Chapter 94Noun Phrases and Pronominal-Argument Analyses
Head marking, Satō’s layered clause analysis, unindexed core arguments, shared argumenthood, and the limits of word-order and quantifier evidence.
94.1 The descriptive starting points
Ainu permits contextually understood noun phrases to be absent, indexes participants on the verb, and allows considerable variation in preverbal noun-phrase order. These properties motivate questions about how noun phrases relate to verbal arguments Bugaeva (2022: §§4.1, 4.3); Nakagawa (2024: 362–365). They do not by themselves determine a single analysis of phrase structure.
The term nonconfigurationality groups questions about flexible order, omitted expressions and the structural positions assigned to them. The narrower pronominal-argument question concerns whether person forms themselves satisfy a predicate's arguments, and what grammatical status remains for a coreferential lexical noun phrase. Bugaeva reviews appositive and shared-argumenthood accounts, while Satō develops an analysis in Role and Reference Grammar Bugaeva (2022: §4.3); Satō (2025: 362–370).
94.2 Head marking and the indexed noun phrase
In the head-marking framework of Nichols (1986), grammatical relations are marked on the head of a construction. Satō applies this perspective to Ainu personal forms and combines it with a layered clause analysis: a predicate nucleus, a core containing its arguments, and larger clause and sentence structures Satō (2025: 360–364).
For this construction, Satō treats the personal elements as satisfying the arguments inside the core and places lexical cep outside it. With cep-koyki=an, incorporation instead places the noun inside the complex predicate Satō (2025: 364–367, examples 17–18). This is his analysis of the relationship between lexical expression and morphological realization ‹contested›.
94.3 The unindexed argument and shared argumenthood
Satō's account does not place every lexical noun phrase outside the core. A three-place predicate can have a theme with no corresponding person index. In his constructed wakka eci=ta-re “I make you draw water,” the water belongs inside the core but outside the predicate nucleus. He also shows that an unindexed theme can be recovered from discourse Satō (2025: 368–370). The examples are given in Chapter 93 (Argument Realization and Person Indexing).
Bugaeva favors shared argumenthood between person forms and coreferential noun phrases for Ainu. In her view, location-class information on a noun phrase supports retaining a grammatical contribution for that phrase ‹contested› Bugaeva (2022: §§4.3–4.4). Nakagawa demonstrates how locative nouns help distinguish two object roles in otherwise unmarked noun phrases Nakagawa (2022: §6.1).
| Question | Relevant evidence |
|---|---|
| Must every argument be a pronounced noun phrase? | Contextual omission of subjects and objects |
| Does every argument have its own person index? | The unindexed theme of a three-place predicate |
| What status does an indexed lexical noun phrase have? | Competing appositive and shared-argumenthood analyses |
| How are roles interpreted when order varies? | Lexical selection, locative noun classes and discourse |
94.4 Complex noun phrases and claims about displacement
A sequence containing separated nominal elements can still be one noun phrase. Nakagawa discusses a quantified expression with the numeral noun sinep “one” Nakagawa (2024: 384).
His analysis groups toma ka sinep ka into one noun phrase, which is the sole argument of isam. Treating “mat” and “one” as separate arguments would give that one-place predicate an extra argument Nakagawa (2024: 384, examples 750′–750‴). The particle-separated form is therefore evidence for his complex nominal structure. It supplies no independent demonstration of quantifier movement or noun-phrase discontinuity.
References cited in this chapter
Bugaeva (2022) ·Nakagawa (2022) ·Nakagawa (2024) ·Nichols (1986) ·Satō (2025)