LINGUIST List 8.730

Thu May 15 1997

Qs: Turkish reflexive, Lithuanian/Noun-drop

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <ljubalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Mahide Demirci, a Turkish reflexive
2. Bernhard Rohrbacher, Noun-drop in Lithuanian

Does anyone know of any works having to do with the
morphologically complex Turkish reflexive "kendi-kendi"
("self-self")? I need to distinguish this one from the reflexive
"kendi-" ("self"), which can be nonlocally bound.

 Thanks,

 Mahide Demirci
 Linguistics Department
 Michigan State University

In English, the head of a noun phrase containing an adjective
can be dropped in only a few (and presumably lexicalized) cases
(cf. (1)). In German, noun-drop is much more productive
(cf. (2)). When the noun is missing, the adjective behaves like
an adjective and not like a noun, viz. the fact that an
intensifier is possible with an adjective (cf. (3a)) but never
with a noun (cf. (3b)).

(1)	a.	the poor (ones)
				b.	the red *(ones)

(2)	a.	die armen (Leute)
							the poor people
				b.	die roten (Sachen)
							the red things

(3)	a.	die sehr Kranken
							the very sick (pl.)
				b. *die sehr Krueppel
 the very invalids

How does Lithuanian pattern in this regard? Is noun-drop
unproductive as in English or productive as in German? How
natural is it to retain or drop the noun? Are there indications
(syntactic, morphological or otherwise) that an adjective left
behind by noun-drop continues to be an adjective (or changes
into a noun)? Are nouns and adjectives morphologically
distinguished? Is there any literature on noun-drop in
Lithuanian? Any answers to these questions would be greatly
appreciated. Please send your message to the address listed
below.

- 
Bernhard Rohrbacher
Northwestern University
b-rohrbachernwu.edu