A Cross-Linguistic Study of Grammatical Organization
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Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras
Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras To cite this version: Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras. Romani Syntactic Typology. Yaron Matras; Anton Tenser. The Palgrave Handbook of Romani Language and Linguistics, Springer, pp.187-227, 2020, 978-3-030-28104- 5. 10.1007/978-3-030-28105-2_7. halshs-02965238 HAL Id: halshs-02965238 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02965238 Submitted on 13 Oct 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. Romani syntactic typology Evangelia Adamou and Yaron Matras 1. State of the art This chapter presents an overview of the principal syntactic-typological features of Romani dialects. It draws on the discussion in Matras (2002, chapter 7) while taking into consideration more recent studies. In particular, we draw on the wealth of morpho- syntactic data that have since become available via the Romani Morpho-Syntax (RMS) database.1 The RMS data are based on responses to the Romani Morpho-Syntax questionnaire recorded from Romani speaking communities across Europe and beyond. We try to take into account a representative sample. We also take into consideration data from free-speech recordings available in the RMS database and the Pangloss Collection. -
COPULAR CLAUSES in ENGLISH* Masatake Arimoto Nanzan University 1. Introduction English Has Copular Verb Be As Exemplified In
COPULAR CLAUSES IN ENGLISH* Masatake Arimoto Nanzan University 1. Introduction English has copular verb be as exemplified in sentences like (1) and (2). (1) a. John is honest. b. John is a philosopher. (2) a. John is the Mayor of Cambridge. b. A picture of the wall was the cause of the riot. (Moro, 1997) Sentences in (1) and (2) appear to express that the pre-verbal elements are related to post-verbal elements in the same way. However, sentences in (1) and those in (2) behave differently. For example, if post-verbal elements are placed before be and pre-verbal elements are placed after be, the resultant sentences are unacceptable for (1) as in (3), but acceptable for (2) as in (4). (3) a. *Honest is John. b. *A philosopher is John. (4) a. The Mayor of Cambridge is John. b. The cause of the riot was a picture of the wall. Sentences like (2) and sentences like (4) again appear to express the same meanings, but there are some syntactic differences between them. Both of them appear in an ECM construction as in (5), but only sentences in (2) are possible in a Small Clause construction as in (6): sentences in (4) are impossible in a Small Clause construction as in (6b). (5) a. John considers a picture of the wall to be the cause of the riot. b. John considers the cause of the riot to be a picture of the wall. (6) a. John considers a picture of the wall the cause of the riot. b. -
Serial Verb Constructions Revisited: a Case Study from Koro
Serial Verb Constructions Revisited: A Case Study from Koro By Jessica Cleary-Kemp A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Associate Professor Lev D. Michael, Chair Assistant Professor Peter S. Jenks Professor William F. Hanks Summer 2015 © Copyright by Jessica Cleary-Kemp All Rights Reserved Abstract Serial Verb Constructions Revisited: A Case Study from Koro by Jessica Cleary-Kemp Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Associate Professor Lev D. Michael, Chair In this dissertation a methodology for identifying and analyzing serial verb constructions (SVCs) is developed, and its application is exemplified through an analysis of SVCs in Koro, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. SVCs involve two main verbs that form a single predicate and share at least one of their arguments. In addition, they have shared values for tense, aspect, and mood, and they denote a single event. The unique syntactic and semantic properties of SVCs present a number of theoretical challenges, and thus they have invited great interest from syntacticians and typologists alike. But characterizing the nature of SVCs and making generalizations about the typology of serializing languages has proven difficult. There is still debate about both the surface properties of SVCs and their underlying syntactic structure. The current work addresses some of these issues by approaching serialization from two angles: the typological and the language-specific. On the typological front, it refines the definition of ‘SVC’ and develops a principled set of cross-linguistically applicable diagnostics. -
On ''Verbal Dps'
From predication to reference: On ”verbal DPs” in Movima Katharina Haude To cite this version: Katharina Haude. From predication to reference: On ”verbal DPs” in Movima. Bonnot Christine; Outi Duvallon; Hélène de Penanros. Individuation et référence nominale à travers les langues, Lambert- Lucas, pp.53-77, 2019, 978-2-35935-294-8. hal-01971969v2 HAL Id: hal-01971969 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01971969v2 Submitted on 3 Jan 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. From predication to reference: On “verbal DPs” in Movima Katharina Haude (CNRS–SeDyL) Published as: Haude, Katharina. 2019. From predication to reference: On “verbal DPs” in Movima. In Individuation et référence nominale à travers les langues. Bonnot, Christine, Outi Duvallon et Hélène de Penanros (eds), 53-77. Paris: Editions Lambert-Lucas. Abstract In Movima (isolate, Bolivia), both verbs and nouns are basically predicates, but when preceded by an article, both nouns and verbs form part of a determiner phrase (DP). The article has an individuating function in that it specifies the referent for humanness/sex, number, and spatio- temporal location. When a DP contains a verb, it refers to an event participant, whose role in the event (single participant, agent, or patient) is identified by verbal morphology. -
Tagalog Pala: an Unsurprising Case of Mirativity
Tagalog pala: an unsurprising case of mirativity Scott AnderBois Brown University Similar to many descriptions of miratives cross-linguistically, Schachter & Otanes(1972)’s clas- sic descriptive grammar of Tagalog describes the second position particle pala as “expressing mild surprise at new information, or an unexpected event or situation.” Drawing on recent work on mi- rativity in other languages, however, we show that this characterization needs to be refined in two ways. First, we show that while pala can be used in cases of surprise, pala itself merely encodes the speaker’s sudden revelation with the counterexpectational nature of surprise arising pragmatically or from other aspects of the sentence such as other particles and focus. Second, we present data from imperatives and interrogatives, arguing that this revelation need not concern ‘information’ per se, but rather the illocutionay update the sentence encodes. Finally, we explore the interactions between pala and other elements which express mirativity in some way and/or interact with the mirativity pala expresses. 1. Introduction Like many languages of the Philippines, Tagalog has a prominent set of discourse particles which express a variety of different evidential, attitudinal, illocutionary, and discourse-related meanings. Morphosyntactically, these particles have long been known to be second-position clitics, with a number of authors having explored fine-grained details of their distribution, rela- tive order, and the interaction of this with different types of sentences (e.g. Schachter & Otanes (1972), Billings & Konopasky(2003) Anderson(2005), Billings(2005) Kaufman(2010)). With a few recent exceptions, however, comparatively little has been said about the semantics/prag- matics of these different elements beyond Schachter & Otanes(1972)’s pioneering work (which is quite detailed given their broad scope of their work). -
The Syntax of Answers to Negative Yes/No-Questions in English Anders Holmberg Newcastle University
The syntax of answers to negative yes/no-questions in English Anders Holmberg Newcastle University 1. Introduction This paper will argue that answers to polar questions or yes/no-questions (YNQs) in English are elliptical expressions with basically the structure (1), where IP is identical to the LF of the IP of the question, containing a polarity variable with two possible values, affirmative or negative, which is assigned a value by the focused polarity expression. (1) yes/no Foc [IP ...x... ] The crucial data come from answers to negative questions. English turns out to have a fairly complicated system, with variation depending on which negation is used. The meaning of the answer yes in (2) is straightforward, affirming that John is coming. (2) Q(uestion): Isn’t John coming, too? A(nswer): Yes. (‘John is coming.’) In (3) (for speakers who accept this question as well formed), 1 the meaning of yes alone is indeterminate, and it is therefore not a felicitous answer in this context. The longer version is fine, affirming that John is coming. (3) Q: Isn’t John coming, either? A: a. #Yes. b. Yes, he is. In (4), there is variation regarding the interpretation of yes. Depending on the context it can be a confirmation of the negation in the question, meaning ‘John is not coming’. In other contexts it will be an infelicitous answer, as in (3). (4) Q: Is John not coming? A: a. Yes. (‘John is not coming.’) b. #Yes. In all three cases the (bare) answer no is unambiguous, meaning that John is not coming. -
Schur Complement Trick for Positive Semi-Definite Energies
Schur complement trick for positive semi-definite energies Alec Jacobson Columbia University Abstract n m r The “Schur complement trick” appears sporadically in numerical T T ˜ ˜ T optimization methods [Schur 1917; Cottle 1974]. The trick is es- A B A B A B pecially useful for solving Lagrangian saddle point problems when minimizing quadratic energies subject to linear equality constraints ˜ ˜ [Gill et al. 1987]. Typically, to apply the trick, the energy’s Hessian B C B C B C is assumed positive definite. I generalize this technique for positive semi-definite Hessians. Figure 1: If A is an n × n positive semi-definite matrix with rank r, then simply move n−r rows and columns to the B and C blocks. 1 Positive definite energies Let us consider a quadratic energy optimization problem subject to 2 Positive semi-definite energies linear equality constraints: 1 With loss of generality, assume A is symmetric, but merely positive minimize xTAx − xTf + constant; (1) x 2 semi-definite, with known rank r < n. We would like to apply the subject to Bx = g; (2) Schur complement trick from the previous section, but A is singular so we cannot factor it or solve against it. where x; f 2 n, A 2 n×n, B 2 m×n and g 2 m. R R R R However, we can simply shave off n − r linearly independent rows Solving with the Lagrange multiplier method results in a system of and columns of A and push them into the B; BT; C blocks of the linear equations: system system (see Figure1). -
The Serial Verb Construction in Chinese: a Tenacious Myth and a Gordian Knot Waltraud Paul
The serial verb construction in Chinese: A tenacious myth and a Gordian knot Waltraud Paul To cite this version: Waltraud Paul. The serial verb construction in Chinese: A tenacious myth and a Gordian knot. Lin- guistic Review, De Gruyter, 2008, 25 (3-4), pp.367-411. 10.1515/TLIR.2008.011. halshs-01574253 HAL Id: halshs-01574253 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01574253 Submitted on 12 Aug 2017 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. The serial verb construction in Chinese: A tenacious myth and a Gordian knot1 WALTRAUD PAUL Abstract The term “construction” is not a label to be assigned randomly, but presup- poses a structural analysis with an associated set of syntactic and semantic properties. Based on this premise, the term “serial verb construction” (SVC) as currently used in Chinese linguistics will be shown to simply refer to any multi- verb surface string i.e,. to subsume different constructions. The synchronic consequence of this situation is that SVCs in Chinese linguistics are not com- mensurate with SVCs in, e.g., Niger-Congo languages, whence the futility at this stage to search for a “serialization parameter” deriving the differences between so-called “serializing” and “non-serializing” languages. -
Humanity Fluent Software Language
Pyash: Humanity Fluent Software Language Logan Streondj February 13, 2019 Contents 1 Introduction 4 1.1 Problem ................................... 4 1.1.1 Disglossia ............................... 4 1.2 Paradigm ................................... 5 1.2.1 Easy to write bad code ........................ 5 1.2.2 Obsolete Non-Parallel Paradigms .................... 5 1.3 Inspiration ................................. 5 1.4 Answer .................................... 5 1.4.1 Vocabulary ............................... 5 1.4.2 Grammar ................................ 5 1.4.3 Paradigm ................................ 6 I Core Language 7 2 Phonology 8 2.1 Notes .................................... 8 2.2 Contribution ................................. 8 3 Grammar 10 3.1 Composition ................................. 10 3.2 Grammar Tree ................................. 10 3.3 Noun Classes ................................. 10 3.3.1 grammatical number .......................... 12 3.3.2 noun classes for relative adjustment ................. 12 3.3.3 noun classes by animacy ........................ 13 3.3.4 noun classes regarding reproductive attributes ............ 13 3.4 Tense .................................... 13 3.5 Aspects ................................... 13 3.6 Grammatical Mood ............................... 14 3.7 participles ................................. 16 4 Dictionary 18 4.1 Prosody ................................... 18 4.2 Trochaic Rhythm ............................... 18 4.3 Espeak .................................... 18 4.4 -
English for Practical Purposes 9
ENGLISH FOR PRACTICAL PURPOSES 9 CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction of English Grammar Chapter 2: Sentence Chapter 3: Noun Chapter 4: Verb Chapter 5: Pronoun Chapter 6: Adjective Chapter 7: Adverb Chapter 8: Preposition Chapter 9: Conjunction Chapter 10: Punctuation Chapter 11: Tenses Chapter 12: Voice Chapter 1 Introduction to English grammar English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences. There are historical, social, and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammardescribed here occur in some dialects of English. This article describes a generalized present-dayStandard English, the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting,education, entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal speech. There are certain differences in grammar between the standard forms of British English, American English and Australian English, although these are inconspicuous compared with the lexical andpronunciation differences. Word classes and phrases There are eight word classes, or parts of speech, that are distinguished in English: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives,adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. (Determiners, traditionally classified along with adjectives, have not always been regarded as a separate part of speech.) Interjections are another word class, but these are not described here as they do not form part of theclause and sentence structure of the language. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs form open classes – word classes that readily accept new members, such as the nouncelebutante (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles), similar relatively new words. The others are regarded as closed classes. -
The Meaning of Approximative Adverbs: Evidence from European Portuguese
THE MEANING OF APPROXIMATIVE ADVERBS: EVIDENCE FROM EUROPEAN PORTUGUESE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Patrícia Matos Amaral, Master’s Degree in Linguistics ***** The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Scott Schwenter, Adviser Professor Craige Roberts ____________________________ Professor John Grinstead Adviser Spanish and Portuguese Graduate Program ABSTRACT This dissertation presents an analysis of the semantic-pragmatic properties of adverbs like English almost and barely (“approximative adverbs”), both in a descriptive and in a theoretical perspective. In particular, I investigate to what extent the meaning distinctions encoded by the system of approximative adverbs in European Portuguese (EP) shed light on the characterization of these adverbs as a class and on the challenges raised by their semantic-pragmatic properties. I focus on the intuitive notion of closeness associated with the meaning of these adverbs and the related question of the asymmetry of their meaning components. The main claim of this work is that the meaning of approximative adverbs involves a comparison between properties along a scalar dimension, and makes reference to a lexically provided or contextually assumed standard value of comparison. In chapter 2, I present some of the properties displayed by approximative adverbs cross-linguistically and more specifically in European Portuguese. This chapter discusses the difficulties raised by their classification within the major classes assumed in taxonomies of adverbs. In chapter 3, I report two experiments that were conducted to test the asymmetric behavior of the meaning components of approximative adverbs and the role that they play in interpretation. -
English Object Extraposition: a Constraint-Based Approach
English Object Extraposition: A Constraint-Based Approach Jong-Bok Kim Ivan A. Sag Kyung Hee University Stanford University Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar Department of Informatics, University of Lisbon Stefan Muller¨ (Editor) 2005 CSLI Publications pages 192–212 http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/HPSG/2005 Kim, Jong-Bok, & Sag, Ivan A. 2005. English Object Extraposition: A Constraint- Based Approach. In Muller,¨ Stefan (Ed.), Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Department of Informat- ics, University of Lisbon, 192–212. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Abstract According to the Projection Principle (Chomsky 1981), expletives have no semantic content and thus cannot occur in theta-marked positions. How- ever, there are many examples where expletive it appears as a direct ob- ject, in violation of the Projection Principle. The various attempts that have been made to account for such cases (e.g. the case-based analysis of Authier (1991), the predication analysis of Rothstein (1995), and the Specifier anal- ysis of Stroik (1991, 1996)) all posit movement of the expletive from a non- theta marked position to direct object position. However, these analyses have so far been unsuccessful in capturing several important contrasts, e.g. vari- able optionality of the expletive it. This paper argues that such contrasts (and the complex behavior of expletive it more generally) follow straightforwardly from a lexicalist, constraint-based analysis in which lexical information and independently motivated constraints interact in subtle ways. 1 Extraposition: the Issue English allows a pattern where a finite or infinitival clause appears in sentence-final (or ‘extraposed’) position (cf.