Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists

Citation

Payne, T. E. (1997). Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is a working outline for writing a grammar. After an introduction come twelve chapters that follow the order of a descriptive grammar, from the setting of the language through word structure and clause structure to discourse, and two appendices on data and on model grammars. Its purpose, as the introduction states, is to be "a guide and a bridge": a guide for fieldworkers who want to describe the morphology and syntax of an under-documented language, and a bridge between the existing literature on linguistic structure and the confusing practical task of describing a language. It starts from the estimate that about 4,000 of the world's roughly 6,000 languages have been described only sporadically or not at all.

Introduction; Chapter 1: Demographic and ethnographic information

The introduction sets out the purpose and the plan of the book. Chapter 1 treats the first task of any grammar or grammar sketch: identifying the language and its ethnolinguistic setting, including the name by which speakers refer to themselves and the often different names outsiders have used, and orienting the reader to earlier work on the language.

Chapter 2: Morphological typology

A short chapter that defines the working terms of morphology (the morpheme as a minimal form that expresses meaning, the difference between derivation and inflection) and proposes an outline for the section of a grammar that characterizes how words are built in the language.

Chapter 3: Grammatical categories

The longest early chapter. It deals with the parts of speech: noun and verb as categories every language has, adjective and adverb as categories a language may or may not have, and minor categories such as conjunctions, particles and adpositions. It stresses that category boundaries are untidy, that membership can depend on use in discourse, and that a description must give empirical evidence for each category it posits.

Chapter 4: Constituent order typology

Covers the typology of constituent order, the way languages arrange the major elements of the clause.

Chapters 5–6: Noun and noun-phrase operations; Predicate nominals and related constructions

Chapter 5 turns from the broad "form first" survey of the opening chapters to the functions associated with noun phrases and the operations expressed in them, compounding among them. Chapter 6 describes the family of clauses expressing inclusion, equation, attribution, location, existence and possession, and the ways languages are known to form them.

Chapters 7–8: Grammatical relations; Voice and valence adjusting operations

Chapter 7 shows how subject, direct object, indirect object, ergative, absolutive and oblique can be identified through case marking, participant reference marking on verbs and constituent order. Chapter 8, the longest chapter in the book, covers operations that change the relation between semantic roles and grammatical relations, with the passive as the familiar example, and groups related valence-changing operations together.

Chapters 9–10: Other verb and verb-phrase operations; Pragmatically marked structures

Chapter 9 gathers the verbal operations not covered earlier: nominalization and compounding, which are typically derivational, and tense/aspect/mode, location and direction, participant reference and evidentiality, which are typically inflectional. Chapter 10 moves to pragmatic statuses such as given, new, presupposed, focus, topic and identifiable, and to the structures that mark them.

Chapters 11–12: Clause combinations; Conclusions: the language in use

Chapter 11 handles constructions that combine verbs and clauses, organized around the contrast between independent and dependent clauses and the idea that finiteness is a continuum. The final chapter separates the linguistic analysis of discourse from the interpretation of discourse, and illustrates the difference with the distinction between the semantic role AGENT and the grammatical relation subject.

Appendices 1–2: Elicited and text data; Sample reference grammars

Appendix 1 defines text and elicited data, sets out what each is best suited to, and suggests how to manage both in a field program. Appendix 2 lists reference grammars judged successful by an informal panel of linguists who had used them, as examples of alternative ways to organize a description.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: Setting, word structure and categories

• Morpheme: the minimal form that expresses meaning, the unit around which the chapter on morphological typology is built.
• Grammatical categories: the parts of speech, which have prototypical cores but untidy boundaries and are identified by formal tests and by use in discourse.
• Constituent order typology: the classification of languages by the order of their major clause elements.

Chapters 5–9: Operations and relations

• Grammatical relations: subject, object, ergative, absolutive and oblique, identified by case, verb agreement and word order.
• Voice and valence operations: devices such as the passive that adjust how semantic roles map onto grammatical relations.
• Tense/aspect/mode and evidentiality: verbal inflectional categories treated together with location/direction and participant reference.

Chapters 10–12 and appendices: Use in discourse and data

• Pragmatic statuses: given, new, focus, topic and identifiability, which link what is said to the hearer's presumed knowledge.
• Finite and non-finite verbs: a continuum used to organize clause combinations.
• Text versus elicited data: two kinds of evidence with different strengths.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built around the task of writing a grammar. Chapters follow the sections of a descriptive grammar, and the publisher notes that the book poses questions to help the fieldworker address each key topic. Austin Hale, reviewing it in Notes on Linguistics, rated it highly as part of a practical strategy for describing the morphosyntax of a field language.
• Evidence-minded. The chapter on categories insists that each category be supported by empirical evidence, and the appendix on data explains why neither text nor elicitation should be asked to do the other's job.
• Wide range of examples. The publisher describes examples drawn from both well-known and virtually unknown languages, and the book ends with an index of languages, families and areas.
• Pointers beyond itself. The second appendix lists model reference grammars with different organizations, so the outline is not presented as the only one.

Limitations

• Morphology and syntax only. The scope is the title's: the book does not cover phonology or the lexicon, and its treatment of fieldwork method is limited to the appendix on data, so it needs a companion on fieldwork practice.
• One outline among several. The publisher describes it as offering "one possible outline"; grammars organized differently, as in Appendix 2, may fit a given language better.
• Dated in its references. It appeared in 1997, so later typological work and resources are not covered.
• Terminology-heavy for newcomers. The chapters on grammatical relations, valence and pragmatic statuses use technical vocabulary freely and are more usable by readers who have already taken courses in morphology and syntax.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the typology and fieldwork course, Payne is the book to use when the goal is the grammar itself. Bowern's Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide and Meakins, Green and Turpin's Understanding Linguistic Fieldwork cover the surrounding work: planning a project, working with consultants and communities, ethics, recording and archiving. They pair naturally with Payne, whose book says little about those matters and concentrates on what to look for and write down in the morphosyntax.

Kroeger's Analyzing Grammar is a guide to analysing morphology and syntax for students building the skill, and a good preparation for Payne's outline. Velupillai's An Introduction to Linguistic Typology surveys the field across all domains and gives the cross-linguistic background; Croft's Typology and Universals is the advanced account of typological method and explanation, suited to readers who want the theory behind the comparisons Payne draws on.

How to Use This Book

The book is for students and linguists who are about to describe a language, or who are reading reference grammars and want to know what each part should contain. Courses in morphology and syntax, and some familiarity with typological terms, make the chapters much easier to follow.

A practical plan: read the introduction and Chapters 1–3 first, since they frame the project and the categories everything else depends on. Then work through Chapters 4–11 selectively, in the order in which the language under study raises the questions, using the questions in each chapter as a checklist for the data. Chapter 7 begins with background on grammatical relations that readers who only want the descriptive steps can skip. Read Appendix 1 before collecting data and Appendix 2 before deciding how to organize the write-up, and use Chapter 12 to keep the analysis of structure separate from the interpretation of discourse. Pair the book with a fieldwork-methods text and with grammars of languages related to the one being described.