Download 1 Handout 2: Inflection Andrew McIntyre 1. Inflectional categories 1.1

Handout 2: Inflection
Andrew McIntyre
1.
Inflectional categories
1.1. Number inflection (nouns, noun phrases)
♦ Number marking trees, lice, sheepØ (some languages have dual, trial, and/or paucal)
1.2. Case on nouns, pronouns, NPs/DPs
1.2.1. General points
♦ Case: A marking indicating the grammatical function and/or semantic role of a NP/DP.
Especially critical in languages with free word order like German:
(1) Er
hat
dann der Katze
den Hund
gezeigt.
henominative
has
then the catdative
the dogaccusative
shown
(2) Der Katze
hat
er
dann
den Hund
gezeigt.
(3) Dann
hat
er
den Hund
der Katze
gezeigt.
(4) Den Hund
hat
er
dann
der Katze
gezeigt.
♦ Structural vs. inherent case: Structural cases are variable (depending on various
syntactic factors), and are not tied to particular semantic roles (though perhaps to
grammatical relations). Inherent cases are assigned by particular elements in the sentence
(verbs, prepositions) and are invariable. Inherent cases may be also semantic cases, which
are tied to particular thematic roles (e.g. instrumental, locative).
(5) Der Hund
wurde
der Katze
gezeigt. [acc. is structural]
the dognominative
waspassive
the catdative
shown
(6) *Die Katze
wurde
den Hund
gezeigt. [dat. is inherent?]
the catnominative
waspassive
the dogaccusative
shown
♦ Ergative-absolutive vs. nominative-accusative systems. In the former (Basque, Eskimo,
Australian, Tibetan languages), ergative case is for agents of transitive verbs, while
absolutive is for patients of transitive verbs and single arguments of intransitive verbs. In
such languages, absolutive behaves like the default case.
1.2.2. Case in English
♦ Possessive ‘s functions semantically like genitive case in other languages, but is not an
inflection of a noun, but a clitic that attaches to whole NPs:
(7) a. [NP [NP the woman over there]’s car]
b. [NP [NP the person I spoke about]’s stamp collection]
c. %Who do you think [NP [NP ]’s idea] was the best?
♦ Possessive ‘s is seen as a type of determiner by goodly number of syntacticians (witness
its inherent definiteness: John’s car = the car of John, not a car of John). More in class.
♦ Cases on pronouns: problematic traditional description:
Subjective/nominative Objective/accustaive Possessive determiner
I
me
my
we
us
our
you
your
he
him
his
she
her
her
it
its
they
them
their
1
Possessive pronoun
mine
ours
yours
hers
*its
theirs
♦ Problems with traditional description (cf. Hudson 1995, Blevins 2006):
♦ In natural modern English, the subjective forms are used when the pronoun is main
clause subject. The ‘objective’ forms are really default forms used if the pronoun is
not a main clause subject. (The unnatural forms marked with & below are fabrications
of purists who tried to force English into the Latin mould.)
(8) I considered [her to be the best teacher for him].
(9) a.
Who said that?
{Me/ &I}.
[cf. {I did/*Me did}]
b.
The person who left was {him/&he}.
c.
{Him/*He} in a Che t-shirt! You’re joking!
d.
What, {him/*he}! He won’t win in a fit!
e.
Mary is more intelligent than {him/(&)he}. [arguably irrelvant, since modern
English than is a preposition here, cf. preposition stranding]
♦ Unlike in languages with real case, not all speakers give coordinated pronouns the
same forms as an uncoordinated pronoun would have had. (11) exists because the
pronouns are not the subject (they are only part of the subject). (12) is harder to
explain. It is normally attributed to overcorrection in response to purist endorsements
of &-forms in (9), but I don’t know if this was a factor in Shakespeare’s time.
(10) [He and I] see [him and her] as suitable. [accepted by purists and most others]
(11) %[Him and me] see them as suitable.
[anathema to purists, but common]
(12) a. %They see [he and I] as suitable.
[anathema to purists, less common]
b. %All debts are cleared between you and I.[Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice III,II]
♦ Possessive determiners function as if they were cases of possessive ‘s with a pronoun in
the possessor position: its leg = [NP [NP it]’s leg], my leg = [NP [NP me]’s leg] with me’s
realised by the suppletive form my.
♦ Possessive pronouns are possessive pronouns followed by elliptical N-material.
♦ The who/whom distinction is the closest thing to a nominative-accusative distinction in
English. However, unlike cases in real case languages, it only survives because purists
think it is ‘good English’. Some people never use whom, and others overcorrect (%the
person whom left); those who ‘get it right’ mostly know other case languages.
1.3. Adjectives
♦ Degree: positive (old, good), comparative (older, better), superlative (oldest, best).
♦ English expresses degree periphrastically (i.e. using free morphemes) if the morphophonological constraints on the degree affixes are not met: more/most cynical.
♦ Other languages: agreement (number, gender) and case marking on adjectives:
(13) ut
sit
mens sana
in corpore sano
[Latin, Juvenal]
so.that be
mind healthyfem.nominative
in body healthyneuter.ablative
(14) guter Wein; mit gutem Wein
[German]
1.4. Inflectional categories to do with verbs
♦ Tense (present/past...), aspect (perfective/progressive...), voice (active/passive/middle),
mood (indicative/subjunctive/imperative). Most of these are expressed periphrastically in
English (e.g. perfect, future, passive).
♦ Mood marking in (some varieties of) English:
♦ “Past” subjunctive is mostly homophonous with simple past, except with be (though
even here the distinction is vanishing). Semantically counterfactual, conditional:
(15) I wish I were rich; If I were rich, I would buy a hotel; He acted as if he were king
♦ “Present” subjunctive (misnamed, formally always identical to infinitive; mostly
expresses a desired situation; commonly in fixed expressions).
2
Inflection
(16) I asked that it be reconsidered; It is important that you be on time;
(17) Peace be upon him; God be with you; Suffice it to say...; Heaven forfend;
1.5. Person/number agreement on verbs
♦ The present and, in the case of be, the simple past forms display agreement marking for
person and number (e.g. I was vs. they were; I think vs. she thinks).
♦ 3rd person is arguably non-person (describes non-discourse participants). 3rd ps. singular
as default agreement (=anti-agreement, non-agreement), found with non-NP subjects
(clausal) which aren’t specified for number (cf. Blevins 2006:521f):
(18) a. [Tigers in my office] is/*are something I don’t need.
b. [To read Wikipedia articles to students in classes] is/*are a bad idea.
c. [That he often calls his boss a retard] is/*are not a good career strategy.
(19) pluvit
“it rained (literally ‘rained.3prs.sg.’)” (Latin)
A. Why is the English translation of Latin pluvit in (19) arguably not necessarily
suitable to illustrate that 3rd person is non-agreement?
B. Suggest a hypothesis explaining why the following variation might exist.
1. There were two problems. [standard]
2. There was two problems.
[speaker-specific; informal]
C. On the basis of the data below, how is agreement determined in a who-question?
1. I heard that three people were in the room. Who {was/*were} there?
2. I heard that three people were in the room. Who {were/*was} they?
3. One person was in the room. Who {was/*were} that person?
2. Responses to problems with the inflection-vs.-derivation criteria
Recall the problems from Handout 1, section 7 for the Split Morphology Hypothesis (the
view that inflection and derivation are distinct).
2.1. Inherent vs. contextual inflection (Booi 1996)
♦ Inherent inflection is not required by the syntactic context, though it may have syntactic
relevance. (e.g. number on nouns, degree with adjectives, tense/aspect/mood with verbs;
infinitive and participle forms of verbs). Inherent inflection is meaningful.
♦ Contextual inflection is dictated by syntax (case, all person/number/gender agreement).
♦ Contextual inflection is learnt after inherent inflection by English-learning children (the
order of affixes learnt by children is: progressive, noun plural, past irregular, possessive,
past regular, 3rd person singular).
♦ Inherent infl. is more likely to induce base allomorphy and other irregularities (shelves).
D. Consider the exceptions to the criteria distinguishing inflection from derivation in
the exercise Handout 1, section 7, and determine whether inherent or contextual
inflection is more like derivation.
2.2. Verbal vs. adjectival participles
♦ Participles can be forms of a verb (in periphrastic progressive, passive and perfect
constructions), but sometimes behave like adjectives.
♦ Tests: Adjectival participles may appear before noun in NP. Verbal participles (i)
disallow modification with very, (ii) disallow prefixation with un-, (iii) cannot appear as
complements of verbs like seem, remain.
(20) a. He is {very much/*very} hating it.
b. He has (*un-)seen it.
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c. The diva was (*very) flattened by a truck while she was (*un-)crossing the road.
(21) a. unsupported theories, collected works, arrested people, broken plates
b. They remained unimpressed/very interested/.
c. They seemed uninteresting/very frightening
♦ Relevance for inflection vs. derivation problem: It is not necessarily the case that
inflection changes the category in adjectival participles. It seems more sensible to assume
that they are the result of conversion based on (inherently) inflected forms.
2.3. Other random points regarding the Split Morphology Hypothesis
♦ Cases of inflection inside derivation/compounds usually involve irregular inflection
(teethmarks but clawmarks/*clawsmarks). (This is because irregularly inflected forms
must be listed in the lexicon and are hence available as bases for further affixes.)
♦ Haspelmath (1993): The diachronic externalisation of inflection. (Described in class.)
♦ Other arguments for Split Morphology Hypothesis:
♦ There are language-impaired people who master derivation but not inflection (cf.
Anderson 1992:77).
♦ Anderson (1992:74f): portmanteau morphs appear in inflectional paradigms, but don’t
realise combinations of derivational and inflectional morphemes.
E. How might French relational adjectives ending in –al be a problem for this?
3. Paradigms
♦ Paradigm: the set of inflected forms with a single stem. Examples in appendix.
♦ Inflection classes: Set of forms applicable to more than one lexeme.
♦ Usually the classes aren’t mixed. E.g. no French verb has the present indicative
singular endings –is, -es, -it. This increases the predictability of the forms.
♦ Inflection classes are sometimes arbitrary (e.g. why not French *fin-er, *parl-ir?), but
sometimes predictable by phonology of stem or morphosyntactic features (e.g. gender
in noun inflection in Old English).
♦ It cannot be that all inflected forms of every word are lexically listed (i.e.
memorised), since native speakers can inflect words they have never heard before.
Inflection classes help in this regard: the speaker need only know what inflection class
the word is in, then the forms in the paradigm follow.
♦ Syncretism: Phonologically identical grammatical forms (e.g. inflectional affixes)
serving more than one function (hence in more than one cell in the paradigm table).
♦ Accidental syncretism: same form for unrelated functions; often the result of
phonological changes (e.g. vowel reduction, deletion).
♦ Systematic syncretism: affects related cells; crosslinguistically more frequent.
♦ Example of the reality of the distinction (after Haspelmath 2002: ch.7):
German present indicative of lügen ‘lie’ 1st person 2nd person 3rd person
singular
lüge
lügst
lügt
plural
lügen
lügt
lügen
(22) a.
wir oder sie lügen
b.
*er oder ihr lügt
we or they
lie
he or youpl. lies
Thus: the –en syncretism is systematic, and the –t syncretism is accidental.
♦ Underspecification: Systematically syncretic morphemes are not distinct morphemes,
but a single morpheme with a function defined broadly enough to cover all its uses. Thus,
the two occurrences of –en in the table are a single morpheme with the features.
(23) Specification for German –en (see above table):
[+plural] [-2nd person]
4
Inflection
4. Underspecification and the Elsewhere Principle
♦ Many morphologists assume something like the following:
(24) Elsewhere Principle: If two morphemes or processes are in principle applicable for
use in a given context, choose the one whose domain of application is more specific.
♦ Example 1. (25) as an alternative to plural cells in above table on German verb
inflections. In 2nd person plural, -t wins because it has more features and is thus more
specific. Hence ihr lebt but *ihr leben.
(25) a.
-en
[+plural]
b.
-t
[+plural] [+2nd person]
♦ Example 2: choice of the most specific applicable plural marker in the table below. We
say two sheep and not *two sheeps because the domain of application of Ø is smaller than
that of [z] (which includes every noun in the language, witness its use with new nouns).
Plural markers
Domain of Application
Ø
sheep, dear, buffalo and a few others
–en
ox
/z/ and allomorphs
all nouns
F. In the table below describing the forms of be, complete the information in the lines
indicated, assuming that the Elsewhere Principle is correct.
G. Create similar tables for put and say, also assuming the Elsewhere Principle.
H. Make a table describing the Northern British dialects that inflect say as in standard
English except for the following forms I says, you says, we says, they says.
Forms of be, ignoring subjunctives, participles
Person
Number Tense
am
is
[-1st][-2nd] [-plural] [+present]
are
was [-2nd]
[-plural] [-present]
were
be
[-past] [-present]
←Fill in missing info in this line
←Fill in missing info in this line
←Fill in missing info in this line
4.1. Empirical evidence for the Elsewhere Principle
♦ English –s plural rule must in principle be applicable to all nouns, since it is used with
nouns the speaker hasn’t previously heard, e.g. nonsense words like wug. But even
though the –s plural is defined to apply to all nouns, it doesn’t apply to sheep etc. If the
Elsewhere Principle didn’t exist, this would be unexpected.
♦ Examples indicating that something like the Elsewhere Principle is applicable in the
semantic/pragmatic domain:
(26) a. Is it possible? - Yes, in fact it’s likely.
[→ likely more specific than possible]
b. It is possible.
[were likely warranted, it would have been
chosen, as Elsewhere Principle predicts]
(27) a. Egbert criticised himself.
[implies: not himself]
b. Egbert criticised him.
c. As for Egbert, everyone criticised him, even Egbert.
(28) a. The picture was on the TV.
[implies: not on it]
b. The picture was above/over the TV.
c. There was a record on top of the record player. [implies: not canonically on it]
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5.
Miscellaneous
I. Inflectional categories are a common area where we find mismatches (=noncorrespondences) between a grammatical category and its meaning. Identify the
mismatches in the following cases.
1. It is time she was given a pay rise.
2. The grounds of the castle were vacated.
3. If a person believes this, they have probably forgotten to take their medication.
4. If you leave, you should lock the door.
J. Are the following phenomena also mismatches between grammar and semantics?
1. The {police/bank/Australian team} have made a mistake. [Pluringular]
2. The { pliers/trousers/binoculars/braces/spectacles} are here. [Pluralia tantum]
3. The fish and chips is lousy here.
4. The French fries is waiting for the bill.
K. Describe the exponents, i.e. mechanisms used to create the inflected forms, in the
words below. Answers might include zero affixation, ablaut, truncation or
allomorphy of the root. Some forms show a combination of these things.
1. two sheep
2. best
3. I sang
4. I was
5. I thought
6. knives
7. she has
8. I got, sat, put, bet, cast, wet, set (cf.: I noted, sifted, waded, loaded...)
♦ Haspelmath (2006): people use the terms marked(ness) in (too) many ways, e.g.:
♦ difficulty (e.g. in pronunciation, processing),
♦ markedness as relative rarity within a language or crosslinguistically.
♦ degree of semantic information (child is less marked than girl),
♦ morphological markedness: a morphological form X is said to be more marked than Y
if X has a morphological marker that Y lacks or is longer than Y.
L. Do you think the singular or the plural form of an English noun is more marked?
Discuss this with reference to the following examples:
1. car owner vs. *cars owner
2. Do you have children?
Yes, I have one daughter.
M. Common claim: syncretism is more common in marked areas of a paradigm. Find
two examples and counterexamples to this.
N. How is markedness relevant to the choice of citation forms?
6. References
Anderson, S. 1992. A-Morphous Morphology. Cambridge University Press.
Blevins, J. 2006. English inflection and derivation. In Aarts/MacMahon (eds.) The Handbook
of English Linguistics. Blackwell
Booij, G. 1996. Inherent vs. Contextual Inflection and the Split Morphology Hypothesis. G.
Booij & J. van Marle (eds.) The Yearbook of Morphology 1995. 1-16.
Haspelmath, M. 1993. The diachronic externalization of inflection. Linguistics 31.2: 279-309.
Haspelmath M. 2002. Understanding Morphology. London: Arnold.
Haspelmath M. 2006. Against markedness (and what to replace it with). Journal of linguistics
42:25-70.
Hudson, R. 1995. Does English really have case? Journal of linguistics 31: 375-392.
Pinker, S. 1999. Words and Rules. New York: Basic Books.
6
Inflection
7. Appendix: Examples of paradigms
1. Old English Verb Inflection Strong
infinitive
creop-an
present indicative
1st sg.
creop-e
2nd sg.
criep-st
3rd sg.
criepC
pl.
creopaC
subjunctive sg.
creop-e
pl.
creopen
past
indicative
1st/3rd sg. creap
2nd sg.
crup-e
pl.
crupon
subjunctive sg.
crup-e
pl.
crup-en
2. Middle English Verb Inflection
infinitive
present indicative
1st sg.
2nd sg.
3rd sg.
pl.
subjunctive sg.
pl.
past
indicative
1st/3rd sg.
2nd sg.
pl.
subjunctive sg.
pl.
3. Old Engl. Noun Inflection
Singular
Plural
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Nom/Acc
Genitive
Dative
4. Middle English Nouns
(one inflection class for all)
Singular Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive
Plural
Nom/Acc
Dative
Genitive
Weak
fremman
fremm-e
fremm-est
fremm-eC
fremm-aC
fremm-e
fremm-en
frem-ede
frem-edest
frem-edon
frem-ede
frem-eden
Strong
sing-en
sing-e
sing-st
sing--es/-eþ
sing-e(n)/-eþ
sing-e
sing-e(n)
sang
sung-e
sung-e(n)
sung-e
sung-e(n)
Masc.
Strong Weak
stan
nam-a
stan
nam-an
stan-es nam-an
stan-e
nam-an
stan-as nam-an
stan-a
nam-ena
stan-um nam-um
5. French 1st conjugation (-er verbs; regular)
je
tu
il
nous
vous
Weak
luvien
luv-e
luv-est
luv-es/-eþ
luv-e(n)/-eþ
luv-e
luv-e(n)
luv-ede
luv-edest
luv-eden
luv-ed(e)
luv-ed(e)(n)
Neuter
Strong Weak
scip
eag-e
scip
eag-e
scip-es eag-an
scip-e
eag-an
scip-u
eag-an
scip-a
eag-ena
scip-um eag-an
ils
je
tu
Feminine
Strong
Weak
sorg
tung-e
sorg
tung-an
sorg-e
tung-an
sorg-e
tung-an
sorg-a
tung-an
sorg-a
tung-ena
sorg-um tung-um
il
nous
vous
ils
Present
parlerais
/paȐl/
parles
/paȐle/
parlas
/paȐlǫ/
parlais
/paȐləȐe/
parleras
/paȐl/
parles
/paȐlas/
parlasses
/paȐləȐǫ/
parlerais
/paȐl/
parle
/paȐla/
parla
/paȐlǫ/
parlait
/paȐləȐa/
parlera
/paȐl/
parle
/paȐlas/
parlât
/paȐləȐǫ/
parlerait
/paȐl/
/paȐla/
parlons parlâmes
/paȐlǫ/
parlions
/paȐləȐa/
parlerons
/paȐl/
/paȐla/
/paȐləȐǫ/
parlions parlassions parlerions
/paȐlǤ/
parlez
/paȐla:m/
parlâtes
/paȐljǤ/
parliez
/paȐləȐǤ/
parlerez
/paȐljǤ/ /paȐlasjǤ/
parliez parlassiez
/paȐləȐjǤ/
parleriez
/paȐle/
parlent
/paȐla:t/
parlèrent
/paȐlje/
parlaient
/paȐləȐe/
parleront
/paȐlje/ /paȐlasje/
parlent parlassent
/paȐləȐje/
parleraient
/paȐl/
/paȐlǫ:Ȑ/
/paȐlǫ/
/paȐləȐǤ/
/paȐl/
/paȐləȐǫ/
Conditional
choisirais
/ȓwazi/
choisis
/ȓwazi/
choisis
/ȓwazisǫ/
choisissais
/ȓwaziȐe/
choisiras
/ȓwazis/
choisisses
/ȓwazis/
choisisses
/ȓwaziȐǫ/
choisirais
/ȓwazi/
choisit
/ȓwazi/
choisit
/ȓwazisǫ/
choisissait
/ȓwaziȐa/
choisira
/ȓwazis/
choisisse
/ȓwazis/
choisît
/ȓwaziȐǫ/
choisirait
/ȓwazi/
/ȓwazi/
choisissons choisîmes
/ȓwazisǫ/
choisissions
/ȓwaziȐa/
choisirons
/ȓwazis/
/ȓwazi/
/ȓwaziȐǫ/
choisissions choisissions choisirions
/ȓwazisǤ/
choisissez
/ȓwazisjǤ/
choisissiez
/ȓwaziȐǤ/
choisirez
/ȓwazisjǤ/
choisissiez
/ȓwazisjǤ/
choisissiez
/ȓwaziȐjǤ/
choisiriez
/ȓwazise/
/ȓwazit/
choisissent choisirent
/ȓwazisje/
/ȓwaziȐe/
choisissaient choisiront
/ȓwazisje/
choisissent
/ȓwazisje/
choisissent
/ȓwaziȐje/
choisiraient
/ȓwazis/
/ȓwazisǫ/
/ȓwazis/
/ȓwazis/
/ȓwaziȐǫ/
/ȓwazim/
choisîtes
/ȓwaziȐ/
/ȓwaziȐǤ/
ston-(e)s
7
/paȐlas/
6. French 2nd conjugation (-ir verbs; regular)
Subjunctive
Indicative
Present
Simple Past Imperfect
Simple Future Present
Imperfect
choisis
choisissais
choisirai
choisisse
choisisse
choisis
stoon
ston-e
ston-es
ston-es
ston-en/-es
ston-en/-es
Conditional
Present Imperfect
parle
parlasse
Early Middle English Late Middle English
ston
Subjunctive
Indicative
Present Simple Past Imperfect Simple Future
parle
parlai
parlais
parlerai
8