Download Parts-of-speech systems

xx
Abbreviationsand symbols
TNS
TOP
TR
TRANS
UNSPEC.OBJ
LONSPEC.SUBJ
voL
VP
V.INTR
V.DTR
V.TR
I
z
J
lsc
3pr
0
=
l
??
tense
topic
transitive
transitive
unspecifiedobject
unspecifiedsubject
verb
volitional
verb phrase
intransitiveverb
ditransitiveverb
transitiveverb
first person
secondperson
third person
first personsingular(etc.)
third personplural (etc.)
zero marking
affix boundary
clitic boundary
infix
ungrammaticalphraseor sentence
high tone
low tone
rise - fall tone or falling tone
only marginallygrammatical
falling into nation contour[chapter5]
rising into nation contour[chapter5]
Unless otherwiseindicatedin a chapter,Roman numeralsare used for noun
classes.
'Nc'
with a subscriptnumber'x' means'Noun classx'.
Parts-of-speech
systems
Paul Schachterand TimothyShopenl
0
Introduction
Parts of speeclris the traditional term for the major classesof words that are
grammaticallydistinguishedin a language.While all languagesmake partsol--speechdistinctions, there are rather striking differencesbetween languages
with regard to both the kind and the number of such distinctionsthat they
rnake.A field worker investigatingan unfamiliar languagemay thereforefind it
tusefulto know what generalizations
canbe madeaboutparts-of-speech
systems.
What, for example, can be said about the ways in which, and the limits within
which, parts-of-speechinventoriesmay differ from one another?Which partsol'-speechdistinctionsare universaland which language-specific?
What are
lhe ways in which languagesthat lack a particular part of speechexpressthe
scmanticequivalent?And what relations are there betweenthe parts-of-speech
systemof a languageand the language'sothertypologicalcharacteristics?
It is
the aim of this chapterto provide someanswersto suchquestions.
By way of orientation,thepresentsectionsetsforth somegeneralassumptions
tlratunderliethe presentationin the restof the chapter.First, then,it is assumed
hcrethat the primary criteria for parts-of-speechclassificationare grammatical,
not semantic.As has beenamply demonstratedin the linguistic literature(see,
lirr example,Fries (1952)), the familiar notional parts-of-speechdefinitions,
such as 'a noun is the name of a person,place, or thing', fail to provide an
rrtlcquatebasisfor parts-of-speech
classification,sincethereare many casesin
ivhich their applicabilityor inapplicabilityis unclear.Grammaticalcriteria,on
thc other hand,are not opento this objection.
'fhe
grammatical properties of a word that are here taken to be relevant to
rts parts-of-speech
classificationinclude the word's distribution,its range of
()ur thanks to Sharon Klein and Jean Mulder for their help in gathering the data on which this
, lrrrptcris based.Our thanks also to the following for sharing their knowledge of languagescited
I rrtlle uhapter:GeorgeBedell,Kent Bimson, EserErguvanli,Aryeh Faltz,BamabasForson,Talmy
t irrtin. CharlesLi, PamelaMunro, J6rgenRischel,Jilali Saib, Sukari Salon6,Michiko Shintani,
l, rlrrrSoper,Michika Takaichi,SandraThompson,Alan Timberlake,and David Weber.
2
syntacticfunctions,and the morphologicalor syntacticcategoriesfor which it
is specifiable.Consider,in this connection,the threewords of the sentence:
(l)
Parts-of-speech
systems
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
Boys like girls
The words boys and like can be shown to differ in their distributions (xllfte
boys girls is ungrammatical), in their functional range (boys can function as
a subject but like cannot) and in their categorizations(boys is categorizedfor
number but not for tense,while like is categorizedfor both). Thus thesetwo
words are assignedto distinct parts-of-speech
classes.On the other hand,the
words bc,ysand girls, having highly similar distributions (cf. Girls like boys),
functionalranges,and categorizations,
areassignedto the sameparts-of-speech
class.There are, to be sure,casesthat are less clearcutthan these- cases,for
example, involrvingpartial simllarities of distribution, functional range,or categorization,which may requiredividing a parts-of-speech
classinto subclasses.
(For some further discussion,seesection 1.) But, by and large,the grammatical propertiesin questionconstitutea serviceablebasis for parts-of-speech
classification.
While it is assumedhere that the assignmentof words to parts-of-speech
classesis basedon properties that are grammatical rather than semantic, and
often language-particularratherthan universal,it is also assumedthat-thename
that is chosenfor a particular parts-of-speechclass in a languagemay appropriately reflectuniversalsemanticconsiderations.
Thus, althoughthe familiar
notionaldefinitionof nounsmentionedabovedoesnot alwaysprovide an adequatebasisfor decidingwhetheror not a given word is a noun,once the words
of a languagehave been assignedto parts-of-speech
classeson grammatical
groundsand it is found that one of theseclassesincludesthe preponderance
of
words that are the namesof persons,places,and things,then it is perfectlyreasonableto call this classthe classof nouns,and to comparethe classso named
with the similarly namedclassesof other languages.(On this point, seeLyons
(1968:317-19).)Thus the wordsboys and girls areassignedto the samepartsof-speechclass,and the word like to a different class,on language-particular
grammaticalgrounds,but it is on universalsemanticgroundsthat the classto
which boys and girls are assignedis called the class of nouns, while that to
which like is assignedis calledthe classof verbs.
An interestingrecentproposalconceminguniversalsemanticgroundsfor the
identificationof parts of speechis to be found in Wierzbicka(2000): namely,
the use of universalexemplars,basic words that are presumablyfound in all
languages,suchas the equivalentsof person andthing for nouns,do andhappen
for verbs.In any language,Wierzbickasuggests,the partsof speechthat have
been establishedon grammaticalgrounds that contain translationsof these
words can be said to be nounsand verbsrespectively.She goeson to develop
3
this approachfor a full rangeof parts of speech,arguing for the approach's
superiorityto other'prototype approaches',which do not, she says,contain
cxemplarsthat are found in all languages.Notable exemplarsare fbund in
I)ixon (1995),as well asLyons(1911:vol.r), Croft (1984),Giv6n (1984a)and
I lopperandThompson(1984).
Another assumptionreflectedin this chapteris that all languagesmake a
classes.Following Robins
distinctionbetweenopen andclosedparts-of-speech
t1964:230),we can describeopen classesas those'whose membershipis in
principle unlimited, varying from time to time and betweenone speakerand
'contain a fixed and usually small
another' and closed classesas those that
numberof memberwords,which are [essentially]the samefor all the speakers
of the language,or the dialect'. Thus open classesare classessuch as nouns
and verbs,and closedclassesare classessuchas pronounsand conjunctions.
That all languagescontainopen classesis beyonddoubt,despiteoccasional
apocryphalreports to the contrary: i.e., reports of languageswhose vocabularies consistof only a few hundred words. A more seriousquestioncan be
laisedaboutthe universalstatusofclosed classes.It is certainlytrue that closed
classesplay a rather minor role in some languages,and it has in fact sometimes beenclaimed that thereare languagesin which they play no role at all.
The languagesin questionare invariablyso-calledsyntheticlanguages:that is,
languagesthat favour morphologicallycomplex words. (Syntheticlanguages
rre commonly contrastedwith analytic languages,in which words consisting
of a single morphemeare the norm. If a scalewere established,rangingfrom
highly syntheticlanguages,such as Eskimo, to highly analytic ones,such as
Vietnamese,modern English would be somewhatcloser to the analytic than
to the syntheticend of this scale.)The relation betweena language'sposition
on the synthetic-analyticscaleand the role of closedclassesin that language
is discussedmore fully in section2.That sectionalso considers,and rejects,
the claim that there are known instancesof languageswith no closedclasses
at all.
classesprovidesthe
The distinctionbetweenopenandclosedparts-of-speech
basic organizingprinciple of the remainderof this chapter,with open classes
being dealt with in sectionI and closedclassesin section2.
I
Open classes
classesthat may occur in a languageare the classes
The open parts-of-speech
of nouns,verbs,adjectives,andadverbs.Typically,eachof theseclassesmay
on the basisof certaindistinctivegrambe divided into a numberof subclasses
matical properties.For example, the classof nouns in English may be divided
as common and proper(on the basisof whetheror not the
into suchsubclasses
4
Parts-of'-speech
systems
futulSchachter
andTinzothv
Shopen
nounsoccur with articleshke the; the girl vs *the Mory), count and mass(on
the basisof whetheror not they occur in the plural: chairs vs *furnitures),etc.
And the classof English verbsmay be dividedinto suchsubclasses
astransitive
and intransitive(on the basisof occurrencewith objects:enjoy it vs *smile it),
active and stative(on the basis of occurrencein the progressive:is studying
vs *is knowing), etc. Such subclassesare not ordinarily identified as distinct
parts of speech,since there are in fact properties common to the membersof
the different subclasses,
and sincethelabel parts of speechis, as notedearlier,
traditionally reservedfor 'major classes'.In any case,the discussionof open
parts-of-speech
classesin this chapterdoesnot include a systematicaccountof
the subclassification
of theseclasses,but insteadoffers only a few observations
concerningsubclasses
thatareparticularlywidespread,or that seemparticularly
interestingfrom a typologicalviewpoint.
It must be acknowledged,however,that there is not always a clear basis
for deciding whethertwo distinguishableopen classesof words that occur in
a languageshould be identified as different parts of speechor as subclasses
of a single part of speech.The reasonfor this is that the open parts-of-speech
classesmust be distinguishedfrom one anotheron the basis of a cluster of
properties,noneofwhich by itselfcanbe claimedto be a necessary
andsufficient
condition for assignmentto a particularclass.And the fact is that languages
vary considerablyin the extentto which the propertiesassociatedwith different
openword classesform discreteclusters.Typically thereis someoverlap,some
sharingof properties,as well as somedifferentiation.In English,for example,
althoughnouns,verbs,andadjectivesareclearlydistinguishedfrom oneanother
in various ways, thereare still certain propertiesthat they share.Thus nounsand
adjectives,aswell asverbs,may be subclassified
asactivevs stativeon thebasis
of occurrencein the progressive(compareJohn is being a boor / boisterousand
*John is being my brother / tall). And in cerlain other languages,as will become
clearin thefollowing sections,nounsandverbs,or nounsandadjectives,or verbs
and adjectives,may have very much more in common than they do in English.
What this meansis that theremay in somecasesbe considerablearbitrarinessin
the identification of two openword classesasdistinct parts of speechratherthan
subclasses
of a singlepart of speech.Thus somerathercelebratedquestionsfor example,whetheror not all languagesmake a distinction betweennouns
and verbs - may ultimately turn out to be more a matter of terminology than of
substance(cf. section1.2).
In the following presentationof the open parts-of-speechclasses,nouns,
verbs,adjectives,and adverbsare discussedin turn. In eachcase,the characteristic grammatical and notional properties of the class are enumerated,with
relevantexamples.Certain subclasses
are also noted,and, where appropriate,
there is a discussionof the questionof the universalityof a particular partsof-speechdistinction(seesection1.2),or of the ways in which languagesthat
5
lack a particulardistinctionexpressthe semanticequivalent(seesections1.3
r r n d1 . 4 ) .
l.l
'l'he
Nouns
(2)
The principal is speakingin the next room
(3)
The principal'sspeechis in the next room
distinctionbetweennounsandverbsis one of the few apparentlyuniversal
parts-of-speech
distinctions.While the universalityof eventhis distinctionhas
sometimesbeen questioned,it now seemsthat the allegedcounter-examples
lravebeenbasedon incompletedata,andthat thereareno languagesthatcannot
be said to show a noun-verb distinctionwhen all relevantfacts are taken into
ruccount.
We shall look further into the matterof languageswhich allegedlyfail
to distinguishnounsand verbsat the end of section 1.2, afterthe characteristic
propertiesof thesetwo partsof speechhavebeendescribed.
For conveniencewe can adaptthe traditionaldefinition of nouns,assigning
the label noun to the classof words in which occur the namesof most persons,
places,and things. As was explainedin the introductorysection,this type of
rrotionalcorrelationis not the basisfor determiningmembershipin a class,but
rnerelythe basisfor assigninga nameto a classestablishedon othergrounds.It
is thereforenot a matterof concernif the classof nounsincludes,as it typically
tloes,wordsthat arenot the namesof persons,places,or things,or if somesuch
namesarefound in someotherclass.
It may be useful,however,to try to go beyondsuchtraditionaldefinitionsto a
cleeperunderstanding
ofthe semantics.Let usbriefly considerin this connection
some proposalsmade by Ronald W. Langacker(1987) and Anna Wierzbicka
(1986). Langacker,working exclusivelywith English data,arguesfor certain
universalsemanticpropertiesof nounsand verbs.Nouns,he proposes,do not
lbregroundrelations,but insteaddesignate'a region in somedomain'. Verbs,
on the otherhand,do foregroundrelations.(For more on Langacker'sviews on
verbs,seesection1.2,below.)Consider,for example,the differencein meaning
betweenthe following sentences:
'[he
first sentence,using the verb speak,evokes an image of an audienceand
the principal communicatingwith them. The secondsentence,using the noun
.speech,on the other hand, may simply serveto locate a physical entity; there is
not necessarilyany audienceor any communication.Of coursesomeonecould
lead the speech(and the principal himself or herself could in fact read or recite
it aloud to an audience),in which casecommunicationwould take place,but
it could also be left unreadwith no communication.Thus the communication
relationis not foregrounded.
6
Moreover,the speechin the context of the secondsentenceis likely to be
'region
understoodas being in writing, which makesit easierto think of it as a
in somedomain'. Peoplecan,of course,also say
(4)
Parts-of-speech
systems
Paul Schut'hter antl Tintotht' Shopen
The principal is giving a speechin the next room
in which casethe noun necessarilyrepresentssomethingspokenand there is
communicationwith an audience.In Langacker'sscheme,however,this could
be said to come from the force of the verbalexpressionwith the verb glve.
Langackeralso makesan interestingsuggestionabout how the semanticsof
(Count nouns
count and mass nouns can explain their syntacticdifTerences.
are countableand which may thereforebe
are nouns whose typical ret-erents
pluralized;mass,or noncount,nounsare nounswhosetypical referentsare not
countableand which may thereforenot normally be pluralized.)He suggests
'bounded'
are
that count nounscantake plural inflectionbecausetheir ret'erents
'Bounded' meansthat,whetherthe countnoun refersto a singleentity
in space.
(dog, tree) or to a set of entities (crowd, herfi, the referentis conceivedof
as being defined in space.Mass nouns (milk, sincerlry), on the other hand,
'bounded'but insteadas having an
refer to things that are conceivedof as not
indeterminateextentin space.
Like Langacker,Wierzbickacontraststhe semanticpropertiesof nounswith
those of anotherpart of speech,but in her case this other part of speechis
adjectives.Using examplesfrom a varietyof languages,sheseeksto showhow
the semanticsof nounsand adjectivescan accountfor differencesin how they
are used. Nouns, she proposes,tend to refer to groupingsof the permanent
of entities.This is in contrastto adjectives,
and/orconspicuouscharacteristics
and/orlessconspicuouscharacteristic.
temporary
which tendto referto a single
the noun cripple, categorizesthe
using
is
a
cripple,
For example, to say She
what kind of personsheis. To say
about
something
permanently,
saying
person
hand,saysnothingaboutwhat
sict,
on
the
other
adjective
with
the
Sheis sick,
characteristicthat the person
to
a
single
refers
is,
but
instead
she
kind ofperson
the
moment.
hasfor
Becauseof thesesemanticdifferences,Wierzbicka argues,nouns are used
for referenceand categorizationmore easily than adjectives,while adjectives
are usedattributivelymore easily than nouns.Thus in a phrasesuch as a sicft
woman,the noun womanprovidesa broadcategorizationof the referentwhile
the adjective .rlcft serves to refine the categorization. By contrast, a cripple
woman,with the two nounsproviding a doublecategorization,is awkward.
An interestingexampleof the awkwardnessof the attributiveuseof nounsis
the following headlinefrom the CanberraTimesof 20 October1999 Diplomat
murderaccusedgrantedbail, which involvesa recursiveuseof noun attributes.
'murder of a diplomat', diplomat murder accused
Diplomat murder means
7
nrclns 'personaccusedof murderof a diplomat', so the entireheadlinemeans
'lr:ril
hasbeengrantedto a personaccusedof the murderof a diplornat'.
'l'he
mostcommonfunctionfor nounsis asargumentsor headsof argumentslor cxample,as (headsof) subjectsor objects,as in the caseof the italicized
rrolds in:
( 5)
The little boy was eatingcandy
).Jouns
may also function as predicates,however,either with an accompanying
, rr1rula,
suchas Englishbe (6) or Hausane (1), or without any copula,as in
lrgalog (8) or Russian(9):
((r)
They are teachers
rl I
Su malamai ne
they teachers coP
'They are teachers'
(ii)
Mga guro
sila
PL teacher they
'They are teachers'
(())
Oni uiitelia
they teachers
'They are teachers'
Typical categoriesfbr which nouns may be specified,either morphologi, rrllyor syntactically,
arecase,number,classor gender,anddefiniteness.
Case
rrrlrkingindicatesgrammaticaltunctions(suchas subject,direct object,and
rrrrlirectobject;
cf. Andrewsin chapter3,andDryerin chapter4,of thisvolume
Itrl illuminatingdiscussions
of thesefunctions),as in the following examples
lirrm Latin (10) (in which caseis markedmorphologically,
by suffixation)and
lrrpanese
(l l) (in which caseis markedsyntactically,
by postpositions).
rl0)
Femin-a
m a l - u m p u e l l - a ed e d i t
woman-NoMapple-ncc girl-nnr gave
'The woman gavean apple
to the girl'
rI I)
Onna ga
shojo ni
ringo o
ataeta
woman sunr girl
olr apple oBJ gave
'The woman gave apple
an
to the girl'
Number marking distinguishessingular fiom plural, and, more rarely, dual,
;rs in English house/houses;
Eskimo igla 'house'/ iglut 'houses'/ iglak 'two
'house'
'houses'.
Irorrses';or Tagalogbaha1,
/ mga bahay
Classor gendermarki rrgpartitionsthe setof nounsinto subsets,eachof which hasits own distinctive
rrrarkingand/ornecessitates
a distinctivemarkingon certainother wordswhich
Parts-of-speechsystems
Paul SchachterandTimothy Shopen
show agreementwith nouns.Typically, the classificationis in part semantically
basedand in part semanticallyarbitrary. Examples include the gender systems
'the
of Indo-Europeanlanguages(e.g. German der Mann (the-masculineman)
'the
woman', das Mtidchen (the-neuter
man'. die Frau (the-feminine woman)
girl) 'the girl'), the classsystemsof Bantulanguages(suchas Swahili,in which
most nouns that refer to human beings are in class l, which takes the prefix
m-, e.g.mtu'person', mtoto'child', mgeni'sttanger',but in which someof the
otherclasseshavelittle semanticcoherence),andthe noun-classifiersystemsof
suchlanguagesas Thai (cf. section2.2,below).Someexamplesof definiteness
'the
distinctionsarea man vs theman, Norwegianen mann'a man' vs mannen
man', and Hebrewish'aman' vs ha-ish'theman'.
In most languagessome grammatical distinction is made between common
nouns,which are used to refer to any memberof a classof persons,etc. (e.g.
girt, city, novel), andproper nouns,which areusedto refer to specificpersons,
etc. (e.g. Mary, Boston, Ivanhoe).The precisecharacterof the grammatical
distinction, however,as well as its precise semanticcorrelates,may show considerable variation from language to language.For example, while common
nouns in English differ from (most) proper nouns by occurring with articles,in
Tagalog (which has no articles) common and proper nouns take different case
markers and topic markers, as the following examplesillustrate:
(12)
(13)
babae ang bata
Malapit sa
near
oBLIQ woman roP child
'The child is nearthe woman'
1.2
Malapit sa Maynila ang Pasay City
near
osr- Manila ror Pasay CitY
'PasayCity is nearManila'
Apart from making a distinction between common and proper nouns, languagesmay make various other kinds of subclassdistinctions within the set
of nouns: for example, the distinction between count and mass nouns and the
gender distinctions mentioned above. As was explained at the start of this
Verbs
\i'rb is the namegiven to the parts-of-speech
classin which occur most of the
rvtlrdsthat expressactions,processes,and the like. As in the caseof nouns,
l.angacker(1987) has proposeda deeper,more generalaccountof the semantics,proposing,as noted above,that verbs,unlike nouns,foregroundrelations.
I rr Langacker'sscheme,however,the foregrounding of relations is not a unique
property of verbs, since there are certain other parts of speechthat can also
lirregroundrelations.What is distinctiveaboutverbs,he suggests,is the foregrounding of temporal relations (relations that are anchored in time) or of
rclationsconcernedwith process.Atemporalrelations,on the other hand, are
lirregroundedby adpositions,adjectives,and adverbs(as well as by infinitives
rrndparticiples,which Langackerdoesnot classifyas verbs).
The characteristicfunction of verbsis as predicates,as in:
( l5)
The peopledanced
The studentsolvedtheproblem
In some languages,however,verbs can also occur as argumentsas in the folIowing examplefrom Tagalog:
( f 6)
Juan
Maria sl
Malapit kay
OBLIQ Maria TOP Juan
nea.r
'Juanis nearMaria'
Moreover, the Tagalogclassesthat are distinguishedon this basisare not semantically coextensivewith the English classesof proper and common nouns.The
Tagalog nouns that take the markers of (13) are restricted to those that refer
to specific persons.;nouns that refer to specific places, etc., take the other set
of markers, although their English equivalentsare clearly proper, rather than
common,nouns:
(14)
:cction, however,such subclassdistinctionsgenerallygo beyondthe scopeof
this chapter.(SeeCorbettin vol. rn, chapter4, on genderand noun class.)
Pinanood ko ang mga sumasayaw
watch
I rop pr
were. dancing
'I
watchedthe oneswho were dancing'
cf. Sumasayaw ang mga tao
were.dancing roP pL
person
'The people
were dancing'
'fhe
use of a verb as an argumentis to be distinguishedfrom the probably more
common use of a verbal noun as an argument,as in Akan:
(11)
'fhe
Mehwee asaw
no
I. watched dancing the
'I
watchedthe dancing'
verbal noun is a noun which is morphologically relatedto a verb, but which
does not itself occur as a verbal predicate.For example, the verbal notrn asaw
of (17) is relatedto the verb saw 'dance' but could never itself be used as a
predicate.
The categoriesfor which verbsmay be specifiedinclude tense,aspect,mood,
voice, and polarity. (As in the caseof nouns,the categorizationmay be maniI'estedeither morphologically or syntactically.Only morphological illustrations
litttl .\t lutchter ond Timothy Shopen
rr r| | lrt' r r\ r n in this section,however.For somesyntacticillustrations,seethe
ol'auxiliariesin section2.3. Seealso,for furtherinformationon
l)r('s('ntirti()n
It'nst',rrrrrotl.
and aspect,vol. IIl, chapter5, by Timberlake,and,fbr a detailed
tr('irlnrent
ol mood,section4 of that chapter.)Tensemarking indicatestime
ri'l;rli','c
to the time of the utterance:
forexampleHayaakaija'he came(earlier
tlurrrir lew daysago)', alaizile'he came(within the pastfew days)',yaija'he
(carliertoday)',alaija 'he will come(in the nearfuture)',aliija'he wlll
errrrrc
cornc(in thedistantfuture)'. Aspectmarkingindicateswhetherthe actionof the
vcrb is regardedascompleteor incomplete,durativeor momentaneous,
etc.:for
cxarrrple,ClassicalGreekbebouLefrsthai'to
havealreadydecided',bouleiesthai
'to be deciding',
bouleiseasthai'to decide' (unspecifiedfor completenessor
durativeness).
Mood marking involvesdistinctionssuch as indicative(actual)
vs subjunctive(possible)or declarativevs interrogative:for example,French
(qu')il viendra'(that)he will come' vs (qu')il vienne'(that)he may come';
Menominipi.w 'he is coming,he came' vs pi.?'is he coming?,did he come?'.
Voice marking has to do with the role of the subject in the action expressed
by the verb, the most common voice distinctionbeing activevs passive,as in
Latin videt'he sees',videtur'he is seen'.And polaritymarkingdistinguishes
affirmativefrom negative,as in Akan rrz'pulls', rzlt 'doesn'tpull'. (In addition
to being markedfbr inherentlyverbalcategorizations,
verbsin somelanguages
(person,number,class)of their
are markedto indicatecertaincategorizations
subjectsand, less frequently,their objects:for example,Latin vicleo'I see',
'theywill
videmus'wesee';Swahiliwa-to-tti-uliat(they-future-l-ask)
askme',
'I
(I-future-they-ask)
ni-ta-wa-uliz.a
will askthem'.)
ln all languagesit is possibleto subclassifyverbsas transitiveor intransitive
on the basisof whetheror not they occur with objects.In some languagesthe
transitive-intransitive
distinctionentailscertainothergrammaticaldistinctions.
For example,in Bambarathe pasttenseis expressedby an auxiliary lve) with
transitiveverbsbut by a suffix (-/a) with intransitiveverbs:
(l8)
U
a san
),e
they ee,sr it buy
'They
bought it'
(l e )
U
boli-/n
they walk-ersr
'They walked'
Many languages
alsohavea subclass
of copulativeverbs,like Englishbe,that
occur with predicatenominalsor adjectives.ln other languages,however,there
is either no copula at all (as in Tagalog- cf. example (8)) or the copula is
not a verb (as in Hausa- cf. example(7)). (For further discussionof non-verb
copulas,seesection2.5.)
Parts-of'-speech
systems
ll
Anotherwidespreadsubclassification
of verbsinvolvesa distinctionbetween
,rtlive verbs,which expressactionsandthelike, and stativeverbs,which express
:lrrtesand the like. With regard to these subclasses,once again Langacker
rl9tl7) makesan interestingsuggestionabout how the semanticpropertiesof
trio subclassescan shed light on their formal properties.His accountof the
sr'rnanticsof active and stativeverbs (which he calls, respectively,perfective
rrrrdimperfective)is, in fact, closely relatedto his accountof the semanticsof
t oufltood massnouns(seesectionl. l ).
Specifically,Langackerproposesthatactiveverbs(walk,/earn)denoteevents
r'()nceived
of as being boundedin time, much as count nounsdenoteentities
( ()nceivedofasbounded
(Love,ktutw),bycontrast,denote
in space.Stativeverbs
\tutesof affairsconceivedof as havingan indeterminate
extentin time, much
irs Inassnounsdenoteentitiesconceivedof as having an indeterminateextent
rr :ipace.This leadshim to an analysisof the situationin Englishwherestative
r crbsare ordinarily usedin the simple presenttensefor presenttime and active
rcrbs in the presentprogressive(e.g.,John loves Mary vs John is walking to
v ltool). When activeverbsareusedin the simplepresenttense,they ordinarily
retluirea specialinterpretationbecausethe boundedconceptionof the event
( rrnnotmatchwith the extentof time of the speechact: habitual(Ralph drinks
rro martinisfor lunch), imminent future (The expeditionLeavestomorrow at
rtttott),orhistoricalpresent(Thenhe walksupto me and.sd,ys...).
To turn now to the questionofthe universalityofthe noun-verb distinction,
rhcreare, as previouslynoted,languageswith regardto which the legitimacy
,rl such a distinction has been denied. Probably the best-knowncase is that
,rl'Nootka, which has often been cited in the linguistic literatureas lacking a
rroun-verbdistinction,on the basisof the analysisby Swadesh(1939).More
rccently,however,Jacobsen(19'76)has re-examinedthe Nootka data,and has
slrownthat, while the distinctionbetweennouns and verbs in Nootka is less
obviousthan it is in many other languages,there is nonethelessa reasonably
, lcar distinctionto be made.
The following are the kind of examplesthat havebeencited in supportof the
,rllegedlack of a noun-verb distinctionin Nootka:
rl 0 )
qu.?as-?i
Mamu.k-ma
man-DEF
working-enEs(tNotc)
'The man is workine'
rl | )
mamu.k-?i
Qu.?as-ma
man-PRES(rNDrC)
working-DEF
'The working one is a man'
\s theseexamplesindicate,thenotionallynoun-likeroot meaning'man' , qu.?as
,rrrtlthe notionally verb-likeroot meaning 'working', mamu.k,show,from the
of function
lrointof viewof a languagelikeEnglish,rathersurprisingsimilarities
12
and categorizations.
Thus qu.?ascan function not only as an argument,as in
(20), but also as a predicate,as in (21), without any accompanying
copula.
And mamu.kcan function not only as a predicatebut also as an argument(as
in (20) and (21) respectively).Moreover, both the notionally nounlike and
the notionally verb-like roots may be markedeither for the typically nominal
'definite' (by the suflix -7i) or the typically verbalcategory'present'
category
(by the suffix -za).
pointsout,however,is thatthefunctionalandcategorizational
What Jacobsen
rangesof roots like qu.?asand roots llke mamu.k, although similar, are not
identical.For example,while qu.?asand other notionally noun-likeroots may
function as argumentseither with or without the suffix -?i, mamu-kand other
notionally verb-likeroots function as argumentsonly when suflixed.Compare
(22) and (23):
(22)
(23)
Parts-of'-speech
systems
PaulSchachtet'undTimothyShopen
qu.?as
Mamu.k-ma
working-rnEs(rNotc)man
'A
man is working'
*Qu.?as-ma
mamu.k
m a n - P R E S ( r N Dwt co)r k i n g
Moreover,someof the apparentsimilaritiesbetweennounsandverbsin Nootka
turn out, on carefulexamination,to be ofrather questionablesignificance.Thus
thereis evidencethat Nootkatensemorphemes,suchas-ma in (20) and(2 I ), are
bestanalysedasclitics that attachto the clause-initialword, whatevercategory
this word belongsto. (For fuller discussion,seeAikhenvaldin vol. ttt, chapterI .)
It thus seemsclearthat Nootkadoesdistinguishnounsand verbs,althoughthis
distinctionis subtlerthan that found in English and many other languages.
Nootka is by no meansalone, however,in making a fairly subtle distinction betweennounsand verbs.Since the characteristicfunction of nounsis as
argumentsand that of verbsis as predicates,a functional distinctionbetween
nouns and verbsbecomesdifficult to establishto the extentthat nounsoccur
as predicatesand verbs as argumentswithout any distinctive marking (such as
a copula accompanyingthe predicativenominalor somemorphemeindicating
nominalizationof the verb).Considerin this connectionthefollowing examples
from Tagalog:
(24)
Nagtatrabaho ang lalaki
is. working
ToP man
'The man is working'
(25)
Lalaki ang nagtatrabaho
man rop is. working
'The
one who is workine is a man'
13
\, lrrcviouslynoted,and as further illustratedby (25), predicatenominalsin
l.rlrrlogarenot accompaniedby a copula,and verbsoccurfreely as arguments.
llrrrs.I'roma functionalpoint of view, nounsand verbsappearto be at leastas
,rrrrilirrin Tagalogas they arein Nootka. (Tagalogdoes,however,makea more
, lt rrr.cutdistinctionin categorization:only verbsare inflectablefor aspect.)
Nonetheless,
while languagesmay differ considerablyin the extentto which
rlr('ylnakea grammaticaldistinctionbetweennounsand verbs,it seemscorrect
rrr s1ly[14[ all languagesdo in fact make somedistinctionbetweenthem. One
rrri{ht,however,
wishto saythatin somelanguages,
suchasNootkaandTagalog,
n()unsand verbshave enoughin common grammaticallyfor there to be some
(1r('stionabout whether to regard them as two subclassesof a single part of
,pt'cchratherthantwo distinctpartsof speech.Sincethis seemsto be essentially
,r nratterof terminology,it neednot concernus further.
I .j
Adjectives
\\'hile all languagesappearto distinguishtwo open classes,nouns and verbs,
, 'rrlycertainlanguagesmakea furtherdistinctionbetweentheseand a third open
, l:rss,the classof adjectives.The major questionwith which this sectionwill
l,t'concernedis how adjectivalmeaningsare expressedin languagesthat lack
.ur open adjectivalclass.First, however,the propertiesof adjectivesin those
lrrrrguages
in which they do constitutea distinctopen parts-of-speech
classwill
l,t'summarized.
The traditionalnotional deflnition of adjectivesidentifiesthem as the class
,,l words denotingqualitiesor attributes.This definition has somewell-known
:lrrrrtcomings(see,for example,the discussionsin Jespersen
(1924) and Lyons
t 1971)),but no obviously better notional definition has been proposed.As a
result,evenin notionallybasedgrammars,adjectiveshaveusuallybeendefined
,rl leastin part in functional terms,as words which modify nouns.Among the
rvordswhich modify nouns,a distinctionis sometimesmadebetweenlimiting
,ttl.jectives
anddescriptiveadjectives.However,the so-calledlimiting adjectives
rwords such as some,this, other) neverconstitutean open class,and will not
lrerebe treatedas adjectivesat all (see section 2.2 for a discussionof such
rvords).The presentdiscussionis thus confinedto descriptiveadjectives.
In additionto functioningasattributivemodifiersof nouns(e.g.tallinthe tall
toman), adjectivesmay also function as predicates(as in The woman is tall).
Like predicatenouns,predicateadjectivesmay or may not be accompaniedby
rrcopula.Thus English usesa copula while Ilocano doesnot:
tJ6)
Natayag daydyay babae
tall
Top
woman
'The
woman is tall'
14
Parts-of-speech
systems
Shopen
andTimothy
PauISchachter
A category for which adjectives are often specified is degree, which
includesthe traditionaldistinctionspositive,comparative,and superlative- for
exampleEnglishtall/taller/tallest;IlocanonatayaS'tall' I nataytctyag'taller'/
katatayagan'tallest'- as well asvariousothers:for examplevery/too/so/rather
tall.In somelanguages,adjectivesare also markedto indicatethe categorizations of the nounsthey modify or - when the adjectivesare predicates- of the
nounsthat are their subjects.In Latin, for example,adjectivesare markedfor
the case,gender,and numberof nounsthey modify (or arepredicatedofl. Thus
in
(21)
Feminae procerae homines proceros amant
like
tall
men
women tall
'Tall women like tall men'
procerae is a nominative feminine plural form agreeing with feminae while
procerosis an accusativemasculineplural tbrm agreeingwith homines.
To turn now to the questionof how the notional equivalentof adjectivesis
expressedin languageswhich lack an open adjectiveclass,a distinction can
be made betweentwo groupsof such languages.First, thereare languagesin
which there is a class that can be called adjectives,but in which this class is
closedratherthan open,with anywherefrom lessthan ten members(e.g.Igbo'
which has eight) to fifty-odd (e.g. Swahili). And second,there are languages
which lack a distinct adjectiveclass altogether.Let us considereach of these
groupsin tum.
With regardto the first group,Dixon ( 1977b)hasnoteda ratherstrikingcrosslinguistic consistencyin the rangeof meaningsthat the closedadjectiveclass
is usedto express.Specifically,he finds that this classis likely to includewords
'large' or 'small'), colour, age,and
denotingdimensions(e.g.words meaning
'bad').
'good' or
On the other hand,it is lesslikely
value (e.g.words meaning
'low'), physicalproperty ('hard',
('high',
to include words denotingposition
'cruel'),
'soft'), humanpropensity('kind',
or speed.A paradigmcasein support
(see
Welmersand Welmers( 1969))'whose
of Dixon's claim is offeredby Igbo
eight adjectivesare neatly distributed among the four favoured semanticareas
( s e e T a b l el . l ) .
l)ixon also suggeststhat there are somecross-linguistictendencies,in lanr'uirseswith closed adjectiveclasses,for certain specifictypes of'adjectival'
rrrt'rrrrings
to be expressedby verbsand other specifictypesby nouns.He sugr't'sts,lbr example,that physicalpropertiesare more often expressedby verbs
tlrrrrrby nouns,while humanpropensitiesaremoreoftenexpressedbynounsthan
l,r verbs.This seems,however,to be only a statisticaltendency,and counter( \lnlples are not hard to find. Thus Hausaseemsto prefer nounsto verbsfor
( \ l)rcssingadjectivalmeaningsin general,while Bembaseemsto preferverbs
r() nouns(seeexamples(28-33) below),althougheachof theselanguagessometrncs usesthe lessfavouredpart of speech.In any event,it is clear that nouns
,rrrtlverbsbetweenthem must in generaltake up the slack left by a paucity of
,rtljectives,
and it is thereforeofinterest to seehow eachofthese open classes
rs rrsedto expressadjectivalmeanings.
Iir begin with nouns, languageswith closed adjectiveclassesoften use
.rbs11i1s1
nouns(equivalentin many casesto English nounsformed with -ness:
Airttlness,
hardness,etc.)in possessive
constructionsto expressadjectivalmeanrrrr:s.
The following aresomeexamplesfrom Hausa,showingthesyntacticparalIr'lisrnbetweenconstructionswith adjectivalmeaningsand other constructions
rrrvolvingpossessivemodifiers(28), and possessive
predicates(29):
t.llJ)
mutum mai
alheri
larziki
/hankali
person having kindness /prosperity /intelligence
'a
ki nd/prosperous/intelligent
person'
cf. mutum mai
doki
person having horse
'a person
having a horse'
t.l9)
Yana da
alheri
larziki
/hankali
he. is with kindness /prosperity /intelligence
'He
is kind/prosperous/intelligent'
cf. Yana da doki
he. is with horse
'He
hasa horse'
Sonreexamplesinvolvingphysicalpropertiesare:
r t0)
itace mai
tauri
/laushi /nauyi
wood having hardness/softness /heaviness
'hard/soft/heavy
wood'
rll)
Yana da tauri
/laushi /nauyi
it. is with hardness/softness /heaviness
'lt
is hard/soft/heavy'
Table 1.1 lgbo adjectives
Age
Dimension
'large'
akna
'small'
rrla
olii'black, dark'
'white, light
oca
ohuru'new'
'old'
ocre
gma'good'
ojoo'bad'
15
16
The expressionof adjectivalmeaningsthroughverbs inlanguageswith closed
adjective classestypically involves relativization to expressthe equivalentof a
modifying adjective.The following examplesfrom Bemba are representative:
(7)\
umuuntu iashipa
/iakosa
/iaceenjela
person who. is. brave /who. is. strong /who. is. wise
'a
person'
brave/strong/wise
cf. umuuntu ialemba
person who. is. writing
'a personwho is writing'
The equivalent of a predicate adjective, on the other hand, is expressedby a
non-relativized verb:
(33)
Umuuntu 6ashipa /6akosa
lilaceenjela
person
is. brave /is. strong /is. wise
'The person is
brave/strong/wise'
cf. Umuuntu dalemba
person
is. writing
'The personis writing'
(As these examplesindicate, relativized verbs in Bemba have low tone on the
subject-concordprefix while non-relativizedverbs havehigh tone on this prefix.
In addition, with nouns in the human singular class - but not those in other
classes- there is a segmentaldifference between the relative and non-relative
subjectprefixes.)
A further point to be noted about languageswith closedadjectiveclassesis
that, in some of these languages,adjectives occur only as attributive modifiers,
and do not occur as predicatesat all. One suchlanguageis Hua, as is shown by
the following examples(from Haiman 1978):
(34)
Parts-of-speech
systems
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
lrr adjectival-nounlanguages,adjectival meanings seem in general to
lrr' expressedby nouns that designatean object (or objects) embodying a
,pt'r'iliedquality. The English equivalentof such nouns often takes the form
,rrllcctive-plus-one(s),
as the following examplefrom the adjectival-nounlanr'urrtc Quechuaillustrates:
r 15)
Rika5ka: hatun-(kuna)-ta
I saw
big-(rr-)-ecc
'I saw the
big one(s)'
'\ cornparison
of (35) with (36)illustratesthegrammaticalsimilarity in Quechua
lrt'tweennounswith adjectivalmeanings(suchas hatun'big (one)') and other
(suchas alkalde'mayor').
rrrrrrns
r l6)
Rika5ka: alkalde-(kuna)-ta
I saw
rnayor-(rr)-.tcc
'I saw the mayor(s)'
.\s these examples show, nouns that express adjectival meanings can, like
rrlhernouns,be used as verbal objects,in which casethey take the accusative
rrrf'fix-/a, and can be pluralizedby meansof the suffix -kuna.
The following Quechua examples further illustrate the grammatical par,rllelism between nouns with adjectival meanings and other nouns in this
,rtl.jectival-nounlanguage:
r 17)
Chay runa hatun (kaykan)
(is)
that man big
'That
man is big'
a. Bura fu nupa fu baie
that pig black pig is
'That pig is a black pig'
t ll3)
Chay runa alkalde (kaykan)
that man mayor (is)
'That
man is mayor'
b. xBura fu nupa baie
that pig black is
(19)
chay hatun runa
that big
man
'that
big man'
(40)
chay alkalde runa
that mayor man
'that
man who is mayor'
To return to the question of how adjectival meanings are expressedin languagesthat lack an open classof adjectives,let us now considerthis question
in relation to the secondgroup of such languages:i.e., languagesthat have
no distinct adjectiveclass at all, either open or closed. Such languagescan
themselvesbe divided into two groups: languagesin which adjectival meanings are expressedprimarily by nouns (hereafter,adjectival-noun languages)
and languagesin which adjectival meaningsare expressedprimarily by verbs
(hereafter,adjectiv al -verb languages).
17
'l'hese
examples show that nouns with adjectival meanings are not grammatically distinguishedfrom other nouns either in their use as predicatesor in their
rrseas attributive modifiers. Thus, in (37) and (38), the predicateshatun and
2iltr6
V[,J
18
PaulSchachter
andTimothy
Shopen
alkalde both follow the subjectand both optionally co-occurwith the copulative verb kaykan, while in (39) and (40) the modifiers hatun and alkalde both
immediately precedethe noun they modify.
Adjectival-verblanguagesseemto be like languageswith closed adjective
classesin the way they useverbsto expressadjectivalmeanings.As was noted
above,in languageslike Bemba,which haveclosed adjectiveclassesbut also
useverbsextensivelyto expressadjectivalmeanings,theusualverbalequivalent
of a predicateadjectiveis a predicateverb in a non-relativeconstruction(cf.
example(33)), while the usualverbal equivalentof a modifying adjectiveis a
verb in a relativeconstruction(cf. example(32)). Thesesameequivalentsare
found in adjectival-verblanguages,as the following examplesfrom one such
language,MandarinChinese,illustrate:
(41)
Neige niiaizi piaoliang
that girl
beautiful
'That girl is
beautiful'
(42)
Neige niiaizi liaojie
that girl
understand
'That girl
understands'
(43)
piaoliang de ni.iaizi
beautiful nel girl
'a girl who
is beautiful,a beautifulgirl'
(44)
liaojie
de ni..iaizi
understand nel girl
'a girl who
girl'
understands,
an understanding
Examples(41) and(42) arepredications,while examples(43) and(44) aremodificationconstructions.As theseexamplesshow,verbswith adjectivalmeanings.
suchaspiaoliang'(be)beautiful',andotherverbs,suchaslittojie'understand',
function in the sameway in eachof theseconstructiontypes.
While there are some languages,such as Mandarin, which are clearly
adjectival-verblanguages,in thatthey appearto offer no consistentbasisfor distinguishingverbswith adjectivalmeaningsfrom other verbs(or, at least,from
otherstativeverbssuchas'understand'or'know'),thereare other languages
whose classificationas adjectival-verblanguagesis more problematic.These
are languagesin which the words that expressadjectivalmeaningshave most
of the grammaticalpropertiesof (other) verbs- especiallyof stativeverbsbut in which theseadjectivalwords also haveat least one distinctiveproperty
not sharedby (other)verbs.One exampleof sucha languageis Mojave. In this
language,adjectivalsand stativeverbsareindistinguishablewhen they areused
Parts-of-speech
systems
lo
:rspredicates.Considerthe following examples:
t-15)
?i:pa-d homi:-k (idu:m)
man-suBJ tall-pnss (rux)
'The man
is tall'
rl 6 )
?i:pa-d su:paw-k (idu:m)
man-suBJ know-enes (nux)
'The man knows'
As theseexamplesillustrate,when usedas predicatesthe adjectivalstemhomi:
'tall'
and the stativeverb stemsu:paw'know' take the sametense-aspectsuflixes and optionally co-occurwith the sameauxiliary. (Non-stativeverbs also
tlke identical tense-aspectsuffixes,but optionally co-occur with a different
rruxiliary.)Adjectivalsaredistinguishablefiom statives(andother verbs),howcver,when they are usedas modifiers.When verbsare usedas modifiers,they
nrustappearin a relativizedform, which in therelevantcasesinvolvesa prefixed
/i"-. as in:
111)
?i:pa k*-su:paw-nY-d
iva:k
man nel-know-olM-suBJ is. here
'The
man who knows is here'
tAs the gloss indicates,the verb stem in this constructionis followed by a
tlcmonstrativesuffix and a case-markingsuffix.) When adjectivalsare used
rrsattributivemodifiers,on the other hand, the occurrenceof the relativizing
prefix is optional.Thus the following exampleis grammaticalwith or without
theprefixedk"'-:
(-18)
?i:pa (k*-) homi:-nY-d iva:k
man (REL-)tall-DEM-suBJ
is. here
'The tall man is here'
('omparethe ungrammatical:
(.+9)
*?i:pa su:paw-ny-d
iva:k
man know-nEM-suBJis. here
lrr the case of such a language,one would probably wish to analysewords
rvith adjectivalmeaningsas a distinguishablesubclassof verbsratherthan as a
tlistinctpart of speech,but this is perhapsan arbitrarychoice.
1.1
Adverbs
,\part from nouns,verbs,and adjectives,thereis one otheropenpart-of-speech
elassthat is attestedin certainlanguages:the classof adverbs.The labeladverb
20
Paul Schachter und Timothv-Shopen
is often applied to severaldifferent setsof words in a language,setsthat do
not necessarilyhave as much in common with one another,either notionally
or grammatically,as, say,the subclassesof nouns or verbsthat may occur in
the language.For example,all of the italicized words of (50), which cover a
considerablesemanticand grammaticalrange,would ordinarily be identified
as adverbsin a grammarof English:
(50)
Unfttrtunately, John walked home extremelyslowly yesterday
A questionmay thusbe raisedas to whetherthereis sufficientsimilarity among
'adverbs' that may be recognizedin a languageto justhe various types of
tify their being assignedto a single parts-of-speechclass.We shall assume
here that this questioncan, in general,be answeredaffirmatively,and that, for
example,the italicizedwordsof (50) canjustifiably be assignedto a singlepartsof-speechclass,althoughthey must obviouslyalsobe assignedto separatesub'sentenceadverb'
classes.(The subclassdesignationsfor thesewords would be
(unfortunately),'directionaladverb' (home),'degree adverb' (extremeh),
'manner adverb' (stowly), and 'time adverb' (yesterday).Some subclasses
of adverbsmay be closed rather than open, but since the class as a whole
is open,it seemsconvenientto deal with the entireclassin the presentsection.)
The usual functional definition of adverbsidentifies them as modifiers of
verbs,adjectives,or other adverbs(see,for example,Curme (1935)). In order
to extend this definition so as to include sentenceadverbsllke unfortunately
(which are in fact modifiers of entire sentences),and to allow for certain other
possibilities(suchas adverbsthat modify entire verb phrases),we can say that
adverbsfunction as modifiers of constituentsother than nouns.The notional
rangeof adverbsvarieswith the type of constituentmodified.Sentencemodifiers, for example,commonly expressthe speaker'sattitudetoward the event
being spokenof; modifiers of verbs or verb phrasescommonly expresstime,
place, direction, manner,etc.; and modifiers of adjectivesand adverbscommonly expressdegree.
Giventhe wide functionalandnotionalrangeof adverbs,it is not surprisingto
find that there areno categorizationsthat arecommon to the entire class.In most
cases,in fact, adverbsare not specifiedfor any categoriesat all, although there
are someexceptions.(Manneradverbs,for example,are sometimesspecifiable
for degree,as in John worked hard/harder/hardest-)
Some cross-linguisticobservationsmay be made about the morphologyof
certain classesof adverbs. In many languages,manner adverbs are derivable
from adjectivesby means of fairly productive processesof derivational morphology. Thus in French many manneradverbs- as well as sentenceand degree
adverbs- are formed by adding the suffix -ment to the feminine singular form
'slowly' (cf. lente 'slow (feminine
of an adjective:for example lentement
'unfortunately' (cf. malheureu.se'unfortunate
singular)'), malheureusemer?/
'actively' (cf. active 'active (feminine
(feminine singular)'), activement
systems
Parts-of'-speech
2l
rrrlrrlirr')').And in Turkish many manner adverbsare formed by reduplica'
'slowly' (cf. yavas 'slow'), derin
,,'rr ,rl adjectives:for exampleyavas yava;
'bitter').
'aci
'deeply'
(cf. derin'deep'),
aci bitterly' (cf. aci
i, r rrr
l lrcre is also a cross-linguistictendencyfor manner adverbs- or a subset
,,t nriulneradverbs- to have certain phonologicalpropertiesthat distinguish
rlr{'nrl'rom other words. For example,in Hausa many adverbsare high-tone
kaf 'comrrr.11t15yffnflgsof
theformobstruent-vowel-obstruent-forexample,
'specklessly',knt'with a snappingsound' - an otherwiserare
l,l, tr'ly', /ca^s
t,.rnelnin this language.This phenomenonhas receivedspecial attentionin
\ | r rcanlinguistics,wherethe term ideophonehas gainedculrency as the label
t,rr '11v7o.6,often onomatopoeic,which describesa predicate,qualificatlveor
r,lrcrb in respect[o manner,colour, sound,smell, action, state or intensity'
,lrtrke (1935:ll9)). But the phenomenonis, as noted by Courtenay(1916),
I'r rro meansconfined to African languages,and is attested,for example,in
\rrstralianlanguagesas well. (Courtenayalsonotesthat in somelanguagesthe
t,,'.rrliarphonologicalpropertiesthat distinguishideophonesfrom other words
,r (' not confinedto adverbs.According to her analysisof Yoruba,for example,
rlrrslanguagehasideophonicnouns,verbs,and adjectives,aswell asadverbs-It
,{'('nrs,
however,that while a// adverbsin Yorubaareideophonic,only relatively
l{ \\' nouns,verbs,and adjectivesare.)
llclbre turning to considerhow adverbialmeaningsare expressedin lan,,uirgesthat lack a distinct open parts-of-speechclass of adverbs,we should
rntg 1[21,even in languageswith such a class,adverbialmeaningsare often
, rplcssiblein other ways as well. In English,for example,phrasesconsisting
,,1:r prepositionplus a noun or noun phrasecan be usedto expressa wide range
,,1rrdverbialmeanings:time (at dawn), place(in school),direction(to church),
rlrurner(with ease),etc. And there are also expressionsinvolving adjectives
rllirtparaphrase
certainadverbs:for exampleit is unfortunatethat (cf. unforturt,ttcly),in a carelessmanner (cf. carelessly).Not surprisingly,similar use is
rrrrdeof nounsand adjectivesto expressadverbialmeaningsin many languages
rrrwhich thereis no open adverbialclass.(Some of the languagesin question
Ir,rr.'e
a small,closedclassof adverbs:othersdo not.)
In Arabic, for example,accordingto Bateson(1967),many adverbialmeanrnss are expressedby nouns or adjectives(which Batesonconsidersa sub, lrrssof nouns) in the accusativecase. Relevantexamples ate yadan (next
'next day'); yoman (day: accusative)
,l;ry: accusative)'tomolrow' (cf. yadu
'swiftly' (cf. sarie'swift').
,lrrily'(cf. yom'day'); sarixan('swift' accusative)
lrr Tagalog,which lacks distinctive manneradverbs,the meaning equivalent
,,1 such adverbsis regularly expressedby adjectives precededby the marker
'loud')
rtruretflaflg mabilis (marker 'quick') 'quickly'; nang malakas(marker
'suddenly';etc.Therearealsolanguages
Itl;,dly';nangbigla(marker'sudden')
rrrwhich themeaningequivalentof a manneradverbis regularlyexpressedby an
,rrliectivewithout any specialmarking. One suchlanguageis Trique, in which,
22
and TimothyShopen
PttulSchachter
accordingto RobertLongacre(personalcommunication),theclassof adjectives
simply doesdouble duty, modifying verbsas well as nouns.
by
In somelanguages,the meaningequivalentofcertain adverbsis expressed
and
superlative
verbs. This is particularly common in the caseof comparative
degreeadverbs(e.g.Englishmore and//,o.t/),whoseequivalentin a good many
'surpass',as in the following Hausa
languagesis expressedby a verb meaning
examples:
(51)
ni hankali
fi
a. Ya
he.penr surpass me intelligence
'He is more intelligentthan I am'
duka hankali
fi
su
b. Ya
intelligence
he.pEnp surpassthem all
'He is the most intelligentof them all'
(Thereare also,of course,languagesin which the comparativeand superlative
are expressedby affixeson adjectives,as in English smarter,smartest.)Some
other examplesof verbsexpressingadverbialmeaningsare to be found in the
following sentencesfrom Akan:
(52\
ha
ba
a. )taa
he.pursue come here
'He often comeshere'
b. Ohintaw kc hc
he.hide go there
'He goestheresecretly'
The constructionsin (52) areso-calledserial verb constructions(seeSchachter
(1974) for somediscussion).
Finally, it may be noted that in heavily synthetic languages,it is common
for a wide range of adverbial meanings to be expressible by verbal affixes.
Eskimo, for example, has a large set of suffixes with adverbial meanings that
can occur betweena verb root and an inflectional suffix. A few examplesof such
'badly', -vluaq'properly' -luinnaq'thoroughly', -Wmaaq
suffixesare -nirluk
,
'unfortunately',-qquuq'probably'. Andasimilarsituation
'inthefuture'
,-kasik
'in the fire' -xui
,
obtains in Yana, where there are verbal suffixes such as -?ai
'in(to)thewater',-sgin'earlyinthemorning',-ca(a),'atnight', -x&id'slowly',
'quickly' (from Sapir and Swadesh(1960)).
and -ya(a)gal
2
Closed classes
Languagesdiffer more from one anotherin the closed-classdistinctionsthey
recognizethan in the open-classdistinctions.This is true both of the number
Parts-of-speech
systems
23
,rntl of the type of classesrecognized.Thus there are languageswhich have
l','errclaimed (not quite correctly,as we shall see) to have no closedclasses
.rt rrll. while there are othersthat distinguisha dozen or more closedclasses.
\ntl theremay be no universallyattestedclosedclassescomparablewith the
rrniversally
attestedopenclassesofnouns and verbs.(Oneclosedclassthat is
universalis the classof interjections- seesection2.5.) Nonetheless,it
t,,'r'haps
rr rrpparently
thecasethat,howeverdiversetheclosed-class
systemsof different
l,rrrguages
may be, all languagesdo in fact haveclosed,as well as open,parts,'l speechclasses.
llcfore we take a closer look at the kinds of closed parts-of-speech
classes
rlnl occur, let us first consider the questionof the correlationbetweenthe
I'rorninenceof closed classesin a languageand anothertypological feature:
tlrt'position of the languageon the analytic-syntheticscale.As was noted in
tlrt'introductionto this chapter,languagesmay differ very greatly in the degree
,'l rnorphologicalcomplexity they toleratein words. Thus there are heavily
.rrrrrlyticlanguages,in which there are few or no words that containmore than
.r single morpheme.And there are also heavily syntheticlanguages,in which
g,,rlymorphemic
words are the norm.
Not surprisingly,closedword classestend to play a more prominentrole in
.rnrrlyticlanguagesthanthey do in syntheticlanguages.This is becausemuch of
rlrc semanticand syntacticwork done by the membersof closed word classes
rrr rrnalyticlanguagesis done insteadby affixes in syntheticlanguages.We
lrrrvcalreadyseenthat, in someheavily syntheticlanguages,affixesmay even
,ltr servicefor certain open word classes(cf. the Eskimo and Yana examples
,'l affixal equivalentsof adverbscited at the end of the precedingsection).
I lrc use of affixes in place of closed word classesis, however,a good deal
nr()recommon - a claim that is substantiatedin detail in the sectionsthat
l,rllow. Therefore,by and large, the more use a languagetends to make of
rnorphologicallycomplex words, the less use it will tend to make of closed
rvord classes,and the fewer distinct types of closed classesit will tend to
r('cognize.
It might thereforebe expectedthat there would be some heavily synthetic
lrurguages
that would makeno useof closedclassesat all. And in fact therehave
l,t'en claimsto this effectwith regardto at leastone suchlanguage- witnessthe
lrrllowingquotationfrom Sapir(1921:l l9): 'In Yanathe nounand verbarewell
,listinct.But there are, strictly speaking,no other parts of speech.'However,
.rrbsequent
investigationseemsto have persuadedSapir that, in addition to
rr,rrrnsand verbs,Yanadoeshavea 'relationalproclitic' (which is a kind of case
rrurrker,marking non-subjects)and a small set of articles(Sapir and Swadesh
r l()60))- words which, in the terminologyof this chapter,would be assigned
ttr the closedclassof noun adjuncts(seesection2.2below). And it also seems
lrkcly that Yana has (or, rather,had, sincethe languageis now extinct) some
24
interjections.Still, this is certainlya very meagreinventoryof wordsbelonging
to closedclasses,and it is safeto say that no analytic languagecould possibly
managewith suchan inventory.
In the discussionof closedword classesthat follows, theseclassesare dealt
with underthe following headings:pronounsand otherpro-forms(section2.l),
noun adjuncts(2.2), verb adjuncts(2.3), conjunctions(2.4), and other closed
classes(2.5). These headingsmerely constitutea convenientframework for
discussion,and are not claimed to have any theoreticalstatus.In each case,
the discussionof the closedclassesin questionwill be accompaniedby some
discussionof the counterpartsof theseclasses(if any) in languagesin which
the classesare not attested.
2.1
Pronounsand otherpro-forms
This section surveysthe various types of pro-forms that occur in languages
and someof the ways in which languagesthat lack a particularpro-form type
may expressthe semanticequivalent.The term pro-form is a cover term for
severalclosedclassesof wordswhich, undercertaincircumstances,
areusedas
substitutesfor words belongingto open classes,or for larger constituents.By
far the commonesttype of pro-form is thepronoun, a word usedas a substitute
for a noun or noun phrase.Varioussubtypesof pronounsmay be distinguished,
among them personal, reflexive,reciprocal, demonstrative,indefinite, and relative. Thesesubtypesarediscussedin turn below.(Therearealso interrogative
pronouns,but theseare bestconsideredtogetherwith other interrogativeproforms - pro-adverbs,pro-verbs,etc.- andthediscussionofthem is thusdeferred
until later in the section.)
Personal pronouns are words used to refer to the speaker(e.g. I, me), the
person spokento (tou), and other personsand things whose referentsare presumedto be clear from the context(he, him, she,her, it, etc.).While personal
pronounsin somelanguagesoccur in essentiallythe samesentencepositionsas
other nominal expressions,
it is rathercommonfor them to show distributional
peculiarities.This is true, for example,of direct-objectpersonalpronounsin
English, which must immediatelyfollow the verb in some caseswhere other
typesofdirect objectsneednot, as illustratedin (53).
(s3)
I)lrts-of-speech
systems
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
Turn it on
*Turn on it
^ [ Turn the radio on
tt'l
Turn on the radio
And it is more strikingly trueof other languagesin which personalpronounsare
c/itic.swhose distributionmay be consistentlvdistinct from that of non-clitic
25
,,,r unirls.(For furtherdiscussionof clitics,seesection2.5.)For example,object
i,, r\( )nirlpronounsin French,bothdirectandindirect,normallyprecedethe verb
, lIl(' r)oll-pronominalobjectsnormally follow it, as in (54).
,I)
a. Jean le leur
donnera
Jean it to. them will. give
'Jean
will give it to them'
b. Jean donnera le pain
aux enfants
Jean will give the bread to the children
'Jeanwill give the breadto the children'
in Tagalog,personal-pronoun
agentsand topics normally follow the
"rrrrilirrly
tu.,1e()nstituentof the sentence,while other agentsand topicsnormally follow
rlrr'r crb.For example:
, \\ )
Hindi ko
siya
nakita
not
l(lc) him(ror) saw
'I didn't
seehim'
cf. Hindi nakita ni Pedro si Juan
not
saw ac Pedro ToP Juan
'Pedro
didn't seeJuan'
It is quite common for the equivalentof personalpronouns,particularlyof
rrlrjcctandobjectpronouns,to be expressedby affixeson the verb.The followrrrr'cxamplesof pronominalaffixesarefrom Swahili andQuechuarespectively:
ir(r)
Ni-li-wa-ona
I-ensr-you-see
'I saw you'
,r /)
Maqa-ma-nki
hit-me-you
'You hit me'
( ()r)rronly such pronominal affixes may co-occur with non-affixalpronouns
* lrcn a pronominalsubjector object is being emphasized;compare(58) with
rr7):
rrl"i)
Qam noqata maqamanki
you me
hit. me. you
'Youhit
me'
'I'here
are languagesin which, while personalpronounsdo occur, they are
,,ltcn avoidedin favourof certainnounswhich are consideredto be morepolite.
26
Parts-of-speech
systems
PauLSchachterand Timothy Shopen
2'7
'he
In Malay, for example(seeWinstedt(1914)),a speakerundercertaincircumstanceswill use some self-deprecating
noun (e.g.hamba'slave') to refer to
himself and somehonorific noun (e.g.tuan'master', dato 'grandfather,
, nenek
'grandmother')
to refer to his addressee.(This situationled Robins (1964) to
suggestthatin Malay 'the nearestequivalentsof the Englishpronounsaremembers of an open class' (p. 230).k seems,however,that while self-deprecating
and honorific nounsare often usedin place of pronouns,thereare also unspecializedpersonalpronounsin Malay * aku'l', kamu'you', etc.- which may
be usedunderappropriatecircumstances.)
Finally it should be mentionedthat in some languagesthe equivalentof a
particularEnglish personalpronounmay be expressedby the absenceof any
overt form in a particularcontext.In the Japanesesentencesin (59) and (60),
for example,thereare no overtequivalents
of'he', 'her', and 'I'.
tf
emphatic -selJ/-selves
forms and their non-pronominalcounterpartsin
rrllrerlanguagesshouldperhapsbe considereda type of z/lscourse
marker- see
'r:ction2.2.)
Somelanguageswhich havedistinctreflexiveand non-reflexivethird person
l)fonounsdo not make sucha distinctionfor the other persons,but insteaduse
tlresamefirst and secondpersonpronounsboth reflexivelyand non-reflexively.
Note the following examplesfrom French:
(59)
r66)
(60)
John wa Mary o
sitte-imasu ga, amari yoku wa sirima-sen
John rop Mary onr knows
but really well rop knows-not
'John
knows Mary, but he doesn'tknow her very well'
Gohan o
riCE
'I
tab-tai
(62)
t6l)
In many languages,however,the reflexiveandemphaticstructuresareformally
unrelated,and the latter do not involve pronouns.Note, for example,the following Tagalogsentences:
(63)
Inahit ni John ang sarili niya
shaved ac John rop self his
'John
shavedhimself'
(64)
Inahit ni John mismo si
Bill
shaved AG John EMpH rop Bill
'John
himself shavedBill'
a. Ils les voient
they them see
'They
seethem'
b. Ils s(,
voient
they nnnl see
'They seethemselves'
John shavedhimself
John and Bill shavedthemselves
Iohn himselfshavedBill
Ils te voient
they you see
'They
seeyou'
Tu te vois
you you see
'You
seeyourself'
want to eat rice'
It happensthat in English -self/-selve.r
pronounsare also used to indicate
emphasis,as in:
Ils me voient
they me see
'They
seeme'
Je me vois
I me see
'I seemyself'
OBJ EAt-DESIDERATIVE
Reflexivepronouns arepronouns which are interpretedas coreferential with
anothernominal, usually the subject,of the sentenceor clausein which they
occur.In Englishthe reflexivepronounsare formed with -self or -selves..
(61)
rrr5)
'I'here
are also languagesin which an invariableform is usedfor the reflexive,
regardless
of the personor numberof the nominalwith which it is coreferential.
'l'his
is true, for instance,of Japanese,
as the following examplesillustrate:
(68)
Taroo wa zibun o
mamotta
Taroo rop REFL oBJ defended
'Taroo
defendedhimself'
(69)
Boku wa zibun o
mamotta
I
rop REFL oBJ def'ended
'I defendedmyself'
('Iheseexamples,as well as someof thosecited below,are from Faltz (1977).)
In a good many languages,reflexiveforms are analysableas a headnominal
rnodifiedby a pronominalpossessive
agreeingwith the subject.Often the head
nominalalsooccursasa commonnoun meaning'head' or 'body'. For example,
28
PuulSchachter
and TintothvSlutpen
Fula reflexives,as in (70), areformed with hoore'head', while Akan reflexives,
asin (7 I ), arefbrmed with ho'body' . TherearealsolanguagessuchasMalagasy
(72), that usea common noun without a modifying posscssive:
(70)
(71)
(12)
Mi gaafli
hooreqam
I
wounded my head
'I wounded
myself'
Mihuu me ho
I saw my body
'I
saw myself'
Namono /erea Rabe
killed
body Rabe
'Rabe
killed himself'
ln languagesthat do not have reflexivepronounsor reflexively interpreted
nounsor noun phrases,reflexivemeaningsmay be expressedby verbalaffixes,
as in the following examplesfrom Tswana(wherethe reflexiveaffix is -i-) and
Lakhota(whereit is -lc'i-):
(73)
Ke-tla-i-rhCk-Cla
sel6p€
I-pur-nppl-buy-BENaxe
'I shall buy
an axe for myself'
(74)
Ophelc'ithon
'He
bought it for himself'
cf. Ophethon
'He
bought it'
Reciprocalpronouns, like reflexive pronouns,are interpretedascoreferential
with a co-occurringnominal,but areusedto expressmutual actions,conditions,
etc. The English reciprocalpronounsareeachother and one another,as inl.
(75)
They helpedeach other
They helpedone another
Reciprocal and reflexive formations are often closely related.In Akan, for
example,the reciprocalis formed by a kind of doubling of the reflexives:
(76\
Wohuu won ho
wcn ho
they.saw their body their body
'They saw
eachother'
cf. Wohuu wcn ho
[hey. saw their body
'They saw themselves'
Ihrts-ol'-speech
systems
29
I lr,rr'rrrc,in fact,somelanguages
in which thereis regularlythe possibilityof
,,,r1'rr:rrity
betweenreciprocaland reflexivemeaningsbecausethe sameforms
rrr Irt' usedto expressboth.A casein point is French,asthe fbllowing example
l|l\ltittCS:
,'r
lls se
flattent
they nerl/nlcrp flatter
[ themselves'
'
I
'Thev flatter{
t
'
I eachother I
.\ n unambiguouslyreciprocalmeaningmay,however,be conveyedby adding
(
r,, 77) the phrasel'un I'autre 'one another',as in:
, 'S)
Ils se
flattent I'un
I'autre
they nnnl/nEctp flatter the.one the.other
'They flatter
one another'
l.anguagesthat lack reciprocalpronouns,like thosethat lack reflexivepronr)ur)s,typically expressequivalentmeaningsthroughthe useof specialaffixes
,,n the verb.In Ilocano,for example,reciprocalverbscontainthe prefix ag- and
rlrr'irrfix -inn- (which is insertedafter the first consonantof the verb stem):for
, vrrrrpleagsinnakit'hurtone another'(cf. sakit'hurt'),agtinnulong'helpone
, r r r t r t h e(rc' f. t u l o n g ' h e l p ' ) .
pronounsarepronounslike Englishthis,that,these,andthose
,,,.,r"^,rrtrrotive
r /9)
This resemblesthat
Do you prefer theseot those?
Srrchpronounsaretreatedin depthby Comrieand Thompsonin vol. llt, chapter
tr.and will only receivebrief mentionhere.Demonstrativepronounsarewidely
,rltested.There are, howeveqlanguagesin which demonstrativeand third per'on personalpronounsare not distinguished.This is the case,for example,in
SouthernPaiute(seeSapir ( 1930)),wherewords consistingof a demonstrative
rrrorphemefollowed by a third personmorphemedo double duty as demon\rrativeand personalpronoutus:
for exampleaga (tt- (that) + -Oa (third person
'that
singularanimate))
one,he'; irya(,- (this) -t -na) 'this one, he'', ar|(a- *
/'i'(third personsingularinanimate)),'that one,it', etc. (In addition to demon\trativepronouns,many languageshavemorphologicallyrelateddemonstrative
ttrticles.For somediscussionof these,seesection2.2.)
IndeJinitepronouns arepronounslike Englishsotneone,.something,
anyone,
ttrtything.Inmanylanguages(includingEnglish)theseformsarerathertransparently analysableas consistingof two morphemes,one expressingthe meaning
rrl'indefiniteness,
the other the meaning 'person' or 'thing': for exampleAkan
andTimothy
PaulSchachter
Shopen
30
'someone',ebi (e- (nonhuman
obi (o- (humanprefix) * bi (indefinite stem))
'something';
prefix) * bl,)
or Frenchquelqun (quelqu'(some)* un (one))
'someone',quelquecfutse(quelque(some) chose(thing)) 'something'.
*
Somelanguageshavedistinct indefinite-subjectpronounswhich are usedto
indicatean unspecifiedhuman subject.The English equivalentmay havethey,
you, one, people,etc., accordingto the context.Some examples,from French
(80), and Hausa(81), respectively,are:
(80)
a. On
dit qu'il pleut
r N D E Fs a y s t h a t - i t r a i n s
'They say that it's raining'
jamais
b. On
ne sait
NEG
knows
never
INDEF
'You/Onenevercan tell'
(81)
yi haka
a. Kada
a
shouldn't TNDEFdo thus
'You/One
shouldn'tdo that'
zo
b. Yana so
a
he. is wanting rNDEFcome
'He wants peopleto come'
Parts-of-speech
systems
turn now from pronounsto pro-formsof othertypes,thefollowing typesof
pro-clau.ses,
pro-verbs,
I,r,r-lbrmsare discussedin turn below: pro-sentences,
prc-adverbs, and interrogativepro-forz,s. This listing is not
t,rtt-udjectives,
Intcndedto be exhaustive.For example,it is arguedin Schachter(1978)that the
rtrrlicizedwords of sentences
like (85) shouldbe identifiedaspro-predicates:
rS5)
The man who wrote that was a genius
The book whichhe wrote was brilliant
Many languagesdo not haverelativepronouns,but insteadmakeuseof personal
pronounsin forming relativeclauses,as in the following examplefrom Akan:
(83)
no
Mihuu obi
a
cwJ aka
I. saw someone npr- snake has.bitten him
'I
saw someonewhom a snakehad bitten'
no
cf. cwc aka
snake has. bitten him
'A
snakehas bitten him'
Another common way of forming relativeclausesinvolvesdeletionof the relativized nominal from the relative clause,as in the following example from
Tagalog:
(84)
pumunta sa tindahan?
Sino ang bata-ng
oBL store
who top child-t-tNx went
'Who is
the child who went to the store?'
For still other relativizationstrategies,seeAndrewsin vol. tl, chapter4.
Jackfell down. but Jtll didn't
Jill isn't crying,but Jackjs
lJrrtthis parts-of-speech
type doesnot seemto be common enoughto warrant
, l i s c u s s i ohne r e .
Pro-sentences
arewordslike Englishyesandno, which areusedin answering
tlrrestions,
and which are understoodas equivalentto affirmativeand negative
\entencesrespectively.(For example,in answerto Is it raining?, Yesis equivalent to 1r'sraining and No to It isn't raining.) While most languageshavesuch
they are not universal.In Mandarin Chinese,for example,the
l)ro-sentences,
,rllirmativeanswerto a polar questionis whateververb occurredin the question, while the negativeansweris bu 'not' optionally followed by this verb, as
rllustrated
in (86).
rlt6)
Relativepronounsare pronounslike English who and which in;
(82)
3|
'lir
Ni qu ma?
you go e
'Are you going?'
Qu / Bu (qu)
go / not (go)
'Yes'/ 'No'
There arealso languages,however,which havea larger setof pro-sentences
than English does. One rather common phenomenonis for yes to have two
tlilTerentequivalents,accordingto whetherthe questionbeing answeredis in
the affirmativeor in the negative.The following examplesare from French:
tliT)
Il vient?
he comes
'Is he coming?'
tll8)
Il ne vient pas?
he Nec comes not
'Isn't
he coming?'
Oui
yes
'Yes'
Si (il vient)
yes (he comes)
'Yes(he'scoming)'
Another common phenomenonis the occurrenceof a set of distinctivepro\cntencesthat are used in answerto existentialquestions(onesequivalentto
linglish questionswith Is(n't) there?,etc.).For example,in Tagalogthe usual
ecluivalents
of yes and no areoo andhindi respectively:
(u9)
Umuulan ba?
is. raining e
'Is it raining?'
Oo
'Yes'
/Hindi
/'No'
32
PaulSchachter
andTimothy
Shopen
Parts-of-speech
systems
33
In answerto existentialquestions,however,the existentialpro-sentences
mayroon andw(ila areusedinstead:
'yes'
rr't'tl as pro-sentences
meaning
or'no' can be usedas pro-clauses.Thus
'ves'
'no'
rn Iirench.oui
andnon
occur in constructionslike:
(90)
r( ) .)1
Mayroon ba-ng
EXIST
'Is
pagkain?
Q_LINK lood
thereany food?'
Mayroon
'Yes'
/Wala
/'No'
(As the questionin (90) shows,mayroonis also used as an existentialmarker
(cf. section2.5) in non-pro-form sentences.The same is true of wala, which
occurs as a negativeexistential marker.)
One common type of pro-clauseis the questiontag: a word with the force of
a questionwhich is appendedto anotherclause.Somequestiontagsareusedto
form alternative questions,others to form confirmation questions.Alternative
questionsare equivalentto certainEnglish questionswith or (e.g.1s it raining
or not?), and quite commonly it is a word meaning 'or' that is used as an
alternative-questiontag, as in the following example from Hausa:
(91)
(92)
Pro-verbs,pro-adjectives, and pro-adverbs are words which substitute for
r t'rbs(or verbphrases),adjectives(or adjectivephrases),andadverbs(or adverb
respectively.In Mandarin Chinese(seeChao (1968)),there are pro;rlrrases)
r crbs suchas lai'do it' , tzemme'do this', nemme'do that'. An example,using
tlrcmostcommonof these./al. is:
r()-5)
Umuulan, ano?
is. raining coNFrRMArroN
TAc
'It's
raining,isn't it?'
In a good many languages,the equivalentof a questiontag is expressedby a
fixed idiomaticformula: for exampleFrenchn'est-cepas (literally 'is that not')
or Germannicht wahr (literally 'not true'). (In English the formula equivalent
to a questiontag is not fixed, but varieswith the precedingstatement:cf . You
haven't eaten,haveyou?; John left, didn't he?; etc.)
Another type of pro-clauseis the so or nol of English sentences
like
(93)
qtre non
b. Il dit
he says that no
'He
saysnot'
Ana
ntwa, ko?
one.is rain or
'Is it
raining or not?'
Confirmation questionsare questionsin which the speakeris asking for confirmation of a statementto which the questiontag is appended.An example,from
Tagalog,is:
John saysthat it will rain, but I don't think so
John saysthat it will rain, but I think not
(So and nol in suchcasesare substitutesfor that clauses'.cf. I don't think that it
will rain, I think that it won't rain.')In somelanguages.the samewords that are
que oui
a. Je crois
I believe that yes
'I
believeso'
Ni buhui
xiu
zhe jigu,
rang wo lai
you know.how.Nec repair this machine let I
do. it
'You
don't know how to repair this machine;let me do it'
\n exampleof a pro-adjectiveis the /e of a Frenchsentencesuch as (93).
t()6)
Jean est grand, mais je ne le
suis pas
Jean is tall
but I Nec PRo.ADJam not
'Jean
is tall, but I'm not'
,\nd an exampleof a pro-adverbis English thus or its (more commonly used)
\kan equivalents.ree'this way' and sao'that way, the sameway':
(97)
Menoa no ,rec,
na cno nso noa no .rcc
I. cook it this. way, and he too cooks it that. way
'I cook it this
way, and he cooksit the sameway'
I nter rogative p ro -forms are words like English who, what, where, when, etc.,
;rstheseare used at the beginning of questions.The set of interrogativeprolirrms often cuts acrossother parts-of-speechclasses.Thus in English there
rrreinterrogativepronouns(e.g.who, what), intenogativeadverbs(e.g.where,
rhen),and interrogative
articles(e.g.whichinwhichbook- seesection2.2for
rrgeneraldiscussionof articles).And someother languageshaveinterrogative
pro-forms with no English counterparts.In Tagalog,for example,the interrogrrtiveroot ano'what' (which is alsousedas a confirmation-question
tag) occurs
34
PaulSchachter
andTimothy
Shopen
in variousformationswith adjective-formingand verb-formingaffixes.Some
examplesof the resultantinterrogativeadjectivesand verbsare:
(98)
a. Napakaano nila?
very. what they
'What
are they very much like?'
cf. Napakataasnila
very. tall
they
'They
are very tall'
b. Nagano
ka?
(enRr.lcrrvr)what you
'What
did you do?'
cf. Nagsalita
ka
(erRr. ncrrvn)speak you
'You
spoke'
c. Naano
ka?
(rnnn.rNvol)what you
'What
happenedto you?'
cf. Natalisod
ka
(ennr. lNvor-)trip you
'You
tripped'
Parts-of-speech
systems
35
rlrt'r'cl'erentis singular or plural. In some cases,however,the noun adjuncts
,rppcarto be semanticallyempty and merely to be requiredunder certaincir, unrstances
by the syntaxof the language.(This seemsto be true, in particular,
,'l r'crtainclassifiers- seebelow.) Four generalclassesof noun adjunctswill
l', tlistinguishedhere:role markers,quantifers,classifiers,andarticles.These
, lrrssesarediscussedin turn below.
llrtle markers include case markers, discourse markers, and (other) adpo'rtion,r(i.e.,prepositionsor postpositions).Case markersare words that indi( irlc the syntacticand/or semanticrole (e.g. subjectand/oragent)of the noun
l,lrlaseto which they belong. Discoursemarkers are words that indicatethe
,liscourserole (e.g. topic) of the associatednoun phrase.If the role marker
I'rccedesthe noun, as in the following examplefrom Tagalog,it may be called
,r preposition:
r l00)
Ipinansulat nl John ng liham kay Mary ang makinilya
wrote. with AG John oBJ letter ro Mary roe typewriter
'John wrote Mary letter
a
on the typewriter'
\nd if the role marker follows the noun, as in the following example from
lrrpanese,
it may be calleda postposition:
rl0I)
Type
de
wa John ga
Mary ni tegami o
kaita
typewriter INSTRTop John susr Mary to letter oBJ wrote
'John wrote Mary a letter on the typewriter'
It appearsthat all languageshaveinterrogativepro-forms,but that the types
of interrogativepro-forms that occur vary considerablyfrom languageto language,partly in conformity with the language'soverallparts-of-speech
system.
Thus a languagethat lacks adverbsin generalwill naturally enoughnot have
interrogativeadverbs.For example,in Yana,which evidentlyhas no adverbs,
the equivalentsof English when,where,etc.,are all expressedby verb stems:
Therearecertainadpositionsthat areclearly not discoursemarkers,but that
iu'enot ordinarily identifiedas casemarkers:for examplethe postpositionde
rrr(l0l), and the words indicatingvariouslocativerelationsin the following
cxamplesfrom English and Akan respectively:
(99)
( 102)
It's on/under/besidethe table
( 103)
ewc pon no so/ase/nlqen
it. is table the on/under/beside
'It's on/under/besidethe table'
a. Beema'a-wara-n3a-n?
where-pnnp-I-e
'Where
am I?'
b. Beeyauma-s aik nisaayau?
when-p'ur his going. away
'When
will he go away?'
2.2
Noun adjuncts
This sectiondiscussesseveralclassesof wordsthat typically form phrasalconstituentswith nouns.In most cases,thesewords, here labelednoun adjuncts,
have clear semanticimport, conveying some information about the referent of
the phrasalconstituent that is not expressedby the noun itselt for example the
role of the referent in the action expressedby a co-occurring verb, or whether
I'he distinction between case-markingand other adpositionsseemsto be a
srlmewhatarbitraryone,however,basedin part on the traditionalidentification
o| only certaintypesof grammaticalor semanticroleswith the label 'case'. (It is
rrlsotrue, however,that in somelanguageslocativeand other adpositionsmust
be distinguished from case-marking ffixes which occur in the same phrase.
lror example,in Latin 'on the table' is super mensam,which consistsof the
'on'
and a case-markedform, the accusative,of the noun
lrreposition super
ttrensa'table'.In suchcasesthe adpositionshowsthe relationofa noun (phrase)
lo somelargersyntacticunit while the affix showsits relationto the adposition.)
36
PaulSclutchter
and Timoth,Shopen
A certaincorrelationis known to exist betweenthe generalword order type
of a languageand the occuffencein the languageof prepositionsas opposedto
postpositions.In particular,Greenberg(\963:62) has claimed that verb-initial
languagesarealwaysprepositionalwhile verb-finallanguagesarealmostalways
postpositional(cf. (100) and (l0l) above).In verb-mediallanguagesthe situation is less clearcut.While the majority of such languagesare prepositional
(cf. (102)),therearealsoa goodmanythat arepostpositionalinstead(cf. (103)).
In languagesthatdo not userole markersto indicatethe grammatical,semantic, or discourserolesofnouns, or that usemarkersfor somesuchroles but not
others,the roles in questionmay be indicatedby word order or by affixation.
English, for example, uses word order to distinguish subjectsfrom objects
(compare The boy loves the girl and The girl loves the boy) while languages
like Latin andWarlpiri usecase-marking.
Compare( 104)and ( 105)for Warlpiri
with free word order and a case-markingclitic for Ergative(-ngku),transitive
subject.The case-markingclitic canattachitselfto every word in a noun phrase
orjust the last word of the noun phrase:
( 104) a. Ngarrka-ngku karnta nyangu
man-ERG
woman saw
'The man
saw the woman'
b. Nyangu ngarrka-ngku karnta
saw
man-ERG
woman
'The
man saw the woman'
( r 0 s ) a.
Nganka nyangu karnta-ngku
man
saw
woman-ERc
'The woman
saw the man'
b. Nganka karnta-ngku nyangu
man
woman-ERc saw
'The woman
saw the man'
There are also languagesin which the affixesthat indicatethe role of a noun
or noun phrase may appear on a verb rather than on the noun or noun phrase
itself. In Swahili, for example,the affix -i- on a verb expressesthe equivalent
of the benefactiveprepositionfor, as in ( I 06).
(106)
Ni-li-m-p-l-a
chakula mwanamke
I-rlsr-her-give-for-g food
woman
'I gavefood for the woman'
cf. Ni-li-m-p-a
chakula mwanamke
I-r.r.sr-her-give-O food
woman
'I
savethe woman food'
Parts-of-speech
systems
37
, \r't' irlso the Tagalogexample( 100),above,in which the affix ipinan- on the
, rb i1tilsn5ylrulindicatesthat the topic noun phraseang makinilya is to be
rnt('r'l)r'eted
as playing the role of an instrument.)
lrinally,it may be notedthat certaindiscourseroles are sometimesindicated
I' r l hc useof specialsyntacticconstructionsor by intonation.Thus the English
, (lrlivirlentof the Akan focus markerna of (107) is the so-calledcleft-sentence
\ on\truction,while the English equivalentof the Akan contrastmarker de of
r l { ) S )i s i n t o n a t i o n a l :
rl{)7)
Kwame na
cbeye
adwumano
the
Kwame Focus he. will. do work
'It's
Kwame who will do the work'
rlt)|3)
Kwamede,
na Kofi de.
cbctena
ha
cbckc
Kwame coNTRAST
he. will. go and Kofi coNrnl,sr he. will. stay here
'Kwamewill go but Krtfi will stayhere'
'I'he
next groupof noun adjunctsto be considered,the quantffiers,consistsof
rnoilifiersof nounsthat indicatequantity or scope:for examplenumerals,and
* o r d s m e a n i n g ' m a n y ' , ' m u c h ' , ' f e w ' , ' a l l ' , ' s o m e ' , ' e a ec thc' .,I n s o m el a n I'urrgesa quantifieris requiredif plurality is to be explicitly indicated.Tagalog,
Irrr examtla, usesthe quantifiermga in this way:
rl09)
Nasaan ang mga pinggan?
where roP PL dish
'Where
are the dishes?'
\nrl Vietnameseappearsto have somefifty diff-erentpluralizers(which, howr'\er, also carry some more explicit quantifier meaning: 'all', 'all (vague)',
'r)rlny', 'a
few', etc.- seeBinh (1971:l l3-14)). In suchlanguages
the explicit
rrrtlicationof plurality is generallyoptional.Thus if mga is deletedfrom ( l 09),
llrcresultantsentencecanstill be interpretedasmeaning'Wherearethedishes?',
:rlthoughit couldalso mean'Whereis the dish?'
There are a number of languagesin which quantifiers,or at least certain
(luantifiers,vary in form accordingto the semanticpropertiesof the nounsthey
rrrodify.Thus the Akuapem dialect of Akan has two distinct forms for certain
rrtrnrerals,
according to whether the noun modified is human or nonhuman:
lrrr example nnipa baanu (people two) 'two people' vs mmoa abien (anirrralstwo) 'two animals'. And in Japanesethere are semanticallyconditioned
rrrriantssuchas sannin'three(of humans)',sanba'three(of birds)', sanbon
'tlrree(of
cylindrical objects)',sanmai'three (of thin flat objects)', etc. (The
lrr;ranese
examplesare bimorphemic,each consistingof the quantifier morplremesan- 'three' plus a classifiermorpheme:seethe discussionof classifiers
lrclow.)
38
PaulSchachter
and TimothySltopen
The rangeof meaningsexpressed
by a distinctparts-of-speech
classof quantifiers variesconsiderablyfrom languageto language,and languagesthat have
sucha classmay nonetheless
haveother meansfor expressingparticularquantity or scopemeanings.One such meansinvolvesnouns of quantity or scope
in attributivephrases,as in Hausamutane da vuwo (peoplewith abundance)
'many people',
or in possessive-like
constructions,as in Akan nnipa no nvinaa
(peopfethe wholeness)'all the people' (cf. nnipa no ntode (peoplethe clothes)
'the people's
clothes').Another involvesverbsof quantity,suchas Akan dcc.ro
'be enough/much'.
as in:
( I l0)
Wcnoaa
aduan a
xdocso
they.cooked food REL it. is. enough
'They
cookedenough/ a lot of fbod'
It is, of course,very common fbr plurality to be expressedby affixes on
nouns,whetherby suffixation,as in Englishhouses,.fingers,
or by prefixation,
as in Ilocanobalbalay'houses',ramrdmdy'fingers'(wherethe pluralprefixis
a reduplicationof the first threesegmentsof the noun stem- cf. balalt 'house',
ramay 'ftnger'). Less common, but attestedin certain syntheticlanguages,is
the useof noun affixesto expressother quantifiermeanings:for exampleYana
'many people'.
hanmau-'many', as in hanmau.]'r,c
The next group of noun adjunctsto be consideredis the cla.ssrfers.These
are words which are requiredby the syntaxof certainlanguageswhen a noun
is alsomodifiedby a numeral.(In somelanguages,
suchasMandarinChinese,
classifiersare alsorequiredwhen nounsare modifiedby demonstratives,
or by
one ofcertain non-numericalquantifiers.In Thai, on the otherhand,classifiers
are obligatoryonly with a subsetof numerals,thoseexpressing'small definite
numbers'- see Adams and Conklin (1974).)The closestEnglish analogue
to classifiersare the words that follow the numeralsin expressionslike rwo
headsof lettuceor three ears oJ'corn. But while in English only a relatively
small group of nounsare not directly modified by numerals,in languageswith
classifiersthis is true of all nouns.Thus in English one saystwo boys, three
dogs,.four houses,etc. But in Thai the equivalentexpressionsmust all have
classifiers:deg scc4 khon (boy two classifier)'two boys', ntaa saam tuo (dog
threeclassifier)'three dogs',baan.rii /ag (housefour classifier)'four houses',
etc.
The number of classifiersfound in a languagemay be quite large. Thus
Warotamasikkhadit(1972) lists over sixty classifiersthat occur in Thai, and
acknowledges
that the listing is incomplete.In somecasesa givennoun may
co-occur with one of two or more different classifiers,in which case each
classifierusually has a distinct meaning.Thus in the Thai exampleskluay sii
ftco (bananafour classifier) 'four bananatrees (in a cluster)', kluay sii wii
Parts-of-speech
systems
39
, lr,rrrurafour classifier)'four bunchesof bananas',kluay sii bai (bananafour
Lrssi lier) 'four bananas', the meaningdifferenceis obviouslyconveyedby the
, Ir,,li rrctclassifiers.
.\s the examplesfrom Thai have suggested,the classifieror classifiersthat
ir,r\ occurwith a givennounareselected
by thatnoun.Thustheclassifierk/ron
r. :t'lcctedby deg'boy' while the classifier/ua is selectedbymaa 'dog,'.But
.rltlrtrugh
the selectionof classifiersis in part semantically
based(thuskhon is
'r',,t1only for humans),thereis not alwaysany obvious semanticbasisfor the
, lL'e
ticlnof a particularclassifierby a particularnoun,and 'sometimesnative
.1,,'rrkers
themselvesare not surewhich classifieris to be usedin agreement
(1972:23)).Evidently the situationis
rrrllr a certainnoun' (Warotamasikkhadit
r,rtlrcrsimilarto that found in the inflectionalgrammatical-gender
systemsof
lrrtlo-European
or Bantulanguages,
wherethereare somegeneralizations
that
,.rrrbe madeabout the semanticcorrelatesof the genders,but where thereare
,rl:o rnanycasesin which the genderclassification
appearsto be semantically
. r rb i t r a r y( s e es e c t i o nl . l , a b o v e ) .
l'lre last group of noun adjunctsto be consideredis the group of article.s.
I rrtlerthis headingwe wish to include,in additionto the wordsusuallyidenrllic(l as definiteand indefinitearticles(e.g. English the, a), words that are
,{)nletimesidentifiedas demonstrativeadjectivesor modifiers(e.g. t/ii.sin t/rl.r
ttrrtrr,
thatir thatwomun).The reasons
for groupingthedemonstrative
modifiers
r,)!ctherwith the (other)articlesarebothsyntacticandsemantic.Syntactically,
,l( nlonstrative
andotherarticlesusuallyconstitutea singledistributional
class,
,'(( urringin the samepositionin relationto the nounandotherelementsof the
rrrr1r1l
pfilnsg,and not co-occurringin a singlenoun phrase:compareusntall
\\t)ntunjthis small w*omon;Akan obeuketewabl (woman small a) 'a small
\\()lnan',cbeaketewu-yl (wornansrlall this) 'this small woman'. (Thereare
, ,,ecptions,however.For example,in Hebrewthe equivalentof the definitearti, le is a prefix,and this prefix can co-occurwith a demonstrative:
e.g. hu-i,sh
/i,r-:e(the-manthe-this)'thisman'.)And semantically,
demonstrative
modifiers
,rrclike definitearticlesin beingreference
indicators.(Thust/ri.roftenindicates
tlrrrtthe referentof the following noun is closeat hand,just as rlzeoften indi, rrtcsthat the referentof the following noun is assumedto have alreadybeen
, .tlblished.)In a good many languages,
in fact,thereare singlewordswhich
rrurybe translated'the' or 'that' accordingto the context:for exampleGerman
,lit F-rau(the/thatwoman)'the/that woman'; Akan cbeanrl (woman the/that)
tlre/thatwoman'. (While the dernonstrativemodifiers are here groupedwith
rlrcarticles,for the reasonsjustindicated,it is also true thatthey usuallyhave
,r ekrserelation,both semanticallyand morphologically,to the demonstrative
discussed
in section2.1.)
Ittl)noltns
Articles may or may not show agreementwith the nouns they modify.
lrr Akan, for example,although nouns and (certain) adjectivesare inflected
40
for number. the definite article and demonstrativeno is invariable:cf . cbea
ketewa nrr (woman small the/that) 'the/that small woman', mmea nketewa
no (women plural-small the/that) 'the/thosesmall women'. ln German, on
the other hand, the definite article and demonstrativeder/die. etc.. varies
in form with the number, gender, and case of the noun it modifies: der
Mann (the/that-nominative-singular-masculine
man) 'the/that man', die Frau
(the/that-nominative-singular-feminine
woman)'the/thatwoman', das Buch
(the/that-nominative-singular-neuter
book)'the/that book', etc.
Languagesthat do not havearticles may expressequivalentmeaningmorphologically.For example,in Yuma,the demonstrativesuffixes-va, -n)',and -sa
are placedbetweenthe noun stemand the casemarker:e.g. ?a.ve-va-c(snakethis-nominative)'this
snake',?a.ve-n)'-c (snake-that-nominative)'that
snake',
'that(distant)snake'.
(snake-that(distant)-nominative)
?a.ve-sa-c
Similarly,in
Tonkawa,a meaningof definiteness
is expressedby a suffix -?a.beforethe case
suffix on a noun, while a meaningof indefinitenessis expressedby the lack
'the
of this -7a.: for examplek" a'n-?a'-la(woman-the-nominative)
woman',
k''a.n-la (woman-nominative)'a
woman'.
The morphologicalindicationof definitenessmay be tonalratherthanaffixal.
Thus in Bambaradefinitenessis expressedby a low final tone on the noun:
for example kdfA 'the coffee' (cf . kdJV'coft-ee'- the falling tone at the end
of fuifA results from the addition of a low final tone to an inherently high
tone).There are also languagesin which the definite-indefinitedistinction is,
in some instancesat least, expressedby the case system.Thus in Southern
Lappish(seeWickman ( 1955))a definitedirect object is in the accusativecase
while an indefinitedirect obiectis in the nominativecase,as in the following
example:
(l ll)
Verbadjuncts
This section is concernedwith two classesof words that form phrasalconstituentswith verbs: auxiliaries and verbal particles. (The label auxiliuries
seemspreferableto the perhapsmore common auxiliary verbs from a crosslinguistic point of view, since it allows for the inclusion of non-verbsin the
class.While most auxiliariesare probablyderivedfrom verbshistorically,and
many can reasonablybe identifiedas a subclassof verbs synchronically,there
4l
rr(.irlsocases- suchas the Hausaexamplescitedbelow- wherea synchronic
,rrrrrlysis
of auxiliariesas verbsseemsquestionable.)
,\uxiliaries are words that expressthe tense,aspect,mood,voice,or polarity
of the
i.e.,the samecategorizations
,,t llte verbwith which theyareassociated:
by meansof affixes(cf. section1.2).Englishexamples
r r.r.birsmay be expressed
,,1rruxiliariesexpressingtense,aspect,and mood (respectively,future,perfect,
.'rrtl conditional)are:
, I I l)
John wil/ understand
John /ra.sunderstood
Johnwould understand
voice
I rrglishalsooffersexampleslike the followingof auxiliariesexpressing
in combinationwith tense:
,t,:rssive)
andpolarity(negative),
' I ll)
Johnwa.runderstood
John w'ort'lunderstand
\or11slgplsssntativeexamplesfrom other languagesare:
li,rrnbartt
rll'1)
a san
ye
a. U
they PASr.AFntnuit buY
'They boughtit'
asan
ma
b.U
they ea,sr.Nnc it buy
'They didn't buy it'
asan
bx
c.U
they eRoc.,trnlnn it buY
'They are buying it'
a. jtktie treawgejd'a dojteme
when skis(ecc) one.has.made
'when
one has madethe skis'
b. juktie treawgah dajt0jh
when skis(nou) they.make
'when
they make skis'
2.3
systems
Parts-of'-speech
Paul Schachter and Timothv Shooen
a san
lt
d.U
they rnoc.NEc it buY
'They aren't buYingit'
lltut.\Q(in this languagea subject-pronounmorphemeand an auxiliary mort,lrcrtreregularlycombine to form a single word, the orderingof the two morvaryingwith the auxiliaryused):
l,lrcnres
ll5)
a. Za-ta tafi
Fur-she go
'Shewill go'
b. Ta-kan
tafi
She.HABIT SO
'Shegoes'
I
42
PaulSchachter
andTimothy
Shopen
c. Ta-na
tafiya
she-enoc going
'She going'
is
systems
Parts-of-speech
43
And Kannada (examplesfrom Upadhyayaand Krishnamurthy(1972)):
\( eptionto it. (That is, while Bambarais an SOV languagein which the auxil,,rrr precedes
the main verb,Greenberg'sgeneralizationis irrelevantto Bambara
rnee the auxiliary is uninflectedin this language.)Thereis, however,one wellLrrorylsy5,[gpaticexceptionto Greenberg'sword order generalization,having
such as German.Theseare lanrrrrllvq,i11't
languages,
so-calledverb-second
,rrrrges
clauses,
but in mainclausesplace
order
in
subordinate
whichshowSOV
.r r('nse-bearing
verb immediatelyafter the initial constituent:cf. the position
,'l tlrenon-auxiliaryverbhat 'has' in the following Germanexamples:
(il6)
rll())
d. Ba-ta
tafiya
pnoc.Npc-shegoing
'Sheisn't going'
a. Barirta iddiini
writing l.pnoc
'l am writing'
b. Baritta irtiini
writing I.pnoc.Hlstr
'I
am writing'
b. Er hut zu viel Arbeit
he has too much work
'He has too much work'
c. Heute hat er zu viel Arbeit
today has he too much work
'Today he has too much work'
sequences
In somelanguages
of two or moreauxiliariesareallowed,in which
casetheir order in relationto one anotheris generallyfixed, as in the following
examplesfrom English and Tera(the latter from Newman ( 1970)):
(l l7)
J o h n m u sht a v eb e e ns l e e p i n g
(ll8)
Ali ka
ka
do
nji /.u
Ali slr.rc"r'HABrr DrsrANTeat meat
'Ali shouldregularlyeatmeat(there)'
In otherlanguages,
suchas Bambara(cf. (l l4)), only one auxiliarymay occur
in eachclause.
Greenberg( | 963) hasnoteda correlationbetweenthe positionof an inflected
auxiliary in relationto the verbandother word orderpropertiesof the language.
Statedin generalterms,this correlationis to the effect that the position of an
inflected auxiliary in relation to the verb will generally be the same as the
position of the verb in relationto an object.Thus in languageswhere the verb
precedes
the
the object(e.g.English),an inflectedauxiliarygenerallyprecedes
verb, while in languageswherethe verb follows the object (e.g. Kannada),an
inflectedauxiliary generallylbllows the verb.(Greenberg'sown generalization
'In
is somewhatnarrowerthanthis:namely, languages
with dominantordervso,
an inflectedauxiliary always precedesthe main verb. In languageswith dominant order SOV an inflectedauxiliary alwaysfollows the main verb' (p. 67).
Greenbergthus does not proposea generalizationabout svo languages.The
datathat he cites,however,show that, in almostall cases,inflectedauxiliaries
precedethe verb in svo, as in vso, languages.)
It should be noted that Greenberg'sword order generalizationappliesonly
to inflectedauxiliaries,so exampleslike thosein (ll4) do not constitutean
Arbeit hat
a. Ich weiss, dass er zu viel
I
know that he too much work has
'I know that he hastoo much work'
lrr such languages,auxiliariesfollow the verb in subordinateclauses,thus
,,'rrlormingto Greenberg's
generalization.
In main clauses,however,a tenseand thusprecedes
l)('rringauxiliaryimmediatelyfollowsthe initial constituent
'will' in the
rllenon-tense-bearing
verb.Notethe positionof the auxiliarywird
Ir , l l y y y i negx a m p l e s :
i I l0)
a. Ich weiss, dass er zu viel Arbeit haben wird
I
know that he too much work have will
'I know that he will havetoo much work'
b. Er wird zu viel Arbeit haben
he will too much work have
'He will havetoo much work'
c. Heute wird er zu viel Arbeit haben
today will he too much work have
'Today he will havetoo much work'
In languages
thatlack auxiliaries,theequivalentmeaningsareoftenexpressed
l,r verbalaffixes.Someexamplesfrom Tagalog,all involvingthe verb baseluto
' ()()k'.are:magluluto'wil l cook',nag,luluto'is cooking',rlaglato'hascooked',
'cancook',niluto'wascooked'.It is alsopossible,
,t,rl;ttkupagluto
of course,for
r lrrnguagethat doeshaveauxiliariesto havesuch verbalaffixesas well. Thus
I rrslishusesan auxiliary to expressthe future tense(wil/ cook) and an affix
that
l, I cxprecethe past tense(cooked).Negation,like the othercategorizations
affixally(as in Akan n-ftc
rr;rvbe expressed
by auxiliaries,may be expressed
I
lr
i
ll
44
PaulSchu<'hter
andTimothy
Shopen
(negative-go)'doesn'tgo' - cf. ftc 'goes'),but is alsovery commonly
expressed
by a distinct parts-of-speech
classof negators(c[. section2.5, below).
The secondclassof verb adjunctsto be discussed,the verbal particles,is a
closedclass of uninflectedwords that co-occur with certain verbs.Examples
from English are the italicized words in:
(l2l)
John woke up, turned offthe alarm,and switched theltght on
In somecasesthe verbalparticlesmay haveclearly distinguishablelocative
or
directionalmeanings,for example:
(122)
John kept his headup/down
John carried the packagein/out
In other cases,however,the particle forms an idiomatic lexical unit with the
verb and does not carry any separablemeaning:for example up in wake up,
give up, hurry up; down in breakdown, calm down, write down.
Someexamplesof particlesfrom languagesotherthanEnglish(respectivery,
German,Akan, and Ga'anda- the last from paul Newman
ftslt)) ui",
(123)
a. Er stand sehr friih auf
he stood very early on
'He got
up very early'
b. Er sah den Wagen an
he saw the car
at
'He
looked at the car'
(124)
(125)
a. Kofi gyee
Kwame .ro
Kofi received Kwame on
'Kofi
answeredKwame'
b. Kofl daa Kwame ase
Kofi lay Kwame under
'Kofi
thankedKwame'
a. e
wan6a6a jn
/annda
PERFthey.send medicine along
'They
sentmedicinealong'
b. Ni
xiy pirsh kada
I.rur buy horse away
'I
will sell a horse'
In some languages,some or all of the verbal particlesalso occur as (and are
historically derivedfrom) adpositions(see section2.2). Thus English up and
down andGerman auf andan alsooccur as prepositions,while Akan so andase
systems
Parts-of-speech
45
.rlsooccur aspostpositions.In other languages,however,for exampleGa'anda,
rlrcverbalparticlesare entirelydistinct from adpositions.
While the particles are, in general, selectedby the particular verbs with
s hich they occur,and while they oftenjoin with the verbsin forming idiomatic
rrnits,the verbs and particlesare, as the examplescited above have shown,
rrotnecessarilyadjacentto one another.The syntacticrulesof a languagemay
'pccify that a verb and an associatedparticle may or must be separatedfrom
,,rrcanotherunder certain circumstances.In English, for example,the object
,rl a transitiveverb may in most casescome betweenthe verb and the particle,
.rswell as after the particle (but cf. (53) whereonly one order is allowed with
tlirect-objectpersonalpronouns):
r I 26)
John looked two words ap
Johnlooked up two words
ln German,if the verb is in clause-finalposition,the particle is prefixedto it,
: r si n :
tlLl\
Ich weiss, dass er sehr frtih auf-stand
know that he very early uP-stood
I
'I know that he got up very earlY'
llLrtif the verb follows the initial constituentof the clause(as it regularlydoes
rl the clauseis a main clauseand the verb is tense-marked- see above),the
particlefollows the verb, and is separatedfrom it by other constituentsof the
vcrb phrase,as in (123). Similarly in Akan and Ga'andaa transitiveverb and a
lxrrticleare separatedby the object ofthe verb (see(124) and (125)).
:.1
Conjunctions
('rnjunctions are words that are used to connect words, phrases,or clauses.
'l'wo
generalclassesof conjunctions,coordinating and subordinating,are tratlitionally distinguished.The coordinatingconjunctionsare those that assign
cquafrank to the conjoinedelements.(Englishexamplesareand, or, andbut.)
I'he subordinatingconjunctionsare thosethat assignunequalrank to the conloined elements,marking one of them as subordinateto the other. (English
t'xamplesarewhether,that, although,etc.) Thesetwo classesof conjunctions
rrlediscussedin tum below.
Coordinating conjunctions generally occtr betweer the elements that they
. onjoin.Thereis oftenevidence,however,thattheconjunctionsaremoreclosely
rrssociated
structurallywith one of the conjunctsthan with the other.One type
ol evidenceto this effect is phonological,having to do with the points within
:rconjoinedstructureat which a pause(oftenreflectedin writing by a comma)
i'
il
I
46
is possible.In somelanguages,such as English, thereis a potentialfor pause
immediately before a coordinating conjunction but not immediately after one,
just the oppositeis true - compare( I 28) from
while in others,suchasJapanese,
English and (129) from Japanese:
(128)
(rze)
Parts-of-speech
systems
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
John, (and) Bill, and Tom came
*John and,Bill and,Tom came
John to, Bill to, Tom ga
kita
John and Bill and Tom susr came
'John,Bill.
and Tom came'
(cf. *John,to Bill, to Tom ga kita)
Thus in languageslike English, coordinatingconjunctionscan be characterized as prepositional,since they form structuralunits with the conjunctsthey
precede,while in languageslike Japanesethey can be characterizedaspostpositional, sincethey form structuralunits with the conjunctsthey follow.
It appearsthat the prepositionalor postpositionalcharacterof the coordinating conjunctionsthat occur in a languageare quite systematicallyassociated
with the language'sgeneralword order characteristics.
Specifically,non-verbfinal languagesgenerallyhavethe prepositionaltype ofconjunction, verb-final
languagesthe postpositionaltype.Furtherevidenceto this effect is to be found
in the positionsof correlative- or paired- coordinatingconjunctions,such as
English both-and andeither-or. In non-verb-finallanguages,suchas English
(see(130)) and Hausa(see(131)),correlativeconjuncrionstypicallyprecede
each of the conjuncts,while in verb-final languages,such as Japanese(see
( I 32)) and Turkish (see( I 33)), they typicallyfollow eachof the conjuncrs:
(130)
Both JohnandBlll like Mary
(131)
Da Audu da Bello sun
ci abinci
and Audu and Bello they.mnr eat food
'Both
Audu and Bello haveeaten'
(132)
Michiko to Michika ro ga
gakusei desu
Michiko and Michika and susr student are
'Both Michiko
and Michika are students'
(133)
Sapkani da paltonu da giy
your. hat and your. coat and wear
'Wear
both your hat and your coat'
rs in Hausa,or after each,as in Japaneseand Turkish. Correlativeconjunction
in English is thus somewhatatypical.)
Languagesmay vary quite markedly in the types of constituentsthat they
rrllow to be connectedby meansof coordinatingconjunctions.In English, a
vcry wide rangeof constituentsmay be connectedin this way: nounsand noun
phrases,verbsand verb phrases,adjectives,adverbs,prepositions,clauses,etc.
In a good many other languages,on the other hand, coordinatingconjunctions (or at least those that are the translationequivalentsof and\ are used
primarily, or exclusively,to connectnouns and noun phrases.This is true of
I lausa and Japanese,for example (although these languagesdo have ways
trf expressingthe semanticequivalentof verb phraseconjunction,etc. - see
lrclow).
'and' and
In this connection,it is interestingto note that in many languages
'with'
by the sameword, as in the following Hausaand Japanese
are expressed
cxamples:
( 134)
zo
a. John da Bill sun
John and Bill they.rnnF come
'Johnand Bill came'
zo
b. John ya
da Bill
John he.psnFcome with Bill
'Johncamewith Bill'
( 135)
a. John to Bill ga kita
John and Bill susr came
'John
and Bill came'
Bill ro
kita
b. John ga
John suer Bill with came
'Johncamewith Bill'
ll', as such examplessuggest,the'and'conjunction in theselanguageshas
tlcvelopedhistoricallyfrom a prepositionalor postpositionalnoun adjunct(cf.
scction2.2), it is not surprisingto find that it is used primarily for conjoining
rrominals.
Let us now considersome of the alternativesto coordinatingconjunctions
thatlanguagesmay useto expressthe semanticequivalent.One suchalternative
is simple concatenationof the conjuncts,as in the following examplesof verbpl'rrase
coordinationfrom Akan and Hausarespectively:
{ 136)
(As examples(131-3) suggest,correlativecoordinateconjunctionin most languagesinvolvesrepeatingthesameconjunction,whetherbeforeeachconjunct,
47
Nnipa no dii nam nomm bia
people the ate meat drank beer
'The peopleate meatand drank beer'
l
I
l
i
i
48
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
(137)
Audu ya
tafi ofishinsa ya
yi aiki
Audu he.lrnn go office his he.prnr do work
'Audu
went to his office and worked'
while suchconcatenative
constructionsare especiallycommon for conjoining
verbs and verb phrases,they are by no meansrestricted to this function. There
are,for example,a goodmany languagesthatuseconcatenation
for noun-phrase
coordinationas well, either as an alternativeto coordinatingconjunctions(as
in Japaneseand rurkish) or as the sole coordination strategy (as in Lahu - cf.
Matisoff(1973)).
some other coordinationstrategiesthat do not involveconjunctionsareillustrated by the following examples,from Akan and Japaneserespectively:
(138)
Ye-ne
wrn abom
bio
we-be.with them have.united again
'We
and they have unitedagain'
(139)
John wa asa
okite,
kao o
aratta
John rop morning getting.up face onr washed
'John got
up in the morning and washedhis face'
Example (138) (taken from christaller (1875)) involves the coordinationof
nominals.In this examplethe equivalentof and is expressedby the verb ne.
The fact that ne is properly analysedas a verb is clear from the forms of the
pronounsthat precedeand follow it: ye- is a form which occurs elsewhere
strictly as a subject pronoun prefixed to a verb, while wcn is a form which
occurselsewherestrictly as an objectpronoun following a verb.The sentence
structurein (138) involves serial verbs - cf. Schachter(1974) - and may be
comparedwith that of a sentencelike:
(140)
Ye-de wcn aba
we-take them have.come
'We
have brought them'
Example(139) (from Kuno (1973)) involves verb-phrasecoordination,and is
similar to the concatenativeconstructionscited above (e.g. (136-7)), except
that the first verb in (139) is a dependentform, the gerundiveokite'gettingup'
(cf. okita'got up').
Let us turn now to the subordinatingconjunctions.These are words that
serveto integratea subordinateclauseinto some larger construction.Like their
coordinatingcounterparts,subordinatingconjunctionsmay be prepositional
or postpositional,with the prepositionaltype common in non-verb-finallanguages,the postpositionaltype commonin verb-finallanguages.The following
systems
Parts-of-speech
49
r'rurnples,from non-verb-final Tagalog and verb-final Uzbek respectively,are
tlrrrsquite typical. (The subordinatingconjunctionsin theseexamplesatecom- seebelow.)
ltlrmstTliTers
r l:1l)
Itinanong ko kung nasaan sila
I colrp where they
asked
'I askedwhere they were'
rl12)
Ula Hasan gayerga ketknn dep suradi
coMP asked
they Hasan where went
'They askedwhereHasanhad gone'
Threeclassesof subordinatingconjunctionscanbe distinguishedon thebasis
rrl'their functions:complementizers, relativizers,and adverbializers.Theseare
rliscussed
belowin turn.
Complementizersmark a clauseas the complementof a verb (see(l4l-2)),
rroun(143),or adjective(144):
( 143)
I questionthe claim that the earthis flat
ll44)
I am afraid r/zafI must leave
A good many languageshave a complementizer that is rather transparently
'say'. This is true,for example,of dep in (142),
rlerived fiom the verb meaning
lnd it is also true of se in the following examplefrom Akan:
(145)
mihuu no
eye nokware se
conp
I. saw him
is
truth
it.
'It's true that I saw him'
'say'
(As (145) shows,complementizersthat are derivedfrom verbsmeaning
areby no meansrestrictedto indirect quotation.)
One common alternativeto the use of a complementizeris simply not to
rnark the subordinatestatusof a complementclause,as in (146) or its Hausa
cquivalent,(147):
tl46)
H e s a i di t w a s r a i n i n g
(141)
ruwa
ce ana
Ya
he.pBnr say there.is rain
'He
said it was raining'
Another alternativeis to mark the subordinatestatusof the complement clause
by nominalizing it: for example,by using a nominalized verb form and marking
50
PaulSchachter
and TimothyShopen
the complementsubjectas a possessive,
as in the folrowing Englishand Uzbek
examples:
(148)
(149)
t)ostpositionalnoun adjuncts (cf. section 2.2), as the following English,
lrrpanese,
and Hausaexamplesillustrate:
John anticipatedMary's winning the prize
Ula Hasanni gayergo. ketkrenini suradi
they Hasan's where his. going asked
'They
askedwhere Hasanhad gone'
Sattyarrived
r | 5zl) Johnleft after I
I thegame
tuku
r 1 . 5 5 ) R e s s y ag a
( 1 5I )
Na
ga mutumin da ya
yi aikin
I.psnF, see the. man nEL he.penRdo the. work
'I
saw the man who did the work'
(153)
Maqa-ma-q runa Iiyu
hit-me-npl man bad
'The
man who hits me is bad'
Kore wa watakusi ga
kaita hon desu
this rop I
suBJ wrote book is
'This
is a book I have written'
Adverbializersmark crausesas having some adverbiar
function, such as the
expressionof time, purpose,resurt,etc. (SeeThompson
and Longacrein vol.
t, chapter5, for a detailedtypology of adverbialclauses.)
In so-! languages,
many of the words that serve as adverbializersalso serve
as prepositi"onalor
SUBJ ATTIVC
'Pleasedo this until
rl.s6) ^ lsun
Dol
J barimaa
minim no re
hc
man
nsr_ I.know him lives there
'A
man whom I know lives there'
Note that relativizersarenot the sameasrelativepronouns(which
arediscussed
in section 2. I ). Relativizersmerery mark the crause
in which they occur as
relative,while relativepronounsin additionhavesome
nominal function within
the clause.If we comparethe relativizersof (150)and (l5r)
with the relarive
pronounsin their English translations,we can see
that Hausada and Akan a
haveno nominal function, whlrewho andwhomfunction
as subjectand object
respectivelyof the relativeclausesin which thev occur.
Languagesthat do not use rerativizers,o ruit rerative
clausesmay use relative pronounsor speciarrelative verb forms, as in the
euechua example in
( 152)(from weber (1916)),or may simpry leave
the relativeclauseunmarked,
as in the Japanese
examplein (153)or its Englishtranslation:
(152)
train
noon
I dare
rol
l
I
site-kudasai
until this on: do-please
the train arrives'
noon'
zamu
yl
rawa
I
--"'- I
I thev.PERFcome
atl _;:i--'""'
I we.FUr do dancing
n
r
g
n
t
I
I
'As soonas theycorne|
*..r, dance.
'At night
l
In somelanguages,
an adverbializerin a subordinateclausemay be optionally
paired with anotherconjunction occuning in the main clause.English, for
cxample, can pair if and then as in:
( 157)
I
I
made kore o
Ohiru
(The nominalizationconstructionof (149) alternates
with the comprementizer_
markedclauseof (142).)
Relativizersare markersof relativeclauses.Two examples,
from Hausaand
Akan respectively.
are:
( 150)
51
Parts-of-speech
systems
If Johngoes,(then)Bill will too
In Vietnamese,therearemany suchoptionalpairings,as in the following examples(from Binh (1971)):
( r 5 8 ) Vi
Ba phai phat
anh mach thay giao, (ma)
because older brother report teacher (therefore) Ba pnss punish
'Becauseyou reportedhim to the teacher,Ba was punished'
( 159)
Khi toi den, (thi) Ba di roi
arrive (then) Ba go already
when I
'When I arrived,Ba had alreadygone'
(160)
duoc
Tuy
Ba noi nhanh(nhung) toi cung-vanheiu
understandpossible
I still
althoughBa speakfast (but)
'Although Ba talkedfast I could still understandhim'
Thereare alsocaseswherean adverbializerin a subordinateclauseis obligatorll.ypairedwith a conjunctionin the main clause.In counterfactualconditional
sentences
in Hausa,for example,the counterfactualconjunctionda mustappear
52
PaulSchachter
andTimothy
Shopen
in both the antecedentclauseand the consequentclause(at leastif the latter has
a perfect-aspectpredicate):
(161)
Da an
tambaye su. da sun
yarda
them cr they. ennr agree
'Ifthey
had beenasked,they would haveagreed'
cF
one. plnr
ask
various altemativesto the useof adverbializersare discussedin Thompson
and Longacre,vol. rr, chapter5. Theseinclude simplejuxtapositionof clauses
and the use of specialsubordinateverb forms. Additional examplesof the latter
areprovided by the following Eskimo sentences(from Harper (1974)):
(162)
isiqpunga
Qiu-ga-ma
cold-because-II. am. coming. in
'Because
I'm cold, I am coming in'
( 163)
Audla-ru-vit
quviasutjanngittunga
go away-if/when-you I. will. be. unhappy
'IfAVhen you
go away,I will be unhappy'
2.5
Other closedclasses
This section surveys some of the more widespread closed parts-of-speech
classesnot discussedin previous sections.The classesto be surveyedare:
clitics, copulas andpredicators, emphasismarkers, existential markers, interjections, mood markers, negators, andpoliteness markers. They are discussed
below in the listed order.
Clitics are words that occur in a fixed position in relation to some other
sentenceelement. (If the fixed position is before the other element, the clitics
are sometimes called proclitics; if after, they are sometimes called enclitics.)
In somelanguages,clitics regularlyfollow the first word of the clausein which
they occur. This is true, for example,of ragalog, as is illustrated by the position
of the clitic daw 'they say' in the following sentences:
(164)
a. Darating daw
si
Pedro bukas
will. arrive they. say rop Pedro tomorrow
'They
say Pedro will arrive tomorrow'
pedro bukas
b. Hindi daw
darating
si
NEG they. say will. arrive rop Pedro tomorrow
'They
say Pedro won't arrive tomorrow'
pedro bukas?
c. Bakit daw
hindi darating
si
pedro
why they. say Nnc will. arrive rop
tomorrow
'Why
do they say Pedro won't arrive tomorrow?'
Parts-of-speech
systems
53
{'l'heplacementof clitics in Tagalogis actuallysomewhatmore complex than
llreseexamplessuggest:see Schachterand Otanes(1972:429-35).)In other
languages,clitics occupy a fixed position in relation to a verb. In French,for
cxample, clitics immediately precede the verb that governs them, except that
they follow an affirmative imperative. Note the position of the clitic y 'there' in
the following French sentences:
(165)
a. Elle y
reste aujourd'hui
she there stays today
'She is stayingtheretoday'
rester aujourd'hur
b. Il faut
)
it is.necessarythere to.stay today
'It's necessaryto stay theretoday'
c. Restez-y aujourd'hui
stay-there today
'Stay theretoday'
In addition to having a fixed position in relation to other sentenceelements,
clitics also generally have a fixed, or partly fixed, position in relation to one
another.Thus the three clitics in the French example in (166) must occur in the
order shown, while the four in the Tagalog example in (167) allow the order
variation shown, but no other:
(166)
Personne ne nous en
donne
no. one NEG us
some gives
'No
one gives us any'
(t61)
Nagtatrabahoka
na lu,"
ldaw
roon?
|
I
thev'saY
are.working ',ou no* { 3^. ^^
}tnere
t t n e y . s a ya
I
'Do
they say you are working there now?'
!t*
ba
Since the class of clitics is positionally defined, it may cut acrossparts-ofspeechclassesthat are defined on a functional basis. For example, the class of
clitics in Frenchincludesthe negatorne,the object and reflexivepronouns,y
'there', and en'from there,some,
etc.', and the class of clitics in Tagalogis
evenmore heterogeneous,
as is clear from examplessuchas (167) and (168):
( 1 6 8 ) Hindi pa man lamang tuloy
srya nakakapagalmusal
NEG yet even just
as.a.resulthe can.have.breakfast
'As a result, he hasn't even been able
to have breakfastyet'
54
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
Given this kind of heterogeneity,there is little of a systematiccharacterthat can
be said about the types of elementsthat are likely to show clitic behaviour,and
thusabout the probablecounterpartsof theseelementsin other languages.It may
be noted, however,that clitics are likely to be phonologically light words, relapersonalpronouns
tively short and/orunstressed,
and that, cross-linguistically,
(which are usually phonologicallylight) seemto show more of a tendencyto
cliticize than any othersingletype of element.(For further discussionof clitics,
with emphasisupon their differentiation from affixes, see Bickel and Nichols,
in vol. ttt, chapter3, section2.2.)
Copulas are words used to indicate the relation between a subject and a
predicatenominal or adjective.Many languagesuse a subsetof verbs, the
copulativeverbs (see section 1.2), to indicate this relationship.This is true,
for example,of English, which has copulativeverbs like be, become,etc. In
other languages,however, the copulas are clearly not verbs, and have quite
distinct grammaticalproperties.In Hausa, for example, verbs precedetheir
objectsand are inflectedfor tense-aspect.Copulas,on the other hand, follow
the predicatenominal and are uninflected exceptfor gender,as in the following
examples:
(169)
a. Ita yarinya ce
she girl
coP
'She is a girl'
Parts-of-speech
systems
(112)
55
Audu ne
Audu cop
'It's Audu'
As was noted in section1.2,there are languagesthat do not use copulas(or
copulativeverbs)to indicatethe relation betweena subjectand a predicatenominal or adjective.In such languagesthe relation is indicatedby juxtaposition,
as in the following Ilocano examples:
(113)
a. Ina
daydyay babae
mother that
woman
'That woman
is a mother'
b. Napintas daydyay babae
beautiful that
woman
'That
woman is beautiful'
There are also languagesthat use juxtaposition to expressthe relation in the
present,but for non-presenttimes usea tense-marked
copulativeverb, as in the
following Swahili examples:
(114)
b. Shi yato ne
he boy coP
'He is
a boy'
a. Hamisi mpishi
Hamisi cook
'Hamisi
is a cook'
(
^r''
a
r r K u w aI
b . H a m i s iI
l m p' i s h i
I ataKuwa|
(Ce is the copula used with feminine singulars,ne the one used in all other
cases.)
In some languagesa distinction is made between copulas and what may be
calledpredicators.The latter are usedto mark predicatenominals when thereis
no overt subject. In Bambara, for example, the predicator don is distinguished
from the copulative verb ye'.
,
' H a m i s li w a s l
{'.,,,
lacooK
D
e
j
Iwilt
Emphasismarkers are words that emphasizea predicate.(Words that emphasizeanominal areherecalledcontrast markers,and are included in the category
of discoursemarkers treatedin section2.2 - cf. example ( 108).)Examplesfrom
Vietnameseand Thai respectively,are:
(170)
Alamisadon don
PREDIcAToR
Thursday
'It's Thursday'
(175)
Ong Ba co
xem quyen truyen ay
Mr Ba sN{pH read book story that
'Mr Ba did read that novel'
(171)
ye
Bi
Alamisadonye
today nnns Thursday
be
'Today is Thursday'
(176)
Naarii, kin Kaaw sia
Nari
rice eat
EMPH
'Nari,
do eat your rice'
In other languages,however,the samewords predicatenominals with and without subjects.Comparethe following Hausaexamplewith (169):
The usualEnglish equivalentof an emphasismarker is a stressedauxiliary verb,
as in the translationsof (175) and (176), but in colloquial English so and too
56
PaulSchachter
andTimothyShopen
are sometimesusedas emphasismarkerscontradicting something
that has been
saidor implied:
(177)
rlltll
Languagesthat do not haveemphasismarkersmay be able to
expressthe semantic equivalentby meansof stress,and evenin languageswith
emphasismarkers
this meansmay be available.Thus in Thai, accordingto
warotamasikkhadit
(1972)' the use of the emphasismarkersra, as in (176),
is equivalentto pracing
emphatic stresson the verb.
Existential markers are words which are equivarentto English
there is/are,
etc. Examples, from Hausaand Spanishrespeitively, are:
Ahuai litafi a kan
tebur
Exrsr book at top. of table
'There
is a book on the table'
(179)
Hay muchos libros en la biblioreca
Exrsr many
books in the library
'There
are many books in the library'
Some languagesalso have distinct negativeexistentialmarkers,
as in the tbl_
lowing Hausaexample:
(180) Babu
littafi a kan
tebur
Exrsr.NEGbook at top. of table
'There
isn't a book on the table'
Languagesthat do not haveexistentialmarkersoften use verbs
meaning.be
(located)'to expressequivarentmeanings,as in the
following examplesfrom
Akan and Japanese:
(l8l)
Sika bi
wr
me foto mu
money some is.located my bag in
'There
is somemoney in my bag'
(182)
Yama
ni ki
Ea aru
mountain on tree sunr is
'There
are treeson the mountain'
It is also quite common for there to be a close relation
betweenexistential
andpossessiveconstructions.For example, a word-by-word
translation of the
Frenchexistentialidiom i/ y a is'it therehas', and inTagalog
the samewords
are usedas existential and possessivemarkers:
a . M a y r o o n - |g
wala-ng I
, , . _ ^ sa mesa
"bro
EXrsr/poss-LrNK L
on table
Exrsr/eosslNno,-.,"*ibook
| am so/too telling rhe trurh
(178)
57
Parts-of'-speech
systems
b. Mayroon-gI
Wala-ng I
EXlsr/POss-LINK
libro ang bata
l.
book roe child
nxrsr/eosslNnol-r,**
f
I
' T h e c h i l dllt
las
la book'
I Ooesnt naveJ
Interjectionsare words that can constituteutterancesin themselves,and that
usually have no syntacticconnectionto any other words that may occur with
them. English examples are hello, ah, aha, bah, oh, wow, etc. The class of
interjections
of a languageoftenincludeswordswhich arephonologicallydistinctive.For example,Englishwordsmustin generalcontainat leastonevowel
sound,but interjectionslike hmm, pst, and shh are vowelless.And in many
languagesclicks (soundsproducedwith a velaricair stream)can occur in interjections (as in English tsk-t.rft),but not elsewhere.All interjectionsare deictic
(seeComrieandThompson,vol. Itt, chapter6, on deixis).
that fail to mention
Althoughthereare a good many linguisticdescriptions
do in fact havesucha classof
interjections,
it seemslikely that all languages
words. In the caseof extinct languagesinterjectionsmay not be attestedin the
written recordsbecauseof the generallyinformal, colloquial characterof this
word class.In the caseof modernlanguages,the ornissionof interjectionsfrom
probablyjust signifiesthatthedescriptionis incomplete.
a linguisticdescription
Mood markersare words that indicatethe speaker'sattitude,or that solicit
the hearer'sattitude,toward the event or condition expressedby a sentence.
One common type of mood marker is the requestmarker, as exemplifiedby
examplesof ( 184)
Englishplease.Some othersare illustratedby the Japanese
(fiom Kuno ( 1973)),andthe Tagalogexamplesof ( 185):
( 184)
a. Kore wa hon desu yo
STATEMENT
this rop book is
'(I am tellingyou that)this is a book'
b. Kore wa hon desu /<a?
this rop book is
a
'Is this a book'?'
lr
58
PaulSchachter
and TimothyShopen
c. John wa baka sa
John rop foolish srArEMENr
'(It goes
without sayingthat) John is a fool'
(185)
a. Mabuti a ang an1?
good
e Top harvest
'Is
the harvestsood?'
b. Mabuti kaya
ang ani?
good e.spEcuLATrvETop harvest
'Do you
supposethe harvestwill be eood?'
c. Mabuti .sana ang ani
good wrsH Top harvest
'I
hope the harvestis good'
(The Tagalogmood markersof (185) all also belongto rhe classof c/iricssee
above.)In languagesthatdo not usemood markers,thesemanticequivalentmay
beexpressed
in a wide varietyof ways:for exampleby word orderandintonation
(as in English statementsand questions),by verb inflections(cf. section
1.2)
or auxiliary verbs(cf. section2.3), or by explicit attirudinalexpressions(e.g.1
hope, do you suppose),etc.
Negators arewords like En glishnot,which negatea sentence,clause,or other
constituent. As was noted above, some languageshave distinctive existential
negators.In Tagalog,for example,the existentialnegatoris wala (cf. (ls3)),
while the generalnegatoris hindi (cf. (l6g)). It is also quite common for languagesto have distinctive imperative/optative negators:for example Tagalog
huwag,as in (186).
(186)
a. Huwag kayo-ng umalis
NEG
you-LrNx leave
'Don't
leave'
b. Huwag siya-ng pumarito
NEG
he-r_rNxcome.here
'He
shouldn'tcome here'
In some languagesnegation is regularly expressedby a pair of negative
words. This is true, for example, of standardFrench, where negation requires
the negative clitic ne plus some other negative word, as in (lg7).
(187)
a. Jean ne veut pas manger
Jean Nrc wants not to. eat
'Jean
doesn'twant to eat'
b. Jean ne veut rien
manger
Jean Nsc wants nothing to. eat
'Jean
doesn'twant to eat anything'
59
systems
Parts-of-speech
It is also true of generalnegationin Hausa,in which low-tonebd precedesand
high-tonebzifollows the constituentbeing negated,thus very neatly indicating
lhe scopeof the negation.For example:
( 188)
a. Bd Halima ta
Yi bd
Nec Halima she.PEnFdo Nec
'It's not the casethat Halima did it'
yi bd
b. Halima bd-ta
Halima Nr,c-she.pEnndo N E G
'Halima didn't do it'
c. Bd
Halima bd
ta
yi
Npc Halima NEc she.PsRRdo
'It's
not Halima who did it'
Languagesthat do not use negatorsmay expressnegationby meansof a
'he
verbal affix, as in Akan c-n-kc (he-negative-go) doesn't go' or Tonkawa
'he
person-present-declarative)
y,akp-ape-n-o(strike-negative-progressive-3rd
is not striking him'. There are also languagesin which negationis expressed
by an auxiliary verb - cf. section2.3 for examples.
classto be discussedis the classof politeThe last closed parts-of-speech
which
are added to sentencesto expressa
words
are
nessmarkers. These
In Tagalog, for example,
person
addressed.
the
toward
deferential attitude
po
of which may be added
ho,
either
and
politeness
markers,
there are two
(Po is more polite than
polite.
render
wishes
to
speaker
the
to any sentence
'superpo(1973),
po
may
be called
Kuno
of
terminology
the
/zo; to borrow
lite'.) In some other languages,such as Japanese,the expressionof politeness involves, instead of markers, a special polite vocabulary: for exam'yes (superpolite)'vs zn 'yes (informal)'; boku 'l
ple ee 'yes (polite)', hai
'I
(polite or informal)', watakusi'I (polite or superpolite)'vs ore (informal)'.
(Japanesealso has a special polite affix, -mas-, which is added to a verb in
'open (polite)' vs ake-ru
polite speech:e.g. ake-ma,s-u(open-polite-present)
'you'
'open
(informal)'.) The use of specialpolite forms for
(open-present)
'you
(polite-singular)',
is particularly common: for example Spanish usted
'you (informal-singular)', vosotros 'you
ustedes'you (polite-plural)' vs /ri
(informal-plural)'.
This concludesour survey of closed parts-of-speechclasses,as well as
of parts-of-speechclassesin general.While certain minor classeshave been
ignored, the great majority of the parts of speech encountered in the languages of the world have been covered, and on the basis of the material
presentedhere, the field worker investigating an unfamiliar language should
be reasonably well prepared for whatever parts-of-speechsystem he or she
meets.
l
I
l
60
Paul Schachterand Timothy Shonen
3
Suggestionsfor further reading
I inguisticstextbooksgenerallymake usefulcomments parts
on
of speechbut
do not presentchapterson the subject.An excellentunified discussion
can be
found in Sapir (1921:l16-19). Jespersen(1924) has rhree early
chapterson
parts ofspeech - 4,5 and 6 - and he includes the distinction,
t" uuito, up
in those chaptersin subsequentchaptersas he presentshis point
of view on
language.we make this recommendationas we have found t-hispoint
of view
useful.
Some of the best treatments of the topic can be found in writines
which
are defendinga point of view. Below are some works which will
be-accessi_
ble to those starting out on the topic. In addition to the specific writings
we
recommend,we include the vorumeedited by vogel and comrie,
entireryon
parts of speech.Someof that volume presentstheoreticalperspectives
intended
for people advancedin the field, but newly initiated readerscan
benefit from
some of the chapters-when the writings concem just English, a more general
cross-linguisticapproachcan be inferred:Bhat (2000);Bolinger (1962)Joixon
- start with pages6-9; Langacker(r9g7);
vogel and Comrie (2000);
!1991)
Wierzbicka( 1986,2000).
2
Word order
MatthewS. Dryer
0
Introduction
One of the primary ways in which languagesdiffer from one another is in
the order of constituents,or, as it is most commonly termed, their word order.
When people refer to the word order of a language, they often are referring
specifically to the order of subject,object, and verb with respectto each other,
but word order refers more generally to the order of any set of elements,either
at the clauselevel or within phrases,such as the order of elementswithin a
noun phrase. When examining the word order of a language, there are two
kinds of questionsone can ask. The first questionis simply that of what the
order of elements is in the language.The second question is that of how the
word order in the language conforms to crossJinguistic universals and tendencies.Our discussionin this chapter will interweavethese two kinds of
questions.
Some basic word order correlations
I.l
Verb-finallanguages
We will begin by examining a few of the word order characteristicsof three
verb-final languages,languagesin which the verb normally follows the subject
and object. Consider first Lezgian, a Nakh-Daghestanianlanguage spoken in
the Caucasusmountains, in an area straddling the border between Azerbaijan
and Russia(Haspelmath(1993)).The examplein (l) illustratesthe verb-final
order in Lezgian.
(l)
I
l
maQala kie-na
Alfija-di
Alfija-nnc article write-,qorusr
SOV
'Alfija wrote an article'
thus illusThe order in (l) is more specifically Sov (subject-object-verb),
trating that not only do the subject and object both precedethe verb, but the
6l