Word Order Universals, P. 1
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Interrogative Words: an Exercise in Lexical Typology
Interrogative words: an exercise in lexical typology Michael Cysouw [email protected] Bantu grammer: description and theory 3; Session on question formation in Bantu ZAS Berlin – Friday 13 Februari 2004 1 Introduction Wer, wie, was? Der, die, das! Wieso, weshalb, warum? Wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm! (German Sesame Street) This is first report on a study of the cross-linguistic diversity of interrogative words.1 The data are only preliminary and far from complete – for most of the languages included I am not sure whether I have really found all interrogative words (the experience with German shows that it is not do easy to collect them all). Further, the sample of languages investigated (see appendix) is not representative of the world’s languages, though it presents a fair collection of genetically and areally diverse languages. I will not say too much about relative frequencies, but mainly collect cases of particular phenomena to establish guidelines for further research. (1) Research questions a. What can be asked by an interrogative word? Which kind of interrogative categories are distinguished in the world’s languages? Do we need more categories than the seven lexicalised categories in English – who, what, which, where, when, why and how? b. Can all attested question words be expressed in all languages? For example, the German interrogative word wievielte is hardly translatable into English ‘how manieth’. c. How do the the interrogative words look like? – Have all interrogative categories own lexicalised/phrasal forms, or are they homonomous with other interrogative categories? For example, English ‘how did you do it?’ and ‘how long is it?’ use the same interrogative word, but this is not universally so. -
Subject-Verb Word-Order in Spanish Interrogatives: a Quantitative Analysis of Puerto Rican Spanish1
Near-final version (February 2011): under copyright and that the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form Brown, Esther L. & Javier Rivas. 2011. Subject ~ Verb word-order in Spanish interrogatives: a quantitative analysis of Puerto Rican Spanish. Spanish in Context 8.1, 23–49. Subject-verb word-order in Spanish interrogatives: A quantitative analysis of Puerto Rican Spanish1 Esther L. Brown and Javier Rivas We conduct a quantitative analysis of conversational speech from native speakers of Puerto Rican Spanish to test whether optional non-inversion of subjects in wh-questions (¿qué tú piensas?) is indicative of a movement in Spanish from flexible to rigid word order (Morales 1989; Toribio 2000). We find high rates of subject expression (51%) and a strong preference for SV word order (47%) over VS (4%) in all sentence types, inline with assertions of fixed SVO word order. The usage-based examination of 882 wh-questions shows non-inversion occurs in 14% of the cases (25% of wh- questions containing an overt subject). Variable rule analysis reveals subject, verb and question type significantly constrain interrogative word order, but we find no evidence that word order is predicted by perseveration. SV word order is highest in rhetorical and quotative questions, revealing a pathway of change through which word order is becoming fixed in this variety. Keywords: word order, language change, Caribbean Spanish, interrogative constructions 1. Introduction In typological terms, Spanish is characterized as a flexible SVO language. As has been shown by López Meirama (1997: 72), SVO is the basic word order in Spanish, with the subject preceding the verb in pragmatically unmarked independent declarative clauses with two full NPs (Mallinson & Blake 1981: 125; Siewierska 1988: 8; Comrie 1989). -
A Comparative Syntactic Review of Null-Subject Parameter in English and Ịzọn Languages
Vol.7(8), pp. 79-85, September, 2016 DOI: 10.5897/JLC2016.0363 Article Number: BCF661160470 ISSN 2141-6540 Journal of Languages and Culture Copyright © 2016 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC Full Length Research Paper A comparative syntactic review of null-subject parameter in English and Ịzọn languages Odingowei Kwokwo Macdonald Department of English and Literary Studies, Niger Delta University, Nigeria. Received 12 February, 2016; Accepted 6 June 2016 The theory of universal grammar relies predominantly on the biolinguistic concept of natural endowment and innate knowledge of the general principles of language. It postulates that all humans are naturally endowed with the general rules and configurations of language and to this extent, all natural languages have similar structural features. The theory of universal grammar as hypothesized by Chomsky and propagated by other linguists not only recognizes the universality of the general principles of language but also the existence of language-specific idiosyncratic features that constitute parametric variations among languages. These are the parameters of universal grammar. The most prominent parameters that create distinctions between languages are head directionality, pro-drop or null-subject and wh- parameters. This paper reviews the null-subject parameter in English and juxtaposes its occurrence or non-occurrence in the Ịzọn language. The aim of the paper is to characterize the parametric choices by English and Ịzọn languages in the derivation of grammatically convergent sentences with null-subject constituents. The study is competence-based and used data from tokens of sentences in conversation among competent native speakers of Ịzọn language. -
WORD ORDER and W O R D ORDER Chatjge
Linguistics WORD ORDER AND WORD ORDER CHAtjGE The University of Texas Press Austin 1975 REVIEWED BY JAMES M. DUNN Princeton Unlversi ty This is a collection of twelve of the thirteen papers pre- sented at the Conference on Word Order and dord Order Change that was held at tne University of California, Santa Barbara, on January 26 - 27, 1974. The first eight deal with the diachk'onic aspect of word order, while the other four represent a synchronic treatment of the subject. In the preface the editor acknowledges the influence of Joseph Greenberg on these proceedings. Bis 1961 paper, Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements' , is seen as ' the starting point* for mos't of the papers in this volume. The papers in this collection appeal to a great diversity of interests r sign language, languages of the Niger-Congo group, Chinese, Indo-European, drift, discourse grammar, rnetatheory, the evaluation me-tric, and, of course, language typology. Obviously, their common purpose is to move toward a clearer ex- planation of the causal relationships between the surface con- stituents of a sentence both synch~onicdllyand diachronically. 54 But many of the papers actually share more than the commom denom- inator of interest in word order. At several points where other mutual interests overlap, the discussions assume the nature of a dialog (or, more often, a debate), and the reader finds transi- tion from paper to paper relatively smooth. I shall withhold further comment on the merits of this book as a whole until the conclusion of this review. -
Sentence Structure: Subject – Verb – Object (SVO)
Sentence structure: Subject – Verb – Object (SVO) Structuring sentences effectively is a key Verb feature of successful academic writing. If a supported sentence is easy to read, the meaning of your Object writing – the point you are trying to make or the cause of poor people. your argument – will be much clearer. In addition, structuring sentences properly will ‘Strongly’ is an adverb, qualifying the verb allow you to write more precisely. (‘supported’), while ‘in the nineteenth century’ is a prepositional phrase which is also Structuring sentences effectively will give functioning as an adverb. your writing greater clarity and precision. Here’s another example: Writing clearly and precisely is vital if you are to get the highest marks for your work. It has been argued that social media forms Academic work is in part assessed on its ability an essential element of an effective to communicate ideas, information and marketing campaign (Smith, 2018). interpretations in a lucid (i.e. clear) and mature (i.e. confident) way. Subject It In this guide, we are going to look at a basic Verb arrangement of words in a sentence: SVO. If has been argued you have this word order in mind when writing, it will help you to communicate your ideas The verb is followed by ‘that’. In sentences like more easily. What follows will therefore be this one, ‘that’ acts as a conjunction, particularly useful if you find academic writing introducing a subordinate clause (see our more challenging. You might find it useful to guide, ‘Sentences, clauses and phrases’). This use this guide with the related one on clause consists of everything that comes after ‘Sentences, clauses and phrases’. -
The Interrogative Words of Tlingit an Informal Grammatical Study
The Interrogative Words of Tlingit An Informal Grammatical Study Seth Cable July 2006 Contents 1. Introductory Comments and Acknowledgments p. 4 2. Background Assumptions p. 5 3.The Interrogative Words of Tlingit p. 6 4. Simple Questions in Tlingit p. 6 4.1 The Pre-Predicate Generalization p. 7 4.2 The Preference for the Interrogative Word to be Initial p. 10 4.3 The Generalization that Interrogative Words are Left Peripheral p. 13 4.4 Comparison with Other Languages p. 14 5. Complex Questions and ‘Pied-Piping’ in Tlingit p. 16 6. Multiple Questions and the ‘Superiority Condition’ in Tlingit p. 23 7. Free Relatives and ‘Matching Effects’ in Tlingit p. 30 7.1 The Free Relative Construction in Tlingit p. 30 7.2 Matching Effects in Tlingit Free Relatives p. 36 8. Negative Polarity Indefinites in Tlingit p. 38 8.1 Negative Polarity Indefinites (‘NPI’s) and Interrogative Words p. 38 8.2 Tlingit Interrogative Words as Negative Polarity Indefinites p. 42 8.3 The Use of Interrogative Words in Negated Expressions p. 48 9. Tlingit Interrogative Words as Plain Existentials and Specific Indefinites p. 58 1 9.1 Tlingit Interrogative Words as Plain Existentials p. 58 9.2 Tlingit Interrogative Words as Specific Indefinites p. 62 10. Other Uses of Tlingit Interrogative Words in Non-Interrogative Sentences p. 65 10.1 Question-Based Exclamatives in Tlingit p. 65 10.2 Apparent Uses as Relative Pronouns p. 68 10.3 Concessive Free Relatives in Tlingit p. 74 10.4 Various Other Constructions Containing Waa ‘How’ or Daat ‘What’ p. -
Multi-Word Verbs with the Verb 'Make', and Their Croatian Counterparts
Multi-word verbs with the verb 'make', and their Croatian counterparts Najdert, Igor Undergraduate thesis / Završni rad 2018 Degree Grantor / Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences / Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Filozofski fakultet Permanent link / Trajna poveznica: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:440686 Rights / Prava: In copyright Download date / Datum preuzimanja: 2021-09-28 Repository / Repozitorij: FFOS-repository - Repository of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku Filozofski fakultet Osijek Studij: Dvopredmetni sveučilišni preddiplomski studij engleskoga jezika i književnosti i hrvatskog jezika i književnosti Igor Najdert Višeriječni glagoli s glagolom make i njihovi hrvatski ekvivalenti Završni rad Mentor: doc. dr. sc. Goran Milić Osijek, 2018 Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku Filozofski fakultet Osijek Odsjek za engleski jezik I književnost Studij: Dvopredmetni sveučilišni preddiplomski studij engleskoga jezika i književnosti i hrvatskoga jezika i književnosti Igor Najdert Multi-word verbs with make, and their Croatian counterparts Završni rad Znanstveno područje: humanističke znanosti Znanstveno polje: filologija Znanstvena grana: anglistika Mentor: doc. dr. sc. Goran Milić Osijek, 2018 J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Study Programme: Double Major BA Study Programme in English -
GF Modern Greek Resource Grammar
GF Modern Greek Resource Grammar Ioanna Papadopoulou University of Gothenburg [email protected] Abstract whilst each of the syntactic parts of the sentence (subject, object, predicate) is a carrier of a certain The paper describes the Modern Greek (MG) case, a fact that allows various word order Grammar, implemented in Grammatical structures. In addition, the language presents a Framework (GF) as part of the Grammatical dynamic syllable stress, whereas its position Framework Resource Grammar Library depends and alternates according to the (RGL). GF is a special-purpose language for morphological variations. Moreover, MG is one multilingual grammar applications. The RGL 1 is a reusable library for dealing with the of the two Indo-European languages that retain a morphology and syntax of a growing number productive synthetic passive formation. In order of natural languages. It is based on the use of to realize passivization, verbs use a second set of an abstract syntax, which is common for all morphological features for each tense. languages, and different concrete syntaxes implemented in GF. Both GF itself and the 2 Grammatical Framework RGL are open-source. RGL currently covers more than 30 languages. MG is the 35th GF (Ranta, 2011) is a special purpose language that is available in the RGL. For the programming language for developing purpose of the implementation, a morphology- multilingual applications. It can be used for driven approach was used, meaning a bottom- building translation systems, multilingual web up method, starting from the formation of gadgets, natural language interfaces, dialogue words before moving to larger units systems and natural language resources. -
Types of Interrogative Sentences an Interrogative Sentence Has the Function of Trying to Get an Answer from the Listener
Types of Interrogative Sentences An interrogative sentence has the function of trying to get an answer from the listener, with the premise that the speaker is unable to make judgment on the proposition in question. Interrogative sentences can be classified from various points of view. The most basic approach to the classification of interrogative sentences is to sort out the reasons why the judgment is not attainable. Two main types are true-false questions and suppletive questions (interrogative-word questions). True-false questions are asked because whether the proposition is true or false is not known. Examples: Asu, gakkō ni ikimasu ka? ‘Are you going to school tomorrow?’; Anata wa gakusei? ‘Are you a student?’ One can answer a true-false question with a yes/no answer. The speaker asks a suppletive question because there is an unknown component in the proposition, and that the speaker is unable to make judgment. The speaker places an interrogative word in the place of this unknown component, asking the listener to replace the interrogative word with the information on the unknown component. Examples: Kyō wa nani o taberu? ‘What are we going to eat today?’; Itsu ano hito ni atta no? ‘When did you see him?” “Eating something” and “having met him” are presupposed, and the interrogative word expresses the focus of the question. To answer a suppletive question one provides the information on what the unknown component is. In addition to these two main types, there are alternative questions, which are placed in between the two main types as far as the characteristics are concerned. -
Experimenting with Pro-Drop in Spanish1
Andrea Pešková Experimenting with Pro-drop in Spanish1 Abstract This paper investigates the omission and expression of pronominal subjects (PS) in Buenos Aires Spanish based on data from a production experiment. The use of PS is a linguistic phenomenon demonstrating that the grammar of a language needs to be considered independently of its usage. Despite the fact that the observed Spanish variety is a consistent pro-drop language with rich verbal agreement, the data from the present study provide evidence for a quite frequent use of overt PS, even in non-focal, non- contrastive and non-ambiguous contexts. This result thus supports previous corpus- based empirical research and contradicts the traditional explanation given by grammarians that overtly realized PS in Spanish are used to avoid possible ambiguities or to mark contrast and emphasis. Moreover, the elicited semi-spontaneous data indicate that the expression of PS is optional; however, this optionality is associated with different linguistic factors. The statistical analysis of the data shows the following ranking of the effects of these factors: grammatical persons > verb semantics > (syntactic) clause type > (semantic) sentence type. 1. Introduction It is well known that Spanish is a pro-drop (“pronoun-dropping”) or null- subject language whose grammar permits the omission of pronominal 1 A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the international conference Variation and typology: New trends in syntactic research in Helsinki (August 2011). I am grateful to the audience for their fruitful discussions and useful commentaries. I would also like to thank the editors, Susann Fischer, Ingo Feldhausen, Christoph Gabriel and the anonymous reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. -
Phrasal Imperatives in English
PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION (2021) 58(3): 1639-1655 ISSN: 00333077 Phrasal Imperatives in English 1Prof. Taiseer Flaiyih Hesan ; 2Teeba Khalid Shehab 1,2 University of Thi-Qar/ College of Education/ Department of English Abstract The present study has both theoretical and practical sides. Theoretically, it sheds light on phrasal imperatives (and hence PIs) as a phenomenon in English. That is, phrasal verbs are multi-word verbs that are generally composed of a verb and a particle. These verbs can be used imperatively instead of single-word verbs to form PIs. This study seeks to answer certain research questions: which form of phrasal verb can be allowed to be used as PIs? which type of phrasal verbs can be used “mostly” as PIs? in which function is the PI most frequent? It is hypothesized that certain forms of phrasal verbs can be used imperatively. Another hypothesis is that certain functions can be mostly realized by PIs. Practically speaking, this study is a corpus-based one. In this respect, corpus linguistics like Corpus of Contemporary American English (And hence COCA) can be regarded as a methodological approach since it is empirical and tends to use computers for analyzing. To fulfill the aims of this study, the researcher chooses twenty-three phrasal verbs which are used as PIs in COCA. These verbs are gathered manually through the wordlists of COCA. Using the technique of Microsoft Office Excel in the corpus analysis, it is concluded that PIs of the affirmative form are mostly used in the corpus data. As for the functions of these PIs, it seems that direct command has the highest occurrences there. -
Minimum of English Grammar
Parameters Morphological inflection carries with it a portmanteau of parameters, each individually shaping the very defining aspects of language typology. For instance, English is roughly considered a ‘weak inflectional language’ given its quite sparse inflectional paradigms (such as verb conjugation, agreement, etc.) Tracing languages throughout history, it is also worth noting that morphological systems tend to become less complex over time. For instance, if one were to exam (mother) Latin, tracing its morphological system over time leading to the Latin-based (daughter) Romance language split (Italian, French, Spanish, etc), one would find that the more recent romance languages involve much less complex morphological systems. The same could be said about Sanskrit (vs. Indian languages), etc. It is fair to say that, at as general rule, languages become less complex in their morphological system as they become more stable (say, in their syntax). Let’s consider two of the more basic morphological parameters below: The Bare Stem and Pro- drop parameters. Bare Stem Parameter. The Bare Stem Parameter is one such parameter that shows up cross-linguistically. It has to do with whether or not a verb stem (in its bare form) can be uttered. For example, English allows bare verb stems to be productive in the language. For instance, bare stems may be used both in finite conjugations (e.g., I/you/we/you/they speak-Ø) (where speak is the bare verb)—with the exception of third person singular/present tense (she speak-s) where a morphological affix{s}is required—as well as in an infinitival capacity (e.g., John can speak-Ø French).