Pseudo Noun Incorporation and Argument Structure in Niuean
Douglas Ball
Stanford University
Niuean is a VSO, ergative language of the Tongic subgroup of the Polynesian language
family. It has a syntactic construction referred to in the literature as pseudo-noun
incorporation (Massam 2001). Instances of pseudo noun-incorporation are marked by three
features: the adjacency of the verb and the incorporated noun (creating apparent VOS order),
the absence of function words marking case (analyzed as category K) and plurality (as D)
before the noun, and by the external argument being marked by absolutive case. These three
differences can be noted between (1) and (2) below:
(1)
Takafaga
túmau
ní
e
ia
Hunt
always
EMPH ERG he
V
Postverbal Adjuncts
ERG KP
He’s always fishing (hunting fish).
(2)
Takafaga
ika
túmau ní
a
ia.
hunt
fish
always EMPH
ABS he
V
IN
Postverbal Adjuncts
ABS KP
He’s always fishing (≈ He’s always fish-hunting)
(Seiter 1980: 69)
e
tau
ika.
ABS PL
fish
ABS KP
(Seiter 1980: 69)
From (2), a morphological analysis, where the verb is analyzed as a morphologically formed
verb-noun compound, seems possible. However, such an analysis runs into problems, because
pseudo-noun incorporation can involve incorporation of phrasal units, such as adjectives in
(3), conjoined nouns in (4) and certain types of complement clauses in (5).
(3)
Ne
inu
kofe kono
PAST drink coffee bitter
TAM V
[I NPN
A
Mary drank bitter coffee.
a
Mele
ABS Mary
] ABS NP
(Massam 2001: 158).
(4)
Ne
kai
sipi
mo
e
PST
eat
chip
COM ABS
TAM V
[I NPN CONJ
Sione ate good fish and chips.
ika
fish
N
mitaki a
Sione.
good ABS (name)
A
] ABS KP
(Massam 2001: 160)
(5)
…ke kumi mena ke
nonofo ai
a
lautolu
SJTV seek
thing SJTV settle there ABS they
TAM V [NI NPN
[CP
]] ABS KP
that they would seek a place to settle.
(Massam 2001: 160)
Note that while phrases can be incorporated, they still lack K’s and D’s to the left of the
incorporated NP. Also observe that sentences with these incorporated NPs are still marked as
intransitive, as indicated by the absolutive marking on the external argument. Thus, Niuean
pseudo-noun incorporation has both syntactic and morphological aspects, similar to Hindi
noun incorporation (T. Mohanan 1995) and Danish syntactic noun incorporation (Asudeh and
Mikkelsen 2000).
How might both the syntactic nature of the incorporated NP and the argument
structure effects of pseudo-noun incorporation be captured? To handle the c-structure
properties of pseudo-noun incorporation, the incorporated nominal is analyzed as an NP. This
accounts for absence of K’s and D’s, and is similar to Asudeh and Mikkelsen’s (2000)
unsaturated NP analysis of Danish syntactic noun incorporation. To account for the adjacency
of the incorporated NP to the verb, I propose the NP is head-adjoined to V0. Though this unit
could have a higher bar level (VP or V’), given that there appears to be no independent
evidence for VPs or V-bars in Niuean, such an analysis seems unattractive because it would
posit that such a projection only exists in incorporated structures.
To handle the syntactic formation of the predicate in pseudo-noun incorporation, I
propose, first, that PRED values are not atomistic values, but f-structures, with REL semantic
attributes and ARG attributes for their accompanying arguments. This is architecturally similar
to the s-structure proposed in Halvorsen and Kaplan (1988), although, conceptually, it is very
similar to the distinction between LCS attributes and the TERMS list in Andrews and Manning
(1999). With this representation, argument structure can now be represented in the f-structure,
through the list of ARG attribute-value pairs.
Using this alternate conception of PRED values, the predicate of the incorporated
sentence can be built up by the syntax. The verb itself is annotated with (↑ PRED REL) = Ø,
contributing the main semantic event. The incorporated NP is annotated as (↑ PRED ARG2) =
Ø and maps directly into the PRED-internal argument structure. Since ARG2 has a value in it, it
cannot be linked with a GF. So, in instances where the verb canonically has only two
arguments, this lack of linking makes the predicate intransitive; thus, the external argument
cannot be marked with ergative case.
To illustrate the analysis, given below is the annotated c-structure and associated fstructure for (1):
S
(↑ADJ)= Ø
AP
↑=Ø
V0
(↑ PRED REL) = Ø
V0
takafaga
(↑ PRED ARG2) = Ø túmau ní
NP
ika
(↑ SUBJ) = Ø
KP
a ia
È
Í
Í
Í SUBJ
Í
Í
Í
Í
Í
ÍPRED
Í
Í
Í
Í ADJ
Í
Í
Í
Í
ÍÎ
È PRED [REL ' PRO' ]˘ ˘
Í
˙ ˙
ÍCASE
˙ ˙
ABS
Í
˙ ˙
3
Í PERS
˙ ˙
Í
˙ ˙
SG
Î NUM
˚ ˙
˙
È REL ' hunt' ˘
˙
Í
˙
˙
Í ARG 1
˙
˙
Í
˙
Î ARG2 ' fish' ˚
˙
È PRED [ REL ' always' ]˘ ˙
Í
˙˙
ÍÎEMPH
˙˚ ˙
+
˙
˙
˙
˙˚
The f-structure-driven analysis outlined above will be compared with a c-structuredriven analysis of noun incorporation, lexical sharing (Wescoat 2002). In lexical sharing, the
verb and noun form a complex V0 that projects simultaneously to higher verbal projections
and nominal projections. Wescoat’s analysis will be extended from Hindi to Niuean and the
merits and drawbacks of each proposal will be discussed.
References
Andrews, Avery and Christopher Manning. 1999. Complex Predicates and Information
Spreading in LFG. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Asudeh, Ash and Line Hove Mikkelsen 2000. Incorporation in Danish: Implications for
interfaces. In Ronnie Cann, Claire Grover, and Philip Miller (eds.), Grammatical
interfaces in HPSG. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Halvorsen, Per-Kristian, and Ronald M. Kaplan. 1988. Projections and Semantic Description
in Lexical-Functional Grammar. In Proceedings of the International Conference on
Fifth Generation Computer Systems, 1116-1122. Tokyo. Institute for New Generation
Computer Technology.
Massam, Diane. 2001. Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean. Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 19: 153-197.
Mohanan, Tara. 1995. Word and Lexicality: Noun Incorporation in Hindi. Natural Language
and Linguistic Theory 13: 75-134
Seiter, William. 1980. Studies in Niuean Syntax. New York: Garland Publications.
Wescoat, Michael. 2002. On Lexical Sharing. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Ph.D.
dissertation.