Noun, verb and adjective are not categories of ... - grandionline.net

Croft, W. (1991), Syntactic categories and grammatical relations: The cognitiveorganization of information, Chicago, Chicago University Press.Croft, W. (2000), Parts of speech as language universals and as languageparticularcategories, in Vogel, P. / Comrie, B. (eds.), Approaches to theTypology of Word Classes, Berlin – New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 65-102.Visione ‘tradizionale’- Noun, verb and adjective are categories of particular languages.- But noun, verb and adjective are NOT language universals – that is, there areNOT found in some languages.Croft (2000: 65)- Noun, verb and adjective are not categories of particular languages.- But noun, verb and adjective are language universals – that is, there aretypological prototypes […] which should be called noun, verb and adjective.

A proper theory of parts of speech that applies to all languages must satisfy thefollowing three conditions in order to be successful.First, there must be a criterion for distinguishing parts of speech from othermorphosyntactically defined subclasses.Second, there must be a cross-linguistically valid and uniform set of formalgrammatical criteria for evaluating the universality of the parts-of-speechdistinctions.Third there must be a clear distinction between language universals and particularlanguage facts.

The universal-typological theory of parts of speech embraces constructions withand without function-indicating morphosyntax. Function-indicating morphosyntaxovertly encodes the functions of reference, predication and modification forvarious classes of lexical items. As such, function-indicating morphosyntax fallsunder the structural coding criterion of the theory of typological markedness. Thetheory of typological markedness […] is a general theory of the relationshipbetween form and meaning across languages

The theory defines universal prototypes for the three major parts of speech, butdoes not define boundaries for these categories. Boundaries are aspects oflanguage-particular grammatical categories, determined by distributionalanalysis”The typological universals do not predict the exact behaviour of individuallanguages; rather, they predict that a language will fit somewhere in the pattern ofvariation allowed by typological marking theoryThe behavioural potential criterion specifies that the unmarked memberdisplays at least as wide a range of grammatical behaviour as the markedmember. The behavioural potential criterion is again formulated as animplicational universal. It allows for the possibility of marked members […] tohave the same inflectional possibilities as unmarked members […] in somelanguage. It excludes the possibility of marked members having moreinflectional possibilities than unmarked members.The behavioural potential criterion also allows for the limited or “defective”behaviour of the marked member of a category […] without having to committo the marked member being “in” or “not in” the category in a universaltypologicalsense.

Moreover, the terms verb and adjective do not describe language-particulargrammatical categories anyway. They describe cross-linguistic patterns of variation.In particular they describe a prototype. A prototype describes the core of a category;it does not say anything about the boundary of a category […]. In fact, the universaltypological theory of parts of speech defines only prototypes for the parts of speech;it does not define boundaries. Boundaries are features of language-particularcategories.Noun > reference to an objectAdjective > modification by a propertyVerb > predication of an action

In such a theoretical framework, we cannot exclude cases of multiple classmembership and of sporadic occurrence of linguistic constructions in atypicalroles.Croft (2000: 96)“it is quite common cross-linguistically to find a lexical item used in more thanone pragmatic function without overt derivation but with a significant and oftensystematic semantic shift […]. The relevant cross-linguistic universal is thatthese shifts are always towards the semantic class prototypically associated withthe pragmatic function”

Lingue senza aggettivi?Mark Post (2008), Adjectives in Thai: Implicationsfor a functionalist typology od word classes,Linguistic Typology, 12:3, 339-381Lingue del Sud Est asiatico: senza aggettivi?No, se si assume l’idea che le parti del discorsosiano universalmente definite essenzialmente inbase alla condivisione di funzioni pragmatiche

Adjective classes are nowadays routinely identified as prototypicallycontaining words denoting property concepts (p. 341)concetti graduabili: aggettiviconcetti non graduabili: nomi e verbiFundamentally, the semantic property of gradability would seem to lendadjectives an aptness for degree modification (more / less, a lot / little,the most / least), for lexicalization as points on a property scale (tiny,small, big, huge,…), as well as for comparison in terms of the relativedegree of properties exhibited by two referents (p. 341)

Dixon, R. M. W. (1977), Where have all the adjectives gone?, “Studies inLanguage”, 1, 19–80Dixon, R. M. W. / Aikhenvald, A. Y. (eds.) (2004), Adjective Classes. A Cross-Linguistic Typology, Oxford, Oxford University PressCORE:Dimension (big, small…)Age (new, old…)Value (good, bad…)Colour (black, white…)PERIPHERY:Physical property (hard, soft…)Human propensity (happy, sad…)Speed (fast, slow…)Functionally, adjectives prototipically attribute features to a referent

Adjectives are often viewed as inherently mono-relational, in the semantic sensethat their denotation may be viewed as incomplete without simultaneous construalof some entity or set which exhibits the stated property (e.g. a man who is tall), andin the syntactic sense that they either project (as predicate), cooccur with (ascopula complement), or depend on (a modifier) one and only one referringexpression.ThaiTerms denoting properties are primarily divisible into-Verblike forms (the vast majority)- Nounlike forms

Verblike properties include terms from all of the core and peripheral semantis fields:dii ‘good’jεεÎ ‘bad’rO´On ‘hot’naÍaw ‘cold’Nounlike property concepts mainly correspond to the fields of PHYSICAL PROPERTY,HUMAN PROPENSITY, and COLOUR:thammachaÎat ‘natural(ness)’sùantua ‘private/privacy’saniÍm ‘rust(y)’

Proprietà distribuzionaliVerblike property concepts occur as intransitive predicate and do not occur ascopula complementKhon níi dəənCLF:person PRX walk‘This person walks’ (active verb, intransitive predicate)*Khon níi pen dəənCLF:person PRX ACOP walk‘This person walks’ (active verb, intransitive predicate)Khon níi diiCLF:person PRX good‘This person is good’ (verblike property term, intransitive predicate)*Khon níi pen diiCLF:person PRX ACOP good‘This person is good’ (verblike property term, intransitive predicate)PRX = proximate demonstrativeACOP = attributive copula

Nounlike property concepts behave more like concrete and abstract nouns inoccurring as complement of an attributive copulaKhan níi pen sanǐmCLF:VEHICLE PRX ACOP rust(y)‘This vehicle is rusty’ (nounlike property term, copula complement)*Khan níi sanǐmCLF:VEHICLE PRX rust(y)Khon níi pen phará?CLF:PERSON PRX ACOP monk‘This man is a monk’ (concrete noun, copula complement)*Khon níi phará?CLF:PERSON PRX monk

Verblike property terms take direct verbal predicate negation in mâj ‘NEG’ whereasnounlike property terms, like nouns, again usually require support of a copula orother predicative functor.Ma c’è una costruzione in cui possano occorrere solo i cosiddetti verblike propertyterms o i cosiddetti nounlike property terms? Solo in questo caso potremmoconsiderarli una classe autonoma…All and only verblike property terms may uncontroversially occupy the positionprovisionally marked “x” in the bare comparative of a discrepancy construction;stative and active verbs cannot usually occur in this position[NP1] [X] [COMP] [NP2]

Khon níi sǔuN kwàa khon nân[CLF:PERSON PRX] NP1[tall] X[more] COMP[CLF:PERSON DST] NP2‘This person is taller than that person’ (verblike property term)*khon níi khít/dəən kwàa khon[CLF:PERSON PRX] NP1[think/walk] X[more] COMP[CLF:PERSONnânDST] NP2‘This person thinks/walks more than that person (does)’ (stative/active verbs)DST = Distal demonstrativeSuch distributional differences [can be used] as evidence forthe coalescence of a distinct class of lexemes whose semanticcore is made up of property terms.

Khon níi sǔuN thâw khon nân[CLF:PERSON PRX] NP1[tall] Xequal [CLF:PERSON DST] NP2‘This person is tall as that person (is)’ (verblike property term)*khon níi khít thâw khon nân[CLF:PERSON PRX] NP1[think] Xequal [CLF:PERSON DST] NP2‘This person thinks/ as much as that person’ (stative/active verbs)DST = Distal demonstrative

Una parte del discorso non può essere chiusa: se esiste una classe di aggettivi,deve esistere anche il modo per formare nuovi aggettivi.nâa- “of an entity, have/be of a quality such that it seems like it would be nice toexperience interaction with in terms of VERB”thanǒn sên nân nâa-dəən kwàa sên níiroad CLF:LINE DST AZR-walk more CLF:LINE PRX‘That road looks more walkable (better or more suitable to walk on) than this one’châan- “having the characteristic of doing”khîi- “having the negative characteristic of doing”

“In terms of discourse funcionality, it is important to note that adjectivaladnominal modification and /or attributive clause mentions most often occurredin the context of referent-introduction and/or description […], while verbaladnominal modifications and/or relative clause mentions most often occurredin the context of referent re-introduction and/or disambiguation […]. This wouldseem to relate to the facts that adjectives and attributive clauses bothprototypically refer to INHERENT PROPERTIES of entities – which could beexpected to occur in contexts of reference-fixing in initial mentions – whileverbs and relative clauses both refer prototypically to SPECIFIC EVENTS inwhich entities participate, in contrast with other possible referents”

“There is a class of terms in Thai which closely resembles the adjective classes ofmany other languages in terms of semantic contents, internal structure, anddistribution relative to other lexical classes, and this class should therefore bearthe label “adjective””Discovery of a linguistic universal “adjectives, properly defined, requiresestablishment of no single necessary and sufficient formal criterion such as“occurs as copula complement”; what it requires is the discovery that no languagefails to develop grammatical means of treating property concept words differentlyfrom other types of terms. The typological-oriented prediction of Dixon (2004) thatadjectives (so defined) will be found in every language can be falsified throughdiscovery of a language in which property concept words are in fact NOT treatedin any way differently from another well-defined type of term (say, verb or noun).

Perceiving and naming actions and objectsM. Liljeström, A. Tarkiainen, T. Parviainen, J. Kujala, J. Numminen, J. Hiltunen,M. Laine, and R. SalmelinaNeuroImage 41 (2008) 1132–1141The existence of patients in whom focal brain damage is combined withselective impairments of grammatical categories has led to the suggestion thatthere are distinct cortical areas for processing verbs and nounsLesion data has implied a link between left frontal areas and verbprocessing, whereas noun processing seems to depend on the integrity ofleft temporal areas

Nouns and verbs are distinguished in the brain on the basis of their semanticproperties, nouns typically referring to objects and verbs to actions.In the present fMRI experiment, healthy subjects were asked to silently nameactions and objects that were presented as simple line drawings. We used twosets of pictures, one depicting actions performed on/with objects and the otherdisplaying only the objects. Subjects named both actions and objects from theaction images, and objects from the object images. Actions were not namedfrom pictures with isolated objects, as this task would require the subject tomake inferences about the actions, a process not required in object naming. Thisdesign addresses the following questions:(i) Do action and object naming activate different cortical regions when thestimulus is identical?(ii) How does the content of the image (with/without action) modulate the braincorrelates of object naming?

The task was to silently name actions or objects from simple line drawings.Two sets of images were used, each with 100 scenes. Action images illustrateda simple event (e.g. to write with a pen) whereas object-only images consistedof objects from the same images when the action had been dissolved intoarbitrary lines in the background, in order to keep the visual complexity ofthe image unchanged.The corresponding object and action words were mostly of medium to highfrequency in the Finnish language.The verb and noun corresponding to one image always had different wordstems.

The experiment consisted of three conditions:(i) action naming from action images (Act),(ii) object naming from action images (ObjAct),(iii) object naming from object-only images (Obj).Task periods (30 s) and rest periods (21 s) alternated in a block design. Therewere two sessions, each lasting about 13 min.In order to avoid movement artifacts the participants were instructed to name theactions or objects silently. Subjects were asked to keep their eyes straight aheadduring the rest condition and not to move during the experiment.Results: A similar network of cortical areas was activated in all three conditions,including bilateral occipitotemporal and parietal regions, and left frontal cortex.

The occipitotemporal cortex and the fusiform gyrus were activated bilaterally in allconditions. When actions or objects were named from action images (Act andObjAct) the activation additionally encompassed the left posterior middletemporal cortex. Activation was seen in the left inferior frontal gyrus in all tasks.In both action and object naming from action images (Act and ObjAct) theactivation centered in the operculum of the inferior frontal gyrus and extendedsuperiorly to include the precentral gyrus and anteriorly to BA 47. The frontalactivation was less pronounced when objects were named from object-onlyimages (Obj), mainly encompassing the inferior frontal region.

Naming objects from the images with action context compared to naming the sameobjects from object-only images (ObjActNObj, Fig. 3B) resulted in significantlystronger activation in a large mostly left-lateralized network, including the precentralgyrus (BA 6/9), the inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis and triangularis), theinferior and superior parietal lobules (BA 7/40), and the posterior middle temporalgyrus. Naming actions compared to naming objects from object-only images(ActNObj, Fig. 3C) revealed enhanced activation in the left supramarginal gyrus(parieto-temporal junction; BA 40), left and right posterior middle temporal cortex,left precentral gyrus and superior medial frontal gyrus.Our results indicate that action and object naming engage a common corticalnetwork, but that the provided input (action pictures, object-only pictures) and therequested output (verb, noun) influence the level of activation in a subset ofareas within that network.The stronger activation in naming objects from pictures with action context,relative both to naming actions from the same images and to naming objectsfrom object-only pictures, suggests involvement of additional task-specificprocesses.

We found no regions specific to nouns as a grammatical category. Our resultsagree with a recent study showing that when naming events either as verbs ornouns from identical images, no differences were found between verbs or nounsas grammatical categories.Our results converge with previous evidence showing that retrieval of verbs andnouns in the healthy human brain using identical stimuli in a picture naming taskengages a similar distributed cortical network, as measured with BOLD fMRI.Importantly, however, the content of the image (action vs. object only) had apronounced effect on the activation in parts of that network that have previouslybeen implicated in processing of action knowledge. Furthermore, object naming inthe context of action revealed additional activations, both in comparison to verbretrieval from the same set of images, and in comparison to noun retrieval fromimages not depicting action, suggesting that attention may be more directedtowards motor-based properties of objects when they are presented not as singleentities but as part of images that also depict the relevant action.

“The term coordination refers to syntactic constructions in which two ormore units of the same type are combined into a larger unit and stillhave the same semantic relations with other surrounding elements”Haspelmath, M. (2004), "Coordinating constructions: An overview", inHaspelmath, M. (ed.), Coordinating constructions, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 3-39.“A coordinating construction consists of two or morecoordinands, i.e. coordinated phrases. Their coordinate status maybe indicated by coordinators, i.e. particles like and, or and but, oraffixes like Chechen –ii (e.g. shyyr-ii dik-ii ‘thick and good’ […]). Ifone ore more coordinators occur in a coordinating construction, it iscalled syndetic.”

North Caucasian, East Caucasian, Nakh, Chechen-Ingush

Asyndetic coordination consists of simple juxtaposition of the coordinands:Lavukalevenga-bakala nga-uia tula1SG.POSS-paddle(M) 1SG.POSS-knife(F) small.SG.F'my paddle and my small knife'East Papuan, Yele-Solomons-New Britain, Yele-Solomons, CentralSolomons

Two types of syndesis can be distinguished: monosyndetic coordination,which involves only a single coordinator (when not more than two coordinandsare present):Iraqwkwa/angw nee du'umaHare and leopard'the hare and the leopard'Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, South

isyndetic coordination involves two coordinators:Upper Kuskokwim AthabaskanDineje i« midzish i«Moose with caribou with‘moose and caribou’Na-Dene, Nuclear Na-Dene, Athapaskan-Eyak, Athapaskan, Tanana-UpperKuskokwim, Upper Kuskokwim

Three different semantic types of coordination are usually distinguished:Conjunction (= conjunctive coordination, 'and' coordination)Persian (Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Southwestern, Persian)tir=okæmanarrow=and bow'bow and arrow'Disjunction (=disjunctive coordination, 'or' coordination)IraqwTsíiyáhh laqáa tám laqáa tsárFour or three or two'four or three or two'Adversative coordination ('but‘ coordination)LavukaleveOina sou fale-re kini a-e-ve-meonother.SG.M rise stand-NONFIN ACT 3SG.M.O-SBD-go-SURPtaman lake ga e-nua-ri-re...But road(N) SG.N.ART 3SG.N.O-be.amiss-CAUS-NONFIN‘He stood up, but he took the wrong path…’

The position of the coordinator(s)In monosyndetic coordination, there are four logically possible types:A and B stand for two coordinandsco stands for the coordinator.In descending order of cross-linguistic frequencya. [A] [co B] e.g. Hausa Abdù dà Feemì 'Abdu and Femi'b. [A co] [B] e.g. Lai vòmpii=lee phètee 'a bear and a rabbit'c. [A] [B co] e.g. Latin senatus popolus-que romanus'the senate and the Roman people'd. [co A] [B]???The fourth type seems to be unattested, and the third type is very rare

Hausa: Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, West

Lai / Chin Haka: Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman,Kuki-Chin-Naga, Kuki-Chin, Central

In English and other European languages, there is a single conjunctivecoordinator 'and' whose use is independent of the meaning of the conjuncts orany semantic nuances of conjunction that might be conveyed. But manylanguages have different conjunctive constructions depending on semanticfactorsanimacy of the conjuncts: Takiao ai da2SG 1SG COM'you and I'Meit Kabun daM. K. COM'Meit and Kabun‘vs.mau dabel fudtaro yam banana'taro, yam and banana'

proper names and common nouns: AsmatPisím enerím WasíPisím and Wasí‘vs.onów am, ós amthatch and wood and'thatch and wood'

Takia: Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Western Oceanic, North New Guinea, Ngero-Vitiaz,Vitiaz, Bel, Nuclear Bel, NorthernAsmat: Trans-New Guinea, Main Section, Central and Western, Central and SouthNew Guinea-Kutubuan, Central and South New Guinea, Asmat-Kamoro

conceptual unit vs. separate entities.Chechen A-ii B-ii vs. A 'a B 'ashish-ii stak-ii'a bottle and a glass‘vs.waerzha mazh 'a, q'eegash shi bwaerg 'a'a black beard and two shining eyes'Cfr. anche:tight vs. loose coordinationTight coordinators are used with items that can be thought of as couples orpairs which are closely associated in the real worldLoose coordinators are used with items which are less closely associated.Lenakeltight m = nmataag m nihin 'wind and rain‘vs.loose mne = kuri mne pukas 'a dog and a pig'

Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian,Central-Eastern,Eastern Malayo-Polynesian,Oceanic,Central-Eastern Oceanic,South Vanuatu, Tanna