a core participant. For example, in Axininca Campa, an Arawak language spoken in Peru, there is a verbal suffix which indicates that at least one core participant is plural, without specifying which (thus, in a transitive clause, one can’t tell whether A or O or both have plural reference).
r
Some verbs have suppletive stems relating to the number of a core argu-ment; this is S in an intransitive and almost always O (scarcely ever A) in a transitive clause. For instance, in Comanche, an Uto-Aztecan language, ‘hold, carry’ is yaa for a singular and himi for a plural O. In Sumerian, an ancient language from Mesopotamia, ‘live’ is til for a singular and sig for a plural S.
Most—but not all—languages have numeral lexemes. There may be just two or three of these (say, ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘many’) or there may be a full set, with an algorithm allowing the creation of a number specification of any magnitude. ‘Numerals’ are sometimes a subclass of adjectives, sometimes a subclass of verbs, and sometimes a separate word class.
There will be a fuller discussion of number systems in grammar, and of numeral lexemes, in Volume3.
3.18 Definiteness
A definite article appears in some well-known languages—for example, Greek, German, French, English—but is in fact found in only a smallish proportion of languages worldwide. It seems to be an important feature of languages in which it does occur, but many languages get by without it. How is this?
In fact, the definite article should probably be regarded as an optional extra in those languages which do have it. There are styles of English in which the definite article is routinely omitted, with little apparent loss of communicative efficiency. For example, newspaper headlines typically omit the and all forms of be, as in (where an underlined blank indicates an omission):
(1) __drug squad __ hit by __ leader’s departure
And definite articles are not employed in the style used by some (but by no means all) cookery books, as in:
(2) Clean __ cauliflower . . . Transfer __ mixture to a soufflé dish . . . Bring ___ water to __ boil again
(Note that the indefinite article, a, is retained here.)
Languages differ a little in how and when they use their definite article. For example, in Portuguese one would say a minha mãe, including the feminine form, a, of the definite article, where in English my mother could not be preceded by the.
The definite article can be realized as a morphological process to a noun (or some other constituent of an NP). In English it is generally a proclitic, /D@=/, attached to the first word of an NP. Other languages show other possibilities.
In the Polynesian language Tongan there are two mechanisms for showing definiteness. Stress is generally on the penultimate vowel of a word, but a morphological process of stress shift can apply, moving it to the last syllable and indicating definiteness. In addition, there are two ‘articles’ which come at the beginning of an NP, e and ha. These can be combined in three ways:
article e and stress shift e afó ‘the fishing line (an already identified referent)’ article e and no stress shift e áfo ‘a fishing line (as opposed to
other types of thing, such as a spear or a rope)’
article ha and no stress shift ha áfo ‘a fishing line (as opposed to other fishing lines, other tokens of the same type)’ The definite article—in English and other European languages—indicates that the referent of the NP in which it occurs should be identifiable to the
3.18 definiteness 161 addressee. This identification could be (i) from what was said just before in the discourse, or (ii) inferred from the situation in which the discourse occurs. Sentence (3a) illustrates (i), with alternative ways of conveying the same information being shown in (3b)—with a demonstrative as NP head or NP modifier—and in (3c)—with a 3rd person pronoun.
(3) (a) We heard a screechy noise, and the noise frightened my brother (b) We heard a screechy noise, and that (noise) frightened my brother (c) We heard a screechy noise, and it frightened my brother
If English were to lose its definite article, then (1b) or (1c) would do just as well as (1a).
As an illustration of (ii), if a screechy noise sounded out, I might say Listen to the noise, what is it? If English lacked articles, and a noun such as noise would make up a full NP, then Listen to noise! would be fully comprehensi- ble in these circumstances; alternatively, a demonstrative could be employed. Definite articles typically develop out of demonstratives, and these two kinds of grammatical element are often substitutable one for the other.
When a language has no definite article, there is usually some way of indi- cating that an NP has an identifiable referent. This may be achieved by using a classifier or noun class marker. For example, in Gola, a West Atlantic language from Liberia and Sierra Leone, the inclusion of a noun class prefix indicates definiteness, as in kul ‘a tree’, ke-kul ‘the tree’.
In its realization, definiteness may be linked with some other grammatical category. In both Turkish and Bengali, for instance, accusative case marking is obligatory on an NP in O function only if it has definite reference.
Some languages have what could be called a ‘definiteness strategy’. Ngiyambaa, from Australia, has bound pronominal clitics. A 1st or 2nd person clitic cannot co-occur with the corresponding free form (which has identical semantic content), but the 3rd person clitic -na (marking S, O, or indirect object function) can be used with a free form NP and then indicates definiteness.
Compare Ngiyambaa sentences where a3rd person argument is shown just by a clitic, in (4a), or just by an NP, in (4b), or by both, as in (4c):
(4) (a) Naa-nhi-ju-na see-past-1sgA-3sgO I saw him (b) Naa-nhi-ju see-past-1sgA burraayo child+absolutive I saw a child/children
(c) Naa-nhi-ju-na see-past-1sgA-3sgO
burraayo
child+absolutive I saw the child (lit. I saw him, child/children)
In (4b) the NP burraay, without any reinforcing clitic, has an indefinite mean- ing ‘a child/children’. The addition of -na, in (4c), indicates definiteness, and also singular number, ‘the child’.
3.19 Dependencies between grammatical systems
Two grammatical categories can be independent of each other in a given lan- guage. There may be, say, a polarity system of {positive, negative}, and a four- term tense system in both positive and negative clauses. But sometimes one system is dependent upon another. That is, the number of choices available in one system may be dependent on the choice made from another system. As mentioned in §1.11, in Amele (from the Gum family, spoken in Papua New Guinea) in clauses with positive polarity there is a distinction between today’s past, yesterday’s past, and remote past, and also between future and relative future; but negative clauses show a single past and a single future tense. We say that the number of choices available in the tense system depends on which term is chosen from the polarity system. That is: Polarity > Tense (tense depends on polarity).
It is instructive to examine dependencies—where these exist—between a number of types of grammatical system. (For most dependencies, just one example is mentioned here; there are in most cases quite a few more instances.) I. Polarity of a clause (the only polarity contrast found in all languages). In some languages this contrasts with polarity of the predicate; see (3) and (4) in §3.12.
II. Tense, aspect (in the narrow sense of imperfective/perfective), and evi- dentiality. As discussed in §3.15, each of these applies equally to predicate and to clause. The following dependencies between these systems are attested: