Two-Dimensional Semantics: Clausal Adjuncts and Complements - Essay Example

Stage Hand and Arm Primarily, world languages use the hand and arm approach to lexically recognize the major segments of the human upper limb (Dryer et al. 129). Based on this, a language is either placed under the identity or differentiation category. In the identity category, both hand and arm are denoted by a single word while in the differentiating category, one word denotes ‘hand’ while the ‘arm’ is denoted by another dissimilar word. French is among the 389 world languages under the differentiation category; the ‘hand’ and ‘arm’ are denoted by two different words. Hand – main (/meɪn/) Arm – bras (/bʁaz/) Finger and Hand Languages primarily treat the human finger and the hand in two distinct ways. Noteworthy, ‘finger’ connotes any of the appendages of the ‘hand’ which can be described as the upper limb between the fingertips and the wrist (Dryer et al. 130). In lieu of this, languages are lexically divided into two; identity and differentiation. In the identity category, a single word connotes both the finger and hand. In the differentiation category, one word connotes the ‘hand’ while another different word denotes the “finger(s)”. French is classified among the differentiation category where the “hand” is denoted by a word that is different from that denoting the “finger(s)”. Fingers – doigts ("un doigt") Hand – main (/meɪn/) Numeral Bases The arithmetic base which is used in construction of numeral expressions is one of the most important traits of the mathematical edifice of linguistic expression for numerals. In this case, “base” connotes a scenario where the numeral system is expressed as “n” raised to some numerical expression such as xn + y (Dryer et al. 131). With regard to this, world languages are divided into various categories including; decimal, pure vigesimal and hybrid-vigesimal decimal. Apparently, French is classified among the decimal system where numerals are expressed as shown below; Quatre-vingt-dix-sept (four-twenty-ten-seven). Number of Non-Derived Basic Color Categories In the current models of universals and evolution theory of basic color terms, 3 universal colour categories are embraced; primary color, disjunctive (composite) and intersective (derived) category (Dryer et al. 132). In the theory of color opponency, six primary colours are recognized; white, black, yellow, red, blue and green. The composite colors and derived colors categories consists of fuzzy unions of the primary colors. The and colors are 2 pairs of essential opponent chromatic colors while form a pair of essential opponent chromatic colors. Black and white can be mixed to produce gray while red and green or yellow and blue cannot be mixed to produce any relevant pigment. However, blue and yellow can be combined to produce a green pigment. French contains 6 categories of non-derived colors. This therefore implies that French basically uses the following primary colors; Noir- nwaʁ-black Blanche - blɑ̃ʃ- white Jaune – jon- yellow Rouge - ʁuʒ- red Bleu – blø- blue Vert - vɛʁ- green Number of Basic Colour Categories Many scholars have studied categorization of colors as a window into human language and cognizance; it has been used pragmatically in image database recovery systems (Dryer et al. 133). For pragmatic purposes, the best category systems coincide with human categories. French contains 11 basic colors which comprises of the 6 primaries, derived colours and composite colors. Green and Blue From the typologies described above and the sheer fact that Green and Yellow can be associated, 6 ways through which Green and Blue, the “cool” primaries, can be encoded (Dryer et al. 134). In the Green vs. blue category, green and blue each of them is allocated a basic color term. French lies among this category which consists of 30 world languages. The other categories include Green/blue, which gets a basic color term, Black/green/blue, which gets a basic color term and Yellow/green vs. blue where Yellow/green gets a basic color term with blue getting a basic color term. Considering that French is in the Green vs. blue category, its terming of the two cool primaries is as follows: Green – vert (vɛʁ) Blue – bleu (blø) Red and Yellow Research has already proved that Green and Yellow can be linked. Considering this statement and the already described typologies, there are 4 ways through which red and yellow, “warm” primaries, can be encoded (Dryer et al. 135). The 4 categories include the Red vs. yellow category where each color gets a basic color term, the Red/yellow category where Red-or-yellow is per se a fundamental color term, the Yellow/green/blue vs. red where Yellow/green/blue is encoded as a fundamental color while red is given a separate color term. The final category is the Yellow/green vs. red where Yellow/green is given a plain color term while red is encoded as an elementary color term. French is in the Red vs. yellow category where each color gets a basic color term hence the colors are treated as follows; Red – rouge (ʁuʒ). Yellow – jaune (jon). M-T Pronouns Researchers in the community of phoneticians have established that personal pronouns behave like other closed-class forms by having nasals and other elementary consonants (Dryer et al. 136). Noteworthy, paradigmatic mishmashes of person-number classifications are not frequent in many languages. This is used to classify world languages into various categories. French is in the M-T pronouns, paradigmatic category where the ‘m’ as well as voiceless, fortis labial nasals and lenis occur in the first person while ‘T’ typical obstruent or palatals occur in the second person as illustrated below; 1st Person singular: Moi (me)- ma maison (my house) (possessive). 2nd Person plural: Notre (our) - notre maison (our house) (possessive). N-M Pronouns As already explicated above, the ‘m’ as well as voiceless, fortis labial nasals and lenis occur in the first person in many world languages while the ‘T’ occurs in the second person pronoun (Dryer et al. 137). However, it is important to note that in some languages, the ‘m’ is preceded by an ‘n’ which is palatal [n´] or dental or alveolar [n], and the voiceless or glottalized variants. However, this does not occur in French hence it is classified as a No N-M pronouns language. Apparently, this has been made possible to explain by the genealogical affiliation of world languages (Manser 92). Tea The distribution of the word tea has been attributed to recent historical processes such as trade. In this case, tea denotes the scientific Camellia sinensis plant that grows in a wide region stretching from Assam in India to the coast of Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and China (Dryer et al. 138). However, most words for the beverage ‘tea’ is believed to originate from china but varies significantly from language to language due to their coming routes. In French, the word ‘thé’ is used to refer to tea since the language borrowed the word from Min Nan Chinese te. A clear look at the various ways through which different cultures refer to the beverage, we can conclude that there is no word for ‘tea’ in many languages but a word is simply picked from the dominant language whenever there is need to refer to the beverage. This explains why different cultures use different terms to refer to ‘tea’. For instance, while French and Dutch are closely related, French uses ‘thé’ while Dutch use ‘chai’ to refer to ‘tea’ (Goddard 182). Stage 2 Purpose clause A purpose clause is fundamentally a subordinate clause that scrutinizes ‘for what purpose’ or ‘why’ the main clause verb was done (Dryer et al. 125). Significantly, a purpose construction encrypts an association between events such that the interconnected event is accomplished with the target of understanding the other, which is often coded by the purpose clause. Basically, purpose clauses constructions are regarded as deranked and balanced. German is classified in the deranked category for the ostensible fact that the verb is fundamentally different or unlike those used in declarative clauses that are independent. Deranking of the verb takes various forms including use of mood, tense, aspect, nominalizers and case marking as illustrated below; 1. Joachim kam zu dem Computerraum , um den Song herunterladen (Joachim came to the computer lab to download the song.) (Tatjana 28). 2. Er kam, um meine Orangen essen (He came to eat my oranges). It is important to note that the use of deranked forms in purpose clauses mirrors economic inspiration which implies the predisposition not to express what is recoverable from a particular context and this has not been any different in German dialect. Reason Clauses Reason clauses explicates why something happened or occurred. Noteworthy, in reason constructions, the association is that a single clause explicates the reason for the happening of the other clause. (Sterdyniak 129). In constructions that use the reason clause, the common form of the verb may either be balanced, deranked and in some cases, a combination of the two. A balanced verb connotes a verb that can occur in independent declarative clauses whereas a deranked verb denotes verbs that do not occur in independent declarative clauses. German may either use a balanced verb form or a deranked verb form hence classified under the balanced/deranked category. The sentential examples below illustrate it. 1. Er war unerbittlich für Betrug verurteilt (He was inexorably condemned for cheating). 2. Ich werde kommen , weil ich eine Prado (I will come because I have a Prado) (Benware 56). Utterance Complement Clauses Utterance complements are complement clauses that are proclaimed by utterance bases. Such utterance bases include ‘tell’ or ‘say’ which are common in English. Complement clauses operate as argument of the central clause hence the predicates that introduce such clauses take various forms (Dryer et al. 128). When studying utterance complements, the linguistic community places verb forms into balanced and deranked. The definition or explication of balanced and deranked remains the same as described under the ‘Purpose clause’ section’. The utterance complements in German is often balanced or deranked and depends entirely on the prevailing conditions or setting. Examples (Antonsen 129); 1. Präsident Obama sagte den Terrorismus ist ein Verbrechen (President Obama said terrorism is a crime). 2. Sie sagt sie wird nicht die Zuordnung zu tun (She says she will not do the assignment). This anaphoric approach to utterance complements becomes more elegant in cases where the use of utterance modifiers is embedded (Tatjana 45). Noteworthy, utterance modifiers are not part of the syntactic representation of host sentences as indicated by the absence of integration in German. Works Cited Antonsen, Elmer H. Elements of German: Phonology and Morphology. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2007. Print. Benware, Wilbur A. Phonetics and Phonology of Modern German: An Introduction. Washington: Georgetown UP, 1986. Print. Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin. "The World Atlas of Language Structures Online." WALS Online -. N.p., 2013. Web. 4 Oct. 2014. http://wals.info/ Goddard, Cliff, and Anna Wierzbicka. Words and Meanings: Lexical Semantics Across Domains, Languages, and Cultures. N.p., 2014. Print. Manser, Martin H, and David Pickering. The Facts on File Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases. New York: Facts on File, 2002. Print. Sterdyniak, Henri. "Vers une réforme fiscale en France ?" Revue De Lofce (1995): n. pag. Print. Tatjana Scheffler. "Two-dimensional Semantics: Clausal Adjuncts and Complements - Tatjana Scheffler." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2015. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=HZlaUqmUVjgC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=Utterance+Complement+Clauses+in+german&source=bl&ots=Q8f8KAlQrk&sig=_x0DtxNBLCT8VrNqFORy9XgouxM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FrzLVIT8BsiO7Qb6voHwBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Utterance%20Complement%20Clauses%20in%20german&f=false . Read More