phonological reanalysis of constituents, which is a further example of why categoriality has been such a problem in this language see the discussion in 3.4. Although it is
difficult to construct a grammar that excludes semantic roles, this is what has been attempted here. Simple though it may be, it is helpful in appreciating grammatical and
ontological structuring processes in Burmese and keeping separate the grammatical form from the semantic operations and roles. Nominalization is the principle key to
understanding grammatical formation as a separate process from the semantic.
Now to address the second question: Does grammatical form, as shaped by nominalization at the Word and Expression levels, extend insightfully to the text as a
whole? Can Longacre’s 1996 model of text structure be correlated with the ontological forms generated by nominalization processes?
5.2.3 Text Analysis
The method of discourse analysis proposed by Robert Longacre has a long history of success in little-known languages of the world, particularly where “pesky” particles
abound, such as in Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia. While Longacre 1996:13 separates the notional and the surface features, it has been difficult to maintain separate
categories logically unless one already knows what the emic structures and roles are in a particular language. Longacre’s view on this seems to be one that regards the empirical
data as surface features versus the intentions of the author as notional structures.
Notional structures of discourse relate more clearly to the overall purpose of the discourse, while surface structures have to do more with a discourse’s formal
characteristics. Longacre 1996:8
He further distinguishes an emic and an etic notional structure. This is intuitive since the “insider” emic view would most certainly have different motives and reasons
for acts or categories of thought and purpose. It would appear that the best we can expect as outsiders with an implicit etic view, is to establish an etic notional structure and to
describe an etic surface structure. Admittedly, Longacre’s early work on Grammar Discovery Procedures 1964 is a classic in how to distinguish whether an analysis is etic
or moving toward emic categories.
The question is not merely theoretical since the preceding chapters have proposed an approach that attempts to move toward categories of grammar and structures that are
more Burmese-like. When it comes to text structure, there are contradictions immediately in the task at hand. These are:
1. The task undertaken is to examine the role of nominalization not as a semantic process, but as a grammatical structuring process, although nominalization in
Burmese definitely has a broad semantic aspect. The more this has been done, the stronger the belief that grammar and semantics in Burmese are quite
different. Grammar is the weaker of the two, but is a separate formative process.
2. The application of Longacre’s model assumes a notional base. While this is a good and profitable assumption and discovery procedure, it is not what the
current structures analyzed for Burmese text “are.” So, the contradiction potentially is to use notional structures to arrive at surface generalizations about
the grammar from an etic point of view hoping that it will become an emic one over time. As a trained tagmemicist these goals actually make sense, but not
with the approach and assumptions to text taken here.
3. The analysis of ontological nominalized structures and the discourse analysis using Longacre’s notional model have both been applied. They each produce
units of different substance, different types of entities, and different structures. To resolve the problem of category mismatch, the analyses are separated into a
the process, structures, and insights from the ontological nominal analysis of the two texts; and b a separate view using Longacre’s approach, which reveals some interesting
functions, but which does not correlate necessarily with the ontological nominal conclusions.
5.2.4 Ontological Nominal and Rhetorical Structures
