Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett
A catalogue of rare and unusual grammatical phenomena documented across the world’s languages. 147 published entries.
38 entries
| # | Phenomenon | Found in | Domain | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 74 | endoclitics occurring not only inside morphologically complex words, but even within monomorphemic words, with the positioning of the clitic (a)regulated by one general phonological rule, (b) not regulated by a general phonological rule, although when endoclitic to simple verbs, the clitic always comes before the last segment of the verb stem (subject person-number markers are cliticized to constituents in focus, being always enclitic with arguments in focus, but en- or endo-clitic with verbs in focus) |
(a) English (Germanic, IE) (?);<br> (b) Udi (NE Caucasian) | phonology, morphology, syntax / word integrity | clitic, endoclitic |
| 75 | kinship verbs, i.e., pure kinship relations normally expressed by canonical transitive verbs rather than by nouns (which may also exist, though used primarily for purposes of address) | Iwaidjian lgs (Australian); Central Guerrero Nahuatl (Aztec, Uto-Aztecan); Yuman lgs (mostlly); (some lgs of) some further North American Indian families [possibly an infrequentale] | syntax / word classes | verb, kinship |
| 76 | adverb as a distinct word class but not adjective | Kambera (Malayo-Polynesian); Kwaza (unclassified, S. Rondônia, Brazil) | syntax / word classes | adverb, adjective |
| 77 | object before subject in basic word order | OVS: Coos (Coosan);Apalaí, Arekuna-Taupilang, Bacairí, Hianacoto-Umaua, Hixkaryana, Makushi, Panare (all Carib ), Asuriní (Tupi) (Derbyshire 1977, Derbyshire & Pullum 1981); Wajana (Carib) (Howell 1982); Barasano (Tucanoan) (Pullum 1981).<br> VOS: Siuslaw (isolate), Coeur d'Alene (Salish) (mentioned by Greenberg himself, 1963: 110); Malagasy, Batak [Toba dialect], Fijian, Gilbertese (all Malayo-Polynesian); Tzeltal (Mayan), Otomi (Oto-Manguean), Ineseño Chumash (Hokan), Baure (Arawakan), Tzotzil, Kekchi (both Mayan), Tsou (Formosan, Austronesian) (Keenan 1978); Huave (isolate) (Pickett 1983: 536); Cakchicel, Chol, Huastec, Mopan, Pocoman, Pocomchi, Quiche, Tojolabal (all Mayan), Ojibwa (Algonquian) (Pullum 1981).<br> OSV: Apurinã (Arawakan), Nadëb (Makú), Urubú (Tupi), Xavante (Gê) (Derbyshire 1977, Derbyshire & Pullum 1981); Kabardian (North Caucasian), Hurrian (isolate) (Polinskaja 1987: 89, 1989). | syntax / word order | subject object |
| 78 | expression of numerical approximation ('about 5', 'about the fifth') by inversion of word order from Numeral + Noun to N + Num | Russian and other East Slavonic lgs (Slavonic, IE) | syntax / word order | numeral |
| 79 | (finite) verb-second word order in main declarative clauses (i.e., specifically VERB-second rather than more generally clitic-second or X-second) |
many Germanic languages (IE), excluding English (ignoring a few marginal traces of V2); Sorbian (Slavonic, IE, influenced by German); Old French and some other early Romance lgs (IE) (???), Rhaeto-Romance (Romance, IE); Breton, Middle Welsh (Celtic, IE); Kashmiri (Dardic, Indic or Iranian, IE) | syntax / word order | V2 |
| 80 | (finite) verb-second word order in main declarative clauses generally optional, but obligatory if the first constituent is the unmarked narrative consecutive adverb 'then' (∂a, homonymous with the temporal conjunction 'when' introducing subordinate clauses, whose finite verb generally is final and never second) | Old English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / word order | V2 |
| 81 | (finite) verb-second word order in main declarative clauses only if the first constituent is an adverbial with strong negative force (such as never before, hardly ever) | Modern English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / word order | V2 |
| 82 | parasitic gaps (rather than an overt resumptive pronouns), licensed in main clauses if and only if a coreferential NP in a topicalized, fronted subordinate clause has been moved ahead of the clause-initial complementizer | Bavarian, West Flemish (Germanic, IE), Polish (Slavonic, IE) (?), Latin (Italic, IE) (?) | syntax / pronominalization, zero | parasitic gap |
| 83 | some noun-phrase internal agreement but no agreement at clause level | (some) Pama-Nyungan (Australian); modern Continental Scandinavian Germanic (IE) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | NP, clause |
| 84 | relative pronoun as the only target for agreement in animacy | Modern Standard English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | relative pronoun, animacy |
| 85 | attributive adjectives agreeing (in gender, number, case) when they precede their noun but not when they follow it (using the invariable stem here) | German (Germanic, IE) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | noun, adjective |
| 86 | determiners and modifiers agreeing in all relevant agreement categories (gender, number, case) with only one of two or more conjoined nouns sharing these determiners and modifiers (rather than with both, relying on some resolution strategy in case of conflicting agreement categories), the agreed-with noun being the last (rather than the first) as well as the most distant conjunct (with nouns coming after determiners and modifiers) | Low German (Germanic, IE) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | determiner, modifier, coordination |
| 87 | Suffixaufnahme in more or less prototypical form, i.e., with a noun in an attributive case (genitive and/or other) agreeing in case (and perhaps further inflectional categories) with its head noun | some Australian lgs (indeed about half of them); Awngi (Central Cushitic), Burji, Darasa (Highland East Cushitic) (Cushitic, Afroasiatic); Maasai (and perhaps other Paranilotic lgs, Nilo-Saharan or Afroasiatic); Kikongo group (Bantu, Niger-Congo); many or indeed most modern Indo-Aryan lgs (except all of Magadhan and Singhalese-Maldivian)(IE); Malto (alone in Dravidian); Old Georgian and perhaps further old Kartvelian lgs; Tsezic group (NE Caucasian); Chukchi and perhaps other Chukchi-Kamchatkan lgs; Evenki, Even (Tungus, Altaic); Hurrian and Urartean [i.e., all of the long extinct Hurro-Urartean family, hence an infrequentale?] | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | case, genitive, Suffixaufnahme |
| 88 | plural marking of numeral (including 'one') to express that the reference of the NP is to groups of entities denoted by the accompanying noun | Finnish, Estonian (Uralic); Icelandic (Germanic, IE) (?) | syntax / numerals and number | plural |
| 89 | ergative (or neutral) case marking higher and accusative case marking lower on the referential hierarchy | PRONOUNS NOUNS<br> 1ST 2ND 3RD<br> ERG-----------> ACC Parachi and Yazguljami, past tense (Iranian, IE)<br> ERG------> ACC NEUT Iha, SG, past tense (West Bomberai, "Papuan")<br> ERG------> NEUT ACC Tirahi, past tense (Dardic, IE)<br> NEUT----------> ACC Nganasan (Samoyedic, Uralic)<br> ERG------> ACC ERG Karitiana (Tupi-Guarani) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | case, split, referential hierarchy |
| 90 | accusative alignment for proper names and kin terms (as used for address), tripartite alignment for singular pronouns, neutral alignment for non-singular pronouns and plural common nouns, ergative alignment for non-plural common nouns |
Kalaw Lagaw La (Saibai dialect) (Pama-Nyungan, Australian) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | referential hierarchy, proper names, kin terms, personal pronouns, number |
| 91 | double-oblique alignment, with one case (or other coding device) for both subject and object in transitive clauses and another case (or other coding device) for intransitive subject |
Rushan and a few other Pamir lgs (Iranian, IE) as well as a few neighbouring Dardic lgs (Indic or Iranian, IE) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | double-oblique alignment |
| 92 | 3rd person independent pronouns as the only NPs to inflectionally distinguish subject and object | Washo (Hokan) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | case, pronoun, 3rd person |
| 93 | two object arguments in one construction showing the same syntactic and morphological behaviour as the single object of a primary transitive verb (lgs known as "symmetrical" or "true double accusative") | (not all) Bantu lgs (Niger-Congo); Yagua (isolate, Peru); Martuthunira (Pama-Nyungan, Australian) | syntax / grammatical relations: objects | direct object |
| 94 | a benefactive applied object in a multiple objects construction behaving like the single object of a primary transitive verb, esp. with regard to extraction | Bajau (Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian); LuHaya (Bantu, Niger-Congo) | syntax / grammatical relations: objects | benefactive object, applicative |
| 95 | passive constructions, with subject demoted, corresponding to active ones containing a reflexive pronoun (or reflexive marker) as a direct or indirect object, with the reflexive thus not controlled by a subject in the passive | German (Germanic, IE), Lithuanian (Balto-Slavic, IE), Latin (Italic, IE); Turkish (Turkic, Altaic) | syntax / grammatical relations: voice | passive, reflexive, control |
| 96 | grammaticalization of these verbs, denoting activities with subjects in an agentive role, as auxiliaries of passives where non-agents are promoted to subject: <table class = 'textTable'> <tr> <td>(i)</td> <td> 'give'</td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td>(should actually be more common since 'give' is common as an existential verb and existential verbs are common as passive auxiliaries);</td> </tr> <tr> <td>(ii)</td> <td>'eat'</td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> (but then, the agentive subject of 'eat' is also a receiving one, cf. 'to take in' or 'to stomach').</td> </tr> </table> |
(i) Luxemburgian German (Germanic, IE);<br> (ii) (some) Munda (Austroasiatic); Sinhala, Bengali (?) (Indo-Aryan, IE) | syntax / grammatical relations: voice | grammaticalization, auxiliary |
| 110 | verb-final and postpositions, but bound morphology (almost) exclusively prefixal | Athabaskan lgs [a family possession?] | morphology, syntax / types of exponents and their uses | affix order, word order |
| 120 | interrogative pro verbs | Southern Paiute (Uto-Aztecan); Chukchi (Chukchi-Kamchatkan); Mandarin (Chinese, Sino-Tibetan); Yankunytjatjara (aka Western Desert (PN), Kayardild ((non?) PN), and many other Australian lgs; Hua ("Papuan"); Tagalog (Philippine), colloquial varieties of Malay/Indonesian, Tahitian (Polynesian), probably widespread throughout Austronesian; Kinyarwanda (Bantu, Niger-Congo) | syntax / word classes | verb, interrogative |
| 121 | adjective after the noun, rather than mirroring the order of adverb relative to verb, where basic word order is VO and adverb comes before verb | Jicaltepec Mixtec (Oto-Manguean) | syntax / word order | adjective, adverb |
| 122 | a definite article formally distinct from (one form or another of) any kind of pronoun – demonstrative, personal (free, clitic, or bound), possessive, relative, interrogative | Modern English (Germanic, IE) | syntax / pronouns, articles | definite article |
| 126 | tonal agreement: lexical tone of possessive pronoun (H or HL), and no other determiner or modifier, being reproduced on the noun it is in syntactic construction with, replacing the noun's own lexical tone (also H or HL, with initial L extratonal) |
Barasana (Eastern Tukanoan, Andean-Equatorial) | phonology, syntax / tone, agreement | possessive pronoun |
| 135 | a definite article only present in plural, but not in singular | Tok Pisin (English-based Pacific creole) | syntax / pronouns, articles | definite article, number, singular, plural |
| 136 | verbs agreeing with subjects in person and number in non-past tenses, but in gender and number in the past tense | Slavonic (IE) [a family possession] | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories. domains, conditions | verb agreement, tense, person, number, gender |
| 137 | object and subject NPs agreeing (a) in gender/class and number (b) in person |
(a) Archi (Northeast Caucasian); Ripatransone dialect of Italian (Romance, IE)<br> (b) Coahuilteco (Hokan) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | object, subject, gender, class, number, person |
| 138 | mixed ergative-accusative alignment, with person prefixes on intransitive verbs cross-referencing subject and person prefixes on transitive verbs cross-referencing object (=absolutive), while verbs also take person suffixes, which cross-reference subject both with intransitives and transitives (=nominative) |
Burushaski (isolate) | syntax / grammatical relations: alignment | nominative, absolutive, cross-reference, person, intransitive, transitive |
| 139 | adverbs agreeing in voice with the verbs they modify | Maori (Austronesian) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | adverb, verb, voice |
| 141 | gender as an agreement category only of verbs (controlled by subject), but not noun-phrase internally nor with anaphoric pronouns | Qafar (and other East Cushitic lgs, Afroasiatic) | syntax / agreement: controllers, targets, categories, domains, conditions | gender |
| 142 | only a single preposition - that is, one item of a word class distinct from other word classes (nouns, pronouns, verbs, inflectional clitics, particles, ideophones, and COMP words) and comparable to a word class of adpositions in other languages | Wari' (Chapacuran, Amazonian) | syntax / word classes | adposition |
| 143 | only a single adjective – that is, one item of a word class distinct from other word classes (in particular nouns and verbs) and comparable to a word class of adjectives in other languages | Toqabaqita (Austronesian, spoken in the Solomon Islands) | syntax / word classes | adjective |
| 144 | an asymmetric gender system, with genders distinguished in singular but not in plural, but a few words that do show a gender contrast in the plural, agreeing with nouns depending on their singular gender: the numerals 'two' and perhaps 'three', and the quantifier 'both' | older West Germanic languages (Indo-European) | morphology, syntax / agreement | gender, number, numerals |
| 145 | of all cardinal numerals, only that for 'four' agreeing in gender | Chechen, Ingush, Tsova-Tush (NE Central, or Nakh, Daghestanian) | morphology, syntax / agreement | numeral, gender |