Linguist Forum
Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: mallu on April 04, 2014, 09:44:54 PM
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djr wrote "All adverbial clauses involve subordination!"- So adverbial phrases are subordinate phrases?
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Adverbial phrases/clauses are embedded within another sentence, so, yes, they are subordinate by definition.
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But is there something called subordinate phrases? What is the minimum requirement for group of words to be called a clause .
for example in the sentence "During the second world war I was in Germany"
Can "During the second world war" be called a Subordinate Phrase?
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The term "subordinate" is usually applied just to clauses, as I did in the original post.
But, sure, there's no reason you can't describe a "subordinate" phrase, in that it is embedded in something. That's just a basic fact of hierarchical structure.
I don't see the purpose in saying that though-- just "subordinate clause" is used often.
I suppose you could distinguish something like a "subordinate NP" from a "matrix NP" in a case like "book from [my friend]". Still, that would be an odd usage...
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Is it necessary that in all the languages of the world subordinate clause should be embedded in the matrix clause? Is there any language in which a subordinate clause can appear sentence initially?
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English-- "[That we are linguists] is good."
Subordination refers to hierarchical structure-- as the subject of that sentence, "that we are linguists" is still subordinated/embedded. It doesn't matter whether it comes at the beginning, at the end, or in the middle.
Again, this is definitional. Something that is not subordinated might be, for example, coordinated:
"John sang a song and Mary rode a bike."
In that case, the two clauses are independent. But obviously neither is an adverbial clause.
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You mean everything in a sentence which is not subordinated must be coordinated? Is there any in-between case which doesn't fall in either category?
Moreover,Does the statement that adverbials involve subordination tell anything more than adverbials are constituents of the sentences they are in?
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"In a sentence" means subordinated/embedded.
It is unclear exactly what the right analysis of coordination is, but the standard assumption is roughly this:
[a] & [ b]
For subordination:
[a [ b]]
Edit: fixed formatting
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Sorry for asking another stupid question,
Here is a sentence from a Dravidian Language in which the presence of adverb as a separate category is disputed.
(He.gen- effort result- adverbial form of copula)- I dative- job-get.past
Meaning - As a result of his effort I got a job
My question is whether the bracketed part is a (adverbial) clause or (adverbial)phrase,
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(He.gen- effort result- adverbial form of copula)- I possessive- job-get.past
Meaning - As a result of his effort I got a job
My question is whether the bracketed part is a (adverbial) clause or (adverbial)phrase,
It's definitely a phrase (any sequence of words is a phrase).
It has a form of the copula? Looks like it probably is some kind of clause. But it's hard to know from just one example.
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Sorry for asking another stupid question,
Here is a sentence from a Dravidian Language in which the presence of adverb as a separate category is disputed.
(He.gen- effort result- adverbial form of copula)- I possessive- job-get.past
Meaning - As a result of his effort I got a job
My question is whether the bracketed part is a (adverbial) clause or (adverbial)phrase,
Could you include a transcription of the sentence in the language itself?
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A clause should have a verb and (all of? )its arguement. Isnt it?
Here the subject and object makes a single constituent(since the subject being in genitive)Does that put it in phrasal category?
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A clause should have a verb and (all of? )its arguement. Isnt it?
Here the subject and object makes a single constituent(since the subject being in genitive)Does that put it in phrasal category?
Sorry for asking another stupid question,
Here is a sentence from a Dravidian Language in which the presence of adverb as a separate category is disputed.
(He.gen- effort result- adverbial form of copula)- I possessive- job-get.past
Meaning - As a result of his effort I got a job
My question is whether the bracketed part is a (adverbial) clause or (adverbial)phrase,
Could you include a transcription of the sentence in the language itself?
Sorry for asking another stupid question,
Here is a sentence from a Dravidian Language in which the presence of adverb as a separate category is disputed.
(He.gen- effort result- adverbial form of copula)- I possessive- job-get.past
Meaning - As a result of his effort I got a job
My question is whether the bracketed part is a (adverbial) clause or (adverbial)phrase,
Could you include a transcription of the sentence in the language itself?
Oh sure not very familiar with IPA so I use English alphabets
ayaaluTe sRmafalam aayi enikku jooli kiTTi
he.Gen effort result adverbial particle I dative job got
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Note: I edited my post above to fix the formatting. Now it should be clearer.
Oh sure not very familiar with IPA so I use English alphabets
ayaaluTe sRmafalam aayi enikku jooli kiTTi
he.Gen effort result adverbial particle I dative job got
Can that adverbial particle / copula be a different verb? If not, it's probably not a clause. Instead, it's a grammaticalized function of 'be' meaning something else, such as "with", etc. Maybe a preposition, for example.
A clause should have a verb and (all of? )its arguement. Isnt it?
Here the subject and object makes a single constituent(since the subject being in genitive)Does that put it in phrasal category?
That's complicated. One standard analysis is that not all parts of a clause must be expressed. For example, many infinitives in English are considered clauses:
"I want [to eat]."
"To eat" is a clause because it has a(n implied) subject.
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The example is from Malayalam (Dravidian Family),There is no PNG inflectional morphology in the Language.The other languages of the family has PNG inflection for verbs and they use noninflected form(non-finite form?) forms of the verb,where as Malayalam has no way to make this distinction.
The problem with the adverbial here is it has no subject , only object noun phrase is present in the sentence.That, I learn from your previous post,is not essential for a clause.But here I will give one example seems to be of the same structure which is apparently not clause.
ayaal rajaavu aayi abhinayichchu
he Nom king Nom copula Past act Past
Meaning. He acted as the king
Does it involve subordination ,If so what should be the structure?
ayaal rajaavu aayi PRO abhinayichchu
My intuition tells me the structure is not correct. Am I right?
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It's hard to tell. Is "be.PAST act.PAST" a sequence that marks past tense (periphrastic tense), or is that a sequence of two separate predicates (complementation/subordination)?
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It's hard to tell. Is "be.PAST act.PAST" a sequence that marks past tense (periphrastic tense), or is that a sequence of two separate predicates (complementation/subordination)?
This exactly is my question,could this be considered as a serial verb construction or is this involves subordination
*One problem in considering this as serial verb is that the first verb donot show change in tense with the second one
for example
avan. rajaavu aayi abhinayichchu
He king adv particle/copula Past act(play the role of) Past
He played the role of the king
avan rajaavu aayi abhinayikkum
he king adv. particle/copla.Past act(play the role of) future
The tense marking in the verbs are different,then it is not a serial verb construction?Isn't it
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"Serial verb construction" is inconsistently defined in the literature. Sometimes it requires equivalent marking, other times not.
Why is this any different from the English progressive? Start by asking that.
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"Serial verb construction" is inconsistently defined in the literature. Sometimes it requires equivalent marking, other times not.
Why is this any different from the English progressive? Start by asking that.
I dont see any reason for such a comparison.Can you tell me how such a comparison be made? None of the verbs can be an auxiliary like English"is"as both the verb could be used as a regular verb in isolation.
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It looks to me like the verb 'be' might be an auxiliary as in English progressive or passive constructions.
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Dear djr
Let me have a closer look into it before posting my next comment.By the way any reading suggestion?
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Hmm... I can't think of anything specific, but this topic has been discussed a lot.
In English, 'be' is considered an auxiliary verb with a main verb also in the same clause. But a verb like 'want' is considered to take a clausal complement:
'I am singing' = one clause
'I want [to sing]' = one clause embedded inside another
(I think this is an interesting question and there may be reasons to question that, but I believe it's a popular perspective.)