Body-part Nouns Research Articles

Inalienable possession (and lack thereof) in Spanish

Abstract This paper revisits the phenomenon of inalienable possession between a dative argument and a body-part noun in Spanish. Specifically, it looks at contexts where the inalienable possession interpretation is obligatory, as in constructions containing monoeventive verbs of perception, and those where the inalienable reading becomes optional, namely with bi-eventive predicates denoting a change of state. I offer a possessor raising and applicative hybrid analysis, whereby the inalienable possessor originates inside the body-part DP and raises to the specifier of an applicative head to license dative case; the position ApplP occupies in the derivation determines the dative’s interpretation as a mere possessor (low applicative), or as an affected possessor as well (middle applicative). Alternatively, cases where the dative is not understood as the inalienable possessor but simply as affected occur when this argument is an additional one originating in the specifier of the middle applicative head, and the possessor of the body-part noun is encoded internally via a clitic or strong possessive, or by means of a genitive PP inside the DP. Thus, I propose the existence of two types of affected applicative heads: (i) one whose specifier is available for the possessor inside the possessum DP to move into to be case licensed, and (ii) another introducing an additional argument in its specifier. Additionally, this analysis accounts for the complementary distribution between dative possessors and possessive determiners in Spanish.

The Acquisition of Inalienable Possession in L2 and Heritage Spanish

Abstract The present study examines the production and interpretation of inalienable possession in dative constructions with body-part nouns in Spanish by 25 English-speaking L2 learners and 25 heritage speakers of Spanish born and raised in the United States. Twenty Spanish-dominant speakers served as baseline group. The results showed significant divergencies with inalienable NPs among the L2 learners compared to the heritage speakers and Spanish-dominant speakers. The L2 learners produced few instances of clitic se and a definite determiner and favored the use of a possessive determiner with or without a clitic instead. The heritage speakers and baseline group behaved similarly in their use of a clitic and a definite determiner. We argue for age of onset of acquisition and crosslinguistic influence effects in the acquisition of inalienable possession in Spanish.

Middle-Passive Constructions, Dative Possessors, and Word Order in Spanish

This paper examines data from Spanish middle-passive sentences whose grammatical subject contains a body-part noun, externally possessed by means of a dative possessor. I advocate for an analysis whereby the possessor originates inside the theme DP and raises to the specifier of an applicative projection to be licensed with dative case. I show that the unmarked order for dative DPs in these configurations is preverbal. These phrases may appear as the sole preverbal constituent, presumably in preverbal subject position, thus forcing the theme DP to remain inside the VP; alternatively, both the dative DP and theme DP can occur preverbally, in which case, the former appears to be left dislocated while the latter would be probed to preverbal subject position. This last scenario leads to a minimality violation, since the theme would be probed over the empty pronominal standing for the possessor that must necessarily sit in Spec, ApplP for the inalienable possession construal to obtain. Instead, I argue that both preverbal dative and theme DPs in Spanish middle-passive sentences are left dislocated and corefer with empty pronominals inside the sentence; the null dative possessor, being closer to T° always raises to subject position, which avoids any potential intervention effects. Finally, I explore how these data can be analyzed within a paratactic approach.

Categorizing possession in Zuanga-Yuanga and other Kanak languages (New Caledonia): a typological perspective

Abstract Like many other Oceanic and Kanak languages of New Caledonia, Zuanga-Yuanga [ZY] has classifiers restricted to the possession of nouns denoting food, drink, animals and plants; it also has dichotomous direct and indirect adnominal possessive constructions, which are generally labeled inalienable or alienable in the Oceanic literature. These terms refer to a distinction between close versus distant structural marking, which do not strictly correlate with lexical-semantic categories. For instance, kinship nouns are split over the two types of constructions, distinguishing reference from address kinship terms, not in terms of semantic distinctions between close versus distant kinship types. The split for body-part nouns is between directly possessed dedicated terms and indirectly possessed metaphorical body terms, not in terms of permanent versus removable parts, or temporary body properties. In ZY possessive constructions correlate with fairly strict possessee noun classes belonging to one single structural class (directly or indirectly marked). Only a limited number of nouns denoting parts-of-whole have alternate constructions expressing different semantic relations to the possessed noun.

CONSTRUCTIONS ‘PO + BODY PART NOUN’: THE CROSSROADS OF GRAMMAR, PHRASEOLOGY AND LEXICOLOGY

The article deals with constructions formed by Russian preposition po and body part nouns. On the one hand, they meet the interests of lexicology, phraseology and grammar and are being studied within these approaches, on the other hand, the data available is not very coherent. In order to provide a systemic description for this cluster of constructions, the ideas of Construction grammar have been applied. The article aims to reveal and scrutinize main families of po + body part nouns constructions. We extracted 26 constructions out of phraseological and auxiliary words dictionaries which were used as a source of material. Their analysis has shown that there are 6 families of the constructions in question: level constructions (po poyas ‘waist-high/deep’), high degree of a feature constructions (po ushi ‘over head and ears’), punishment constructions (po shee ‘in the neck’), matching constructions (po plechu ‘equal’), indifference constructions (poboku ‘awry’), temporal and locative constructions (po stopam ‘in the track of’, po bokam ot ‘on the sides of’). The families were studied with corpus data which allowed to enlarge the classes and assign some structure-semantic types within. The constructions correspond to different parts of speech and may be regarded as results of lexicalization, grammaticalization and pragmaticalization; however, they could be also considered as constructionalization effects.

Moyens d’expression de la possession inalienable dans les constructions verbales avec des noms de parties du corps (domaine français-roumain)

" Means of Expressing Inalienable Possession in Verb Structures with Body Part Nouns (French and Romanian). Departing from the verb structures with the possessive dative that express the inalienable possession between a noun that names body parts (Nbp) and its possessor in Romanian (Ro: I-a rupt gâtul. / Fr. Il lui a rompu le cou), we set out to establish a typology of verb structures consisting of two subclasses: (1) Verbs that place the possessor in the possessive dative and the Nbp in the accusative (direct object); (2) verbs that place the Nbp as an adverbial modifier and the possessor in the possessive dative, possessive accusative or genitive. The second objective of our study is to carry out a comparative-based analysis of the ways of expressing the inalienable possession in the verb structures of the two Romance languages, constructed with the lexeme Fr. cou, gorge / Ro gât, to highlight the similarities and differences in this relationship-type structures specific for the two Romance languages. For the analysis we resorted to an authentic corpus, complied from real-life examples sampled from journalistic texts (Corpus Leipzig, online newspapers), supplemented by electronic dictionaries (TLFi, CNTRL, Dex online). Given the richness of verb structures and the considerable number of differences between the two languages, we systematised our analysis in several stages: (1) identifying the verb structures built with the possessive dative; (2) establishing a verb structure typology according to the syntactic function assigned to the Nbp (subject, direct object, indirect object, adverbial modifier) and its possessor (possessive dative, possessive accusative, genitive); (3) highlighting the similarities and differences between the two languages in terms of the construction of the inalienable possession relationship between the Nbp and its possessor. Keywords: possessive dative, inalienable possession, noun denoting body parts, possessor, syntactic function "

A Study on the Positioning of Body Part Object in “V+qilai(起來)” Verb-Tendency Construction

This paper discusses the positioning of body part nouns when they appear with a “V+qilai(起來)”verb-tendency construction as an object. There are two possible sequences for them, one is “V+起+O+來” and the other is “把+O+V+起來”.BR First, we analysed why the“V+起來”construction and body part objects cannot take the sequence of “V+起來+O”. Body part nouns have low categoriality, which means they are not autonomous, discourse-salient entities in a discourse in general. According to the information structure rules, if the position of a sentence element is near the end of the sentence, there is a higher possibility for the sentence element to have new and important information. However, the low-categoriality of body part nouns makes it inappropriate to appear at the end of the sentence.BR Then, based on linguistic data, we analysed the factors which affect the selection between “V+起+O+來” and “把+O+V+起來” , and arrived at the following conclusions: BR There are several syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors that influence speakers to choose between “V+起+O+來” and “把+O+V+起來”.BR On the syntactic level, since the adverb “dou(都)” means “all” or “even”, the adverb “ye(也)” which means “even” can only be related to a sentence element on the left side of them. If these two words are related to the body part object, then only the “把+O+V+起來” sequence is possible because it is only through this sequence that the body part object can be lifted to the left of them.BR On the semantic level, if the body part object is highly related to the V, then the “V+起+O+來” sequence is preferred. When two elements have a close semantic relationship, they tend to appear together in high frequency. It is a common phenomenon in languages where zero or short coding is preferred for those meanings and functions occurring more frequently, while for those occurring rarely, overt, and long coding is preferred.BR On the pragmatic level, because of the Economical Principle of Language, the rules of information structure, and the Principle of Head Proximity, speakers will prefer to choose the “把+O+V+起來” sequence.BR Aside from the factors mentioned above, due to a trend of the “把+O+V+起來” sequence being used more often in the verb/adjective-tendency construction, speakers will choose this sequence even if there are no obvious syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic factors.

Body part metaphors in phraseological expressions

Abstract The paper addresses the employment of body part nouns in the creation of phraseological expressions of some European languages, a topic at the crossroads of language, cognition and culture. In particular, the contrastive analysis explores the common linguistic representation of meanings through body part metaphorical expressions in Italian, French, Spanish and English. While several efforts to gauge the existence of a “European linguistic type” (cf. Haspelmath, 2001) have been largely devoted to the study of grammatical structures, a systematic account of the lexical component of the major European languages has not been attempted yet. Among the lexical units, phraseological expressions (e.g. compounds, multiword units, idiomatic expressions, as well as light verb and light noun constructions) represent a relevant ground to inquire into, since they are the most transparent and authentic vehicle of common ideas and experiences gradually rooted in European communicative realities.

Meaning construal and meaning conventionalization of Chinese [X+body part] metonymic compounds from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics

AbstractIt is common for “body part” nouns to refer to other concepts through metonymy operations in a specific context to produce new meanings in many languages. Some compound words formed by body part nouns as morphemes can also refer to other concepts through metonymy operations, and the degree of conventionalization varies. This study firstly defines the degrees of conventionalization of the target compound words–Chinese [X+body part] metonymic compounds, and divides them into three types: conventionalized, half-conventionalized, and inconventionalized. Then, from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics, this study uses an integrated analysis model of cognitive linguistics and Relevance Theory to analyze the meaning inferential process of metonymic compounds with different degrees of conventionalization. This study has found similarities and differences among them. The similarity is that both speakers and hearers need to achieve “optimal relevance” in the process and the difference is that the lower degree of conventionalization of the compound, the more complicated the meaning inferential process is. Lastly, on the basis of the inferential process, this study summarizes four factors that affect the conventionalization of metonymic compounds: time of word formation, salience of metonymy, clarity of word-forming motivation and contextual support, among which contextual support is the most crucial factor.

Gendered body language in children’s literature over time

In this paper, we study gendered patterns of body language descriptions in children’s fiction. We compare a corpus of 19th-century children’s literature with a corpus of contemporary fiction for children. Using a corpus linguistic approach, we study gendered five-word body part clusters, that is, repeated sequences of words that contain at least one body part noun and a marker of gender. Our aim is to identify and describe differences between the description of male and female body language across both corpora. We find that in the 19th century, there are not only fewer clusters for female characters, but the functional range of these clusters is also limited. The contemporary data suggests a trend for male and female clusters to become more similar with the clusters illustrating an increasing range of options for the description of female characters and their interactional spaces.

Local versus long-distance bound implicit arguments of inalienable relational nouns in Chinese

This paper argues that inalienable relational nouns in Mandarin Chinese, specifically kinship nouns (KNs, e.g. father, sister) and body-part nouns (BPNs, e.g. head, face), have an implicit reflexive argument. Based on a syntactic comparison between KNs, BPNs, locally and long-distance bound reflexives, we argue that the implicit reflexive arguments of BPNs must be locally bound, whereas that of KNs can either be locally or long-distance bound. We conclude that these two types of implicit arguments in Mandarin Chinese correspond to locally and long-distance bound reflexives, respectively. We analyze this difference in connection with binding theory and a theory of logophoricity. We argue that the implicit argument of BPNs is a locally bound anaphor and cannot be used as a logophor, whereas that of KNs can, supporting a proposal that the logophoric property leads to long-distance binding, as argued by Huang & Liu’s (2001) for reflexives in Mandarin Chinese.

Body-Part Morphemes in Matis (Panoan)

Grammatical and pragmatic aspects of body-part constructions represent relevant theme for typological and functional researches in the Amerindian languages. Despite the researches on body-part morphemes in the Matis language since the beginning of the 21st century, studies have been restricted to brief inventories and to the description of isolated clauses. In the present article, I describe the extended body-part inventory and the typological aspects of the Matis body-part morphemes. In doing so, it is proposed the systemic functional analysis of its lexicogrammatical features and pragmatic properties in contextual constructions of narratives collected in fieldwork. The findings of this analysis shows that, in clause chaining constructions, the functional relation of body-part morphemes and its possessor is established on referential progression by means of the participant agreement in the switch-reference system. Moreover, prefixed verbs can be preceded by the correspondent body-part nouns to convey focus expression, and polysyllabic nouns can also indicate topic function when structured at the beginning of the clause. The systemic functional analysis of the body-part morphemes through textual data seek to collaborate on the knowledge of the interaction between lexicogrammatical and pragmatic systems in the Matis language.

Ear and belly in Warlpiri descriptions of cognitive and emotional experience

AbstractLike most other Australian languages, Warlpiri – a Pama-Nyungan language of the Ngumpin-Yapa group – is rich in figurative expressions that include a body-part noun. In this article we examine the collocations involving two body parts:langa‘ear’, which mostly relates to cognition; andmiyalu‘belly’, which mostly relates to emotion. Drawing on an extensive Warlpiri database, we analyse the semantic, figurative and syntactic dimensions of these collocations. We note how reflexive variants of certain collocations impose a non-literal aspectual reading, as also observed in Romance and Germanic languagesinter alia. The article also highlights differences between the range of body-based emotion metaphors found in Warlpiri, and that reported for the non-Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia. We hypothesize that these differences sometimes reflect grammatical differences. In particular, Warlpiri allows body-part nouns in syntactic functions that rarely found in non-Pama-Nyungan languages, due to the prevalence of body-part noun incorporation in the latter group.

On body-part nouns and the expression of spatial and locative reference in Dagbani

Abstract This paper examines the linguistic means by which spatial relations are expressed in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in the northern region of Ghana (West Africa). I pay particular attention to the grammar of Dagbani “postpositions” demonstrating that the system of locative expressions comprises words that share heterosemic relations with some body parts and landmark terms. I show that although these locative expressions are related both segmentally and suprasegmentally to the nominal items they might have developed from, they are distinct in terms of their semantic, syntactic and morphological properties. Consequently, I conclude that the body-part nouns in locative constructions are distinct syntactic categories due to the morphosyntactic and semantic differences they exhibit. These body-part nouns are thus analysed as grammaticalized items, which function as postpositions and instantiate a postpositional phrase (PostP) category. Finally, I propose possible series of semantic changes that could account for the development of the body-part terms as postpositions.

External possession of body-part nouns in Jumjum: Possessor raising with possessum incorporation

Abstract In Jumjum, a Western Nilotic language, some body-part nouns, and only such nouns, may be externally possessed in transitive and antipassive clauses. In these external possessor constructions, the possessor is either the object of a transitive verb or the demoted patient of an antipassive verb. The externally possessed body-part noun is partly incorporated into the verb, as shown by the following properties: It immediately follows the verb, its tone is determined by the final tone of the verb, it may combine with a nominalized verb in a kind of compound, and it does not exhibit the root-final nasalization that is prevalent in monosyllabic singular nouns in Jumjum, including internally possessed body-part nouns.

External possession of body-part nouns in Dinka

AbstractIn Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, body-part nouns may be externally possessed. External possession is possible and the default option if the body-part noun is semantically part of a transitive object, an unaccusative subject, or a copula subject. With transitive and ditransitive verbs, the external possessor is object, and with intransitive and copulative verbs, it is subject. Externally possessed body-part nouns have no grammatical relation to the verb, and they are restricted to occurring in dedicated syntactic slots of the clause, adjacent to a slot used by the main verb when the finite verb is an auxiliary. In transitive clauses, the body-part noun occurs immediately after that slot. In intransitive and copulative clauses, it occurs immediately before the same slot, and here a phonologically determined subset of the body-part nouns are morphologically marked by tone shift as being externally possessed. These facts suggest that the possessum forms some kind of unit with the verb that is reminiscent of noun incorporation. In Dinka, the referent of virtually any noun can be conceived of a having a body part, and therefore virtually anything can be an external possessor: pronouns, animate nouns, and inanimate nouns, including abstract nouns.

Grammaticalization of nouns meaning “head” into reflexive markers: A cross-linguistic study

AbstractStudies on the grammaticalization of body-part nouns into reflexives have often formulated cross-linguistic generalizations, but have mostly failed to provide detailed analyses of similar developments attested in unrelated languages. As a consequence, valuable insights have sometimes been overlooked. The purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it identifies a higher number of languages using “head”-reflexives than previous accounts. On the other hand, its purpose is to analyze the diachronic evolution of nouns denoting “head” into reflexive markers in three unrelated language groups (Basque, Berber and Kartvelian) and to show how “head”-reflexives synchronically and diachronically interact with secondary reflexivization strategies, such as detransitivization. The results suggest that the areal factor has a considerable impact on the emergence of “head”-reflexives; they also show that none of the languages analyzed reflects all grammaticalization stages put forward in the literature. Accordingly, it is argued that the grammaticalization stages are optional, and that the correlation between formal and semantic change is not obligatory.

Covert reflexive argument in inalienable relational nouns

This paper argues that inalienable relational nouns in Mandarin Chinese, specifically kinship nouns (e.g. father, sister) and body-part nouns (e.g. head, face), have an implicit reflexive argument. Based on a syntactic comparison between kinship nouns, body-part nouns, local- and long-distance bound reflexives, we argue that the implicit reflexive arguments of kinship nouns and body-part nouns differ from each other: The implicit argument of kinship nouns must be locally bound, whereas that of body-part nouns can either be locally bound or long-distance bound. Therefore, we conclude that these two types of implicit arguments in Mandarin Chinese correspond to local- long-distance bound reflexives, respectively. Finally, we relate this difference to binding theory concerning local and long-distance anaphors.

Inalienable Possession in Swedish and Danish – A Diachronic Perspective

Abstract In this paper we discuss the alienability splits in two Mainland Scandinavian languages, Swedish and Danish, in a diachronic context. Although it is not universally acknowledged that such splits exist in modern Scandinavian languages, many nouns typically included in inalienable structures such as kinship terms, body part nouns and nouns describing culturally important items show different behaviour from those considered alienable. The differences involve the use of (reflexive) possessive pronouns vs. the definite article, which differentiates the Scandinavian languages from e.g. English. As the definite article is a relatively new arrival in the Scandinavian languages, we look at when the modern pattern could have evolved by a close examination of possessive structures with potential inalienables in Old Swedish and Old Danish. Our results reveal that to begin with, inalienables are usually bare nouns and come to be marked with the definite article in the course of its grammaticalization.

Reflexive Predicates and Reflexivity -The Case of Inalienable Possession Constructions-

Languages like Korean show that certain predicates with a body part noun function as reflexive predicates. Thus, an analysis employing null SE with complex predicate formation was proposed. However, this null SE analysis turns out to be unsatisfactory and an alternative analysis is proposed in this paper. Observing that the possessor of body part noun requires a c-commanding antecedent in the binding domain. Assuming that PRO occupies the specifier position of body part nouns, the presence of the two distinctive possessor interpretations is accounted for, since PRO is ambiguous between anaphoric and pronominal. This paper further demonstrates that predicates with a body part noun denoting self-action undergo the revised lexical reflexivization operation which turns PRO into an unsaturated argument, and thus become inherently reflexive predicates.