4 The noun phrase
The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the means and ways which spoken languages utilise to mark the major grammatical categories in the noun phrase. Also, it serves to show how languages tend to indicate the syntactic relationships between the noun phrase elements. In order to do that, an account of the concept ‘noun phrase’ will be given first.
4.1 Introduction
The concept of the ‘noun phrase,’ which was created by American structuralists, has come into the general linguistic analysis via the Transformational-Generative Grammar. The term ‘phrase’ refers to an intermediary level or node between ‘clause’ and ‘word’ (Raumolin-Brunberg 1991:62). The phenomenon indicated by the term ‘noun phrase’ has also been studied under the name ‘noun group’ (Raumolin-Brunberg 1991:62). Since the term ‘noun phrase’ is more widespread, it will be used throughout this paper.
The noun phrase (NP) typically functions as the argument or the participant of a verbal predicate (Tallerman 1998:39-43). The possible syntactic functions of NPs are, for example, subject, object, subject and object complement, adverbial, complement in prepositional phrases (Greenbaum 1991:47). Semantically, NPs can express such roles as agent, theme, goal, experiencer/patient, instrument (Tallerman 1998:39-40).
Traditionally, NPs are thought of as comprising a head element that is realised by a noun, and optionally of one or more modifiers (dependents) (Payne 1994:2849). As Huddleston (1984:232) writes, "[t]here is a wide range of types of dependents and no definable limit on how many we can have in a single NP: the potential complexity of NP structure matches that of the clause." Typical NP modifiers are, according to the description of Payne (1994:2849), "determiners, quantifiers and quantifier phrases, adjectives and adjective phrases, noun and noun phrases, adpositions and adpositional phrases and clauses."
The NP is, as Raumolin-Brunberg (1991:63) points out, "the most important of those categories that connect language and the outside world":
[o]ne of central functions [of NPs - M.M.] is to refer to items in the real world. All noun phrases have the potential of reference, although it is not always employed, as NP functioning as modifiers and subject complements typically classify and characterise. Reference to the real world can also be indirect or textual. Rather than directly referring to the real world items (exophoric reference), pronouns often refer to noun-headed NPs within the text, which in turn refer to the outer world (endophoric reference).
4.2 Grammatical categories for nouns
Each of the main word classes is associated with a typical set of grammatical categories. Greenberg (1990:58) points out number, gender and case as the most common nominal inflectional categories for nouns. Tallerman (1998:50) also adds a category of definiteness. While number, gender, and definiteness are considered to be inherent categories for nouns, marking the relationship between the head and its dependents within the NP, case is regarded as a relational category which indicates the relationships the NP contracts in a clause or sentence (Tallerman 1998:50). In the following chapters we will examine these grammatical categories for nouns, dealing first with number, and then gender/noun class, definiteness, and case.
4.2.1 Number
There are many languages which mark nouns and noun phrases overtly for number distinction (Tallerman 1998:51). If a language uses only one location for an overt number marker, this is most likely to be the head noun, although such languages exist where the principal signal of number occurs elsewhere in the NP (Cruse 1994:2859). In (spoken) French, for instance, it is the determiner which serves as the predominant locus of number information, e.g. le livre (/l¶ livr/), les livres (/le livr/) (Cruse 1994:2859), despite the fact that some nouns are clearly marked for number (cheval, chevaux) (ibid.). The number marker may be cliticized to the NP as such instead of one determinate constituent, as for example in Persian, where the signal for number is attached to the element occurring in the final position within the NP: ketab ‘the book,’ ketab-ha ‘the books,’ ketab-ebozorg ‘the large book,’ ketab-e-bozorg-ha ‘the large books’ (Cruse 1994:2859). Some languages mark number only in the pronoun system, that is, pronouns have an obligatory singular-plural number distinction which is not found among common nouns. This occurs, for example, in Mandarin Chinese where personal pronouns necessarily display an opposition of number: wo ‘I,’ women ‘we’ whereas shû means ‘book/books’ (Comrie 1981:183).
As Cruse (1994:2859) observes, the formal means which languages exploit for indicating number distinctions are many and varied, and within a single language several types of number markers may be found. Following his (Cruse 1994:2859) classification, the possible number markers are: affixation, reduplication, cliticization, internal modification, suppletion and the use of free markers (i.e. number words).
Affixation comprises suffixation which is used, for example, in English: book-s, in Turkish kitap-lar ‘books’; prefixation is exemplified in Shona: ka-munhu ‘person,’ and tu-vanhu ‘persons’; infixation, which appears to be rare, is used, for example, in Yurok: perey ‘old woman,’ pe-ge-rey ‘old women’ (Cruse 1994:2859).
Reduplication, which is a frequent and iconic way of showing singular-plural number opposition, as pointed out by Cruse (1994:2859), may involve either the whole stem as in Indonesian: buku ‘book,’ buku-buku ‘books’; or only part of the stem. In the latter case, the relevant part which undergoes inflection for number may be the beginning, as in Bontok (or Igorot) anak ‘child,’ ananak ‘children,’ or the end, as in Washoe: gusu ‘buffalo,’ gususu ‘buffalos’ (Cruse 1994:2859). Altogether, reduplication is related to the rhythmic structure of words.
Cliticization is exemplified in Persian by the plural marker -ha (see example above). Internal modification for the singular/plural distinction is represented (marginally) in English: goose, geese; the more complex modification can be exemplified by the Arabic broken plurals: walad ‘boy,’ awlad ‘boys.’ Free markers, being syntactically distinct from numerals, generally appear to be the only indication of number information in an NP. As an illustration, see examples from Gbeya (4) and Hawaiian (5) (Cruse 1994:2859):
| (4) |
o tu wi-re PL black person ‘black people’ |
(Gbeya) |
| (5) |
a’u mai i’u my PL fish ‘my fish(es).’ |
(Hawaiian) |
Although most number systems have only two terms, that of singular and plural, other degrees of numerosity also occur. According to Cruse (1994:2857), the most common of these is the ‘dual’ which refers to two items. Consider the following from Iraqi Arabic: walad ‘a boy,’ waladayn ‘two boys,’ wulid/awlâd ‘more than two boys’ (Cruse 1994:2857-2858). The less frequent degree of numerosity is a ‘trial’ which is used for signalling three items. Examples of this kind of number markers can be found, for instance, in Marshallese and Mangarayi (Cruse 1994:2858).
4.2.2 Gender or noun class
First it should be noted that ‘gender’ or ‘noun class’ refer to the same grammatical property, "the different terms are merely the products of different linguistic traditions," as Corbett (1994:1348) remarks. Generally, noun class is indicated on the noun itself (Tallerman 1998:51). In Italian and Spanish, for example, nouns ending in -o are morphologically marked for masculine, as in Italian: il libro ‘the book’; nouns ending in -a carry the noun-class marker for feminine: la casa ‘the house’ (Tallerman 1998:51).
The number of genders may vary considerably. While it is relatively common to mark nouns for two (masculine/feminine) or three (masculine/feminine/neutral) genders, Bantu languages, for example, reveal extensive noun class systems with about ten different genders where nouns are morphologically classified according to animateness, shape, size, countability, etc. (Givon 1984:58). Consider the following examples from Northern Sotho (Bantu); the noun-class markers are indicated in bold (Tallerman 1998:52):
| (6) |
mo-tswadi PERSON-parent ‘parent’ |
(Northern Sotho) |
| (7) |
Se-sotho LANGUAGE-Sotho ‘Sotho language/culture.’ |
(Northern Sotho) |
However, in some languages noun-class markers are not attached to the noun itself, but tend to be associated with quantifying/numeral modifiers, or with pronouns/articles (Givon 1984:60). In the case of German or French, for instance, the gender of the noun appears on the articles (Tallerman 1998:52).
4.2.3 Definiteness
The definite/indefinite distinction, as Givon (1984:61) observes, is most commonly marked morphologically on nouns. As an illustration, consider examples from Israeli Hebrew which display the cliticization of articles to the noun (indicated in bold) (Givon 1984:61):
| (8) |
Definite: ha-ish the-man ‘the man’ |
(Israeli Hebrew) |
| (9) |
Referential-indefinite: ish-xad man-a ‘a man’ |
(Israeli Hebrew) |
| (10) |
Non-referential: ish ‘man’ |
(Israeli Hebrew) |
In such languages as Norwegian and Swedish, for instance, definite/indefinite distinction can be marked both morphologically on nouns and by a separate closed class word in the NP, a determiner, as exemplified in (11) and (12) (Tallerman 1998:52):
| (11) |
mus-en mouse-DEF ‘the mouse’ |
(Swedish) |
| (12) |
den(hungriga) mus-en the hungry mouse-DEF ‘the (hungry) mouse’ |
(Swedish) |
Many languages signal the definite/indefinite reference of nouns by independent words, that is, by determiners. In English, for instance, nouns themselves do not carry any morphological information about definiteness, since determiners such as the or a serve to distinguish definite nouns from indefinite ones, respectively (Quirk & Greenbaum 1973:69).
However, there are also languages which exploit neither morphological markers nor determiners to indicate definiteness. Instead, the word order variation encodes whether the NP has a definite or an indefinite reference. This occurs, for instance, in Chinese. Consider examples in (13) where the definite NP is indicated in bold (Tallerman 1998:39):
| (13) a. |
Ta mai pingguo le. he buy apple ASPECT ‘He bought an apple.’ |
(Chinese) |
| b. |
Ta pingguo mai le. he apple buy ASPECT ‘He bought the apple.' |
4.2.4 Case
While the grammatical or inflectional categories for nouns which we have observed so far are inherent properties of nouns, case is a category which indicates the relational property of noun phrases. Case denotes, for instance, which syntactic relationship the NP contracts with the verb in a clause through such contrasts as nominative, accusative case, etc. (Crystal 1991:47).
Case markers most commonly appear on the NPs whose function they signal (Givon 1984:61). For example, one of the main ways of distinguishing NPs functioning as subjects is by marking them specifically as subjects (e.g. nominative) and NPs functioning as objects is by marking them by accusative (i.e. nominative/accusative system). As a typical and transparent suffixal marking of case, consider example (14) from Japanese (Givon 1984:62):
| (14) |
otoka-wa onna-ni tegami-o kaita man-SUBJ woman-DAT letter-ACC wrote ‘The man wrote a letter to the woman.’ |
(Japanese) |
For comparison, in a language such as Bikol (Philippine) case is indicated by prefixes (Givon 1984:62):
| (15) |
nag-ta’ó’ang-lal«ke ning-libro sa-bab«ye ACT-give SUBJ-man ACC-book DAT-woman ‘The man gave a book to the woman.’ |
(Bikol) |
Not all languages use case marking for denoting grammatical relations of NPs in a sentence. Instead, a fixed word order is used to signal the function of NPs, as is the case, for example, in Malay (Tallerman 1998:52-53); NPs are in bold, cf.:
| (16) a. |
Saya benci dia. I hate he/she ‘I hate him/her.’ |
(Malay) |
| b. |
Dia benci saya. he/she hate I ‘He/she hates me.’ |