The noun phrase in Catalan How many morphosyntactic categories do we need

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The noun phrase in Catalan How many
morphosyntactic categories do we need?

• Martí Quixal
• Grup de Lingüística Computacional
• Universitat Pompeu Fabra
• marti.quixal_at_upf.edu
• http//mutis.upf.es/glicom

This is ongoing research in collaboration with
Alex Alsina and Toni Badia
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Outline

• Goals
• Reviewing the literature
• Discussion of the reviewed proposals
• Towards a new proposal
• Concluding remarks

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Outline

• Goals
• Reviewing the literature
• Discussion of the reviewed proposals
• Towards a new proposal
• Concluding remarks

4
Goals

• Establishing a set of principled criteria in
  order to distinguish among the categories needed
  to account for the structure of the Catalan NP
• Explaining the data at the appropriate level of
  description, especially without mixing syntax and
  semantics

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Outline

• Goals
• Reviewing the literature
• Discussion of the reviewed proposals
• Towards a new proposal
• Concluding remarks

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Reviewing the literature
Fabra 1956
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Reviewing the literature
Bonet Solà 1986
Prenum
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Reviewing the literature
Wheeler 1991
TOP
N
A
/-Q /-DET /-DEF (...)
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Reviewing the literature
Badia 1994
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Reviewing the literature
GCC 2002
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Reviewing the literature to sum up

• The number of categories needed seems to range
  between 2 and 5 N, A, Pro, Det, Num.
• The distinction between adjectives and
  determiners seems a bit unclear
• The distinction between nouns and pronouns is
  also disputed
• There seems to be a need for empty categories

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Outline

• Goals
• Reviewing the literature
• Discussion of the reviewed proposals
• Towards a new proposal
• Concluding remarks

13
Discussion of the reviewed proposals (I)

• Let us assume that adjectives and determiners are
  the same category
• In pre-nominal position
• compra larròs buys the rice
• compra bon arròs buys good rice
• desperta aquestes passions wakes up these
  passions
• desperta grans passions wakes up big passions
• cull tres pomes picks three apples
• cull verda poma picks green apple
• cull verdes pomes picks green apples

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (II)

• Some further problems
• With respect to possessives
• Mon / Meu pare és flequer My father is baker
• Ha portat un pa son/seu Has brought a bread
  his
• Aquesta fleca és ma/meva This bakery is mine

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (III)

• The limited use of discourse, semantic or
  phonological criteria
• Like for instance different usage in pre-nominal
  position
• Alguna / ?Molta / Altra / Nova/ Mateixa nena
  dóna menjar als colomssome / many / other /
  new/ same girl feeds the pigeons
• Algunes / Moltes / ?Altres / ??Noves / Mateixes
  nenes donen menjar (...) some / many / other /
  new / same girls feed (...)
• Even if the above facts might accounted for...
• Durant el segle XIX es van fer...
• importants / altres / molts descobriments
• descobriments importants / altres / molts
• During the 19th century important / other / many
  discoveries were made

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (IV)

• Let as assume that noun and pronoun are different
  categories
• Some data support this view
• hem comprat ?(un / el) cotxe we bought one / the
  car
• hem comprat (un / el ) això we bought one /
  the this
• (n) hem comprat un we bought one
• (n) hem cogmprat aquest we bought this
• Plus, nouns have an inherent meaning pronouns
  acquire a meaning in context

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (V)

• Some other data may not be so helpful
• vam recórrer (tota) la zonaDEF de darrere
  els Alps we went through all that area behind
  the Alps
• (tot) allòDEF de darrere els Alps
  mencantaall that (part) behind the Alps
  delights me
• vam viatjar per (tot) PortugalDEF / (tota)
  GalíciaDEF we travelled all around Portugal
  / Galicia

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (VI)

• If noun and pronoun are the same category
• Which are the right tests?
• es va empassar // ha parlat mentides / això
• es va empassar // ha parlat molt
• es va empassar // ?ha parlat forçahe swallowed
  // talked (a)lies/this (b)a lot (c)quite
• Very similar structures have different
  explanations
• ha fet prouN has done enough
• ha fet prou N/Adv de feina has done enough of
  work
• ha fet una pilaNP de feina has done a pile of
  work

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (VII)

• Which is more prototypical as a noun modifier,
  the prepositional phrase
• rellotge de sorra? watch of sand
• això de sorra? this/that of sand
• molt / bastant de sorra? many/quite of sand
• Or the adjective
• en Joan menja plàtan madur? Joan eats banana
  ripe
• en Joan menja això madur? Joan eats this/that
  ripe
• en Joan menja molt madur? Joan eats many ripe

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Discussion of the reviewed proposals (VIII)

• And finally a piece of data that could cause some
  problems to the assumption of empty categories at
  the syntactic level of description (Dryer 2004)
• com està lassumpte de la casa? how is the issue
  of the house
• com està el de la casa? how is the of the house
• com està allò de la casa? how is that of the
  house
• com està allò assumpte de la casa? how is that
  issue of the house

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Outline

• Goals
• Reviewing the literature
• Discussion of the reviewed proposals
• Towards a new proposal
• Concluding remarks

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Towards a new proposal (I)

• Trying to
• get hold of only three categories Noun,
  Adjective and Determiner
• account for the data strictly from a
  morphosyntactic point of view
• rely on other levels of description when it seems
  advisable

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Towards a new proposal (II)

• Criteria that lexical items should meet in order
  to qualify as nouns
• Lexically determined gender
• Number inflection
• Co-occurrence with
• Determiners at their left hand side
• Adjectives either at their left or right-hand
  side
• The constituent they form will play among others
  one of the following syntactic roles subject,
  (in)direct object, preposition modifier, etc. in
  adequate discourse conditions
• Agree in number and gender with its modifiers
  (within the constituent)

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Towards a new proposal (III)

• Examples
• (El / La) nen va menjar poma
• Nens i nenes es van menjar (la) poma
• Una ampla capa de llana espessa (CTILC)
• En la qual s'uneixen natura i raó (CTILC)
• Moreover
• Això / El llibre més antic / de sobre la
  taula, on ho/el deso?
• El aixòDEF / llibre-DEF nou no magrada tant

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Towards a new proposal (IV)

• Criteria that lexical items should meet in order
  to qualify as adjectives
• Number and gender inflection
• Co-occurrence with a noun either at their left or
  right-hand side, the right-hand side being the
  canonical position
• If modifying a so-called indefinite determiner
  they require a preposition de between both
  elements
• Their feminine singular form can be used to
  derive adverbs finished in ment

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Towards a new proposal (V)

• Examples
• Durant el segle XIX es van fer importants / molts
  descobriments
• Durant el segle XIX es van fer descobriments
  importants / molts
• M'ha posat moltes mandarines fortes i poques
  (de) toves
• econòmicament, fortament, diversament,
  altrament...
• pocament, gensment, algunament, etc.

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Towards a new proposal (VI)

• Criteria that lexical items should meet in order
  to qualify as determiners
• Number and gender inflection
• Co-occurrence with nouns only at their left-hand
  side, preceding any other noun complement (thus
  cannot appear at their right-hand side)
• They might build constituents that will play
  among others one of the following syntactic
  roles subject, (in)direct object, preposition
  modifier, etc. in adequate discourse conditions

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Towards a new proposal (VII)

• Examples
• No els van faltar pocs / poques ocasions
• S'han espatllat ordinadors els / quatre /
  molts / nous
• Quatre / Els / Aquells / Pocs nous ordinadors
  s'han espatllat
• Nous quatre / els / aquells / pocs ordinadors
  s'han espatllat
• Nous / quatre / aquells / pocs s'han espatllat
• Els nous / de sota / que pitens'han espatllat

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Towards a new proposal (VIII)
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Towards a new proposal (IX)
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Outline

• Goals
• Reviewing the literature
• Discussion of the reviewed proposals
• Towards a new proposal
• Concluding remarks

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Concluding remarks (I)

• We propose a set of criteria for distinguishing
  three different categories noun, adjective and
  determiner
• These criteria are neutral as to decisions about
  the structure of the NP, the existence of empty
  categories, or the need for a DP
• We rely on non-syntactic criteria to explain
  phenomena that seem to demand it

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Concluding remarks (II)

• We overcome some of the inconsistencies of
  previous proposals by
• considering pronoun (or pro-form) a semantic
  category
• distinguishing adjectives from determiners
• allowing constituents where determiners appear
  with no noun to play a typical NP syntactic role
  (by now we said nothing about empty categories)

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Concluding remarks (III)

• For the future
• Determiners or adjectives
• Les altres tres noies són de Barcelona
• Tres altres noies són de Barcelona
• ?(Unes) altres tres noies són de Barcelona
• Determiners, nouns or adverbs?
• M'han fet molts (de) regals bonics i molts de
  lletjos
• M'han fet dotzenes de regals bonics i dotzenes de
  lletjos
• M'han fet dotzenes generoses de regals bonics
• M'han fet molts generosos (de) regals bonics

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Thanks for your attention

• Acknowledgements
• Thanks to Gemma Boleda, Àngel Gil and Louise
  McNally for their comments and judgments

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Trash.....

• What properties do these items share?
• jo, tu, ell, nosaltres, vosaltres, ells
• això, açò, allò, aquí, allà, on, quan, com
• ne, hi, ho, me, te, se, nos, vos, el, la, els,
  les, li