Talk:Nominal (linguistics)

RM Dechaine (talk) 05:42, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Merge discussion
I don't really see any justification for merging these two topics. They just happen to have similar names. Victor Yus (talk) 08:18, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Unmerged and instead merged pronominal into Pronoun. Victor Yus (talk) 11:26, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Direction of this article
It occurred to me in looking for articles to use for annotations that the description of nominals in this stub is so vague I don't know where to begin. Using the LLBA database and the categories that came up from the thesaurus, I think there are a few types of nominals.

Nominal Phrases

Nominalization (Morphological) (this seems to have to do with derivation and creation of nouns)

Nominalization (Syntactic)    (this seems to have to do with all kinds of constituency)

Nominalization (Lexical)      (and this seems to be related to the class of words - Nouns)

I'm not sure where a clear boundary could be drawn between these, and or if all of these topics should be addressed as we develop the wikipage.

Any thoughts on direction? It seems like they are all closely related as lexical entries will determine how the syntax is structured relative to a nominal and that is correlated with internal morphological structure. Sweeeetheart (talk) 04:55, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Nominal Phrases pertains to the distribution of underived nominal expressions, while Nominalization is concerned with the distribution of derived nominals expressions (i.e. nominals whose base/root is another category, e.g. nominalized verbs, nominalized adjectives, etc.). For the purposes of this entry, focus on underived nominals.RM Dechaine (talk) 11:24, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The term "nominal" is not a precisely defined concept, and exactly how the term is employed is likely to vary from grammarian to grammarian. For me, a nominal is any expression (word or phrase) that appears in a syntactic position that one associates with a noun. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002) has some interesting things to say about nominals. --Tjo3ya (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

For the history section, there's a line saying "case distinctions can still be with personal pro-nouns such as: I, him, and we in subject position". Did you mean by "he" in subject position?Tinalin728 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 02:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Annotated Bibliography
As part of a course assignment, my group will be working on expanding this stub article. In preparation for this, we have created an annotated bibliography which includes some relevant articles from which we will gather information.

Acuna-Farina, C. (2009). ‘NP’ doesn’t say it all: The true diversity of nominal    constituency types. Functions of Language, 16(2), 265-281. doi:10.1075/fol.16.2.04acu

This article is a review of Evelien Keizer’s 2007 book entitled “The English noun phrase: The nature of linguistic categorization.” The review is written from a neutral point of view, with no discernible biases. It is clear that it is intended for an audience that is familiar with Keizer’s work. In this review, Acuna-Farina presents a lengthy summary of Keizer’s main arguments, followed by an evaluation of the arguments and the book as a whole. According to Acuna-Farina, Keizer argues that nominal constructions are not straightforward entities. One of her main arguments is that underlying representations of NP’s represent only “prototypical” (i.e. ideal) cases, which is a gross oversimplification. In surface structure, there is much more variability and complexity within nominal constructions. Overall, Acuna-Farina seems pleased with Keizer’s arguments, though he does make suggestions for additional references and background information. Given my lack of knowledge about Keizer’s book, I did not find any shortcomings in this article. I found the article to be clear and concise, and quite easy to understand. I feel that this particular review is currently of little value relative to the Wikipedia topic, as I am unfamiliar with Keizer’s original work. Having said that, it would probably be beneficial to read Keizer’s book to gain a better understanding of the complexities of nominal constructions. Therefore, this review article is a good starting point from which I can locate other relevant articles.

Bendor-Samuel, J., Cressman, E., & Skitch, D. (1971). The nominal phrase in Duka. University of Ibadan, Department of linguistics and Nigerian languages.

The article, “The nominal Phrase in Duka” (1971), examines the nominal structure in the Niger-Congo language of Duka. More specifically, the article classifies the different types of nominal phrases with respect to its free and bound elements. The article is intended for an audience who has more knowledge of concord elements and West African languages in general. This article is written in an unbiased, analytical and neutral way as a result, there is no personal point of view. This article will be a good starting point for understanding the basics of what a nominal phrase entails. Furthermore, we may be able to use specific examples of nominals and the way they interact in Duka for the Wikipedia article. This article is a little hard to comprehend because it simply states facts about the language that are expected to be understood without explanation. I believe that this article will be helpful by both providing a basis to understand nominals and by giving specific examples of how they interact in language.

Carter, H. (1974). Negative structures in the syntactic tone-phrasing system of Kongo. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 37(01), 29-40.

The article “Negative structures in the syntactic tone-phrasing system of Kongo” observes the way in which nominals are represented in both the morphology and syntax of Kongo. The article is an in-depth analysis of how the tonal system guides the negation system in Kongo, a West African language. The article conveniently lays out a general description of the morphology and the concept of nominals in Kongo. This general description makes reading the article more manageable for someone who is not familiar with Kongo or even with morphology or syntax. The article is written in a neutral tone to analysis the data. This article will be a helpful aid in our Wikipedia project to examine how morphology, syntax and tonal systems are all interrelated to provide a language system in Kongo. In general, this article provides a good way to add specific examples of how languages use nominals. This article focuses on the morphology of nominals instead of syntax, which could be a potential shortcoming for a syntax specific Wikipedia page. This article seems to give a relatively simplistic description of nominals in Kongo and therefore, will be beneficial to our research.

Dixon, R. (2010). Janua Linguarum : Series Maior : Where have All the Adjectives Gone? : And Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax. Munchen, DEU: Walter de Gruyter. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

This work argues based on seventeen languages that some languages do not have a separate class of words that fit in the adjective category. In these languages adjectives are only a very small closed class of words and rest of the descriptive type words we would consider adjectives in English function and take the forms of nouns or verbs in these languages. This work provides a detailed collection and analysis of data of adjective-deficient languages and compares them with English data to give the reader understanding of the differences. It also explicates the criteria for classifying adjectives as nominal in these languages very clearly which will help us provide clear examples and distinctions in our wikipage. It also discusses data where adjectives fall under a verbal category as well as adverbs and unusual cases, and this makes the text a well rounded resource. The theoretical framework for the book is based on the idea that the semantic properties of a word determine its syntactic function, and is thus concerned with how the morpho-syntactic properties of the word are related to criteria for nominals. There seems to be bias towards a semantic analysis. As well, many of the works cited with the text are now over 60 years old and syntactic theory has much advanced in this period. A syntactic approach would look at the distribution to determine what class a word fits into, but a purely semantic approach may leave gaps in regards to actual language usage and structure. I think it will be a very useful entry point to the concept of nominals, which is honestly hard to fathom at first. The text is extremely clear and the comparisons and data are well organized, and it is appropriate for a less experienced audience.

Haag, M. (1998). Word-level evidence for lexical categories in salishan languages. International Journal of American Linguistics,64(4), 379-393. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/85675352?accountid=14656

This article argues that while some have deemed some Salish languages to have no verb noun distinction, that a lack or morphological distinction is not evidence for a lack of differentiated classes. Rather, it is argued that morphological operations take place; the derivatives of which predictably provide evidence for lexical categories in Salish. Because this work addresses languages that have been described as lacking categorical distinction and provides evidence for how morphological components can play a role in lexical categorization, it relates to our research and whether or not nominals should or do subsume adjectives in some languages. The writer only seems to take a lexical and morphological approach to the data and its analysis regarding categorization. However, the ideas offered for classification seem to lead to a more generally applicable theory than how previous attempts have theorized. Although the work discusses predicate structure briefly, it does not address syntactic structure much or the distribution of the lexical items which would give a stronger argument for distinct classes. I think by comparing languages in similar families the authors provide interesting finds about categorization, but there wasn’t enough data overall to provide anything more than some general categorical properties. In sum, it wasn’t conclusive and should be expanded to discuss how the morphosemantic structure plays into the syntactic structure and look at how words function and select for each other regularly to determine what their categories are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweeeetheart (talk • contribs) 07:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Horie, K. (2012). The interactional origin of nominal predicate structure in Japanese: A comparative and historical pragmatic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(5), 663-679.

This article is intended for an educated audience who has spent time researching cross-linguistic frameworks of Pragmatics and Grammar. The author, Kaoru Horie, explains that the purpose of the paper is to determine where the preference for nominalized structure in East Asian Languages comes from—particularly in Japanese. He proceeds to compare Japanese and Korean structures to form a rounder comprehension of nominal predicate structures. This paper will assist our overall understanding of nominals, and hopefully provide examples that will be simple enough for a Wikipedia format. There are very informative comparisons in the form of near minimal pairs between Korean and Japanese. As far as I can tell there is no obvious bias in the study.

Langendoen, D. T., McDaniel, D., & Langsam, Y. (1989). Preposition-phrase attachment in noun phrases. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18(6), 533. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1300132234?accountid=14656

This article is intended for a highly educated audience. This article examines the relationship of noun phrases and prepositional phrases. More specifically, it examines the association of locative PP adjuncts with N’s and NP’s. This article examines the different meanings and structures involved in the NP “the triangle next to the circle behind the square”. The researchers define stacking, coordination, alternating, and stuffing types of relationships with NP’s and PP’s. There is a lot of value and significance this article has to our topic because it illustrates the research work that has been put into the development of the relationships NP’s have in a sentence structure with other parts of the sentence. The researchers’ point of view is to demonstrate the ambiguity connected to NP’s and their counterparts. I don’t identify any possible shortcomings or bias in the work from my current knowledge of the subject. My impression of this work is that it is a nicely laid out article addressing complex relationship of NP’s and PP’s and how together they can have different types of ambiguity. I think this article will be important to help us understand the way noun phrases were evaluated in the 1980’s.

Lasersohn, Peter. (1989). On the Readings of Plural Noun Phrases. Linguistic Inquiry, 18(1), 130. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178619

This article is intended for an audience that is familiar with Gillon and his work. This article is a re-buttle to Gillon’s argument that readings of English plural noun phrases in the subject position bijectively correspond with “minimal covers” of the set denoted by the noun phrase. Gillon’s point of view is that noun phrases are not vague between their minimal covers, but they are authentically ambiguous. This article sets out to prove this theory as incorrect by providing a few straightforward and relevant examples. The value and significance of this article to our topic is that it lays out an argument providing evidence for certain truth conditions and their ambiguity in the framework of noun phrases. This is important to our topic because we need to understand the evolution of the study of NP’s and how researchers came to the conclusions they did and how those conclusions relate to our understanding of NP’s presently. This article seems to be entirely the author’s own point of view. This article is interesting, but does not offer an alternative concrete rule that can be tested and proved. I think this article is a good starting point to understanding the difference of opinion of NP’s in the 1980’s and the eventual results of these opinions.

Poulos, G. (1999). Grammaticalisation in south-eastern bantu and the linguistic 'dynamics' underlying this process. South African Journal of African Languages,19(3), 204-214.

This article looks at Bantu languages and argues that the spilt noun verb distinction does not probe deep enough, but that the historical basis for word categorization brings to light four underlying categories of noun, verb, adjective, and ideophones. He finds that over time, certain nouns and verbs have solidified into grammatical morphemes and are now attached to other word categories to derive words that are then categorized as either nouns or verbs. This work provides an in depth look at the historical change that seems to have lead to a noun verb spilt with many examples from across the Bantu language family. It also provides a different perspective in comparison to other literature on the idea of nominals as a distinct category under which adjectives and nouns are subsumed. This text seems to emphasis a morphological and historical approach to understanding the agglutinating nature of these languages. However, despite providing interesting information of the use of grammatical morphemes to derive nouns and verbs, the author does not fully address the issue of why adjectives have been thus far categorized under nominals. The author also makes no reference to the closed class of adjectives found in these languages or the difference between a closed class adjective such as ‘bad’ and any other words to do with quality in these languages and their, presumably, noun like structure. By providing the historical basis for many noun and verb morphemes that are attached to other (bound?) roots, the text raises interesting questions about categorization and what the categories of the root words really are.

Seifart, F. (2010). Nominal classification. Language and Linguistics Compass,4(8), 719-736.

This article provides an overview of nominal classification and how it is arranged in varying typologies. While it is intended for an educated audience on the subject, it is also very clear and relatively easy to comprehend. Section one is notably dedicated to providing a definition of nominal classification as a whole. In this definition, there are four clear criteria in which he uses to identify nominal classification in different typologies. This paper will allow us to provide more information about nominal classification, as well as better understand how nominal classification develops cross-linguistically. There are also a variety of examples used throughout the paper, some of which are specifically in Swahili, a Bantu language.

Van Eynde, F. (2006). NP-internal agreement and the structure of the noun phrase. Journal of Linguistics, 42(1), 139-186. Retrieved from http:www.jstor.org/stable/4176971

This article discusses the structure of the noun phrase. Specifically, the author does not believe that the head of the noun phrase should be part of the DP (determiner phrase), as has come to be standard practice in X-Bar Theory. Instead, he proposes that the head of the noun phrase should be identified with the noun, while retaining certain characteristics of the ‘DP treatment.’ This article is written in a somewhat biased manner, as the author presents a compelling argument for forgoing the common DP treatment of nominal heads, and instead adopting his alternative analysis (where the noun is identified as the head of the noun phrase). No shortcomings are identified, as it is very informative. This article is intended for a highly educated audience, with an extensive knowledge of syntax and x-bar theory. However, although this article is written for people with vast linguistics knowledge, it does provide a lot of basic background information about the structure of noun phrases which is of great value to our Wikipedia topic (nominals).

--KristenMcB (talk) 06:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Post plan on talk page - Oct 15
NOMINALS Summary: Define Nominals

Table of Contents:

History of the research on nominals

Theories of nominal distribution

Comparing Nominals with other word categories

Nominals in other languages (Bantu and Australian)

Structures of Nominals a)morphological b)syntactical

Compare nominals in other languages to English Example sentences

Nhmathisen (talk) 01:41, 16 October 2014 (UTC) Techniques used to conclude nominal languages and difference — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweeeetheart (talk • contribs) 04:21, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

More useful resources
MAN I don't like the cite function in wikipedia!

Kapust, W. H. (1998). Universality in noun classification. (Order No. 1389653, San Jose State University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses,, 291-291 p. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/304490005?accountid=14656. (304490005).

Harvey, Mark, and Reid, Nicholas, eds. Studies in Language Companion, Volume 37 : Nominal Classification In Aboriginal Australia. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1997. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 29 October 2014.

Randal, S. A. (1995). Nominal morphology in tennet. (Order No. 1377876, The University of Texas at Arlington). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses,, 104-104 p. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/250235214?accountid=14656. (250235214). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweeeetheart (talk • contribs) 06:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Provide more sources
This is a good draft, and it is written quite clear. The style is neutral, with only some exceptions. I deleted the phrase ‘a kind of’ before ‘super category’ because at the first sight it looked very casual (in this case the word ‘kind’ could be a synonym of ‘type’, though). It would be helpful to add more sources to the list of citations as well. These sources do not have to be the ones used for the article, but they can be useful for further research in this area. The draft contains trees, tables, and other examples. This makes it more comprehensible. I would also recommend putting such phrases as ‘plus noun’ and ‘minus noun’ after ‘feature’ in quotation marks. Maybe, they are not highlighted in the literature, but for a reader who is not familiar with the subject it can be confusing. Besides, if nominals differ in various languages, it would help to put languages in different groups. The article can benefit from a more precise structure. In general, it is a successful draft because it is focused on the topic, stable, neutral, and illustrated. KaterynaSto (talk) 03:49, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Provide more examples
The article seems nice so far and have brief introduction about the nominal however I would suggest that maybe the history and the theory sections can be combined together under one big topic. The article seems need more specific details about the example languages. Also more information about the adjectival verbs part and can have more clarity in that part. There can be some Korean or Japanese sentence examples for people who has no background with those two languages and help to have an idea about adjectival verbs in those languages. The quality of the research can also be improved and get more different scholar articles as resources. It is nice that there is tree diagram but those example images can be bigger so they are easier to see. Ylyvonne (talk) 04:10, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The article overall is pretty well explained with a clear structure and is neutral. The trees and tables are helpful while reading through the article. It would be better understand if there are more example sentences in the section where the cross table of features at the lexical level is displayed because I found it quite confusing when first reading it. The area of adjectival verbs can also be expanded a little be more since it is distinct from other languages, perhaps adding in Korean or Japanese in the examples. I would also recommend finding more resources for the topic. The examples are pretty comprehensive and are easy to follow. However, the wording can possibly be changed in the Bantu part where it talks about “noun class 1/2 represents humans and other animate objects, while noun class 3/4 represents trees, plants, non-paired body parts, and other inanimate objects” because I was confused with the fractional numbers at first. Tinalin728 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 05:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

As a draft, this article presents a good overview of nominal structures. The data, examples and references are there and are presented in a clear way that allows the reader to quickly consolidate knowledge on the topic as they read. However, the research requires expansion to illustrate the nature of nominal forms as they relate to generative grammar in the languages chosen. To show the properties of nominals, employ syntactic theory to illustrate the motivation for nominals in the example languages. This could be as simple as using more examples showing the types of syntactic environments that they occur in, showing how they are identified For example, how are gender or number agreement realized in Russian? Or to show an analysis of adjectival verbs in Japanese which illustrates how they function in a way that is parallel to nominals as stated. For theory, explain what the nature of overt agreement is using examples of tree structures to show relationships. Comment on how this agreement (over and otherwise) relates to a semantic explanation of nominal clause relationships. This will tie the theory together and give the reader a broader framing of nominals in general. Also including potential competing theories, and write the citation into the article, stating the theories and their theorists, rather than just giving a footnote to an idea. --Jaylinm (talk) 05:50, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Jaylinm (talk)

Expand history section
The article shows a clear structure and is mostly easy to follow. The first sentence could be restructured as it is not immediately clear that the agreement at the end of the sentence is between parts of speech. Maybe just the addition of "between them" at the end of it would do the trick. The last sentence in the introduction could lose the 'may' in 'languages 'may' vary in how...' as languages definitely do vary in the regard. Overall the beginning introduces the topic very well. The history section is also very solid but could be expanded slightly to contain more info. The theory section is very clear and makes excellent use of diagrams, but lacks a citation for the first and second paragraph. The following section on Russian and Slavic Languages could use a hyperlink to Slavic Languages and some examples from Russian for each word class. Some examples from a couple of Indigenous Australian languages would also be nice. The Mayali language section could likewise use a hyperlink and a brief description of the language and where it is spoken. The last section on Bantu languages is very comprehensive and provides a great overview. A couple of things, however, are unclear. Where it says 1/2 and 3/4 classes it looks like 3 out of 4. I would think 3 and 4 is what is meant. A clarification of that would be very helpful, as well as how many noun classes actually exist in Bantu languages. The 'approximately' raises the question of whether it is actually not known how many classes there are. A clearer statement and perhaps an explanation would ease a reader's confusion. The article does, however, demonstrate neutrality throughout and makes excellent use of sources in showing relevant research. Lazmike (talk) 04:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

As I see that a reference is used for the History section, this section could be expanded a little so as to include discussion of what "minor modifications" were made and the exact changes that English went through. As others have said, the Adjectival verb section could definitely use some expansion in not only listing examples, but also explaining how it is different from regular verbs in Japanese and Korean. A spelling mistake in the caption for the second diagram: "complements" not "compliments" Could consider changing descriptions of features such as "plus noun" and "plus verb" to the actual feature notations (i.e. [+V], or whatever the correct standard notation is). This would make the writing easier to follow and the points being made would stand out more clearly. Following from this, the Theory section could be revised to make things more lucid and precise, especially in the latter half of the section. This may involve adding a few sentences to drive things home. Both forms of examples given in Mayali and Bantu are nice and clear. Russian and Slavic languages and the Aboriginal Australian languages could use similar examples to outline explanations of their nominal features. Also, it might be good to give examples for the Aboriginal languages especially, since there are so many and it may be dangerous to just group them together when talking about commonalities. Alicears (talk) 06:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech Meeting
Hi guys,

So for those of our group who couldn't be there, here is a recap of what we covered in our very helpful tech meet!

Citation style
One thing Jonathan suggested is that we change our citation style to an academic style (like that on the Irish phonology page). The style is called parenthetical style, or Harvard and it's quite easy to do.

First, if you have DOI  for whatever you're citing, instead of filling in every box in the cite option given by wikipedia we can plug the DOI into this website and it will give us the wiki format for the citation!!!

We can put a DOI such as, 10.1016/j.concog.2011.01.007, into it and it will give us back the citation in wiki format so we can just copy and paste it onto the end of the sentence we are citing just like wiki does automatically when we fill in a citation form and will automatically add it to the reference list at the bottom of the page. You can see the format below because I changed the outer < > parens to. That way, this citation shows up for the sake of example instead of as a number like you would expect when published.

( ref name="Ward2011"></ref )

The [1] style citation is the regular wiki citation style, but Jonathan suggested we make it more academic so that it looks like (Ward, 2011) on the published page because Rose Marie asked us to do APA style anyway. We can do this with parenthetical citation or Harvard style as I mentioned above. This is the wiki page on how to do Harvard citation style.

It's actually quite easy to do the Harvard citation if we use the DOI website! First, use the DOI cite to give you a standard wiki citation code such as the you can see above.

( ref name="Ward2011"></ref ).

'''Just take off the bolded part of the code to make the code look like the example below. Put this parenthetical citation into the reference list. PLEASE ADDDDD |ref=harv between the { { cite journal (or whatever) and the |name| in the full citation you will put in our ref list!'''

( {cite journal|ref=harv|last1=Ward|first1=Lawrence M.|title=The thalamic dynamic core theory of conscious experience|journal=Consciousness and Cognition|volume=20|issue=2|year=2011|pages=464–486|issn=10538100|doi=10.1016/j.concog.2011.01.007} ) but with two {{ on each end.

If you copy and paste it next to your cited sentence it will look like this instead, which has too much info. .

What we want to put next to our in article citations is something that looks like this on the surface, {{Harv| Ward, |2011}}. After we put the full parenthetical citation into the reference list just type { { Harv|Last Name|year } } (but without the spaces between the parens) next to the sentence you want to cite and it will look like the (Ward 2011) above with a link. SEE HERE FOR MORE HELP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Harvard_citation#Harvard_citation:_.7B.7Bharv.7D.7D Tada! Beautiful in text citations and reference list. We're covered for APA. I think we don't need to do this today, but before our last milestone and as we continue to cite we should at least be using the parenthetical citation in our reference list. Everyone should edit their current citations in the reference list by lopping off the ref parts on either end.

Citations for data
We need to cite our data examples WITHIN the data boxes!!! Use the Harvard ref style and put it INSIDE the spaced over box.

ALSO if we put all our data examples in 1X1 tables they wont span across the whole page like this.

This way we can put our syntax trees next to our examples inside the table so the example sentences and the trees will be aligned. Unfortunately the table above isn't showing up like I expected it would. ... I'll see how we can fix it to be an example within a table so it won't be so wide.

ON ANOTHER NOTE

Jonathan said we have a lot of claims about the languages and their performance that need to be cited. It's better to have too many citatiomns than not enough and having things removed eventually! Cite every generalization and claim about their performance after the sentence not at the end of the paragraph he said. (Even if it gets repetitive and all your citations are the same source. Better too many than too few. You can always copy and paste the { { Harv| Name, | YEAR} } after each claim.

He also said we should make a legend for our data when we get all our examples in. So things like cl. in Bantu which is clitic should be in a legend at the end of our article. ACC for accusitive etc... so we can do that next week.

ALSO LINK TO MORE PAGES. Every language, place, idea that we bring up can be linked once to other wiki pages. So things like Africa, Australia, the languages (even the obscure ones, if there is a page link it!) theories, people who made them (like Chomsky) everything we can! Link it!

Removed Section on 'Adjectival Verbs'
I removed the section on 'adjectival verbs' as it seemed somewhat disconnected from the rest of the page, and did not necessarily add any relevant information. The term 'nominal' (as defined for the purpose of this page), refers to agreement between nouns and other lexical categories. Although verbs may function similarly to nouns in this respect in some languages, it does not seem appropriate to delve into that topic on this page. It is perhaps better suited for a page that focuses more specifically on adjectival verbs. --KristenMcB (talk) 06:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Adjectival verbs In other languages such as Korean and Japanese, adjectives can be classed under verbs. In Japanese, 形容動詞, keiyō-dōshi (literally "adjectival verbs") can be analyzed similarly to nominals – see adjectival noun (Japanese) Sweeeetheart (talk) 03:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Milestone 4 - Response to feedback
Based on the peer review, submit a revised version of your Wikipedia article. In the talk page of your article, indicate how you responded to the comments and suggestions of the first round of peer review. Submit your response as a pdf file to Connect.

At this point, you should be aiming for the critiera listed below. (These are the B-class criteria from Wikipedia.)

1 The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. The use of < ref. > tags and citation templates such as is optional, but not required.

2 The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.

3 The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.

4 The article is well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly.

5 The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.

6 The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. It does not assume unnecessary technical background and when technical terms are used, they are explained.

Key points from all feedback:
Some of these are vague, and others have already been taken care off. If you do something about any of these just make a note underneath the bullet with a hyphen or something and we'll collect these for our milestone.

- useful citations from annotated bibliography moved to reference section
 * It would be helpful to add more sources to the list of citations as well.

-done -We are not at a position to identify how to group the languages based on their nominal distribution, but with further examples we hope to do so.
 * I would also recommend putting such phrases as ‘plus noun’ and ‘minus noun’ after ‘feature’ in quotation marks.
 * if nominals differ in various languages, it would help to put languages in different groups.

- Edits thanks to Rose Marie have provided this article with clearer structure and direction
 * article can benefit from a more precise structure.

- since both sections are being developed this is unnecessary. - Added 'prefix' chart showing exactly what is added to nouns and adjectives in Bantu to create agreement --KristenMcB (talk) 04:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * the history and the theory sections can be combined together under one big topic.
 * need more specific details about the example languages

- not a major concern at the moment; their alignment and correctness are priority at the moment. (also that's the size they were produced as from the tree making website http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/)
 * It is nice that there is tree diagram but those example images can be bigger so they are easier to see


 * more example sentences in the section where the cross table of features at the lexical level is displayed because I found it quite confusing when first reading it.

- Changed wording in Bantu section in regards to the specific noun classes to make it clearer --KristenMcB (talk) 04:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The examples are pretty comprehensive and are easy to follow. However, the wording can possibly be changed in the Bantu part where it talks about “noun class 1/2 represents humans and other animate objects, while noun class 3/4 represents trees, plants, non-paired body parts, and other inanimate objects” because I was confused with the fractional numbers at first.


 * research requires expansion to illustrate the nature of nominal forms as they relate to generative grammar in the languages chosen


 * To show the properties of nominals, employ syntactic theory to illustrate the motivation for nominals in the example languages.


 * Comment on how this agreement (over and otherwise) relates to a semantic explanation of nominal clause relationships.

- fixed in text references with no citations. In the process of changing all in text citations to parenthetical citation style.
 * write the citation into the article, stating the theories and their theorists, rather than just giving a footnote to an idea.
 * The first sentence could be restructured as it is not immediately clear that the agreement at the end of the sentence is between parts of speech.

- citation added for second paragraph.
 * The theory section is very clear and makes excellent use of diagrams, but lacks a citation for the first and second paragraph.
 * The following section on Russian and Slavic Languages could use a hyperlink to Slavic Languages and some examples from Russian for each word class. Some examples from a couple of Indigenous Australian languages would also be nice. The Mayali language section could likewise use a hyperlink and a brief description of the language and where it is spoken. T

- this is a tricky question to answer actually. There are multiple proposed theories of how many noun classes there are, but there is no definite number. I will try and clarify this in the article.Zlawler (talk) 07:58, 14 November 2014 (UTC) - To add to this, the number of noun classes used varies from dialect to dialect within the family of Bantu languages. We have addressed this in the Bantu section. --KristenMcB (talk) 08:08, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * how many noun classes actually exist in Bantu languages.


 * Theory section could be revised to make things more lucid and precise, especially in the latter half of the section. This may involve adding a few sentences to drive things home.

Edits based on feedback

 * Hyperlinks added to other wikipedia pages
 * Linguistics portal added and more categories on the bottom of page
 * Citations edited in the Bantu language section
 * More information about the Bantu history added

Here is the article on Shona we might want to add info on

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/science/article/pii/S0388000113001162

More feedback
Some "external" feedback on the article (Wikipedia conventions etc.): --Boson (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Normally, Wikipedia does not say things like "this article will focus on" (especially not using the modal will).
 * Normally Wikipedia uses italics when mentioning words and does not capitalize "special words" like Nominal, Adjective, Masculine.
 * The lead could make it clearer that nominal is being used as a noun, not as an adjective.
 * The sentence beginning "[an] affix related to the noun appears . . ." might be misunderstood.
 * I'm not sure what the link to Wikibooks is for. Wikibooks is not normally a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes.
 * I'm not sure how "English has largely lost its case system" fits in – especially under the heading " Nominals in the Bantuist grammar tradition".
 * Bearing mind that Wikipedia is aimed at "as broad an audience as possible", the section "How Nominals fit into a theory of word-classes" does not really introduce the concepts of "plus noun" and "minus verb". Even with a link, I'm not sure what non-linguists would make of "from an X-bar theory view".


 * Hi Boson,
 * Thanks for your suggestions, they're very helpful. We are all new to this, so any help we can get is appreciated! We're currently editing the page to the best of our abilities, taking into account what you've said. Thanks again!


 * --KristenMcB (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Our Wikipedia project is officially complete! I'm really proud of our team and the final product. I look forward to checking in to this page in the future. Zlawler (talk) 08:10, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Needs a definition in the lead
Currently the lead begins:


 * In linguistics, the term nominal refers to a category used to group together nouns and adjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number of morphological and syntactic properties. 

As per WP:REFER, "refers to" should be avoided in the lead, as it avoids saying what the concept actually "'is"'. The above is an example of why that wording should be avoided—I can't tell what a nominal actually is. Is any adjective a nominal? Is any noun a nominal? Is a group of nouns having the same gender a nominal?

Even if the literature contains no universally agreed upon definition, it is still necessary to improve the wording with some generic definition that is consistent with the various more specific uses. The article should begin


 * In linguistics, a nominal is ....

Loraof (talk) 23:44, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Ambiguous name
It seems to me that the current name is ambiguous, given that there are multiple important uses of the term nominal in linguistics. The main other sense that I'm aware of is a syntactic unit that sits between noun and noun phrase - see English_nouns. Several of the works currently listed in this article's Bibliography section actually pertain to that syntactic sense, rather than the concept discussed in the article. It's not clear whether that sense needs to have a standalone article, but I think it should at least have a redirect like Nominal (syntax) listed at the Nominal dab page. I think a better name for this article would be something like Nominal (lexical category). I may open an RM when I have a bit more time to bite this off, but just wanted to make a note of the issue for now. Colin M (talk) 20:59, 16 July 2021 (UTC)