Lexical Categories in Niuean

Diane Massam

University of Toronto

Recent analyses of predicate-initial languages have appealed to the notion of long distance or intraposed predicate (VP) fronting, rather than V fronting to derive the V-initial word order of the languages. In such analyses, the verb has little or no interaction with the extended functional projections such as the light verb and INFL, which are merged above it. Given recent theories of lexical category (egs. Alexiadou 1999, Davis and Matthewson 1999, Marantz 1995), which explore the idea that functional heads are involved in determining lexical category, the predicate fronting analyses might predict that predicate-initial languages do not exhibit the same sorts of categorical distinctions as V-fronting or INFL-lowering languages. 

Niuean is a language that has been characterized as predicate-initial, where V moves directly to a clause initial position without taking part in a head movement or Agree relation with v or INFL (Massam 2000). Interestingly, various Austronesian, and more particularly, Polynesian languages, including Tongan, the closest relative of Niuean, have been argued to lack a true N/V disinction (for example, Biggs 1971, Broschart 1997, Tchekhoff 1984).  The question is, are the differences between the way Polynesian languages exhibit category distinctions and the way English exhibits category distinctions attributable at all to the different relations between lexical and functional heads in the two languages?

In this paper I will outline the properties of lexical categories in Niuean, and I will argue that these characteristics are consistent with the predicate fronting analysis, and that they lend support to this analysis, as well as to theories of word classes which appeal to relations between functional heads and lexical heads. Related issues will also be discussed, such as the nature of the predicate in Niuean (which can freely be noun-like, adjective-like, or verb-like), the absence of infinitives, and the isolating morphology of the language.

In summary, this paper addresses the question whether Niuean exhibits a noun/verb categorical distinction at all, or in part, and to what extent the characteristics of parts of speech in Niuean can be attributed to the predicate fronting nature of the language.

References

Alexiadou, Artemis. 1999. On the Syntax of Nominalization and Possession: Remarks on            Patterns of Ergativity. Doctoral dissertation, University of Potsdam.

Biggs, Bruce. 1971. “The languages of Polynesia” In Thomas Sebeok, ed. Current

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Broschart, Jurgen. 1997. “Why Tongan does it differently; Categorial distinctions in a            language without nouns and verbs” Linguistic Typology 1 123-165.

Marantz, Alec. 1995. “ ‘Cat’ as a phrasal idiom: consequences of late insertion in            distributed morphology” ms. MIT.

Davis, Henry and Lisa Matthewson. 1999. “On the Functional Determination of Lexical

Categorie” Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 27: 27-67.

Massam, Diane. 2000. "VSO is VOS: Aspects of Niuean Word Order" in Andrew Carnie            and Eithne Guilfoyle, eds. The Syntax of Verb Initial Languages, Oxford

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Tchekoff, Claude. 1984. Une langue sans opposition verbo-nominale: le tongien.

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