Double-marking language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linguistics
Theoretical linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Lexis
Semantics
Lexical semantics
Statistical semantics
Structural semantics
Prototype semantics
Pragmatics
Applied linguistics
Language acquisition
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Linguistic anthropology
Generative linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Computational linguistics
Descriptive linguistics
Historical linguistics
Comparative linguistics
Etymology
Stylistics
Prescription
Corpus linguistics
History of linguistics
List of linguists
Unsolved problems

A double-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents. Pervasive double marking is rather rare, but instances of double-marking occur in many languages.

For example, in Turkish, in a genitive construction involving two definite nouns, both the possessor and the possessum are marked, the former in the genitive case, the latter with a suffix marking the possessor (and corresponding to a possessive adjective in English).

Another example would be a language in which gender- and/or case endings are used to indicate the role of both nouns and their associated modifiers (such as adjectives) in a sentence (e.g. Russian, Spanish); or in which case endings are supplemented by verb endings marking the subject, direct object and/or indirect object of a sentence.

[edit] See also

Languages