{"title":"Proper name-marking via liaison in French","authors":"Natascha Pomino, E. Stark","doi":"10.1515/stuf-2019-0024","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The liaison consonant [z] in French noun phrases has traditionally been assumed to function as a plural marker. The realization of “plural [z]” in N(oun)-A(djective)-combinations is becoming, however, very rare in naturalistic data – except for contexts which allow a proper-name reading. On the one hand, one might think that we are dealing with a recent phenomenon, the beginning of a potential linguistic change in French in the sense of exaptation, reuse of former morphophonological material such as plural markers to signal proper-namehood in the sense of ‘frozen morphology’. If this turns out correct, we expect the productivity of the new synchronic function to increase: New NA-combinations which function as proper names should be realized systematically with liaison, and proper name-marking via liaison should also become possible with other liaison consonants. On the other hand, we may be dealing with a (completed) diachronic process, in that only those NA-combinations which allowed liaison at the relevant point in time may have a liaison consonant in their univerbalized form. That is, new NA-combinations, even though they are used as proper names, do not display a liaison consonant, because liaison is no longer possible. The purpose of this paper was to investigate, based on empirical studies, whether liaison productively marks NA-combinations which function as proper names and distinguishes them from NA-combinations that count as common nouns, or whether we are dealing with a completed diachronic process. In view of the poor productivity observed, we argue that we are dealing with cases of univerbation.","PeriodicalId":43533,"journal":{"name":"STUF-Language Typology and Universals","volume":"31 9 1","pages":"627 - 652"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2019-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"STUF-Language Typology and Universals","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/stuf-2019-0024","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract The liaison consonant [z] in French noun phrases has traditionally been assumed to function as a plural marker. The realization of “plural [z]” in N(oun)-A(djective)-combinations is becoming, however, very rare in naturalistic data – except for contexts which allow a proper-name reading. On the one hand, one might think that we are dealing with a recent phenomenon, the beginning of a potential linguistic change in French in the sense of exaptation, reuse of former morphophonological material such as plural markers to signal proper-namehood in the sense of ‘frozen morphology’. If this turns out correct, we expect the productivity of the new synchronic function to increase: New NA-combinations which function as proper names should be realized systematically with liaison, and proper name-marking via liaison should also become possible with other liaison consonants. On the other hand, we may be dealing with a (completed) diachronic process, in that only those NA-combinations which allowed liaison at the relevant point in time may have a liaison consonant in their univerbalized form. That is, new NA-combinations, even though they are used as proper names, do not display a liaison consonant, because liaison is no longer possible. The purpose of this paper was to investigate, based on empirical studies, whether liaison productively marks NA-combinations which function as proper names and distinguishes them from NA-combinations that count as common nouns, or whether we are dealing with a completed diachronic process. In view of the poor productivity observed, we argue that we are dealing with cases of univerbation.
摘要法语名词短语中的连读辅音[z]历来被认为是复数标记。然而,在N(own)- a (djective)-组合中实现“复数[z]”在自然主义数据中变得非常罕见——除了允许专有名称读取的上下文。一方面,有人可能会认为我们正在处理一个最近的现象,这是法语中潜在的语言变化的开始,在“定格”的意义上,重新使用以前的词形音素材料,如复数标记,以“冻结形态”的意义来表示专有名称。如果这被证明是正确的,我们预计新的共时功能的生产力将会增加:作为专有名称的新na组合应该通过连音系统地实现,并且通过连音与其他连音辅音进行专有名称标记也应该成为可能。另一方面,我们可能正在处理一个(完成的)历时过程,因为只有那些在相关时间点允许连接的na组合才能以其通用形式具有连接辅音。也就是说,新的na组合,即使它们被用作专有名称,也不会显示连读辅音,因为连读不再可能了。本文的目的是在实证研究的基础上,调查联系是否有效地标记了作为专有名称的na组合,并将它们与作为普通名词的na组合区分开来,或者我们是否正在处理一个完整的历时过程。鉴于观察到的低生产率,我们认为我们正在处理普遍性的情况。