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Typological Features Template for Danish

Revision as of 12:27, 23 March 2010 by Signe Rix Berthelin (Talk | contribs) (This page is under construction)

by --Signe Rix Berthelin 09:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

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Feature Description
Phonological Features In the following fields you describe the phonological inventory o [your language]
Vowel inventory In this field you describe the vowel inventory of [your language]
Vowel harmony Vowel harmony in Akan operates according to a tongue root system. Usually, nominal and verbal prefixes agree in ATR value with the vowels in the verb or noun stem.
Consonant inventory In this field you describe the consonants of [your language]
Tone In this field you indicate if [your language] is a tone language and which tones are used; does [your language] have lexical tone?
Syllable Structure In this field you indicate the basic syllable structures of [your language].
Morpho-syntactic Features In the following fields you describe some of the basic morpho-syntactic parameters of [your language]
morphological classification (1) [Your language] could be an isolating language (not (or nearly not) making use of morphology, agglutinative, such as the Bantu languages of Africa, or synthetic, such as the Saami languages of Scandinavia, or even polysynthetic such as Greenlandic. In this field you classify [your language] according to these parameters if possible.
morphological classification (2) Linguists have distinguished between head- and dependent-marking languages. Semitic languages are head marking languages; it is the head of the noun phrases that needs to have a special form when followed by a dependent noun; in the Germanic languages it is the head of the verb phrase that expresses person-number features of its subject. Grammatical dependencies on the other hand are in some of the Germanic languages expressed on the dependent noun phrases in form of case. [Your language] might be both, head- and dependent-marking, depending on the category of speech and or the type of feature expressed. This is what you can describe in this field.
Nominal Phrases In the following fields we aim for a description of some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of nominal constituents
syntactic structure Quantifier - Determiner - Adjective - Nominal(+definite suffix)(+poss.suffix - Adjective'2' - Nominal'2') - Relative clause

Quantifier: optional and only one.

Determiner: optional and only one.

Adjective: optional and preferrably not more than two in order to avoid akwardness.

Definite suffix: optional. Is not compatible with articles or demonstratives.

Possessive suffix: required if possessed nominal.

Nominal '2': possessed nominal. Can take an adjectival modifier, but nothing else.

Relative clause: optional and not more than one in order to asure intellegibillity.


In this field you describe the linear order of elements in the noun phrase

nominal modification Adjectives, indefinite article, definite suffix (link), demonstrative, relative clauses, pronouns, possessives, interrogative pronouns.

NB. Nominal modifiers agree with the modified noun in the following way: articles and demonstratives must agree with the noun in terms of number and gender, and adjectives must agree with the rest of the noun phrase in terms of number, gender and definiteness. A nominal may stand on its own as a "bare nominal".

nominal specification The specifications must agree in terms of definiteness and number of the given entity referred to. Quantifier, determiner, demonstrative, cardinal, numerals.

Deixis - the entity referred to, is specified in terms of degree of saliency in the discourse or in terms of distance between speaker and entity, this is conveyed by the choice of demonstrative. A nominal may be bare, and thus it refers to a type in general.

possession Strategy 1: Possession can be expressed by a possessive pronoun, functioning as demonstrative, and will thus affect the other elements in the ohrase just like a definite demonstrative. Possessive pronouns have the same form when appearing as a predicate as when appearing like a demonstrative. Personal pronouns and emphatic demonstratives may be used as possessive pronouns in the appropriate form.

Strategy 2: A possessive nominal i made by the suffix -s. The possessed nominal phrase follows the possessive imidiately.

pronominal system All pronouns are free forms. Personal pronouns exist for 1st, 2nd and 3rd person in singular and in plural. Quantifiers and demonstratives may be used as pronouns.

Emphatic demonstratives are only used as possessive pronouns - otherwise the nominal must follow.

Verbal Phrases In the following fields serve for the description of some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of verbal constituents
word order In this field you indicate the basic word order of your language (SOV, SOV ...)
TAM In this field you indicate which tense and/or aspects are morphologically or tonally marked; does [your language] make use of periphrastic tense or aspect constructions?
infinitival forms In this field you indicate if [your language] makes use of an infinitive marker? How many infinitival forms does your language have?
verbal constructions In this field you indicate if [your language] has ditransitive constructions, serial verb constructions or complex verb forms composed of several verbs. Does your language have so called light verbs, perhaps only used to indicate a certain tense or aspect?
Adpositions In this field you indicate if [your language[ makes use of prepositions or postpositions. Does your language have spatial nouns? Does your language use adpositions or particles to indicate grammatical relations between the verb and a nominal argument?
Complementation In this field you describe complementation strategies. Does [your language] make use of complementizers?
Special Properties of [your language] In this field you should mention properties of [your language] which did not fit into any of the other categories mentioned in this template
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