In previous chapters we have discussed several means of altering the form of verbs and nouns to shape the semantic force of the concepts they express. In every language there exist as well different ways of combining basic lexical items, such as verbs, to form more complex expressions. In this chapter we will discuss several construction types that involve combinations of verbs.

Most of the multi-verb constructions described in this chapter involve one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. An independent clause is one that is fully inflected and capable of being integrated into discourse on its own (see section 2.2 on inflectional morphology). A dependent clause is one that depends on some other clause for at least part of its inflectional information. For example, in the following example, clause (b) is dependent on clause (a) because the subject and tense of clause (b) are only understood via the subject and tense of clause (a):

(1) (a) He came in, (b) locking the door behind him.

Clause (b) by itself does not qualify as a fully inflected clause, able to be integrated into discourse on its own. Sometimes fully inflected verbs are called finite verbs, whereas dependent verbs are termed non-finite. However, this distinction must be understood as a continuum, as some verbs are dependent in one respect, but independent in another. Thus we may talk about one verb being more finite or less finite than another.

The present chapter will be organized according to six general types of multiple verb constructions: (1) serial verbs, (2) complement clauses, (3) adverbial clauses, (4) clause chains, (5) relative clauses, and (6) coordination. These six construction types are arranged in such a way that the earlier ones represent the highest degree of grammatical integration between two verbs, whereas the later ones represent the lowest degree of grammatical integration. Another way of describing this arrangement is in terms of a continuum in which one end is a single clause, and the other end is two grammatically distinct clauses. A given language may possess any number of construction types that fall somewhere in between these extremes.

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I have written of the causes of the decline [decadenza] in the affairs of Spain, of the measures required for its recovery [per riordinarla], of the interests of the princes who are pretenders to that crown, and of the ease with which the prince who attains it may move towards making himself lord of the world [per insignorirsi del mondo]; not in order to favour a government as damaging to good customs and destructive of the general happiness of men, as one which is universal [un universale], and as are all governments, whether republics or monarchies, whose greatness rests on excessive wealth and power: but rather by putting all the other princes and states on their guard against whoever should pursue that ambition, to frustrate such a design, and spare the world from so much ruin. Following this line of reasoning it should be easy to show which are the best governments, which nourish the virtues [le virtu] and are of most benefit to mankind; as also to show how great an opportunity the subjects of the Spanish crown will have on the death of their King to gain those advantages, and to enjoy the benefits of peace, of liberty and of good government.

Discourse

The Empire of Spain [I'lmperio di Spagna] is so well adapted to be the foundation of that of the world that when the present King dies, an event which his ill-health makes likely within a few years, perhaps a few months, if from among all the pretenders to an empire [imperio] which is disordered rather than ruined and undone, there succeeds a wise and vigorous prince, it is most unlikely that he will restrain his ambitions. I have therefore undertaken to discuss the interests of the princes who are pretenders to the crown of Spain; the decline in the affairs of that country, and the means which will be necessary to revive it [riordinarla] and to fit it to acquire the empire of the world [I'imperio del mondo].

The first discourse

No inclination is so honourable, nor has any thing been so much esteemed in all nations, and ages, as the love of that country and society in which every man is born. And those who have placed their greatest satisfaction in doing good, have accounted themselves happy, or unfortunate, according to the success of their endeavours to serve the interest of their country. For nothing can be more powerful in the minds of men, than a natural inclination and duty concurring in the same disposition.

Nature in most men prevails over reason; reason in some prevails over nature: but when these two are joined, and a violent natural inclination finds itself owned by reason, required by duty, encouraged by the highest praises, and excited by the most illustrious examples, sure that force must be irresistible. Constrained by so great a force, and the circumstances of my affairs not allowing me to be otherwise serviceable to my country, I have in the following discourse given my opinion concerning divers matters of importance, which probably may be debated in the approaching session of parliament. I shall be very well satisfied, if any thing I say do afford a hint that may be improved by men of better judgment to the publick good. I hope I shall not be blamed, for giving my opinion in matters of publick concernment; since ’tis the right and duty of every man to write or speak his mind freely in all things that may come before any parliament; to the end that they who represent the nation in that assembly, may be truly informed of the sentiments of those they represent. Besides, we are now no more under those tyrannical reigns in which it was a crime to speak of publick affairs, or to say that the king had received bad counsel in any thing. If in this discourse I argue against some things, which perhaps may not be proposed in the ensuing session of parliament; they are neverthe- less such as persons in publick trust have in their conversation given just cause to think they were designed.

Every language has clauses that express proper inclusion, equation, attribution, location, existence, and possession (defined below). Sometimes this “family” of constructions is collectively referred to as predicate nominals. However, in this book we will use this term in a more specific sense, reserving it for those clauses in which the semantic content of the predication is embodied in a noun. This definition distinguishes predicate nominals from similar constructions such as predicate adjectives, predicate locatives, and others. The following discussion will define this family of clause types using preliminary examples from English. Section 6.1 will describe each type in more detail, providing a typology of the various ways languages are known to form these clause types.

The following is an example of a predicate nominal clause in English:

(1) Frieda is a teacher.

In this construction the predicate is is a teacher, and the main semantic content of this predicate is embodied in the noun teacher. The verb is (a form of be) simply specifies the relationship between Frieda and teacher and carries the tense/aspect and person/number information required of independent predications in English. Sometimes the noun phrase a teacher is called “the predicate nominal” or even “the nominal predicate” of the clause. In this discussion, the term predicate nominal will normally refer to the entire clause.

Predicate adjectives are clauses in which the main semantic content is expressed by an adjective. If the language lacks a grammatical-category of adjective, there will be no grammatically distinct predicate adjective construction (see section 3.3.1 on how to identify adjectives as a grammatical category). Semantically, these clause types can be described as attributive clauses:

(2) John is tall.

My car is green.

Existential constructions predicate the existence of some entity, usually in some specified location:

(3) There is a bee in your bonnet.

There is a book on the table.

Both text and elicited data are essential to good descriptive linguistics. They each have advantages and disadvantages. The linguistic researcher needs to be aware of these in order to make the best use of all the data available. Even as chopsticks are no good for eating soup and a spoon is awkward for eating spaghetti, so elicited and text data each have their own areas of usefulness. The linguistic researcher will be handicapped in conceptualizing a linguistic system if he/she attempts to use one type of data to accomplish a task best performed by the other type.

In the following paragraphs, I will first define and present some characteristics of text and elicited data. Then I will list the areas of linguistic analysis that each type of data is best suited to. Finally, I will suggest some ways in which text and elicited data might be managed in the course of a linguistic field program. This discussion is mostly directed to fieldworkers who are not working in their native language. However, many of the principles mentioned should also be helpful to mother-tongue linguistic researchers.

Al.l Definitions

Here I will use the word “text” to mean any sample of language that accomplishes a non hypothetical communicative task. By contrast, “elicitation” (or “elicited data”) refers to samples of language that accomplish hypothetical communicative tasks.

The social task of elicited language samples is to fulfill a metalinguistic request on the part of a linguist, e.g., “How do you say ‘dog’?” The response would not actually refer to any concept, either referential or non-referential. No particular dog or characteristic of dogs in general would be communicated. The task of the response would be to accommodate the inquirer by providing a reasonable analog to some hypothetical utterance in another language. So elicited utterances, like all intentional human behavior, do fulfill tasks. It is just that the communicative tasks they fulfil are “hypothetical,” in the sense just described.

To this point we have been viewing language from a fairly broad structural perspective. In chapter 21 suggested a framework for describing the general morphological characteristics of a language without discussing in detail the meanings of the various morphemes. Chapter 3 presented ways of distinguishing the major grammatical categories of the language, including cataloging the morphosyntactic operations that are associated with each category. However, the precise communicative functions of each operation were not discussed. In chapter 4 we considered constituent order typology, again without treating the functions that alternate constituent orders might have.

Many of the categories, structures, and operations mentioned briefly from a “form first” perspective in the previous three chapters will receive more detailed treatment in the following seven. The present chapter describes tasks, or functions, that tend to be associated with noun phrases, and presents further details concerning how morphosyntactic operations are expressed in noun phrases.

Compounding

A compound is a word that is formed from two or more different words. For example the word windshield is composed of the words wind and shield. Of course, not every sequence of words is a compound. Hence there must be an explicit way of distinguishing compounds from simple sequences of words. The criteria for calling something a compound fall into two groups: (1) formal criteria, and (2) semantic criteria. Compounds may exhibit any of the following formal properties. (1) A stress pattern characteristic of a single word, as opposed to the pattern for two words, e.g., bláckbird (the species), has a different stress pattern than black bird (any bird that happens to be black), cf. also líghthouse keeper vs. light hóusekeeper. (2) Unusual word order, e.g., housekeeper consists of a noun plus a verb where the noun represents the object rather than the subject of the verb. Normally objects come after the verb in English. (3) Morphophonemic processes characteristic of single words, e.g., the word roommate can be pronounced with a single m, whereas normally if two m's come together accidentally in a sentence both are pronounced, e.g., some mice will be understood as some ice if both m's are not pronounced.

Pragmatic statuses

Pragmatics is the practice of utterance interpretation (Levinson 1983). Utterances are actual instances of language in use, therefore they\ always occur in a context and their interpretations always affect and are affected by the context. What we will call pragmatic statuses have to do with choices speakers make about how to efficiently adapt their utterances to the context, including the addressee's presumed “mental state.” Like semantic roles, pragmatic statuses are usually, though not always, thought of as characteristics of nominal elements. However, semantic roles are features of the content of the discourse (see section 3.2.0), while pragmatic statuses relate the content to the context. Labels that have been used to describe various pragmatic statuses include: given, new, presupposed, focus, topic, identifiable (or definite), and referential. These terms will be described in the following subsections. But first we will sketch the conceptual background to these pragmatic notions.

People are constantly surrounded by sensory impressions, only a very small portion of which can be attended to at any given moment. Therefore, we have to be selective about which impressions to attend to, and which to ignore. When communicating with other people, we as speakers constantly (1) assess our audience's present mental state, e.g., what they already know, what they are currently attending to, what they are interested in, etc., and (2) construct our message so as to help the audience revise their mental state in the direction we would like it to go. For example, we may highlight items that we want someone to pay attention to, and which we sense he/she is not already paying attention to. Also, we may spend little communicative energy on information which we sense the audience is already thinking about or attending to. The study of how these kinds of highlighting and downplaying tasks affect the structure of linguistic communication is commonly referred to as pragmatics.

It should be pointed out that grammatical relations are one major means of expressing pragmatic information about nominal elements in discourse (see chapter 7). For example, in languages that have a well grammaticalized subject category, subjects tend to be identifiable, given and already available in memory. Direct objects are either given or new in about equal proportions.

There is not perhaps in humane affairs any thing so unaccountable as the indignity and cruelty with which the far greater part of mankind suffer themselves to be used under pretence of government. For some men falsly persuading themselves that bad governments are advantageous to them, as most conducing to gratify their ambition, avarice and luxury, set themselves with the utmost art and violence to procure their establishment: and by such men almost the whole world has been trampled under foot, and subjected to tyranny, for want of understanding by what means and methods they were enslaved. For though mankind take great care and pains to instruct themselves in other arts and sciences, yet very few apply themselves to consider the nature of government, an enquiry so useful and necessary both to magistrate and people. Nay, in most countries the arts of state being altogether directed either to enslave the people, or to keep them under slavery; it is become almost every where a crime to reason about matters of government. But if men would bestow a small part of the time and application which they throw away upon curious but useless studies, or endless gaming, in perusing those excellent rules and examples of government which the antients have left us, they would soon be enabled to discover all such abuses and corruptions as tend to the ruin of publick societies. 'Tis therefore very strange that they should think study and knowledge necessary in every thing they go about, except in the noblest and most useful of all applications, the art of government.

Now if any man in compassion to the miseries of a people should endeavour to disabuse them in any thing relating to government, he will certainly incur the displeasure, and perhaps be pursued by the rage of those, who think they find their account in the oppression of the world; but will hardly succeed in his endeavours to undeceive the multitude. For the generality of all ranks of men are cheated by words and names; and provided the antient terms and outward forms of any government be retained, let the nature of it be never so much altered, they continue to dream that they shall still enjoy their former liberty, and are not to be awakened till it prove too late.

In traditional grammar, grammatical categories are called “parts of speech.” Every language has at least two major grammatical categories – noun and verb. Two other major categories, adjective and adverb, may or may not be instantiated in any given language, though they usually are to some extent. Most languages also have minor grammatical categories such as conjunctions, particles, and adpositions. As with most categorization schemes in descriptive linguistics, grammatical categories tend to be interestingly untidy at their boundaries. Nevertheless, core notions, or prototypes, can usually be identified. Another interesting property of grammatical categorization is that the category membership of any given form varies according to how that form is used in discourse (see Hopper and Thompson 1984 and the discussion in sections 5.2 and 9.1 of this book). Such variation in category membership may or may not be directly reflected in the surface morphosyntax. Therefore, sometimes subtle morphosyntactic tests are needed to determine formal category membership, and other times the category membership of a given form can only be inferred from the discourse context.

Grammatical categories are distinct from formal relational categories such as subject, object, and predicate, or functional categories such as AGENT, topic, or definite NP. They are the building blocks of linguistic structure. They are sometimes called “lexical categories” since many forms can be specified for their grammatical category in the lexicon. However, we will not use the term lexical category here because (1) the term grammatical category is more widely understood, and (2) the category of a word depends as much on how the word is used in discourse as on its conventionalized (lexical) meaning.

It is important to present empirical evidence for each grammatical category posited in a grammatical description. Sections 3.1 and 3.2 list and describe the formal characteristics that tend to distinguish nouns and verbs. For the other categories, however, there are too many possible language-specific properties to offer a compendium of all possibilities here.