Follow
Publications: 0 | Followers: 0

Two DP Layers within the Central Kurdish Noun Phrase

Publish on Category: Birds 268

Two DP Layers within the Central Kurdish Noun Phrase
Rebwar Shafie TahirPhD Candidate
Monday, 24 April 2017
From NP to DP: Some theoretical background
Early stages of Generative Grammar:A noun phrase is the projection of the head noun, whereas other accompanying elements such as articles, determiners and adjectives are modifying elements (seeJackendoff1977).Abney’s (1987) DP Hypothesis:A noun phrase is headed by a functional category realized by a determiner (D) with NP as its complement.Functional heads following DP Hypothesis:Any lexical or inflectional category which has a grammatical function and provides semantic content is the head of a maximal projection (Chomsky 1995).
Monday, 24 April 2017
The Noun Phrase in CK
Functional elements to express (in)definiteness in Central Kurdish (CK, henceforth).(1)esp-eke (2)esp-ezil-ekehorse-DEF ‘the horse’ horse-IZ big-DEF ‘the big horse’(3)esp-êk(4)esp-êk-izilhorse-INDEF ‘a horse’ horse-INDEF-IZ big ‘a big horse’–ekein Hawrami is regarded as head of DP (Holmberg and Odden 2004, 2008).The D category in CK is associated only with (in)definiteness features.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Definiteness and the status of the morpheme -e
Demonstratives are accompanied by theclitic–eattaching to the noun or to the end of postnominal modifier(s).empyaw-e(6)ewpyaw-epir-ethisman-DEF‘this man’thatman-IZold-DEF‘that old man’Previous assumptions about-e-eis part of the prenominal demonstrative article (Fattah 1997: 181 andÖpengin2013: 107)My assumption–eis a marker of definiteness and the prenominal part marks the deictic feature.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Evidence that–eis a definite marker:
In a narrative, a noun can carry the inflection-e(7)žin-êkra-y de-kirdberewêmelegelduwoman-INDEF way-3SG PROG-make.PST towards us with twomindal-eke-i,žin-ehawar-ide-kirdboyarmetichild-DEF-3SGwoman-DEFshout-3SG PROG-make.PSTforhelp‘A woman was running towards us with her two kids; the woman was calling for help.’kam‘which’ andĉi‘what’The interrogative quantifierwhichmarks definiteness, whilewhatindicates indefiniteness (Pesetsky1987, 2000;Gebhardt2009).(8) kamsêw-e?(9)ĉisêw-êk?whichapple-DEF‘which apple?’whatapple-INDEF ‘what apple?’
Monday, 24 April 2017
The quantifierher‘any/each’
The quantifiereachencodes definiteness or specificity, whileanyexpresses indefiniteness (BeghelliandStowell1997;Giannakidou1998, 1999, 2004;Vendler1962: 157-159).(9)baherkes-esêw-êkber-êt.let eachperson-DEF apple-INDEFtake.subju-3SG‘Let each person (of them) take an apple.’(10) herkes-êkhatboêreyarmetibi-deany person-INDEF come.PST to here help IMP-give.1SG‘Help any anybody who comes here.’
Monday, 24 April 2017
The demonstratives can occur without–e,where the relevantnominalconstructionis devoid of any sense of definiteness.
(11)swalker-ekedeger-êtleemmaⱡ(*-e)boewmaⱡ(*-e).beggar-DEF roam.PRS-3SGfrom thishouse(*DEF) to that house‘The beggar goes from one house to another.’Vocative constructions are standardly considered definite (Lyons 1999: 152).daik-emother-V(DEF)‘you, mummy’kurd-in-ekurd-PL-V(DEF)‘you, Kurds’
Monday, 24 April 2017
Cross-linguistic evidence of definite markers accompanying demonstratives is found in several languages including Romanian, Macedonian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Irish, Spanish and Greek.
(14)tojcovek-otMacedonianthis man-the‘this man’ Giusti (1992: 7)(15)tazikniga-tacolloquial Bulgarianthis book-the‘this book’ Franks (2001: 19)(16)aftosoandrasGreekthistheman‘this man’Panagiotidis(2000: 718)Thus, apart from the indefinite marker-êk, CK has two markers of definiteness:–ekeand–e.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Question: Are the (in)definite markers all realized by the same D category?
Answer: Given the surface order inside the DP, the answer is negative.(17)esp-eke-an (18)esp-ezil-eke-anhorse-DEF-PL horse-IZ big-DEF-PL‘the horses’ ‘the big horses’(19)ewesp-an-e (20)ewesp-ezil-an-ethat horse-PL-DEF thatesp-IZ big-PL-DEF‘those horses’ ‘those big horses’Number projects a phrase (see Ritter 1991, 1992, 1995)-anis the Num head of a functional projection (NumP).The two definite markers appear in different positions : –ekeprecedes–an, whereas–efollows it.If DP is realized by discourse-related functional elements, CK should have two DP layers with NumP intermediate between them.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Theoretical background and assumptions
A non-lexicalist approach:Nouns enter the derivation from the lexicon as bare stems. If a noun appears with inflectional elements, it must have received these inflections in the derivation (Baker 1988; Cinque 1999; Julien 2002, Marantz 1997).The LCA (Kayne 1994)Phrases with head-final order are derived by movement of the complement to a position asymmetrically c-commanding the head.Since the nounsêw‘apple’ in (17) appears before the functional inflections, it must be in a derived position.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Based on Chomsky’s (1995) minimalist derivational theory, the structure for the noun phrases in (21) and (2) are as represented in (23) and (24), respectively.
(21)sêw-ek-an (22)ewsêw-an-eapple-DEF-PL that apple-PL-DEF‘the apples’ ‘those apples’(23) (24)Thenoun phrase in (21) projects a DP contained by the projection of Number (23), that in (22) projects a DP which contains NumP (24).
Monday, 24 April 2017
Position of demonstratives:Demonstratives merge somewhere lower than definite article (Biberaueret al. 2014; Roberts 2011;Guardiano2010).
Motivation for NP movement:If movement is always triggered by some feature (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2008), D and Num should carry an EPP feature.Purely syntactic features that trigger movement are widely supported in recent literature (Biberaueret al. 2014;PesetskyandTorrego2001; Roberts andRoussou2003).Linearization movementDrawing on the LCA,Biberaueret al. (2014) argue that the head of a head-final construction bears a movement triggering feature moving the sister of the head to the specifier of that head.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Questions about two D categories:
Why two DPs?Does the difference in the structure indicate a difference between the feature make-up of the two D categories?Could one D position encode some feature not shared by the other D?Where is–êkrealized?
Monday, 24 April 2017
The two D positions:
Definiteness:the grammaticalization of specificity and uniqueness (Enç1991; Lyons 1999).Uniqueness:the referent is familiar to the speaker and the hearer (Anderssen2007: 255).Specificity:the referent familiar to the speaker, but not (necessarily) to the hearer (Anderssen2007: 255).My proposalThe lower D position realized by–ekeis the locus of definiteness proper entailing both specificity and uniqueness.The higher D spelled out by–eencodes the single feature of specificity subsumed under definiteness.
Monday, 24 April 2017
In possessive constructions-ekedenotes definiteness, while –e encodesspecificity.
(25)kur-eke-mnaw-iAzad-e.boy-DEF-1SG name-3SG Azad-AUX.PRS‘My son’s name is Azad.’(26)ewkur-e-mnaw-iAzad-ethat boy-DEF-1SG name-3SG Azad-AUX.PRS‘That son of mine’s name is Azad.’The DPkur-eke-m‘my son’ in (25), is both unique and specific.However,ewkur-e-m‘that son of mine’ in (26) is specific but not unique.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Further evidence that–emarks specificity in CK
Inmorphology, too,-eindicates specificity.(27)wiɫax-iberz(28)wiɫax-eberz-eanimal-IZ tall animal-IZ tall-DEF‘tall animals’   ‘horse or mule, literally, the tall animal’wiɫax-iberz‘tall animals’ in (27) is generic.wiɫax-eberz-e‘literally, the tall animal’ denotes a horse or a mule.More examples:(29)sedsed-e (30)dwandwan-ehundred hundred-SPEC two two-SPEC‘hundred’ ‘century’ ‘two’ ‘twin’(31) bindest-e (32) dukilk-eunderhand-SPECtwotail-SPEC‘coin flipping, game’ ‘earwig, an insect with two tails’
Monday, 24 April 2017
Cross-linguistic evidence.
Articles which mark specificity not definiteness are rather widespread (Lyons 1999: 59) .láin Brazilian Portuguese is a functional category marking specificity (Pereira 2010).(33)essamulherláthis woman the ‘this woman’Mavea, a language spoken in Vanuatu uses distinct articles to mark definiteness and specificityGuérin(2007)Rijkhoff’s(2002) survey of 85 languages:-Definite articles co-occurring with demonstratives in languages like Abkhaz and Hungarian are not associated with definiteness, but with specificity.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Position of –êk:
–êkis a marker of indefiniteness, not just a diachronic remnant of the numeralêk‘one’ as claimed by Lyons (1995: 95).-êkcan co-occur with plural marking (34). The definite marker-ehas the same morpheme order as-êkwith respect to the plural marker (35), which is different from that of–eke(36).(34)kes-an-êk(35)ewkes-an-e (36)kes-eke-anperson-PL-INDEF that person-PL-DEF person-DEF-PL‘(some) people’ ‘those people’ ‘the people’Given its distribution ,-êkmerges with NumP similarly to the definite marker–e.
Monday, 24 April 2017
(37) Shows the structure for (34), compared to the general proposed structure for the CK DP (38)
(37) (38)Semantic evidence:–êkencodes specificity only, similarly to–e.(39)kur-êk-mnaw-iAzad-e.boy-INDEF-1SG name-3SG Azad-AUX.PRS‘A son of mine’s name is Azad.’(40)ewkur-e-mnaw-iAzad-ethat boy-DEF-1SG name-3SG Azad-AUX.PRS‘That son of mine’s name is Azad.’Both DPs in (39, 40) are interpreted as specific but not unique.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Thankyou for your attention!
Any questions ?
Monday, 24 April 2017

0

Embed

Share

Upload

Make amazing presentation for free
Two DP Layers within the Central Kurdish Noun Phrase