Lesson plan
Zero-marking language
A zero-marking language is one with no grammatical marks on either the dependents (or the modifiers) or the heads (or the nuclei) that show the relationship between different constituents of a phrase. Pervasive zero marking is very rare, but instances of zero marking in various forms occur in quite a number of languages. Vietnamese and Indonesian are two national languages listed in the World Atlas of Language Structures as having zero-marking. In many East and Southeast Asian languages, such as Thai and Chinese, the head verb and its dependents are not marked for any arguments or for the nouns' roles in the sentence. On the other hand, possession is marked in such languages by the use of clitic particles between possessor and possessed. Some languages, such as many dialects of Arabic, use a similar process, called juxtaposition, to indicate possessive relationships. In Arabic, two nouns next to each other could indicate a possessed-possessor construction: "Maryam's books" (literally "books Maryam"). In Classical and Modern Standard Arabic, however, the second noun is in the genitive case, as in . Zero-marking, when it occurs, tends to show a strong relationship with word order.…
Article summary
A zero-marking language is one with no grammatical marks on either the dependents (or the modifiers) or the heads (or the nuclei) that show the relationship between different constituents of a phrase. Pervasive zero marking is very rare, but instances of zero marking in various forms occur in quite a number of languages. Vietnamese and Indonesian are two national languages listed in the World Atlas of Language Structures as having zero-marking. In many East and Southeast Asian languages, such as Thai and Chinese, the head verb and its dependents are not marked for any arguments or for the nouns' roles in the sentence. On the other hand, possession is marked in such languages by the use of clitic particles between possessor and possessed. Some languages, such as many dialects of Arabic, use a similar process, called juxtaposition, to indicate possessive relationships. In Arabic, two nouns next to each other could indicate a possessed-possessor construction: "Maryam's books" (literally "books Maryam"). In Classical and Modern Standard Arabic, however, the second noun is in the genitive case, as in . Zero-marking, when it occurs, tends to show a strong relationship with word order.…
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.