From simple predicators to clausal functors : The english modals through time and the primitives of modality

The ultimate goal of this paper is to find a representation of modality compatible with some basic conditions on the syntax-semantic interface. Such conditions are anchored, for instance, in Chomsky's (1995) principle of full interpretation (FI). Abstract interpretation of modality is, however - be it "only" in semantic terms - already a hard nut to crack, way too vast to be dealt with in any comprehensive way here. What is pursued instead is a case-study-centered analysis. The case in point are the English modals (EM) viewed in their development through time - a locus classicus for a number of linguistic theories and frameworks. The idea will be to start out from two lines of research - continuous grammaticalization vs. cataclysmic change - and to explain some of their incongruities. The first non-trivial point here consists in deriving more fundamental questions from this research. The second, possibly even less trivial one consists in answering them. Specifically, I will argue that regardless of the actual numerical rate of change, there is an underlying and more structured way to account for the notions of change and continuity within the modal system, respectively

The Syntax of Copular Clauses in Arabic

Copular clauses in several languages have received much attention in recent years, however in Arabic they have been largely overlooked. In general, copular clauses have been classified into four types: the predicational clause, the specificational clause, the identificational clause, and the identity clause. This thesis aims to characterize and analyze the various copular clause types in Arabic, and goes further to discuss the taxonomic status of the copular clause with a postcopular definite description and the nature of the pronominal element (PE) in Arabic copular clauses. The thesis then explores the predicational clause type in more depth, focusing specifically on the copula KWN, the subject NP, and agreement and case in this type of copular clause. I provide an analysis of Arabic copular clauses that condenses the four types of copular clauses into just two types: the predicational clause and the identity clause, which differ in the small clause they contain. The specificational clause, the identificational clause, and the clause with a postcopular definite description can all be considered subtypes of the identity clause. I claim that the PE, which appears in all Arabic copular clauses except the predicational clause, is a realization of the F head in the structure of the identity clause, and cannot be used in a predicational clause due to the presence of predicative expressions in this type of clause. I also claim that Arabic has a single copula KWN, which originates in the vP, however in the structure of the Arabic verbless sentence this vP does not project. Next, I suggest that the definiteness constraint on the subject of Arabic predicational clauses follows from the referentiality and topicality requirements on the subject of a predicational clause. Finally, I provide an analysis for case and agreement in the predicational copular clause which suggests that the nominative case on subjects and their predicates in verbless sentences is obtained via Multiple Agree with T, whereas the accusative case on subjects and their predicates in clauses involving the copular verb results from Multiple Agree with v. However, the case on subjects may change in the course of a derivation by other mechanisms, such as presence of the complementizer ʔinna or by cyclic agreement

Swedish relative clause extractions: The Small Clause Hypothesis

On the basis of data from Swedish, this thesis investigates the Small Clause Hypothesis put forth by Kush et al. (2013). The hypothesis is suggested to account for the rare possibility of relative clause extraction, a phenomenon that poses a challenge for syntactic theories of locality. In brief, the hypothesis states that the possibility to extract from relative clauses is restricted to cases where the matrix contains a small clause-selecting verb. In that case the parser can reconstruct the complex noun phrase involving a relative clause as a small clause (from which extraction is not blocked). Language variation is claimed to be derivable from differences with regard to properties of the relative pronoun. A detailed investigation of the Small Clause Hypothesis and the analysis based on that, against data from Swedish, reveals that the predictions generated by the proposal are not borne out. First, a number of extraction examples retrieved from the literature constitute counterexamples to the claim that relative clause extraction is restricted to small clause-selecting matrix verbs. Second, Kush et al.’s (2013) assumptions about the role of the Swedish relative complementizer in the parsing process are implausible in light of data from other Scandinavian languages and extraction data from the relevant small clauses. Finally, the results of a controlled acceptability judgment experiment on Swedish relative clause extractions showed no statistically significant differences between matrix predicates. The conclusion of the thesis is that Swedish relative clause extractions do not provide any support for the Small Clause Hypothesis and therefore that another explanation for the phenomenon must be sought

On the nature of the lexicon: the status of rich lexical meanings

The main goal of this paper is to show that there are many phenomena that pertain to the construction of truth-conditional compounds that follow characteristic patterns, and whose explanation requires appealing to knowledge structures organized in specific ways. We review a number of phenomena, ranging from non-homogenous modification and privative modification to polysemy and co-predication that indicate that knowledge structures do play a role in obtaining truth-conditions. After that, we show that several extant accounts that invoke rich lexical meanings to explain such phenomena face problems related to inflexibility and lack of predictive power. We review different ways in which one might react to such problems as regards lexical meanings: go richer, go moderately richer, go thinner, and go moderately thinner. On the face of it, it looks like moderate positions are unstable, given the apparent lack of a clear cutoff point between the semantic and the conceptual, but also that a very thin view and a very rich view may turn out to be indistinguishable in the long run. As far as we can see, the most pressing open questions concern this last issue: can there be a principled semantic/world knowledge distinction? Where could it be drawn: at some upper level (e.g. enriched qualia structures) or at some basic level (e.g. constraints)? How do parsimony considerations affect these two different approaches? A thin meanings approach postulates intermediate representations whose role is not clear in the interpretive process, while a rich meanings approach to lexical meaning seems to duplicate representations: the same representations that are stored in the lexicon would form part of conceptual representations. Both types of parsimony problems would be solved by assuming a direct relation between word forms and (parts of) conceptual or world knowledge, leading to a view that has been attributed to Chomsky (e.g. by Katz 1980) in which there is just syntax and encyclopedic knowledge

The Dominant Participle Construction as a Syntax-Semantics Interface Phenomenon:The Case Study of Latin

Treballs Finals del Màster en Ciència Cognitiva i Llenguatge, Facultat de Filosofia, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2021-2022, Tutor: Jaume Mateu FontanalsThe syntactic representation of participles has remained a disputed issue at the centre of linguistic research for some time. Much of the confusion surrounding participles is the result of their categorial indeterminacy, which ranges between the category of verbs and adjectives. The blended categorial properties of participles are mirrored in their flexible syntactic distribution. For example, participles are flexible enough to fulfil prototypical adjectival functions in attributive and copular structures, e.g. ‘the sewed button’ and ‘the button is sewed’, while they may also exhibit a verbal distribution in periphrastic occurrences, e.g. ‘Duna has sewed the button’. In such a way, the categorial flexibility of participles allows for a wide spectrum of different uses

Proceedings of the workshop on Syntax of Predication, Nov 2-3, 2001, ZAS-Berlin / Edited by Niina Zhang

This volume presents working versions of presentations heard at and selected for the Workshop on Syntax of Predication, held at ZAS, Berlin, on November 2-3, 2001 (except the editor’s own paper). Predication is a many-faceted topic which involves both syntax and semantics and the interface between them. This is reflected in the papers of the volume

A New Perspective on Reusing Semantic Resources

Well trained linguists manage to capture semantic behavior of words in various annotated corpora. Using them as training data, semantic relations can be discovered by intelligent systems using supervised machine learning techniques. What if we have short deadlines and limited human and financial possibilities that prevent us from building such a valuable training corpus for our own language? If such a corpus already exists for any other language, we could make use of this treasure and reproduce it for the language we need. This paper proposes an import method, which transfers semantic annotation (which could be semantic roles, named entity, sentiments, etc.) from an annotated resource to another language, using comparable texts. The case of semantic role annotation transfer from English to Romanian is discussed

The acquisition of Tense and Aspect in Spanish

280 p.En esta tesis doctoral se investiga la adquisición de las marcas de aspecto y tiempo por parte de niños de 5 años (madrileños y navarros) que adquieren el español como lengua materna. Para su realización se han analizado, en primer lugar, cuáles son las características semánticas y pragmáticas de dichas formas y cuáles son las dificultades que supone su adquisición. En base a dicha investigación, se han diseñado una serie de tareas experimentales en las que se ha estudiado cuál es el conocimiento que tienen los niños de las marcas de tiempo y aspecto A) teniendo en cuenta tanto las formas sintéticas (formas simples, perfectivas e imperfectivas) como de formas perifrásticas (perfectos y progresivos), B) estudiando cada uno de los niveles ¿tiempo, aspecto gramatical y aspecto léxico¿ de manera separada y C) con una metodología experimental variada que incluye estudios de comprensión y producción con distintos tipos de tareas. Hemos podido constatar que a los 5 años de edad los niños pueden distinguir las marcas de pasado, presente y futuro y son capaces de utilizarlas de manera adecuada. Asimismo, también son capaces de distinguir las marcas de PF e IPF, pero su respuesta no es similar a la adulta en ciertas tareas debido a que no han adquirido aún los usos pragmáticos del IPF (no generan las implicaturas de escala asociadas al IPF) y tienen dificultades a la hora de identificar la referencia temporal del IPF. A nivel del aspecto del predicado, los niños en la edad de 5 todavía tienen problemas en identificar como télicos los predicados de tema incremental, dado que la telicidad con estos predicados depende del objeto y es generada pragmáticamente por una implicatura conversacional. Por último, se ha podido constatar que, aunque los niños muestran en producción una preferencia por las formas perifrásticas, la relativa complejidad morfológica y el grado de polisemia de las diferentes formas no afecta a la comprensión de las marcas de tiempo y aspecto