5. In a fairly comprehensive contemporary descriptive survey of German word formation such as Fleischer & Barz (1992), it is mentioned in passing (pp. 351–352, less than eight lines) that word classes such as interjections, personal pronouns, and answering particles can marginally serve as bases of derived verbs, but without noting the essence of delocutivity.


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Frans Plank ‘to say “thou”/“you” to someone’ (informal/formal personal pronoun of 2nd person singular)

(ii)

jemand-en ver-hund-z-en [orthographically: verhunzen] someone-acc.sg prefix-“Hund”-deloc-inf ‘to say “dog” to someone’ (literal old meaning), more generally, ‘to speak depreciatingly of someone/something’ (with further semantic changes yielding ‘to treat someone/something depreciatingly’ and eventually ‘to spoil something by doing a poor job on it’)

(iii)

(a) die Frage be-jah-en / ver-nein-en the question prefix-“ja”-inf / prefix-“nein”-inf ‘to answer “yes”/“no” to a question’ (b) unattested in German; illustrated from Russian (Jensen 1950: 131): kudy-k-a-t’ < kuda ty-k-a-t’ “where you?”-deloc-theme-inf ‘to go about uselessly asking people “where are you [going]?”’6 (c) Old/Middle High German aber-(e)n ‘to say “aber”’ (= ‘again, but’), i.e., ‘to repeat, to harp upon something, be argumentative and vituperative’

(iv)

jemand-en willkommn-en someone-acc.sg “willkommen”-inf ‘to welcome someone by saying “welcome!” ’ (the base is the resultative participle, used with imperative force, of the verb komm-, whose suffix -(e)n is retained in the derivative); jemand-em zu-prost-en someone-dat.sg to-“prost”-inf ‘to say “cheers” to someone (before drinking)’ (a) äch-z-en “ach”-deloc-inf ‘to say “ach!”’, i.e., ‘to give a deep sigh, groan’ (with umlaut of the stem-vowel a possible, but not a regular concomitant of suffix -z) wein-en “weh”-inf

(v)

6. Or also derived directly from kudy ‘where?’, a colloquial or archaic from of kuda. Compare Ancient Greek tí-z-ein ‘to always ask “tí?” [what?]’, i.e., ‘to constantly ask for explanations’ (with delocutive suffix -(i)z, -ein is the infinitive ending; Debrunner 1917: §264).


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(vi)

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‘to utter “weh”’, i.e., ‘to wail (utter a prolonged plaintive inarticulate loud high-pitched cry of pain or grief), to weep’ (with final /n/ and the stem diphthong synchronically unaccounted for) (b) mau(n)-z-en “miau”-deloc-inf ‘to say “miaow”’, i.e., ‘to make pitiable noises, to wail, whine’ (with some stem alterations: suppression of the glide /j/ before the diphthong and addition of stem-final /n/) unattested in German; illustrated from Russian: a-k-a-t’ [a]-deloc-theme-inf ‘to speak a dialect where unstressed /o/ is pronounced as [a]’; togo-k-a-t’ this.gen.sg.masc/neut-deloc-theme-inf ‘to use “togo” a lot, being incapable of fluent speech’ (with this form of the demonstrative serving as a conventional filler; dialectal)

3.2. Base forms In terms of general form classes, these base types instantiate stems or words (including names of linguistic units such as phonemes or allophones, (vi)). In the introductory Latin example, sálút-áre ‘to say “sálús!” to someone’ (type (iv)), although the delocutive verb is (arguably) derived from a salutation rather than from the noun as such used for that purpose, it is the stem form of the noun sálút- that serves as derivational base, not the actual form of the salutation itself, which is nominative singular (sálús).7 Debrunner (1956) attempts to motivate the stem as base form through the fuller greeting formula sálútem tibi dícó ‘I tell/wish you health’, where the noun is an object in the accusative singular. But this is unnecessary since derivation in Latin is generally stem-based, and delocutives are not exceptional in this respect – at least those which are derived from nouns and other kinds of bases regularly participating in derivational morphology.8 This, then, adds a typological dimension to delocutives, insofar as they are implicated in the typology of possible bases in derivational morphology (roots, stems, word-forms, perhaps phrases).

7. And should the 2nd singular imperative sálué! have had an influence (as Mignot 1981 would have it), it is again not that particular inflectional verb form that would have mattered. 8. There are many other examples in Latin, amply (and sometimes controversially) discussed before and after Benveniste and Debrunner, which make the same morphological point. To give an example that is more complex insofar as part of the basic locution is omitted: p¯arenta¯ re ‘to utter the formula “s¯alu¯e, p¯arens!” [greetings, parent!], and thereby make a memorial offering’, where the stem of vocative/nominative singular p¯arens is p¯arent-.


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Formulaic locutions are not formed, and do not become culturally pregnant, on the spur of the moment. Sentences which are formed on the fly, therefore, should not normally occur as bases of delocutive verbs – unless they have acquired the status of set phrases instantiating one of the types distinguished above.9 To give an example, of base type (iv), routine social acts, of what this could conceivably be like: Don’t you ever “How-are-we-feeling-today, sir?” me again, nurse! Again, delocutives would not be expected to be the only kind of derivatives in a language to be able to be clause-based. 3.3. Base type and transitivity Being inherently addressee-oriented, derivatives from base types (i)–(iv) should be more on the transitive side, while (v) and (vi) should primarily yield intransitive delocutives. Nonetheless, transitivity is not strictly predictable from base types alone. For example, a term of address (type (ii)) such as ‘father’ can yield a transitive delocutive with the meaning ‘to address, and hence consider, someone as “father”’, but also an intransitive one with the meaning ‘to call out “father” (possibly with the intention of attracting father’s or someone else’s attention, or to make a memorial offering to a parent)’. Analogously, expressives (type (v)) can form intransitive delocutives meaning ‘to utter “X”’, but also transitive ones, when the meaning is something like ‘to say “X” to someone in order to get her/him to do something’. 3.4. Preferences for and affinities among base types As to interrelations among base types – which adds a further typological dimension, though one not extending beyond delocutivity itself – when a language has delocutive verbs, it may not form them for all six types. Few do, if any, though some Indo-European languages of Europe can get close to being exhaustive. Base types which tend to cluster, co-occurring with each other whenever languages have delocutives, are pronouns/nouns of address (i)/(ii) on the one hand, and speech/social acts (iii)/(iv) on the other, and then these two sets of pairs also like to partner with each other. When seeking a rationale for these affinities, it is found in the addressee-orientation which these four types share. What types (iii) and (iv) share among each other is that, although such bases are not fully articulated propositions syntactically, they have some sort of a propositional value. These types that like to co-occur need not utilize the same formal derivational means, though. This was seen above for German, where answer words (iii) and wishes (iv) take no special verb-derivational suffix (with the former 9. See especially Jensen (1950) on phrasal derivatives of a delocutive kind.


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also taking multi-purpose verbal prefixes be-/ver-), while all other delocutive bases take suffix -z. Similarly, in Finnish, -k suffixes are unique to interjections (e.g., voih-ki- “voih!”-deloc- ‘to groan’), as opposed to the more general t(t) suffixes (e.g., sinu-tt-ele- “thou”-deloc-deloc- ‘to address someone informally’, herro-i-tt-ele- “sir”-pl-deloc-deloc- ‘to call someone “sir” ’). Such non-parallelisms are not so disconcerting as they might seem: the motivation for such formal patterns is a fundamentally different one from that licensing the co-occurrence pattern of types of bases. As suggested by German,10 it is to do with the derivational activity of formal kinds of bases: here a special derivational suffix, -z, is preferably being used for such bases which do not regularly participate in (stem-based) morphological derivation at all, viz. personal pronouns (i) and interjections and animal cries (v), and earlier also answering words (iii).11 Although it is not uncommon to find the same formal means used for delocutives of base types which are not particularly prone to co-occur in delocutive inventories across languages, they can be entirely different too. For example, in Dalabon (Australian; Evans 2000: 144 and p.c.), the suffix -hmû, a general verbalizer also used to derive factitives, derives delocutives from expressives (type (v)), while a specific complex suffix -ngandung (-ngan- ‘my’, dung ‘say, swear’) is used for kin-term bases (type (ii)). Individually, the most common bases for delocutive verbs appear to be nouns of address, and especially of abusive address (ii), on the one hand and animal cries and other expressives (v) on the other; but there is no strict implication between these two types one way or another. Other categories seem less common, though often enough they are part and parcel of a fuller delocutive inventory. Pronouns of address (i) do not make sense as bases of delocutives unless they come in pairs or larger sets in a language, differentiating degrees of formality, politeness, etc.; but many languages lack such differentiations. Greeting, wishing, and similar social phrases do not uncommonly form delocutives (as in Central Alaskan Yup’ik and probably elsewhere in Eskimo-Aleut, Turkish, Arabic and probably their respective relatives), but the incidence of this type (iv), especially when used productively, seems genetically and areally circumscribed. A delocutive verb based on an interrogative pro-noun (iii.b) has been illustrated above from Russian, involving a somewhat complex cultural constellation. More straightforwardly, in those languages (perhaps not many) 10. And as suggested for this language by Ehrismann (1903/04: 220). 11. In Old/Middle High German answer words too used to take suffix -(a/i)zzen (Gothic -atjan), and forms such as ver-nein-z-en ‘to say “no” ’ are attested even later. On the other hand, delocutive verbs are sometimes also zero-derived from pronouns of address in Middle High German and later (Ehrismann 1903/04: 218–220). Delocutives in -z based on nouns (like verhunzen), which are derivationally active, are rare; other denominal delocutives are zero-derived. All of which goes to show that such distributions are fluid and need not be diachronically stable.


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which boast interrogative pro-verbs, these can be delocutive derivations. Tarma Quechua, where a delocutive (or more generally quotative) suffix contrasts with causative and inchoative ones, shows how such delocutive interrogative proverbs differ from (crosslinguistically perhaps more common) non-delocutive ones: ima-ni ‘to “what?”-say’ (i.e., ‘to ask’, like Ancient Greek tí-zein ‘to be always asking’, though with a multi-purpose verbalizing suffix -z), ima-na ‘to what?-do’, ima-ya ‘to what?-become’ (Adelaar 1977: 179). Finally, features of dialectal pronunciation (as in Russian or also Hungarian) are encountered least commonly as bases of delocutive verbs (vi). What should be borne in mind in trying to rank base types by crosslinguistic frequency is the general Benvenistean condition mentioned above: delocutives will not be formed unless there is a lexical need for them. This adds a typological corrective to absolute rankings. If a language already happens to have basic verbs for the sort of meaning that would be expressed by delocutives, there would hardly be an incentive to derive any. For example, having a basic verb for ‘to ask’ would render delocutives based on interrogative pronouns, such as ‘to perform an interrogative speech act by uttering “who/what/where/why . . .?”’ (type (iii.b)), redundant. Presumably, if languages have sizeable vocabularies of basic verbs, verbs for routine speech acts and social acts will be among them, so that these base types ((iii) and (iv)) should not have the highest priority in delocutive derivation. Far less common are basic verbs for terms of address: this is typically what pronouns and nouns are relied on for; and if corresponding verbs are really wanted, they will need to be formed (base types (i) and (ii)). As to a subset of nouns of address, kinship terms, there are certain languages that do express them through basic verbs: see Evans (2000) for the most comprehensive survey to date, covering Iwaidjan (Australian), Iroquoian, Uto-Aztecan, and Yuman (North and Middle American families). What needs to be distinguished in kinship verbs is a variety of meanings or uses: in particular, the core meaning of ‘to be in a given kin relation to someone’ and the delocutive meaning ‘to address someone as a given kin relative’.12 In all relevant languages, kinship verbs appear to be used with this delocutive meaning (and of the families covered, Yuman appears to favour this use and not to have the core “being” meaning at all) – which minimally detracts from the wide crosslinguistic incidence of terms of address as a base type for delocutives 12. Though clearcut in theory, such distinctions may be subtle in practice — as this dialogue from Herman Melville’s Pierre, or the Ambiguities (1852; Bk. V, Ch. iv) illustrates: “My dear sister,” began Pierre. “Sister me not, now, Pierre; — I am thy mother.” The ambiguity here is between addressing someone through a kin term or being (or behaving towards someone) like such a relative.


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(ii).13 4.

Doing things with delocutive words

With the full range of base types illustrated, it is time to reconsider definitional matters and their crosslinguistic implications. Seeking to establish delocutives as a distinct category, Benveniste (1958) had emphasized that these verbs imply the saying rather than the doing of something, distinguishing them from denominal verbal derivatives. Given a semantic characterization such as his, there is the question of whether delocutives are plain quotatives, expressed through bound morphology rather than through independent verbs. If the answer is yes, then delocutives would be crosslinguistically very common indeed, because bound (or clitic) quotative markers are very common. However, it probably ought to be no. Arguably, there is something special about delocutives of the kind considered so far in comparison with ordinary speech reporting. First, the base of a delocutive is not a locution that has been uttered by a particular speaker at a particular place and at a particular time, as is the typically the case with speech reporting: in a sense, it is a type rather than a token. Second, what is “quoted” with delocutives is not a fully articulated proposition expressed in a spontaneously formed sentence, but a locution of types (i)–(vi). Third, delocutive verbs imply the doing of something, the performing of a culturally recognized act, by saying ‘X’, rather than just the saying of ‘X’ itself. For example, to be on informal or formal terms with someone who one addresses by using the respective 2nd person pronoun ‘thou’ or ‘you’ for her/him; to depreciate someone by calling her/him a dog; to answer a question in the affirmative or negative, or more generally to adopt a positive or negative attitude towards a proposition at issue, by the alternative words available for this special purpose; to welcome and be pleased to accept someone (or something) by uttering the conventional phrase of welcome; to signal that one is under pressure by uttering the conventional sigh of pressure; to distinguish oneself by speaking a dialect characterized by a particular feature of pronunciation.14 Rather than resembling plain quotative saying, delocutive semantics 13. In actual fact, while the basic kinship terms are verbal in the other families, in Yuman only some are verbs while others are nouns (Halpern 1942). For the kin nouns, the delocutive uses therefore involve conversion, and such Yuman languages have to be counted among those with derivational delocutives of base type (ii). 14. This general point has been made by de Cornulier (1976) and Anscombre (1979a/b, 1985a/b, also Anscombre et al. 1987), mostly with reference to French. While, on the one hand, Benveniste’s notion of delocutives has thus been conceived of as a rather restrictive one, it has, on the other hand, also been extended in one way or another, especially so as to subsume all performative verbs. Larcher (2003) offers a concise history of this characteristically eloquent French debate.


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is thus more along the lines of telling (i.e., informing) someone that X (a proposition), calling someone or something an X (an epithet), naming someone or something X (a name), where saying also means doing something by uttering the relevant words, rather than just uttering and perhaps quoting them. Now, ordinary “direct” quotation itself does not perforce amount to verbatim quotation, tone of voice and all. Owing to the crucial importance of the doing-by-saying component, making allowances for non-literalness is even more natural for delocutives. For example, even if an act of answering a question in the affirmative is performed by uttering [m."hm] or also by the non-linguistic " ja, it would still be covered act of nodding one’s head, rather than by uttering by the delocutive verb bejahen in German. Ditto for the introductory Latin example s¯al¯ut¯are, where the base of the delocutive verb is the stem s¯al¯ut-, not the nominative singular s¯al¯as that would actually have been uttered (or even the imperative s¯alué). What counts for a delocutive is the communicative force of the base, not its sound or morphological form. Verbs formed from sound-related interjections or expressives and conventionalized reproductions of animal and human sounds or calls (type (v)) have potentially the least performative surplus value of all base types distinguished above: they may simply mean ‘to utter sound/call X’, as per the simple introductory definition, rather than, for example, ‘to imitate the respective animal by uttering (the conventionalized reproduction of) its characteristic call’. But distinctions along this line can be subtle. In examples for (v) like those quoted from German above (äch-z-en, mau(n)z-en), there presumably are semantic nuances above and beyond what can be associated with the base items merely being uttered. This is best seen when comparing them with other verbs derived from expressives by means of a phonologically similar suffix, -s, which are merely sound-reproducing:15 quieks-en ‘to squeal’ (i.e., “quiek” machen ‘to go “quiek” ’), gick-s-en ‘to squeak’, gluck-s-en ‘to gurgle’, knack-s-en ‘to crackle’, knip-s-en ‘to snap’, piep-s-en ‘to chirp’, jap-s-en ‘to gasp’, (nicht) muck-s-en ‘(not) to stir’, plump-s-en ‘to plop’. In Dyirbal, there are a few delocutive verbs from bases for speech and social acts, of types (iii) and (iv), which meet the performative criterion; but most are based on institutionalized renderings of bird calls and the cries of a few further animals, and merely mean to produce these calls (on the part of the respective animals, and possibly also of humans imitating them), and not to do anything special on top of it by doing so (Dixon 1977). On the other hand, in 15. Or also by zero derivation: compare miau-en ‘to miaow’ with mau(n)-z-en ‘to wail, whine’. Although there is some phonological conditioning involved (-s after obstruents), the suffixes -z and -s are no mere phonological variants; the phonological condition itself is significant in distinguishing kinds of expressives.


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McGregor’s (2001) diachronic scenario, delocutive formations from expressive bases in Pama-Nyungan, or also more generally in Australian as a whole, are supposed to have caught on precisely because of their ability to substitute for less expressive “doing” verbs; e.g., ‘he “splash” said/did’ would mean ‘he did an action characteristically producing a splashing noise’, or in less colourful words, ‘he swam’.16 In potentially numerous other languages, however, especially of North and South America and also Australia (e.g., Diyari, according to Austin 1981: 167), Eurasia (e.g., Dutch), and South Asia (e.g., Sanskrit and Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and further modern Indo-Aryan languages; see Hoernle 1879, Deo 2002), the only formations that meet the wider semantic definition of delocutivity have interjections, ideophones, or other sound-reproducing expressives as their bases, and do not imply the doing of something by uttering these locutions other than producing such utterances. What they still share with delocutives in the narrower, “doing” sense is that the locutions verbalized are non-propositional, unlike typically in other quotation. Benveniste himself in fact did not regard verbs derived from expressive bases (type (v)) as delocutive, on the grounds that such bases, unlike those of genuine delocutives, are not proper “signifiants”. Clearly, however, such expressives are not mere “signifiés”, but need to be associated with some kind of conventional meaning in order to license a verbal derivation of the relevant sort. What may be missing, rather, is the doing-by-saying. But, as shown by the German contrasts mentioned above (mau(n)-z-en vs. miau-en etc.), some special doing may be present even with expressive bases. 5.

Face to face

The semantics, or indeed pragmatics, of delocutives could also be conceived of even more narrowly, as also comprising an allocutive component – if this does not come automatically with the “doing” one. What is done by saying ‘X’ would accordingly have to be said directly to the face of the person getting this done to her/him.17 Delocutives from pronouns of address would be the prototypical case, then. On this model, abusing someone by calling him a dog in conversation with someone else would not do to qualify for prototypical delocutivity, and would not license the relevant delocutive formation. However, in languages that have them, no such strict allocutive condition would really seem to be imposed on delocutives from bases other than pronouns of address. 16. Though similar in formative principle, examples like plätschern ‘to produce a noise best rendered by the vocalization “platsch”’, hence ‘to splash about in water, producing this sort of noise’ in German differ in being more or less isolated, rather than to instantiate the prevalent mode of forming verbs in the language. 17. This was a suggestion of Nigel Vincent’s (p.c.).


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What delocutive constructions in this narrower illocutive and perhaps allocutive sense share with ordinary propositional speech reporting is that the ‘X’ that is being uttered, in order to do something (especially to one’s interlocutor), is a conventional linguistic sign or sign combination with a meaning (or a meaning-distinguishing function, such as a phoneme or allophone, see (vi)) and a form; it is not a mere vocal noise. In speech reporting, in recognition of such a distinction, languages frequently employ separate verbs for introducing reproductions of non-linguistic sound (including silent gestures) as opposed to linguistic quotations. They are typically recruited from the store of light verbs, especially those for doing actions (including autolocomotive movements) or making artefacts: cf. German Gott sagte ‘Amen’ vs. Er machte ‘tsk tsk’ (=‘made’); English God said ‘Amen’ vs. He went ‘tsk tsk’. Although it is unusual for bound morphology to be used in this function, there are cases like Tagalog, where the non-linguistic quotation marker is not a verb, but a combination of the perfective form of the actortopic prefix and the actor-topic 3rd singular pronoun (e.g., Nag-‘tsk tsk’ siya ‘he went “tsk tsk”’). But then, in other languages this distinction is found to be neglected, and just one single verb of saying is used for both articulate and inarticulate quotation.18 Commonly this single quotative verb ‘to say’ then also means ‘to do’, which suggests that linguistic and other man-made productions (whether actions or artefacts) are not being strictly distinguished to begin with in such speech communities.19 Now, even in the case of delocutive formations based on interjections or animal sound reproductions etc. (type (v)), these bases are words or phrases of sorts rather than just inarticulate groans or suchlike. Still, here seems to be where the boundary between the quotation of linguistic and non-linguistic sound can easiest become blurred, insofar as expressives, though not inarticulate, tend to be phonologically deviant. And non-linguistic sound products too, no matter how phonologically deviant, are not categorically barred from ever winning approval as conventional signs. A case in point happens to be tsk tsk: in English and many other languages,20 a dental click, [|], represented in spelling

18. This is partly also true for English, where go is encroaching on the articulate territory of say in colloquial varieties of speech reporting. 19. This is also the interpretation of Rumsay (1990) apropos of Ungarinyin and relevant other languages of northwestern Australia with just one verb for quotation, causation, and intention. To my mind implausibly, he takes a Whorfian position, holding grammar (among other parameters, the absence of a distinction between direct and indirect speech) and lexicon (a single “causing” verb) responsible for the minimal valorization of wording as distinct from meaning and acting. 20. Contact David Gil if interested in the areal circumscription.


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by letter combinations such as tsk or tut and not recognized as a phoneme, is the conventional expressive verbal gesture for rebuke, impatience, or contempt – and, when quoted, it almost merits the linguistic quotative verb ‘say’ rather than ‘go’ or ‘make’. Apart from being non-propositional,21 delocutive formations of type (v) are not squarely on the side of linguistic speech reporting in respect of articulation either. In this same respect, delocutive formations at least of base type (v) are also rather close to another species of verbs of sound production, namely mannerof-speaking verbs (to yell, shout, whisper, holler, sigh, shriek, miaow, grunt, croak, . . .).22 Despite their focus on the physical characteristics of the speech act or on the kind of sounds produced, these can in many languages (but not in all) be used for quoting conventional linguistic sound (God hollered ‘Amen’), and thus are in both the articulate and inarticulate camps too. It should not come as a surprise, then, to find special morphology being shared between non-linguistic quotation and/or manner-of-speaking verbs on the one hand and genuinely delocutive verbs on the other. Thus, the delocutive suffix -z in German also shows up in several manner-of-speaking verbs (mostly with no synchronically recognizable morphemic base, or with bases back-formed from the verbs): e.g., kr"ach-z-en ‘to croak’, grun-z-en ‘to grunt’, raun-z-en ‘to runt, reprove, berate’, schluch-z-en ‘to sob’, schnal-z-en ‘to click’. 7.

Kinds of (bound) exponents

To form delocutive verbs, the kinds of exponents used in the main are those which are also available for morphological purposes in general, and which are usually also utilized for other derivational purposes in the relevant languages themselves: (i) affixes or affix combinations: German, Slavonic, Sanskrit, Hindi and elsewhere in modern Indo-Aryan, and elsewhere in Indo-European; Finnish, Estonian, and elsewhere in Uralic; Turkish and probably elsewhere in Altaic; Indonesian, Tukang Besi, and probably elsewhere in Austronesian; 21. Cases such as the dental click, [|], suggest that propositionality is not in fact such a clearcut notion: though typically categorized as an interjection, [|] can be verbalized in the form of a proposition, ‘I hereby register my disapproval or contempt of your or someone else’s behaviour’. Incidentally, the corresponding delocutive verb in English is not only morphologically regular like all derived verbs (She tut-tutted the idea), but is also regularized phonologically, avoiding the click and resorting to a spelling pronunciation [t2t."t2t]. 22. See Zwicky (1971) and Mufwene (1978) on this verb class, with reference to English, though it can similarly be delimited in other languages. Holisky & Kaxadze (1986) describe it for Georgian, a language apparently without accompanying genuine delocutive verb formation, despite a rich quotative morphology.


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Diyari, Ngiyambaa, Dyirbal, Djapu, Dalabon, and elsewhere in Australian; Central Alaskan Yup’ik, Greenlandic, and elsewhere in Eskimo-Aleut; Tarma Quechua and probably elsewhere in Quechuan (ii) (a) affixation combined with a reduplicative template of sorts: French tu-t-oyer from tu ‘thou’, vou-v-oyer from vous ‘you’,‘to address someone informally/formally’23 (b) full reduplication: [Teuto-]Turkish tak-tak-la-h-mak tak-tak-denominal-reciprocal-inf ‘to say [tak] (= German Tag) to each other’;24 Dyirbal in at least one case (c) consonantal gemination: Moroccan Arabic (e.g., kebber ‘to call out “’llahu /akbar”’, omitting ‘God’ and formed from the root k-b-r ‘great’) (iii) zero (i.e., conversion): English, German, Romance, Mwotlap (Oceanic), Chinese, Hopi, Yuman, widespread elsewhere. Conversion is apparently the commonest strategy, especially for delocutive bases which are nouns, and hence are able to participate in regular derivation, while other, derivationally less active base types tend to require greater morphological effort.25 Nonetheless, to generalize from the current evidence, when zero derivation is available in a language for verbalization, forming delocutive verbs will not be the first nor the only use it is put to; it is likelier to be the last, implying the full range of other noun-to-verb conversions. Suffixes of similar shape, featuring an alveolar obstruent, recur with delocutive verbs in several languages of Europe across families, which perhaps points to borrowing: German -z, French -t-oy, Older Italian -zz as in ti-zz-are ‘say “thou”’, Late Latin -s/-z as in tui-s-are and tibi-s-are/tibi-z-are ditto, Greek -iz, Hungarian -z, Finnish -ttA, Estonian -ta. Also, suffixes with a velar consonant recur in Slavonic and Finno-Ugric. Benveniste (1958) had already suggested borrowing (or calquing) as a factor in the crosslinguistic distribution of par23. In the case of informal address, the reduplicative pattern could be coincidental, if the verb were to to be analysed as based on the combination of the conjunct and free forms of the pronouns (tu, toi). Spanish has the reduplicative template (with no such combinatory motivation) only with the pronoun of informal address, tu-t-ear vs. vos-ear. Such reduplicative templates as in Romance are the language-particularly most idiosyncratic kinds of morphology on record for delocutive verbs. 24. But then, reduplication is not the means to form delocutive verbs as such, but of forming adverbs from expressives, which are in turn verbalized by multi-purpose -lA or specifically delocutive -dA (cf. Kornfilt 1997: 456, Lewis 1975: 231). 25. In morphological descriptions of relevant languages, such zero-derived delocutive verbs have sometimes been accounted for adequately even before Debrunner (1956) and Benveniste (1958); for English, for example, in great detail in Biese (1941), where they are called “quotation-word formations”.


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ticular delocutive types or tokens. It remains to be seen whether delocutive formation shows significantly stronger areal than genealogical patterns on a worldwide scale. 8.

Bound or free (within limits)?

Delocutives belong with derivational, verb-forming morphology – when defined as at the outset, following Debrunner and Benveniste, and as refined subsequently, crediting delocutives with special illocutive and perhaps allocutive semantics differing from that of general quotatives. However, bound morphology is not the only possible manifestation of delocutivity, as has already been adumbrated on several occasions above: it may equally well be non-bound, taking the form of independent delocutive verbs (or other non-bound marking devices). Within Indo-European, Italian is prominent for such lexical expressions for delocutives for pronouns and nouns of address and for certain routine social acts (base types (i), (ii), and (iv)), productively using ‘to give’ rather than the linguistic quotative verb ‘to say’ (dire) for this special purpose: dare del tu/cretino a qualcuno ‘to give someone of the “thou”/“fool”’, dare la buonanotte a qualcuno ‘to give someone the “good night”’. While dare is not a (light) verb dedicated to delocution, as a verb of transfer it is especially well suited to addressee-oriented delocutive purposes.26 The use of the preposition di (plus definite article) for the patient (here the ‘X’ said) is rather special: it is unexpected for literal or metaphorical transfer constructions with dare, and it also distinguishes delocutive transfers of types (i) and (ii) from those of type (iv). Di fused with definite article is also the partitive article in Italian, and it is probably through this unusual use of the partitive article that at least some delocutive constructions distinguish themselves from other transfer constructions. Outside Indo-European, Turkish uses the same verb for quoting linguistic and non-linguistic sound (de- ‘to say, utter’), and in a non-productive gerundial (or converbial) form also puts it to delocutive uses (evet di-ye cevap verdi “yes” say-ing answer (s)he-gave ‘(s)he answered “yes”’, kus pır di-ye uçtu bird “pirr” say-ing flew ‘the bird flew going “pirr”’; Lewis 1975: 175, and Geoffrey Haig, p.c.). In Pama-Nyungan and generally in Australian, a verb ma ‘say, do, put, cause’, similarly non-distinctive between linguistic and non-linguistic quotation, is widespread in compound verb constructions (McGregor 2001, 2002: 26. Similarly, though focusing on a phase preparatory to actual transfer, German uses anbieten ‘to offer’ with the pronoun of informal address: jemandem das Du anbieten ‘to offer someone to use “thou” for mutual address’. English to bid, as in to bid someone welcome, is similarly motivated, drawing on the old meaning ‘to offer’ (rather than ‘to command’). However, unlike Italian dare, these verbs are being used in perfectly straightforward syntactic constructions in German and English, with no specifically delocutive features.


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144–145).27 In Lahu (Tibeto-Burman), a verb of non-linguistic quotation likewise combines with expressives in tight syntactic construction, while elsehwere in Southeast Asia expressives tend not to be subject to such a co-occurrence limitation specifically to quotative verbs (Watson 2001: 392). In North and South American families such as Iroquois, Yuman, Muskogean, Penutian, UtoAztecan, Carib, and Quechuan, it is also the regular verb ‘to say’ (sometimes, however, also meaning ‘to do’) which combines with expressives, themselves being phonologically deviant and often showing reduplication, as the only type of delocutive base permissible; the ‘say’ verbs themselves tend to be reduced in stress and segmental substance, and the syntax of such expressive constructions is not quite like that of regular speech reporting.28 Although Sub-Saharan Africa and Ethiopia have sometimes been singled out as areal centres of such practice,29 it is in fact common almost without any areal and genealogical limitations for ideophones and similar expressives either to be able to be used as verbs directly or to be verbalized with the help of ‘to say’, or of a verb for both saying and doing, or also of other light verbs for sound reproduction, in colloquial if not always formal speech.30 However, in such constructions with a ‘saying(/doing)’ verb, the only nonpropositional base type permissible tends to be expressives (and their range may well extend beyond the sphere of sound into those of sight and motion), and the performative surplus value of delocutive verbs in a narrower sense is also missing. When a language has genuinely bound delocutive morphology, such less succinct “periphrases” by means of ‘saying(/doing)’ and suitable other verbs seem to be avoided, although they are not strictly preempted. Thus, in German, the verbs that can be used for this same purpose are linguistic and (for expressives) perhaps also non-linguistic quotative and appellative ones: e.g., ‘du’ zu jemandem sagen ‘to say “thou” to someone’, jemanden einen Hund nennen/heißen/rufen ‘to call someone a dog’, jemanden als Hund bezeichnen ‘to designate someone as a dog’, jemanden ‘Bodo’ taufen ‘to name someone “Bodo”’, jemanden willkommen heissen ‘to bid someone welcome’, miau 27. In fact, we may be dealing with a couple of rather similar looking verbs here, which then get conflated in some languages (Nick Evans, p.c.). Supporting this assumption of a conflation rather than original identity, Nyikina (a Nyulnyulan language) has both ma ‘put’ and ma ‘say’, but they belong to different conjugations (Claire Bowern, p.c.). 28. See, e.g., Langdon (1977), Mithun (1982), Munro (1998, with further references for North America); Derbyshire (1979: 80, 82, 190–191), Nuckolls (2001). 29. See recently Appleyard (2001), Cohen, Simeone-Senelle, & Vanhove (2002), and G"uldemann (2002), covering Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan. 30. See the by now vast literature on the syntax of ideophones/expressives, including many contributions in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz (2001); also Langdon (1994), adding Guaraní. Outside the traditionally recognized ideophone/expressive areas, such verbal constructions tend to get short shrift in descriptive grammars.


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machen ‘to miaow’. In Latvian (Baltic, Indo-European), where the pronoun of formal address (2nd person plural) can be straightforwardly verbalized (ju:s-ot, with verbs in -ot being the most productive conjugation), the verb of addressing has to be used periphrastically with the pronoun of informal address (2nd singular, uzruna:t uz tu ‘to address by “you”’, with a nominative form after the preposition, rather than the usual genitive or accusative), since its verbalization would be phonologically non-optimal (*tu-ot). Now, although just about any language can presumably find ways and means of exploiting quotative or appellative verbs or suitable other light verbs for delocutive purposes, for potentially the entire range of base types, delocutivity cannot be considered grammaticalized unless there is something special about the syntactic or morphological constructions of such verbs, differing from the normal syntax of direct quotation, in particular of whole propositions. Bound morphology is the tightest form of its grammaticalization. But it can also be grammaticalized, at least incipiently, in syntactic form, as it is in Italian (dare di) and in many languages with expressive ‘say(/do)’ constructions, whenever delocutive syntax is special in one way or another. Still, even in incipient form, delocutivity is not grammaticalized universally. In Iroquois, for example, constructions of ‘say’ with expressives as objects do not seem to differ from ordinary propositional quotative constructions in the slightest. Especially for base types (ii), including proper names, titles, and epithets, many languages have a rich lexical stock of appellative verbs: e.g., ‘to name/christen/term/dub/title someone/something “X” ’, ‘to be named “X” ’, ‘to call/designate someone/ something (as) “X” ’,31 ‘to address/announce someone as “X” ’. Often these appellative verbs are somewhat marginal in their syntactic constructions, insofar as they may, for instance, govern two accusatives, or an accusative and a nominative or vocative, in languages where ditransitive verbs more commonly take one object in the accusative and the other in the dative. Nonetheless, when such syntactic peculiarities are not specifically delocutive, as they are in the case of Italian dare (requiring a partitive article) and its kind, there are no grounds to consider such verbs as even incipiently grammaticalized manifestations of the notional category of delocutivity. 9.

Origins

It will disappoint those who expect all bound morphology to have come about through univerbation, and are hopeful to be able to identify the original sources, that it is rather rare for delocutive affixes to be transparently related to the

31. Which is often hard to distinguish, or indeed indistinguishable, from verbs of existential causation (‘to make someone/something an X’) – a connection also found with grammaticalized delocutives, see below, Section 11.


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obvious lexical sources, namely verbs of quotation, linguistic or non-linguistic, specifically delocutive or otherwise (‘say’, ‘tell’, also ‘ask’, ‘do/make’, ‘go’, etc.), verbs of appellation (‘name’, ‘call’, etc.), or verbs of transfer, material or communicative (‘give’, ‘offer’, etc.). This is especially remarkable when there is reason to assume, as there frequently is, that delocutive, or delocutively used, morphology is of relatively recent origin, not inherited as such from a protolanguage. For Turkish, among the languages considered, there is what could seem to be a remarkably close similarity between the delocutive suffix -dA, used with expressives and genuinely a suffix (undergoing vowel harmony), and the verb ‘say’ (de-) or its fossilized gerundial form di-ye. Still, this is hardly a straightforward case of univerbation – if there is any diachronic connection between the verb and the suffix at all. First, in forming delocutives -dA competes with the general-purpose verbalizing suffix -lA in Turkish, and their distribution is not only determined by base types, but also phonologically (Lewis 1975: 228, Kornfilt 1997: 456). This could suggest that the consonant of -dA is an innovation, which seems confirmed by other Turkic languages having a suffix -rA in similar function (Räsänen 1957: 167, 253); also, in corresponding nominalizations of such delocutive verbs in Turkish itself, -dA changes to -dI/-tI (Lewis 1975: 231). Second, in other Turkic languages and elsewhere in Altaic, suffixes presumably cognate with Turkish -dA serve a much wider range of functions, including causative, inchoative, intensive, and iterative (Räsänen 1957: 145– 146, 155-156, Menges 1968: 161–163); and it is not obvious which of these functions is diachronically primary. It has indeed been suggested that the lexical source of such suffixes, including those forming delocutive verbs from expressives, might be a verb ‘to do, make’ (Räsänen 1957: 253) – which would include Turkic among those families not drawing a sharp lexical line between saying and doing. For Hindi-Urdu and other modern Indo-Aryan languages with expressivebased delocutive verbs formed with a suffix (sometimes classified as “disyllabic roots” owing to the supposed lack of productivity of the suffix), such as Hindi jhaTak ‘to make the sound jhaTat’, a good case can be made for tracing the suffix to a light verb kr- in Sanskrit (Hoernle 1879, Deo 2002). But then this source verb was not specifically quotative, but also meant ‘do/make’ and generally served to verbalize non-verbs; and this general-purpose status was retained when the light verb was turned into a suffix, combining delocutive with, among others, causative function. Other areas where approximations to univerbation of quotative verbs with the expressions uttered in delocutive acts have been observed are Northeast and Southern Africa and Australia. The results of such fusions, however, more often seem to be complex predicates or tightly structured light verb constructions or possibly also compounds, rather than genuinely morphological words with the


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quotative verbs reduced to genuine affixes.32 Of those languages examined, it is possibly in the Australian family that an affixal status of saying verbs seems best justified, as exemplified by -ma in Yankunytjatjara or (-ngan)-dung in Dalabon (used with kin bases only). Wherever delocutive expression is genuinely morphological rather than syntactic, the re-analysis of existing non-delocutive morphology, or rather its reuse for yet another purpose, with the earlier functions continuing to be catered for, is a diachronic scenario far commoner than univerbation – at least as far as the not-too-distant, safely reconstructible past is concerned. 10.

Once a delocutive . . .

As a category, grammaticalized delocutivity is subject to change. It can be innovated, extended from one base type to another, reduced in its extension, and lost (or fall dormant; see below). With the category as such unaffected, individual delocutive formations can change too; in particular, they can cease to be delocutive. In the narrow sense, delocutive verbs imply some special doing-by-saying. There are occasional examples where the saying component has as much as vanished, such as Swiss German dervo-siech-e away-“Siech”-inf ‘to run away’, originally motivated by the shouting of the term of abuse Siech ‘leper’ at those from whom one is running away (Debrunner 1956). Equally, few speakers of German today, when doing what the verb verhunzen designates, namely, to spoil something by doing a poor job on it, would even remotely associate the action with the utterance of the noun Hund (nor with the notion of ‘dog’ to begin with). In a way, this sort of change is reminiscent of ‘say’ constructions with expressives in Australian and African languages (and perhaps elsewhere) where the action denoted is not really one of speaking but of doing, and where a semantic development from ‘saying’ via ‘saying and/or doing’ to ‘doing’ seems more plausible than the reverse. Exemplifying a different kind of development with the saying component remaining intact, there are many instances of verbs on record in Indo-European ceasing to be delocutive through the increasing opacity or loss of the base word, as in German weinen ‘to wail, weep’, whose relation to expressive (o) weh is no longer transparent, or in French crier, Italian gridare ‘to shout’ from Latin quir¯ıt¯are ‘to shout “Quir¯ıt¯es!”’, i.e., to call out to fellow citizens to come to one’s help (in the collections of both Debrunner and Benveniste). Perhaps expressive-based formations are most resistant to their delocutive quality vanishing in some such manner. On the contrary, manner-of-speaking

32. See McGregor (2001, 2002: 139–145) for Pama-Nyungan, and Güldemann (2002) for Northeast Africa.


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verbs that are not really transparently derived may inspire the “hypostasis” of an expressive as their base (as illustrated by German examples such as krächz!, grunz!, re-formed from verbs like those mentioned in Section 6). 11.

Dedication

Whatever means are used for grammaticalized delocutive formations, once they have come into and while they are in existence, they are virtually never dedicated to just this single purpose.33 (And it would be an interesting question just how peculiar they are in this respect: Which forms or constructions, once grammaticalized, are determinedly single-minded?) If it is verbs in not-quite-ordinary syntactic constructions, these will be ordinary verbs of propositional speech reporting or probably also appellation, light verbs for non-linguistic quotation, light verbs not differentiating saying and doing/making, or other light verbs of suitable semantics, such as verbs of transfer (‘give’). It is in the nature of light verbs to be eminently multi-functional, and ‘to say(/do)’ is of kindred spirit.34 No specifically delocutive verbs appear to be attested in such constructions. Bound delocutive morphology is most commonly (i) general-purpose morphology to derive verbs, including in particular through plain conversion (Ancient Greek, Latin, Latvian, German, Hungarian, Turkish, Arabic, Malay/ Indonesian, Tukang Besi, Dyirbal, Dalabon, Yuman); or it is (ii) verb-deriving morphology subserving several functions, including in particular ones relating to (a) aspect or aktionsart (such as iterative, frequentative, habituative, or momentative: e.g., German, Hungarian, Finnish, Slavonic), (b) intensification (e.g., German), (c) causative or specifically existential-causative (Dyirbal, Diyari, Dalabon, other Australian, Chinese, Modern Indo-Aryan) or causative plus frequentative (Finnic), (d) transitivity, with an emphasis on the change of state or location of the object (as with preverbs such as be-/ver- in German or le- ‘down’ in Hungarian, as in le-szamar-az ‘to call someone “ass” ’), and (e) non-linguistic and perhaps also propositional linguistic quotation (Slavonic, Turkish, Central Alaskan Yup’ik, Tarma Quechua). To the extent that this can be reliably determined, delocutive functions are always diachronically secondary in such functional combinations. There is a common semantic denominator between (existential-)causative and perhaps general transitive verb-deriving morphology on the one hand and 33. This impression, gained from some of the older Indo-European languages (Greek, Latin, Sanskrit), made Darms (1980: 206) wonder whether Benveniste’s “delocutive” was a valid category at all. 34. What ‘say’ can be or become is listed, for example, in von Roncador (1988: 29, passim), with further references, and its grammaticalization paths are now also summarized in Heine & Kuteva (2002: 261–279).


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(light) verbs of making/doing on the other, themselves a common source of bound causatives or transitivizers: delocutive formations expressed by such means seem to conceptualize what is said to perform the act in question as a sort of effected object. As to the other major functional affinity (and indeed formal affinity too, concerning the fondness for reduplication and other doubling), the link from the attested aspectual or aktionsart and related functions (such as iterative, frequentative, intensive) to delocutivity is arguably via typical semantic nuances of verbs of sound (re-)production: these are among those verb classes (along with movement verbs) where such qualitative and quantitative differentiations (repetition, intensity) are most relevant.35 There are of course many parallels to delocutives insofar as derivational morphology and light-verb periphrasis are in competition (e.g., causatives, just mentioned as one category providing delocutive exponents). In a way the most striking parallel is the nativization of borrowed verbs: for purposes of loan-verb adaptation the same formal means may be utilized, in particular verbs of saying in periphrastic construction (cf. Muysken 2000: 197, passim); and it remains to be seen whether bound morphology too can be specifically shared between delocutive formations and verb nativization, and which of these two functions is diachronically primary. On current evidence, as a lone, and correspondingly implausible, possible candidate for (synchronically) dedicated delocutive morphology remains the suffix -kV, -gV in Finnish and Estonian, forming verbs from interjections, unaccountably similar to a stem extension of nouns but not relatable to any of the recognized delocutive source or partner categories.36 And there is the suffix -dA in Turkish, doing nothing else but forming delocutive verbs from (reduplicated) expressive bases, in competition with the general verbalizing suffix -lA (to which it is possibly phonologically related) and the fossilized gerund di-ye ‘saying’ (to which it might conceivably be diachronically related). But then, -dA has cognates elsewhere in the family with the customary wider range of functions, including causative, inchoative, intensive, and iterative (see above), which somewhat relativizes its delocutive dedication.

35. The German -z suffix, although subsequently supported through the association with mannerof-speaking verbs, was originally presumably a general-purpose verb-deriving suffix with no particular semantic specialization, as also found in other Indo-European languages (among others in delocutive use). 36. In Hakulinen (1957: 217–218), quite a number of verbs are listed under the heading of the reflexive/translative/passive suffix -(p)u-/-(p)y- which could be delocutive and which seem to have a /k/ preceding the putative suffix in /p/-less form; but no analysis is provided. Delocutive verbs identified as such are listed under the causative/instrumental suffix -tta-/-ttä- (1957: 222); the analysis of -tt- as deriving from -kt- is considered questionable.


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It has sometimes been suggested that delocutive formation in general is not regular but marginal or even extragrammatical (or also metagrammatical) morphology. For Debrunner, one of the delocutive pioneers, “solche kühne Bildungen [stehen] am Rand oder jenseits der ‘normalen’ Wortbildung” (1956: 113; see also the title of Debrunner 1946). By contrast, Benveniste seemed more concerned to claim delocutive verbs for ordinary morphology. Expressive and other extragrammatical morphology, not necessarily subject to the general constraints on plain morphology, has been attributed characteristics such as (i) producing special pragmatic effects, (ii) requiring conscious reflection of the playful or intentionally creative word-smith, (iii) being promiscuous with regard to base and also derived categories, (iv) being applicable to all sorts of base material rather than just regular stems or words, (v) producing words not obeying the regular rules of syntax, and (vi) showing considerable variation from speaker to speaker (cf. Zwicky & Pullum 1987, Dressler 2000). On virtually all of these counts, delocutive morphology is plain rather than expressive, even with bases of the type of (existing) expressives. Delocutive derivation can admittedly be somewhat promiscuous as to the word class of bases, depending on how many of the six base types of Section 3.1 it is licensed by; but this is arguably true for much regular derivational morphology too (Plank 1981: 43–65). Also, as with ordinary multiple-based derivation, sometimes delocutive derivation does take different form depending on the base type (cf. -z/-s/-Ø in German). And, as seen above (Section 3.2), delocutive verbs do take bases of the right formal kind, in line with the root, stem-, or word-basedness of other derivational morphology in the language concerned. Admittedly, bases can be of dubious wordhood, when less articulate noises can be turned into delocutive verbs. Still, delocutive verb formation even from such bases as animal calls is subject to a general constraint on ordinary morphology, namely that of blocking by synonyms – as for example in Dyirbal, when gugu-mba-y, from the kookaburra’s call gúgúgúgú. . ., is blocked by the verb miyanda-y ‘to laugh’, deemed appropriate to describe just that sound typically produced by kookaburras (Dixon 1977, Plank 1981: 175). The rare base type (vi), attested in Russian and Hungarian, verbalizing features of pronunciation characteristic of dialectal or other linguistic varieties, may well require more metalinguistic ingenuity than most everyday morphology does. Nonetheless, such delocutives are morphologically just as active and morphologically and syntactically as regular as any other derivatives of Russian, undergoing for instance further aspectual derivation: e.g., za-a-ka-t’ inceptive-a-deloc-theme-inf ‘to take up the a-for-o pronunciation, to begin speaking in the a-for-o dialect’.


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Lack of or limitations on productivity do not necessarily set apart expressive from plain morphology, either. In the case of delocutive verbs, at any rate, their relative scarcity in languages that can in principle form them would seem to follow from the scarcity of suitable bases – which have to be culturally salient doings-by-saying, “locutions formulaires”, “formules prégnantes” rather than just “locutions”. And as the turnover of such bases cannot be expected to be rapid, once a supply of delocutive verbs has been formed, and has been lexicalized as permanently useful possessions (in the process perhaps acquiring formal and semantic idiosyncrasies), the occasions for replenishing it will remain correspondingly limited. Forming a new item once in a while – by ordinary morphological means which, however, are exercised but little – may then give the impression of being out of the ordinary, playful, creative. Real nonce formations would be those derived from a type of base not licensed in the language concerned, on the analogy of a permissible base type. When delocutives are expressed through light verbs in special syntactic or perhaps also morphological construction with suitable base items, there can be no question of “specially delocutive” meaning extragrammatical: they are just one kind of complex predicate formation, often hardly distinguished from others. But then, there is a larger question here, whether delocutives are expressed morphologically or syntactically, and this is about the status of quotation as such. Quoting has been argued by Clark & Gerrig (1990) to be a kind of nonserious, “demonstrating” action – which is to selectively depict rather than to seriously describe the real thing. In that general sense only, delocution is playful too.37 13.

More delocutives

Though arguably most prominent among their kind, delocutive verbs are not the only kind of derivatives that can be analysed as delocutive. Adverbs can equally be derived from locutions. Thus, the adverb in a French example like Ça sent diable-ment mauvais ‘it stinks devil-ishly badly’, formally derived from a noun, only makes sense when related to an introductory utterance of this noun (Diable! Ça sent mauvais), called forth by the extreme degree to which the state of affairs holds which the following sentence describes (Anscombre 1979, Conte 1984, Fradin & Kerleroux 2002). Disregarding nominalizations of delocutive verbs, nouns themselves can also be based on locutions (Littmann 1916, Debrunner 1958, Chambon 1989 etc.,

37. Apparently unaware of delocutive verbs as an established category, Clark & Gerrig (1990: 772–773) in fact adduce English delocutive examples in support of their theory of quotationas-demonstration.


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Swiggers 1989, Hagège 1993: 15–18). English damn, as in I don’t give a damn, is a zero-derived delocutive noun, referring to the act of saying Damn!. Perhaps most common are delocutive names, titles, and other terms of address especially of persons and foreign peoples; to exemplify: monsieur and madame and its equivalents elsewhere, though not everywhere reanalysed as common nouns as completely as in French (at least the male form: cf. ce monsieur ‘this [person addressed as] my-sir’); French Depardieu, an oath meaning ‘God-damn!’, hence the epithet and eventually name of a person prone to utter this swear word; Portuguese camone, jocularly referring to the English, based on what they would tell you or each other, come on!; Italian Benvenuto, derived from the welcoming wish (in participial form) ben venuto! ‘[be] well arrived!’.38 In examples like Frisian omke-sizzer ‘cousin/nephew’, literally ‘uncle-sayer’, beppe-sizzer ‘grandchild’, literally ‘grandma-sayer’, etc.,39 where a kin relation is denoted through the kin term that is the term of address prototypically used by (not for!) that (little) person, the delocutive component is explicitly verbalized in the second part of the compounds; but this is regular compounding, with nothing specifically delocutive about it. In comparison, there is “inverse” address, as not uncommonly practised in the Balkans and elsewhere in Europe, the Caucasus, the Near East, and probably beyond, where a speaker addresses an addressee (typically younger or female) as the addressee would address the speaker,40 which could be seen as nominal delocutivity grammaticalized. When, for example, a grandmother addresses her grandchild as ‘grandmother’ (in diminutive or hypocoristic form), on this interpretation ‘you, little grandmother’ would be short for ‘you who address me as grandmother’, rather than, as has been suggested, being a mere echoing of the addressee’s own words, baby-talk-style, or elliptic for something along the lines of ‘you, grandmother[’s little one]’. Extending beyond nouns on their own, whole noun phrase constructions consisting of a possessive determiner and a noun for core kin relations and certain deferential titles have been argued to be delocutive in Italian (and other Romance languages or dialects with clitic possessives), in order to explain why they are lacking the definite article, which obligatorily accompanies prenominal possessives with other nouns (Hölker 1998, elaborating on earlier accounts which had article omission licensed by vocative or proper-name-like uses of such nouns): (*la) mia madre ‘(*the) my mother’ or (*la) Sua Altezza ‘(*the) Her Highness’ would accordingly be short for ‘the person that I address as madre’, ‘the person that s/he addresses as Altezza’, with the the respective 38. By contrast, French Benveniste is probably not delocutive, being derived from the 2nd person indicative assertion bene venisti(s) ‘you (sg/pl) have arrived well’ (Debrunner 1956: 122). 39. Brought to my attention by the late Helma van den Berg. 40. Among many others, see Renzi (1968) and Sgroi (1981).


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nouns used as terms of address lacking the definite article too. But these are only hints; delocutive adverbs and nouns and noun phrases,41 as such and in their possible correlations with delocutive verb formations, remain to be surveyed from a crosslinguistic angle. Received: 19 January 2004 Revised: 4 August 2005

Universität Konstanz

Correspondence address: Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany; e-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgements: This paper, though indebted to books as usual (mostly grammar books), could not have been written from books alone. Grateful acknowledgement is made, therefore, of the many knowledgeable correspondents responding to a questionnaire about delocutives, especially their base types, sent around on the LINGTYP list in the summer of 2002: Henning Andersen (Russian and other Slavonic languages), Peter Austin (Diyari), Walter Bisang (Chinese), Denis Creissels (Hungarian, Niger-Congo), Mark Donohue (Indonesian, Tukang Besi), Alex François (Mwotlap), Zygmunt Frajzyngier (Polish, Amharic, Kanuri), David Gil (Malay/Indonesian dialects, Tagalog), Gideon Goldenberg (Semitic, especially Arabic and Hebrew, Cushitic), Tom Güldemann (Northeast Africa, Northeast Australia), Claude Hagège (Tagalog, Hungarian, Benveniste), Geoffrey Haig (Turkish), Bernhard Hurch (Italian), Larry Hyman (Niger Congo), Johanna Laakso (Finnic, especially Finnish and Estonian, Hungarian), Aditi Lahiri (Bengali), Ming Li (Chinese), Michele Loporcaro (Italian), Utz Maas (Moroccan Arabic), Matti Miestamo (Finnish), Marianne Mithun (Yup’ik, Iroquois), Edith Moravcsik (Hungarian), Irina Nikolaeva (Russian, Udihe), Alberto Nocentini (Ancient Greek), Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Hungarian), Peter Schmidt (Russian), Wolfgang Schulze (Udi), Hannu Tommola (Finnish, Estonian, Russian), Nigel Vincent (Italian), Bernhard Wälchli (Latvian), and Björn Wiemer (Russian, Russian dialects, Byelorussian, Polish). You’ll see for yourselves what impact you’ve had on my understanding of the matter: thanks, everybody. Thanks, in chronological order, also to Sibrand van Coillie for being mystified by my German delocutives; to Astrid Kraehenmann for reluctantly confirming that Swiss German has them too; to Jaklin Kornfilt for finding my confident reconstruction of Turkish -dA < de- ‘say’ an “interesting hypothesis”, which made me wonder; to Barıh Kabak, who I made to wonder with me about Turkish; to Miriam Butt for feedback on the light verb connection, unaware of her very own native delocutives in Urdu; to Ashwini Deo for inadvertently quoting others from India on a handout, and for subsequent conversations; to Wolfgang Schellinger for spotting a relevant phonological quirk I had overlooked in German expressive verbs; to Mok Jung-soo, my Seoul discussant, for introducing me to what you can and cannot do with expressives in Korean; to Bill McGregor for updating me on the ever more exuberant delocutivity exegesis in France; and to Nick Evans and Claire Bowern for more on saying = (?) doing in Australia. I have to thank five anonymous, yet benevolent reviewers for requesting numerous changes, all no doubt for the better. Shorter versions of this paper were read at the 5th Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, Cagliari, 15–18 September 2003, the International Conference on Morphology of the University of Seoul, 28–29 November 2003, and the Morphology Interfaces Colloquium at Schloss Freudental, 10–12 Februar 2005. It would perhaps not have been written, and would certainly not

41. At least delocutive nouns were collected by Littmann (1916) for a limited areal spread of languages, including Egyptian and Coptic, Semitic, Georgian, Turkish, Armenian, and Farsi.


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have been presented at such faraway places as Sardinia and Freudental, without support from the Sonderforschungsbereich 471 at the Universität Konstanz, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

The delocutive classics Benveniste, Émile (1958). Les verbes délocutifs. In Anna G. Hatcher & K. L. Selig (eds.), Studia philologica et litteraria in honorem Leo Spitzer, 57–63. Bern: Francke. Reprinted in É. Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale, I: 277–285. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. English translation: Delocutive verbs, in É. Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, translated by Mary E. Meek, 239–246. Coral Gables: University of Florida Press, 1971. Debrunner, Albert (1956). Zur Hypostasierung von Wünschen und dergleichen. In Margarete Woltner & Herbert Bräuer (eds.), Festschrift für Max Vasmer zum 70. Geburtstag, 113–123. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

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Renzi, Lorenzo (1968). Mamà, tatà, nene ecc.: Il sistema delle allocuzioni inverse in rumeno. Cultura neolatina 28: 89–99. Roncador, Manfred von (1988). Zwischen direkter und indirekter Rede: Nichtwörtliche direkte Rede, erlebte Rede, logophorische Konstruktionen und Verwandtes. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Rumsay, Alan (1990). Wording, meaning and linguistic ideology. American Anthropologist 92: 346–361. Sgroi, Salvatore Claudio (1981). Il sistema dell’allocuzione, diretta e inversa, secondo il modello performativo. Lingua e Stile 16: 3–11. Swiggers, Pierre (1989). Une classe de noms propres: “les rétrolocutifs”. Nouvelle Revue d’Onomastique 13/14: 157–164. Tigay, Jeffrey H. (1999). Some more delocutive verbs in Hebrew. In Robert Chazan, William W. Hallo, & Lawrence H. Schiffman (eds.), Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, 407–410. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Voeltz, F. K. Erhard & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) (2001). Ideophones. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Watson, Richard L. (2001). A comparison of some Southeast Asian ideophones with some African ideophones. In Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz (eds.) 2001, 385–405. Wissmann, Wilhelm (1932). Nomina postverbalia in den altgermanischen Sprachen nebst einer Voruntersuchung über deverbative o¯ -Verba. Heidelberg: Winter. Wordick, F. J. F. (1982). The Yindjibarndi Language. (Pacific Linguistics, C-71.) Canberra: Australian National University. Zagar, Igor Z. (1988). Aspect et performativité en slovene: Plaidoyer pour une hypothèse délocutive. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 38: 275–287. Zwicky, Arnold M. (1971). In a manner of speaking. Linguistic Inquiry 2: 223–233. Zwicky, Arnold M. & Geoffrey K. Pullum (1987). Plain morphology and expressive morphology. Berkeley Linguistics Society 13: 330–340.


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The typology of Pame number systems and the limits of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area HERIBERTO AVELINO

Abstract Pamean languages have been considered to be outside of the Mesoamerican linguistic area. However, the number systems of Pame show typical Mesoamerican structures: order of constituents Multiplier-Base-Addend, and systems with bases 10 and 20. Pamean languages have a typologically unusual, but consistent base 8. The present study presents a formal characterization of Pame number systems. The distribution and peculiarities of Pame number systems are explained as a result of their location at the border of a major linguistic area. Northern Pame has 8 as the only productive base, whereas Central Pame and Southern Pame show a greater influence of Mesoamerican traits. Keywords: cardinal numerals, linguistic area, Mesoamerica, number systems, numeral, Pame 1.

Introduction

In this paper I present an analysis of the cardinal number systems of the Pamean languages Northern Pame, Central Pame and Southern Pame. My goals are twofold. First, I offer a formal characterization of Pame number systems in terms of the typology of number systems. Second, I discuss the particularities of Pamean number systems as a result of their location at the border of a major linguistic area, Mesoamerica.1 I show that Pamean systems present typical Mesoamerican structures with the order of constituents Multiplier-BaseAddend and with bases 10 and 20. However, Northern Pame is of special interest for the typology of number systems owing to the consistent use of a base 1. As defined by archaeologists, Pamean languages are spoken in the cultural area known as Arid-America or the Gran Chichimeca: see Di Peso 1974 and Kelly 1966 for classic approaches, and several essays in Reyman 1995 for more recent studies.




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Northern Pame Central Pame Southern Pame†

Chichimeco

Otomi Mazahua

Matlatzinca Ocuilteco

Figure 1. Internal division of Otopamean languages

please supply a suitable file or camera ready copy

Map 1. Location of Pame and Chichimec languages

8. Remarkably, in Northern Pame 8 is the only productive base of the system, which is crosslinguistically rather unusual. Pamean number systems confirm the notion of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area as presented by Campbell, Kaufman, & Smith-Stark (1986) and SmithStark (1994). More specifically, Pamean languages support the areal division based on number systems in Barriga Puente (1998) in the following sense: the most northern Pame language, Northern Pame, has the fewest similarities to Mesoamerican number systems; conversely, the Central Pame and Southern Pamean languages exhibit a strong influence of Mesoamerican patterns. The general picture of Pame shows a mixed system sharing the bases 8 as well as the bases 10 and 20. This is consistent with the hypothesis of Pame dialectology advanced in Avelino (1997) separating three different languages: Northern, Central, and Southern Pame. 2.

The Pamean languages

Figure 1 shows the place of Pamean languages within Otopamean, the most northern branch of the Otomanguean family, and Map 1 shows the location of Pame and Chichimec languages. For many years there was considerable confusion about the identification of Pamean languages. Often, the names of other Otopamean languages, namely Chichimec and Otomí, were used indistinctly to refer to Pamean languages.


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Soustelle (1937) includes a discussion of the internal grouping, but Bartholomew (1963) is the earliest controlled dialectological study of Pamean languages. Avelino (1997) is the first linguistic account of previously undescribed Northern Pame. With the information provided by Northern Pame, the modern division of Pamean languages has been established. It is further confirmed by the present study. Only Northern Pame and Central Pame are still spoken.2 Southern Pame, now extinct, was spoken in Jiliapan in the State of Hidalgo (Manrique Castañeda 1964). The number of speakers of Pamean languages is uncertain. According to the most recent Mexican census there are 8,312 speakers of Pame (INEGI 2000). However, the number could be less since many self-declared ethnic Pame people do not speak the language. Likewise, the census does not make further distinctions of internal variation among the Pamean languages. The two surviving Pamean languages differ in many aspects of the phonology and grammar and crucially are not mutually intelligible. However, internally each of the two languages constitutes a chain of dialects differing in several minor aspects of the grammar as well as in the number systems.3 3.

Formal typological characterization of Pame number systems

The formal apparatus that I will use to describe Pame number systems is based on that of Barriga Puente (1998), which is the most important typological survey of American Indian number systems. According to Barriga Puente number systems can be divided into three major groups: (i) non-based systems, (ii) somatic systems, and (iii) based systems. Based systems can be further classified according to the number of bases used in the organization of counting. Thus, there are monobasic, dibasic, tribasic systems, and so on. A more refined classification is possible if the following criteria are considered: (i) basic operation,4 (ii) position of addend, multiplier, and subtrahend relative to the base, and (iii) perspective, i.e., whether the system is prospective or retrospective. The possibilities just mentioned are not mutually exclusive; in fact we will see that Pame number systems present features of both a somatic and a based system.

2. The surviving Pamean languages are spoken in the northeast of Mexico in the states of San Luis Potosí, and Central Pame is also spoken in Querétaro. The municipios where Central Pame is spoken are Santa Catarina, Aquismón; Northern Pame, an undescribed language before Avelino (1997), is spoken in the municipios of Tamasopo, Rayón, Villa del Maíz and Cárdenas. The varieties represented in this paper include the localities of Paso de Botello, Las Jaritas, and Cuesta Blanca. Chichimec is only spoken in the community of Misión de Chichimecas in the state of Guanajuato. 3. More research is needed to establish the further internal divergence of the Pamean languages. 4. By basic operation I mean basic arithmetic operation: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.


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Table 1 gives the numbers in the three Pamean languages. It is important to note that the pattern of Central Pame is quite productive in the sense that speakers can use the structures recursively to form high numbers, and most of the speakers know and use the lowest numbers. In contrast, Northern Pame numbers are, at the present time, unused structures: few speakers remember numbers up to ‘5’ or ‘8’, and the longest list that I could find ran up to ‘32’. 3.1. Monolexemic numbers Greenberg’s Universal No. 4 claims that every language has non-derived lexical forms for some numbers: “In every numerical system some numbers receive simple lexical representation” (Greenberg 1978: 255). The lowest numbers considered to be monomorphemic, and the only ones found in both Central Pame and Northern Pame, are nda and santa ‘one’, nuj and nuji ‘two’, and ranh˜uP and rnuP ‘three’, respectively.5 3.2. Semiproductive structures After ‘3’, Central and Northern Pamean languages make use of semiproductive structures using a form ki-, which has a general meaning of duality.6 For ‘4’, the dual morpheme multiplies the stem of ‘2’, in other words, it is a 2×2 operation. This strategy is formalized in Barriga Puente’s notation as follows: the multiplier 2 is specified below the abbreviation ‘Mr’, then the multiplicand follows it. In Southern Pame the formation of ‘4’ uses the numeral ‘2’, ti, as equivalent to the ki- form in Central and Northern Pame. Mr Multiplier

2

Multiplicand

(2)

5. As to be discussed in Section 3.3.2, the numbers ‘8’, ‘100’, and ‘1000’ are based on the root -tsaw; the prefixes n- occur in ‘8’ and ‘100’, and ra- occurs in ‘1000’. Therefore, these numbers cannot be considered strictly monomorphemic. 6. Two reviewers have noticed that there may be a problem identifying ki- as a marker of dual. In fact, it should be noted that the regular dual suffix on nouns and verbs is -i. The form kiis not attested anywhere else with the meaning of dual, nor is it found in related Otopamean languages. However, an abstract meaning of dual is the only interpretation that makes sense in these numerals. In this respect, Bernard Comrie pointed out that in some languages there are morphemes that occur only with few words, crucially with words for numbers, as in the Japanese indigenous numeral system. In this system there are instances of “pairing” by means of consistent vowel changes. Consider the following pairs: ‘1’ hito, ‘2’ huta; ‘3’ mi, ‘6’ mu; ‘4’ yo, ‘8’ ya; ‘5’ itu, ‘10’ to. These examples show that the last pair does not follow exactly the vowel alternation (u-o instead of regular i-u, o-a), and the occurrence of an initial i- in ‘5’, which is nowhere else used as a marker of dual.


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Table 1. Pame number systems

English

Central Pame

Northern Pame

Southern Pame

‘one’ ‘two’ ‘three’ ‘four’ ‘five’ ‘six’ ‘seven’ ‘eight’ ‘nine’ ‘ten’ ‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

nda nui ranh˜uP kiñui kik’ai tilija tiliñ˜uh˜uñ nda ntsawP nda ntsawP nda seskaPai seskaPai nda seskaPai nui seskaPai ranh˜uP seskaPai kiñui seskaPai kik’ai seskaPai tili Pja seskaPai tiliñ˜uh˜uñ seskaPai nda ntsawP seskaPai nda ntsawP nda nda lien nda lien nda nda lien nui nda lien ranh˜uP nda lien kiñui nda lien kik’ai nda lien tiliPja nda lien tili ñ˜uh˜uñ nda lien nda ntsawP nda lien nda ntsawP nda nda lien seskaPai nda lien seskaPai nda nda lien seskaPai nui nda lien seskaPai ranh˜uP nda lien seskaPai kiñui nda lien seskaPai kik’ai

sante nuji rnuP giriui gitS’ai teria teriuhiñ tenhiuñ kara tenhiuñ santa kara tenhiuñ nuji kara tenhiuñ rnup kara tenhinñ giRiu “ kara tenhinñ gitS’ai kara tenhinñ teRia “ kara tenhinñ teriuhiñ kanuje tenhiuñ kanuje tenhiuñ sante kanuje tenhiuñ nuji kanuje tenhiuñ rnuP

nna ti nijû tipijâ Spotûnt tikijen tekiti teih njûn nahwên stut’u stut’utonna

‘twenty’ ‘twenty one’ ‘twenty two’ ‘twenty three’ ‘twenty four’ ‘twenty five’ ‘twenty six’ ‘twenty seven’ ‘twenty eight’ ‘twenty nine’ ‘thirty’ ‘thirty one’ ‘thirty two’ ‘thirty three’ ‘thirty four’ ‘thirty five’

kanuje tenhiuñ giriui “ kanuje tenhiuñ gitS’ai kanuje tenhiuñ tiria “ kanuje tenhiuñ teriuhuiñ karnuP tenhiuñ karnuP tenhiuñ santa karnuP tenhiuñ nuji karnuP tenhiuñ rnuP karnuP tenhiuñ rnuP karnuP tenhiuñ gitS’ai karnuP tenhiuñ tiria karnuP tenhiuñ tiriuhiñ giriui tenhiuN “


nadetist’û

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English

Central Pame

Northern Pame

Southern Pame

‘thirty six’

nda lien seskaPai tili Pja ‘thirty seven’ nda lien seskaPai tili.ñ˜uh˜uñ ‘thirty eight’ nda lien seskaPai nda ntsawP ‘thirty nine’ nda lien seskaPai nda ntsawP nda ‘forty nui lien ‘forty one’ nui lien nda ‘forty two’ nui lien nui ‘forty three’ nui lien ranh˜uP ‘forty four’ nui lien kiñui ‘forty five’ nui lien kik’ai ‘forty six’ nui lien tiliPja ‘forty seven’ nui lien tiliñ˜uh˜uñ ‘forty eight’ nui lien nda ntsawP ‘forty nine’ nui lien nda ntsawP nda ‘fifty’ nui lien seskaPai ‘sixty’ ranh˜uP lien ‘seventy’ ranh˜uP lien seskaPai ‘eighty’ kiñui lien ‘ninety’ kiñui lien seskaPai ‘one hundred’ nda ntswaP ‘one hundred ten’ nda ntswaP seskaPai ‘one hundred twenty’ nda ntswaP lien ‘two hundred’ nui ntswaP ‘three hundred’ renh˜uP ntsawP ‘four hundred’ ‘one thousand’ nda ratsawP

tide

tidest’u niyûde tipiyâde nˆ ant’e

tint’e njûnt’je tipjêt’je stut’ut’je

Thus, ‘4’ in the three languages is composed by a 2×2 operation as exemplified in (1): (1)

Central Pame ki-ñui dual-two

Northern Pame gi-riui dual-two

Southern Pame ti-pijâ 2-two

gloss ‘four’

Further support for this analysis comes from the closely related language Chichimec, which employs the same strategy of affixing the dual morpheme to


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a number stem. According to Bartholomew (1969: 283), in this language ‘4’ “is formed on the base for ‘2’ plus a prefix;” significantly, Bartholomew also notes that ‘2’ in Chichimeco and Southern Pame “contains the grammatical dual suffix: -s in Chichimec, -i in Pame [Jiliapan]” (my translation – HA]. The formation of the number ‘5’ utilizes the very same operation in Central and Northern Pame, although here the notion conveyed by the dual morpheme is ‘one half’ which is multiplied with the number ‘10’ expressed by the root for ‘hand’, -k’ai (Central Pame) and -tS’ai (Northern Pame). One possible analysis of these forms is that the fundamental operation is not multiplication but division, so that ‘5’ would express ‘10/2’. Nonetheless, there are reasons for rejecting this approach. First, universals of number systems suggest that supposed instances of division are really cases of multiplication. This is the central theme of Greenberg’s Universal No. 16, “Division is always expressed as multiplication by a fraction. Only units or multiples of units are dividends, and the denominator of the fraction is always 2 or a power of 2” (1978: 261). Second, in the survey of Barriga Puente (1998) there is no system where a non-basic numeral is built up by division, and in which the divisor is a whole number.7 Third, it is very unlikely that the same morpheme indicating the meaning of ‘duality’ is used to express two different, and actually opposed, operations in two consecutive numbers (multiplication and division); it seems reasonable to preserve one single operation and configuration for both ‘4’ and ‘5’.8 These arguments support the analysis of multiplication as the active operation in composing ‘5’ in Pame number systems. In (2) I show the representation of ‘5’. (2)

Central Pame ki-k’ai dual-hand

Northern Pame ki-tS’ai dual-hand

operation Mr 10 (1/2)

gloss ‘five’

In addition, supporting this analysis, we should note that the somatic feature found in Pame is shared by other languages in the Otopame family. As pointed out by Bartholomew (1969: 283), “Number ‘five’ is related to ‘ten’ in all the (Otopame) languages . . . In Northern Pame and all the southern languages [within Otopamean] the main morpheme is ‘hand’ ”. 3.3. Productive structures 3.3.1. Base 5. Greenberg’s Universal No. 36 states that “[t]he only number expressions deleted are those for 1 and for bases of the system” (1978: 7. Thanks to Franciso Barriga for pointing this out. 8. There is a question why, with a consistent base 8, ‘10’ should involve ‘5’ as in ‘half of the ten’. Comrie suggests the very plausible hypothesis that the somatic motivation for the number may outrank the arithmetic, i.e., ‘half of two hands’ is a better way to express ‘5’ than a relatively more complex operation dividing the sum of 8+2.


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278). It is accordingly possible to affirm that 5 constitutes a legitimate base in Pamean languages, assuming that in the following three numbers, ‘6’, ‘7’, and ‘8’ the immediate preceding base 5 is omitted; then, ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘3’ follow the connective. A faithful gloss for ‘6’, ‘7’, and ‘8’ could be something like ‘and 1’, ‘and 2’, ‘and 3’, all of them with an entailed ‘5’ expressed in parentheses below. (3)

Central Pame tili-Pja connect-one tili-ñuhuñ connect-two

‘six’ ‘seven’

Northern Pame teri-Pja connect-one teri-uhiN connect-two ten-hiuñ connect-three

Central Pame tili-Pja connec-one (5) + 1 tili-ñ˜uh˜uñ connec – two (5) + 2

‘eight’

operation (5) + 1

gloss ‘six’

(5) + 2

‘seven’

(5) + 3

‘eight’

Northern Pame teri-Pja connec-one (5) + 1 teri-uhiñ connec – two (5) + 2 ten-hiuN connec – three (5) + 3

The formula for the strategy in (4) specifies the elided number in parenthesis just as in (3) above, then comes the symbol for addition and the addend expressing the upper limit of the counting in a superscript. Thus, in Central and Southern Pame the exponent is 2 since ‘1’ and ‘2’ are employed to form ‘6’ and ‘7’; in Northern Pame the exponent goes up to 3 because ‘8’ is also composed by this mechanism. The complete representation of those numbers using base 5 in both languages is seen in (4). (4)

Northern Pame (5) + Add3

Central Pame (5) + Add2

Southern Pame (5) + Add2

This pattern is not merely a Pame idiosyncrasy, but present in all of Otopame, as is evident in (5). Never in any of the other languages of the group are ‘6’ or ‘7’ monolexemic, but there is a tendency to derive them from an elided base 5. It should be mentioned also that in contrast to Pame, in Otomí, Mazahua, Matlatzinca, and Ocuiltec the order of constituents is Addend-Connective (Bartholomew 1969: 286).


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The typology of Pame number systems (5)

Otomí Pnah-to one-connect yoh-to two-connect

Mazahua Pñan-to one-connect yen-ˇco two-connect

Matlatzinca daha-toho one-connect nehe-toho two-connect

501

Ocuiltec gloss mbla ndoho ‘six’ one connect mye ndoho ‘seven’ two connect

3.3.2. Base 8. Pamean languages differ from Otomanguean (and not only from these) in having base 8. In Central Pame this is seen in the numbers ‘8’ and ‘9’: ‘8’ is ‘one eight’, and ‘9’ means something close to ‘one eight plus one’ as shown in (6). (6)

nda ntsawP one (times) eight nda ntsawP nda one (times) eight (plus) one

‘eight’ ‘nine’

This analysis of ‘8’ and ‘9’ offers further support for assuming a true base 8. Greenberg has claimed in Universal No. 25 that “[o]nly a base is ever multiplied by 1” (1978: 271), as indeed happens in Pame. I will show below that in the external syntax of numerals the multiplier precedes the base, like in (6), where ‘1’ is in the multiplier position and ‘8’ follows. Other accounts of Pame dialects confirm the validity of a base 8. Bartholomew (1969: 284) suggests that “ten is eight plus two” in Gamotes Pame.9 From this source it can be observed that the system in Gamotes follows the same procedure as described above, although in this language the counting is extended up to ‘10’. The Gamotes data in (7) show the omitted base 5 in the formation of ‘8’, after that a new connective and the addend are used in order to count ‘9’ and ‘10’. (7)

teri-Pya connect-one te-nuhinP connect-two te-ñhuhne connect-three te-ñhuhPn e-nda connect-three connect-one te-ñhuhPn e-nuyi connect-three connect-two

(5) + 1

‘six’

(5) + 2

‘seven’

(5) + 3

‘eight’

(5) + 3 + 1

‘nine’

(5) + 3 + 2

‘ten’

9. Gamotes Pame belongs to Central Pame. As is clear from this data, the number system of this dialect differs in some respects from the varieties spoken in Santa María Acapulco, Las Jaritas, and Paso de Botello. However, the two dialects belong to the same language.


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Exemplifying with ‘9’, a corresponding Central Pame numeral is given in (8). The multiplier is specified with a subscript, then the base follows it, and finally the upper limit of the addend is also expressed as a subscript. (8)

ndaP Multiplier1

ntsaw 8

‘nine’

nda Add1

Although in Central Pame the base 8 is used only in the configuration of ‘8’ and ‘9’ (and also ‘10’ in some dialects such as Gamotes Pame), in Northern Pame 8 is the core base of the system. To analyse these facts, first, the fundamental operation on higher numbers is multiplication according to the formula Multplier x Base which can be seen from multiples of ‘8’ in (9b, d, f) which could be glossed as ‘x times eight’. So, ‘16’ is ‘two times eight’, ‘24’ is ‘three times eight’, and ‘32’ is ‘four times eight’. Second, intermediate numbers between cycles of the base are expressed introducing an addend. The forms in (9) illustrate this operation. ‘9’ is ‘one times eight plus one’, ‘18’ is ‘two times eight plus two’, and ‘27’ is ‘three times eight plus three’.10 (9)

Multiplier (connectivemultplier) kara (1 kanuje (2 kanuje (2 kanuP (3 kanuP (3 giriui (4

Base tehiuN 8) tehiuN 8) tehiuN 8) tehiuN 8) tehiuN 8) tehiuN 8)

Operator elided (plus)

Addend

gloss

+

santa 1

‘nine’

+

nuji 2

+

muP 3

‘sixteen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘twenty four’ ‘twenty seven’ ‘thirty two’

This description provides evidence that the three Pamean languages are similar with respect to the template Multiplier-Base-Addend. However, in Northern Pame the strategy is fully productive. Even though the highest number recorded

10. These examples can be analyzed as a sequence of the connective ka- followed by the multiplier. The form ka- does not mean ‘one’ nor has it an independent meaning. More research is necessary to unveil the meaning of these fossilized forms.


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is ‘32’, nothing precludes the system from extending beyond that limit. If contemporary Northern Pame speakers do not have higher numbers it is not because of a defective system, but due to language loss. An ethnographic note may help to better understand the Northern Pame system. It is widely observed that languages make use of body part terms to express numbers. Thus, in many languages ‘20’ is related to ‘person’ or ‘a person’s head’ because the sum of fingers and toes is ‘20’.11 Likewise ‘5’ is often associated with ‘hand’ because of the counting of five fingers on a hand. In fieldwork with Northern Pame, I noticed that ‘8’ also has a somatic motivation, albeit an unusual one. Instead of counting fingers, some speakers count the knuckles12 of the closed fist for each hand (excluding the thumb), so that two hands equals eight.13 Thus, Northern Pame parallels those languages where base 10 is expressed by the term for ‘hands’. 3.3.3. Base 10. In Central Pame, numbers after ‘10’ follow a decimal pattern, with the addend after the base. Notice that in numbers from ‘1’ to ‘9’, repeated in (10), the decimal system completely preserves the structures of lower numbers as discussed in Sections 3.2 and 3.3. For instance, notice that the only correct interpretation for ‘16’ and ‘17’ is to consider the base 5 omitted. Likewise, the only information available from Southern Pame, as illustrated in (11), indicates a similar structure, the fundamental difference being that the operator is overt in Southern Pame.

11. Thanks to Lorna Gibson for pointing out that in Central Pame ‘20’ comes from the word for ‘people’, lee, which inflected for 1st person plural is lyeedn, because “Each one of us people has 20 fingers”. Campbell (1979) explicitly claims that the association of ‘20’ with the meaning of ‘man’ is characteristic of Mesoamerica. 12. For the purposes of this paper the knuckles are defined as the joints of the proximal falange with the metacarpal bone. 13. Thanks to Leanne Hinton for the interesting observation that in Yuki the count is based on the spaces between the fingers. An anonymous reviewer points out that there exists anecdotal information from Kroeber that a Yuki man counted by putting sticks between his fingers, suggesting also a somatic base.


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504 (10)

Heriberto Avelino Base


seskaPai seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai ten seskaPai

nda one nui two ranh˜uP three kiñui four kik ai five tiliPja six tiliñ˜uhuñ seven nda ntswawP eight nda ntsawP nda nine

ten (11)

Base stut’u ten stut’u ten

Addend

Operator

Addend

to plus

nna one

gloss

‘ten’ ‘eleven’ ‘twelve’ ‘thirteen’ ‘fourteen’ ‘fifteen’ ‘sixteen’ ‘seventeen’ ‘eighteen’ ‘nineteen’

gloss ‘ten’ ‘eleven’

3.3.4. Base 20. With ‘20’ a new base emerges. The structures described in (12) for central Pame and (13) for Southern Pame give evidence for a vigesimal base in Central and Southern Pame.


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The typology of Pame number systems (12)

(13)

Multiplier nda nda nda nda nda nda nda ranh˜uP ranh˜uP kiñui kiñui

Base lien lien lien lien lien lien lien lien lien lien lien

Addend

Multiplier na na ti ti niyû tipiyâ

Base de de de de de de

Addend

nda nui seskaPai seskaPai nda seskaPai nui seskaPai seskaPai

tist’û tist’û

505

gloss ‘twenty’ ‘twenty one’ ‘twenty two’ ‘thirty’ ‘thirty one’ ‘thirty two’ ‘forty’ ‘sixty’ ‘seventy’ ‘eighty’ ‘ninety’ gloss ‘twenty’ ‘thirty’ ‘fourty’ ‘fifty’ ‘sixty’ ‘eighty’

First, we can see a multiplier preceding the lexical forms for ‘20’, lien and de, respectively, as multiples of 20 do. In this sense, ‘20’ is ‘one times twenty’, ‘40’ is ‘two times twenty’, and so on. As we mentioned earlier, according to Greenberg (1978) multiplication by ‘1’ is a universal behavior of bases. Furthermore, the base is multiplied to form higher numbers. The order of numbers after ‘20’ follows the general Pame pattern Multiplier-Base-Addend. Furthermore, counting in Central and Southern Pame shows that the addend can itself be complex, as is illustrated with the forms for ‘31’ and ‘32’ in Central Pame where the addend are ‘11’ (ten plus one) and ‘12’ (ten plus two). Data from Central (14) and Southern (15) Pame show that the structure of numbers higher than ‘100’ follows the general pattern already seen: the multiplier precedes the base and the addend follows the base. For instance, in Southern Pame ‘1000’ is ‘ten times hundred’; likewise in Central Pame ‘110’ is ‘one times hundred (plus) ten’, and ‘200’ is ‘two times (one) hundred’.


506


506 (14)

(15)

Heriberto Avelino Multiplier

Base

nda one

ntsawP hundred

nda

ntsawP

one

hundred

nda

ntsawP

one

hundred

nui two

ntsawP hundred

Multiplier

Base

nˆ an tin nñûn

t’e t’e t’je

tipjê stut’u

t’je t’je


Addend

gloss ‘one hundred’

seskaPai (plus)

ten lien

(plus)

‘one hundred and ten’ ‘one hundred and twenty’

twenty ‘two hundred’


Addend

gloss ‘one hundred’ ‘two hundred’ ‘three hundred’ ‘four hundred’ ‘ten hundred’

There are some peculiarities with high numbers meriting comment. The form used for ‘100’ in Central Pame is identical to that of ‘8’, namely ntsawP. Moreover, ‘1000’ has what appears to be the same root, -tsawP,although it is possible to identify a plural morpheme prefixed to the root, and the nasal present in ‘8’ and ‘100’ is dropped. Once again, the order Multiplier-Base is repeated in ‘100’. The existence of a separate word for ‘100’, thus, suggestsa shift to a decimal system (102 ).14 (16)

Multiplier nda

Base ra-tsawP

gloss ‘one thousand’

That Pamean languages have a mixture of bases 8, 10, and 20 presents a problem for Universal No. 21, “All the bases of a system are divisible by the fundamental base” (Greenberg 1978: 270). In addition, the similarity between ‘8’, ‘100’, and ‘1000’, in contrast with the absence of an arithmetic operation 14. Thanks to Bernard Comrie for pointing out that in typical Mesoamerican counting systems ‘100’ is expressed as 5×20.


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Table 2. Summary of Pame number systems

Productive Bases

Semiproductive Bases

North Pame (5) + Add3 / Mr 8 Add Mr 2 (2) Mr 10 (1/2)

Central Pame (5) + Add2 / Mr1 8 Add1 / 10Mr2,3 Add / Mr 20 Add Mr 2 (2) Mr 10 (1/2)

Southern Pame (5) + Add2 / 10Mr2,3 Add / Mr 20 Add Mr 2 (2)

associating the three numbers is striking. One possible explanation is to suppose that the meaning of the stem ‘8’ has shifted to a more abstract sense of ‘base’, and that such high numbers as ‘100’ and ‘1000’ have borrowed the stem from the lowest base. To sum up the discussion so far, Table 2 presents the structures discussed in previous sections. The table shows that there are features in common to the three languages, whereas others are only shared by Central Pame and Northern Pame, and some others are unique to Central Pame and Southern Pame. Let us start with the features in common to the three languages. First, all three languages exhibit the structure [Elided Base + Addend] in the configuration of low numbers. In addition, the structure [(5) + Addend] reveals a somatic feature inasmuch as number ‘5’ is related to the root for ‘hand’ in Central and Nothern Pame.15 Second, the three languages present Multiplier-Base-Addend as the main productive structure, regardless of the specific base – with Central and Southern Pame adopting ‘20’ and ‘10’ as their productive bases, while Northern Pame only uses ‘8’. Third, all three languages compose ‘4’ by means of multiplication with the number ‘2’ as the first term. In Central and Northern Pame ‘4’ is formed by the semiproductive base Mr 2/(2) (ki-ñgui, ki-riui), while in Southern Pame the second term of the word ti-pijâ remains opaque to analysis. Features that are shared by Central and Northern Pame include the structures [Mr 8 Add] and [Mr 10/(1/2)] to form semiproductive bases. Features shared by Central and Southern Pame include the structures [10Mr2,3 Add] and [Mr 20 Add]. 4.

Pame number systems in typological and areal perspective

Culturally, archaeologically, and anthropologically, the Pame people are on the Mesoamerican border area (Kirchhoff 1943; Nalda 1990; Pailes & Whitecotton 1995; Reyman 1995). From a linguistic point of view, Pamean languages, 15. Perhaps the same is true for Southern Pame; but this is only a conjecture.


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as well as Chichimec, are outside the Mesoamerican area (Campbell, Kaufman, & Smith-Stark 1986), although unquestionably genetically affiliated to Otomanguean. I will argue that the diversity and patterning of Pame number systems indicate that they blend typical Mesoamerican structures with unusual ones, unique to this group. 4.1. Mesoamerican structures Mesoamerican languages typically present three major bases, ‘10’, ‘15’, and ‘20’, exemplified by the languages in (17) (data from Barriga Puente 1998). (17)

Comaltpec Zapotec Chocho Cuitlatec Totonac Yucatec Maya

10Mr3 Add/15Ad/MMr5 20(+)Add 15Add/Mr20Add 10Mr2 +Add/Mr20+Add 10Add/ Mr20+Add 10Add/ Mr202 +Add

In fact, a base 20 has been considered as one of the five stable features defining Mesoamerica as a linguistic area: A counting system based on twenty is pan-Mesoamerican. While it is found in virtually every MA [Mesoamerican] language, it has also reached a few languages just beyond the conventional borders of MA . . . We may conclude that this is also a true MA areal trait which was sufficiently strong to reach slightly beyond the conventional boundaries. (Campbell, Kaufman, & Smith-Stark 1986: 546).

Pame illustrates this claim nicely. It was shown in Sections 3.3.3 and 3.3.4 that bases 10 and 20 are fully productive in Central Pame, in harmony with the major Mesoamerican patterns. In contrast, we have seen that such bases are unattested in Northern Pame. The pertinent observation is that Central Pameis geographically closer to Mesoamerica than is Northern Pame – which would suggest a direct influence of Mesoamerican systems on counting in Central Pame. This hypothesis is reinforced by Southern Pame, an extinct language even more embedded in Mesoamerica, which presents the pattern 5 +Add/10Mr2 +Add/Mr20+Add, where, again, bases 10 and 20 are conspicuous. Therefore, on such evidence, I propose that bases 10 and 20 constitute a Mesoamerican trait present in Pame. By this hypothesis, because both Central Pame and Southern Pame display traces of base 8, while there is no evidence of Mesoamerican structures in Northern Pame, it is likely that Northern Pame represents the northern limit of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area. That is, I consider a numeral base 8 as the idiosyncratic common denominator for Pamean languages, and the bases 10 and 20 as a product of Mesoamerican affiliation.


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4.2. Non-Mesoamerican structures I have shown that the structure [(5) + Add] is present in both Central Pame and Northern Pame.16 However, looking at the languages of the Americas in general, it turns out that this structure cannot be associated with a unique family or area. According to Barriga Puente (1998) this type is attested in a broad number of different families, namely, Uto-Aztecan, Eskimo-Aleut, Mixe-Zoquean, Algic, and Athabaskan.17 Given this wide and random distribution, it would be difficult to claim that this feature associates Pame with a specific area or family. Thus, even though the structure [5 + Addend] is attested in Mesoamerica, the elided base 5 is not a common feature in the area (although it is not absent, as shown by Mixe-Zoquean). Therefore, possible influence from southern languages is implausible. Likewise, that some other instances of the feature are found in the north does not constitute evidence of diffusion by itself.18 Hence, I suggest that the presence of base 5 in Central and Northern Pame in contrast with its absence in Mesoamerican languages should be considered another feature delineating the border of this major area. This is in line with a criterion proposed by Smith-Stark: “I have explicitly incorporated the notion of boundary by requiring that a language bordering the area not exhibit the areal features” (1994: 23). Nevertheless, it is also possible that languages in border areas are characterized by a mixture of features belonging to distinct areas. Base 8 is an uncommon feature across languages (Closs 1986; Greenberg 1978). In fact, there is no other system which exploits base 8 as extensively and productively as Northern Pame does, with the possible exception of Yuki.19 Nevertheless, the data is so meager that the productivity of the two systems cannot be compared. However, there is no known relationship between Pame 16. Comrie points out that while multiplying by base 5 may be rare or absent in Mesoamerica, adding to products of 5 seems quite common; e.g., Classical Nahuatl had separate words for ‘5’, ‘10’, ‘15’, and expressed for example ‘6’ as ’5 + 1’, ‘11’ as ’10 + 1’, ‘16’ as ’15 + 1’, etc. 17. See Appendix 1 for a complete list of the languages of Mexico and North America displaying this feature. 18. The overt expression of base 5 is more widely attested. Perhaps this quite diverse distribution of base 5, both elided and overt, could be connected with a somatic motivation, namely the association with the word for ‘hand’. 19. The Round Valley Yuki system is (+) Add8/MrAdd16+ (data from Closs 1986, apud Barriga Puente 1998). The numbers include: 1 pa-wi, 2 op-i, 3 molm-i, 4 o-mahat ∼ op-mahat, 5 hui-ko, 6 mikas-tcil-ki, 7 mikas-ko, 8 paum-pat, 9 hutcam-pawi-pan, 10 hutcam-opi-sul, 11 momil-sul, 12 o-mahat-sul, 13 huijo-sul, 14 mikstcilki-sul, 15 mikasko-sul, 16 huico(t), 17 pawi-hui-luk, 18 opi-hui-luk, 19 molmi-hui-poi, 20 omahat-hui-poi, 64 omahat-tc-am-op. A reviewer notes that data from other Yuki languages might reflect diverse systems as different words were recorded for many of the higher numbers. Another reviewer mentions that some Pomoan languages might also have used a base 8, although this system seems to be have been restricted to counting certain kinds of objects.


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and Yuki languages.20 5.

Conclusions

In this paper I have proposed a formal characterization of Pame number systems. This has allowed us to observe the typologically unusual base 8, which in Northern Pame is the only fully productive base. Pame number systems also use bases 10 and 20, characteristic for Mesoamerica. I have suggested that this amalgam of bases is a consequence of the pivotal position of Pame at the boundary of Mesoamerica and languages of north Mexico. Campbell, Kaufman, & Smith-Stark have called attention to the great importance of marked traits as criteria for linguistic areas: “highly ‘marked’, exotic, or unique shared traits weigh more than does material that is more easily developed independently, or found in other languages” (1986: 535).21 To the extent that number systems are a structural feature that is easily diffused as a result of close contact among languages, the evidence provided by Pame could contribute to our understanding of historical relations between the north-east of Mesoamerica and northern areas. Ancient relations between Mesoamerica and the area immediately south of the United States border have been profusely documented for the western corridor on linguistic, archaeological, and ethnohistorical grounds. Likewise, there are indications that Mesoamerican borders have expanded considerably along the Gulf Coast (Smith-Stark 1994). Nevertheless, knowledge about remote contacts among the languages in the Southeast mainland is scarce. The linguistic evidence presented in this paper supporting the northern border of Mesoamerica should stimulate further research in linguistics, as well as in archaeology and anthropology, to test the hypothesis suggested here.22

20. The other relationship of Pamean languages with languages from Northern Mesoamerica, though unlikely, is with Coahuiltecan, an extinct language of doubtful affiliation spoken in the Northwest of Mexico. As we showed earlier, the base 8 in Pame is motivated by the counting of knuckles of the closed fist, i.e., ‘four’ for each hand, if the thumb is excluded. Interestingly, Coahuiltecan has a system with base 4 where, indeed, ‘8’ is expressed as 4x2, puwäntz’an axtê. This raises the possibility of a relation between the Coahuiltecan system and the base 8 system in Pame. Nevertheless, a Pame-Coahuiltecan relationship must remain a conjecture at this point. I reproduce the Coahuiltecan numerals below (4, 5, 6, 20Mr+Add; according to Swanton 1940, apud Barriga Puente 1998): 1 pil’, 2 axtê, 3 axtikipîl’, 4 puwãntz’an, 5 xûyopamãux ∼ mãxauaxuyo, 6 tcikuãs ∼ axtikpîl’ axtê, 7 puwãntz’an ko axtikpîl’, 8 puwãntz’an axtê, 9 puwãntz’an ko xûyopamãux, 10 xûyopamãux axtê, 11 xûyopamãux axtê ko pîl’ 12 puwãntz’an axtikipîl’, 13 puwãntz’an axtikipîl’ ko pîl’, 14 puwãntz’an axtikipîl’ ko axtê, 15 xûyopamãux axtikipîl’, 16 xûyopamãux axtikipîl’ ko pîl’, 17 xûyopamãux axtikipîl’ ko axtê, 18 tcikuãs axtikipîl’, 19 cikuãs axtikipîl’ ko pîl’, 20 taiwakõ, 21 taiwakõ ko pîl’, 30 taiwakõ ko xûyopamãux axtê, 40 taiwakõ axtê, 50 taiwakõ axtê ko xûyopamãux axtê. 21. Indeed, a base 8 is not a linguistic universal, nor is it due to genetic relations, and it seems unlikely to be an independent, parallel chance development.


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The typology of Pame number systems Received: 5 October 2005 Revised: 26 September 2005

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University of California at Berkeley

5.0.1. Correspondence address: Department of Linguistics, University of California at Berkeley, 1203 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-2650, USA; e-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgements: I would like to thank to my Pame teachers Felix Baltazar, Elisa González, Carlos Ramos and Hipólito Mendoza for their help, good humor and patience. I am grateful for comments and suggestions from Francisco Barriga, Bernard Comrie, Ralph Sonnenschein, Pam Munro, and Leanne Hinton, as well as the encouraging and helpful suggestions of three anonymous reviewers and the editor of the journal, Frans Plank. As usual, I assume the entire responsibility for the paper. The support of UC-MEXUS is greatly appreciated. Abbreviations: Mr multiplier, connect connective, Add addend, pl plural.

Appendix 1. Languages of Mexico and North America with base 5 elided (from Barriga Puente 1998) Cora Huichol Havasupai Tonto Diegueño Kiliwa Klamath Siuslaw Unalit Inuktituk Greenlandic Eskimo Fox Ojibwa Montagnaise Cheyenne Delaware Natick Arapaho Muskhog Tawasa

(5)+Add/10Mr3 (5) +Add/10+Add/Mr20+Add. (5)Add+/10MrAdd+ (5)Add+/10MrAdd (5)+Add/(10)Mr+Add(+) (5)Add+/10(x)Mr10 MAdd+ (5)Add/Mr10+Add (5)Add+/Mr10 10x+Add (5)Add+/(10,15)Add/Mr(20)Add+ (5)Add+/Mr10Add (5, 10, 15+)Add/20MrxAdd-> (5)Add+/Mr102,3 Add (+) (5)Add+/Mr(x)102 +Add (5)Add+/Mr102, 3 +Add (5)Add+//Mr102 +Add (5)Add+/Mr102, 3 +Add (5)Add+/Mrx(10)2, 3 +Add (5)Add+/Mr(10)2 Add+ (5)Add+/Mr102, 3 MrxAdd+ (5)(+)Add/10MrAdd(+)

22. In this respect it is not insignificant that there are several cultural connections between Pame and Chichimec people with groups on the West Coast, mainly with Uto-Aztecans (Huichol, Cora, Tepehuan and Tarahumara), as attested by similar dance patterns, the ingestion of psychotropics, and an annual Huichol pilgrimage to the Pame area. These may well constitute non-linguistic evidence as required by Sherzer (1973) in his definition of linguistic area.


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Atsugewi Washo Sinkyone-Nongatl Kato Popoloca Totontepec Mixe Sayula Popoluca Popoluca de Texistepec Chimalapa Zoque Copainala Zoque

(5)Add+/Mr(10)Add+ (5)Add+/MMr10 10+Add (5)+Add/Mrx102 +Add (5)+Add/Mrx10+Add/15+Add Add(5)/10Add/Mr20(+)Add (5)Add+/10Add/MMr205 (+)Add (5)Add+/Mr5 10Mr2 +Add/Mr2 20(+)Add (5)Add+/10Mr2 +Add/Mr20Add (5)Add+/10+Add/MMr20 20+Add (5)Add+/10Add/15+Add/MMr202 +Add

References Avelino, Heriberto (1997). Fonología y morfofonología del Pame norte. Tesis de licenciatura. E.N.A.H., INAH-SEP, México. Barriga Puente, Francisco (1998). Los Sistemas de numeración Indoamericanos: Un enfoque areotipológic. (Colección Lingüística Índigena, 7.) México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Bartholomew, Doris (1963). Pame dialectology. Unpublished manuscript. — (1969). Los numerales del uno al diez en los Idiomas Otopameos. In El simposio de México: Actas Informes y Comunicaciones, Programa Interamericano de Lingüística y Enseñanza de Idiomas. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Campbell, Lyle (1979). Middle American languages. In Lyle Campbell & Marianne Mithun (eds.), The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment, ???–???. Austin: University of Texas Press. Campbell, Lyle, Terrence Kaufman, & Thomas C. Smith-Stark (1986). Mesoamerica as a linguistic area. Language 62: 530–570. Closs, Michael P. (ed.) (1986). Native American Mathematics. Austin: University of Texas Press. Di Peso, Charles C., John B. Rinaldo, & Gloria J. Fenner (1974). Casas Grandes: A Fallen Trading Center of the Gran Chichimeca. Dragoon, Arizona: Amerind Foundation Greenberg, Joseph H. (1978). Generalizations about numeral systems. In Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Human Language, Vol. 3: Word Structure, ???–???. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (2002). XI censo general de población y vivienda, 2000. Aguascalientes, México: INEGI. Kelly, J. Charles (1966). Mesoamerica and the Southwestern United States. In G. F. Ekholm & G. R. Willey (eds.), Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 4. Austin: University of Texas Press. Kirchhoff, Paul (1943). Mesoamérica, sus límites geográficos, composición étnica y caracteres culturales. Acta Americana 1: 92-107. Manrique Castañeda, Leonardo (1967). Jiliapan Pame. In Norman McQuown (ed.), Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 5, 331–348. Austin: University of Texas Press. Nalda, Enrique (1990). Qué es lo que define Mesoamérica. In La validez teórica del concepto Mesoamérica: XIX Mesa Redonda de la Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología. Colección Científica. México: INAH, Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología. Pailes R. A. & Joseph W. Whitecotton (1995). The frontiers of Mesoamerica: Northern and Southern. In Reyman (ed.), ???–???. Reyman, Jonathan E. (ed.) (1995). The Gran Chichimeca: Essays on the Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Northern Mesoamerica. Avebury: Worldwide Archaelogy Series.


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Sherzer, Joel (1973). Areal linguistics in North America. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in linguistics, Vol. 10: Linguistics in North America, ???–???. The Hague: Mouton. Smith-Stark, Thomas C. (1994). Mesoamerican calques. In Carolyn J. MacKay & Verónica Vázquez (eds.), Investigaciones lingüísticas en Mesoamerica: Estudios sobre lenguas americanas 1, ???–???. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas, UNAM. Soustelle, Jaques. 1937 [1993]. La famille Otomí-Pame du Mexique Central. Paris: Institute D’Ethnologie. [Spanish translation: La Familia Otomí-Pame del México Central. México: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, Fondo de Cultura Económica.]


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Linguistic Typology publishes original research on the diversity of languages and on the patterns of variation within this universe. The essence of typology lies in structural traits – ranging from sound and grammar to lexicon and discourse – that could vary independently from language to language but actually do vary together, setting limits to crosslinguistic variation and defining the groundplans on which languages are constructed. The discovery and the explanation of such interdependencies and the informed discussion of results and methods in typology are the subject matter of this journal. Linguistic Typology invites authors to submit manuscripts to the Editor-in-chief at the address given on the title page. Instructions for contributors are available on request from the Editor-in-chief; see also the inside back cover. Linguistic Typology is published as one volume of three issues per year (approximately 450 pages). Subscription rates for Volume 9 (2005): Institutions/Libraries Print edition or online access only: ¤ 148.00 Print edition and online access: ¤ 160.00 ALT members ¤ 58.00 Student members ¤ 34.95 Single issues: ¤ 49.00 All prices: postage extra. Journal prices are recommended retail prices only. For information on obtaining online access, please contact us at [email protected]. Linguistic Typology is published by Mouton de Gruyter for the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT). For further information on ALT and subscription details please contact the Secretary-Treasurer: Johan van der Auwera, Linguistiek (GER), Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA), 2610 Antwerpen, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]. ALT’s Web site: http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/alt. lnstitutional subscriptions can be ordered from your local bookseller or subscription agent or directly from MOUTON DE GRUYTER (a division of Walter de Gruyter) at the following address: SFG Servicecenter Fachverlage Postfach 4343 72774 Reutlingen Germany E-mail: [email protected] Payment may be made by credit card: MasterCard (Access), EuroCard, Visa, American Express. Linguistic Typology accepts paid advertising. Please address all inquiries regarding advertising to the Berlin office. Attention before copying: Authorization to copy items for internal or personal use, or for the internal or personal use by specific clients is granted by Walter de Gruyter, for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) Transactional Reporting Service, provided that the base fee of US $3.00 per copy is paid to CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA, quoting the code 1430–0532/05. c 2005 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. !

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Volume 9–3 (2005)

Mouton de Gruyter


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Linguistic T y p o l o g y

Volume 9–3 (2005)

Contents Target Article Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes

351

Commentary John Peterson There’s a grain of truth in every “myth”, or, Why the discussion of lexical classes in Mundari isn’t quite over yet 391 Kees Hengeveld and Jan Rijkhoff Mundari as a flexible language

406

William Croft Word classes, parts of speech, and syntactic argumentation

431

Author’s Response Nicholas Evans and Toshiki Osada Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes

442

Articles Frans Plank Delocutive verbs, crosslinguistically

459

Heriberto Avelino The typology of Pame number systems and the limits of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area 493

Print ISSN 1430-0532 Online ISSN 1613-415X

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Volume 9–3 (2005)

Linguistic Typology

Mouton de Gruyter