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Nouniness and Markedness
In the languages which show weak noun-verb distinction, or predicate-argument flexibility, primarily Philippine languages, Wakashan, Salishan, and Circassian (West Caucasus), any notional stem can be used either as an argument or a predicate, without further derivation needed. The semantics of such a stem can be predicted from its position in a clause. In particular, there is a wellattested construction with a verb that functions as a noun without any special markers (1). Lacking a head noun, the phrase has a distribution of NP. Nevertheless, there are several criteria used to distinguish "nouns" from "verbs". In particular, it has been mentioned in (Davidson [2002] for Nuuchahnulth, Dahl [1986] for Malagasy, Testelets and Lander [2006] for Adyghe) that "verbs" must obligatory have a specific determiner to function as an argument, while with "nouns" such a restriction doesn't hold: see (2). One of the possible analyses of the examples above can be stated as follows: · The referentiality of a 'verbal' argument must be specific.

That is, to function as a noun (or, as an argument), a verb must receive specific interpretation. Crucially, it is not a necessary condition. I propose that the restriction we observe in (2) is due not to specificity, but to markedness. Languages that don't allow non-specific uses for 'verbal' arguments (Nuuchahnulth, Makah, Malagasy and Adyghe) have one common feature. Namely, all of them have a paradigm of specificity/definiteness with only one overtly marked, phonetically non-null opposition member. Non-specificity is expressed either by a zero article (as in Nuuchahnulth, Makah, Malagasy) or by absence of a case affix (as in Adyghe). What if we consider data from languages with both specific and non-specific phrases marked? Tongan and Tagalog are also famous by the lack of category distinction (see details Foley [1998], Himmelmann [to appear] for Tagalog and Broschart [1997] for Tongan). In Tongan non-specific nouns occur with an overtly expressed indefinite article, ha. In Tagalog specificity is expressed by case particles, ang (ABS), ng (ERG) and sa (LOC). It has been described in [Rackowski 2002], [Aldridge 2006] et al. that non-specific position is the one marked with the particle ng if the predicate has an agentive focus marker. As well as in Tongan, the non-specific argument is marked. Both in Tongan and Tagalog, as we can see 'verbal' arguments are allowed to be non-specific: see (3-4). To sum up: · 'Verbal' arguments are allowed to be non-specific in the languages that have an overtly expressed non-specific marker.

In languages with specific and non-specific phrases both marked, arguments without a noun as a head can receive either interpretation. If a language has only one opposition member marked, it is always a specific one (Givon [1984] ). Then, such a language doesn't allow unmarked (i.e. nonspecific) form of a 'verbal' argument. So, we should restate the assertion above as: · The referentiality of a 'verbal' argument must be overtly marked.

A verb, to appear in an argument position, must have some phonetically non-null referential marker. For an NP without a nominal head it is not sufficiently to occupy an argument position, some additional means are needed to demonstrate its syntactic role as an NP. Essentially, it means that even for the most "arguable" (with regard to the noun-verb distinction) languages as noted above it is necessary to have something like a syntactic nominalizing marker. This should be interpreted as another important evidence for the universality of lexical categories.

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Data:

(1) Adyghe (Circassian, West Caucasus) [newESE qe-KWa-StE]-r
tomorrow
DIR

asker
PR.N.

-come-

FUT-ABS

The one who will come tomorrow is Asker. (2) Nuuchahnulth (Wakashan) a. FhhGFh· C`jto,'Fh(
big-3IND man-(
DET)

The man is tall. b. FhhGFh·
big-3
IND

l`lttj,*(Fi)
working-*(
DET)

The working one is tall. [Woo 2005:8] (3) Tagalog (Philippine) at ang pare
and
ABS

at
and

siya
3
SG

ay
INV

naghintay
PERF.AF

priest

.wait

ng
ERG

sasabihin
IMPF.PF

ng
ERG

sundalo
soldier

.say

And the priest and he waited for what the soldier would say. [Bloomfield 1917:30/13], from [Himmelmann: in press] (4) Tongan (Polynesian) fai ha
do.
IMPV INDEF

tohi
write

Write a letter. [Churchward 1953:24] Reference
Aldridge, Edith. 2006. Against Case Agreement in Tagalog. Paper presented at AFLA XIII. Bloomfild, L. 1917. Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis. 3 vols. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois. Churchward, C. Maxwell. 1953. Tongan grammar. London ­ New York ­ Toronto: Oxford University Press. Dahl, Otto Chr. 1986. Focus in Malagasy and Proto-Austronesian. In: Geraghty, Paul, Lois Carrington and S.A. Wurm (eds.), FOCAL I: Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics (C-93). P. 21-42. Davidson, Matthew. 2002. Studies in Southern Wakashan (Nootkan) grammar. PhD dissertation. Foley, William A. 1998. Symmetrical voice systems and precategoriality in Philippine languages. Paper presented at the 3rd LFG conference, Brisbane. Givon, T. 1984. Syntax: A Functional Typological Introduction. Vol. I. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Jacobsen, William H., Jr. 1979a. Noun and verb in Nootkan. In Barbara S. Efrat, ed., The Victoria Conference on Northwestern Languages. British Columbia Provincial Museum Heritage Record no. 4, 83. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum. Himmelmann, Nikolaus. (to appear) Lexical categories and voice in Tagalog. In Musgrave, Simon (ed.), Voice and Grammatical Functions in Austronesian Languages. Stanford: CSLI. Lander Yu.A., Testelets Ya.G. 2006. Nouniness and Specificity: Circassian and Wakashan. Paper presented at PoS 2006, Amsterdam. Rackowski, Andrea. 2002. The structure of Tagalog: Specificity, voice, and the distribution of arguments. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. Woo, Florence. 2005. Prepositional Predicates in Nuuchahnulth. Dissertation prospectus.

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