OJ511 Language typology

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2010
Extent and Intensity
1/1/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
Teacher(s)
prof. Joseph Embley Emonds (lecturer), doc. PhDr. Mojmír Dočekal, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Mojmír Dočekal, Ph.D.
Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: doc. PhDr. Mojmír Dočekal, Ph.D.
Timetable
Thu 11:40–13:15 C31
Prerequisites
Knowledge of English.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 20 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/20, only registered: 0/20, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/20
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 13 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
At the end of the course student should be able to understand and explain: (I) systems of word formation and contrasting properties of bound morphology; (ii) time permitting, head-initial vs. head-final word order, including internal to words; (iii) various explanations of these topics: Humboldt, Sapir, generative grammar and to make deduction based on acquired knowledge.
Syllabus
  • Language Typology can be studied along many dimensions: word order (head-initial vs.head-final, free vs. fixed), dominant types of grammatical categories, associations of semantic roles with structural positions (topic dominant vs. subject dominant, accusative vs. ergative), the ”size“ of major grammatical constituents available especially in regard to counting, availability of null topics or null subjects, systems of word formation, properties of bound morphology, and phonological types. It would be absurd to pretend that such topics can all be covered or even interestingly surveyed in 12 lectures.
  • In this course, we will examine three of the above headings: (i) systems of word formation and related properties of bound morphology; (ii) head-initial vs. head-final word order, including internal to words; (iii) differences in how languages count, especially with regard to nominal and verbal projections. These choices are made on the grounds that my own research has suggested that fruitful progress in understanding these questions is currently at hand.
  • With regard to (i), most linguistic thinking continues to adhere to W. Humboldt's distinctions from the 1820s involving the concepts of analytic, inflectional and agglutinating word formation. Humboldt's "levels of development" are the obvious (but unmentioned) target of Sapir's well known 1921 foray into morphological typology. This "deconstruction of Humbolt," unfortunately little understood, is our starting point.
  • I argue that all languages, even the so-called analytic and inflecting types, are basically agglutinating: one morpheme = one syntactic feature. The lectures also examine the few counterexamples to pure agglutination, which seem to involve morphemes that cross-classify with number features. Interestingly, these feature combinations are not limited to bound morphology, i.e. agglutination is a general property of syntax, not just of morphology. Thus, agglutination is a universal property, and how number specification interacts with it provides a typology across languages.
  • With respect ot (ii), the course will argue against widespread ideas that languages divide between "head-initial" and "head-final," and that headedness inside words and inside phrases is separate. I argue rather that the universal default setting is head-final in both domains, even though Modern Indo-European languages rarely show the default setting external to word structures. Typology here again consists in specifying divergence from the default head-final setting. Of interest is how uniformly Slavic languages exhibit word-internal final heads.
  • Concerning (iii), the main the main idea starts from a well-known typological dichotomy of how languages count, pre-theoretically either with plurals or with classifiers. I claim this has far-reching implications, even in the domain of subject-verb agreement. The syntactic basis of the division is whether words for counting (5, 6, 7, etc.) combine only with Ns, as in classifier languages, or with NP and XPs more generally, as is languages with plural morphemes and subject-verb agreement.
  • Broadly speaking, the course will cover 5 toics, each during 2 or 3 weeks of lectures.
  • The topics to be covered are as follows:
  • Topic 1: Analysis of the “Humboldtian typology”: inflecting, agglutinating and isolating systems. Sapir’s response almost a centtury later. Case inflection (Indo-European) vs. agglutination (Japanese, Bantu) Agglutination as a basic principle of linearity; esamples of demonstratives Anderson’s critique of agglutination in “Where’s Morphology?” Number agreement as the basis of inflection: More number = more inflection Alternative Realization as the basis of English and Czech inflection
  • Topic 2: Correlations between bound morphology and word order types. Traditional ideas about relations between overt case morphology and free word order Free word order in clauses, withou or without case (e.g. Dutch, Spanish) Word order in Indo-European noun phrases, e.g. Czech fixed order vs. Japanese free order The problem of formulating “necessary and sufficient conditions” for free word order
  • Topic 3: Variation in word and morpheme orders in syntax and morphology. Head placement in words and in phrases; Stowell’s head-initial vs. head-final A unified approach to ordering of heads and non-heads across domain types Barriers to free word order, and default head-final order Dependence of left-right order in both phrasal and word domains on a language’s srress contours
  • Topic 4: Typology inside NP: counting with plurals vs. counting with classifiers. RecastingJackendoff’s (1977) classic analysis of English Indo-European QP projections: Existential vs. Universal Quantifiers Non-projecting Q (Japanese) vs. Projecting Q (Indo-European) The Japanese system: counting with N but not with NP The Indo-European system: counting and measuring NPs and XPs more generally
  • Topic 5: Contribution of counting typology to subject-predicate typology. Fukui and Speas (1986). Open vs. Closed Projections. Kuroda’s (1991) parameter: “Whether we agree or not.” A revision: not “Japanese may not agree” but “Japanese must not agree.” Unifying counting typology with agreement typology: “Q projects”
Literature
  • Chomsky, Noam (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • Aronoff, Mark (1976) Morphology by Itself. MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • Grimshaw, Jane (1990) Argument Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
  • Kayne, Richard (1994) The Antisymmetry of Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • Hockett, Charles (1960) “The Origins of Language,” Scientific American.
  • Nespor, Marina, Ruben van de Vijver, Hanna Schraudolf, Mohinish Shukla, Cinzia Avesani, Caterina Donati (2008) Different Phrasal Prominence Realizations in VO and OV Languages, Lingue e Linguaggio VII.2, 1-29.
  • Maylor, B. Roger (2002) Lexical Template Morphology: Change of state and the verbal prefixes of German, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
  • Embick, David and Ralph Noyer (2001) Movement Operations after Syntax, Linguistic Inquiry 32.
  • Chomsky, Noam (1986) Barriers. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
  • Corver, Norbert and Henk van Riemsdijk (2001) Semi-Lexical Categories: The Function of Content Words and the Content of Function Words. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.
  • Veselovská, Lida (2001) “Agreement Patterns of Czech Group Nouns and Quantifiers,” in Corver and van Riemsdijk (2001).
  • Okuda, Mayumi (2006) Japanese Classifier Agreement and the DP–hypothesis Kobe-Shoin University MA dissertation.
  • Emonds, Joseph (2000) Lexcion and Grammar: the English Syntacticon. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.
  • Nespor, Marina and Irene Vogel (1982) Prosodic domains of external sandhi rules, The structure of phonological representations. H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.). Foris, Dordrecht.
  • Ross, John (1967) Constraints on Variables in Syntax. MIT doctoral dissertation.
  • Bates, Dawn (1988) Prominence Relations and Structure in English Compound Morphology, University of Washington doctoral dissertation.
  • Jespersen, Otto. 1905. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Garden City: Doubleday.
  • Chomsky, Noam and Morris Halle (1968) The Sound Pattern of English. Harper and Row, New York.
  • Anderson, Stephen. 1982. Where’s Morphology? Linguistic Inquiry 13. 571-612.
  • Halle, Morris and Alec Marantz (1993) “Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection,” The View from Building 20, K Hale and S.J. Keyser, eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 111-176.
  • Baker, Mark. 1985. The Mirror Principle and Morphosyntactic Explanation. Linguistic Inquiry 16. 373-416.
  • Lieber, Rochelle (1980) On the Organization of the Lexicon. MIT doctoral dissertation.
  • Kuroda, Sige-Yuki (1992) “Whether We Agree or Not: A Comparative Syntax of English and Japanese,” Japanese Syntax and Semantics: Collected Papers. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
  • Emonds, Joseph. 2008 “Q: the one and only Functional Head.” Phantom Sentences. Essays in linguistics and literature presented to Ann Banfield, Robert Kawashima, Gilles Phillippe and Thelma Sowley (eds.), Peter Lang: Berne, 193-226, 2008.
  • Kubo, Miori (1996) “Some Considerations on Noun Clauses and Numeral Classifiers: A Study of (Pseudo)partitives in Japanese and English,” Keio Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 1, 89-124.
  • Emonds, Joseph (1985) A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories. Foris, Dordrecht.
  • Ritter, Elisabeth (1991) “Two functional categories in noun phrases: evidence from Modern Hebrew,” Perspectives on Phrase Structure: Heads and Licensing, S. Rothstein (ed.), 37-62. Academic Press, San Diego.
  • Emonds, Joseph (2001) “The Flat Structure Economy of Semi-Lexical Heads,” in Corver and van Riemsdijk (2001).
  • Riemsdijk. Henk van (1978) A Case Study in Syntactic Markedness. Drdrecht: Foris.
  • Huang, James (1984) Phrase Structure, Lexical Integrity and Chinese Compounds, Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association XIX, 53-78.
  • Greenberg, Joseph (1963) Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements, Universals of Language, J. Greenberg (ed.). MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • Jackendoff, Ray (1977) X-bar Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
  • Fukui, Naoki and Margaret Speas (1986) Specifiers and Projection. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 8, 128-172.
  • Rizzi, Luigi (1997)) “The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery,” Elements of Grammar, L. Haegeman, (ed.), 281-337. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
  • Benveniste, Emile. 1966. Problèmes de Linguistique Générale. Paris: Gallimard.
  • Greenberg, Joseph. 1964, Universals of Language, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
  • Emonds, Joseph (1976) A Transformational Approach to English Syntax: Root, Structure-Preserving and Local Transformations. Academic Press, New York.
  • Fukui, Naoki. and Margaret Speas (1986) “Specifiers and Projection,” MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 8,128-172.
  • Kayne, Richard (1994) The Antisymmetry of Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • Koopman, Hilda (1984) Verb Phrase Syntax, Foris, Dordrecht.
  • Emonds, Joseph (2009) Universal Default Right Headedness and How Stress Determines Word Order. Lingue e Linguaggio VIII.I, 1-30.
  • Lieber, Rochelle. 1983. Argument Linking and Compounds in English. Linguistic Inquiry 14. 251-286.
  • Haider, Hubert (2001) Why are there no complex head-initial compounds? Naturally! Ch. Schaner-Wolles, J. Rennison and F. Neubart (eds.). Rosenberg and Sellier, Torino.
  • Inoue, Kazuko (1998) “Sentences without Nominative Subjects in Japanese,” Researching and Verifying an Advanced Theory of Human Language 2-A, Kanda University Report, 1-30.
  • Greenberg, Joseph (1963) Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements, Universals of Language. J. Greenberg (ed.). MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • Emonds, Joseph: The Flat Structure Economy of Semi-Lexical Heads. Semi-Lexical Categories: The Function of Content Words and the Content of Function Words. N. Corver and H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), 23-66, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.
  • Schwarzchild. Roger (2002), “Singleton Indefinites,” Journal of Semantics 19, 289-314.
  • Neeleman, Ad, H. van de Koot and Jenny Doetjes (2004) “Degree Expressions,” Linguistic Review 21.
  • Stowell, Timothy (1981) The Origins of Phrase Structure. MIT doctoral dissertation.
  • Abney, Steven (1987) The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect. MIT doctoral dissertation.
  • Bresnan, Joan (1972) Sentence Stress and Transformations. Language 47, 237-297.
  • Chomsky, Noam (2001) “Derivation by Phase,” Ken Hale: a Life in Language, Michael Kenstowicz (ed), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1-60.
  • Riemsdijk, Henk van (1998) “Categorial Feature Magnetism, the Endocentricity and Distribution of Projections,” Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 2, 1-48.
  • Oga, Kyoko (2002) The Syntax of Japanese Nominal Projections and some Cross-Linguistic Implications. University of Durham doctoral dissertation.
  • Emonds, Joseph. 2000. Lexicon and Grammar: the English Syntacticon. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Emonds, Joseph. To appear. “Which is the Extended Projection above N?” Essays in honor of Guglielmo Cinque, Anna Cardinaletti & Giuliana Giusti (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  • Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 1822. On the Origin of Grammatical Forms and their Influence on the Development of Ideas. In Essays on Language. T. Harden and D. Farrelly, eds. Frankfurt: Peter Lang (1997).
  • Kayne, Richard (1975) French Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Teaching methods
theory, drills
Assessment methods
Lectures, class discussion. Student must write two tests to complete the course.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
Information on completion of the course: Ukončení zápočtem je možné pouze pro kredit typu C. Uděluje se na základě aktivní účasti při výuce.
The course is taught annually.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2007.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2010/OJ511