Appendix E. A basic morphology/syntax checklist This list is just a start, to give you some ideas about what to plan for. The following checklist is loosely based on the Lingua Questionnaire (available from XXX). How much of these categories are marked in the morphology and how many are purely syntactic depends on the language, of course. The items listed below are in approximately a useful order for elicitation (that is, it is useful to start with simple verbal clauses before doing subordination, etc), but I do not recommend adhering rigidly to such an order. For example, it is quite useful to know something about basic negation early in the process, especially if it affects tense or aspect. This list is also available for downloading at XXX 1 1 Currently it s on my web site: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bowern/fmeth/checklist.htm but it will move. 264 Field Work Methodology: Draft 23-Jul-06
1. Clauses with verbs a) TAM marking Tense: past, present, future, degrees of remoteness, interaction with other categories Aspect: Perfect(ive), aorist, imperfect(ive), continuous, inchoative, semelfactive, etc. Mood: subjunctive, realis, irrealis, optative; uses b) argument structure c) marking of agreement (extent) 2. Noun phrases a) articles b) demonstratives c) relative ordering of constituents (and possible constituents) d) multiple appearance of constituents (e.g. adjective chaining) e) gender or class marking f) classifiers g) marking of definiteness, specificity and referentiality 3. Case marking a) core cases b) oblique cases c) variable and optional marking d) affixation versus cliticisation e) expression of particular semantic roles f) multiple case marking (ie more than one case affix on a single item) 4. Adverbial phrases a) temporal adverbs and other types of temporal marking (e.g. at 4 o clock ) b) spatial marking c) manner adverbs d) adpositional phrases 5. adpositional phrases a) possibilities of embedding under adpositions b) case-marking possibilities 6. pronouns a) free versus bound b) circumstances under which pronouns are used c) inclusive/exclusive distinctions d) number marking e) case marking as compared with nominals f) position in clause (as compared with nominals) g) emphatic pronouns 7. imperatives a) positive imperatives b) negative imperatives
c) second person imperatives versus first or third person d) degrees of politeness 8. valency a) reflexives (direct and indirect that is, the syntactic role of the relative pronoun/affix) b) other functions of reflexive pronouns c) reciprocals d) interactions in valency marking (e.g. causatives and relfexives) e) causatives of intransitive verbs of transitive verbs direct and indirect omission of causer or causee f) passives personal versus impersonal and argument structure (e.g. of intransitive verbs, with various case frames) omission of arguments marking of the instrument/actor g) antipassives 9. subordination a) markers of subordination b) non-finite structures c) finite subordination d) sequence of tense marking e) relative clauses f) purpose clauses g) manner clauses h) conditional clauses i) result clauses 10. interrogatives a) yes/no (polar) interrogatives b) Wh- (content) questions in different grammatical relations (and questioning elements of main clauses and subordinate clauses) c) interrogative verbs d) direct questions e) indirect questions f) leading questions (expecting the answer yes, expecting the answer no) g) (multiple interrogatives) h) (clefted interrogatives) i) (echo questions) j) how are answers to questions given? 11. Relative clauses a) Headed relative clauses b) placement of relative pronoun (if present) and relative clause in relation to the head noun c) headless relative clauses 266 Field Work Methodology: Draft 23-Jul-06
12. direct versus indirect speech 13. Adjectives a) word class status b) argument-taking adjectives c) modification of adjectives d) comparatives and superlatives 14. numerals a) ordinal b) cardinal c) classifiers 15. possession a) alienable versus inalienable b) current versus former c) location of marking of possession d) possessive pronouns 16. focus marking and topic marking a) clefting b) pseudo-clefting c) movement d) dislocation e) what items in the clause can be focussed? f) agreement marking 17. copular clauses a) with a nominal predicate b) with an adjectival predicate c) with other types of predicates (adverbial, pronominal, etc) d) order of items e) tense marking same in all tenses? f) types of copular clauses (identity, defining, etc; see XXX) 18. coordination a) and-coordination b) but-coordination c) or-coordination d) position of conjunction 19. negation a) sentential/clausal b) phrasal c) scope d) negative polarity items 20. Anaphora and related issues a) means of marking b) kataphora? 21. formal and distributional criteria for the status of various word classes 22. deixis a) distance categories b) visible/non-visible c) known/unknown d) neutral e) in texts versus in conversation f) relationship to tense g) temporal versus spatial deixis 23. constituent order a) phrasal Field Work Methodology: Draft 23-Jul-06 267
b) clausal c) effects of animacy of constituents, definiteness of the NP, topic status, etc d) configurationality e) nonconfigurationality 24. Quantification a) some b) any c) all d) each/every e) mass/count distinction 25. derivational morphology a) changing word class b) within the word class c) compounding 26. omission (gapping) of arguments and other items a) subjects and other core arguments b) sluicing 27. number marking a) on nouns b) on verbs c) on other word classes 28. Complex predicates 29. Treatment of loan words within the language a) by word class b) special morphology 30. Proper nouns a) place names b) people s names c) (other categories, e.g. pets names) d) special syntax? 31. Miscellaneous other categories: 1 a) associated motion b) incorporation c) clitics d) auxiliary verbs e) sentence particles f) ideophones 1 The following items might have been covered in other categories but are listed as a checklist of other aspects; other items are listed by functional category. 268 Field Work Methodology: Draft 23-Jul-06