Conditional constructions in the Uralic languages: a view from designing a database structure

1. Conditional constructions in the Uralic languages: a view from designing a database structure Marianne Bakró-Nagy bakro@nytud.hu Anne Tamm anne.tamm@unifi.it

2. Roadmap to this talk • Our goals • Conditionals • Terminology and definitions of conditionals • The specific features of the Uralic conditionals • Parameters • Values • The (im)possibilities of the database • Our wish list • What can be fitted into a WALS like structure • How to structure the discrepancies? The procedure • Conclusions

3. The multiple goals of structuring the UTDb data • functionality • entering the data • storage of the data • retrieving the data via queries • structural compatibility • robust as the WALS (“macroparameters”) • fine-grained to accommodate Uralic data (“microparameters” and “nanoparameters”)

4. Conditionals definition • A conditionality is a particular relation between two events. • It expresses a proposition whose fulfillment is relevant to the degree of reality assigned to another proposition expressed in a sentence. (Trask 1993. 55)

5. an apodosis(subordinate clause, if-clause) expresses a proposition whose fulfillment is relevant to the degree of reality assigned to • another proposition: protasis (main clause, then-clause) If X, then Y if Marianne gets a grandchild now, then Anne is standing now in front of you

6. an apodosis (subordinate clause, if clause) expresses a proposition whose fulfillment is relevant to the degree of reality assigned to another proposition: the protasis (main clause, then-clause) if Marianne gets a grandchild now, then Anne is standing now in front of you Terminologya prototypical conditional sentence includes

7. The Uralic conditionals • dominant sentence structure: complex sentence • dominant order of clauses: subordinate clause + main clause • if the order is the reverse, then the subordinate clause is marked, or the subordinate clause and the main clause are both marked; i.e. in main clause + subordinate clause order, a marked main clause and unmarked subordinate clause is exceptional: *Then I buy a hamster, I get salary. • dominant marking: marked subordinate clause by separate words/enclitics/suffixes – but no preverbs or prefixes • combination of present and past tense + suffixes as adverbial subordinators depend on how hypothetical they are • multiple/overmarked conditionality • one and the same conditional marker can function as a suffix and as a separate word for adverbial subordination in the same language or dialect (Source Bakró-Nagy 2008)

8. Formal typological parameters of conditional constructions in Uralic • sentence structure • simple sentences • nonfinite verbal forms [e.g. Estonian, S-E-Khanty, E-W-N-Mansi, N-Samoyedic] • gerund [e.g. Nganasan] • participle [e.g. E-S-Khanty] • complex sentences [all FU languages] • order of clauses • protasis+apodosis [e.g. Udmurt] • apodosis+protasis [e.g. Udmurt] • embedded: apodosis-protasis-apodosis [e.g. Hungarian]

9. markedness • markedness of verbs • markedness of verbs for mood • markedness of nonfinite verbs • unmarked nonfinite verbs [e.g. Nenets] • marked nonfinite forms types of nonfinite verb markers local case suffixes [e.g. Estonian] possessive suffixes [e.g. E-Khanty]  derivational suffix [e.g. S-Khanty]  order of markers [e.g. N-Mansi] • markedness of finite verbs • unmarked finite verbs [e.g. Komi, Erzya, Moksha, Hungarian etc.] • marked finite verbs  types of finite verb markers  conditional particle [e.g. Mansi, Khanty]  conditional Vx [e.g. Mansi, Hungarian etc.]  position/order of finite verb markers … • markedness of verbs for tense • present • future • past • [and their combinations in protasis + apodosisdepending on the degree of hypotheticality and epistemic stance]

10. markedness of clauses • markedness of protasis • unmarked protasis [all FU languages] • marked protasis • types of protasis markers  word order [Estonian]  lexical markers • types of lexical markers  conjunctions [e.g. Erzya Mordin]  clitics [e.g. Udmurt, Komi, Khanty, Mansi etc.] • position of lexical markers  fixed position [e.g. Komi]  non-fixed position [e.g. N-E-WMansi] • markedness of apodosis • unmarked apodosis [all FU languages] • marked apodosis • types of apodosis markers  lexical markers • types of lexical markers  correlative [e.g. Hungarian] • position of lexical markers  fixed position [e.g. Hungaian]

11. macroparameters 1 sentence structure • simple sentence • complex sentence • order of clauses

12. macroparameters 2 marking • simple sentence • markers of non-finite verbs • complex sentence • word order • adverbial subordinators and their position • tense

13. Our wish list • Create compatibility with • WALS • Uralic data • Create the right functionality • add the data, that is, create an interface for editors • query the data, that is, create interface for the users

14. Sample queries • what is the type of conditional construction used in Hungarian (a WALS-like query) • but also what are the conditional constructions that were used in Livonian or Kamas, • and what are the examples of conditional constructions in Meadow Mari • or which language has the largest number of conditional constructions (these queries are not like the queries of WALS).

15. Not just a matter of parameter size • Relevance of values • many values not relevant in Uralic • other values relevant to distinguish between the Uralic languages and dialects • Additional categories and relations: • diachronic data • examples and their source • Additional allowed structure • several alternative constructions are available, ergo • combining two or more types – one parameter has multiple values

17. Our roadmap.1. The format and description • The format • We start off with a simple xml/table format to establish the structure of the tables in terms of embedded structures. • Tables and xml are interchangeable, but the xml format is friendlier to draw in case the database is designed by a linguist. • This presentation discusses the relational database structure. • Data description of conditionals • As the first step, we make a system of attributes and values for the conditional constructions in the Uralic languages, • followed by a system of relations between the attributes and values.

18. 2. Analyzing the WALS structures • taking the simple structure of the WALS and breaking it down visually to xml format in a way that we can start adding our own parameters • retaining the structure as in the WALS we identify our own needs compared to these structures • the WALS contains a matrix table of all value assignments for features. In that table, rows give the value assignments for a particular language identified by its WALS code given in the first column, columns give the value assignments for a particular feature identified by its numeric identifier given in the first row. wals_code1 hun4 • (This table tells us that the consonant inventory of Hungarian is moderately large. The WALS code for Hungarian is hun, and the numeric identifier 1 pertains to the feature of consonant inventory. The number 4 encodes the value assignment for this feature in Hungarian – moderately large. )

19. The goals of the Uralic database wrt structure and content The goals of the Uralic database are different, requiring more embedding and feature-co-occurrence structures: <construction> kui < language > est < /language > < type> <type-attribute > if-type </type-attribute > < example> <text> kui õpid, saad targaks </text> <source> the Mixed corpus of Estonian </source> <translation> if you study, you will be wise </translation> < /example> < /construction >

20. 3. A robust feature value system • enrich the simple structure with the most robust parameter system that we can • this may serve as a hypothesis about how the parameters of the conditional constructions could be represented in general. • we add here feature 143, but not yet võro language. wals_code 143

21. Structures targeted at stage 3 • Also, new descriptions of the values can be added to a values table, using the numeric feature id and the numeric value id as given in the datapoints table matrix. • From the data structure above, only the following structures and information is targeted at this stage: < language > est < /language > < type> <type-attribute > conditional </type-attribute > <type-value> if-type </type-value> < /type >

22. 4. Fine-tuning with the data storage needs • fine-tune the parameter-value system by adding extra structures and relations (i.e. extra tables and indices) • the WALS-like data structure is combined with the structures that serve the goal of storing the Uralic data • information such as the võro language code or information about major dialects, e.g., vor, wals_code 143 vor

23. 4. Adding structure that is different from WALS • WALS records probably the most frequent value for Uralic languages, but we wish to have a more fine-grained structure. This is provided at this stage of database development. • Additional data for languages are added at this stage, as if adding them to the WALS table on languages. Additional data for features can be added by extra numeric feature id s in the WALS-like table features. • However, each of these additions, if we wish to keep them separate but still compatible with the data in WALS to perform larger queries, should be linked to an extra index encoding the source attribute with the Uralic Database value.

24. information such as an extra index that allows us to introduce multiple values for one feature • 1 value 1 for parameter 1 • 2 value 2 for parameter 1 • 3 value 1 for parameter 2 • 4 value 2 for parameter 2 • …

25. Summary This talk presented the specific features of the Uralic conditionals in the possible Uralic Typology Database structure. We identified parameters and values that are generally relevant, and those that pertain to the Uralic. We presented our wish list, what can be fitted into a WALS like structure, and how to structure the discrepancies (the procedure).

26. Attjin! (Konsta Zamyatin, Budinos)

27. Bibliography Bakró-Nagy, Marianne 2008http://www.univie.ac.at/urtypol/bakro.pdf Bakró-Nagy, Marianne 2009 Conditional constructions in Uralic and in Old Hungarian. MS, Budapest – Szeged. Comrie, Bernard 1986 Conditionals: a typology. In: Traugott, Elizatbeth C. etal (eds) On Conditionals. Cambridge-London etc., Cambridge UniversityPress. 77-99. Haspelmath, Martin [forthcoming] Framework-free grammatical theory. Toappear in Heine, Bernd – Narrog, Heiko eds. The Oxford Handbook ofGrammatical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Xrakovskij, Victor S (ed), 2005 Typology of Conditional Constructions.Muenchen, LINCOM EUROPA. Podlesskaya, Vera I 2001 Conditional constructions. In: M. Haspelmath et al.(eds) Language Typology and Language Universals. Volume 2. Berlin-NewYork. Walter de Gruyter. 998-1010. Riese, Timothy 1984 The Conditional Sentence in the Ugrian, Permian andVolgaic Languages. Studia Uralica 3. Vienna. Tamm, Anne 2009 Uralic typological data and the structure of WALS. MS. WALS = The World Atlas of Language Structures Onlinehttp://wals.info/index Everaert, Martin; Musgrave, Simon; Dimitriadis, Alexis. 2009 The Use of Databases in Cross-Linguistic Studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009.