Download Japanese Morphology: Understanding Parts of Speech - Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives (75 characte and more Study notes Linguistics in PDF only on Docsity! Page 1 of 2 LIN 881 Study Questions: Tsujimura, Ch. 4. Morphology 1 (pp. 114-143) 1. Parts of speech categories NOTE: It’s useful to remember the following about the major categories, N, V, A, and P. N: [+N, -V]; V: [-N, +V]; A: [+N, +V]; P: [-N, -V] 1.1. Nouns 1. What do examples (a)-(g) suggest about the use of -tachi? Is it ‘attached only to humans’ (p. 116)? a. watashi-tachi ‘we’ b. Satoo-san-tachi ‘Mr/Ms. Sato and others’ I Satoo-Mr/Ms. (NOT ‘the Satos’) c. kodomo-tachi ‘the children; the child and others’ b. ?shisha-tachi ‘the dead person and others’ d. sakana-tachi ‘the fish and others’ e. hana-tachi ‘the flower and others’ f. ?isu-tachi ‘the chair and others’ g. *sanso-tachi ‘oxygen and others’ 2. (1) What is the function of the elements following hon- ‘book’ in (2a)-(2e), p. 116? (2) Why is (3c), p. 116 bad, repeated as (a) below? Consider also (b)-(c) below. a. *Taroo-wa [ [Nihonjin]1-to [Doitsugo]2 ]-no sensei-da. Taro- TOP JPN person-and German lang.-GEN teacher is ‘Taro is a Japanese person and a German teacher. b. [Taroo-wa Nihonjin]1-de [ ∅ Doitsu-go-no sensei]2-da. Taro- TOP JPN person-and German lang.-GEN teacher is ‘Taro is a Japanese person and a German teacher. c. Taroo-wa [ [Nihongo]1-to [Doitsugo]2 ]-no sensei-da. Taro- TOP JPN lang.-and German lang.-GEN teacher is ‘Taro is a teacher of Japanese and German languages. 1.2. Verbs 3. What does the auxiliary verb -shimau seem to mean? (Cf. ‘finish V-ing,’ p. 119) a. Taroo-ga sushi o hanbun tabete-shimat-ta. ‘Taro ate half of the sushi + SHIMAU.’ Taro-NOM ACC half eat-SHIMAU-PAST b. Taroo-ga kekkon-shite-shimat-ta. ‘Taro got married + SHIMAU.’ Taro-NOM marry- do-SHIMAU-PAST 1.3. Adjectives 1.4. Adverbs 1.5. Postpositions 4. (1) How are Japanese postpositions similar to English prepositions? (2) In what ways are they different from each other? 5. (1) Is the copula (da and its variants) ‘used as a replacement for the specific predicate of the previous utterance’ (p. 122; underline added) in B below? A: Kyoo-wa kaigi-ga arimasu-nee. ‘There is a meeting today, isn’t there.’ today-TOP meeting-NOM exist- TQ B: Soo-desu-ka. Nanji-kara-desu-ka.’ ‘Is that so? From what time is it?’ so-COP-Q what time-from-COP-Q (2) What would be a better account of the desu usage like this?
