Tài liệu Cambridge studies in linguistics 82 john m. anderson a notional theory of syntactic categories cambridge university press (1997)

This book presents an innovative theory of syntactic categories and the lexical classes they define. It revives the traditional idea that these are to be distinguished notionally (semantically). It allows for there to be peripheral members of a lexical class which may not obviously conform to the general definition. The author proposes a notation based on semantic features which accounts for the syntactic behaviour of classes. The book also presents a case for considering this classification - again in rather traditional vein - to be basic to determining the syntactic structure of sentences. Syntactic structure is thus erected in a very restricted fashion, without recourse to movement or empty elements. CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS General Editors: s. R. ANDERSON, J. BRESNAN, B. COMRIE, W. DRESSLER, C. EWEN, R. HUDDLESTON, R. LASS, D. LIGHTFOOT, J. LYONS, P. H. MATTHEWS, R. POSNER, S. ROMAINE, N. V. SMITH, N. VINCENT A notional theory of syntactic categories In this series 52 MICHAEL s. ROCHEMONT and PETER w. CULLICOVER: English focus constructions and the theory of grammar 53 PHILIP CARR: Linguistic realities: an autonomist metatheory for the generative enterprise 54 EVE SWEETSER: From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure 55 REGINA BLASS: Relevance relations in discourse: a study with special reference to Sissala 56 ANDREW CHESTERMAN: On definiteness: a study with special reference to English and Finnish 57 ALESSANDRA GIORGI and GIUSEPPE LONGOBARDI: The syntax ofnoun phrases: configuration, parameters and empty categories 58 MONIK CHARETTE: Conditions on phonological government 59 M. H. KLAIMAN: Grammatical voice 60 SARAH M. B. FAGAN: The syntax and semantics of middle constructions: a study with special reference to German 61 ANJUM P. SALEEMI: Universal Grammar and language learnability 62 STEPHEN R. ANDERSON: A-Morphous Morphology 63 LESLEY STIRLING: Switch reference and discourse representation 64 HENK J. VERKUYL: A theory of aspectuality: the interaction between temporal and atemporal structure 65 EVE v. CLARK: The lexicon in acquisition 66 ANTHONY R. WARNER: English auxiliaries: structure and history 67 P. H. MATTHEWS: Grammatical theory in the United States from Bloomfield to Chomsky 68 LJILJANA PROGOVAC: Negative and positive polarity: a binding approach 69 R. M. w. DIXON: Ergativity 70 YAN HUANG: The syntax and pragmatics of anaphora 71 KNUD LAMBRECHT: Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents 72 LUIGI BURZIO: Principles of English stress 73 JOHN A. HAWKINS: A performance theory of order and constituency 74 ALICE c. HARRIS and LYLE CAMPBELL: Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective 75 LILIANE HAEGEMAN: The syntax of negation 76 PAUL GORRELL: Syntax and parsing 77 GUGLIELMO CINQUE: Italian syntax and Universal Grammar 78 HENRY SMITH: Restrictiveness in case theory 79 D. ROBERT LADD: Intonational phonology 80 ANDREA MORO: The raising of predicates: predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure 81 ROGER LASS: Historical linguistics and language change 82 JOHN M. ANDERSON: A notional theory of syntactic categories Supplementary volumes LILIANE HAEGEMAN: Theory and description in generative syntax: a case study in West Flemish A. E. BACKHOUSE: The lexical field of taste: a semantic study of Japanese taste terms NIKOLAUS RITT: Quantity adjustment: vowel lengthening and shortening in early Middle English Earlier issues not listed are also available A NOTIONAL THEORY OF SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES JOHN M. ANDERSON Professor of English Language, Department of English Language, University of Edinburgh CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1997 First published 1997 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Anderson, John M. (John Mathieson), 1941A notional theory of syntactic categories / John M. Anderson. p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in linguistics: 82) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o 521 58023 4 (hardback) 1. Grammar. Comparative and general - syntax. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general - Grammatical categories. 3. Semantics. I. Title. II. Series. P291.A53 1997 4i5-dc2O 96-21789 CIP ISBN 0 521 58023 4 hardback Transferred to digital printing 2004 CP Much, then, that is considered by the generality of grammarians as syntax, can either be omitted altogether, or else be better studied under another name. (Latham 1862: 577) 'A9f]vas Contents Preface List of abbreviations page x xii 1 i. i 1.2 1.3 Prelude Notionalism Analogism Minimalism 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Fundamentals of a notional theory Syntactic categories and notional features Relations between elements Further categories: the role of feature dependencies Markedness and category continuity Cross-classification Gradience and second-order categories Secondary categories Non-complements 13 13 29 43 61 64 73 104 132 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 The syntax of categories Verbal valencies The content of the functor category The basic syntax of predications The formation of ditransitives Variation in argument structure Verbals as arguments The structure of primary arguments 146 149 168 174 236 244 252 292 References Index i 2 6 8 320 345 Preface There were the bits he understood. They were bad enough. But the bits he didn }t understand were worse. The initial quotation here and the chapter epigraphs are drawn from Patrick White's novel The solid mandala, which and particularly Arthur therein have much to say about grammar and meaning. The present work was concluded by its author when the bits he didn't understand were/are still overwhelming; and drawing a line at this point is, as is normal, relatively arbitrary. This means that a number of issues which many might regard as crucial to present-day concern with syntax have scarcely been touched on in what follows, or have even been ignored, and those areas treated have received vastly varying degrees of attention. Also, the recognition here of previous work remains partial, and adapted to the needs of the arguments put forward in particular sections. But there is for such as the present enterprise no great virtue in comprehensiveness of bibliographical reference (or even a possibility thereof). Nor have I striven to establish throughout a consistent temporal endpoint for reference: in a work whose writing extends over any length of time, achieving this would be equivalent to having all of the Forth Bridge freshly painted at the same time. It is my hope that nevertheless - or rather, as a result, to some extent - the following spells out sufficiently, over a wide enough area, and in appropriate sub-areas in enough detail, the general structure of a notional theory of syntactic categories and the major consequences for the syntax of adopting the views that syntactic categories are so based and that syntax itself involves the interaction of structures projected by these categories with pragmatically based requirements involving crucially the organisation of information - though it should be conceded that the existence of the latter is asserted here rather than fully motivated and articulated. The discussion which follows thus involves an attempt to support (what has been for most, in the context of the latter half of the twentieth century) an unfamiliar strategy, both by detailed investigation of some subsystems and with reference xi xii Preface to a wide variety of language types; as such, its reception will no doubt founder between and among the Scylla of 'true believers' (responsory motto: That's not what we do (anymore)'), the Charybdis of the 'bug collector' (That doesn't happen in (say) Amharic') and the Deep Blue Sea of scholarly inertia (The literature is what my friends tell me about'). I am, however, and of course, solely responsible for failures to launch things worth receiving, despite the help of those whom it is my pleasure in the following paragraph to both acknowledge and absolve. Most of the writing of the book was carried out during the academic years 1991-2 and 1992-3 while the author held a British Academy Readership, and would not otherwise have been carried out: this does not overstate the debt. The first semester of 1991-2 was spent as an associate of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics in the School of English at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki: I am grateful to Professors Efstathiadis and Kakouriotis and their colleagues for their hospitality. I have also had the benefit of presenting aspects of the research reported on here to audiences at the Universities of Goteborg, Helsinki, Manchester and Umea. And a number of other people have contributed to the preparation of this work in diverse ways, from providing the bottle of NAOY22A to talk over to offering criticisms to chew over, to helping me avoid some garden paths. I should especially like to thank the following: Nick Kontos, Scott McGlashan, Peter Matthews, Nigel Vincent, and anon (who also writes some pretty good stuff of his own, particularly the early music); and, most particularly, Roger Bohm, whose influence will be seen to be pervasive. And who could by-pass Fran Colman, longestsuffering in the process of the book's getting written? Not John Anderson Edinburgh Abbreviations and conventions ABL(lative) ABS(olutive) ACC(usative) AG(en)T(ive) ART(icle) ASP(ect) AUX(iliary) BEN(enefactive) CLASS(ifier) C(o)MP(lementiser) C(ou)NT COMP(letive) CONT(inous) COP(ula) DAT(ive) DEF(inite) DIR(ectional) DIST(al) E(rgative)/I(nstrumental) ERG(ative) FIN(ite) FUT(ure) GEN(itive) GER(und) I/II = first/second person III = third person INC(lusive) INDIC(ative) INF(initive) INSTR(umental) INT(erior) INTRANS(itive) I(mmediate)P(ast L(ong)F(orm) P(a)RT(itive) LOC(ative) MASC(uline) NEG(a*ive) NOM(inative) N(on)F(inite) NONFUT(ure) N(eu)TR(al) PART(iciple) PASS(ive) PERF(ect) PL(ural) POSS(essed) POT(ential) PRES(ent) PREV(erb) REFL(exive) REL(ativiser) S(u)B(or)D(inator) S(u)BJ(ect) S(hort)F(orm) S(in)G(ular) SUBJ(unctive) T(e)NS(e) V(erbal)N(oun) These abbreviations are mainly used in glosses, where, as labels for morphosyntactic categories, they appear in SMALL CAPS. In the text lexemes/words also appear in small caps, the names of inflexional categories are capitalised initially, and cited word and sentence forms are italicised. Important terms appear in bold on their (re)introduction, as do text occurrences, not within braces, of the semantic features (P, loc etc.) which identify syntactic categories. xni I Prelude 'In the beginning was what word?' Arthur asked. This book is concerned with word classes and their categorisation, where word is taken to be the basic unit of the syntax and their classification is determined by this syntax, i.e. how they combine to form sentences. It is specifically concerned with the 'substance' of class labels (traditionally, 'noun', 'verb', etc.) and with what role this 'substance' plays in the syntax. The chapters which succeed this one are concerned to lay out and motivate a particular approach to the 'substance' of word categorisation, one which I have dubbed 'notional', in so far as it is conceived of as an extension of those 'traditional' grammars that saw this 'substance' as ontologically based. A more immediate antecedent is some suggestive work of Lyons (e.g. 1966; 1977: ch. 11; 1989); and the approach seems to me a natural extension of my earlier work on 'case grammar' (e.g. Anderson 1971a; 1977; 1980b; 1984b; 1986b), as I have indicated elsewhere (Anderson 1989b; 1992b). The present brief chapter is intended, as described by its title, as a 'prelude' to the main discussion, in providing in brief some context for the assumptions and intentions that inform the latter. It does not attempt to provide a historiography of word-class studies, or even of notionalism: these warrant substantial treatment on their own account. What follows takes off from the combined proposition that there are no specifically linguistic semantic categories, or level of representation, distinct from the syntactic and that syntactic categories are themselves grammaticalisations of cognitive - or notional - constructs; what follows is intended to explicate and to provide support for (particularly) this latter proposition. But it should already be clear that such a viewpoint also imposes certain research strategies. It means, for instance, that it is predicted to be ultimately unprofitable to pursue a theory of syntactic categories autonomously, in isolation from their semantics; a cross-linguistic syntactic, distributionally established category that is not notionally defined is merely of interest as a potential counter-example to 2 Prelude the more retrictive theory of notional identification of word classes. It also means, for instance, that, with respect to interpretation, representations constructed out of notionally defined syntactic categories serve as the input to general (not language-specific) deductive systems. What I am concerned with here, however, is the development of a system of notionally based syntactic categories sufficient, in principle, to subtend the expression of a range of syntactic generalisations, i.e. generalisations concerned with systematic aspects of the distribution of words in sentences. I return later in this chapter to the assumptions I adopt concerning the syntactic status of such categories, and, indeed, about the nature of syntactic structure and its relation to other aspects of the grammar; let us at this point dwell a little on the notional basis for the categories. I.I Notionalism The content of a syntactic category, such as 'noun', is notional: the crosslinguistic classes associated with the category are identified as such by the recurrence, as members of these classes, of linguistic items that share certain conceptual properties, as discussed in §2.1 below. Crucially, in the case of nouns, these items denote (what are perceived as) discrete physical objects. Such categories are grammaticalised; as part of a cultural system, the class associated with particular languages may contain 'eccentric' members - indeed, members whose apparent conceptual equivalents belong to a different category in another language. Thus, whereas in English it is arguably the case that the distribution of MAY and MUST warrants recognition that they belong to a class - or at least subclass - distinct from that associated with (other) verbs, their equivalents in many other languages share their distribution with verbs. And, as we shall be discussing in §2.3.1, there are, for example, languages where the equivalents of most or all of those items that we might classify as adjectives in English are instead (untypical) verbs and/or nouns. Thus, whereas, rather uncontroversially, RED in English is distributionally not a noun, but occurs distinctively as an adjective (with nominal uses - That's a nice red - being derivative), in Ossetic, for instance, the 'corresponding' term is, apparently, syntactically like any (other) noun (Abaev 1964: §54). Any notional characterisation of syntactic categories should not only identify the central membership of categories but also provide a basis for understanding such variation. The existence of notionally non-central members frustrates simple-minded application of blanket notional definitions of categories, despite their currency until quite recently, particularly in pedagogical grammars, in attempts to differ- Notionalism 3 entiate those major syntactic distinctions traditionally embraced by the label 'the parts of speech'. Such definitions either fail to encompass all the exponents of a particular category, or they are so vague and generalised as to be nondistinctive of that category; we are all familiar with Jespersen's (e.g. 1924: 59) demolitions in this respect of the definitions of Sonnenschein and co. (definitions such as 'Nouns name. Pronouns identify without naming.'). See too Lyons 1977: §11.1. Jespersen further shows (1924: 60) that morphologically based ('formal') definitions, though again of ancient ancestry, are also clearly inadequate 'as the sole test' for distinguishing 'parts of speech' in a generally applicable manner. And he concludes: 'In my opinion everything should be kept in view, form, function, and meaning ...' (ibid). But, in my view, these aspects he distinguishes contribute in different ways to the 'view': classes are to be distinguished on a morphosyntactic ('form' and 'function') basis, but their cross-linguistic identification is based on 'meaning', the notional character of central members. Moreover, despite varying degrees of grammaticalisation - or desemanticisation - much of the detailed syntax, as well as the nature of the morphological distinctions associated with particular categories, reflects notional properties. This is quite apart from those relationships in the syntax - notably topicalisation and the like, but including many other variations in linearisation (e.g. Bolinger 1952) - which expound the organisation of information in an ongoing fashion. What I have in mind rather are the kinds of phenomena we shall be exploring in chapter 3 below, such that, for instance, the capacity for what I shall term 'ectopic placement' - roughly equivalent to what has usually been interpreted as the result of 'movement' - is associated with the semantic role of the element concerned, in particular whether it is inherently subcategorised-for or not, subcategorisation being, of course, on a semantic basis. Likewise, as we shall again be looking at, the basic word order patterns in a language reflect the (semantic) valency status of elements (as, semantically, head, complement, circumstantial/adjunct, specifier). Consider here, as a small-scale example of the notional sensitivity of syntax, one aspect of the syntactic behaviour of 'endocentric adjuncts' in English. As has often been observed, there are interesting restrictions in English on preverbal placement of endocentric adjuncts like that in (1.1): (1.1) a. Mabel very quietly deteriorated/improved b. Bert very quietly ate the last pie c. Felicity very quietly moved away such that the sentences in (1.2) are not nearly as happy as those in (1.1): 4 Prelude (1.2) a. * Alfred very quietly arrived/danced b. *Bert very quietly ate c. *Felicity very quietly moved even though variants with the adjunct in postverbal position are perfectly acceptable: (1.3) a. Alfred arrived/danced very quietly b. Bert ate very quietly c. Felicity moved very quietly The verbs in (1.2a) differ from those in (1.1a) in being 'actions' rather than 'processes'. 'Actions' rather than 'processes' do not allow a preverbal adjunct - unless they are presented, as in (i.ib-c), as semantically transitive (not necessarily 'syntactically transitive' - even if the latter concept is well-defined). Not all 'processes' are conducive to the preposed adjunct, however: (1.4) *Basil quietly fell/tripped The 'processes' in (1.1a) are specifically 'change-of-intrinsic-state' (rather than, say, 'of-place' simply). And so on: other semantic variables supervene. My point is that any understanding of the syntax of the adjunct is inextricable from the semantics of the adjunction. And this is characteristic of syntactic generalisations: they refer to notional classes and to semantic relations between them. More generally, syntactic properties are projected from notional. It is thus inadequate to suggest that the regularities involved in (1.1-4), and elsewhere, are simply non-syntactic precisely because they are semantically based; that they do not demonstrate a semantic basis for syntax because the phenomena themselves are not 'syntactic'. This is the 'selectional restrictions' strategy - on which see e.g. Radford 1988: §7.9. On such a view, nothing of syntax (subcategorisation, placement of complements, adjuncts and specifiers, 'ectopic' placements) remains - as much of the content of the following chapters is intended to illustrate in some detail. I shall argue, too, that the association with particular word classes of particular 'secondary' categories (such as Case, Tense), so that the latter are recurrently realised in the 'formal' shape of the former, i.e. as part of their morphological structure, is notionally non-arbitrary. The recurrence in association with nouns of definiteness as a functional category - whether inflexionally or periphrastically expressed, i.e. as 'traditional' secondary category or 'article' (§2.7) - follows from their notional characters: crudely (see further §§2.1, 3.7), a definite article/affix is one of those elements that enables a noun to function as (part of) a semantic argument (like a name or a personal pronoun) rather than simply as a predicator. Notionalism 5 Of course, there may be, as well as individual idiosyncrasies - lexicalisations - and minor grammaticalisations of membership or relation, as well as farreaching relational grammaticalisations, such as that incorporated in the basis for selecting subjects, as discussed in §3.3.1. But these remain desemanticisations; they can be properly understood only against the backgound assumption of a notional basis for syntactic concepts. The basis of linguistic categorisation in meaning was the fundamental insight of that long tradition which eventuated in the 'traditional' (and often pedagogical) grammars which - despite e.g. Jespersen's attempts at toughening them up proved such soft targets for the 'structuralists'. In their different ways, and on different sides of the Atlantic, both Hjelmslev (1961 [1943]) and Harris (1946) reject the notional content of syntax. Thus, for the former, 'the projection of the formhierarchy on the substance-hierarchy can differ essentially from language to language' (1961: 97), where, on the plane of content, the 'form-hierarchy' is roughly, in the terms being used here, the morphosyntactic categorisation - or system of linguistic relations, in more Hjelmslevian terms - and the 'substancehierarchy' is a non-linguistic description of the 'substance' of meaning. With like consequences, Harris (1946) identifies word - or rather 'morpheme' - classes on the basis of language-particular diagnostic environments, so that the classes he sets up for English and Hidatsa are strictly non-commensurate. So, both English and Hidatsa have a class labelled W , but this is fortuitous, non-systematic: whereas TV in English are 'morphemes which occur before plural -s or its alternatives' (Harris 1946: §4.1), in Hidatsa N are 'non-clause-final suffixes' (§5.1). It seems to me that in this respect structuralist syntax was (and is) a barren conceptual detour, and that the history of (transformational-) generative grammar represents a reluctant (and characteristically dissembled) but inexorable retreat from that position. One facet of that retreat is part of the backgound to the discussion of subcategorisation in §3.1.1. In this context, I should perhaps make it clear that I do not regard the developments described as 'generative semantics' (cf. e.g. the contributions to Seuren (ed.) 1974) as in themselves representing an embracing of notionalism: for most of the proponents of that approach, a 'natural logic' was conceived of as forming the basis of syntax; whereas I interpret a notional approach as excluding 'natural logic', as such, from syntax (and indeed from grammar as a whole) and as having it operate upon (amongst other things) interpretations of the categories and structures provided by the latter. To this extent, notionalism has something in common with the Hjelmslevian position alluded to above, while, of course, still denying the (essential) arbitrariness (as posited by Hjelmslev) of the relationship between syntactic representation and logical semantics. 6 Prelude The positing of such arbitrariness frustrates any possibility of a general theory of syntactic categories: overt syntactic diagnostics, just like the morphological, are ineluctably language-particular. Of course, given a sufficiently abstract conception of syntax, it is possible to make cross-language generalisations concerning the syntax of 'nouns', say. Thus, in any language with subjects, 'noun' phrases will constitute the central constituent type with respect to capacity to function as such. But, as we shall see, such generalisations flow from the notional character of 'nouns', and are best formulated in these terms, with brute distribution itself as a consequence of such; syntax does not involve the arrangment of autonomous, or notionally uninterpreted elements. 1.2 Analogism I also share with Hjelmslev (and other - mostly dead - linguists) a conception of linguistic structure as fundamentally bi-planar, as well as the assumption that the two planes are structured in accordance with the same principles. My main concern in the present section is to attempt to explicate the consequences of this assumption, in particular; but let me turn first to bi-planarity and other aspects of linguistic organisation. We can differentiate different levels of representation of linguistic structure (along the lines of Anderson 1992&: ch. 1) to the extent that the representations assigned to different levels are governed by distinct regularities. Most basically, or strongly (Anderson 1982a), we can distinguish representations based on a distinct substantive alphabet. This is what distinguishes the phonological and the syntactic planes: phonological representations are constructed out of an alphabet of phonetically identifiable features; syntactic structures are erected on the basis of notionally identifiable features. Morphology does not introduce a distinct alphabet. In terms of a modified 'word-and-paradigm' approach to morphology, morphological structure proper interprets the syntactic ('secondary' and 'primary') categories, such as 'Past' and 'verb', associated with a word, in terms of the organisation of the phonological material associated with the item into morphological units. Morphological structure itself involves unlabelled relations: root, base, affix etc. are identified structurally. (For discussion see e.g. Anderson 1984a; 1985a; 1992b: particularly §2.3; Colman 1990; 1991: ch. 2; to appear.) As is familiar, phonological structure also interprets plane-external structure, indeed, both morphological and syntactic structure. There are thus asymmetries in the relationships between the planes (including the sub- or inter-plane of morphology), as well as there being distinct (including, possibly, no) alphabets. This