DOCSLIB.ORG

Finnish Particle Clitics and General Clitic Theory

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Finnish Particle Clitics and General Clitic Theory Working Papers in Linguistics No. 33 FINNISH PARTICLE CLITICS AND GENERAL CLITIC THEORY Joel A. Nevis October 1986 The Ohio State University DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS The Ohie> Ste.ta Urii-v-er-sity We>r-k:irig Pe.per-a iri Lirig'-1istics # 33 Joel Ashmore Nevis Finnish Particle Clitics and General Clitic Theory The Ohio State University Department of Linauietics 204 Cuna Ball 1841 Millikin Road Columbus, Ohio 4,3210-1229 U.S. A, October 1986 Information about Ohio State.University WORKING· PA'PERS IN LINGUISTICS (OSU WPL) Working Papers in Linguistics is an occasional publication of the Depar taent of Lfoguistics of Oh-io State University a:nd usually con-tains articles written by students and fat"ulty in the departm.ent. There are one to three issues -per year. Infor1ation about availahle issues appears below. Nos. 1, 5, & 10 are out of print and no longer available. There are two ways to subscribe to WPL. ·rhe first is on a reguiar basis: the subscriber is autoaatically .sent and billed for each issue as it appears. The second is on an "issue-by-{ss·ue basis: the subscriber is uotified ill advance of the contents of e_a_ch issue, and returns an order l;_llank if that particular issue is desired. To ·orde'r Working Papers, please send a check Made payable to "Ohio siate ~,iversity" to: OSU WPL, Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University, 1841 Hillikin Rd., Colu1bus, OH 43210-1229. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------' ' ' OSU WPL '18, $2.00. 183 pp. (June 1975): Papers by Michael Geis, Sheila Geoghegan, Jeanette Gundel, G. L Pullum, and· Arnold Z11icky_. OSU WPL 119, $2.00. 214 pp. (September 1975), Edited by Robert K. Herbert: Patterns of Language, culture, and Society: Sub-Saharan A'fri·ca conthns eighleen papers presented· a·t the Symposium on ·African Language, Culture, and ·society, held at Ohio State University on April 11, 1975. · OSU WPL. 1120, $2.00. 298 pp. (September 1975), Edited by Robert K. He'rbert: Pr'oc'eedings of the Sixth Conference oll Afr1can ·Linguistics contains twentv-seven papers presented at the Sixth Conference on African. Li'nguistics, held at the Ohio ·sta-te University on April 12-13, 1975. OSU WPL 121, $2.50. 252 pp. (Hay 1976), Edited by Arnold Zwicky: Papers on Honphonology. Papers by Steven Boer and Wtlliam Lycan, Harian·· Johnson, Robert Kantor, Patricia Lee, and Jay Pollack. OSU WPL »22, $3.50. 151 pp. (February 1977), Edited by Olga Garnica: Papers in Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics. Papers by Sar a Garnes, Olga Garnica, Harv Louise Edwards, Roy ltajw, and J'ohu Perkins. OSU WPL 123, $3.50. 162 pp. (December 1978): Doneyan, Patricia J., On the Natural Phonology of Vowels. (OSU Ph.D. dissertation). OSU WPL 124, S3.50. 173 pp. (Harch 1980), EditeJ by Arnold H. Zwickv. Clitics and Ellipsis. Papers by Robert Jeffers, Haney Levin (OSU Ph.D. Dissertation), and Arnold Zwickr. OSU WPL 125, ~- 173 pp. (January 1981), Edited by Arnold H. Zwicky: Papers in Phonology. Papers by Donald Churma, Roderick Goman (OSU Ph.D. Dissertation), and Lawrence Schourup. ISSN 0473-9604 OSU WPl 126, $4.50. 133 pp. (Hay 1982), Edited by Brian D. Joseph: Graaaatical 1!elations and 1!ehti'om1l "Graaur. Papers by David· Dowty·, Catherine Jolley, Brian Joseph, John Nerbonne, and Aay Z•harlick. OSU WPL 1127, U.50. 164 pp. (Hay 1983'1, Edited by Gregory T. Stu-1p: Papers in Historical Linguistics. Papers by Donald Chur1a, 6. H. Green, Leena Hazelkorn, Gregory Stu11p, and Rex Wallac~. OSU WPL 1128, $5.00. 119 pp. {Hay 1983). La11rence Clifford Schourup, Co111on Discourse Particles in English Conversation. (OSU Ph. D Dissert'ation) ·osu WPL 129, S5. oo. 207 p·p. ·(Hay 1984), Edited by Arnold Z11icky & Rex Wallace: Papers on Korphology. Papers by Belinda Brodie, Donald CltUrlla, Erhard Hinrichs, Brian Joseph, Joel Nevis, Anne Stewul, Rex Wallace, and Arnold Z11icky. OSU WPL 130, $5.00. 203 pages. (July 1984). John A. Nerbonne, Ger11an Temporal Semantics: Three-Dimensional Tense Logic and a GISG Fragment. tosu Ph.D. Dissertation). OSU WPL 131, $6.00. 194 pa·g·es. (July 1985), Edited by Hichael Ge-is. Studies in Generalized Phrase StructUTe ·GnHar. Pa·pers by Belinda Brodie, Anne'tle B'issantz, Erhard,Hinrichs, Hichael Geis and Arno'ld Z11ickv. OSU WPL 1132, $6.00. 162 pages. (Juh 1986), Interfaces. 14 articles by Arnold Z11icky concerni'ng the interfaces behieen various· co1ponents of gJ am11ar. OSU WPL 133, $6.00. 159 pages. (August 1986), Joel A. Nevis, Finnish Particle C'litics·and General ·cl'itic Theory. ·(OSU Ph.D. Dissertat'ion). The following issues are available through either: The National Technical Information Center, The U.S. Department of Co11r1erce, 5285 Port 1!oyal Rd, Springfield·, YA 22151 (PB) or ERIC Document Reproduction Serv. (ED) Ctr. for Applied Linguistics, 1'611 N. Kent St., Arlington, YA 22209. 12. November 1968, 128 pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-68-3). PB-182 596. 13. June 1969, 181 pp. {OSU-C[SRC-TR-69-4). PB-185 855. 14. Hay 1970, 164 pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-70-26). PB-192 163. 16. September 1970, 132 ·pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-70-12). PB-194 829. i7. February 1971, 243 pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-71-7). PB-198 278. 18. June 1971, 197 pp. (OSU-CISRC-T1!-71-7). f'B-202 724. 19. July 1971, 232 pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-71-8). PB-204 002. 111. August 1971, 167 pp. ED 062 850. 112. June 1972, 88 pp. (OSU-CISRC-TR-72-6). PB-210 781. 113. Decl!11ber 1972, 225 pp. ED 077 268. Parts of fll4. April 1973, 126 pp. ED 115. April 1973, 221 pp. ~D 082 566. Parts of 116, Dece•ber 1973, 119 pp. ED FINNISH PARTICLE CLITICS AND GENERAL CLITIC THEORY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillaent of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Phil_osophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Joel Ashmore Nevis, B.A.., M.A.. * * * * * The Ohio State Univeniity 1985 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Arnold M. Zwicky Ilse Lehiste ~(t#-67 Brian Joseph Department of Linguistics .. li ACKNO~.LEDGMENTS. I am enormousiy ,indebted to my .advisor" Ar~old, Zwicky. for , ,,r· service'aDove and beyond the cai1· of· duty. Ariiold w~ extremely encouraging throughout the writing 9f this.dissertation, and·indee~ during _my entire tenure at OSU. I J1ave.,benefi_1;ed from,elf_tensiye .. interaction with Arnold as-his-student, _his-advisee, and his f.r.iend for over si,_c years. · · All -~f my committee members Arnold Zwicky> Ilse Lehiste, and Brian .Joseph - have been instrumental1in s11aping:mY career as a linguist: They have guided both my M.A. ·thesis and uow my Ph.D. dissertation.. I thank Ilse Lehiste for promoting Bal.tic Finnie as a subject of study early in my career and fgrC<>Jll!llentirig astutely on my·work all along. I am also grateful to Brian Joseph for his ·critical scrutiny of''the preseut work and 'for ~dvice ·during my gra4uate studies in ~eneral. · · I ·thank the Americar;-Scandinavian F~undatio~ fi>r end~ing.. the Finnish Fund Fellowship for the year 1983-84 academic year~ as well as· the U.S. Educational Foundatiou in Finland for providing· ' Fuloright Travel Funds. During that fear:at the University of· . Helsinki, I collected a great deal of data on the partii:le ~litict.i: Professor Auli Hakulinen was kind enough to discuss my early ideas and refer me to additional references.. She, put ·me· oi1'to the , .. parallels between -Mn and sitli (and the· other epistemic 'adverbs). I have benefitted also from iuteractiomf"with Professor Fred .Karlsson, Profess<;>r Raij~ Bartens, an_d lecturer Maria Vilkwia, all at; the University of Hel.siµki. Pertti Pyhtila, also at the . University of Helsinki, hereby receives acknowledgement and fond appreci'ation for his contributions - send,ing inacces;,'ible. .. materials, acting as informant, and providing mo~al _·support. Occasionally I have querried other Finns on their language; thanks go especially to the 'leikko Kettunen family for their patience in this matter and to Riitta Valimaa-BlUlll at osu·, who took time to discuss the Finnish data with me (and to proofread part.:of · the mar1uscript). Her native :.~peaker intuition was of great utility, and her judgments on many sentences helped ward off a number of errors. ii Several other mea,ers of the OSU Linguistics Department of Linguistics have contribtt.ted to the present work. Alllong the111 I . -single out Rich Janda and J1111e Smirniotopoulos. At each stage of resear~hing and writing this dissertation I found my work to be facilitateo.by the presence and advice of the departmental secretary, Marlene Payha. Marlene helped me wade· through administrative paperwork; ahe instructed me in the use of the Weng word processor; and she saved ~ea great deal of wasted effort by assisting me through several Wang "dysfunctions". Thanks go also to the person that put o and ii on the Wang (Epson LQ 1500) - you simplified my life by two umlauts and a slew of back spacing. Finaily, no dissertation could ever be completed without the emotional (and sometimes financial) support of one's loved ones. My parents, Arnold and Newlin Nevis, provided this plus a whole lot more. They both have always demanded high academic achievement and have acted as role-models in that regard, too. My good friend Jeff Prine put in overtime in the moral support department. I only wish it could have been done without all those long-distance phone bills. My interest i11 Finnish clitics arose already in my 1981 master's thesis (Object Case Marking in Finnish), where, besides exploring one aspect of Finnish syntax, I observed in a footnote that the possessive suffixes are really clitics.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Tongan Personal Pronouns*
    TONGAN PERSONAL PRONOUNS* Catherine Macdonald University of Toronto 1. Background: Tongan Grammar Tongan is an ergative, VSO, mostly isolating language. The template of a clause is given in (1); an illustrative example, in (2): (1) Tense-Aspect-Mood Particle (TAM), Predicate, Arguments, PPs (2) Oku kai ‘e Sione ‘a e ika ‘i he potu ki tahi Pres eat Erg Sione Abs Det fish Loc Det area Loc sea "Sione eats the fish in the area of the sea." [Tchekhoff, 1981:15] 1.1. Tongan Pronouns Tongan has two series of personal pronouns. Those in the first series act like DPs: They can function as arguments, following the predicate and preceded by a case marker, as in (3a), or they can be the objects of prepositions as in (3b). (3) a. Na'e taki ‘e ia ‘a kinautolu past lead erg 3sg abs 3pl "He led them." b. Na'e hulohula ‘e Sione mo kimaua Past dance erg Sione with 1exc.du "Sione danced with us." These pronouns meet Cardinaletti & Starke's (1994) (henceforth, C&S) tests for “strong” pronouns. They can be co-ordinated; they are assigned 2-roles; and they are distributed like DPs. They can be new in discourse, defined by pointing, or bear contrastive stress. The paradigm of strong pronouns is presented in (4). *I wish to thank Diane Massam for guidance and critique, and my Tongan consultant Siokatame Vahavaha’i Moengangongo (“Moahengi”) for sharing his knowledge of Tongan. All errors are my own. 2 (4) Paradigm of strong pronouns 1st Exclusive Singular au Dual kimaua Plural kimautolu 1st Inclusive Singular kita Dual kitaua Plural kitautolu 2nd Singular koe Dual kimoua Plural kimoutolu 3rd Singular ia Dual kinaua Plural kinautolu In addition to the strong personal pronouns, there is a set of monosyllabic “deficient” personal pronouns in Tongan.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconsidering the “Isolating Protolanguage Hypothesis” in the Evolution of Morphology Author(S): Jaïmé Dubé Proceedings
    Reconsidering the “isolating protolanguage hypothesis” in the evolution of morphology Author(s): Jaïmé Dubé Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (2013), pp. 76-90 Editors: Chundra Cathcart, I-Hsuan Chen, Greg Finley, Shinae Kang, Clare S. Sandy, and Elise Stickles Please contact BLS regarding any further use of this work. BLS retains copyright for both print and screen forms of the publication. BLS may be contacted via http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/bls/. The Annual Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society is published online via eLanguage, the Linguistic Society of America's digital publishing platform. Reconsidering the Isolating Protolanguage Hypothesis in the Evolution of Morphology1 JAÏMÉ DUBÉ Université de Montréal 1 Introduction Much recent work on the evolution of language assumes explicitly or implicitly that the original language was without morphology. Under this assumption, morphology is merely a consequence of language use: affixal morphology is the result of the agglutination of free words, and morphophonemic (MP) alternations arise through the morphologization of once regular phonological processes. This hypothesis is based on at least two questionable assumptions: first, that the methods and results of historical linguistics can provide a window on the evolution of language, and second, based on the claim that some languages have no morphology (the so-called isolating languages), that morphology is not a necessary part of language. The aim of this paper is to suggest that there is in fact no basis for what I will call the Isolating Proto-Language Hypothesis (henceforth IPH), either on historical or typological grounds, and that the evolution of morphology remains an interesting question.
    [Show full text]
  • An Empirical Test of the Agglutination Hypothesis1
    An Empirical Test of the Agglutination Hypothesis1 Martin Haspelmath Abstract In this paper, I approach the agglutination-fusion distinction from an empirical point of view. Although the well-known morphological typology of languages (isolating, agglutinating, flexive/fusional, incorporating) has often been criticized as empty, the old idea that there are (predominantly) agglutinating and (predominantly) fusional languages in fact makes two implicit predictions. First, agglutination/fusion is characteristic of whole languages rather than individual con- structions; second, the various components of agglutination/fusion correlate with each other. The (unstated, but widely assumed) Agglutination Hypothesis can thus be formulated as follows: (i) First prediction: If a language is agglutinating/fusional in one area of its mor- phology (e.g. in nouns, or in the future tense), it shows the same type elsewhere. (ii) Second prediction: If a language is agglutinating/fusional with respect to one of the three agglutination parameters (a-c) (and perhaps others), it shows the same type with respect to the other two parameters: (a) separation/cumulation, (b) morpheme invariance/morpheme variability, (c) affix uniformity/affix sup- pletion. Ireportonastudyofthenominalandverbalinflectionalmorphologyofa reasonably balanced world-wide sample of 30 languages, applying a variety of measures for the agglutination parameters and determining whether they are cross- linguistically significant. The results do not confirm the validity of the Agglutination Hypothesis, and the current evidence suggests that “agglutination” is just one way of trying to capture the strangeness of non-Indo-European languages, which all look alike to Eurocentric eyes. M. Haspelmath Max-Planck-Institut fur¨ evolutionare¨ Anthropologie, Leipzig 1Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 3rd conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology (Amsterdam 1999) and at the 9th International Morphology Meeting (Vienna 2000).
    [Show full text]
  • Indo-European Linguistics: an Introduction Indo-European Linguistics an Introduction
    This page intentionally left blank Indo-European Linguistics The Indo-European language family comprises several hun- dred languages and dialects, including most of those spoken in Europe, and south, south-west and central Asia. Spoken by an estimated 3 billion people, it has the largest number of native speakers in the world today. This textbook provides an accessible introduction to the study of the Indo-European proto-language. It clearly sets out the methods for relating the languages to one another, presents an engaging discussion of the current debates and controversies concerning their clas- sification, and offers sample problems and suggestions for how to solve them. Complete with a comprehensive glossary, almost 100 tables in which language data and examples are clearly laid out, suggestions for further reading, discussion points and a range of exercises, this text will be an essential toolkit for all those studying historical linguistics, language typology and the Indo-European proto-language for the first time. james clackson is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, and is Fellow and Direc- tor of Studies, Jesus College, University of Cambridge. His previous books include The Linguistic Relationship between Armenian and Greek (1994) and Indo-European Word For- mation (co-edited with Birgit Anette Olson, 2004). CAMBRIDGE TEXTBOOKS IN LINGUISTICS General editors: p. austin, j. bresnan, b. comrie, s. crain, w. dressler, c. ewen, r. lass, d. lightfoot, k. rice, i. roberts, s. romaine, n. v. smith Indo-European Linguistics An Introduction In this series: j. allwood, l.-g. anderson and o.¨ dahl Logic in Linguistics d.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of VAASA Faculty of Humanities Department of English
    UNIVERSITY OF VAASA Faculty of Humanities Department of English Laura Miettinen and Marika Ylinen Mother Tongue: Aid or Obstacle? Errors Made by Finnish- and Swedish-speaking Learners of English Masters Thesis Vaasa 2007 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 5 1 INTRODUCTION 7 1.1 Material 9 1.2 Method 12 1.3 Cohorts 15 2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 18 2.1 Effect of First Language on Foreign Language Learning 18 2.2 Bilingualism in Foreign Language Learning 22 3 ERRORS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING 26 3.1 Error Types 26 3.2 Error Analysis 28 4 DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN FINNISH, SWEDISH AND ENGLISH 32 4.1 Grammatical Similarities and Differences 34 4.2 Lexical Similarities and Differences 36 5 ERRORS MADE BY NINTH GRADERS 38 5.1 Grammatical Errors 40 5.1.1 Articles 41 5.1.2 Prepositions 44 5.1.3 Verbs 47 5.1.4 Pronouns 50 5.1.5 Word Order 52 5.1.6 Plural Formation 52 5.2 Lexical Errors 54 5.2.1 Spelling 55 3 5.2.2 Vocabulary 57 5.3 Non-idiomatic Language 57 6 ERRORS MADE BY UNIVERSITY APPLICANTS 60 6.1 Grammatical Errors 63 6.1.1 Articles 64 6.1.2 Pronouns 67 6.1.3 Prepositions 69 6.1.4 Verbs 71 6.1.5 Word Order 74 6.2 Lexical Errors 75 6.2.1 Spelling 76 6.2.2 Vocabulary 77 6.3 Non-idiomatic Language 78 7 ERRORS MADE BY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS 80 7.1 Grammatical Errors 83 7.1.1 Articles 85 7.1.2 Prepositions 86 7.1.3 Verbs 88 7.1.4 Pronouns 90 7.2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Finnish Noun Phrase
    Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Scienze del Linguaggio The Finnish Noun Phrase Relatore: Prof.ssa Giuliana Giusti Correlatore: Prof. Guglielmo Cinque Laureanda: Lena Dal Pozzo Matricola: 803546 ANNO ACCADEMICO: 2006/2007 A mia madre Table of contents Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………….…….…… III Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………........ V Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………………VII 1. Word order in Finnish …………………………………………………………………1 1.1 The order of constituents in the clause …………………………………………...2 1.2 Word order and interpretation .......……………………………………………… 8 1.3 The order of constituents in the Nominal Expression ………………………… 11 1.3.1. Determiners and Possessors …………………………………………………12 1.3.2. Adjectives and other modifiers …………………………………………..… 17 1.3.2.1 Adjectival hierarchy…………………………………………………………23 1.3.2.2 Predicative structures and complements …………………………………26 1.3.3 Relative clauses …………………………………………………………….... 28 1.4 Conclusions ............……………………………………………………………. 30 2. Thematic relations in nominal expressions ……………………………………….. 32 2.1 Observations on Argument Structure ………………………………….……. 32 2.1.1 Result and Event nouns…………………………………………………… 36 2.2 Transitive nouns ………………………………………………………………... 38 2.2.1 Compound nouns ……………….……………………………………... 40 2.2.2 Intransitive nouns derived from transitive verbs …………………… 41 2.3 Passive nouns …………………………………………………………………… 42 2.4 Psychological predicates ……………………………………………………….. 46 2.4.1 Psych verbs ……………………………………………………………….
    [Show full text]
  • Null Conjuncts and Bound Pronouns in Arabic
    Null Conjuncts and Bound Pronouns in Arabic Michael Hahn University of Tubingen¨ Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar University of Washington Stefan Muller¨ (Editor) 2011 CSLI Publications pages 60–80 http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/HPSG/2011 Hahn, Michael. 2011. Null Conjuncts and Bound Pronouns in Arabic. In Muller,¨ Stefan (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, University of Washington, 60–80. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Abstract This paper presents a descriptive overview and a formal analysis of the syntax of pronominal arguments, pronominal conjuncts and bound pronouns in Arabic. I argue that Arabic allows first conjuncts to be null and that this is an instance of a more general pattern of zero anaphora that may affect pronominal arguments or their first conjuncts. First Conjunct Agreement and constraints on the distribution of zero anaphora are accounted for by a new feature sharing mechanism which allows a uniform treatment without appeal to the internal structure of argument NPs. I then argue that Arabic bound pronouns should be analyzed as affixes and present an analysis of their relation to argument structure and coordination. Finally, it is shown how constraints on case marking in Arabic coordination can be formalized. The analysis is part of an Arabic grammar fragment implemented in the TRALE system. 1 Introduction The goal of this paper is twofold. First, I will examine the structure of Arabic NP coordination and argue that it is a genuine coodination structure which allows first conjuncts to be null. An HPSG analysis will be presented which accounts for zero realization of and agreement with pronouns in a uniform way.
    [Show full text]
  • The Romance Person Case Constraint Is Not About Clitic Clusters Michelle Sheehan Anglia Ruskin University
    Chapter 6 The Romance Person Case Constraint is not about clitic clusters Michelle Sheehan Anglia Ruskin University This chapter provides further evidence that the Person Case Constraint (PCC) in Romance is not limited to clitic clusters. Previously, this has been shown for Span- ish (Ormazabal & Romero 2013), but I show that, in Italian, French, and Catalan causatives, a 1st/2nd person direct object is incompatible not only with dative clit- ics but also with full dative arguments (see also Postal 1989; Bonet 1991). This is different from the manifestation of the PCC in ditransitive contexts whereonly dative clitics are ruled out. The difference follows, I argue, if ditransitives in these languages have two underlying structures so that a DP introduced by a/à can be either dative or locative, in line with broader cross-linguistic patterns (see Harley 2002; Demonte 1995; Cuervo 2003 on Spanish; Anagnostopoulou 2003; Fournier 2010 on French; Holmberg et al. 2019 on Italian, and the discussion in the intro- duction to this volume). For this reason, indirect object DPs marked with a/à must trigger PCC effects in causatives but not in ditransitives, as only in the former are they unambiguously dative. Further support for this claim comes from Spanish, a language which morphologically distinguishes locative vs. dative phrases in di- transitives via clitic doubling (Cuervo 2003) and which shows PCC effects with all animate direct objects (Ormazabal & Romero 2007, 2013). I show that these facts are compatible with approaches to the PCC based on intervention (Anagnostopoulou 2003, 2005 amongst others), but raise challenges for those which rely crucially on the weak/clitic status of datives (Bianchi 2006; Stegovec 2017).
    [Show full text]
  • Using Morphemes from Agglutinative Languages Like Quechua and Finnish to Aid in Low-Resource Translation
    Using Morphemes from Agglutinative Languages like Quechua and Finnish to Aid in Low-Resource Translation John E. Ortega [email protected] Dept. de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informatics, Universitat d’Alacant, E-03071, Alacant, Spain Krishnan Pillaipakkamnatt [email protected] Department of Computer Science, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549, USA Abstract Quechua is a low-resource language spoken by nearly 9 million persons in South America (Hintz and Hintz, 2017). Yet, in recent times there are few published accounts of successful adaptations of machine translation systems for low-resource languages like Quechua. In some cases, machine translations from Quechua to Spanish are inadequate due to error in alignment. We attempt to improve previous alignment techniques by aligning two languages that are simi- lar due to agglutination: Quechua and Finnish. Our novel technique allows us to add rules that improve alignment for the prediction algorithm used in common machine translation systems. 1 Introduction The NP-complete problem of translating natural languages as they are spoken by humans to machine readable text is a complex problem; yet, is partially solvable due to the accuracy of machine language translations when compared to human translations (Kleinberg and Tardos, 2005). Statistical machine translation (SMT) systems such as Moses 1, require that an algo- rithm be combined with enough parallel corpora, text from distinct languages that can be com- pared sentence by sentence, to build phrase translation tables from language models. For many European languages, the translation task of bringing words together in a sequential sentence- by-sentence format for modeling, known as word alignment, is not hard due to the abundance of parallel corpora in large data sets such as Europarl 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Finnish and Hungarian
    The role of linguistics in language teaching: the case of two, less widely taught languages - Finnish and Hungarian Eszter Tarsoly and Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi The School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, London, United Kingdom The School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; [email protected], [email protected] (Received xxx; final version received xxx) This paper discusses the role of various linguistic sub-disciplines in teaching Finnish and Hungarian. We explain the status of Finnish and Hungarian at University College London and in the UK, and present the principle difficulties in learning and teaching these two languages. We also introduce our courses and student profiles. With the support of examples from our own teaching, we argue that a linguistically oriented approach is well suited for less widely used and less taught languages as it enables students to draw comparative and historical parallels, question terminologies and raise their sociolinguistic and pragmatic awareness. A linguistic approach also provides students with skills for further language learning. Keywords: language teaching; less taught languages; LWUTL; Finnish; Hungarian; linguistic terminology; historical linguistics; phonology; typology; cognitive linguistics; contact linguistics; corpus linguistics; sociolinguistics; pragmatics; language and culture. Introduction The purpose of our paper is to explore the role of different sub-disciplines of linguistics in language teaching, in particular, their role in the teaching of less widely used and less taught (LWULT) languages. More specifically, we argue that a linguistic approach to language teaching is well suited for teaching morphologically complex less widely taught languages, such as Hungarian and Finnish, in the UK context.
    [Show full text]
  • Variation in Agreement and Clitic Doubling in Arabic
    Probes and pronouns: Variation in agreement and clitic doubling in Arabic By Meera Sahawneh A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2017 by Meera Sahawneh Abstract This study develops a new approach to agreement variation in Standard Arabic (SA) and Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA) based on the Probe-Goal framework of Chomsky (2000, 2001). The key patterns investigated are the variation in fullness of agreement in the SV and VS word orders, the relationship between agreement and clitic doubling, and the patterning of agreement with conjoined subjects. The thesis argues for a connection between agreement, clitic doubling, and word order. Full agreement on T (in person, number, and gender) causes the subject to move to [Spec, TP], deriving SV order. However, partial agreement on T (lacking person) creates only a partial copy of the subject in [Spec, TP]. This partial copy is realized as a pronominal clitic in some contexts (giving CLsVS word order) and as null pro in other contexts (giving VS word order). This approach enables a unified account of various differences in the patterning of agreement in SA and RJA. Turning to the more complex case of agreement with conjoined subjects, both varieties exhibit full resolved agreement with preverbal conjoined subjects. With postverbal conjoined subjects, however, there is variation: SA allows only partial agreement with the first conjunct while RJA allows partial agreement either with the first conjunct or with the entire conjoined phrase, depending on the features and the order of the conjoined nominals.
    [Show full text]
  • Complex Adpositions and Complex Nominal Relators Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto De Lima, Elena Smirnova, Dejan Stosic
    Introduction: Complex Adpositions and Complex Nominal Relators Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto de Lima, Elena Smirnova, Dejan Stosic To cite this version: Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto de Lima, Elena Smirnova, Dejan Stosic. Introduction: Complex Adpo- sitions and Complex Nominal Relators. Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto de Lima, Dejan Stosic, Elena Smirnova. Complex Adpositions in European Languages : A Micro-Typological Approach to Com- plex Nominal Relators, 65, De Gruyter Mouton, pp.1-30, 2020, Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 978-3-11-068664-7. 10.1515/9783110686647-001. halshs-03087872 HAL Id: halshs-03087872 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03087872 Submitted on 24 Dec 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Public Domain Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto de Lima, Elena Smirnova & Dejan Stosic Introduction: Complex Adpositions and Complex Nominal Relators Benjamin Fagard CNRS, ENS & Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle; PSL Lattice laboratory, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1 rue Maurice Arnoux, 92120 Montrouge, France [email protected]
    [Show full text]