LINGUIST List 27.65
Mon Jan 04 2016
Review: Historical Ling; Morphology; Syntax: Bauer (2014)
Editor for this issue: Sara Couture <saralinguistlist.org>
Date: 13-Jul-2015
From: Florian Reveilhac <florian.reveilhac
gmail.com>
Subject: Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase in Hieroglyphic Luwian
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AUTHOR: Anna H. Bauer
TITLE: Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase in Hieroglyphic Luwian
SERIES TITLE: Brill's Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Brill
YEAR: 2014
REVIEWER: Florian Reveilhac, Université Paris Sorbonne - Paris IV
Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry
INTRODUCTION
The book ‘Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase in Hieroglyphic Luwian’ by Anna H. Bauer is the twelfth volume of the Brill collection ‘Brill’s Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics’ edited by Craig Melchert and Olav Hackstein. The present work, which is the revised version of the author’s PhD thesis, represents the first detailed study of the Hieroglyphic Luwian (HLuwian) noun phrase (NP).
SUMMARY
Chapter 1: Introduction
The introduction first presents the aims and the scope of the book. Several issues are addressed in great detail: inter-dependencies of morphology and syntax within the NP, word-order within the NP, linguistic distributions of morphological markers, temporal and geographical distributions of forms and constructions, combinability of elements, and agreement. The elements regarded as part of the NP in this study are the following adnominal constituents: determiners, quantifiers, modifiers, and appositions. Relative clauses are therefore not integrated since they do not constitute subordinates but are, as in Hittite and Sanskrit, “correlative diptychs” (p. 2). Anna H. Bauer (AB) then introduces the theoretical approach her work is based on, namely Dixon’s ‘Basic Linguistic Theory’ (2010-2012): this typological and pattern-based theory is very useful for studying low-attested languages. The NP is understood here as “a core or peripheral argument slot in clause structure [… that] can consist of just a noun, or have a noun as head, accompanied by a number of modifiers” (Dixon 2010a: 106). Such a configuration is quite common compared to the majority of syntactic theories. The book is organised in six chapters: the present chapter is the introduction, and then each chapter provides an investigation about each part of the NP, namely determination, quantification, modification and apposition; the final chapter concludes and summarises the whole study.
The second section outlines the Anatolian history, and especially Anatolian languages history, focusing on Luwian dialects. From the fall of the Hittite Empire (around 1180 BC) and during the emergence of the Neo-Hittite states, Hieroglyphic Luwian (HLuwian) is used at least as an administrative language; it stops being written in the seventh century because of the Neo-Assyrian expansion. For the sake of straightforwardness, the Iron Age variety of Luwian is called HLuwian, and Bronze Age varieties Cuneiform Luwian (CLuwian), even though two types of Luwian were written in cuneiforms (Kizzuwatna Luwian and Empire Luwian) and Iron Age Luwian continues the Empire Luwian variety (Yakubovitch 2010: 22).
The third section focuses on the corpus the study is based on: around 270 texts classified here in several genres, based on their typical linguistic structure. In HLuwian, most of the texts belong to the category of memorial texts (representational heroic, commemorative and dedicatory), but the corpus also includes some contracts, letters and lists. As the author rightly specifies, if this small corpus presents the advantages of allowing us to study it exhaustively, it prevents however a reliable statistical analysis of HLuwian.
After a presentation of the two different systems used to write Luwian, namely cuneiform and, from the fourteenth century BC onwards, hieroglyphs, the introduction provides a brief, although useful, grammatical overview, focused on nominal and pronominal inflection, clitics, agreement and basic word order.
Chapter 2: Determination
Like many other languages, HLuwian does not have any article, definite or indefinite. This makes it difficult for non-native speakers to assess definiteness. Providing clear examples, AB shows that sometimes (in)definiteness can be deduced from the context, but sometimes even the context does not help the modern reader. In the absence of dedicated morphological material, definiteness remains difficult to assess. Nevertheless, definiteness may be coded by other elements in the NP: demonstratives and possessives.
HLuwian has only two demonstratives: za- ‘this’ (proximal deixis) and apa- ‘that’ (distal deixis). Other Indo-European (IE) languages, like Ancient Greek, Latin or even Hittite – the most well-attested Anatolian language – show more demonstratives, but a language with two demonstratives only is not unusual (cf. Old English or other Anatolian languages like Palaic, Lydian, Lycian and Carian). AB, with carefully chosen examples, succeeds in showing that both the proximal demonstrative za- and the distal one apa- are above all deictic when used adnominally. As demonstrative pronouns, za- and particularly apa- are used as phoric linkers. Only apa- has probably lost its deictic component when used as a possessive pronoun, since it is the only pronoun available to indicate third person possessors.
This section then addresses the question of whether possessives are used as determiners or not in HLuwian. Based on the corpus, it seems very likely that HLuwian belongs to the adjectival-genitive type (like Ancient Greek), rather than determiner-genitive type (like English). The demonstrative za- can be combined with possessors in the form of genitival adjectives in the same NP, leading to a structure of DEM-POSSESSOR-NOUN. Combinations of demonstratives and genitives in the same NP are exceptional, and those of demonstratives and pronominal possessors are infrequent. It is thus possible for a possessive construction to contain za- as a determiner: the possessives do not lead to any definiteness effect and the genitival adjectives do not occupy a determiner position in the NP.
Demonstratives are usually placed before their head noun and generally at the very beginning of the NP. There are few postnominal demonstratives: for za-, especially in the bilingual inscription from Karatepe, it can be explained by the influence of the Phoenician version, whereas postnominal apa- examples occur when the head noun is the most salient part in the NP. According to AB, although postnominal demonstratives are scarce, they must not be regarded as grammatical mistakes.
Chapter 3: Quantification
Among the quantifiers, three or four non-numerical are attested in the HLuwian data, but only two occur often enough to allow a morphosyntactic analysis. The universal quantifier called *430 (logographically written, maybe equal to CLuwian pūnata/i-) appears only in mainly logographic texts, so it is impossible to say what type of universal quantifier it represents exactly. The second, tanima/i-, means either ‘all, entire’ or ‘every’ regardless of the grammatical number in the head noun, but rather in accordance to the semantics of the head noun or the context. Even though it cannot be ascertained, tanima/i- seems to constitute an adjective-like quantifier, since it inflects like an adjective rather than a pronoun. AB suggests a convincing temporal distribution of *430 and tanima/i-, the first being the main universal quantifier during an earlier stage, replaced then by tanima/i-.
A very interesting section is dedicated to the numeral system of HLuwian. It has not been much examined so far, and the conclusions about it were not very satisfactory. Thanks to a detailed analysis of the data, AB convincingly shows that HLuwian uses a two-tiered system of number marking: the numerals ‘two’ to ‘four’ mostly effect plural-marking in the quantified nouns, whereas the numerals from ‘five’ onwards do not. Indeed, singular marking is attested consistently after numerals with an arithmetic value higher than 4. Consequently, the numeral affects number marking, without modifying case marking. Since HLuwian inflects the numerals ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘four’ that show plural endings, while those greater than ‘five’ probably do not inflect, number marking of quantified nouns seems to be ruled by the morphological shape of the numeral itself. This system is not exceptional from an Anatolian point of view, and it may have been influenced by the Hurrian substrate. In some recent HLuwian inscriptions, singular-marking is even attested after the numerals ‘two’ to ‘four’, whereas plural-marking would be expected in such NPs: the author assumes that the two-tiered system is moving toward a unified one with an automatic singular marking for nouns quantified by numerals.
The topic of the word order of quantifiers is then considered. Among the non-numeral quantifiers, *430 always comes after the noun it quantifies, just like its probable equivalent in CLuwian, namely pūnata/i-. tanima/i-, on the other hand, has a variable syntactic behaviour depending on the complexity of the NP it is found in: it is mainly placed in a prenominal position, but when it is combined with other attributives in the same NP, it is relocated to a postnominal position. It should be noted that the other Anatolian languages also place their universal quantifiers after the noun they quantify: this feature could have been inherited for tanima/i-.
Chapter 4: Modification
This is the longest chapter, since modifiers are, after the head nouns, the most well-attested elements of the NP. The first section analyses the non-possessive modifiers, namely adjectives and participles, which are not extremely well attested. The distribution between non-genitival adjectives and participles is chronological: modification by participles is common in older texts (until the mid-eighth century), whereas adjectives as modifiers become usual from the eighth century onwards. It is possible in HLuwian to combine several modifiers, even though examples are scarce. Participial modifiers often involve an ‘agent’ of the verb, which is marked as an ablative-instrumental, except for individual human agents. Indeed, there is no certain evidence for an individual animate referent showing ablative-instrumental marking, even in other contexts. These nouns in participial constructions show a genitive ending, which also indicates possession.
Possession, on the other hand, is abundantly attested. It should first be noticed that possession marking in HLuwian is not mandatory: it can be suggested without any marking, or marked externally by possessor raising (cf. German Ich habe mir den Arm gebrochen ‘I broke my arm’). The focus shifts to genitive, which appears with two different endings: < -sa >, the more common, and < -si(-i) > (sometimes with plene writing). Genitival (or relational) adjectives are also very frequent, and several suffixes are used to form such adjectives, namely -assa/i-, -iya/i-, -alla/i-, -izza/i- and -wann(i)-. After an accurate presentation of each of them, this subsection analyses their productivity and shows that the probable earlier semantic distribution between them does not exist any more during the Iron Age. AB then explores the distribution of genitives and genitival adjectives in the HLuwian corpus, bringing out the various factors explaining it, especially the increasing use of genitival adjectives instead of the expected genitives. Pronominal possessors may also express possession. Following Rieken (2005: 72), AB convincingly argues that the stem allomorphy ama- vs. ami- for the first singular possessive pronoun comes from the conflation of two former pronominal stems. The syntactic behaviour of the possessive pronouns is investigated as well. When multiple possessors modify one possessum, the latter is usually marked as a singular. On the other hand, when one possessor has multiple possessa, the possessor is either mentioned once or repeated for every possessum. Lastly, free-standing (i.e. without an accompanying noun) genitives and adjectives are examined. The examples are scarce: they can occur in linking verb sentences, or when an adjective is nominalised or a freestanding genitive is lexicalised.
The last section of this chapter turns to word order of modifiers. It appears that both restrictive and nonrestrictive can occur either before or after their head nouns, so restrictiveness does not determine the position of the modifiers within the NP. The word order of both non-possessive and possessive modifiers is accurately analysed.
Chapter 5: Apposition
A brief introduction shows the issues raised by the word apposition and its meaning. In this study, the nouns that accompany another noun (generally a personal name or a deity name) in a non-genitival fashion are regarded as appositional. The first section deals with titles and relational terms attested in the HLuwian corpus, especially with regard to their geographical and temporal distributions. The combinability of each appositional noun is then analysed in detail, since stacked appositions with multiple titles and relational terms often occur in HLuwian: usually in such sequences the relational terms follow the titles. The chapter turns to extended appositions, i.e. appositions that take modifiers. It clearly appears that administrative titles are rarely modified, whereas relational terms roughly always take modifiers. The ordering of appositions within stacked sequences depends on their length: simple appositions directly follow their noun, while for extended appositions the more complex the modifiers, the more to the end they appear in the sequences. The very last section of the chapter investigates the word order of appositions, and shows that both administrative titles and relational terms usually occur after their personal name or their deity name. Only the title DOMINUS ‘lord’ is found before the personal name or the deity name it belongs to, and the few attestations of postposed DOMINUS are found in earlier inscriptions.
Chapter 6: Conclusion
With a typological perspective, the conclusion summarises all the previous chapters.
The bibliography and a basic index conclude the book.
EVALUATION
This book provides a complete study of the NP in HLuwian. Little had been said before on the topic, especially the systematic variations had not been measured. The main difficulty of such a work, as told by the author, lies in the small size of the corpus (only 270 different texts, that being about 7,000 words). Nevertheless, the book is always very cautious when drawing conclusions with only little evidence. Moreover, when it is necessary, the author does not hesitate to invoke typological parallels from other Anatolian languages or from other languages, be they Indo-European or not.
This study succeeds in clarifying issues that were not understood so far thanks to an accurate study of the HLuwian data. For instance, the section dedicated to the numeral system in HLuwian (Chapter 3) is quite representative of the typological method used in this work: after an exhaustive examination of the relevant data, the author compares it to numeral systems from other languages, like Old Church Slavonic, in order to understand it better. Finally, AB not only proposes a convincing presentation of the numeral system in HLuwian, but manages to explain that what could be considered as irregularities actually reflect a tendency in recent inscriptions to unify the system. The author often invokes reference works, but refers also to recent studies, so the bibliography is complete.
The book is well written and perfectly organised, with one chapter dedicated to each adnominal constituent. Only one typo problem has been noticed (“Goedebuure” instead of “Goedegebuure”, on p. 32). All chapters are divided into sections and subsections that all include both an introduction and a summary, so that the reader can easily follow the argument. The author does not hesitate to repeat or to rephrase the conclusions she draws at the end of each section and subsection. Numerous examples are given with gloss and translation, so even non-specialists of the Anatolian languages can understand them. Additionally, very useful tables make the analysis even clearer. The only regret one can have is the lack of a final list of the inscriptions used as examples in the study. Such an index may have been useful for people wanting to compare their translation to AB’s. Nevertheless, it is a very slight reproach compared to the numerous qualities noted in this work.
As a result, it is a highly useful work not only for scholars of Anatolian languages and Indo-European studies, but also for linguists who are interested in typology.
REFERENCES
Dixon, R.M.W. (2010–2012). Basic Linguistic Theory. 3 vols. Oxford: OUP.
– (2010a). Basic Linguistic Theory. Vol. 1: Methodology. Oxford: OUP.
Rieken, E. (2005). “Neues zum Ursprung der anatolischen i-Mutation”. Historische Sprachforschung 118, 48–74.
Yakubovitch, Ilya (2010). Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language. Leiden: Brill.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Florian Réveilhac is pursuing a PhD in Ancient Greek Linguistics at the Université Paris-Sorbonne, where he is also a Lecturer (Department of Greek). He works especially on language contacts between Greek and Lycian. His research interests lie in Anatolian linguistics, phonology, morphology, and onomastics.
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