Clause structure and word classes

Each slot in clause structure is filled by an appropriate word—or rather, by a phrase, with noun or verb as obligatory head plus optional modifiers. It is useful to focus on the head word of a phrase, and investigate how nouns and verbs relate to elements in clause structure.

The typical association is of verb with predicate and of noun with argu- ments (whether core or peripheral). That is:

I CLAUSESTRUCTURE WORDCLASS arguments (S, A, O, etc.) predicate noun verb

In some languages this is the only association. In Latin—and also in Dyirbal— only a noun (plus possible modifiers) can relate to an argument, and an argu- ment may only be realized by a noun. Similarly for verb and predicate. (There are processes for deriving a verb from a noun and vice versa; for example from Latin instru¯o ‘construct’ can be formed instr¯umentum ‘equipment’, but this is the creation of a new noun, not use of a verb itself as head of an NP.)

In some languages, noun or verb (or both) may have a secondary function, beyond the primary functions shown in Scheme I. But in every case the primary functions are most important and more frequent. A noun may also function as head of an intransitive predicate:

II predicate arguments (S, A, O, etc.)

noun verb

CLAUSESTRUCTURE

WORDCLASS

Hajaú (1963: 67) states that in Nenets (spoken in Siberia, Samoyed branch of Uralic) ‘the substantive [noun] can also be the predicate of the sentence, and in this function it can take verbal person suffixes’. For example:

(7) ma ´n h¯asawa-dm ‘I am a man’ (8) pydar h¯asawa-n ‘You are a man’

Mandarin Chinese shows a different pattern—a noun may only function as argument, whereas a verb may be either predicate or argument. Compare (le is here a sentence-final particle ‘currently relevant state’):

3.5 clause structure and word classes 111 (9) Daifu lai le

doctor come particle noun verb

subject predicate The doctor came

(10) Lai tui le

come be.right particle verb verb

subject predicate

Coming was right (that is, It was right to come) We now have:

III predicate arguments (S, A, O, etc.)

noun verb

CLAUSESTRUCTURE

WORDCLASS

Nootka, spoken on Victoria Island in British Columbia, Canada, is said to have a further pattern of associations:

IV predicate arguments (S, A, O, etc.)

noun verb

CLAUSESTRUCTURE

WORDCLASS

These are illustrated in: (11) [Pi;h

˙-ma;]intransitive predicate [qo;Pas-Pi;]s be.large-3sg.indicative man-article The man is large

(12) [qo;Pas-ma]intransitive predicate [Pi;h ˙-Pi]s

man-3sg.indicative be.large-article

The large one is a man

In (11) verb ‘be large’ and noun ‘man’ are in their prototypical functions, as predicate and argument respectively. But a noun can alternatively function as predicate and a verb as its argument, which is illustrated in (12).

It is this kind of apparent interchangeability of noun and verb in argument and predicate slots which has led some linguists to suggest that Nootka might lack a distinction between Noun and Verb. As is explained in Chapter 11, there are other kinds of criteria which distinguish the two word classes. And

it should be noted that noun is most often used in argument slot, only very occasionally as predicate; similarly, a verb is generally employed as predicate, much less often as an argument (as shown by the thick and thin lines in the diagrams).

This variation of associations between clause slots and word classes, in different languages (and there are doubtless further possibilities, in other languages), emphasizes the importance of distinguishing clause structure and word classes. (It is definitely not satisfactory to simply state, say, that a clause consists of NP, with noun as head, and VP, with verb as head, as has sometimes been done.)

Superficial examination of English suggests that some nouns have sec- ondary function as predicate head—for example, stone in The Romans stoned the Christians—and that some verbs have secondary function as head of an NP—for example, walk in That long walk tired me out. However, only some nouns may be used in a predicate, and only some verbs as NP head. One cannot predict exactly which items from these word classes will have an apparent secondary function, nor what their meaning will be in that function. The optimum analysis is to say that we have in English a number of ‘zero deriva- tions’; that is, word-class-changing derivations which have zero marking. They are paralleled by derivations with non-zero marking. Compare noun market and verb market with noun hospital and verb hospital-ize. Also compare verb witness and noun witness with verb observe and noun observ-er.

All of these issues are further discussed, and exemplified, in Chapter11.

3.6 Adjectives

It has been suggested for a few languages that there is no distinction between Noun and Verb. And for a larger number it has been said that there is no Adjective class. Indeed, some grammars include no mention at all of ‘adjective’. Close examination of the example sentences and vocabulary may reveal that concepts coded by adjectives in other languages are in this language all realized as verbs, or all as nouns. In point of fact, I know of no language which has been thoroughly and insightfully described for which an Adjective class cannot be recognized.

The function and properties of an Adjective class vary widely from language to language. There are four basic types:

(a) Adjectives have similar properties to verbs. That is, an adjective can occur as head of a phrase filling predicate slot in clause structure, just as an intransitive verb may. For each such language, some criteria can be dis- cerned to distinguish Adjective and Verb. The actual criterial properties vary from language to language; they typically include slightly different

3.6 adjectives 113 possibilities between verb and adjective for being modified when func- tioning as predicate, for functioning as modifier within an NP, for occurring in comparative constructions, and for forming adverbs. (b) Adjectives have similar properties to nouns. That is, an adjective may

occur as modifier in an NP and it may also make up a complete NP (a decision then has to be made between saying that the adjective is NP head, and saying that a noun head has been ellipsed). An adjective may undergo the same morphological processes as a noun; for example, taking number and/or case marking. However, there always are some criteria which enable the linguist to distinguish two word classes. They may relate to the internal structure of NPs (if an adjective is head there may be fewer possibilities for modification than if a noun is head) or to the fact that only an adjective may occur in a comparative construction, or may form adverbs.

(c) Adjectives share grammatical properties with both verbs and nouns. An adjective can function similarly to an intransitive verb is being head of a predicate, and it may inflect like a noun when occurring in an NP. (d) Adjectives have grammatical properties different from those of verbs and

of nouns. English is of this type—an adjective may neither function as predicate head nor as NP head; it does not share any inflection with verb or with noun. Unlike nouns and verbs, an adjective occurs in a comparative construction (marked by either -er or more), and adverbs may be formed from many—but not all—adjectives.

There are some languages with two subclasses of adjective, one with similar morphological and syntactic possibilities to verbs, and the other to nouns. They are linked together through some common properties, such as being the only items to occur in a comparative construction.

There are two basic semantic tasks for an adjective to perform:

(I) Make a statement that something has a certain property. In languages of type (a), this is achieved through the adjective functioning as intran- sitive predicate (literally, ‘The man happies’). In languages of types (b) and (d), the adjective will make up a copula complement or verbless clause complement argument (‘The man (is) happy’). Languages of type (c) are likely to show both possibilities.

(II) Provide a specification that helps focus on the referent of the head noun in an NP. This is shown by an adjective acting as noun modifier in a language of types (b), (c), and (d), as in ‘The happy man’. Languages of type (a) differ in how adjectives fulfil this task; in some, an adjective must occur within a relative clause construction (literally, ‘The man who happies’).

Every language has a large open Noun class and almost all have a Verb class of significant size. In some languages the Adjective class is fairly large and open (that is, new words may be added, either through language-internal derivation or as loans). However, a fair number of languages have a small, closed adjective class, with anything from three or four to a few score members.

There is a semantic basis to the make-up of a small Adjective class. As mentioned in §1.11, if it has only a dozen or so members, these are likely to belong to four semantic types:

dimension—‘big’, ‘little’, ‘long’, ‘short’ age—‘old’, ‘young’, ‘new’

colour—‘black’, ‘white’, ‘red’ value—‘good’, ‘bad’

An Adjective class with twenty or so members is likely to include some from thephysical property type, such as ‘raw’, ‘hard’, ‘heavy’, ‘wet’. Larger classes will include somehuman propensity items, such as ‘clever’, ‘greedy, ‘rude’, ‘jealous’.

Where have all the other adjectival concepts gone, in a language with a small class? Study of a selection of reliable grammars and dictionaries enables an inductive generalization to be made.physical property ideas are most likely to be coded as verbs (one says, literally ‘It heavies’) andhuman propensity concepts either as nouns (saying, literally, ‘She has cleverness’) or as verbs.

There is further discussion of adjective classes in Chapter12.