Aspects of Plurality in [symbol]Hoan

In ≠Hoan, nouns and verbs can be pluralized. This article investigates various syntactic and semantic aspects of plurality in ≠Hoan: first, the formation of plurals of inalienable nouns, then, how the plurals of verbs (termed pluractional verbs) are formed in much the same way as the plurals of inalienable nouns. The phenomenon of pluractional verbs strongly supports the event argument analysis of verbal semantics.*

Introduction

The parallel between noun phrases and verb phrases has been a longstanding issue in generative grammar (Chomsky 1970). For example, it is generally held that both noun phrases and verb phrases fall under X′-Theory, and that similar types of movement can occur in noun phrases and verb phrases. But in spite of the many similarities between noun phrases and verb phrases, there are a number of recalcitrant differences. Introductory linguistics textbooks often note that verbs cannot be pluralized, and that this distinguishes nouns and verbs. I will argue here that in ≠Hoan,¹ nouns and verbs can be pluralized. This will add a further dimension to the parallel that is often postulated between noun phrases and clauses (Abney 1987, Bernstein 2000, Szabolcsi 1984, 1994).

In particular, I will argue that the morpheme kí is an agreement morpheme (which I will gloss kí[pl]). In the nominal domain, it agrees with a plural inalienable noun. In the verbal domain, it agrees with a plural verb. A plural verb (often called a pluractional verb) is interpreted as repetition of the event (and so could be called iterative aspect).

This article owes much to the ideas and data in Gruber 1973, 1975a,b,c. Although this work builds on Gruber’s in many ways, much of the data here were elicited during my own field work in Botswana in 1996–97, and the summer of 1999. My analysis differs from Gruber’s (1975a) in the analysis of plural deletion, in the analysis of the kí[pl] agreement morpheme, and in adopting the Davidsonian treatment for the semantics of verbs.

1. Inalienable versus alienable possession

Many languages have a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession. Alienable possession in ≠Hoan is illustrated in 1.²

(1)

The main morphological indicator of alienable possession is the use of the morpheme ci. In 1, I give examples containing both a singular head noun (1a) and a plural head noun (1b). The issue of the plurality of the head noun will be fully discussed in §§1.3 and 2.

Inalienable possession is distinguished by the absence of ci; I give examples in 2 and 3.

(2) gya”m-si (*ci) !o

    child-dim poss stomach

      ‘the child’s stomach’

(3) gya”m-si (*ci) gye

    child-dim poss mother

      ‘the child’s mother’

In ≠Hoan the class of inalienable nouns includes all body part terms, most kinship terms, some spatial relation terms, and some cultural artifact terms. This class corresponds roughly with the crosslinguistic characterization in the literature. I assume here (following Vergnaud & Zubizarreta 1992:596 and Gruber 1975a:40) that inalienable nouns differ from alienable nouns in that they take their possessor as an argument. Gruber says that ‘inalienable nouns are themselves underlyingly predicates’ (1975a: 40). In terms of theta-roles, kyeama ‘dog’ does not assign a theta-role to ≠’amkoe ‘person’ in 1a, but !o ‘stomach’ in 2 does assign a theta-role to gya”msi ‘child’.

In the rest of this section, I will give an overview of the different classes of inalienable nouns in ≠Hoan; these are, basically, the Many-class, the Kin-class and the kí[pl]-class.

1.1. The many-class

The Many-class consists of nouns that refer to sets of objects that are naturally in a many-to-one relationship with their possessor. This class is illustrated by gyo”ba ‘leaf’ in ex. 4.

(4)

a. |’on kí- gyo”ba

    tree kí leaf

      ‘the leaf of the tree’

b. |’on-qa kí- gyo”ba-(qa)

    tree-pl kí leaf-pl

       ‘the leaves of the trees’

Other nouns in this group include: n≠u ‘feather’, kya”a ‘bone’, gu ‘flower’, n|u ‘vein’. Mass nouns are also in the Many-class...