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Re: THEORY: two questions

From:Thomas R. Wier <artabanos@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 28, 2000, 23:51
Matt Pearson wrote:

> >From: "Matt Pearson" > > > >> >> Verb-initial, head-marking: Marshallese, Chamorro (?) > >> >> Verb-initial, dep-marking: Tagalog, Polynesian lgs > >> >> Verb-medial, head-marking: Swahili, Mohawk > >> >> Verb-medial, dep-marking: Russian > >> >> Verb-final, head-marking: Lakhota, many Papuan lgs > >> >> Verb-final, dep-marking: Japanese, Yidiny > > > >What's head-marking and dependent-marking again? > > Depends on who you ask. My definition: A head-marking > language is one which keeps track of arguments (who did > what to whom) primarily by means of agreement on the verb, > while a dependent-marking language keeps track of arguments > primarily by means of case-marking on the noun phrases. > That is, "head" = the verb, while "dependents" = the noun > phrases.
Shouldn't that be more general, though? What I was taught in my syntax class was that headedness was an abstract property of certain words within phrases, and every type of phrase has a head (unless it's headless, of course, as we've been discussing on another thread :) ). So, under that system, head-marking would include both, e.g., Latin "habet" (which would be the head of a verb phrase) and "canus" (head of a noun phrase), as opposed to, say, German, where case marking, except in frozen phrases and in a small class of so-called "strong nouns", is marked on dependent determiners and adjectives: (a) Ansichten eines Clowns view:PL a:GEN.SG clown:GEN.SG (b) Freude, schöner Götterfunken joy beautiful.MASC.NOM.SG spark-of-the-gods (c) Proletärier aller Länder, vereinigt euch! proletarian:PL all:GEN.PL land:PL unify:IMP.PL yourself:ACC.PL I realize it's just a matter of definition, but I guess my question becomes: why restrict the extent of your terminology when a broader definition makes, IMHO, a more "interesting" (in the Chomskyan meaning of the word) generalization? ====================================== Tom Wier <artabanos@...> ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: trwier "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero." ======================================