LINGUIST List 4.426

Fri 04 Jun 1993

Qs: Adjectives, Mandarin, Spell Checking

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1. Goerel Sandstroem, Query: "Incorporated" adjuncts
2. JEROEN WIEDENHOF, Looking for Mandarin `pivotal construction' article
3. , Spell checking

I am working currently on a parametric syntactic description of certain
northern dialects of Swedish where you encounter noun phrases of the following
type, with the modifying adjective(s) as the modifier part of an endocentric
compound (I also give the standard Swedish equivalent - the northern Swedish
(NSw) forms are ungrammatical in standard Swedish (StSw) and vice versa):

NSw: nybiln StSw: den nya bilen
 new-car-Def DefArt new-Def car-Def
"the new car"

NSw: gammsvartkjoln StSw: den gamla svarta kjolen
 old-black-skirt-Def DefArt old-Def black-Def skirt-Def
"the old black skirt"

The NSw phrases are clearly compound in their surface form, something which is
quite evident from their prosody. They are not lexicalized - there are no
corresponding compound forms in indefinite noun phrases, where adjectival
modification looks just like in standard Swedish:

NSw & StSw: *en nybil en ny bil
 IndefArt new-car IndefArt new car
"a new car"

NSw & StSw: *en gammsvartkjol en gammal svart kjol
 IndefArt old-black-skirt IndefArt old black skirt
"an old black skirt"

(Thus, on a DP analysis of Swedish noun phrases, the compounding would seem to
be dependent on the movement of N to D, which takes place only in definite noun
phrases and leads to the definite article appearing as a suffix on the noun.)
 What I would like to pose as a query for the list is whether anyone knows of
(descriptions of) languages or varieties where similar processes seem to be
going on, i.e. where a putative adjunct can appear "incorporated" on the head
it modifies. Any references would be helpful. Please reply to me directly, and
if there is interest I will post a summary to the list.

Goerel Sandstroem
Department of General Linguistics
University of Umeaa, S-901 87 UMEAA, Sweden
goerelling.umu.se

I am looking for the following article:

author: Yang2 Cheng2-kai3
title: `Jian1-yu3 shi4' fen1-xi1 [Analysis of the `pivotal construction']
source: Yu3-wen2 lun4 ji2 [Collected articles on language],
 Volume 2, pp. 162-188
published: Peking: Wai4-yu3 jiao4-xue2 yu3 yan2-jiu1 chu1-ban3-she4, 1986.

Our library at the Sinological Institute, Leiden University, has a
standing order for the _Yu3-wen2 lun4 ji2_ series, but has so far only
received Volume 4. Could anyone provide me with details about libraries
which have secured a copy of Volume 2, and about ways to obtain
photocopies of the above article? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Jeroen Wiedenhof
email: jmwiedenhofrulcri.leidenuniv.nl

 A week or so ago I posted a query to LINGUIST about whether anyone had
 compiled any personalized dictionaries for spell checking, of
 linguistic terms and/or names of linguists. (Note the extraposed
 modifier in the above sentence :-) To date I have received only two
 responses, from David Stampe and from Robert Englebretson. I had
 expected a much higher response, but it's possible that there was a
 problem with my return address. My correct address is
 Mike.Maxwellsil.org (that's an "el", not a one). If you have sent a
 reply to me, please resend it (except for David and Robert).
 (Likewise, I wasn't receiving
 LINGUIST for a week or so after my posting because of my address
 problems, so if you posted something there to me, I didn't see it.)
 Sorry...
 Mike.Maxwellsil.org