Article published In:
DiachronicaVol. 39:5 (2022) ► pp.707–741
Origins of Dogon NP tonosyntax
Like other complex morphosyntactic and morphophonological structures that are endemic to single language families, Dogon NP tonosyntax is the result of the fortuitous interlocking of diachronically unrelated processes and constructions. It arose due to the following combination: (a) right-headed prosodic pattern in noun-modifier sequences; (b) loss of numeral classifiers which had previously protected nouns from the right-headed prosodic pattern when followed by numerals; and (c) transfer of tones from possessors to following possessums. Although none of these phenomena were semantically driven, the resulting configuration could only be reinterpreted by native speakers in semantic terms, creating a completely new system unique to Dogon. In spite of having arisen accidentally, this tonosyntactic system is quite stable. One of its benefits is the unusual solution it provided (at no extra charge) to a perennial problem in the design of relative constructions.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Right-headed prosodic grouping
- 3.Why do Dogon numerals lack tonosyntactic power?
- 4.Yanda Dom numeral classifiers versus pronouns
- 5.Possessive classifiers and related forms
- 6.Origins of Najamba animate plural nominal suffix -mbo
- 7.The emergence of tonosyntax
- 8.Loss of tonosyntactic control in definite markers
- 9.Relative-clause heads
- 10.Noncompositional tonosyntax
- 11.Preposed possessors, genitive linkers, and {L} overlay on possessums
- 12.Preposed possessors and {HL} overlay on possessums
- 13.{HL} on perfective verb-participles in relative clauses
- 14.Postposed pronominal alienable possessors
- 15.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
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