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Words belong to different classes
Section 2.1 should be useful to readers who have little previous experience of word classes, or ‘parts of speech’. This section concentrates on English. Then in Sections 2.2 to 2.5, we look at the major LEXICAL word classes occurring cross-linguistically, namely verbs (2.2), nouns (2.3), adjectives (2.4) and adverbs (2.5). Although all languages distinguish a class of verbs from a class of nouns, it is less clear whether or not all languages have a separate adjective word class, as we will see. Adverbs are widespread, but not universal. Section 2.6 discusses adpositions, also a widespread word class cross-linguistically. Each section discusses the distribution, function and MORPHOSYNTACTIC properties of the word class it describes. All the major word classes are associated with a typical set of grammatical categories. We concentrate here on the most common categories found cross-linguistically.
2.1 IDENTIFYING WORD CLASSES
2.1.1 How can we tell that words belong to different classes? It is easy to demonstrate that words in a language fall into different classes. For example, only certain single words can fill the gap in (1) to complete the sentence: (1) Kim wanted to ____. The gap can be filled as in (2), but not as in (3): (2) Kim wanted to leave/browse/relax/sleep. (3) a. *Kim wanted to departure/browser/relaxation. b. *Kim wanted to underneath/overhead. c. *Kim wanted to energetic/thoughtful/green/sad. The words that can fill the gap are all VERBS. Verbs appear in a variety of other positions too, but if we have to find one word to complete (1), it must be a verb. So the words that are impossible in (3) are not verbs: they must belong to other word classes. Note that to try this test you don’t need a definition of ‘verb’, because you’re simply applying your knowledge of English: you know without being told that only certain words fit in (1). From now on, you can use this test as follows: any single word which can fill the gap in (1) must be a verb.
Words belong to different classes (^33)
>>> Before reading further, pick out which words from the list in (4) fit into the empty slots in (5): (4) squeamish, happiness, wolves, expect, below, suddenly, writes, Cornish (5) ___ became extinct in the eighteenth century. ___ seemed to be unpopular. I wonder whether ___ will ever return. ___ extinct! I don’t believe it. That ___ could ever return seems unlikely. For ___ to be reintroduced to Britain might be a good idea. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Of course, only three words fit: happiness, wolves and Cornish (a language). As you probably expected, these words all belong to the same word class (they’re all NOUNS) while words like below and suddenly and all the other words in (4) don’t belong in this class. Gap tests work in all languages: there will always be positions in a sentence which can only be filled by a specific class of word. From now on, you can use the sentences in (5), adjusted as necessary in order to make sense, to test for the word class NOUN. Very often, a word can belong to more than one word class. For example, the verb escape can fit into the gap in (1), but there’s also a noun escape as in The escape went badly. There’s a noun official, as in Some officials are corrupt, but there’s also an adjective official, as in our (un)official policy. How do we determine the word class in Before reading further, pick out which words from the list in (4) fit into the empty slots in (5): (4) squeamish, happiness, wolves, expect, below, suddenly, writes, Cornish (5) ___ became extinct in the eighteenth century. ___ seemed to be unpopular. I wonder whether ___ will ever return. ___ extinct! I don’t believe it. That ___ could ever return seems unlikely. For ___ to be reintroduced to Britain might be a good idea. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Of course, only three words fit: happiness, wolves and Cornish (a language). As you probably expected, these words all belong to the same word class (they’re all NOUNS) while words like below and suddenly and all the other words in (4) don’t belong in this class. Gap tests work in all languages: there will always be positions in a sentence which can only be filled by a specific class of word. From now on, you can use the sentences in (5), adjusted as necessary in order to make sense, to test for the word class NOUN. Very often, a word can belong to more than one word class. For example, the verb escape can fit into the gap in (1), but there’s also a noun escape as in The escape went badly. There’s a noun official, as in Some officials are corrupt, but there’s also an adjective official, as in our (un)official policy. How do we determine the word class in these cases? Discovering the DISTRIBUTION of each word is one method: to do this, we find gaps that can only be filled by members of one particular word class. Another method involves looking at the form the word takes in different contexts. For example, the verb escape can take the same -(e)d ending for the past tense which is found on other verbs such as wandered, relaxed and so on: I escaped. But the noun escape can’t: *The escaped went badly. And while nouns usually take the -s ending when they’re plural, as in some officials, adjectives don’t take this ending: *our officials policies. In modern linguistics, word classes are distinguished largely by using evidence from distribution and form. 2.1.2 Starting to identify nouns, adjectives and verbs In this section I am going to demonstrate why we need formal tests to identify word classes, and I will show you how some of these tests work with simple examples from English. You may perhaps have learnt some informal semantic tests for identifying nouns, adjectives and verbs. A typical schoolroom definition of these three major word classes might be: (6) a. A noun is the name of a person, place or thing. b. An adjective is a describing word which modifies a noun. c. A verb expresses an event, action, process or state.
Words belong to different classes (^35) Second, engine can never take the typical adjective endings -er, -est, as in untidier, happiest (nor can we say *more engine, *most engine). So engine never has the same set of word forms as an adjective either. But it does take the plural -s suffix of nouns, as in Kim drives engines. Another way to use distributional evidence is to show that nouns and adjectives are MODIFIED by different word classes: they keep different company. So, like other nouns, engine can itself be modified by an adjective, such as electric. But it can’t be modified by an ADVERB such as electrically (the meaning intended in (8) is that the engine is electric, not Kim): (8) Kim is an electric engine driver. *Kim is an electrically engine driver. This is typical behaviour for a noun. But adjectives behave in a different way: they are not modified by other adjectives – such as unbelievable in (9) – but by adverbs, such as unbelievably. So the asterisks are the opposite way round in (8) and (9). (9) *Kim is an unbelievable skilful driver. Kim is an unbelievably skilful driver. This distributional test distinguishes adjectives like skilful from nouns like engine. To account for all the examples seen here, we simply need to say that nouns such as driver can be modified either by adjectives (skilful driver), or by other nouns (engine driver). Now consider verbs such as vegetate and survive; these don’t seem to be events, actions, processes or states (or ‘doing’ words!), but the formal distribution test in (1) shows that they are indeed verbs (e.g. Kim wanted to vegetate). As before, you may have to adjust the test slightly in order to fit the meaning of the verb. Again, these verbs take the past tense - ed suffix (vegetated, survived). They also take two other endings that are found on verbs: -s and -ing. Only verbs in English take all three of these suffixes, - ed, - s, - ing. But unfortunately, it’s hard to use these suffixes independently to identify verbs, since they each have other grammatical roles. For instance, boring has the - ing suffix and can be a verb: Kim’s boring me to death. But it’s an adjective in Kim’s very boring, as we can tell by very, which only modifies adjectives: we don’t get: *Kim’s very boring me to death. The formal methods that linguists use to identify word classes concentrate both on MORPHOLOGICAL criteria and on SYNTACTIC criteria. Morphology is the study of word form. Recurring patterns in the form of words, particularly in the affixes that they take, indicate that a group of words belong to the same class. We’ve seen several examples already: for instance, the observation above that only verbs take all three endings -ed, -s and -ing. This kind of evidence is based on the MORPHOSYNTAX of verbs: the morphology that they take in specific syntactic contexts. We will see plenty more morphosyntactic categories as we go along. Syntactic criteria show that each word class has a unique pattern of distribution. First, there are certain slots in a sentence that can only be filled by members of one
36 Understanding syntax word class, as illustrated in (7) and elsewhere in this section. Second, each word class has its own specific set of modifying words – words that can or must accompany it, as in (8) and (9). And third, as we’ll see in the following sections, each word class has a particular role in relation to other parts of the sentence: this is its function. To summarize: (10) Linguistic criteria for identifying word classes a. What different forms can the word have in distinct syntactic contexts? (MORPHOSYNTAX) b. Whereabouts in a phrase or sentence does the word occur, and what words can modify it? (DISTRIBUTION) c. What work does the word perform in a phrase or sentence? (FUNCTION) 2.1.3 An illustration: How do speakers of a language identify word classes? The methods that linguists use to distinguish between word classes are also used by ordinary speakers of a language, albeit subconsciously; linguists, however, apply them consciously to the language under investigation. Let’s see how speakers of English identify word classes, using as an illustration two headlines from newspaper articles: (11) a. Revived ferry sale fears dog islanders. b. Treasury eyes wider prescription charges. (From The Guardian, 22.5.93, 20.5.93)
>>> What do you think are the stories behind these headlines? If the writer was successful, you will have been led up the garden path for a moment, probably having to re-read the headlines to get their true meaning. Before reading further, decide exactly why the headlines catch us out, using the correct grammatical terms where you know them. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< The first story is about plans to privatize a Scottish ferry service, and the worries this has caused to the islanders. The second headline is about the possibility that prescription charges in the National Health Service will be extended by the Treasury. Both headlines exploit the fact that a single word form can often belong to more than one word class. Consider fears: in (11a) it’s a NOUN, part of a larger ‘noun phrase’, revived ferry sale fears (a construction that’s common in headlines). On the other hand, in Man fears dog, the word fears is a verb. Turning to dog, in Man fears dog, the word dog is a noun. But in (11a), dog is a VERB (meaning something like worry). The word eyes in (11b) gives us the same problem: eyes is more often a noun, but in (11b) it’s in a position which can only be
38 Understanding syntax dog and eyes are verbs, as is revived in this usage, and wider is an adjective. The majority of words in the headlines are nouns and verbs – these word classes are indispensable and, cross-linguistically, are always the most important word classes. All languages seem to have distinct classes of nouns and verbs, so these are true LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS (= a property found in all languages). Also, nouns and verbs in most languages are OPEN CLASS words: this means that we can add new words to these classes. For example, the nouns byte, blog, software and laser are all recent innovations in English, as are the verbs breathalyse and decoke (to remove carbon deposits from an engine). In English and other European languages, adjectives (and maybe adverbs) are also open class words, but not all languages have an open class of adjectives, that is, a class to which new adjectives can be added. For example, Igbo, a language of the Benue-Congo family spoken in Nigeria, has a CLOSED CLASS of adjectives with just eight words in it. In fact, perhaps not all languages have a class of adjectives or adverbs at all (see Sections 2.4 and 2.5). Adding a couple of other typical headlines, we also find the word class PREPOSITION
- shown in bold in (15) – but no other word classes. Bird is slang for a prison sentence – the headline is about a woman illegally feeding pigeons: (15) MPs’ report urges action within four years on design changes. Pigeon woman is cured by spell of bird. (From The Guardian 29.7.95) Prepositions aren’t open class words, and some languages have very few or even no prepositions. English, however, has a large class of prepositions conveying many different meanings. From the newspaper headlines, you can see that in English the four classes N (nouns), V (verbs), A (adjectives) and P (prepositions) contain the words we need most when we’re trying to write in ‘telegraphese’. Cross-linguistically, we can expect the classes N, V and A to be the major LEXICAL word classes, containing most members, and expressing most of the important meanings. Some prepositions don’t really carry much meaning, and are used for purely grammatical purposes: by and of are like this in (15). Headlines can often dispense with words that mainly bear grammatical information. This is why headlines don’t typically contain the grammatical ‘little words’ like ARTICLES (the, a in English) which don’t have much semantic content; in other words, meaning. All languages have words that express grammatical information, such as definiteness (the) or indefiniteness (a), or the DEMONSTRATIVES (this, that, these, those), or negation (not); a language may well not have counterparts to these specific grammatical elements, but there will certainly be grammatical words of some kind. These purely grammatical words are known as FUNCTIONAL categories, and they contrast with LEXICAL categories, which are rich in meaning. Other functional categories include CONJUNCTIONS (such as and, or, but) and PRONOUNS (such as she, her, they, them). We will see more as we go along. We’ve now seen something of the way speakers of English ‘decide’ (subconsciously) the classes of the words they encounter. We’ve also begun to see how linguists
Words belong to different classes (^39) discover the different word classes by running a set of diagnostic tests based on morphological and syntactic evidence. To summarize, we’ve argued in this section that words fall into different classes. Evidence comes partly from morphosyntax: each word class has its own unique set of affixes. But morphological evidence of this kind is not always available, so syntactic evidence is vital too. Each word class fits into certain slots which are unique to it, and each class co-occurs with (keeps the company of) specific words from other classes. Furthermore, each word class has specific functions, performing certain tasks in a sentence. We next turn to a wider examination of the major lexical word classes, looking at their typical behaviour cross-linguistically. Section 2.2 looks at verbs; Section 2.3, nouns; Section 2.4, adjectives; Section 2.5, adverbs; and Section 2.6, prepositions.
2.2 VERBS
2.2.1 An introduction to verb classes The major function of verbs is to express what is known as ‘predication’. A PREDICATE expresses an ‘event’ in the sentence, which may be quite literally an event (such as collapse or explode) but also includes actions, processes, situations, states and so on. Though the role of predicate is typically fulfilled by a verb, we will see later that this isn’t always the case. In all languages, verbs fall into various syntactic sub-classes. Three of the most important are discussed in this section, starting in (16) with the sub-class of intransitive verbs. The verbs are in bold: (16) a. Lee sneezed. The volcano erupted. b. ótáù síkáàna (Mbalanhu) night falls ‘The night falls / is falling.’ c. Bhéic sé. (Irish) yelled he ‘He yelled.’ Each of these verbs requires a single participant, the entity involved in the event or action which the verbs express. The participants in these examples are Lee, the volcano, ótáù, sé. In linguistic terminology, we say that the participant is the ARGUMENT of the verb. (‘Argument’ is a technical term, and doesn’t mean that the verb and the participant are quarrelling!) Verbs with only one participant or argument are called INTRANSITIVE verbs. Note that it may well be the case that this single argument is an entire phrase, maybe even referring to many people: Lee and Kim sneezed; All the students sneezed. But nonetheless, the verb sneeze has just the one argument.
Words belong to different classes (^41) You should have the following results. In (21a), capitulated is intransitive – it has only one argument, Lee and Kim: note that you can get this answer without actually knowing the meaning of the verb. Gave is ditransitive, although note that in (21b) the participants appear in a different order than that in (19): the recipient (the children) in this example comes before what is given. Assassinated is a transitive verb, which is why (21c) is impossible: its direct object is missing. Both verbs in (21d) are transitive: both love and detest have two arguments. You may have thought that these are intransitive verbs, because there is no argument immediately following the verb. But this is wrong, as we can tell because *Kim loves/detests is ungrammatical. The direct object arguments, sprouts and cabbage, would normally be positioned immediately after the verb, but in (21d), each of them has been moved from its usual position, for emphasis. Even displaced in this way, sprouts and cabbage still fulfil the requirements of both verbs for an ‘item loved/detested’ participant. So even if an argument is displaced from its usual position, it still ‘counts’ as an argument of the verb that it’s associated with. In English, there are very many verbs that are ‘ambitransitive’: these can be either transitive or intransitive, such as sing, cook, read, eat. Fewer verbs can only be transitive (devour, reject) or only intransitive (erupt, disappear). This situation is not necessarily the same for all languages. For instance, in Jarawara, an Amazonian language (Dixon 2004b), about half the verbs are strictly intransitive, somewhat fewer are strictly intransitive, and maybe a third of the total are ambitransitive. More verb classes are illustrated as we go along, in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. What we have seen in this section is that across all languages, verbs occur with specific ‘core’ arguments: these are the arguments required by the verb. The verb also selects the particular grammatical properties of its arguments, as we’ve seen. This relationship between a verb and its arguments is one kind of DEPENDENCY: a relationship contracted between elements in a sentence. We will see other kinds of dependencies throughout this book. 2.2.2 Verbs and their grammatical categories Verbs have more cross-linguistic differences in the grammatical categories they express than any other word class. The major categories are illustrated here. 2.2.2.1 Tense and aspect These are the most common morphosyntactic categories associated with verbs, and this discussion provides only a brief sketch of these extensive categories. Starting with English, you may be surprised to learn that morphologically speaking (in terms of form) English verbs have only two tenses, namely present and past: (22) a. Kim helps Lee every day. b. Kim helped Lee every day.
42 Understanding syntax The present tense of the verb in (22a) is marked by the - s inflection (ending), although this only occurs on the third person singular form: so in I help(*s) Lee, the verb has no actual suffix. This tense is sometimes referred to as ‘non-past’, a more accurate label, because most ‘present’ tense verbs don’t refer to something that is happening right now. So (22a), for example, refers to a habitual event. The PAST TENSE in (22b) is marked with the - ed suffix, and this doesn’t change for person and number. These - s and - ed endings are the only pieces of regular verbal morphology that represent tense in English, although - s actually has a dual role, as we’ll see later. What about the future tense? English certainly has ways of referring to future time: one is to use the present tense of an AUXILIARY element will: She will help Lee tomorrow. But the main verb, help, doesn’t inflect here. There is no ‘future’ verbal morphology equivalent to the - s present tense or - ed past tense endings. The present tense of a verb can also refer to future time – as in She leaves the country tomorrow
- or we can say She is leaving the country tomorrow, using another auxiliary, is. Note that the - ing suffix here isn’t a tense marking: it can occur with any time reference, as in She was leaving, She will be leaving. Tense is defined by Comrie (1985a: 9) as the ‘grammaticalized expression of location in time’. The point is that different languages will ‘choose’ to grammaticalize (= represent grammatically) different contrasts in time – these are its tenses. This does not mean that a language can only refer to the points in time for which it has a morphological marker for tense, as we’ve already shown for ‘future’ in English. Other languages may have many more tense distinctions than English, or even fewer tenses, even none at all. Some Austronesian languages (e.g. Leti, Saliba) have no grammatical tense: there is no verbal morphology which represents tense in these languages, nor are there separate tense markers or auxiliaries. There are words that refer to time, however, such as Saliba lahi ‘yesterday’ and malaitom ‘tomorrow’. Most languages have a basic two-way tense opposition: either between past and non-past tenses – like English – or else between future and non-future tenses. Within these major divides, some languages have much finer tense distinctions, particularly the African Bantu family, and native Australian and American languages. The Wishram-Wasco dialect of Chinook, a native American language spoken in the states of Oregon and Washington, has four past tenses represented by different inflections, or markings on the verb, shown in bold: (23) a. ga-cˇiux ‘He did it some time ago.’ (Chinook) b. ni-cˇíux ‘He did it long ago.’ c. na-cˇiúxw-a ‘He did it recently.’ d. i-cˇíux ‘He just did it.’ Note that the tense inflections are prefixes in this language. A category closely related to tense is that of ASPECT. Aspect marks such properties as whether an action is ongoing or completed. For example, in Kim was eating his dinner, the verb was is past tense but we understand that the eating event wasn’t over. This sentence has the PROGRESSIVE aspect, marked in English partly by the - ing
44 Understanding syntax although not all speakers use it. Please look at the verbs in bold type and work out what distinguishes these examples from ordinary indicative sentences: (27) a. … if she were wealthy enough b. I demand that this man leave/be removed at once! <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< When we use a past tense indicative form of the verb be we say She was wealthy enough, not (in standard English at least) *she were. But the past tense subjunctive form were is used for all persons and numbers, including first person singular: If I were you (speakers who don’t use the English subjunctive have instead If she was wealthy enough, If I was you). The present tense subjunctive, in (b), uses just the bare uninflected form of the verb: leave, be. This contrasts with the third person singular of the indicative verb forms, He leaves/is removed: the subjunctive forms lack verbal agreement, such as the - s ending. Other languages have a more extensive morphological subjunctive; (27) illustrates from German (I label the subjunctive SJTV in the gloss): (27) Wenn du Zucker hättest, könnten wir jetzt Tee trinken. (German) if you sugar have.2SG.SJTV can.1PL.SJTV we now tea drink ‘If you had sugar, we could drink tea now.’ Both verbs in bold in (27) are marked for the subjunctive mood. Cross-linguistically, it is common for verbs to be morphologically marked to show whether the event did or didn’t happen, or might have happened but didn’t in the end; or whether the speaker actually saw the event themselves, or merely heard it reported. European languages, however, are very poor in such categories, and you should beware of falling into the trap of thinking that ‘familiar’ languages are in any sense ‘normal’. 2.2.2.3 Valency-changing processes Section 1.3.2 introduced the passive construction, which will be examined in detail in Chapter 7. The passive is the best known of what are termed VALENCY-CHANGING processes. These alter the ‘argument structure’ of the verb, changing its basic syntactic requirements for certain arguments. For instance, as we’ll see in a moment, a transitive verb can become intransitive. If you’ve studied chemistry, you’ll recognize the term ‘valency’, which linguistics has borrowed from the study of the properties of atoms. In (28), we see a contrast between an ACTIVE^ and the corresponding^ PASSIVE construction, illustrated both from the Bantu language Chichewa, spoken in Malawi, and from the English translation. In both languages, (28a) is active and (28b) is passive (SU^ in the gloss is a ‘subject marker’):
Words belong to different classes (^45) (28) a. Kalulu a-na-b-a mkazi wa njovu. (Chichewa) hare SU-PAST-steal-ASPECT wife of elephant ‘The hare stole the elephant’s wife.’ b. Mkazi wa njovu a-na-b-edw-a (ndi kalulu). wife of elephant SU-PAST-steal-PASSIVE-ASPECT by hare ‘The elephant’s wife was stolen (by the hare).’ In both Chichewa and English, the passive affects the arguments of the verb, and also the form of the verb itself. The noun phrase mkazi wa njovu,‘the elephant’s wife’, is the direct object in (28a), and becomes the subject in the passive (28b): in the terminol- ogy introduced in Chapter 1, it gets promoted to subject position. The subject of the active sentence, kalulu, ‘the hare’, is demoted in the passive: it becomes the object of a preposition ndi/by, or it can be omitted entirely. The valency of the ‘steal’ verb is altered in the passive: in (28a), it takes two core arguments, a subject and a direct object, while in (28b), it has only one core argument: mkazi wa njovu, ‘the elephant’s wife’. The phrase ndi kalulu ‘by the hare’ is not a core argument: it can be omitted entirely. The passive in English is characterized by an auxiliary be or get (as in It got stolen) plus the PAST PARTICIPLE form of the main verb (stolen, seen, killed) but there’s no specific passive affix. Chichewa, however, marks the passive directly on the verb, using the - edw suffix in (28b). 2.2.2.4 Agreement Verbs in many languages ‘agree with’ one or more of their arguments (see Chapter 6). This means that various properties of the noun phrase arguments are also marked on the verb, the most common properties being person and number, and then gender or noun class. The situation most familiar to speakers of European languages is that of subject/verb agreement. English has very little verbal agreement – only the third person singular in the present tense is overtly marked (for example, I play versus He plays). This is the dual role of the - s suffix mentioned earlier: it represents both 3SG and present tense. The Australian language Gunin also has subject/verb agreement, but in Gunin it is the gender of the subject that is cross-referenced (morphologically marked) on the verb, as shown in (29). Gunin has five genders, one denoting all humans (male or female) and four covering all non-human nouns (see Section 2.3.3.2 for more on gender). (29) a. benyjin bi-yangga (Gunin) man GENDER-goes ‘The man is walking.’ b. leewa gadi a-yangga dog run GENDER-goes ‘The dog is running.’ Cross-linguistically, verbs often agree with their objects as well as their subjects. This example is from a Malayo-Polynesian language, Kambera:
Words belong to different classes (^47) animate being that experiences the feelings of love or hatred etc. In (33), the direct object Lill is also an EXPERIENCER. A STIMULUS prompts those feelings – clearly, not deliberately! A STIMULUS can be either an object, (32), or a subject, (33). THEMES and PATIENTS are rather similar, and not all linguists distinguish between these roles. A THEME typically moves from one location or one person to another, like the letter in (31). A PATIENT (or undergoer), like the window in (35), is physically affected by the verb’s action – so the window gets broken. A subject can also be a PATIENT, as with the flowers in (34): by wilting, the flowers undergo a physical change of state, but they certainly don’t deliberately wilt, so are not the AGENT. A RECIPIENT (or beneficiary) is a fairly self-evident term for Kim in (31): we expect a RECIPIENT to be an animate entity, though not necessarily human; in Kim gave the toy to her dog, her dog is a RECIPIENT. A rather similar semantic role is GOAL, as in We sailed to the island. Both GOALS and RECIPIENTS are introduced by to in English, but a GOAL clearly does not benefit from the verb’s action. Finally, an INSTRUMENT is used as the cause of the verb’s action, as is the case for the ball in (35). Again this is clearly not a volitional act, so the ball is not an AGENT. An INSTRUMENT is often a prepositional object, as here: We cut the wood with the new saw. There are certainly more semantic roles than are briefly mentioned here, but not so many more, and they are common to all languages. 2.3.2 Syntactic roles for noun phrases We turn now to the syntactic functions of noun phrases. These are often known as GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS, because they define NPs in terms of their relationships with the verbs of which they are an argument. The two most important grammatical relations are SUBJECT and (DIRECT) OBJECT. The terms themselves have already been used several times; here I aim to give you a working idea of what subjects and objects are in English. Subjects typically have special properties that set them apart from the other grammatical relations; Chapter 6 returns to the cross-linguistic properties of subjects and other grammatical relations.
>>> In (36), the subject NPs are all in bold type. Before reading on, try to work out what features the subjects have in common, and what properties a subject has in English. (36) a. This woman buys all the best apples. b. All those people are enjoying our apples. c. Apples were grown in that orchard. d. Apples, she really enjoys. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
48 Understanding syntax One hypothesis might have been that subjects all bear the same semantic role. But we already know from Section 2.3.1 that this is not the case: different verbs require their subjects to bear different roles. So in (36a), the subject is an AGENT, in (36b) and (d), an EXPERIENCER, and in (36c), a PATIENT (apples are the ‘thing grown’). Looking at the distribution of the phrases in bold, we might conclude that subjects precede the verb in English. This is certainly true, and as noted in Chapter 1 it is indeed one of the ways we can tell subjects in English. It is definitely not true of all languages, however, as we saw for Irish in (16c), where the verb precedes the subject. Having observed that ‘English subjects precede the verb’, you may wonder if every NP that precedes the verb in English is a subject. We particularly need to know the answer to this in (36d), where two NPs precede the verb. Only she is marked in bold, though. How do we know that she is the subject and not apples? There are two ways of testing this, and these tests give us two further properties of subjects in English. First, subjects in English control SUBJECT/VERB AGREEMENT: verbs and auxiliaries change in form to match or ‘agree’ with particular features of the subject, such as person and number. So in (36a), the verb buys, third person singular, agrees with the singular subject, this woman, while in (36b) and (36c) we get plural auxiliaries are/were to match plural subjects – all those people and apples. If you aren’t quite satisfied that apples really is the subject in an example like (36c), perhaps because of its semantic role, note that the subject/verb agreement test proves that apples really is the subject: we get apples were grown rather than Apples was grown (at least in standard English). This confirms that subjects are defined by their syntactic properties, not by their semantic roles. It also shows that we must distinguish between the semantic role and the grammatical relation of an NP: remember that subjects are often agents, but not always. Turning to (36d), the verb enjoys is a third person singular form: it agrees with she (3SG) and not with apples, which is plural. So she is the subject of the verb enjoys. The second test for subjecthood in English involves CASE-MARKING. Pronouns have a special form in English which is restricted to the subject position. This test is appropriate for the subject of a verb (or auxiliary) that is FINITE, such as loves (present tense) or tasted (past tense). We’ll explore the verbal property of finiteness further in Chapter 3, but for now you can consider it to be equivalent to ‘bearing tense’. The correct subject pronouns are in bold (examples are again from standard English): (37) a. She/her loves apples. b. We/us don’t grow that kind of apple. c. They/them saw her/she us/we. d. Those apples tasted great to her/she us/we. CASE means that the form of a noun phrase or a pronoun changes according to its grammatical relation (more details in Chapter 6). In the pronoun pairs I/me, we/
50 Understanding syntax apples; Lee enjoys all the varieties of apples that we grow in the orchard. A third grammatical relation is that of PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT, taken by the NPs in bold in on the bus, by train, with three friends and also by her in to her. The words on, by, with and to are prepositions (see Section 2.6). English subject pronouns have a special form, as we saw above, but the objects of both verbs and prepositions share the same form: for instance, words such as her and us can be the object of either a verb, like saw, or a preposition, like to. Although the most typical function of NPs is as arguments of a verb, noun phrases can in fact also be predicates, expressing an event or a situation: (40) a. Zainal guru saya. (Malay) Zainal teacher my ‘Zainal is my teacher.’ b. Marija rebënok. (Russian) Mary child ‘Mary is a child.’ The NP predicates, in bold, are guru saya ‘my teacher’ and rebënok ‘a child’. The English translations also have NP predicates: my teacher, a child. However, in English the predicate NP is linked to the subject by is, a form of the verb be. Such linking verbs are known as COPULA verbs. In the examples in (40), though, there is no copula, which is actually a common situation cross-linguistically. In fact, even in English we can omit the copula to express disbelief: Zainal a teacher? Who would ever have believed it? This knowledge may also help you with the subject slot in ‘__ extinct’ in (39), which also omits the copula. We have seen so far that noun phrases most often function as participants or ARGUMENTS of verbs. They can be classified in terms of their semantic functions (agent, theme and so on) or in terms of their syntactic functions, known as grammatical relations – for instance, subject, direct object, and prepositional object. We return to grammatical relations in Chapter 6. 2.3.3 Nouns and their grammatical categories 2.3.3.1 Number Many languages mark nouns and noun phrases according to whether they are singular or plural. Typical examples are shown from an Austronesian language, Saliba, which like English has plural suffixes on nouns: (41) a. natu-gu b. natu-gu-wao (Saliba) child-my child-my-PLURAL ‘my child’ ‘my children’ c. natu-m d. natu-m-wao child-your child-your-PLURAL ‘your child’ ‘your children’
Words belong to different classes (^51) Note though that only human nouns are marked for number in Saliba; number must be inferred from the context when discussing animals and inanimate objects. Not all languages use plural nouns after numerals: (42) a. ci /cwˆn b. pedwar ci c. *pedwar cwˆn (Welsh) dog / dogs four dog four dogs ‘four dogs’ In Welsh, the noun following a numeral must be singular, as in (42b), not plural, as in (42c). Although the basic options for number are singular or plural, some languages also make finer distinctions, as we saw in Chapter 1, using DUAL forms for two items, and even TRIAL forms for three items. It’s also common to find a distinction between COUNT nouns and MASS nouns, as in English (see Section 1.1.2). Count nouns, unsurprisingly, refer to items that can be counted (e.g. dog, pen, bean) unlike mass (or non-count) nouns (e.g. furniture, air, oxygen, rice, wheat). Normally, then, we don’t expect non-count nouns to occur in the plural: *three rices. It is possible, though, to flout this convention in English; I’ll leave you to think of some examples. 2.3.3.2 Gender or noun class In many languages, nouns fall into different genders or noun classes. Typically, the classification is essentially grammatical, and may have only a loose correlation – or no correlation at all – with the semantic properties of the nouns. Gender may be marked on the noun itself. In Spanish and Italian, for instance, nouns ending in - o are usually masculine (Italian il libro ‘the book’) and nouns ending in - a are usually feminine (Italian la casa ‘the house’); obviously, these classifications are purely grammatical. In some languages, such as German or French, nouns have gender but this is not typically marked on the noun itself; instead, the gender of a noun is marked on the articles, words for ‘the’ and ‘a’. This is also true of the articles in the Italian examples above (il vs. la). In German, articles agree in gender with a singular noun, so the word for ‘the’ can be der (masculine nouns), die (feminine nouns) or das (neuter nouns). It is common for adjectives within the noun phrase to also agree with the noun in gender; see example (64). If you have only met European languages up till now, you may consider it normal to have ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ genders. But many other languages have far more distinct genders, based very loosely on other semantic or biological categories, such as human and non-human. The Niger-Congo languages of Africa, probably the largest language phylum (= group of related languages) in the world, typically have extensive systems of noun classification. For instance, in the very large Bantu family, languages each have up to 20 genders, if the singular and plural for each noun class are included. The gender or noun class is indicated in this family by a prefix on the noun itself. Our examples are from Northern Sotho, a Bantu language of South Africa:
