Non-hierarchicality in grammar - Construction formation without word class distinction across categories and languages.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Uta Reinöhl
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406074683

This project aims to study the variation space of non-hierarchical syntax across languages and across semantic categories (entities vs. events). “Non-hierarchical syntax” is found where lexemes of the same kind, i.e. of the same word class, are combined into complex constructions without any further adaptation (e.g. the addition of formal marking or the integration into compounds). In the Austronesian language Wooi, for instance, several "verbal" elements can be strung together in a single clause, e.g. huo mai thau ‘lift come put’, a phenomenon known as verb serialization. In other languages such as in the Australian language Warlpiri, several "nominal" elements may be combined, e.g. kurdu-ngku wita-ngku (child.ERG small.ERG), translatable as ‘small child’ or ‘childish small thing’.Such non-hierarchical constructions are mostly absent from major European languages, including English. Here, constructions consist normally of lexemes from different word classes in the absence of any adaptations (e.g., Engl. warm days consists of an adjective and a noun, and runs fast of a verb and an adverb). Such sub-divided word class systems have stood at the centre of over half a century of syntactic theorizing, where it has often been taken as a given that, e.g., an NP is projected from a single element N, or a VP from a single V. When dealing with several Ns, however, or several Vs, how are complex constructions structured? Is there no hierarchicality at all? What semantic structures do we find? And how are elements assigned their syntagmatic slots?Studying non-hierarchical syntax across languages and categories will allow new insights into what is perhaps the most basic syntactic mechanism of human speech, namely the formation of larger wholes from individual building blocks. This project presents the first detailed examination of the variation space of syntactic non-hierarchicality. Pertinent literature includes research on flexible word classes, verb serialization, non-configurationality, as well as on cross-categorial similarities and differences between the linguistic encoding of entities and events.Corpora of four languages will be analyzed in detail in order to gauge what is category-specific, what is language-specific, and what may be regular across the board. To select a minimal language sample rather than a larger one directly follows from the current state of research. Since non-hierarchicality has only been marginally explored, across languages as well as categories, in-depth, qualitative research is needed. The four languages selected are Vedic Sanskrit (Indo-European) and Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan) for their entity-denoting constructions, and Waima’a (Austronesian) and Kera’a (Sino-Tibetan) for their event-denoting ones.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups
• International Connection: Australia
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Jane Simpson, Ph.D.