Catalan

by Max Wheeler

  36.1 BASIC WORD ORDER

  The normal unmarked word order of Catalan has elements (when present) in the following order

  ‘frame’ or sentential adjunct

  subject

  no ‘not’

  verb

  short adverbial

  direct object or predicative phrase

  indirect object or other complement phrase

  adverbial adjunct

  For example:

  Quant a la ràdio, els periodistes han donat avui un avís a la direcció sobre la vaga proposada per a dimecres.

  As regards radio, the journalists have today given notice to the management about the strike planned for Wednesday.

  Note in this example that, whereas, in English, a short adverbial may precede the lexical verb (following an auxiliary, if any):’…have today given …’, in Catalan such an element comes between verb and direct object:… han donat avui un avís …

  36.2 BASIC WORD-ORDER VARIANTS: VERB + SUBJECT

  An important variant of basic word order, with intransitive verbs whose subjects are not ‘agents’ (also known as ‘unaccusative’ intransitives), has the subject following the verb. This is particularly likely when the subject, rather than the verb (or some other element) carries most of the ‘new’ information (or bears the information focus). Impersonal reflexives typically follow this pattern also.

  Ha arribat el tren. The train has arrived.

  information focus on ‘the train’ (what you might say while waiting in the station, when the train is a (relative) novelty).

  El tren ha arribat. The train has arrived.

  information focus on ‘has arrived’ (What you might say on the train, when its arrival is the (relative) novelty.)

  Els meus pares van arribar ahir. My parents arrived yesterday.

  information focus on ‘yesterday’

  Ahir van arribar els meus pares. My parents arrived yesterday.

  information focus on ‘my parents’

  Avui només serveix l’acció. Nowadays only action is effective.

  information focus on ‘action’, as indicated by ‘only’

  ??Avui nomCs l’accio serveix. (an abnormal variant which would need information focus on serveix)

  Fan falta vint cadires. Twenty chairs are needed.

  Vindran moltes persones a veure això. Many people will come to see that.

  Han passat quinze dies. A fortnight has passed.

  S’ha arreglat aquell assumpte. That matter has been sorted out.

  A recent approach to thematic structure, or information structure, proposes that an utterance in discourse has a focus and a ground. The focus is what we have been calling information focus, that is, that part of an utterance which contains information which is new to the hearer. (This may sometimes be the whole utterance, such as a news item out of the blue.) The ground is not new information but includes elements that guide the hearer how to process the new information – how to relate it to older information. The ground may consist of one or more links, and one or more tails. A noun phrase which is a pointer to an ‘address’ where the new information is to be

  filed is called a link, and necessarily comes at the beginning of an utterance. (What we call a link here is often referred to as a topic; but unfortunately topic also has many other senses in linguistics, including some which conflict with the one in question here.) In the sentence in 36.1. there are two links, quant a la ràdio and els periodistes. Subject noun phrases are often links though not necessarily so. In intransitive sentences like those above it seems that Catalan prefers to delay the noun phrase subject to indicate that it is not a link. As some of the examples above show, indefinite noun phrases, which are most unlikely to be links, almost always follow the verb.

  S’ha proposat aquesta solució.

  This solution has been suggested./People have suggested this solution.

  (Expect more information coming up on the solution.)

  Aquesta solució s’ha proposat.

  This solution has been suggested.

  (Aquesta solució is a link – hearers can identify what solution is under consideration, but, for example, it hasn’t been put into practice; s’ha proposat is the focus.)

  The question of tails will be taken up in 36.4–5.

  36.3 ‘HEAVY NP SHIFT’

  Another pattern that deviates from the ‘norm’ of 36.1 is sometimes called ‘Heavy (noun phrase) Shift’. A long (or heavy) subject or direct object noun phrase is placed to the right of its normal position, moving towards the end of a sentence. It is no doubt an aspect of this same phenomenon that allows short adverbials to precede objects/complements in the standard order of 36.1. For example:

  Em va donar el paquet un senyor molt alt amb un bigoti petitet.

  A very tall man with a little moustache gave me the parcel./I was given the parcel by a very tall man with a little moustache, (verb + object + long subject)

  La Maria ens va donar a tots uns pastissos de xocolata que hi cantaven els àngels.

  Maria gave all of us some chocolate cakes that were delicious. (verb + indirect object + long direct object)

  Ahir van visitar les ruïnes de la ciutat més antiga de Catalunya els representants de diverses nacions europees.

  Yesterday the ruins of the oldest city in Catalonia were visited by representatives of several European nations. (Note verb + object + subject in Catalan corresponding to the English passive.)

  Comparteixen aquestes característiques altres sistemes tridimensionals, biplanars, icònics o simbòlics.

  These characteristics are shared by other three-dimensional, biplanar, iconic or symbolic systems. (Note verb + object + subject corresponding to the English passive.)

  In Catalan, it is almost certainly not the ‘heaviness’ itself of such phrases that provokes their movement, but rather informativeness or information focus, as mentioned before. Similar reordering can occur, for example, with quite short phrases which contain most of the new information, as in:

  Em va donar el paquet en Pere.

  Pere gave me the parcel./It was Pere who gave me the parcel.

  The order here, verb + object + subject, indicates that el paquet is not part of the focus. Likewise, in the following example, the indirect object, a la Conselleria de Treball, which is not part of the focus, precedes the direct object, diverses cartes, which is the focus:

  Hem enviat a la Conselleria de Treball diverses cartes.

  We have sent several letters to the Employment Ministry.

  And a heavy phrase does not have to be moved if there is another phrase whose informativeness predominates:

  La Maria ens va donar uns pastissos de xocolata que hi cantaven els àngels a tots nosaltres.

  Maria gave some chocolate cakes that tasted delicious to all of us.

  36.4 LEFT DETACHMENT

  We have mentioned that the last or rightmost position in a sentence is the position associated with focus on new information. The position associated with old or given information, that is, the link as defined in 36.2 or ‘what the sentence is about’, is the first or leftmost position. The subject of a sentence often appears in leftmost position and fulfils the role of link (see 29.1.4 on the ‘be’ passive construction which ensures that a link is a subject). Another (non-subject) noun phrase which is a link may appear in the leftmost position, however. If this is a verbal argument (a direct or indirect object, or another required complement), then a pronominal clitic corresponding to it is required next to the verb. (This phenomenon is often called left detachment, or left dislocation, or topicalization.) If the link element is not a verbal argument, a clitic is not required, though one may be found; this usage of a clitic after a detached non-argument is regarded by some grammarians as nonstandard (see 12.8 on redundant clitics). A comma often follows the detached element, but usage is very variable in this matter.

  Left detachment is all-pervasive in the spoken language; it is not always easy to render it idiomatically in written En
glish, though sometimes English uses a similar order.

  El ganivet, el fiquem al calaix.

  The knife, we put in the drawer.

  Les tovalloles, deixa-les al balcó.

  The towels? Leave them on the balcony./Leave the towels on the balcony.

  Al balcó, deixa-hi les tovalloles.

  On the balcony leave the towels./It’s the towels you should leave on the balcony. (It is the balcony which is already prominent in the discourse.)

  A Roma, no hi podem anar, enguany.

  Rome we won’t be able to go to this year.

  Amb aquest tros de paperet ja no hi comptava. (written on aerogram, first line on the extra space overleaf)

  I wasn’t counting on this little bit of paper.

  Quant al Joan i la Isidora no t’ho sé dir, que el Joan el veiem ben poc.

  As for Joan and Isidora, I can’t say, as Joan we see very little of.

  El Pep, no crec que vulgui peix.

  Pep I don’t think will want fish. (Here it is the subject of the subordinate clause which has been detached.)

  (D’)intel·ligent, la Maria n’és força.

  Very intelligent, Maria is.

  Intel·ligent, la Maria ho és força.

  Very intelligent, Maria is.

  (The above two examples are more or less equivalent, and hard to render adequately in English; intel·ligent is the link, and força ‘very’ is the information focus; but in English we cannot separate a degree word from its complement in a comparable way.)

  Left detachment is not quite so common in more formal styles, though by no means excluded from them. The grammarians’ rule that a clitic should not be used after a detached non-argument apparently leads to hypercorrection, where the clitic is omitted after a detached sentence argument. Part of the problem is that it is not easy to decide in every case whether a phrase is an argument or not. Here are some examples illustrating patterns of left detachment and clitic usage.

  Argument with clitic:

  Convé aclarir que aquest ús el retrobem en totes les regions.

  It should be pointed out that this use is found in all regions. (Note English passive representing the object + active verb order of Catalan, in this and following examples.)

  Que el nostre escriptor tenia consciència de marcar una distinció sintàctica ho mostra una frase com …

  The fact that our writer was aware of marking a syntactic contrast is shown by a phrase such as …

  Apèndix I. En aquest apèndix hi hem inclòs les espècies no estudiades per l’equip d’investigació durant la primera fase del projecte.

  Appendix I. In this appendix are included the species not investigated by the research team during the first phase of the project.

  Dels funcionaris de carrera, només n’han admès quatre.

  Of the career civil servants only four have been accepted. (Here dels funcionaris de carrera is not strictly an argument of admetre, but rather of quatre which is itself an argument of admetre.)

  Argument without clitic (technically non-standard, because ‘hypercorrect’):

  A la pregunta de quin era l’entorn literari habitual del nostre poeta no podem contestar sinó amb notícies parcials → … no hi podem contestar …

  The question of what the habitual literary context of our poet was we can answer only with partial information. (Contestar ‘answer’ takes a prepositional argument a + noun phrase.)

  El llibre s’ocupa de totes les variacions territorials d’Europa fins a la segona guerra mundial. De la segona guerra mundial l’autor diu ja ben poca cosa → … l’autor en diu …

  The book deals with all the territorial variations in Europe up to the Second World War. Of the Second World War the author says very little.

  Xile ha retornat a l’ortografia «normal». I a l’ortografia «normal» tornaran els «dissidents», o els seus alumnes, més tard o més d’hora → … hi tornaran …

  Chile has returned to the ‘normal’ orthography. And the ‘dissidents’, too, or their pupils, will return to the ‘normal’ orthography, sooner or later.

  Aquest costum de la tórtora no es troba en els bestiaris … De la castedat de la tórtora parla Hug de Sant Víctor → … en parla …

  This habit of the turtledove does not occur in the bestiaries … The chastity of the turtledove is mentioned by Hugh of St. Victor.

  Non-argument with clitic (technically non-standard):

  A les llars d’hostal, hi perdura encara la germanor … dels clans. (Prudenci Bertrana)

  At the fireside of an inn the brotherhood of the clan persists even now. (non-argument topic + clitic)

  Ens van donar una relació de restaurants de tipus mitjà: el Gargantua, el Parellada, l’Agustí, el Set Portes, Ca la Maria, Darío, etc. «Al Set Portes», ens van advertir, «no hi dinareu per menys de 5.000 ptes.»

  They gave us a list of medium-priced restaurants … ‘In the Set Portes,’ they added, ‘you won’t pay less than 5,000 pesetas for lunch.’

  Non-argument without clitic:

  En les llars d’hostal els homes es revelen a penes arribats. (Prudenci Bertrana)

  At the fireside of an inn men reveal themselves as soon as they have arrived, (non-argument topic, no clitic, from the same paragraph as the Bertrana example above)

  Però si en la prosa actual trobem tan abundosament tota mena d’inversions …

  But if in contemporary prose we find so abundantly all kinds of inversions …

  36.5 RIGHT DETACHMENT

  As well as left detachment Catalan also makes use of right detachment. Right detachment is predominantly a phenomenon of spoken style. One modern approach refers to a right-detached element as a tail A tail is an additional element supplied by the speaker to ensure or confirm that the hearer will properly identify elements already alluded to. Right detachment is sometimes referred to as an afterthought construction; this label is appropriate in some cases but not in all. Right-detached phrases (tails) that correspond to sentence arguments always have a related clitic in the main part of the sentence.

  A comma preceding the right-dislocated element is normal in written usage; the information focus/intonational prominence of the sentence comes before the comma. (It is in this prosodic sense, at least, that we can think of right-detached elements as afterthoughts.)

  El fiquem al calaix, el ganivet.

  The knife, we put in the drawer./We put it in the drawer, the knife, that is.

  Els pagesos ja l’hi van enviar, el bròquil, a l’amo.

  The farmers have already sent the broccoli to the boss.

  Here ‘the farmers’ is the link ò the ‘address’ where the new information is to be filed ò which appears first, in this case as sentence subject, and ‘sent’ is the focus, which in Catalan must end the main part of the sentence structure; with these information requirements, the full noun phrases corresponding to the direct and indirect objects have to appear in right-detached position. Note that the order of right-detached elements is quite free: L’hi van enviar, a l‘amo, el bròquil would be quite acceptable.

  Sap molt bé el que vol, el teu germà.

  He knows what he wants, your brother.

  T’hi acostumaràs aviat, a la nova feina.

  You’ll soon get used to it, your new job.

  Avui n’hi ha per donar i per vendre, de restaurants.

  Nowadays, (as for) restaurants, they are two a penny.

  The following dialogue (from Vallduvi) is about ametllons ‘green almond fruits’; morphologically the word is understood (incorrectly) by B as consisting of ametlla ‘almond’ with an augmentative suffix:

  A òSaps què són, ametllons?

  B òAmetlles grosses, suposo.

  A òBueno, són semblants, sí. Però aixís amb la closca i tot.

  B òLes ametlles també en tenen, de closca.

  A ‘Do you know what ametllons are? (Note virtually obligatory detachment of the subject in a question.)

  B ‘Big almonds, I suppose.’


  A ‘Well, they’re similar, yes. But like with the shell and all.’

  B ‘Almonds have got a shell, too.’ (lit. Almonds, too, have one, a shell.)

  (Les ametlles, the link, re-establishes almonds as the topic of B’s utterance; tenen is the focus, appropriately because A’s utterance implies that almonds do not have a shell; the direct object closca is obliged to become a tail.)

  A òVet aquí la veu de l’autoritat, això cal, això no cal: aquesta és la realitat.

  B òAh, carall, que n’àS, de dura, de vegades, la realitat!

  A ‘Here’s the voice of authority, you must do this, you mustn’t do that: this is reality.’

  B ò‘Oh hell, how tough reality is sometimes!’

  (Vallduvi; ‘normal’ order La realitat és dura would be less appropriate here; la realitat is already salient, having just been mentioned by A, and B wishes to place information focus on és; the subject and the adjective complement thus become tails, along with the temporal adverbial adjunct de vegades. La realitat doesn’t strictly need to be spelt out again, but perhaps B realizes that he might be taken to be saying that it is authority that is tough.)

  One type of structure that has sometimes been taken as a special type of left detachment is really, it can be argued, an example of right detachment. Here a noun or adjective phrase precedes the remainder of the sentence, which has no clitic copy of the detached phrase. In terms of surface order on the printed page this does look very like left detachment, but in speech focal stress falls on the initial phrase. The English translation is likely to have an ‘it’-cleft.