4 MODIFICATION, CLAUSE DEMOTION AND NOMINALIZATION

In this section, we sketch three closely related areas of LZC phrase structure. Short (or

‘possessive’) modification of NPs provides a template for the demotion of full clauses to constituents: [NP1 հ ^NP2_head] → [Subject հ Predicate]. Two strategies for nominalizing predicates participate in the short modification template to yield long modification of the English relative clause type: [(Predicate nominalized by ृ zh¨ or ࢬ su¦ )= NP1 հ ^NP2].

Finally, while the general rule in LZC is that ‘modifiers precede modifieds’, there exists an important class of exceptions when the modified is a verb or predicate phrase.

4.1 Modification of NP by NP and clause demotion

Modification of an NP by a single morpheme is generally achieved by simple juxtaposition, as in Ⴡᢈ!tú g<ng ‘mud stew’ (^NP-NP) of (3), ֈᄣ xi8ng suì ‘bad year’ (Adj-^NP), and in the nested NP modification ᄑֆ՗ ch© g8ng z§, probably to be analysed (Chu (sire (son))) ‘son of the sire of Chu’ of (6). Longer modifiers tend to be linked to the head NP by the ‘possessive’

marker հ zhy, here glossed ‘^PO’, possession being one of the most commonly attested seman-tic relations between modifier and modified. [NP1 հ ^NP2_head] structures are shown in the first and third phrases of (10), where the relation of NP1 to NP2 is clearly not that of possessor.

The third person possessive pronoun, ‘3PO’, has the special form, ࠡ qí ‘her/his/its/their’, already seen in (4) ࠡ!ᢐ qí yaò ‘his medicine’, and again in the second phrase of (10).

‘Possessive’ հ zhy and ࠡ qí also mark demoted clauses, i.e. clauses that cannot stand alone, but function as constituents, embedded within superordinate clauses. The possessive particles mark the subject as ‘modifier’ of the predicate, the same sort of strategy found in English ‘Mary/she lost > Mary’s/her loss’. The pattern occurs twice in (2): ࠡ! ۟ qí zhì ‘its arrival’ and ࠡ!խ!qí zhòng ‘its hitting the mark’. The bare circumstantial clause introducing (11) shows a clause with full NP subject demoted by ‘հ zhy-insertion’. Note the embedding function of clause-final Ո y¨, a further example of which occurs in (20) below.

(10) ᆄ!! ଊ հ ഏ - მ! ࠡ! ܩ! ृ - ؘ Տ

wàn shèng zhy guó shì qí jUn zh¨ bì qi%n

10 k vehicle PO state assassinate 3PO lord DET must 1k

ଊ հ ୮ Me 1.1/1.6

shèng zhy ji%

vehicle PO family

‘A state of ten thousand chariots, the person who assassinates its ruler will surely be (from) a family of a thousand chariots.’

(11) Ձ! ֛! հ! গ! Ո-! ׀! ࡎ հ! Me 6.2/31.18

zhàng fU zhy gu%n y¨ fù mìng zhy

2.25m man PO headgear PRT father order 3O

‘When a young man is capped, his father ordains him.’

ॺ Ո

4.2 Nominalization and modification of NP by clause

LZC has two nominalizing particles, ृ zh¨ and ࢬ su¦, which convert predicates into free relative NPs roughly analogous to the underlined phrases in ‘Who steals my purse steals trash’

for ृ zh¨, and ‘She questioned the accused’ for ࢬ su¦. As ^NPs, such derived free relatives can participate as either modifier or head in the [NP1 հ ^NP2] modification structure illustrated in (10).

The so-called ‘subject relativizer’ ृ zh¨ is a quasi-determiner (^DET) suffixed to a predicate to form a free relative, often on the absent subject, yielding the meaning ‘(the) one(s) who/thing(s) that PREDICATE’. An example has already appeared in (10): მ!ࠡ!ܩ!ृ

shì qí jUn zh¨ ‘(the) one who assassinates its lord’. (12) shows Predicate+ functioning as the head NP2 in an [NP1 հ ^NP2] structure.

DETृ zh¨ does not, in fact, always stand for the subject of the predicate it nominalizes, even if no subject is expressed. Immediate context will often require construal of the derived NP as a free abstract event or situation nominal, as already exemplified in the x constituent of (4),

‘When day grows late, the inevitable return home for rations (is explained by) . . .’. Construal of ؘ ូ 㟍 ृ ‘must return.home ration ^DET’ as a subject nominalization, ‘those who must return home for rations’, does not cohere with the explanatory predicate which follows: ‘(the fact that,) while dust rice and mud gruel can be used to play with, they cannot be eaten’. This example illustrates how construing decontextualized LZC sentences often requires looking ahead to ascertain what sort of semantic structure awaits the integration of an underspecified initial NP or clause. (See again Gil on Riau Indonesian.)

The second relativizing particle, ‘OR’ ࢬ su¦, nominalizes on the object (or locative phrase) of the predicate to which it is prefixed. Thus, ࢬ!൓ su¦ dé ‘^OR get’, means ‘what (x) gets/got’. (Two further examples of ࢬ su¦ object nominalization occur in (23).)

In (13), the free relative, ࢬ ൓ ࣍ Ꮨ ‘what he got from Qi’, functions as the modifying

NP1 in an [NP1 հ ^NP2] construction, literally ‘[what (he) got from Qi]’s weapons’, the sort of complex modification which English is constrained to express by a relative clause, ‘the weapons (which) he obtained from Qi’. This sort of example suggests that in LZC the modification of a noun by a clause requires prior nominalization of that clause. The resulting NP is then attached as NP1 to the head noun, NP2, such that ‘modifier always precedes modified’. The language shows no direct, post-head attachment of clauses to NPs by means of relative pronouns.

4.3 Predicate modification

A basic distinction can be drawn between ‘adpredicate’ particles, a relatively closed class in synchronic description (but subject to enrichment through grammaticization), and the open

(12) ࡺ ਢ ߶ - . . . ֖ ࠡ Փ հ ո ृ Ly 15.10/42.23

jU shì b%ng y¨ y¦u qí shì zhy rén zh¨

reside DET state PRT friend 3PO officer PO humane DET

‘When residing in a state, befriend the humane among its officers.’

(lit. its officers’ are.humane the.ones)

(13) ࡱ ࣳ!՗ אࢬ ൓ ࣍! Ꮨ հ ܎ ܂ ࣥ ᝻ Zz 266.16

Jì W© z§ y§ su¦ dé yú Qí zhy byng zuò lín zh8ng

PN INS OR get LP PN PO weapon make forest bell

‘Ji Wuzi, with the weapons he had obtained from Qi, made a set of “forest bells”.’

(i.e. he cast the bells using the metal obtained from recycled weapons.)

ृ

Ո

class of full words whose occasional predicate-modifying function is effected by positioning them immediately left of the predicate. The latter ‘syntactically derived adverbials’ (but not the particles) all have more basic functions, chiefly adjectival, verbal or nominal, each of which correlates with non-adverbial positions in the clause.

Two examples of the particle type occur in (14): the aspectual negative (AN) آ wèi

‘not.yet/not.quite’ and the existential quantifier (XQ) ࢨ huò ‘there.exists.a.specific.case.of’, here rendered ‘anyone’, in the context of آ wèi ‘not.yet’ and קֱհᖂृ b¨i f%ng zhy xué zh¨ ‘northern scholar(s)’.

Some expressions translatable as English adverbials are LZC intransitive verbs rather than adverbs. In (15), the subject of Ն ji© ‘last.long’ is the clause ֚! ඵ! ೸ ti%n qì Sh%ng

‘Heaven abandoned Shang’, demoted by -insertion to ‘Heaven’s abandonment of Shang’.

When the verb of (15), Ն! ji©, occurs squarely between subject and predicate, as in (16), however, there can be little question of its adverbial function.

A second example of this type is found in the first clause of (17), the full version of (6).

Here the adjective ੷ shèn ‘be.extreme’ modifies a second adjective serving as predicate, ભ m¨i ‘be.fine’.

Quantifying adverbials, derived by position from nouns and numbers, are attested clustering in the prepredicate site, as in (18).

Deverbal adverbials do not cluster as readily, however, those expressing manner or degree often moving to a postverbal position.

(14) ק

‘Among scholars of the north, there has not yet been anyone able to surpass him.’

(Cf. a quantified NP version, ‘So far, no northern scholar has been able to surpass him’.)

(15) ֚! հ! ඵ! ೸! Ն ߎ Zz 98.30

ti%n zhy qì Sh%ng ji© y§

heaven 3PO abandon PN last.long ASP

‘Heaven’s abandonment of Shang has now lasted a long time’=

‘Heaven long ago abandoned Shang’.

PN sire son be.extreme be.fine NA magnate ASP

‘The scion of Chu (is) very grand; (he) no longer (acts like) a (mere) magnate.’

ቫ cháng ‘once’ is derived from the transitive verb ‘taste’ by its position preceding the predicate ၆ guì ‘be.prized’. ੷ shèn ‘extreme’, which we observed in prepredicate position in (17), has moved to the right periphery of the clause in (19).

As a site for adverbials, the right periphery of the clause is more capacious than pre-predicate position, accommodating phrases with their own arguments or modifiers.

In (21), آ Ն wèi ji© ‘not.quite last.long’ might be analysed as the main predicate, but as there are no signs of clause-demotion such as seen in (15) – the first clause of (21) is subject-less, so ࠡ ਜ ᖻ ࣍ ا qí shy zé yú mín ‘his dispensing of bounty to the people’ would be expected – we assign the negated predicate to the clause-final ‘secondary predicate’

position required to account for the syntax of examples (19) and (20).

While the details of predicate modification are not well understood, the LZC clause clearly has two positions for such modifiers. The internal site between subject and predicate is of limited capacity, allowing some ‘stacking’ of monosyllabic modifiers, as in (14) and (18), but closed to predicators with their own complements, as in (20), or modifiers, as in (21). The right-peripheral site for such ‘heavy’ modification of the predicate appears to provide the single, principled exception to the generalization about modifiers preceding their heads in LZC.