A QUD-based account of the discourse particle naman in...

A QUD-based account of thediscourse particle naman in

Tagalog

Scott AnderBois

Brown UniversityAFLA 23 – TUFS, Tokyo, Japan

June 10-12, 2016

Introduction

Discourse particles in Tagalog

I Tagalog has a rich inventory of 2nd position clitics conveyingmodal, evidential, and discourse-related meanings.

I One of the most puzzling of these is the particle naman.

I naman is often described as a marker of ‘contrast’ and givenglosses like ‘on the other hand’, ‘but’, and ‘also’:

(1) Nagaarallearn.AV.Impf

siDir

Linda.Linda

Naglalaroplay.AV.Imp

namannaman

siDir

Carmen.Carmen

‘Linda is studying. Carmen, on the other hand, is playing.’ Schachter

& Otanes (1972)

Two problems

Problem 1: Not always contrastive

I While naman often conveys contrast, many examples don’tinvolve contrast:

(2) Context: A asks B “Will you marry me?”. B replies:Ooyes

naman.naman

‘Yes, of course.’

(3) Context: The speaker is asked what the speaker and hearer should dotoday.Ma-ramiAdj-quantity

namangnaman.Lnk

restaurantrestaurant

saObl

mall.mall

‘Well, there are many restaurants at the mall.’

Two problems

Problem 2: naman across sentence types

I Schachter & Otanes (1972) give very di↵erentcharacterizations of naman across sentence types:

(4) Imperative – “politeness together with mild reproach”Tulung-anhelp.Imp-PV

mo2sg.Indir

namannaman

ako.1sg.Dir

‘Please help me. (Don’t just sit there.)’ Schachter & Otanes (1972)

(5) Predicative adjective – “critical or negative attitude”Ma-rumiAdj-dirt

namannaman

itothis

‘This is dirty (and I’m displeased).’ Schachter & Otanes (1972)

This talk

naman as marker of a closed QUD

I Address problem 1 by developing a unified account of namanas marking closure of the prior immediate QUD.

I Contrastive uses are a special case where the prior immediateQUD is marked closed, and . . .

I . . . the utterance containing naman happens to address asister QUD.

I More tentative thoughts on the prospects for extending theapproach to address problem 2.

Road map

§2 presents data from contrastive uses of naman andintroduces a QUD-based analysis

§3 shows several kinds of cases where naman isfelicitous with no contrast present

§4 refines the QUD-based analysis to handle these caseswith no contrast

§5 preliminarily explores the prospects of extending theaccount to two sentence types which Schachter &Otanes (1972) describe quite di↵erently:

I naman in imperatives: to express “politenesstogether with mild reproach”

I naman with predicative adjectives, to express“a critical or negative attitude”

§6 concludes.

§2: Contrastive uses of naman

Semantic opposition uses of naman

I Schachter & Otanes (1972), p. 425 distinguish 2 uses ofnaman with all declaratives.

I “to express dissimarility between two situations”:

(6) a. Nagaarallearn.AV.Impf

siDir

Linda.Linda


namannaman

siDir

Carmen.Carmen

‘Linda is studying. Carmen, on the other hand, is playing.’Schachter & Otanes (1972)

b. Bumilibuy.AF.Perf

ako1sg.Dir

ngIndir

karnemeat

kahapon.yesterday

Ngayon,today

isdafish

naman.naman‘I bought meat yesterday. Today, (it will be) fish (instead).’(Schachter & Otanes, 1972)

Comparison with English butCorrection/counterexpectation not due to naman

Inaman in these uses is comparable to ‘semantic opposition’uses of English but (see, e.g. Toosarvandani (2014)):

(7) a. The player is tall, but agile. Counterexpectational

b. Liz doesn’t dance, but sing. Corrective

c. John is tall, but Bill is short. Semantic Opposition

I naman is possible with counterexpectation and certaincorrections, but it is pero or ngunit convey these inferences:

(8) Mayexist

umuugoyrock.AV.Impf

talaga-ngreally-Lnk

duyancradle

ngIndir

bata,child

perobut

walanot.exist

namannaman

tao.person

‘Something is really rocking the child’s cradle, but no one is there.’Martin (2004)

Shift of viewpoint uses of naman

Questioner-responder shifts

I Schachter & Otanes (1972)’s second use they describe is “toexpress a shift of viewpoint”:

(9) Context: Kumusta ka? ‘How are you?’Mabuti.fine

Ikaw2sg.Dir

naman?naman

‘Fine. And [what about] you?’ (Alt. ‘Your turn.’) Schachter &

Otanes (1972)

(10) JuanJuan

angDir

pangalanname

ko.1sg.Indir

Atand

angDir

iyo2sg.Indir

naman?naman

‘My name is Juan. And yours?’ Schachter & Otanes (1972)

QUDs & contrastive naman: I

Questions Under Discussion (QUDs) and D-trees

I QUD: hierarchically structured set of abstract questions weare jointly endeavored to resolve at a given moment.

(e.g. Ginzburg (1996), Roberts (1996), Rojas-Esponda (2014a))

I Immediate QUD: the highest ranked question in the QUD.

I D-trees as a representational tool: (Buring (2003))

Who ate what?

Who ate the beans?

Fred ate the beans Mary. . . . . .

Who ate the eggplant?

QUDs & contrastive naman: II

Discourse particles and QUDs

I Since (at least) typically implicit, languages have variousmeans of encoding aspects of what the speaker takes theQUD structure to be.

I Many discourse particles claimed to do just this:

I Eckardt (2007): German noch signals a series of prior positiveanswers to sisters of the immediate QUD.

I Davis (2009): Japanese yo encodes relevance to the immediateQUD (simplifying significantly).

I Rojas-Esponda (2014b): German doch signals a reopening of apreviously closed immediate QUD.

QUDs & contrastive naman: III

Contrastive topic in a QUD framework

I Buring (2003) analyzes Contrastive Topic (CT) intonation inEnglish as indicating a QUD strategy:

Who ate what?

What did Fred eat?

FredCT ate the beansF

What did Mary eat?

MaryCT ate the eggplantF

I CT indicates a shift between sister QUDs . . .

I . . . and together with focus constrains which QUDs these are

QUDs & contrastive naman: IV

Contrastive uses of naman in a QUD framework

I In the uses of naman we have seen, there is similarly closureof the prior immediate QUD and the opening of a sister QUD:


siDir

Linda.Linda


namannaman

siDir

Carmen.Carmen

‘Linda is studying. Carmen, on the other hand, is playing.’

What is everyone doing?

What is Linda doing?

Linda is studying

What is Carmen doing?

Carmen naman is playing

I Pragmatic topic and focus may constrain the possible QUDs,but need not. (e.g. Kroeger (1993), Kaufman (2005))

Cross-linguistic comparisonsEnglish CT and beyond

I English CT is ‘forward-looking’, whereas naman is‘backward-looking’.

I However, recent work has claimed that CT in other languagescan be ‘backward-looking’ (Constant (2014) in Chinese,Mikkelsen (2016) in Karuk)

I Since English CT incorporates intonational focus (settingaside boundary tones, F= H*, CT = L+H*), it constrains theQUD in particular ways

I Given the pragmatics of deaccenting in English (unlikeTagalog), this means that CT is obligatory in English whenpossible (Buring (2003), Constant (2014))

I Beyond CT, contrastive naman is most similar to semanticopposition but (we return to this comparison later)

Non-contrastive naman

Naman is not always contrastive

I The examples we have seen thus far all intuitively involvecontrast of some kind.

I However, naman is also frequently used in declaratives wherethere is no contrast.

I Descriptively, there are two uses of this sort:

1. to convey the obviousness of the previous immediate QUD.2. to signal a move to a sub-question/sub-issue of the previous

immediate QUD.

I (cf. Bloomfield (1917): naman “expresses transition toanother subject, hence often also mild contrast”)

Obviousness uses

Obviousness uses of naman

I naman often is used to signal that the resolution of the priorimmediate QUD is (or should be) obvious:

(12) Context: A asks B “Will you marry me?”. B replies:Ooyes

naman.naman

‘Yes, of course.’

(13) Context: A Facebook discussion about whether a recipe which callsfor steaming a chocolate cake counts as ‘no-bake’.“Of course po. Steaming is definitely not baking. Steamed angsiopao. Hindi naman yun baked. Lol!”

(14) Context: Responding to the question ‘Who likes chocolate?’Lahatall

namannaman

ayTop

mahiligfond

saObl

tsokolatechocolate

‘Everyone likes chocolate (duh!)’

Move to subquestion uses

Raising sub-issues

I The second non-contrastive use is to shift the immediateQUD to a sub-question/sub-issue:

(15) Context: Spkr is asked what the speaker and hearer should do today.Ma-ramiAdj-quantity

namangnaman

restaurantrestaurant

saObl

mall.mall

‘Well, there are many restaurants at the mall.’

(16) Context: Addr states that Juan is going to the concert. Spkr replies:HindiNeg

siya3sg.Dir

pupunta,go

nagcancelcancel

namannaman

siya.3sg.Dir

‘He’s not going, he cancelled.’

I NB: this assumes a more flexible notion of sub-questionhoodthan some authors assume (e.g. Rojas-Esponda (2014a))

§4: A unified QUD-based account

(Immediate) QUDs defined

I We assume Roberts (1996)’s definition of the CommonGround (CG) and QUD. Informally:

I QUD is a function from a discourse “move” m to a stack ofquestions ordered by precedence and constrained bysub-questionhood.

I CG is a function from a discourse “move” m to the set ofpropositions which is the speaker and hearer’s CommonGround.

I We define the immediate QUD as follows:

(17) Imm-QUD(m) = the unique question q such that for all q0 2QUD(m) where q 6= q0, q0 < q

The e↵ect of naman

naman as a marker of QUD-closure

I Using naman in a discourse move m signals the following:

(18) naman(m) indicates that Imm-QUD(m � 1) is (or shouldbe) entailed by CG(m)

I N.B. naman does not directly indicate anything about thecurrent QUD-structure (e.g. Imm-QUD(m)).

I However, regular norms of ‘traversal’ through QUD structuresstill apply (e.g. Buring (2003), Rojas-Esponda (2014a))

I Crucially, while naman marks Imm-QUD(m� 1) as resolved,it does not indicate any sort of non-monotonic revision to theoverall QUD structure.

Returning to subcases

Three kinds of QUDs

I The three subcases we have seen, then, represent di↵erentkinds of Imm-QUD(m)

I Imm-QUD(m) is determined as elsewhere: by inference andother linguistic elements (e.g. focus, pero ‘but’, ngunit ‘but’):

Contrastive

. . .

m � 1 m

(Sisterhood)

Obviousness

. . .

m � 1m

. . .

(Identity)

Move to subquestion

. . .

m � 1

. . . m

. . .

(Subquestion)

Returning to the data

Analysis of contrastive naman


siDir

Linda.Linda


namannaman

siDir

Carmen.Carmen

‘Linda is studying. Carmen, on the other hand, is playing.’

I Imm-QUD(m � 1): ‘What is Linda doing?’

I Imm-QUD(m): ‘What is Carmen doing?’

I Therefore, naman in the second clause, move m, indicatesthat Imm-QUD(m � 1) is settled by CG(m)

I Since m is construed as addressing a sister QUD, naman hasthe e↵ect of signalling this shift

Obviousness use revisited

Analysis of obviousness naman

I Imm-QUD(m � 1): ‘Who likes chocolate?’

I Imm-QUD(m): ‘Who likes chocolate?’

I Therefore, naman in the second clause, move m, indicatesthat Imm-QUD(m � 1) is settled by CG(m)

I Since m is construed as addressing an identical QUD, namanhas the e↵ect of signalling that the speaker regards thisquestion as already settled.

(20) Context: Responding to the question ‘Who likes chocolate?’Lahatall

namannaman

ayTop

mahiligfond

saObl

tsokolatechocolate

‘Everyone likes chocolate (duh!)’

Contexts that don’t allow naman(21) #Correction with same QUD:

a. SiDir

JohnJohn

baQ

angDir

kumaineat.Pfv.AV

ngIndir

tinola?soup

‘Was John the one who ate the soup?’

b. Hindi,No

siDir

BillBill

(#naman)naman

yungthat.Lnk

kumaineat.Pfv.AV

ngIndir

tinola.soup

‘No, it was Bill who ate the soup.’

(22) #Move to superquestion:

a. Kailanwhen

mo2sg.Indir

pinataykill.Pfv.PV

siDir

Fred?Fred

‘When did you kill Fred?’

b. HindiNeg

ko1sg.Indir

(#?naman)naman

siya3sg.Dir

pinataykill.Pfv.PV

Intended: ‘I didn’t kill him at all.’1

I Finally, naman is infelicitous with non-sequiturs and otherattempts to change the QUD altogether.

§5: naman across sentence types

Thoughts on naman with imperatives

I Schachter & Otanes (1972): naman in imperatives:“politeness together with mild reproach”

I Decision to choose a particular action is the same kind of thingas a QUD (see, e.g. Davis (2009))

I naman in imperative move m: signal that the decision toperform the action should already be settled by CG(m).

I Preliminary support from contrast like (23):

(23) Tulung-anhelp.Imp-PV

mo2sg.Indir

namannaman

ako.1sg.Dir

‘Please help me. (Don’t just sit there.)’ Schachter & Otanes (1972)

a. X Context: You can see that my foot is stuck and that I am inpain.

b. 7 Context: Unbeknownst to you, my foot is stuck under a table.

Predicate adjectivesI S&O: naman with adjectives: “critical or negative attitude”

(24) Mahalexpensive

namannaman

ito.this

‘This is expensive (and I am unpleased).’

I However, their examples have naturally negative adjectives –positive antonyms yield the opposite:

(25) Muraa↵ordable

namannaman

ito.this

‘This is so a↵ordable (I can buy it).’

Possibility 1 naman in these cases signals a move to asub-question about the degree to which the predicateholds.

Possibility 2 naman signals that a prior QUD (here, ‘Can I buyit?’) is resolved.

I N.B. possibilities not mutually exclusive (cf. English too)

§6: Conclusionsnaman as marker of prior QUD being resolved

I Showed that di↵erent uses of naman are due to di↵erentcurrent immediate QUDs:

Contrastive: sister to prior QUD

Obviousness: identical to prior QUD

Move to subquestion: subquestion of prior QUD

I Related naman to other markers of contrast and otherQUD-particles such as German doch, namlich, etc.

I Supports the idea that rather than indicating a wholediscourse strategy a la Buring (2003), Contrastive Topicmight be best thought of as indicating closure of a QUD withfocus intonation relating this to a new QUD (similar toConstant (2014)).

Maraming salamat! Thank you!

Thanks to anonymous AFLA reviewers, Jenny Tan, and especiallyto Amber Teng for her hard work and patience as a languageconsultant.

References: I

Bloomfield, Leonard (1917) Tagalog texts with grammatical analysis. Universityof Illinois Studies in Language and Literature III(3).

Buring, Daniel (2003) On D-Trees, Beans, and B-Accents. Linguistics andPhilosophy 26(5): 511–545.

Constant, Noah (2014) Contrastive Topic: Meanings and Realizations. Ph.D.thesis, University of Massachusetts.

Davis, Christopher (2009) Decisions, dynamics and the Japanese particle yo.Journal of Semantics 26: 329–366.

Eckardt, Regine (2007) ‘Was noch? ’ Navigating in Question Answer Discourse.In Interfaces and Interface Conditions, Volume 6, Mouton de Gruyter, 77–96.

Ginzburg, Jonathan (1996) Dynamics and the semantics of dialogue. InLanguage, Logic, and Computation, vol. 1.

Kaufman, Daniel (2005) Aspects of pragmatic focus in Tagalog. In The manyfaces of Austronesian voice systems: some new empirical studies, ResearchSchool of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University,175–196, online at:https://www.academia.edu/1919247/Aspects of pragmatic focus in Tagalog.

References: IIKrifka, Manfred (1999) Additive particles under stress. In Proceedings of SALT

8, CLC Publications, 111–128.

Kroeger, Paul (1993) Phrase Structure and Grammatical Relations in Tagalog.CSLI.

Martin, J.R. (2004) Metafunctional profile of the grammar of Tagalog. JohnBenjamins, 255–304.

Mikkelsen, Line (2016) Contrastive topic in Karuk, talk at SULA 9.

Roberts, Craige (1996) Information Structure in Discourse. In OSU WorkingPapers in Linguistics, revised 1998 version, retrieved from author’s webpage8/20/09.

Rojas-Esponda, Tania (2014a) A discourse model for uberhaupt. Semantics &Pragmatics 7: 1–45.

Rojas-Esponda, Tania (2014b) A QUD account of German doch. InProceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 18, Urtzi Etxeberria, Anamaria Falaus,Aritz Irurtzun, & Bryan Leferman, eds., 359–376.

Schachter, Paul & Fe T. Otanes (1972) Tagalog Reference Grammar.University of California Press.

Toosarvandani, Maziar (2014) Contrast and the structure of discourse.Semantics & Pragmatics 7(4): 1–57.

EXTRA SLIDES

Extra slides

Ensuring semantic oppositionRuling out parallelism cases

I One potential worry: the account seems to predict thatnaman can be used in cases of parallelism.

(26) #Nagaarallearn.AV.Impf

siDir

Linda.Linda

Nagaaralplay.AV.Imp

namannaman

siDir

Carmen.Carmen

‘Linda is studying. Carmen is studying.’

I Suppose Imm-QUD(m1) = ‘Is Linda studying?’ andImm-QUD(m2) = ‘Is Carmen studying?’.

Response 1: QUD structures don’t include individual polarquestions (i.e. (26) is bad because Imm-QUDis ‘Who is studying?’ in both clauses).

Response 2: Parallelism must be expressed overtly with rin.When expressed, this forces the higher-levelImm-QUD (see Krifka (1999) on too)

Obviousness used concessivelyConcessions as a particular case of obviousness

I One particular use of this sort is in concessives:

(27) a. Alamknow

ko1sg.Indir

namangnaman.Lnk

sadya-ngpurpose-Lnk

magkalayobe.far.apart

angAng

ating1pl.Indir.Lnk

mundo.world.

‘I know, of course, there’s a reason our worlds are far apart.’

b. Perobut

aking1sg.Indir.Lnk

ma-ipa-pangako-ng:will.promise.you.Lnk

‘but I will promise you (this):’

(28) Kahitalthough

alamknow

namangnaman.Lnk

walangnot.exist.Lnk

pag-asa,Nmlz-hope

angDir

pusoheart

ko-ng1sg.Indir-Lnk

ito-’ythis-Top

’diNeg

pamimigaybe.free

‘Even if I know there’s no hope, my heart won’t be free (i.e. availableto anyone else)’

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