Functional Structure in Morphology and the Case of Nonfinite Verbs: Theoretical Issues and the Description of the Danish Verb System

537 Pages·2016·5.9 MB·English

by  Peter Juul Nielsen

Functional Structure in Morphology and the Case of Nonfinite Verbs
Empirical Approaches to
Linguistic Theory
Series Editor
Brian D. Joseph (The Ohio State University, USA)
Editorial Board
Artemis Alexiadou (University of Stuttgart, Germany)
Harald Baayen (University of Alberta, Canada)
Pier Marco Bertinetto (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy)
Kirk Hazen (West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA)
Maria Polinsky (Harvard University, Cambridge, USA)
VOLUME 9
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ealt
Functional Structure in
Morphology and the Case
of Nonfinite Verbs
Theoretical Issues and the
Description of the Danish Verb System
By
Peter Juul Nielsen
LEIDEN | BOSTON
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016021134
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issn 2210-6243
isbn 978-90-04-32181-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-32183-0 (e-book)
Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Acknowledgements xiii
Abbreviations and Glossing xv
List of Figures and Tables xviii
part 1
Point of Departure
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Introducing Topics and Aims 4
1.1.1 A Reflexive Enquiry 4
1.1.2 A Basis for Describing the Danish Nonfinites 6
1.1.3 An Empirical Approach to Linguistic Theory 8
1.2 A Contextualised Introduction to Danish Verbal Morphology 10
1.2.1 Typological Characteristics and Central Features of Danish
Grammar 11
1.2.2 Morphological Characteristics 17
1.2.3 Verbal Morphology 20
1.2.4 Describing the Inventory of Verb Forms 29
1.3 The Problem of the Nonfinites 29
1.4 Theoretical Challenges 31
1.5 Outline of the Book 33
2 Theoretical Preliminaries 36
2.1 Introduction 36
2.2 Sign, Function and Structure 38
2.2.1 The sign 39
2.2.2 Function 41
2.2.3 Structure 43
2.3 Content and Expression 45
2.3.1 The Nature of Coded Linguistic Content 45
2.3.2 A Broader View on Linguistic Semiotics 48
2.3.3 Types of Linguistic Expression 49
2.3.4 Modes of Expression Structure: Combination, Dependency and
Linearity 49
2.3.5 On Content and Expression in Syntax 51
2.4 Morphology and Morphological Analysis 54
2.4.1 The Structure of the Expression and Content of Words 55
2.4.2 The Morpheme 55
vi Contents
2.4.3 Morphology and Syntax 58
2.4.4 Methodology in Morphological Analysis 59
2.5 The Present Approach in the Landscape of Morphological
Theory 65
2.5.1 Generativist Morphology 66
2.5.2 Other Approaches to Morphology 70
2.5.3 The Semiotic Analysis of Morphology as a Content System 73
2.6 Empirical Motivation and Empirical Underpinning 75
2.7 The Finite/Nonfinite Distinction 76
2.7.1 Language-specific Analysis in the Danish Tradition 77
2.7.2 The Problem of Formulating a Universal Definition of
Finiteness 78
2.7.3 Defining Finiteness in Danish 80
part 2
Sign Relations
Introduction to Part 2 87
3 Indexicality 88
3.1 Introduction 88
3.1.1 Identifying, Situational, Systemic and Structural Indexes 90
3.2 The Basic Structure of the Indexical Relation and its Relata 92
3.3 Indexical Function of Variants 93
3.3.1 Allomorphs as Indexes of Expression Components and
Signs 95
3.3.2 Content Variants as Indicata 98
3.4 No Content Elements as Indexes 101
3.5 Typology of Indexical Relations 102
3.5.1 Sign-index/Sign-indicatum 103
3.5.2 Sign-index/Expression-indicatum 104
3.5.3 Expression-index/Expression-indicatum 104
3.5.4 Expression-index/Sign-indicatum 105
3.5.5 Expression-index/Content-indicatum 105
3.5.6 Sign-index/Content-indicatum 106
3.5.7 Indexing Invariant Content 106
3.6 The Sign Function of Indexical Relations 109
3.6.1 T he Three Basic Types of Indexing 110
3.7 Extending the Concept: Entailed Knowledge of Co-occurrence 113
Contents vii
4 Syntagmatic Relations 116
4.1 Introduction 116
4.2 The Syntax of Morphemes: Combinatorial and Meronymic
Relations 119
4.2.1 Integrating Constituency and Dependency 122
4.3 Combinatorial Relations: Dependency and Government 126
4.3.1 Open and Closed Dependency 126
4.3.2 Weak and Strong Government 129
4.3.3 Dependency-Government Match 132
4.3.4 Typology of Combinatorial Relations 132
4.3.5 Interdependency 133
4.3.6 Lexical vs. Categorial Combinatorics 136
4.3.7 Categories on Different Levels 138
4.4 Meronymic Relations: Constituency 138
4.4.1 Parataxis 139
4.4.2 Hypotaxis 140
4.4.3 Catataxis 141
4.5 Typology of Syntagmatic Types 146
4.6 The Indexicality of Dependency 147
4.6.1 Element-indicatum and Set-indicatum 148
4.6.2 Dependents are Indexes for Governors 149
4.6.3 Strong Government Makes the Governor Indexical 150
4.6.4 The Indexical Reciprocity of Interdependency 150
5 Paradigmatic Relations 152
5.1 Introduction 152
5.2 The Classical Inflectional Paradigm 155
5.3 The Structuralist Concept of a Paradigm 157
5.4 Difference Relations 159
5.4.1 Difference in Information Theory 160
5.4.2 Different Types of Difference Relations 161
5.4.3 The Typology of Difference Relations 169
5.5 The Structural-Functional Paradigm Model 171
5.5.1 Examples of Oppositions, Domains and Frames 174
5.5.2 Grammatical Phenomena without Paradigms 180
5.6 The Semantic Frame and the Content of Oppositional
Specifications 181
5.6.1 The Type of Difference Relation within the Frame 184
5.6.2 The Methodological Challenges of Frame Formulation 185
5.6.3 Obligatoriness, Zero Expression and the Value ‘Neutral’ 187
5.6.4 Constituency and Dependency as Material for Paradigm
Frames 190
viii Contents
6 The Zero Sign 192
6.1 Introduction 192
6.2 Zero from a Structural Perspective 195
6.2.1 Haas’s Warning against Unjustified Zeros 196
6.3 A Set of Criteria for Zero 198
6.3.1 Mel’čuk’s Criteria for Zero 198
6.3.2 Additional Criterion: Indexical Support 203
6.4 The Status of Zero as Absence 209
6.4.1 Different Expression Domains of Zero 210
6.4.2 Zero Expression as an Operation 210
6.4.3 Zero as Shorthand in Analysis and Glossing 212
6.5 Morphemic and Allomorphic Zero 215
6.5.1 No Need for Non-Zero Alternants 216
6.5.2 Allomorphs as Members of Alloparadigms 217
6.5.3 The Problem of Zero vs. Zero 217
6.6 Content of the Zero Sign 219
6.6.1 Structural Difference 220
6.6.2 Equipollence and Privativity 223
6.6.3 Markedness and the Content of Zero 226
6.6.4 Determining the Meaning of Absence 233
6.7 Zeros of Different Orders 234
6.7.1 First Order Zero: Morphemic Meaningful Absence 235
6.7.2 Zero Order Zero: Allomorphic Meaningful Absence 236
6.7.3 Second Order Zero: Supermorphemic Meaningful
Absence 236
6.7.4 A Second Order Opposition: Danish Mood Inflection 238
6.7.5 The System of Orders of Zero 249
Part 3
Morphological Relations within and across Categories
Introduction to Part 3 255
7 Inflection and Derivation 258
7.1 Preliminary Observations 258
7.2 The Traditional Distinction between Inflection and Derivation 259
7.3 The Descriptive Problem of the Traditional Distinction 265
7.4 Some Suggestions for a Definition of the Distinction 269
7.4.1 Scalise 1988 269
Contents ix
7.4.2 Bybee 1985 271
7.4.3 Haspelmath 1996 275
7.5 Entanglement and Disentanglement 277
7.5.1 Mode of Expression vs. Mode of Relation 278
7.5.2 Other Elementary Issues 280
7.5.3 A Note on Some Proposals for Disentanglement 282
7.6 A Less Presumptive Approach 285
7.7 Analysis of Grammatical Options 286
8 The Combinatorial Properties of Morphological Structures 290
8.1 Component and Totality 290
8.2 Combinatorial Potential 293
8.2.1 A Typology of Difference in Combinatorial Potential 295
8.2.2 Morphemes and Selectional Sets in the Light of
Combinatorial Potential 303
9 Relations across Categories 306
9.1 Transposition vs. Specification 306
9.2 Functional Differentiation 312
10 Dependency in Morphological Combination 317
10.1 Hjelmslev’s Proposal 317
10.2 Relata of Dependency: Element or Set 320
10.3 Interdependency Everywhere? 323
10.4 Different Levels of Dependency: Hierarchy and
Constituency 324
10.5 Domain of Dependency 326
10.6 The Case of Danish Verb Forms 329
10.7 Types of Dependency Relations in Morphology 333
11 Expansion and Its Absence in Transcategorial Relations 337
11.1 Zero Signs in Functional Differentiation 338
11.2 Differentiation without Zero: Adverbialisation in Italian 339
11.2.1 Elaboration of the Index Criterion 343
11.2.2 The Second Order Exponent of Nominal Ascription 344
11.3 Differentiation with Zero as Allo-expression: Adverbialisation
in English 345
11.4 Final Remarks 347
Summary of Part 3 349