Shilluk noun morphology and noun phrase morphosyntax Bert
Shilluk noun morphology and noun phrase morphosyntax Bert Remijsen Otto Gwado Ayoker University of Edinburgh 1
About this talk / main message Descriptive analysis of selected aspects of the morphology of nouns and noun phrases in Shilluk. 2
About this talk / structure • Vowel length & tone critical to morphological marking 3
About this talk / structure • Vowel length & tone critical to morphological marking • Inflection pertensive, constr. state, proximal 4
About this talk / structure • Vowel length & tone critical to morphological marking • Inflection pertensive, construct state, prox. • Number highly irregular 5
About this talk / structure • Vowel length & tone critical to morphological marking • Inflection pertensive, construct state, prox. • Number highly irregular • Associative plural phrase-level marker 6
About this talk / structure • Vowel length & tone critical to morphological marking • Inflection pertensive, construct state, prox. • Number highly irregular • Associative plural phrase-level marker • Adjectives stage-level form 7
About this talk / structure • Vowel length & tone critical to morphological marking • Inflection pertensive, construct state, prox. • Number highly irregular • Associative plural phrase-level marker • Adjectives stage-level form • Numerals are nouns 8
Vowel length and tone 9
Vowel length and tone • Shilluk has three levels of vowel length in the surface phonology. 10
Vowel length and tone • Some minimal sets for vowel length. Short Long Overlong pa l ‘dodge: NOM’ pa al t ɔ l ‘eat: NOM’ t ɔ ɔl t ɔ ɔɔl ‘rope’ ‘rope: PERT. P’ ‘rodent: PERT. P’ du p ‘mess. up: NOM’ ‘surgery. knife’ du up pa aal ‘surgery. knife: PERT. P’ du uup 11
Vowel length and tone • Length alternations play a key role in morphological paradigms. There are three patterns of alternation: Alternation Fixed Short with Grade Long w. Grade Base Pert. , pl. V ba c ‘amniotic sac’ V~VVV ka ŋ ka aaŋ ‘trumpet’ VV~VVV pa al pa aal ‘k. o. knife’ 12
Vowel length and tone • Length alternations play a key role in morphological paradigms. There are three patterns of alternation: Alternation Fixed Short with Grade Long w. Grade Base Pert. , pl. V ba c ‘amniotic sac’ V~VVV ka ŋ ka aaŋ ‘trumpet’ VV~VVV pa al pa aal ‘k. o. knife’ • Against the background of compensatory lengthening in W. Nilotic (Andersen 1990), this means that the Short with Grade pattern developed in analogy with Long with Grade pattern (Reid 2009). 13
Vowel duration (ms) Vowel length and tone Figure. Means and standard deviation for vowel duration by Vowel length (V, VVV). From Remijsen, Ayoker & Jørgensen (ms. ). 14
Vowel length and tone • There are eight tonemes, including four falling contour tones (cf. Andersen 1999 on Päri). 15
Vowel length and tone Tone pattern Example Gloss Low a -lɛ ŋ a -lɛ ŋ Mid High Rise Mid to Low Fall High to Mid Fall Early High Fall (to Low) Late High Fall (to Low) PAST-take: 2 SG PAST-take: APPL PAST-drum: APPL. 2 SG PAST-take: APPL. 2 SG PAST-drum: APPL PAST-take/drum PAST-take: ITIVE 16
Vowel length and tone Tone pattern Example Gloss Low a -lɛ ŋ a -lɛ ŋ Mid High Rise Mid to Low Fall High to Mid Fall Early High Fall (to Low) Late High Fall (to Low) PAST-take: 2 SG PAST-take: APPL PAST-drum: APPL. 2 SG PAST-take: APPL. 2 SG PAST-drum: APPL PAST-take/drum PAST-take: ITIVE 17
Vowel length and tone “[T]here is no possible opposition between two HL or two LH contours where the two tones are synchronized differently within the syllable. ” [Hyman 1988: 51] 18
Vowel length and tone Early High Fall Late High Fall
Vowel length and tone • Acoustic evidence for contrastive tonal alignment: Figure. Schematic representations of four tone categories distinguished by tonal alignment. Figure. Means and standard deviations for tonal alignment (high turning point by Tone). From Remijsen & Ayoker (2014). 20
Vowel length and tone • The richness of Shilluk’s inventory of vowel length and tone is typologically unusual. • The high functional load of tone and vowel length in the morphology explains the stability of two rare contrasts, i. e. , contrastive tonal alignment and three -level vowel length (cf. Blevins 2004). 21
Inflection 22
Inflection Example Base du up Example of base form: da a du up EXIST rodent ‘There is a rodent. ’ 23
Inflection Example Base du up du uup Pertensive* Example of pertensive: da a du uup EXIST twɔ ɔŋ rodent: PERT Twong ‘There is the rodent of Twong. ’ Pertensive: morphological marking of the head (possessed) term of a possessive noun phrase (Dixon 2011). 24
Inflection Example Base du up du uup Pertensive, sg. possr. Pertensive, pl. possr. Example of da a du uup twɔ ɔŋ pertensive, sg. EXIST rodent: PERT. S Twong ‘There is the rodent of Twong. ’ possr. Example of da a du uup mʌ ʌn pertensive, sg. EXIST rodent: PERT. P women ‘There is the rodent of the women. ’ possr. 25
Inflection Example Base du up du uum Construct state* Example of construct state: da a du uum dwɔ ɔŋ EXIST rodent: CS big. S ‘There is a big rodent. ’ Construct state: morphological marking on the head of a modified noun phrase (Creissels 2009). 26
Inflection Example Base du up du uum Demonstrative Example of demonstrative: da a du uum EXIST rodent: DEM ‘There is this rodent. ’ 27
Inflection Suffixless Base du up du uup Pertensive, sg. possr. Pertensive, pl. possr. Construct state Demonstrative du uum 28
Inflection Suffixless Suffixed Base du up du uup dɔ ɔɔr-ɔ dɔ ɔr -ɪ dɔ ɔr-ɪ Pertensive, sg. possr. Pertensive, pl. possr. Construct state Demonstrative du uum 29
Inflection • The inflectional paradigm is characterised by headmarking: pertensive and construct-state are both inflections that mark the head, not the modifier. 30
Number marking 31
Number marking • Number marking in Shilluk is not predictable. (Gilley 1992, 2000; Reid 2009; Remijsen, Miller-Naudé & Gilley 2015, Xu 2017). • Xu (2017) is a quantitative study, along the lines of Ladd et al. (2009). • Among others, Xu finds that a set of 247 native monomorphemic nouns present 146 different patterns of number marking. The 6 most common of these (next slide) account for 22. 7% of the items. 32
Morph. markers Example % (N) 1. Tone (L, M), Suffix (-ɔ, ∅), Length (VVV, VV) kʊ ʊʊr-ɔ , kʊ ʊr 5. 3% (13) 2. Tone (H, LF) lɪ ɲ, lɪ ɲ 3. Tone (ELF, L), Suffix (-ɔ, ∅), Length (VVV, VVV) kwâaaj-ɔ , kwàaaj ‘cotton: S/P’ ‘war: S/P’ 4. 5% (11) 4% (10) ‘ancestor: S/P’ 4. Tone (HFM, HF), Suffix ( lwɛ ɛɛt -ɔ , lwɛ ɛɛt -ɔ, ∅), Length (VVV, VVV) ‘finger: S/P’ 3. 2% (8) 5. Tone (LF, R), Length (VV, VVV) mɛ ɛl, mɛ ɛɛl 2. 8% (7) 6. Tone (H, HFM), Length (VV, VVV) jíit, jî iit 2. 8% (7) ‘drought: S/P’ ‘fisherman: S/P’ 33
Number marking • Derivations, compounds and loan words equally display a range of patterns: bɛ ɛk bɛ ɛɛk ‘bag: S/P’ < English cu uk cu uuk ‘shop: S/P’ < Arabic a d ʌ ʌt a d ʌ t -ɪ ‘bottle: S/P’ < Arabic 34
Associative plural 35
Associative plural (Moravcsik 2003) • Associative plural: refers to a coherent group, centered around a focal member, typically human. Pe te r-e k ‘Peter and his people (family / friends / associates)’ • “[W]hile associative plurals are of restricted distribution in any one language, they are fairly widespread across languages. ” (Moravcsik 2003: 469) 36
Associative plural • Shilluk example: (10) ^ a ca aarɔ pa aa Acaro ja a dɛ ɛɛŋ village: PERT. P group. of Deng: APL ‘Acaro, the village of the people of Deng, […]’ • The Shilluk associative plural looks like a possessive noun phrase, with possessed term ja a ‘group of’, and the possessor, which expresses the focal element. The possessor has a dedicated inflection. 37
Associative plural • Cross-linguistically, associative plurals are mostly limited to human referents (Moravcsik 2003). • No such restriction in Shilluk: associative plurals are attested for inanimate referents: (10) ja a ^ group. of k. o. herb-APL ʊ a kwa rɪ co oot-ɪ ɪ cɛ k-a a ɲɪ ki t -ɪ CONJ HAB gu uur-ɔ AUX-FOCgrind-DVN kɛ ɲ-a nɪ carry-DEST place: CS-DEM ‘Herbs like akwaricoto [a bitter kind of herb] were ground and then applied to it (i. e. , to the wounds). ’ 38
Associative plural • Allomorphy depends on the base form of the noun: • In suffixless nouns: high target to the lexical specification of the base, plus morphological length: gʌ ʌt > gʌ ʌʌt twɔ ɔŋ > twɔ ɔɔŋ ‘riverbank’ ‘Twong’ • In suffixed nouns, the suffix is replaced by -ɪ ɪ / -ɪ ɪ : al specification of the base: a tu t-ɔ > a tu t-ɪ ɪ bɔ ɔɔt -ɔ > bɔ ɔɔt -ɪ ɪ duck’ ‘craftsman’ 39
Associative plural • Pertensive and construct state are both head-marking: [HEAD]-XX [MODIFIER] • Associative is dependent marking: [HEAD] [MODIFIER]-XX 40
Associative plural • What happens when head-marking and dependent marking target the same noun (cf. Mc. Pherson 2016)? [HEAD] [MODIFIER, HEAD]-? XX? [MODIFIER] 41
Associative plural • Example: ja a bɔ ɔt -ɪ ɪ group. of craftsman-APL ‘The people of the craftsman. ’ bɔ ɔn -ɪ ne een-ɔ craftsman-CS watch-APL ‘The craftsman who is watching’ 42
Associative plural • Example: ja a bɔ ɔt -ɪ ɪ group. of craftsman-APL ‘The people of the craftsman. bɔ ɔn -ɪ ne een-ɔ craftsman-CS watch-APL ‘The craftsman who is watching’ ja a bɔ ɔn -ɪ ne een-ɪ ɪ group. of craftsman-CS watch-APL ‘The people of the craftsman who is watching’ 43
Associative plural • Question: What happens when head-marking and dependent marking target the same noun (cf. Mc. Pherson 2016)? [HEAD] [MODIFIER, HEAD]-? XX? [MODIFIER] • Answer: Associative plural is not specifically an inflection of nouns but of noun phrases; it is marked at the right edge of the noun phrase. ja a [HEAD-CS MODIFIER]-APL] 44
Adjectives 45
Adjectives • Shilluk adjectives have a contingent or stage-level form alongside the absolute base form – comparable to long-form vs. short-form adjectives in Russian (cf. Roy 2013). (4) dɛ ɛŋ ra ac dɛ ɛŋ ra aac Deng bad ‘Deng is evil. ’ Deng bad: CTG ‘Deng is behaving badly. ’ 46
Adjectives • Spontaneous example of the base form: (4) twɔ ɔŋ jolɔ ŋ ɟa aal a jo m nɪ mɛ n a pje n lilɔ Twong Yolong man: CS RELsoft like IDP REL hide polished. hide ‘Twong Yolong, the man who is soft (i. e. kind) like a polished hide. ’ • Spontaneous example of the contingent form: (4) ɛ ja t ɪ ɪɪn , ru un-a a ba a a -bi irjɛ w, […] year: P-PR 1 S. P COP CARDseventh ‘When I was small, my years were seven, […]’ SUB PR 1 S small: CTG 47
Numerals 48
Numerals • Ordinals are basic; cardinals derived using a - prefix: No. Ordinal Cardinal No. Ordinal Cardinal 1 kjɛ l a -kjɛ l 6 bi ikjɛ l a-bi ikjɛ l 2 rjɛ w a -rjɛ w 7 bi irjɛ w a -bi irjɛ w 3 dʌ k a -dʌ k 8 bi idʌ k a -bi idʌ k 4 ŋwɛ ɛn a -ŋwɛ ɛn 9 bi iŋwɛ ɛn a -bi iŋwɛ ɛn 5 bi c a -bi c 10 pjʌ ʌʌr-ɔ 49
Numerals • Numerals are nouns, as seen from their paradigms: Inflection ‘rodent’ ‘third’ ‘fifth’ Base du up du uup dʌ k dʌ ʌʌk dʌ ʌʌŋ bi c bi iic bi iiɲ Pertensive, sg. possr. Pertensive, pl. possr. Construct state Demonstrative du uum 50
References Andersen, T. (1990). Vowel length in Western Nilotic. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 22, 5 -26 Blevins, J. (2004). Evolutionary Phonology – The Emergence of Sound Patterns. Cambridge University Press. Creissels, D. (2009). Construct forms of nouns in African languages. In Peter Austin et al. (eds. ) Proceedings of Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 2. SOAS. Dixon, R. M. W. (2011). Basic Linguistic Theory – Volume 2: Grammatical Topics. OUP. Gilley, L. (1992). An autosegmental approach to Shilluk phonology. Dallas: SIL, U. of Texas at Arlington. Gilley, L. G. (2000). Singulars and Plurals in Shilluk – a search for order. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 8, 1 -21 Hyman (1988). Syllable structure constraints on tonal contours. Linguistique Africaine 1, 49 -60. Mc. Pherson, L. (2016). Cyclic spell-out and the interaction of Seenku tonal processes. Tonal Aspects of Language 2016, University of Buffalo. Moravcsik, E. (2003). A semantic analysis of associative plurals. Studies in Language 27(3), 469 -503. Reid, T. (2009). Suprasegmentals in Shilluk nominal morphophonology. U. of Edinburgh Hons diss. Remijsen, B. , C. L. Miller-Naudé & L. G. Gilley (2015). Stem-internal and affixal morphology in Shilluk. In M. Baerman (ed. ) The Handbook of Inflection. Oxford University Press, 577 -596. Remijsen, B. , O. G. Ayoker & T. Mills (2011). Shilluk. Journal of the International Phonetic Assocation 41, 131 -145. Remijsen, B. & O. G. Ayoker (2014) Contrastive tonal alignment in Shilluk. Phonology 31, 435 -462. Remijsen, B. O. G. Ayoker, & S. Jørgensen (ms. ). Three-level vowel length in Shilluk. Roy, I. A. (2013). Nonverbal Predication: Copular Sentences at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. 51 Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements: • SIL International, for enabling our research in South Sudan. • The Leverhulme Trust, for research funding through the project “A descriptive analysis of the Shilluk language” (RPG-2015 -055). 52
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