Tools for Analyzing the Worlds Languages Ch. 9: Obliques

1
Tools for Analyzing the Worlds Languages Ch.
9 Obliques

• LING 3340 - GRAMMAR AND MORPHOLOGY
• Spring 2008 (class 8)

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Obliques

• If we think about syntax as a story
• The clause is the movie
• The verb is the plot
• the subject, DO, IO are all main characters
• The remainder of the clause
• supplies information about
• the 2nddary characters
• the setting,
• and the manner in wh/ the main characters carry
  out the plot

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The Secondary Characters

• The phrases which express the secondary
  information are often called OBLIQUES.
• any of the phrases w/I a clause other than the
  Su, DO, IO, or V B. p93.
• Obliques usually express a wider range of meaning
  than SUs and Objs.
• See Bick. p94 for examples

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The Secondary Characters

• See Bick. p94 for examples
• Secondary Chars.
• Benefactive
• Accompaniment
• Instrument
• Setting.
• Time
• Location (of an entire event)
• Location of Part (e.g. verbs of motion)
• Source (starting point)
• Path
• Goal (endpoint)
• Abstract qualities (attitudes)
• Manner
• (also se CH 22 for more)

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9.3 Syntactic structures

• All languages have some way of expressing the
  previous list of ideas.
• There can be a variety of structures used to
  express any one idea
• WHEN YOU ANALYZE A PARTICULAR LANGUAGE
• you need to examine ITS grammatical structures
  and THEN determine for each structure what range
  of meanings it can convey.

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Internal Structure

• The internal structure of obliques is far more
  important than their distribution for
  establishing their syntactic category.

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Pre/Post-postion

• very commonly PPs are used for obliques.
• (remember that the only difference between a
  preposition and a postpostion is where the P
  appears in reference to the NP it links to the
  rest of the clause. The P is always the Head and
  the NP is always the Obj of P)
• However they are (as you recall) also used for
• to indicate possesson
• indirect objects
• and in some cases DOs

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Pre/Post-postion

• A general rule of thumb is that lnaguages tend
  to package NPs with attached pre/post-positions
  (or PP ? P NP) in the following ranking
• SU, DO, IO, Oblique
• NP PP

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Pre/Post-postion

• The Preposition play a pivotal role b/c it
  signals the relationship of the NP to the rest of
  the clause.
• The preposition indicates the GR or meaning of
  the phrase
• to Athrur IO or Goal
• for A Benefactive
• with A Accompaniment
• on A Location
• through A Path

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Pre/Post-postion

• The Noun also can be a factor since many
  prepostions can be used to express more than one
  meaning
• in three minutes Time
• in the candy dish Loc
• in a huff Manner

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See Swahili examples. p96

• kwa muda mrefu TIME
• for period long (lit)
• for a long time
• katika chumba kikubwa kile GOAL
• into room large that (lit)
• (he entered) into that large room
• others
• Source kutoka from
• Instrument kwa with X-instrument
• manner kwa with X-attitude

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REMEMBER

• when you are analyzing obliques, you have to
  examine each structures range of uses and
  compile a list of its different meanings.
• It is often impossible to translate obliques in
  a literal word-for-word fashion.
• You MUST determine what the oblique means, then
  find a suitable structure in the target language
  that expresses the same idea.

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More Obliques

• NPs can also be used to express OBLIQUE meaning
  in some languages
• Swahili and others, uses NPs to express oblique
  meaning such as Benefactive, Time, and other
  spatial relationships (Loc, Path, Goal).
• These NPs are generally Bare NP because there
  is nothing linking it to the rest of the clause.

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More Obliques

• example 24. p.97
• Fatuma huenda msikiti-ni ijumaa
• Fatuma she.goes mosque-Loc Friday
• Fatuma goes to the mosque on Fridays.
• (notice the suffix ni on the NP msikiti)
• see also examples 25, 26. Compare the meaning of
  -ni in these 3 examples.

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Special Affixes

• in some langugaes affixes are attached to certain
  oblique NPs to indicate their meaning w/I the
  clause
• (This is a type of case marking that marks the
  oblique instead of a core Grammatical Relation.)
• These affixes function like a preposition by
  Linking the NP to the clause

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Relational Noun

• Relational Ns are used to express
  prepositional ideas (particularly used with
  respect to location
• example 27
• Siwezi kufika ngambo ya mto ule
• i.not.able to.arrive far.side of river that
• I cannot go across that river
• literally (arrive at the far side of)
• example 28 Palauan only has one preposition and
  it doesnt really have any meaning all the
  meaning is in the RelNs

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Adverb Phrases

• Sometimes you will hear obliques referred to as
  Adverbials or Adverbial Phrases. names which
  are from the traditional concept that an adverb
  modifies anything other than a noun.
• Most Obliques do function as a type of modifier
  and some are actually adverbs.
• However, we dont want to confuse true AdvPs
  with Obliques most of which are not adverbs but
  rather NPs and PPs.
• Furthermore many true Adverbs cannot be used as
  obliques

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Adverb Phrases

• The core Adv. group can be called true adverbs
  and consist of words that (in English) can be
  modified by degree words.
• e.g. possibly, quickly, well, far
• Examples that are not adverbs
• are Degree words, Negation , Time/Location
• see B. discussion on example 31,32.
• other words that are not true advs
• here, there, now, then. yesterday

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Adj. and Adv.

• Both adjectives and adverbs can be modified by
  degree phrases, to form APs and AdvPs.
• AP AdvP
• very slow very slowly
• quite complete quite completely
• etc.
• AP ? (DegP) A
• AdvP ? (DegP) Adv

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AdvPs as Obliques

• Adverb phrases are commonly used as obliques to
  express manner
• occasionally they are used to express time and
  location.
• He woke up (too) late and missed the bus.

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Idiomatic Phrases

• Some if not all languages have a limited set of
  idiomatic phrases that are used as obliques
• Things that are learned as chunks
• at/in college, at/in school vs.
• at/in the college, at/in the school
• in jail vs. in the jail
• (Brit Eng) in hospital
• last night vs. the/a last night

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Idiomatic Phrases

• Because of these irregularities idioms should not
  be generated by the PSRs which are used to
  express regularities or generalities about
  phrase structure
• They are isolated idiosyncratic phrases
• They are generally though to exist in the LEXICON
  as a unit
• Before declaring something an idiom it is
  important to have a fairly complete analysis of
  the whole language (to spot exceptions).

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Unmodifiable Single Words

• Certain obliques consist of single words wh/
  cannot take any modifiers.
• Commonly these indicate time or spacial
  relationships (loc, goal, source)
• Typically they have meanings like
• here, there, to here, from there, now, then and
  possibly others like
• yesterday, noon, home

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Unmodifiable Single Words

• Traditionally these are called adverbs but
  since they are NOT MUTUALLY SUBSTUTABLE for true
  adverbs they must be in some other category.
• Since these UMWs consisit of a small closed
  class that can function as a whole phrase
• We can use the same convention that we did for
  Pronouns (pro-NPs)
• Thus treat them as pro-PPs, pro-AdvPs and
  list them under the heading that best describes
  how they work PP, or AdvP

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Analyzing UMWs

• The analysis of obliques into phrase categories
  must be considered tentative since we have not
  had the opportunity to test these words to see if
  they can be modified or so see what syntactic
  characteristics they might share with NPs, PPs,
  
• Remember that while meaning can be useful in
  forming a hypothesis, it is generally not a good
  justification for a syntactic analysis.

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Analyzing Obliques

• Most obliques will fit into three categories
• PP, NP, or AdvP.
• Other types of expressions may include
• Idiomatic expressions that are still recognizable
  as one of the primary categories but dont quite
  fit all the rules that normally apply
• Single words wh/ are never modified and which
  have the same distribution as one or more of the
  primary categories above
• Generally these two types should be assigned in
  the lexicon to one of the main 3 categories

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Tricks/Tips to build a hypothesis

• see Bickford p.103 46!
• a. through g.
• remember there is no neat
• one-to-one relationship between different
  structures used for obliques in a language and
  their meaning.
• Furthermore you will not find neat
  correspondences between two languages either, so
  make sure you analyze the LANGUAGE not the
  GLOSSES!

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Tool for analysis

• see chart on pg. 103 47.
• as you make hypotheses about the different
  obliques you find, you may find it useful to
  construct a chart to keep track of which
  structures are used for which oblique meanings.

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Distribution of Obliques

• What about the position of the oblique in the
  clause?
• Often obliques occur outside of the objects.
• that is the object is generally closer to verb
  than the oblique is.
• Generally multiple obliques can occur in any
  order amongst themselves.
• 51 and 52 (a) and (b).

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Distribution of Obliques

• There may also be more thatn one place where
  obliques can occur
• e.g. fronting (in Eng.)
• Last night,
• (Fronting and other transformation rules
  covered in ch. 15)

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Complement vs. Adjunct

• Most Obliques serve as modifiers w/i a clause.
• Most can freely co-occur with all types of verbs
  (unlike DO and IO).
• the presence of most obliques is neither ruled
  out nor required by any verb!

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Complement vs. Adjunct

• A basic distinction is usually drawn between
  those phrases that are required by particular
  verbs and those that are optional
• Those that are REQUIRED (such as DO IO) are
  called COMPLEMENTS
• Those that freely occur with all verbs are
  called ADJUNCTS
• Required phrases are those that appear in the
  verbs particular SUBCATEGORIZATION

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In traditional grammar

• A verb is said to govern a complement
• The general assumption is that verbs can only
  govern items w/i their own clause
• MOST (but not all) obliques are adjuncts
• Some Obliques expressing Source, path, and goal
  (particularly in English) are required by some
  verbs and cannot be used with others.

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Fronting

• In English Adjuncts can move to the front of a
  clause, but complements cannot.
• ? this movement is not a property for Obliques

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Relationship among terms

• Normally Normally
• Complements Adjuncts
• Agent Source Benefactive
• Experiencer Goal Accompaniment
• Patient Path Instrument
• Theme Time
• Recipient Location
• Addressee Manner
• Expressed with Expressed with
• GRs (Su,DO,IO) Obliques

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Constituent Order Universals

• Guidelines on making predictions about
  constituent order
• Two types of languages
• HEAD-INITIAL
• HEAD-FINAL
• Languages TEND to desire phrases to have the
  same ordering all of one or all of the other.
• SEE Bickford p.106 61

37

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