Elective DP 4

8/9/2019 Elective DP 4

1/10

1

ELECTIVE DP 4 - Fall semester 2014

Mihaela Tnase-Dogaru

Pseudo-partitive constructions

0. Questions

1.

are there any classifiers in plural languages, i.e. in languages with plural morphology?2. if so, how can we characterize their status, i.e. functional, lexical or semi-lexical and their role?3. do classifiers project universally, i.e. is there enough evidence to support a classifier projection in all

languages? If it is the case that all languages have a classifier projection, then what I will have to determineis the relation between the Classifier Phrase and the Number Phrase.

1. Classifiers

- according to the way they express grammatical number, languages fall into two categories:1. classifier languages, i.e. languages with a classifier morpheme ranging over the noun (areal feature oflanguages in Asia and Southeast Asia). Because classifiers are obligatory with numerals in every language inwhich they occur, they are traditionally analyzed as individuating, i.e. identifying countable entities.

2. languages with plural morphologythe absence of plural marking correlates with the absence of number inflection:

(1) a. Qianmian turan tiao chulai yi zhi laohuFront suddenly jump out one CL tigersuddenly a tiger jumped out in front of us

b. Ta mai le yi zhuang fangzihe buy.perf.aspone CL house

- in traditional analysis, classifiers were considered a subclass of measure phrases, which provide units ofmensuration. According to Li (2000), the term classifier is due to the fact that the measure word was felt to

perform both the function of revealing some characteristics of the entity designated by the noun and that of

categorizing nouns into classes. Chen (2003) also notes that nouns in a language like Chinese have their ownspecial sortal classifiers, which indicate in a suggestive manner, the shape, texture, function etc. of the entities

designated by the nouns they are used with. For instance the special classifier for pen in Chinese is zhi, literallybranch suggesting the shape of the pen; the special classifier for table is zhang, literally stretched, spread

suggesting the function of the table.

- in languages with plural morphology, such measure phrases are required by mass nouns in order to becountable, i.e. in order to be rendered countable, mass nouns need to be individuated (2):

(2) a. two grains of sand / three drops of whisky / a loaf of breadb. dou boabe de orez / trei pahare de lapte / un cub de zahrtwo grains of rice / three glasses of milk / a cube of sugar

question: are these measure words/ partitive expressions/ amount quantifiers the same as classifiers in Chinese?- recall that the major difference is that classifiers in Chinese are required both for what is generally called

mass nouns (like rice, water, etc) and for count nouns (pen, book, etc) while in languages like Englishthey are required only for mass nouns. Another difference: in languages with plural morphology, mass nouns canreceive plural suffixes in order to become countable as an alternative to classifier inflection, while in Chinesethey cannot.

(3) two sugars / three teas / many saltsdou zaharuri / trei ceaiuri / multe sruri


2/10

2

at least a category of nouns in Romanian and English can be seen as performing the job of classifiers, i.e. N 1in quantitative pseudo-partitives.

1.1. Classifying Classifiers

- classifiers can be divided into two classes (cf. Cheng and Sybesma, 1999 and references there):a. classifiers that create a unit of measure

(4) a. san ping jiuthree bottle liquorthree bottles of liquor

b. san ba mithree handful ricethree handfuls of ricec. san wan tangthree bowl soupthree bowls of soup

b. classifiers that name the unit in which the entity denoted by the noun naturally occurs

(5) a. san ge renthree CL people three persons

b. san zhi bithree CL penthree pensc. san ben shuthree CL bookthree books

- the first type of classifiers = massifiers; second = count-classifiers.- distinctions between massifiers and classifiers:

a. massifiers allow the appearance of a modification marker de, which may intervene in the [massifier + N]sequence, while count-classifiers do not (6).

b. massifiers allow the modification of the massifier head with a limited number of adjectives (da / big, xiao /small), while count-classifiers do not (7):

(6) a. san bang (de) routhree CL pounds DE meat

b. liang xiang (de) shutwo CL box DE book

(7) a. yi da zhang zhi

one big CL-sheet paperb. *yi da zhi gouone big CL dog

the count-mass distinction is lexically encoded on Chinese nouns; the noun has a mass denotation and isinserted in the structure where the massifier or count-classifier takes over the job of encoding divisibility.

- what about classifiers in English and Romanian? Do they behave like Chinese massifiers?-both English and Romanian massifiers allow markers of nominal boundary of and de respectively (8a) andallow modificat ion by adjectives (8b):


3/10

3

(8) a. three pounds of meata. trei kilograme de carnethree kilos of meat

b. a big sheet of paperb. o foaie mare de hrtiea sheet big of papera big sheet of paper

- both features seem to point to the fact that massifiers involve a distinct projection, headed by a semi-lexicalitem, which can be modified.

2. Classifiers and Pseudo-Partitives2.1. Partitive vs. Pseudo-Partitive Constructions

English classification (Selkirk 1977): partitives : a group of the students / a bottle of the wine pseudo-partitives: quantitative: a group of students / a bottle of wine

qualitative (binominal): an idiot of a doctor

In Romanian, the part-of relation is expressed by means of the prepositions dintre (from among), din(from) and de (of). According to tefnescu (1997), the important linguistic fact is tha t these different

prepositions c-select NPs with different syntactic properties. Dintre c -selects definite plural NPs, while dec-selects mass nouns or bare plurals. In the same framework, the differences in c-selection account for thesyntactic properties of partitive phrases.

Expressions conveying the part-of relation in Romaniancan be classified as: partitive expressions:

dintre partitives: o parte dintre studeni / a part from-among students unul dintre studenii lui / one from-among students-the his

din partitives: o parte din vin / a part from wineo sticl din vinul acela / a bottle from wine -the that

pseudo-partitive expressions: o bucat de pine / a piece of bread

- the main semantic difference between partitive and pseudo-partitive expressions in Romanian is the fact that,with partitive constructions, N2 denotes a definite or delimited domain, while with pseudo-partitiveconstructions, N2 refers to an indefinite or unrestricted domain.- the main difference between the two types of partitives proper in Romanian relates to the fact that dintre

partitives always select a definite plural DP, while din partitives select both definite plural DPs (o parte dinstudeni / a part of students) and mass nouns (o parte din ap / a part of water).- the oldest partitive preposition in Romanian is de. Partitive deis attested in old Romanian before partitive dinis

formed out of de(of) and n (in):

(9) a. una de smbete (Dicionarul limbii romne 1913, quoted in Gramatica Academiei 2005) one of Saturdays

b. carele de noiwhich-the of uswhich of us


4/10

4

c. numai o parte de nemi supui n-au fost (cf. N. Costin in Dicionarul enciclopedic ilustrat, 1926-1931,quoted in Hristea 1984)only a part of Germans obedient not-have beenonly a part of the Germans were not obedient

- gradually, partitive dinreplaced partitive de:

(10)

Aici vede omul adesea dealuri, din ca re unele sunt cu pduri (cf. D. Golescu in Dicionarul limbiiromne literare contemporane 1955-1957, quoted in Hristea 1984)

Here sees man-the often hills, from which some-the are with forestsHere you can often see hills, some of which are full of forests

- in modern Romanian, there is a competition between partitive dinand partitive dintrewhich is formed out ofthe combination of two prepositions: de (of) and ntre (among). There are some Romanian grammarians whoargue in favor of the view that partitive din loses ground in favor of dintre (see Hristea 1984), since din is

believed to be the older of the two.- this competition can be explained by the fact that dintreand dinboth select definite plural DPs However, dindiffers from dintrebecause it can also select mass nouns:

(11)

O parte din / dintre studeni sunt furioi.A part from / from-among students are furious.a part of the students are furious

b. O parte din / *dintre vin s-a vrsat.A part from / from-among wine se-has spilled a part of the wine has been spilled.

- what sets pseudo-partitives in Romanian apart from partitive constructions is the fact that they take anNP-complement, i.e. N2 denotes an indefinite or unrestricted domain:

(12) o parte dintre studenii mei au plecata part from-among students-the my have left

a part of my students have leftb. o parte din studenii mei au plecat

a part from students-the my have lefta part of my students have leftc. o parte de studeni (*i mei au plecat)a part of students-*the my have lefta part of my students have left

- in some languages (Fino-Ugric), the partitive is a case encoding the part-of relation. In Latin, the partitive is avalue of the genitive case as in parum frumenti/ very little wheat. The inflectional partitive has been graduallyreplaced by prepositional means of indicating the part-of relation. One can speak about a surviving partitivevalue in French as in boire du lait / drink part. milk, where du is a partitive article. In Romanian, the plural

indefinite article can have a partitive value as in mnnc nite pine / eat 1st.ps.sg. some bread(see Dicionar detiine ale limbii, 1997). - there is a close connection between the genitive case and the partitive case / value. In Romanian there are

several types of genitives: AL-genitives, bare genitives and DE-genitives. If the genitive DP is a bare NP, theassigner is the preposition deas in pierderea de viei omeneti / loss-the of lives human (cf. Cornilescu 2003).Recall that de is the same preposition used in Romanian pseudo-partitive constructions. Therefore, in olderstages of Romanian, the preposition dewas involved in expressing both the genitive and the partitive (see aboveexamples). Gradually, the two specialized partitive prepositions have emerged and dehas become a functional

preposition marking the boundary between the lexical and the semi-lexical or functional domains of the nominalgroup.


5/10

5

- it is also interesting to notice that in Slavic languages, numerals above five assign genitive case to thenominals they quantify (cf. Franks 2005), as in pjat main pod exalo k vokzalu / five cars.gen drove-up.n to

station. In Romanian, numerals above twenty select a de -complement as in douzeci de studeni / twenty ofstudents, which can be related to the Slavic genitive. In UG, the pseudo-partitive and the partitive are twosemantic values of the Genitive Case.

2.2. Classifiers and Mass Nouns

- in languages with plural morphology, classifiers are required with mass nouns; they individuate a certainportion of the stuff designated by the mass noun. Alternative designations for classifiers: measure phrases,amount quantifiers, partitive expressions or quantifying nouns (see Longman Grammar 1999).- classifiers are functional nouns to various degrees, as we are going to prove for Romanian and English in thissection. In (13) there are some preliminary examples of Romanian classifiers used with mass nouns and in (14)classifiers used with abstract nouns:

(13) o pictur de snge a drop of bloodun strop de vina drop of wineo nghiitur de whisky a mouthful of whisky

(14) un act de onoarean act of honor

o dovad de curaja proof of courageun semn de via a proof of life (lit. a sign of life)

- according to the criterion of degrees of semi-lexicality of the noun functioning as N1 in a pseudo-partitiveconstruction, Vos (1999) distinguishes six subtypes of such classifiers, taking into account their agreement

patterns and their inherent descriptive content:

(15) a. een aantal voorbeeldenquantifier nouna number examples

b. drie liter melkmeasure nounthree liter(s) milkc. een snee broodpart noun

a slice breadd. die krat biercontainer noun

that case beere. een kudde olifantencollective noun

a herd elephantsf. vijf soorten zoogdierenkind nounfive types mammals

- it is not clear whether this classification (or any other, for that matter) is exhaustive and it is often difficult todecide to which particular class a certain N1belongs.- another classification of N1in pseudo-partitives is provided by Stavrou (2003) for Greek:

(16)

a. ekatosti, duzina cardinal nouna hundred, dozen

b. zevgari, arithmos quantifier-like noun

pair, numberc. kuti, bukali container nouns

box, bottled. plithos collective / group nounscrowde. buketo, matsaki consistive / material nouns

bunch, small prig


6/10

6

f. kilomeasure / unit noung. komati, feta partitive noun

piece, slice

- some noun classes, such as a, b, and f, are clearly closed classes, as they cannot freely register new members,while the rest of the classes allow creative use as in tria tsigara dromos= three cigarettes way (meaning adistance that takes the smoking of three cigarettes to be covered).- Romanian classifiers, i.e. N1in pseudo-partitive constructions fall into several classes, according to their degreeof semi-lexicality:

a) UNIT NOUNS:un act de justiie an act of justiceun gest de omeniea gesture of kindnesso prob de onestitate a proof of honestyun gest de afeciune a sign of affectiono adiere de speran a breeze of hopeo pild de onestitate a of honestyo not de optimism a note of optimismun puseu de febr an access of fever

un acces de geloziea flight of jealousyo frntur de vorb a piece of talko spoial de cultur a little culture (lit. a patina of culture)o urm de mila trace of mercyo frm de noroc a speck of luckun izvor de bucuriea spring of joy

b) CONTAINER NOUNS

un pahar de vorb a glass of talkun pumn de nisipa handful of sand (lit. a fist of sand)un pahar de uleia glass of oil

o ceac deceaia cup of teaun car de oalea cart of pots

o damigean de viinat a keg of cherry brandyun butoi de uic a barrel of tzuika o lad de bere a crate of beero canistr de benzin a canister of gaso sticl de vin a bottle of wineo can de lapte a mug of milkun oi de coniac a (long-necked) glass of cognaco mn de mlai a handful of maize (lit. a hand of maize)

c) MEASURE NOUNS

un dram de speran a grain of hopeun dram de onoarea grain of honor

un dram de noroca grain of luckun lingou de aura bar of goldo bucat de lemn a piece of woodo mbuctur de mncare a gulp of foodo duc de uic a taste of tzuikao gur de ap a sip of water (lit. a mouth of water)o palm de pmnt a plot of land (lit. a palm of land)


7/10

7

o legtur de ceap a bundle of onionsun cocean de porumba cob of cornun snop de grua bundle of wheato claie de pr a head of hair (lit. a stack of hair)o funie de usturoia bunch of garlic (lit. a rope of garlic)un vrf de sare / pipera sprinkle of salt / pepper (lit. a tip of salt)un calup de brnz a block of cheeseun drob de sarea rock of salto vadr de vin a barrel of wineo dubl de porumb a sack of corn (lit. a double of corn)un deget de whiskya shot of whisky (lit. a finger of whisky) o halb de bere a pint of beerun litru de vina litre of wineun metru de materiala meter of fabricun kilogram de unta kilo of buttero ton de aluminiu a ton of aluminium

d) SHAPE NOUNS

o raz de speran a ray of hopeo und de speran a ray of hope (lit. a wave of hope)un val de entuziasma wave of enthusiasmun bob de fasole - a grain of beansun bob de rou a grain of dewun bob de nut a grain of chick-peao frunz de ceap an onion (lit. a leaf of onion)un fir de ceap an onion (lit. a stick of onion)o frunz de salat a lettuce (lit. a leaf of lettuce)o raz de lumin a ray of lighto gean de lumin a ray of light ( lit. an eyelash of light)un vltuc de cea a cloud of smoke

e) CARDINAL NOUNS

O duzin de animale a dozen of animals

O sut de cri a hundred of books O mie de problemea thousand of booksUn milion de minunia million of wonders

f) QUANTIFIER NOUNS

O pereche de mnui a pair of glovesO pereche de pantalonia pair of trousers

Un numr de studeni number of studentsO grmad de cri a pile of books

g) KIND NOUNSDou tipuri de celenterate two kinds of coelenteratesUn fel de brnz a type of cheeseO categorie de substantivea category of nounsO specie de cactusa species of cactusO clas de obiecte a class of objects


8/10

8

4. Quantity and Quality

question: is there any structural difference between a bottle of wineand an idiot of a doctor?

- the rule of predicate raising was applied to the domain of copular sentences and was characterized asA-movement of a predicate to subject position, around the subject (Moro 1997) in a lower position. For copularconstructions like these, it has been argued that they underlyingly feature a small clause (SC) in the complementof the copula be, a head triggering raising to subject position of a constituent contained within the small clause(Stowell 1981).

(17) John is the best candidate.The best candidate is John.

(18) a. [IP be [XP John X [Pred the best candidate]]] (cf. Bennis et al., 1998) b. [IP Johni be [XP tiX[Pred the best candidate]]]c. [IP the best candidatej be [XP John X [Pred tj]]]

PI sometimes requires the obligatory presence of the copula (19a), a phenomenon which is likened to theobligatory presence of the functional preposition of in inverse nominal structures (19b) the preposition

of = a nominal copula:

(19) a. I consider John (to be) the best candidate / I consider the best candidate *(to be) John.b. The village is like a jewel / the jewel *(of) a village

SO, the next step was the application of this rule to the nominal domain - the application of predicate inversionto the nominal domain has mainly concerned itself with binominal qualitative constructions, or N of an Nconstructions.

(20) that barge of a woman (ex. from Den Dikken 2006)some rotten little fig of a human being a colorless mouse of a woman

some shrinking violet of a civil servant

4.1. Predicate Inversion

Starting from Moros studies of predicate inversion in equative sentences and Den Dikkens idea of predicatemovement within nominal phrases for qualitative predicates such as idiotin that idiot of a doctor, Corver (1998)extends this framework to nouns denoting quantity or measure in pseudo-partitive constructions such as a bunchof flowers a bottle of wine.

In the structure in (21), LP is the raising predicate and XP is the SC containing the predicate and its subject. TheSC head, X, undergoes a domain extending movement to a higher head (the head in whose specifier position the

predicate lands) in order to render the position Spec XP and Spec FP equidistant from the extraction site of thepredicate.


9/10

9

(21) FP2

SPEC FLP

J 2

a bottle F0 XP

an idiot X

i

+ F 2

of Spec X

wine2

a doctor X0 LP

ti

tj

F is the syntactic reflex of the (verbal and nominal) copula and is necessarily included in the structure wheneverpredicate inversion takes place for purely structural reasons i.e. to avoid violations of Minimality restrictions.- the nouns are related by the relation of predication. It follows that in the structure a bottle of wine, the measurenoun bottle is base-generated as a predicate whose subject is the measuree water, while the preposition of is thenominal counterpart of the copula.

BUT: what compels the predicate to raise? Is there any strong feature to check?

Den Dikken (2006) argues that the raising of the predicate is driven by a property of the raised predicate, i.e. thefact that it has an empty head. This empty predicate head is in need of licensing and predicate inversion is themechanism that satisfies this need. For qualitative binominal structures (a jewel of a child), he argues that theempty predicate head structurally encodes a semantic aspect of comparison (the child is compared to a jewel)and can be paraphrased as SIMILAR.

What do you think about his solution?

Starting from the observation that in both quantitative and qualitative constructions, agreement can be triggered

by the element preceding of or by the element following of, i.e. by either N1or N2, Doetjes and Rooryck (2003)correlate this difference in agreement with differences in the interpretive nature of the quantitative/qualitativeelement.

(22) Quantitativea. Beaucoup de livres sont / *est tomb(s)A lot of books are / is fallen

b. Une montagne de livres *sont / est tombea mountain of books are / is fallen

(23) Qualitative (ex. from Hulk and Tellier 1999)a. Ton phnomne de fille est distrait*(e)Your phenomenon.MASCof daughter.FEMis absent-minded.FEM/*MASC

b. Ce bijou dglise romane a t reconstruit(*e)That jewel.MASCof roman church.FEM rebuilt.MASC/*FEM

(24) The quantitative / qualitative agreement principleIn quantitative / qualitative constructions, the quantified / qualified element determines agreement if thequantifier / qualifier has a pure degree interpretation of quantity / quality = the degree interpretation The quantifier / qualifier determines agreement iff the relation between the quantified / qualified noun andthe quantifier / qualifier is paraphrasable in terms of a comparison in which the quantifier / qualifier keeps itslexical interpretation = the comparative interpretation


10/10

10

The pure degree interpretation is tobe found in contexts such as (22a) in which beaucoup has completely lostits original lexical meaning and indicates a quantity of high degree. In (22b), however, montagne still retains partof its lexical meaning and its relation with the quantified element can be paraphrased in terms of comparison: thequantity of books is such that it resembles a mountain .

The same holds of qualitative constructions. In (23a) ton phnomne has completely lost its original meaningand it expresses a high degree of quality. In (23b), bijou still retains part of its lexical meaning and its relation tothe qualified element is paraphrasable in terms of comparison: the quality of the church is such that it resemblesa jewel.

This difference in interpretation is assumed to spring from different syntactic structures. Thus, the comparativeconstruction is analyzed along the lines of predicate inversion; predicate inversion is seen as a syntactic reflex ofthe paraphrasability of these constructions in terms of comparison.The analysis has the great merit of offering a uniform treatment of the data; another element for which itdeserves credit is the intuition that some distinctions must be operated within the class of quantifying (orqualifying nouns). Not all quantifying nouns behave the same with respect to agreement phenomena, a case in

point being collective nouns used as N1in pseudo-partitives.

What this framework cannot account for is the fact that, more often than not, there is variation in agreement with

the same qualifiers / quantifiers:

(25) a. Ce bijou dglise romane a t reconstruit(*e) (cf. Hulk and Tellier, 1999) That jewel.MASCof roman church.FEM rebuilt.MASC/*FEM

b. Ce bijou de Marie est absolument exquis *(e)that jewel.MASC of Marie.FEM is absolutely marvellous.FEM/*MASC

(26) a. Une foule dtudiants est / *sont dans le couloir (cf. Doetjes and Rooryck, 2003) A crowd of students is / are in the hallway

b. Une foule dtudiants se sont / *sest succd1.

A crowd of students have.PL / *SGcome in one after the other.c. Une foule de problmes se sont / *sest produit *(s) A crowd of problems have.PL / *SGoccurred.

The examples are interpreted in terms of degree of animacy, i.e. a comparison between animate and inanimate

entities cannot be interpreted as a true comparison, thus favoring a pure degree interpretation.WHAT ABOUT (27)?

(27) a. Un grup de studeni au cerut nvoire. (Romanian) A group of students have asked leave

b. Un grup de studeni a cerut nvoire.A group of students has asked leave.

we will adopt Doetjes and Roorycks intuition of a difference between a pure degree or grammaticalized useof quantifiers and a less grammaticalized or lexical use of quantifiers. We will depart from this framework,

however, in that this difference is not ascribed to major differences in syntactic structure but to differentsyntactic status of the quantifier: functional or semi-lexical.

1 Se succdr requires a plural subject, so there are independent considerations which accou nt for the ill-formedness of(10b)

Documents

Elective DP 4