Browsing by Author "Pretorius, Erin"
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- ItemHaving fun with van : a nanosyntactic take on syncretism(Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2013) Pretorius, ErinSyncretism is the phenomenon where one (phonological) form is able to spell out more than one (grammatical) function. The P(repositional) element van (“from/of”) in Afrikaans represents an instance of syncretism: it is able to spell out many different functions including spatial, possessive and partitive functions. Any theoretical framework seeking to account for how form relates to function ought to provide an account of this phenomenon. Within the broad minimalist approach, Nanosyntax (NS) has yielded the most systematic and explicit accounts of syncretism (cf. e.g. Starke 2009; Caha 2006, 2009). This paper offers a nanosyntactic characterisation of the Afrikaans P element van, focusing specifically on its behaviour in Afrikaans partitive constructions and offering a tentative analysis to account for the seemingly irregular behaviour displayed by van in these constructions. The analysis is based on a modified syntactic decomposition of “the genitive zone” proposed by Caha (2009). The presence of an additional node, Specific (SPF), is argued for in the lowest layer of the structure that is encoded on the lexical entry for van. One merit of the proposed analysis is that it takes into account how van interacts with other word-level elements in the phrase.
- ItemThe secret nominal life of Afrikaans intransitive adpositions(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2017) Pretorius, ErinLanguages like Afrikaans are sometimes said to feature a class of adpositions that can be described as “intransitive” (e.g. binne “inside”, bo “upstairs”, agter “in the back”, buite “outside”, onder “downstairs” voor “in the front”). It is argued that such elements in fact instantiate a “hybrid” category – the locative noun category – which is not missing a Ground external argument but is actually lexicalising the nominal structure associated with that Ground argument itself. Such locative nouns pattern with R-pronouns and home-class nouns and therefore probably share a similar internal structure with these better-studied elements of language.
- ItemSpelling out P: a unified syntax of Afrikaans adpositions and V-particles(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Pretorius, Erin; Biberauer, Theresa; Corver, Norbert; Oosthuizen, Johan; Van Koppen, Marjo; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Elements of language that are typically considered to have P (i.e. adpositional) category status frequently exhibit divergent morphosyntactic properties, and it is often the case that one and the same element exhibits divergent morphosyntactic properties. Such elements are syncretic. An important fact about syncretism is that it poses a challenge to the ontologically primitive syntactic category. With a concentrated focus on the Afrikaans spatial P domain, this dissertation develops a system in which observed patterns of syncretism fall out naturally from (i) the fine-grained cartographic structure of the non-primitive P domain, (ii) the “shape” of the formal featural specification on particular (classes of) P elements, and (iii) a theory of how lexical material is matched and inserted to express syntactic structure. In this system, syntactic categories are not ontologically primitive but are composite syntactic objects consisting of (overlapping) sets of hierarchically structured formal features. Category effects – all the morphosyntactic characteristics associated with a particular category – arise as epiphenomena of the particular set of features that an element lexicalises at a particular insertion site. As the book progresses, it is demonstrated how all the language-internal variation in expressions containing P elements – simplex and complex prepositional phrases, circumpositional phrases, doubling adpositional phrases, and particle verbs with P-based particles – can be derived from the same basic structure. On the proposed analysis, category boundaries are non-discreet and may be spanned by individual lexical items, accounting for the multiple macro-category membership of some P elements using precisely the same mechanisms that account for multiple micro-category membership.