Workshop on Parts and Quantities
UBC
Nov 16th 2007
Counting, classifiers, and number in Niuean:
Classifiers that don’t classify and Plural markers that are singular*
Diane Massam
University of Toronto
(diane.massam@utoronto.ca)
I. Number in the Niuean Noun Phrase – The Data
Niuean: Polynesian, VSO, isolating, ergative case, no agreement
RELATIVE CLAUSE
/PP MODIFIERS
POSSESSOR*
DEMONSTRATIVE
NUMERAL*
ADJECTIVE
NOUN
CLASSIFIER
PLURALS
NUMBER
QUANTIFIER
ARTICLE-Pr/Com
CASE
PREPOSITION
(1) The Niuean Substantive Nominal Phrase (Surface Order)
*Numeral and Possessor can also appear in the Quantifier slot (or as a predicate)
(2) Assumed Merge Order: (Kahnemuyipour and Massam 2006)
P K Art Q # CL/PL + [ _ Poss’r[_Dem[ _Num’l[ _ Adj [NP]
(ignoring relative clauses and PP modifiers)
(3)
e
tau
AbsC Pl
koloa ikiki oti
store small all
ne
lima
Compl five
i Niue
Loc Niue
ia
Dem
ne
mai
Compl from
haaku
my
e
ErgP
Sione
Sione
“all those five small shops of mine in Niue which I have inherited from Sione.”
(de Sousa 2001.50)
* Funding for this research provided by SSHRCC (SRG to Massam). Many thanks to the UofT classifier bunch – Eugenia
Suh, Julia Su, Nattaya Piriyaboon, Lyn Tieu, and to Catherine Macdonald, Jonathon Herd, and Donna Starks.
1
Number
(4)
e
tagata
AbsC person
“a/the person” (FN)
Singular
(5)
e
tau
tagata
AbsC Pl
person
“(the) people” (FN)
Plural (2 or more)
(6)
some lexically plural nouns – reduplication or suppletion
(also found in pluractionality) which can appear with or without tau (see below).
tama/fānau “child/children”, mala/malamala “bit/bits”
- loga + e “many”, gāhoa + e “few”, falu + a “some”
- possessors + a, numerals + e (when pre-nominal)
- taha (+a) “a/one”
(7)
Quantifiers:
(8)
a.
mai
he
falu a
aelani
from LocC some LNK island
“from some other islands” (THK)
b.
e
falu a
vala he
vagahau Pukapuka
AbsC some LNK piece GenC language Pukapuka
“some bits of the Pukapukan language” (LMR)
(9)
tokologa
e
Niue
Pers-many
LNK Niue
“many Niueans” (LMR)
(10)
a.
(11)
(toko = classifier prefix on quantifiers over people)
tokolima
e
tagata loloa
Pers-five
LNK person tall
“five tall people” (de Sousa 2001.33)
b.
e
tau
tupua tokolima
AbsC Pl
tupua Pers-five
‘the five tupua’ (=ancient legendary creature) (NAH)
a.
e
ha
Sione a
leo
AbsC GenP Sione LNK voice
‘Sione’s voice’ (S.92b) (= definite)
b.
e
leo
ha
Sione
AbsC voice GenP Sione
‘Sione’s voice/a voice of Sione’ (FN)
2
(12)
taha mena
one
thing
“one thing” (NAH)
(13)
pepelu taha e
lau
uli
fold one
LNK leaf
black
“fold one black strip” (weaving instructions – THK)
(14)
ne
kitia ai
he
taha fonu e
fifine nā
Pst
see
then ErgC a
turtle AbsC woman Dem
“(one day) a turtle saw this woman” (NAH)
(15)
Ko
e
taha e
vaka-toga Sepania Potikali
Pred C
a
LNK vessel
Spanish Portuguese
“(It was) a Spanish Portuguese vessel” (NAH)
(16)
Definiteness and Specificity in Niuean
(Massam, Gorrie, & Kellner 2006)
[-PLURAL]
[+PLURAL]
NEW or OLD
SPEC OR NON-SPEC
Ø
tau
NEW+SALIENT/FOC
SPEC OR NON-SPEC
taha
falu a
BACKGROUNDED
NON-REFERENTIAL
ha
bare nouns
(17)
Bare Nouns (=AdjP in Niuean) do not refer, cannot be arguments:
(Mithun 1984, de Hoop 1992, Bittner 1994, Van Geenhoven 1996, 1998, Dayal
1999, 2003, 2007, Carlson 2003, Chung and Ladusaw 2003, Mathieu 2005, to
appear, Farkas and de Swart 2004, Öztürk 2004, Ghomeshi 2003…)
• obligatory narrow scope
• number neutrality
• lack of referentiality, becomes modificational part of an institutional activity
• inability to support pronominal discourse anaphora
(18)
taute
poa
ke he
tau
atuamotu
do
offering GoalLocC Pl
god-island
“make offerings to the gods” (NAH)
(19)
e
maka efuefu puga
AbsC rock ashes limestone
“limestone” (NAH)
3
(20)
-A typically Mass noun is mostly unmarked (“Sg”?), but can appear with plural:
a. Tunu e
tau
vai
mafana ti
faka-koukou aki
Boil AbsC Pl
water warm then bathe
with
“They boiled water so that it was warm, and bathed her.” (Sp)
a
ia.
AbsP her
b. Kua fā
lauia
tamau a
Niue ke
he
tau matagi afa malolo.
Perf habitual stricken firm AbsP Niue GoalP LocP Pl wind hurricane strong
“Niue has suffered frequently from severe hurricane damage.” (Sp)
(21) Classifier Plurals: (Seiter 1980)
atu “row, group”, lafu “family group”, nā “pair”, kau “organized group of people”
(22)
e
kau kaiha
AbsC group thieves
“a group of thieves” (S:100a)
(23)
he
atu
motu
LocC row island
“in the islands” (NAH)
(24)
e
nā
una
AbsC pair combs
“a pair of combs” (NAH)
(25)
e
lafu
taokete haaku
AbsC family-group brother my
“my big brothers”
Combinations (Seiter 1980: quantifiers do not appear with tau)
(26) a.
he
falu a
tau fuata Niue
ERGC some LNK
PL youth Niue
“some Niuean youths” (Coconut stories)
(27)
b.
ke
he
loga e
tau
GoalC LocC many LNK PL
“about many things” (LMR)
c.
ha
lautolu a
tau
GenP they
LNK PL
“their strengths” (NAH)
mena
thing
malolo
strong
mo e tau
atu
motu foki he
Pasifika.
And C Pl
row island also LocC Pacific
“and the islands of the Pacific” (NAH)
4
(17)
tau
kau koli
Pl
group dance
“cultural performances”
(18)
e
falu a
atu
motu Polinesia
AbsC some LNK row island Polynesia
“some Polynesian islands” (NAH)
(19)
ke he tokoua e
nā
tagata Manu'a ko
Ve'u
about two
LNK Dual person Manu'a Pred Ve’u
‘about two Manu’an men, Ve’u and Ve’a. (NAH)
mo Ve'a
and Ve’a
(20) Quantifier (A) - Plural (B) - CL/PL (C)
tau
falu a
atu
falu a tau
tau atu
falu a atu
???falu a tau atu
PLURAL
QUANTIFIER+LNK
CL/PL
QUANTIFIER+LNK PLURAL
PLURAL CL/PL
QUANTIFIER+LNK CL/PL
??
B
A
C
A
B
B
A
A
B
C
C
C
Summary so far:
• For referentiality/argumenthood, Number is obligatory, but can appear in one of
four places, or in two (at least/at most?) of these places .
• Case+Pr/Com is obligatory – except Absolutive case is optional if there is a Quantifier
of any type (plural quantifier, possessor, numeral, taha).
II. The Status of CL/PL
(21) Classifiers
- depends on class of noun it appears with (eg. Senft 2000, Aikhenvald 2000)
- appears obligatorily with numerals (eg. Li 1999, Doetjes 1996, Tang 2001)
- is in complementary distribution with number (eg. Cheng and Sybesma 1998)
(22) Collective Nouns (cf. Massifiers - Cheng and Sybesma 1998, 1999, Borer 2005)
-a group of kids
-a row of islands
-a range of mountains
-a chain of islands
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-Can be nouns on their own:
(23)
e
tau
kau he
vaka-toga Sepania
AbsC Pl
group GenC vessel
Spanish
“the crew of the Spanish ship” (NAH)
(24)
he
tau
lafu
GenC Pl
family
“Of families”
-Same syntax as massifiers and other modificational [N [NP]] phrases
(25)
e
tau
vala ufi
AbsC Pl
piece yam
“pieces of yam”
(26)
e
vala puaka
AbsC piece pork
“a piece of pork”
(27)
tau
maala
talo
Pl
plantation taro
“taro plantations”
(28)
Structure – Pseudo-Noun incorporating noun with NP complement
NP
N
NP
Atu
motu nai
he Pasifika
Row island Dem LocC Pacific
“island rows in the Pacific” (NAH)
cf. PNI verbs with NP complements:
VP
V
NP
taute
poa
ke he
tau
do
offering GoalLocC Pl
“make offerings to the gods” (NAH)
atuamotu
god-island
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Summary so far
• tau is plural (but see below)
• lafu, atu, kau, nā are collective nouns, heading NPs with bare nominal complements
• NPs with lafu, kau, nā, are actually singular NPs (but how can we tell? – no agreement
– except for some verbs which require plural arguments, but this could be semantic
agreement – Massam, Haji-Abdolhosseini and Oda, 2002)
(29)
Ne
momohe
fakalataha
e
kau
kilikiki he
fale
akoako
Pst
sleep(PL)
together
AbsC team cricket LocC house pastor
“The cricket team slept together in the pastor's house.”
III. Quantifiers and Linkers
(30)
- A linker, a or e appears obligatorily with quantified nouns, except taha “a/one”,
with which it appears optionally (falu a, loga e, gāhoa e, Numeral e, Possessor a)
- Generally, the plural marker does not appear with quantified nouns (see below)
“classifiers appear obligatorily with number/quantifiers”
“classifiers appear in complementary distribution with number”
“classifiers appear between numerals/quantifiers and their nouns”
[- Absolutive case marking is optional with quantified nouns (“classifiers
appear in non-determiner languages”) (??)]
(31) Borer 2007
DP
#max
D
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL’
CL3
<e3>DIV Nmax
3
3
PROPOSAL
CL
PL
dog (Chinese)
dog (English, N->DIV)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------3
LNK(=CL)
dog (Niuean quantified nominal)
tau
dog (Niuean pluralized nominal)
tau
atu motu (Niuean - PL row island)
NULL
dog (Niuean singular)
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• Q: What about falu a tau?
Claim: tau is ambiguous between a plural marker and a collective noun
(32) Appears optionally with lexically plural nouns – is not really a pluralizer here
a.
e
tau
fānau
Abs Pl
children
(tama – “child”)
“the kids”
b.
ti
lalahi e
fānau
then grew AbsC children
“then the kids grew”
(33) Is used lexically in other ways associated with amount eg. tau Proto-Polynesian
“count”, tau “cost”, tau “year” (seems to have lexical roots)
(34) Has been considered to be a noun/adjective by grammarians of Niuean:
“denotes nominal plural, preposed to a singular noun to form a
plural noun phrase with minimally two nouns (NP = N N), or 'tau' can
be construed as a plural noun followed by the singular noun in the
form of an adjective (NP = N ADJ)” (McEwen, 1970:314) [= PNI]
Summary so far
• tau is plural marker
• tau can be a collective noun (and hence can co-occur with CL)
• lafu, atu, kau, nā are collective nouns with a [N [NP]] structure
• a, e assign range to DIV, that is, they are classifiers (that do not classify)
• Pl and Cl are in complementary distribution: Cl in quantified contexts, Pl in nonquantified contexts
Borer (2005)
•Nouns are not individuated in the lexicon.
•They become individuated, and can be arguments, when range is assigned to DIV.
Types of Noun Phrases in Niuean - In Niuean, DIV can have range assigned by:
-tau (moved from N? (Piriyawiboon, 2007))
-NULL
-LNK (=CL)
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e tau tagata “(the) people”
#max
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL3
CL’
<e3>DIV Nmax
tau tagata
tagata “person”
#max
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL3
CL’
<e3>DIV Nmax
NULL tagata
falu a tagata “some people”
falu a tau tagata “some people”
#max
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL3
falu
CL’
<e3>DIV Nmax
a
(tau) tagata
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kau kaiha “gang of thieves”
#max
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL3
CL’
<e3>DIV Nmax
NULL kau kaiha
tau atu motu “island groups”
#max
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL3
CL’
<e3>DIV Nmax
tau atu motu
falu a atu motu “some island groups”
#max
Q2
#
<e2>#
CLmax
CL3
falu
CL’
<e3>DIV Nmax
a
atu motu
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IV. Conclusion
• DIV is a required head for a nominal phrase to serve as an argument (and
Case+Pr/Com), and its needs can be met in more than one way (Borer 2005).
• Number is more semantic than grammatical in Niuean (lack of any agreement, lexically
plural nouns, wide use of collective nouns, ambiguity of tau, pluractionality)
• Use of tau and collective nouns do not indicate a robust number system, and what we
have proposed to be a classifier system is deficient (Tang 2004).
• Suggests a system in process of change from Classifier to Number – (ambiguity of tau,
deficient classifiers) – any historical validity to this?
Partial References
Aikhenvald Alexandra. 2000. Classifiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Borer, Hagit. 2005. In Name Only. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cheng, Lisa, and Rint Sybesma. 1999. Bare and Not So Bare Nouns and the Structure of
NP. Linguistic Inquiry 30:509-42.
----. Classifiers in four Varieties of Chinese. In G. Cinque and R. Kayne, eds., Handbook
of Comparative Syntax .Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. Reference to Kinds Across Languages. Natural Language
Semantics 6. 339-405.
Da Sousa, Hilario. The Niuean Nominal Phrase. Ms. University of Auckland.
Doetjes, Jenny. 1996. Mass or Count: Syntax or Semantics? The Proceedings of the
Meaning on the HIL, 34-52. Leiden: HIUL/Leiden University.
Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan, and Diane Massam. 2006. Patterns of Phrasal Movement: The
Niuean DP” (with Arsalan Kahnemuyipour). in Hans-Martin Gaertner, Paul Law
and Joachim Sabel, eds. Clause Structure and Adjuncts in Austronesian
Languages. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 125-150.
Li, Audrey. 1999. Plural in a Classifier Language. Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
8:75-99
Massam, Diane. 2001. Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean, Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 19:1:153-197. 2001.
Massam, Diane, Mohammad Haji Abdolhosseini and Kenji Oda. 2002. Number and
Events: Verbal Reduplication in Niuean Oceanic Linguistics 41.2:475-492.
2002.McEwen, J.M. Niue Dictionary. Wellington: Dept. of Måori and Island Affairs.
Piriyawiboon, Nattaya. 2007. Classifiers in Thai. Ms. University of Toronto.
Seiter, William. 1980. Studies in Niuean Syntax. New York: Garland.
Senft. Gunter. 2000. What do we really know about nominal classification systems.
Systems of Nominal Classification, ed. By Gunter Senft. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Sperlich, Wolfgang. 1997. Tohi Vagahau Niue: Niue Dictionary. Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press.
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Massam, Diane, Colin Gorrie and Alexandra Kellner. 2006. Determiners in Niuean
McEwen,
Tang, Jane. 2004. Two Types of Classifier Languages: A Typological Study of
Classification Markers in Paiwan Noun Phrases. Language and Linguistics 5.2.
377-407.
-----. 2005 Nouns or Classifiers: A Non-movement Analysis of Classifiers in Chinese.
Language and Linguistics 6.3:431-472.
Data from:
-Niue: a History of the Island, 1982, published jointly by the Institute of Pacific Studies of the University
of the South Pacific and The Government of Niue, Alofi, Niue.
-Seiter 1980.
-Sperlich 1997.
-McEwen 1970.
-Tau Koloa Fakamotu ha Niue: Tau Koloa Laufa (Cultural Crafts of Niue: Pandanus Weaving) by Shari
Cole and Vitolia Kulatea: Government of Niue and Institute of Pacific Studies, Alofi, Niue, 1996.
-Field Notes
-Languages of Manukau Region interviews (courtesy of Donna Starks, Auckland University)
-Asekona, Berry, Harry Manamana, Esau Noue, and Clive Beaumont. 2005. Ko e Tupumaiaga he
Niu - The Origin of the Coconut Tree in Niue. Clive H. and Daisy J.M. Beaumont, Ranui, Auckland.
-Various stories, and various government brochures.
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