4.3. Relationships within the Noun Phrase

4.3.1 Head-initial languages vs. head-final languages

"Languages tend to place modifying elements either consistently before or consistently after modified elements (or heads)," as Hawkins (1983:2) writes. That is, cross-linguistically, the head of a phrase shows a strong tendency to occur "in a fixed position in all phrases within a language" (Tallerman 1998:100). According to Tallerman (1998:100), languages where the head has a tendency to precede its complements (or modifiers) are classified as head-initial languages, whereas those languages where the head usually follows its complements are categorised as head-final languages.

Greenberg (1990 [1966]) has pointed out strong tendencies and stated several universals with relation to the head-modifier or modifier-head order in NPs. He (1990 [1966]:50-51) claims, for instance, that cross-linguistically, a general tendency for adjectives is to follow the noun, especially in languages which have a verb preceding the subject and the object (VSO), being thus prepositional languages.

As for demonstratives and numerals, their position is related to descriptive adjectives in individual languages (Greenberg 1990[1966]:51). This tendency is formulated in Universal 18 by Greenberg (1990 [1966]:51):

Universal 18. When the descriptive adjective precedes the noun, the demonstrative and the numeral with overwhelmingly more than chance frequency, do likewise.

An additional related observation is also noted (Greenberg 1990 [1966]:51-52):

Universal 19. When the general rule is that the descriptive adjective follows, there may be a minority of adjectives which usually precede, but when the general rule is that descriptive adjectives precede, there are no exceptions.

This universal can be illustrated by such languages as Welsh and Italian (Greenberg 1990 [1966]:52).

"The order within a noun phrase is subject to powerful constraints," asserts Greenberg (1990 [1966]:52): "[w]hen any or all of the three types of qualifiers precede the noun, the order among them is always the same: demonstrative, numeral, and adjective, as in English, ‘these five large houses.’" However, when any or all follow the head noun, the typical order is found to be the exact opposite: noun, adjective, numeral, demonstrative (Greenberg 1990 [1966]:52). A less popular order is exemplified by Kikuyu, a Bantu language of East Africa, which displays the order ‘houses these five large’ instead of the more common order ‘houses large five these.’ The order of different qualifiers within an NP is stated in the Universal 20 by Greenberg (1990 [1966]:52):

Universal 20. When any or all of the items (demonstrative, numeral, and descriptive adjective) precede the noun, they are always found in that order. If they follow, the order is either the same or its exact opposite.

A clear relation to the basic word order typology can also be observed in constructions of nominal apposition across languages, as Greenberg (1990 [1966]:53) writes. He formulates the emerging patterns of the constructions involving a common noun along with a proper noun in Universal 23 (Greenberg 1990 [1966]:54):

Universal 23. If in apposition the proper noun usually precedes the common noun, then the language is one in which the governing noun follows its dependent genitive. With much better than chance frequency, if the common noun usually precedes the proper noun, the dependent genitive follows its governing noun.

4.3.2 Head-marking languages vs. dependent-marking languages

Languages show a tendency to mark either the head word or its dependent(s) with an affix or some other change in word form to signal the syntactic relationships in a phrase or clause (Tallerman 1998:104). Amongst languages which mark the relationships there are two major possibilities: the head may be marked (head-marking languages), or the dependent may be marked (dependent-marking languages). Some languages, it should be noted, exhibit both head- and dependent-marking constructions (Tallerman 1998:104).

Dependent-marking is found to predominate in the Indo-European family.1 In German, for example, dependent object NPs of prepositions are indicated by a particular case: either by accusative, as shown in (17), or by dative, as in (18) (Tallerman 1998:104).

(17) für meinen Freund
for my:ACC friend
‘for my friend’
  		(German)
(18) mit meinem Freund
with my:DAT friend
‘with my friend’ 		(German)

Although in the examples above the noun Freund does not change its basic form, the determiners (meinen, meinem) do inflect for case, and are marked for gender (masculine).

Dependent-marking in head-final construction is exemplified in (19) from Chechen. Here the head, postposition t’e follows the dependent object NP beera to which the dative case-marker -na is attached (Tallerman 1998:105):

(19) beera-na t’e
child-DAT on
‘on the child’ 		(Chechen)

Dependent-marking in possessive constructions could be illustrated by an example from Finnish. In (20), the syntactic relationship between a possessed head noun kissa ‘cat’ and the dependent possessor NP tyttö ‘girl’ is indicated by the genitive case marker -n (Tallerman 1998:107):

(20) tytö-n kissa
girl-GEN cat
‘girl’s cat’ 		(Finnish)

Dependent-marking in constructions of the noun plus a dependent adjective expresses the agreement of adjectival modifiers with various grammatical categories that are inherent either in the noun (class/gender) or in the NP (number, case, definiteness) (Givon 1990:475). Example (21) is an illustration from Chadian Arabic where the adjective ‘tall,’ being dependent on the head noun, agrees with it in gender (Tallerman 1998:109):

(21) a. rajul tawîl
man tall:MASC
‘a tall man’
  		(Chadian Arabic)
      b. mara tawîla
woman tall:FEM
‘a tall woman’

As for head-marking in the construction of the head noun and dependent adjective, this is not very common (Tallerman 1990:108). An example can be found in Persian (example 22) where the head noun kûh ‘mountain’ is marked by suffix -e for having a dependent, but the suffix does not encode any other grammatical information (e.g. gender, case); the dependent adjective boländ ‘high’ carries no marker (Tallerman 1998:108):

(22) kûh-e boländ
mountain high
‘high mountain’ 		(Persian)

The marking of the possessive constructions in the head-marking languages is illustrated by example (23) from Saliba where the dependent noun sine ‘woman’ has no marking while it is the head noun natu ‘child’ that bears a suffix indicating a third person singular referring to the woman; literally, example (23) means ‘woman child-her’ (Tallerman 1998:107).

(23) sine natu-na
woman child-3SG
‘the woman’s child’ 		(Saliba)

Typical head-marking languages are, for example, Abkhaz (a Northwest Caucasian language) and the native American language Navajo (Tallerman 1998:110).

Another typological possibility, as noted by Tallerman (1998:110), is not to mark morphologically the relationship between the head and its dependent(s) at all. This is the case, for example, in Chinese and Vietnamese.