Carol Genetti, Ph.D.

New York University Abu Dhabi

Beyond Preferred Argument Structure: Sentences, Pronouns, and Given Referents in Nepali


Book chapter


Carol Genetti, Laura Crain
In John DuBois, Lorraine Kumpf, William Ashby (eds.), Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as Architecture for Function, 2003, pp. 197-223.


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APA   Click to copy
Genetti, C., & Crain, L. (2003). Beyond Preferred Argument Structure: Sentences, Pronouns, and Given Referents in Nepali. In I. J. DuBois, L. Kumpf, & W. A. (eds.) (Eds.), Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as Architecture for Function (pp. 197–223.). https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.14.10gen


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Genetti, Carol, and Laura Crain. “Beyond Preferred Argument Structure: Sentences, Pronouns, and Given Referents in Nepali.” In Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as Architecture for Function, edited by In John DuBois, Lorraine Kumpf, and William Ashby (eds.), 197–223., 2003.


MLA   Click to copy
Genetti, Carol, and Laura Crain. “Beyond Preferred Argument Structure: Sentences, Pronouns, and Given Referents in Nepali.” Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as Architecture for Function, edited by In John DuBois et al., 2003, pp. 197–223., doi:10.1075/sidag.14.10gen.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@inbook{carol2003a,
  title = {Beyond Preferred Argument Structure: Sentences, Pronouns, and Given Referents in Nepali},
  year = {2003},
  pages = {197-223.},
  doi = {10.1075/sidag.14.10gen},
  author = {Genetti, Carol and Crain, Laura},
  editor = {DuBois, In John and Kumpf, Lorraine and (eds.), William Ashby},
  booktitle = {Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as Architecture for Function}
}

ABSTRACT
This study examines the amount and distribution of lexical, pronominal and zero mentions in Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language and the national language of Nepal. In this language, there is evidence for all four Preferred Argument Structure  constraints, and it is clear that the patterns first identified by Du Bois are found. However, unlike Sakapulteko, Nepali uses independent pronouns with considerable  frequency, and as a result, the number of “overt”mentions (lexical or pronominal,Du  Bois 1987a) is surprisingly high. This fact is attributed to a strategy in which the sentence, as opposed to the clause, plays a pivotal role in determining the amount of overt mention. In particular, the primary pattern used by the speakers in our study was to overtly mention each referent once in a sentence, regardless of the number of times the referent functioned as a grammatical argument within that sentence.