Language Universals
Exercise 1
The data provided in 6-15 follows the conventional order of words in the Standard English. According to Braber, Cummings, Hardman, and Norish (2014), the structure or how words are constructed differs from one language to another even though the principles of language remain the same. The English language follows that within a noun phrase in unmarked order, the demonstratives precedes the numerals which precedes the adjective and lastly the noun. In any language including English, analysis of a sentence is made easy with the employment of a line called gloss. This line abbreviates the four parts of a standard noun phrase. According to Klaus Abel, the demonstrative, numeral, adjective and noun are abbreviated as DEM, NUM, A and N respectively (Braber et al., 2014).
The sentences provided in 6-15 all follow the default order and sequence although all of them contain two adjectives, a subsective and an intersective adjective. For example, the sentences (6) These two big hairy dogs (7) *These two hairy big dogs both follow the sequence; (6) These – DEM, two – NUM, big hairy – A, dogs – N and (7) These – DEM, two – NUM, hairy big – A, dogs – N. Despite their observation of the acceptable and default grammatical order of noun phrases, only sentences 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 have taken into consideration the order of adjectives making them the most acceptable unlike sentences 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 whose order of adjectives is inappropriate. Usually, when two or more adjectives are used in a sentence to describe a noun, the order usually depends on the function of the adjective (Braber et al., 2014).
Usually, the order follows that quantity or amount will come first, followed by opinions, the size, temperature, the age, the shape color, origin, and lastly, material (Braber et al., 2014). More often than not, the subsective adjective comes before the intersective adjective, for example, “Those three new Italian cars” is possible because the intersective adjective Italian comes after the subsective adjective new, making the sentence “Those three Italian new cars” impossible.
All sentences that have asterisks designated 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 have violated this order of adjective in their structure rendering them grammatically wrong. For example, (13) “These four wooden expensive spoons” has placed an adjective that describe the material (wooden) before the one that describe an opinion (expensive). The correct order is in sentence (12); “These four expensive wooden spoons.” The order in which adjectives are placed is important in any language as it determines how nouns are described.
Exercise 2
Spanish have grammatical principles that are shared across all languages including English. However, the difference with other languages particularly English usually referred to as parameters lies in the default order of the demonstratives, numerals, adjectives and nouns in a grammatically correct sentence (Braber et al., 2014). In Spanish, the noun in a noun phrase comes before the adjective unlike in English where the adjective always precedes the noun. Spanish follow the order DEM, NUM, N and lastly A. The default order for Spanish data provided in (16) to (23) should therefore follow this order in order to be grammatically correct.
Sentences 16, 17, 18, 201, 21 and 22 are correctly constructed in Spanish as they follow the default order. For example, sentence (17), “Esos dos escritores interesantes” which directly translate to “those two writers interesting” puts “escritoires” which is a noun before “interesantes” which is an adjective that means interesting. From the data, sentences 19 and 23 show orders that are impossible because as they put the adjective before the noun as in the case of English. Sentence (23), “Estos cuatro chupachuses caros rojos”, which directly translate to ‘Those four red expensive lollipops’ has the order DEM, NUM, A, N, which is impossible in Spanish even though it is the conventional and correct order in English even though the grammatical aspect in terms of the order in which the adjectives are arranged might not be correct.
This is also true to sentence number 19, which places the noun at the end of the noun phrase instead of the adjective as per the Spanish syntactical rules. Spanish just like English starts losing its meaning when the ordering pattern is interrupted, for example by putting the noun just after the adjective as it is the case in English. According to Abel, the noun, adjectives, and the demonstrative commands numerals; the numeral commands adjectives and the noun; adjectives command the noun whereas demonstratives and numerals precede their sister in both languages (Braber et al., 2014). In comparing the role of intersective and subsective adjectives, the subsective adjectives do not lead to an analysis and inference the same way intersective adjectives do. Subsectives leave room for comparison and relativity. In the same hierarchical organization of noun phrases, the only difference is the order of at the adjective and noun stage in a noun phrase.
Exercise 3
Abel defines syntax as the specialized study of how phrases and sentences in a specified language are constructed and developed (Braber et al., 2014). Furthermore, linguistics in the world today has shifted from looking at syntax as sentences themselves to focus on rules and regulations that govern the construction of sentences. According to Abel, in the sixth chapter of the book Introduction to Language and Linguistics, rules that govern how and where we place words ensure that the meaning of a sentence that is constructed depends on its structure. The way words in English are placed to come up with a meaningful sentence that can communicate is similar to the way words are place in another language like Spanish with the only variation being the order of the different types of words.
Sentences that do not follow the default order in English or any other language according to Abel can make sense to those conversant with the language although the word order can be wrong (Braber et al., 2014). The correct order of words according to Abel’s universal in an English noun phrase involves a demonstrative, numeral, adjective and noun respectively. On the other hand, the order in Spanish differs in the sense that the noun precedes the adjective with the demonstrative and numeral retaining their positions as in English. However, almost all languages including Spanish and English have the same hierarchical organization of their noun phrases notwithstanding significant differences in the order of the wording.
The second projected principle of collective grammar according to Abel creates an expectation that if the hierarchical structure of the noun phrase becomes fixed, then only eight orders will be possible without crossing branches. Nevertheless, there are many other languages that do not subscribe to this principle such as the Kele language cording to Abel. It is also worth noting that languages can set more than one ordering compared to English as Abel insists (Braber et al. 2014). In many languages around the world, elements have been seen to follow their sisters instead of coming before them in the word order. Grammar then, according to most linguistics is therefore an intangible characterization and depiction of computations that go on in a speaker’s and his or her hearers mind when, decoding, generating and understanding sentences. He introduces the use of tree diagram that is important in understanding the role played by each world in a sentence. English and Spanish have the same hierarchical organization of noun phrases but different order of words.
Exercise 4
Dulong is a Tibeto-Burman language that is majorly used in parts of China and Tibet with a unique order of words in a noun phrase (Braber et al., 2014). Hierarchically, the organization of words in a noun phrase is similar to English and Spanish. However, the language is unique in the sense that the numeral comes after the noun. This means that the default noun phrase order in Dulong is DEM A N NUM. On the other hand, Sango which is an official language spoken in the Central African Republic shows a unique order of words in a noun phrase.
Sango is among the few languages that whose noun phrase start with an adjective unlike most other languages already explored. The phrase follow that the adjective starts followed by the noun, then the numeral and lastly the demonstrative wraps it up. The noun phrase word in the Sango language sequence is therefore A N NUM DEM. For instance, a sentence in Sango according to Abel reads “good families two these” when translated directly into English word after word. This then answers the question of where the adjectives would appear in the two languages. In Dulong, the adjective would appear immediately after the demonstrative followed by the noun and the numeral coming last.
In Sango, the adjective starts with the noun, numeral and demonstrative following respectively. Comparing the two languages with English and Spanish, it becomes apparent that there are some basic principles that hold for almost all languages in the world. The fact that the demonstrative c-commands all the other elements that include the numeral, adjective and the noun in a sentence is retained (Braber et al., 2014). It also becomes evident that the numeral in a noun phrase c-commands all the other elements with the exception of the demonstrative. This means that in a tree diagram representation, the only way a numeral can modify a demonstrative is by going up or a step back; a move that is totally impossible. In a noun phrase, the adjective can only c-command the noun and not both the demonstrative and the numeral.
Exercise 5
There are word orders that can be deemed abnormal or rather unique and thus theories of syntax have not fully covered them. These patterns vary from simple variations of already existing orders to totally unique patterns. Abel Klaus writes that Banda-Linda and Kele are some of these languages alongside other such as the Maasai and the Pitjantjatjara (Braber et al., 2014). Banda-Linda is a Niger-Congo language that is used in the central Africa republic whose word order is utterly unique. The language noun phrases have been shown to use noun phrases that have adjectives as the first word followed by nouns, then demonstratives and lastly numerals.
Abel, as recorded by Braber et al. (2014), presents a sentence that is directly translated from Banda-Linda that reads “tall women these two.” From the sentence, the word sequence can then be written as A N DEM NUM. Kele on the other hand is a language spoken majorly in parts of Papua New Guinea even though it faces extinction due to reducing number of user day in day out. This language shows an attested word order that was not explored in part I of the universal.
A sentence in Kele reads “pihin ha-mow il tóti”which on direct translation in English reads “woman one old this.”Noun phrases in Kele follow a unique order of words that starts with the noun followed by the numeral, then the adjective and lastly the demonstrative. Thus, the default order of words in Kele noun phrases is N NUM A DEM. These two orders are way beyond the umbrella of the already developed and accepted theories of syntax. Most of the languages usually have either the demonstrative or few others the numeral being the first as seen in table 44 which compares the order of words for many languages (Braber et al., 2014). However, Kele and Banda-Linda are different with noun and adjective being the first in their noun phrases respectively. Abel concludes that movement in any noun phrase usually displaces a noun or a constituent that has the noun. However, when movement occurs, the displaced constituent in most cases will appear earlier than when movement had not taken place. The constituent can never appear later.
Reference
Braber, N., Cummings, L., Hardman, D., & Norish, L. eds. (2014). Introduction to language and linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
