Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Nepali

Abstract

This article provides a preliminary investigation of pseudo noun incorporation in Nepali, investigating scope, object-verb adjacency, case-marking, the availability of demonstratives, and number marking/number neutrality. We show that caseless objects have many of the typical properties of PNI as has been discussed in other languages. We make some tentative remarks regarding the precise characterization of number, suggesting that Nepali projects a NumP. We show that, despite an unclear understanding of number, there is strong evidence that PNI is found in Nepali and can be understood structurally by positing a reduced structure for the PNI object. Specifically, the PNI object is a bare NumP, while a full object is a KP.