Semantic versus Grammatical Constituent Structure

1 st Syllable Environment 2 nd Syllable Environment Examples

7. Stress Reduction

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture Stressed at head of phrase with all tones except Plain Stressed at head of phrase aumif: kau ‘good’ aumif:onf kau i ‘It’s good’ Close Juncture Stressed, with all tones but Plain tone Reduced stress aumif:aumif: kau au ‘very good’ Table 4. Summary of phonological processes associated with juncture

2.4.2 Semantic versus Grammatical Constituent Structure

The contrast between semantic analysis and grammatical analysis can best be seen in the compound nominal construction. Nominal compounds are often reanalyzed semantically as nested attributes closest to the head nominal. The attributive modifier immediately preceding the head is often categorized as “one thing” semantically—that is, the immediate constituents are reanalyzed as a conceptual blend. In this type of relation the constituent structure semantically would appear as in 9, which is graphically displayed in figure 14. 9 [Modifier + [Modifier + Head] H ] NP Figure 14. Semantic constituency of blended heads The internally nested modifier NP in figure 14 becomes head of the second modified NP. Often the justification of this type of constituency is social with pragmatically dominant use of the NP as a semantic whole or unit, thus giving the phrase a sense of immediacy of constituency. Semantically, the resulting constituency is left-branching. Contrastively, grammatical constituency is mostly right-branching with modifiers grouped as a series in their grammatical role of modifiers in a series in relation to each other first and then to the head, as displayed in 10 and in figure 15. More detailed explanation of this process is illustrated in section 5.2.2. 10 [[Modifier + Modifier] M + Head] ] NP Figure 15. Grammatical constituency of blended heads The two types of analysis are displayed in 11 where the first grammatical reading is shown as ‘first mark’ and then the subsequent nominal forces the grammatical reading ‘first marked post’. Semantic processing on the grammatical structure produces a semantic blend of ‘marked post’ to ‘bus stop’ as a single lexical compound noun. The first reading is entirely grammatical but is semantically less astute since the most common understanding would be to interpret this sequence as ‘bus stop’. One might say there is semantic ambiguity between the purely grammatical and the semantically blended heads. 11 yxr rSwf wdkif pa.hta.ma. hmat tuing ‘first’ ‘mark’ ‘post’ ‘first bus stop’ [ M H ] [ M H ] Grammatical Constituency ‘first marked post’ [ M H ] [ M H ] Semantic Constituency ‘first [bus stop]’ At the clause level, U Pe Maung Tin 1956:194 called this type of semantic constituency “noun-verbs.” The meaning of these verbs is “enlarged by an immediately preceding noun which has lost its nominative suffix.” Okell 1969 called these “tied nouns.” This process can occur with either a grammatical subject, object, or an oblique, so it is not the predicate object and verb of traditional grammar. For this semantic process to occur, it is necessary that no intervening postpositional particle occur on the nominal unit. Should one be used, the unity of the construction is broken and a different semantic interpretation results, as in 12 and 13. 12 armifb acgif: udkuf onf maung ba hkaung: kuik sany [ Maung Ba [head hurt ] ] NomSf ‘Maung Ba’s headaches.’ U Pe Maung Tin parses an example such as 12 not as ‘X’s head aches’ but as ‘X’s headache’. Thus, ‘Maung Ba’s headache’ is close to the meaning of the Burmese, where the nominal “head” is incorporated into the meaning of the verb. This is the semantic interpretation; it is a process of cognitive blending that occurs where the conditions are ripe due to juxtapositioning with no intervening postpositional particle. If the grammatical objectpatient postposition occurs, the interpretation must be different. 13 armifb acgif: udk udkuf onf maung ba hkaung: kui kuik sany [ [ [ Maung Ba head ] Ob ] hurt ] NomSf ‘Maung Ba’s head aches.’ The presence of the postposition forces in 13 the grammatical reading to be the semantic reading. That is, it objectifies the grammatical object by creating an explicit object “head” with udk kui. and configures that object as the focus in 13. The possibility of semantic merger in 12 is actually reinforced pragmatically by the social use of the term acgif:udkufonf hkaung: kui kuik sany ‘headaches’ as a commonly used response since the subject is often unnecessary for explicit mention. This type of noun-verb pragmatic extension or implicature often acquires a new meaning greater than the sum of its parts: a|aomuf re sauk ‘water drink’ means ‘drink’; jurf:ydkxdk: kram: pui htui: ‘bug bites’ means to ‘loaf around’ literally ‘bed bug bites’, with an underlying implication of sleeping around.

2.5 Functional Types of Nominalization