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Argumentality and the distribution of nominalizers in Lhasa Tibetan.
- Source :
-
Australian Journal of Linguistics . Jan2022, Vol. 42 Issue 1, p75-104. 30p. - Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- The relationship between the distribution of nominalizers in Lhasa Tibetan and the argument/adjunct property of relevant syntactic elements is approached from a generative perspective. The distribution of nominalizers in Lhasa Tibetan demonstrates a regular pattern. Some nominalizers are bi-functional in that they can mark both participant and event nominalizations while others are uni-functional in that they can only mark participant nominalizations. It is found that the difference between the two types of nominalizers correlates to whether the nominalizer (NML) is argument-associated or adjunct-associated. An account of the correlation is developed in the theoretical framework of generative grammar. It is argued that the syntactic derivation of an NML-phrase gives rise to a binding relationship between the nominalizer and the suppressed element in the source constituent Aspect Phrase (AspP) or the AspP itself, leading to a condition on its semantic interpretation. The condition is satisfied in a participant NML-phrase headed by a nominalizer of either type and in an event NML-phrase headed by a bi-functional nominalizer. It is not in an event NML-phrase headed by a uni-functional nominalizer for the reason that in the calculation of event semantics arguments align with events while adjuncts align with predicates. Specifically, a bi-functional nominalizer, being argument-associated, semantically matches both a suppressed argument in a participant NML-phrase and the source constituent AspP, whereas a uni-functional one, being adjunct-associated, semantically matches a suppressed adjunct in a participant NML-phrase but not the source constituent AspP. Consequently, no event NML-phrase headed by an adjunct-associated nominalizer is found in this language. The findings of this study have implications for both analyzing the distribution of nominalizers in other Tibeto-Burman languages and the syntactic and semantic mechanisms that constrain them, and for classifying the argument/adjunct asymmetry, which is fundamental in most current linguistic frameworks as well as research on human sentence processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *TIBETANS
*GENERATIVE grammar
*HUMAN experimentation
*SEMANTICS
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 07268602
- Volume :
- 42
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Australian Journal of Linguistics
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 158751510
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2022.2060705