Re: adjectives

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcus Smith <smithma@...>
Date: Sunday, January 14, 2001 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: adjectives


>Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
>>Fascinating!  Now, a dumb question from you-know-who...
>
>I'm still waiting for the dumb question. And I can't guess who's going to
>ask it, because I don't know of anybody on the list who regularly asks such
>things. :)
<sheepish look>  Baa...baa...

(Thanks also to Teoh for clarifying this point.)

>> >I) Head-marking languages tend to have type (b) adjectives
>> >II) Dependent-marking languages tend to have type (a) adjectives
>>
>>I keep getting screwed up on head- vs. (the other one--tail?)-marking
>
>It is head vs. dependent marking.
Thank you.  <even more sheepish look>

>>In other words, does head-marking wrt possessives mean the owner or the
>>owned (well, yes, there *are* other uses of the possessive, but for
>>simplicity...) is marked?
>
>The head of a phrase is the word that defines the properties of the phrase.
>In "Yoon's unicorn" we are discussing a unicorn, so "unicorn" is the head.
>Head-marking (as the term implies) means that the affix is attached to the
>head, while dependent-marking means that the affix is on a word that is not
>the head of the phrase in question.
>
>In possessive contexts, a head-marking lang marks the possessum, while a
>dependent-marking lang marks the possessor. In verb phrases, a head-marking
>lang marks the verb, while dependent-marking lang marks the noun.
>
>And of course, many languages do not cleanly fall into either category, but
>span both. Latin, for example, has case (dependent-marking) but also has
>subject agreement on the verb (head-marking). Chickasaw has case
>(dependent-marking) and also verbal agreement for subject and object
>(head-marking).
<enlightenment>  Where does Japanese fit in this, JOOC?  I think it was
looking at the Japanese "no" as well as getting confused between (head- vs.
dependent-marking) and (head-final vs. head-initial) that did me in.

Case is dependent-marking?  Must remember that.  <wanders off muttering
linguistic terms to herself...>  Thanks muchly!

YHL