Discontinuous noun phrases as an iconic strategy of marking thetic clauses.

The formal and functional analysis of split (discontinuous) noun phrases continues to be a matter of debate (see e.g. De Kuthy 2002, van Hoof 2005, Fanselow & Fery 2006, Fery 2006). Some approaches "save" constituency in an underlying structure by assuming move¬ment out of a phrase. Others assume base-generation of two (elliptical) phrases, or generation of identical copies of (non-elliptical) NPs with subsequent elision (Fanselow & Ćavar 2002). Some recent analyses have evolved mainly to account for a phenomenon of "split topicali¬zation", encountered e.g. in German and in some Slavic languages, where the first part of the "split NP" quite clearly assumes the discourse function of topic, and the second part the function of focus, as in (1). (1) Bohnen mag er nur grüne German bean:PL likes he only green:PL ‘As for beans, he likes only green ones.’ (van Hoof 2005) Similar analyses have been proposed by McGregor (1997) and Merlan (1994: 242) for the Australia languages Gooniyandi and Wardaman. This fits in with earlier generalisations about split NPs in Australian languages according to which the first nominal element tends to be semantically more generic and the second more specific (see Blake 2001). The assumption of two distinct phrases does indeed seem plausible for such structures with different information structure values. In this paper, I will argue, based on analysis of first-hand data, that split NPs are also employ-ed in at least some Northern Australian languages to mark the annuntiative or presen¬tational subtype of thetic (all-new) clauses, which serve to alert the hearer to the presence of an entity not previously part of the discourse. This can be illustrated with the out-of-the-blue utterances in (2) and (3). (2) jurrwumurlung gurdij garra-ny garndi Ngarinyman (Ngumpin; Pama-Ny.) long stand be-NPST tree ‘there is a tall tree standing up’ (3) burdaj ga-ram=ngardi gujugu Jaminjung (Mirndi; Non-Pama-Ny.) wind 3sg-come.PRS=SENT.FOC big ‘a big wind is coming! This is a function not recognised in the literature on split NPs so far. It also adds a so far un¬documented strategy to the cross-linguistic strategies for the marking of theticity identified by Sasse (1987, 2006), such as verb-fronting, subject accenting, and clefting. Sasse argues that these strategies are iconic in that they prevent the default assignment of a topic-comment structure to the clause in question. I will argue that the occurrence of split NPs in thetic clauses is motivated in the same way: the splitting of the noun phrase and its distribution to both sides of the predicate prevents the division of the clause into a coherent topic and a distinct comment. This strategy is possible for annuntiative thetic clauses because in announc¬ing the presence of an entity not previously part of the discourse, more often than not a speci¬fic property of that entity is being pointed out, such as the length of the tree in (2) and the strength of the wind in (3), so that more than one nominal is available. Other subtypes of thetic clauses are marked in other ways which remain to be explored more fully, e.g., in Jaminjung, solely by means of the sentence focus clitic also illustrated in (3). The phenomenon just described also provides new evidence against an analysis of all split NPs as two coreferential phrases. It will be proposed that a surface- and construction-based analysis is best suited to capture this particular phenomenon, along the lines of McGregor (1997) and Croft (2001, 2006), who argue for a separation of semantic dependency and hierarchical configuration. In this particular case, the discontinuity – which despite the non-configurational character of the languages in question is highly marked in terms of frequency – is licenced by the occurrence in a larger construction, the annuntiative thetic clause. References Blake, Barry, 2001. The noun phrase in Australian languages. In Jane Simpson, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin and Barry Alpher (eds) Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages, 415-425. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Croft, William, 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Croft, William, 2006. A Radical Construction Grammar analysis of noun phrase structure. (7th Meeting of the High Desert Linguistic Society, Albuquerque, 2006). http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/Papers/HDLS7-06M.pdf De Kuthy, Kordula (2002) Discontinuous NPs in German. A Case Study of the Interaction of Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. Stanford, California: CSLI Publications. Fanselow, Gisbert and Damir Ćavar 2002. Distributed deletion. In Alexiadou, Artemis (ed.), Theoretical Approaches to Universals. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 65–107. Fanselow, Gisbert and Caroline Féry, 2006. Prosodic and Morphosyntactic Aspects of Discontinuous Noun Phrases: a Comparative Perspective. University of Potsdam. http://www.sfb632.uni-potsdam.de/ homes/fery/NeuePapiere/SplitTypol.pdf Féry, Caroline, 2006. The Prosody of Topicalization. In Schwabe, Kerstin & Susanne Winkler (eds.) On Information Structure, Meaning and Form. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: Benjamins: 69-86. McGregor, William B. 1997. Functions of noun phrase discontinuity in Gooniyandi. Functions of Language 4: 83-114. Merlan, Francesca. 1994. A grammar of Wardaman. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen, 1987. The thetic/categorical distinction revisited. Linguistics 25: 511-580. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen, 2006. Theticity. In G. Bernini and M.L. Schwarz (eds.), Pragmatic Organization of Discourse in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 255-308. van Hoof, Hanneke (2005). Split Topicalization. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. London: Blackwell