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Chapter 10. The pragmatics of ‘light nouns’ in Besemah

  • Bradley McDonnell
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The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages
This chapter is in the book The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages

Abstract

Perhaps the most widely discussed aspect of the NP in western Austronesian languages is the relative clause, which is described in terms of its syntactic relation to the noun it modifies. It is expressed by a ‘relativizer’ and a so-called ‘gap’ in the modifying clause that is co-referential with the head noun. One western Austronesian language that appears to be quite different in this regard is Besemah, a little-described Malayic language of southwest Sumatra. This is because constructions analogous to relative clauses in Besemah are best described as Noun Modifying Constructions (NMC) following studies of similar phenomena in other languages, most notably Japanese. Like Japanese, Besemah NMCs most often occur with a so-called ‘light’ head noun, which has a general, abstract meaning, such as ‘thing’, ‘situation’, etc. This paper shows that NMCs headed by a closed class of light nouns serve a number interactional functions, including formulating reference to discourse entities that are recognizable to participants, elaborating upon discourse entities in increments, jointly working out the identity of a referent in other-initiations of repair, and constructing story beginnings with unattached light nouns among others. I argue that the semantically-bleached nature of light nouns and the ‘loose’ (pragmatically-determined) relationship between the light head noun and modifying elements allow speakers to construct NMCs that fit local contexts and serve various interactional purposes.

Abstract

Perhaps the most widely discussed aspect of the NP in western Austronesian languages is the relative clause, which is described in terms of its syntactic relation to the noun it modifies. It is expressed by a ‘relativizer’ and a so-called ‘gap’ in the modifying clause that is co-referential with the head noun. One western Austronesian language that appears to be quite different in this regard is Besemah, a little-described Malayic language of southwest Sumatra. This is because constructions analogous to relative clauses in Besemah are best described as Noun Modifying Constructions (NMC) following studies of similar phenomena in other languages, most notably Japanese. Like Japanese, Besemah NMCs most often occur with a so-called ‘light’ head noun, which has a general, abstract meaning, such as ‘thing’, ‘situation’, etc. This paper shows that NMCs headed by a closed class of light nouns serve a number interactional functions, including formulating reference to discourse entities that are recognizable to participants, elaborating upon discourse entities in increments, jointly working out the identity of a referent in other-initiations of repair, and constructing story beginnings with unattached light nouns among others. I argue that the semantically-bleached nature of light nouns and the ‘loose’ (pragmatically-determined) relationship between the light head noun and modifying elements allow speakers to construct NMCs that fit local contexts and serve various interactional purposes.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Languages from Europe
  5. Chapter 2. The Finnish se että initiated expressions 11
  6. Chapter 3. Emergent complex noun phrases 43
  7. Chapter 4. The noun phrase as an emergent unit in Finnish 71
  8. Chapter 5. Noun phrases in other-repetitions 93
  9. Chapter 6. Asserting no-problemness in Spanish 119
  10. Chapter 7. Multimodal noun phrases 153
  11. Chapter 8. Nouns and noun phrases in other-initiated repair in English atypical interaction 179
  12. Part II. Languages from other parts of the world
  13. Chapter 9. Multiple nominal expressions in Garrwa conversation 211
  14. Chapter 10. The pragmatics of ‘light nouns’ in Besemah 237
  15. Chapter 11. NP clustering in Mandarin conversational interaction 271
  16. Chapter 12. What can Japanese conversation tell us about ‘NP’? 315
  17. Chapter 13. Robust argument phrases (DPs) but unruly NPs in Maa 329
  18. Index 363
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.10mcd

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Languages from Europe
  5. Chapter 2. The Finnish se että initiated expressions 11
  6. Chapter 3. Emergent complex noun phrases 43
  7. Chapter 4. The noun phrase as an emergent unit in Finnish 71
  8. Chapter 5. Noun phrases in other-repetitions 93
  9. Chapter 6. Asserting no-problemness in Spanish 119
  10. Chapter 7. Multimodal noun phrases 153
  11. Chapter 8. Nouns and noun phrases in other-initiated repair in English atypical interaction 179
  12. Part II. Languages from other parts of the world
  13. Chapter 9. Multiple nominal expressions in Garrwa conversation 211
  14. Chapter 10. The pragmatics of ‘light nouns’ in Besemah 237
  15. Chapter 11. NP clustering in Mandarin conversational interaction 271
  16. Chapter 12. What can Japanese conversation tell us about ‘NP’? 315
  17. Chapter 13. Robust argument phrases (DPs) but unruly NPs in Maa 329
  18. Index 363
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