Article usage in low-referentiality contexts

Östen Dahl

WorkshopLanguageswithandwithoutar3clesParis,28February–1March,2013

Low-referentiality uses

●  The ”low-referentiality uses” I will talk about will primarily be ones where the referent of a (usually indefinite) noun phrase is identifiable but the identity is irrelevant to the discourse.

●  Thus, the speaker does not intend to introduce a new discourse referent. –  John was wearing a hat.

Potential lexicalization

●  Typically, such noun phrases are part of predicates whose meaning is potentially expressible by a single lexeme: –  Mary is wearing glasses –  Mary is bespectacled

●  If such a NP is a singular count noun, we expect it to have an indefinite article: –  John was wearing a hat

Bare nouns in Scandinavian

●  However, in Scandinavian languages, bare nouns are common in similar contexts:

●  Cf. Swedish: –  Vi har bil ’We have (a) car’ –  Vi har häst. ’We have (a) horse’ –  Studenten skriver kandidatuppsats. ’The student is

writing (a) B.A. thesis’ –  John bär hatt ’John wears/is wearing a hat’

Examples from the Swedish Academy Grammar

●  ha ’have’ –  TV/bil ’car’/familj ’family’/sommarstuga ’summer

cottage’/flaggstång ’flag pole’/hund ’dog’/körkort ’driver’s licence’/ingenjörsexamen ’engineer diploma’

●  köpa ’buy’/hyra ’rent’/skaffa ’get’/byta ’change’ –  TV/bil ’car’/familj ’family’/sommarstuga ’summer

cottage’/frack ’tailcoat’

●  åka ’go/ride’ –  bil ’car’/cykel ’bicycle’/båt ’boat’/skridsko(r) ’skate(s)’

●  köra ’drive’ –  bil ’car’/lastbil ’truck’/buss ’bus’

Many restrictions (not always absolute)

●  Lexical – ha ’have’ but rather not äga ’own’: –  ?Vi äger bil. ’We own (a) car’

●  Expandability – modifiers unusual: –  ?Vi har röd bil. ’We have (a) red car’

●  Anaphoric reference dispreferred: –  ?Vi har bil. Den står på gatan. ’We have a car. It’s in

the street’.

●  The object referred to should be ”typical”: –  ?Vi har sportbil.

Cardinality

●  At least with the verb ha ’have’, the expectation is that the object is of a kind that you either have one or none of: –  ?Min son har leksaksbil ’My son has (a) toy car’

●  Sometimes the cardinality is more or less irrelevant: –  Jag läser tidning ’I am reading a newspaper (or maybe

several)’

Incorporation?

●  The bare noun constructions have many similarities with incorporation and what I have called quasi-incorporation (a.k.a. analytical incorporation, pseudo-incorporation)

”Classical noun incorporation”

●  Classical Nahuatl Ni-naka-kwa. 1SG-flesh-eat

‘I eat meat.’ (Launey (1999: 352))

●  Southern Ute kwana-ci ‘uway paqa-pųga eagle-AN/OBJ DEF/OBJ kill-REM

‘He killed the eagle’ kwana-paqa-pųga eagle-kill-REM

‘He did some eagle-killing’ or ‘He killed eagles’

Launey,Michel.1999.CompoundNounsvs.NounIncorpora3oninClassicalNahuatl.SprachtypologieundUniversalienforschung,52.347‐364.

SouthernUteTribe.1980.Utereferencegrammar.Ignacio,Colo.:UtePressSouthernUteTribe.

Quasi-incorporation: Hungarian Éva level-ek-et ír. E. letter-PL-ACC write.PRS.3SG

‘Éva is writing letters.’

Pisti level-et ír. P. letter-ACC write.PRS.3SG

‘Steve is writing letters/a letter (is engaged in letter-writing).’

Nonumbermarking!

Kiefer,Ferenc.1990‐91.Nounincorpora3oninHungarian.ActaLinguis3caHungarica40.149‐177.

Quasi-incorporation: Turkish Ayşe balıği tutuyor. A. fish.ACC catch.PRS.3SG

‘Ayşe is catching the fish.’

Ayşe balık tutuyor. A. fish catch.PRS.3SG

‘Ayşe is catching fish’

Nocasemarking!

Nilsson,Birgit.1985.Casemarkingseman3csinTurkish.Stockholm:Dept.ofLinguis3cs,StockholmUniversity.

Characteristics of incorporation and quasi-incorporation

●  Constraints on productivity

●  Tendency to lexicalization

●  “Unitary concept” constraints

●  Expandability constraints

●  Constraints on prominence management

●  Tight prosody

●  Lacking or otherwise constrained grammatical marking

●  Reduction in form

”Peripheral Swedish”

14

Extended uses of definite articles in the peripheral Swedish area

genericuses:

Guldiðirdyrt‘Goldisexpensive’(Älvdalen,Dalarna)

par..veuses:

Andrikkmjotsję‘He’sdrinkingmilk’(Älvdalen)

predica.veuses:

Heerduvinvereidä‘It’smuggyweathertoday’(Luleå,Norrbocen)

lowreferen.alityuses:

Amestn‘Wehaveahorse=wearehorse‐owners’(Älvdalen)

inpossessiveconstruc.ons:aikensairana‘thehorse’sear(Estonia)

quasi‐genericuses:

Hanäillkommentajekta‘Hesuffersbadlyfromgout’(Östmark,Värmland)

a:erquan.fiers:

hanhatrebrödren’hehasthreebrothers’(Sorsele,Västerbocen)

’wordlist’uses

onadjec.vesinheadlessNPs:öyngst'n’theyoungestone’(Kalix,Norrbocen)

Notallcontextsarefoundinall

areas!

Definite marking in low-referentiality contexts in peripheral Swedish

●  Älvdalen Am estn have.PRS.1PL horse.DEF

’we have a horse’

●  Sideby (Ostrobothnia, Finland) Å dåm hav öitjon. and they have.PRS.PL dinghy.DEF

‘And they have a dinghy.’

A parallel in French?

●  We have a telephone.

●  Nous avons le téléphone.

–  But this is clearly a more restricted pattern:

●  ?On a l’ordinateur. ’We have a computer’

–  Traditional grammars speak of a generic use here

Lexicalized patterns

●  English: play the piano/the flute etc.

●  French: jouer du piano

●  German: Klavier spielen

●  Swedish: spela piano

Himmelmann on Adpositional phrases

●  “Articles are generally used less frequently, and with regard to semantic and pragmatic generalisations, less consistently in adpositional phrases than in other syntactic environments (such as subject or object position).” –  She came by bus –  *She took bus

Patterns are language dependent

●  German: Sie ist mit dem Bus gekommen

●  Swedish: Hon kom med bussen

●  French: Elle est venu par le train

Patterns are lexically dependent

●  Elle est venu par le train

●  Elle est venu en autobus

Himmelmann’s explanation

●  The implications of this view for explaining why the development of articles does

not proceed along the same lines within adpositional phrases and in other

syntactic environments should be obvious. If it can be shown that constructions

consisting of a primary adposition and a nominal expression are

entrenched to a higher degree than other constructions involving nominal

expressions (such as secondary adpositions and their complements or verbs and

their core arguments), then it could be assumed that this difference in

entrenchment provides a major reason as to why changes like those

affecting the structure of nominal expressions in less entrenched

syntactic environments do not occur, or occur only with some delay, in

adpositional expressions involving primary adpositions.

Unexpected definite markings in adpositional phrases in peripheral Swedish ●  Älvdalen An jät suppų min stjiedn. he eat.PRS soup.DEF.ACC with spoon.DEF.DAT ‘he eats soup with a spoon’ ●  Närpes (Southern Ostrobothnia, Finland) Vi skār a me štjeron. we cut.PST it with sickle.DEF

●  Överkalix (Norrbotten, Sweden)

…fistsen fik di takkɷ åys ɷpp fish.DEF get.PST they almost scoop up

ve slaiven bårti anɷ… with ladle.DEF from river.DEF.DAT ’…as for the fish, they had almost to scoop it up with a ladle from the river…’

●  mange la soupe avec une cuillère

●  mange la soupe à la cuillère

●  ?mange la soupe à une cuillère

●  coupe le pain avec un couteau

●  coupe le pain au couteau

●  ?coupe le pain à un couteau

Unexpected definite markings in adpositional phrases in French

”Young girl with a cat”

JeuneFilleauChapeau

JeuneFilleauChat

Jeunefilleavecchat

Jeunefilleaveclechat

●  In French, the pattern ”à + DEF” seems to have been ”entrenched” in the meaning ’with’

German ”mit dem”

„KinderlernendasEssenmitdemLöffelambestendurchNachahmung“

Incorporated instrumentals

●  Huautla Nahuatl A: Kanke eltok kočillo? Na’ ni-’-neki amanci.

where is knife I I-it-want now

B: Ya’ ki-kočillo-tete’ki panci he (he)it-knife-cut bread

‘Where is the knife? I want it now – He cut the bread with it (the knife).’

(Merlan (1976))

Merlan,Francesca.1976.Nounincorpora3onanddiscoursereferenceinModernNahuatl.Interna3onalJournalofAmericanLinguis3cs,42.177‐191.

Why definite marking with low-referentiality NPs?

●  An explanation in terms of delayed or absent grammaticalization does not work here…

●  But entrenchment in the form of lexicalization certainly plays a role

●  Also, low-referentiality contexts are often hard to separate from other contexts where definite marking is to be expected: –  generic NPs –  ”situationally definite”: a unique referent in any

relevant situation

Low-referentiality contexts: at least three possibilities

●  English – indefinite article: We have a horse

●  Swedish – no marking: Vi har häst

●  Peripheral Swedish – definite article: Am estn

If you want to read more

●  Dahl, Östen. 2003. Competing definite articles in Scandinavian. In

Dialectology meets Typology, ed. by Bernd Kortmann, 147-180. Berlin:

Mouton de Gruyter.

●  Dahl, Östen. 2004. The growth and maintenance of linguistic

complexity. Studies in Language Companion Series. Amsterdam/

Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

●  Dahl, Östen. 2010.

Grammaticalization in the North : Noun Phrase Morphosyntax in

Scandinavian Vernaculars. RAPPLING 1. Stockholm: Department of

Linguistics, Stockholm University.