What information structure tells us about individual/stage-level predicates

The goal of this paper is to explore the lexical-syntactic structure of copulative constructions and argument small clauses within the framework proposed by Gallego & Uriagereka (2011) for the Individual-Level/Stage-Level distinction (Carlson 1988, Kratzer 1995) and implement their theory by claiming that there is a crucial correlation between IL/SL constructions and their information structure. I argue that IL subjects are topics (and hence this is a categorical construction, following Kuroda 1972, Milsark 1977 and Raposo & Uriagereka 1995), whereas in SL constructions the topic may either be the subject or a silent spatiotemporal argument (their construction being thetic). I show the topic nature of IL subjects in contexts of specificity and subextraction. I ultimately derive the IS of IL/SL constructions from their lexical-syntactic structure and identify the type of topic here as an Aboutness-Topic (in the sense of Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl 2007, Lambrecht 1994, Erteschik-Shir 1997). Keywords: individual-level/stage-level predicates, copulas, small clause, central-coincidence/terminal coincidence prepositions, topic, specificity, subextractio

The Syntax of Non-Verbal Causation: The Causative Apomorphy of \u27From\u27 in Greek and Germanic Languages

This is a study of the meaning and syntax of non-(lexical)verbal causation. Macroscopically, it examines the preposition \u27from\u27 as attested in contexts like X is/comes from Y . Syntactic diagnostics are applied to formally distinguish the causative from the spatial interpretations of `from\u27-PPs in Greek, English, Dutch, and German. The syntactic landscape of causative \u27from\u27 will turn out to be very minimal with \u27from\u27 directly selecting the Cause-DP, in contradistinction to its spatial counterpart, where \u27from\u27 always selects for another PP layer. More microscopically then I focus on the causative interpretations only, which are particularly revealing because (i) they give an in-depth view of CAUSE, stripped of all verbal layers--traditionally considered the locus of CAUSE--suggesting that the source of causation in non-(lexical)verbal environments has to be the preposition per se and (ii) they single-handedly provide a rudimentary structure for causation, where \u27from\u27 introduces the Cause in its complement and is predicated of the Causee. Finally, with a basic predicational structure in place, I offer a detailed cross-linguistic account for the syntactic mechanism that forces the use of particle verbs in causative \u27from\u27-less environments

Negation and Aspect: A comparative study of Mandarin and Cantonese varieties

This dissertation examines the interaction between standard negation and aspect in Chinese under two conditions: bare negation showing negation-situation type compatibility, and negation with overt aspectual marking. The comparative study of Beijing Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin, Hong Kong Cantonese, and the previously unstudied Gaozhou Cantonese demonstrates that the aspectual sensitivity of negation is governed by more general structural properties than idiosyncratic aspectual selection requirements of the negators. In negative declaratives without aspectual marking (bare negatives), Chapters 2 shows that where a variety has more than one standard negator, the distribution of the negators mostly creates systematic semantic contrast instead of any grammaticality consequence: Mandarin méiyǒu, Hong Kong Cantonese mou5 and Gaozhou Cantonese mau5 consistently offer a situation non-existent reading, while Mandarin bù and Hong Kong Cantonese m4 always involve a modality reading (habitual or volitional). Based on the relative distribution of negation and different types of adverbs, Chapter 4 suggests that all standard negators in the four Chinese varieties are generated in the outermost specifier of vP. The uniformity in negator position challenges previous accounts that méiyǒu and mou5 are higher in Asp, and urges a rethinking of the nature of these negators. Following Croft’s (1991) Negative-Existential Cycle and supported by corpus data from Taiwan Mandarin, the chapter demonstrates that méiyǒu, mou5 and mau5 are standard negators developed from the negative existential predicate (non-existence of entities) and have now extended their function to verbal negation (non-existence of situations). Therefore, méiyǒu and mou5 as negative-existential-cum-verbal-negators consist of negation and the existential quantifier, whereas, bù and m4 receive their modality interpretation by being the negative form of the generic operator (Gen) (Chierchia 1995). The compatibility between these two classes of negators and different situation types is accounted for by the presence/absence of a habituality feature ([Hab]) on V: the presence of [Hab] licenses Neg-Gen (i.e. bù or m4), and its absence licenses Neg- (i.e. méiyǒu or mou5). When overt aspectual marking is present, Chapter 3 shows that bù and m4 are incompatible with aspectual marking across the board, while méiyǒu, mou5 and mau5 are only compatible with experiential aspect; the incompatibility is found weaker with imperfective aspects. With a review of existing proposals for the negation-aspect compatibility, Chapter 5 argues that the sensitivity to aspect is stemmed from the exceptionally low position of the aspectual markers in V, hence the featural composition of the aspectual markers will determine their compatibility with negation. Precisely, the aspectual markers are argued to encode definiteness (a la Ramchand 2008a, b) and only indefinite aspects are compatible with negation involving méiyǒu, mou5 or mau5 since definite aspects impose existential presupposition on the predicates which clashes with the non-existence semantics of the negators. Bù and m4, on the other hand, are not compatible with any aspectual marking in standard negation, as the aspectual marker on V prohibits the presence of [Hab] feature which the generic operator in bù and m4 probes for. Therefore, the Chinese varieties display a typologically distinct type of definiteness encoding, where definiteness is not encoded by articles or case morphology in the nominal system, but realised in the verbal domain as aspectual distinctions. The dissertation, therefore, resolves the well-known Chinese negation puzzle with novel generalisations based on systematic, original comparative synchronic and diachronic data, which contribute important empirical and theoretical implications to Chinese linguistics and beyond, particularly regarding the clausal-nominal parallel

Acquiring Spanish at the Interfaces: An Integrative Approach to the L2 Acquisition of Psych-Verbs

This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of the L2 acquisition of Spanish psych-verbs (e.g. gustar `to like') across four different proficiency levels. In particular, psych-verbs constitute a testing ground for the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace and Filiaci, 2006; Tsimpli, Sorace, Heycok & Filiaci, 2004; Sorace, Serratrice, Filiaci & Baldo, 2009; inter alia), one of the most influential theories in current generative second language acquisition. Its main claim is that properties that hinge on external interfaces (i.e. those that require the interaction between a linguistic module and a cognitive module) are more problematic for learners than those that do not hinge on that interface (i.e. internal interfaces/narrow syntax). In order to assess the empirical adequacy of the IH, this project encompasses five experiments that test different syntactic properties of psych predicates as well as phenomena that belong to both internal and external interfaces. The results of this study indicate that clitic and verb agreement is the most problematic aspect of psych-verb acquisition in accordance with the previous literarture in the field (e.g. Montrul, 1998, 2001). As for the issue of interfaces, this project is only partially consistent with the proposals of the IH. Whereas external interfaces present a certain level of difficulty for some groups of L2 learners, the low-proficiency participants are sensitive to pragmatic factors in spite of their lack of mastery of the morphosyntax of these constructions. Thus, external interfaces are problematic for L2ers but not more so than internal interfaces. Additionally it is not a necessary condition that syntax will precede the understanding of pragmatic phenomena. Instead, pragmatics can come for free in L2 acquisition while the learner still struggles with the target syntactic templates. Because of these inconsistencies with the IH, I turned to a more articulated model, the Integrative Model of Bilingual Acquisition (Pires & Rothman, 2011), that accounts for the differences between native and non-native speakers by resorting to the interplay of a series of factors (i.e. formal complexity, L1-L2 parameter mapping, processing resources and primary linguistic data). I argue that this more sophisticated model not only is able to more successfully account for the patterns found in this dissertation but it is also a more integrated explanation for the intricacies of the acquisition process.Doctor of Philosoph

Syntax inside the grammar

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions on the relation of syntax to other aspects of grammar and linguistics more generally, including studies on language acquisition, variation and change, and syntactic interfaces. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in synchronic and diachronic comparative syntax ranging from the core verbal domain to higher, propositional domains

Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Semantik

Sinn & Bedeutung - the annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Semantik - aims to bring together both established researchers and new blood working on current issues in natural language semantics, pragmatics, the syntax-semantics interface, the philosophy of language or carrying out psycholinguistic studies related to meaning. Every year, the conference moves to a different location in Europe. The 2010 conference - Sinn & Bedeutung 15 - took place on September 9 - 11 at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, organized by the Department for German Studies

Syntactic architecture and its consequences I

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions on the relation of syntax to other aspects of grammar and linguistics more generally, including studies on language acquisition, variation and change, and syntactic interfaces. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in synchronic and diachronic comparative syntax ranging from the core verbal domain to higher, propositional domains. This book is complemented by volume II available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/276 and volume III available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/277

Building Meaning in Navajo

This dissertation contributes to the growing tradition of work in which detailed exploration of understudied languages informs formal semantic and syntactic theory and probes the tension between crosslinguistic grammatical variation and crosslinguistic commonality in communicative goals. The dissertation focuses on two topics in Navajo (Diné Bizaad): (i) attitudes of \u27thinking\u27 and \u27desiring\u27 and (ii) the expression of adjectival meaning and degree constructions. The first part of the dissertation presents the methodological and linguistic background for the rest of the dissertation. Chapter 1 discusses the project of crosslinguistic semantic research and fieldwork methodology. Chapter 2 gives a broad introduction to the Navajo language and the literature which has explored it. The second part of the dissertation focuses on the expression of attitudes in Navajo. Chapter 3 presents an empirically rich description of the morphological, syntactic, and semantic characteristics of Navajo sentences that report distinct attitudes of \u27thinking\u27 and \u27desiring\u27 despite containing the same attitude verb, nisin Chapter 4 argues that the meaning of the embedded clause --- not nisin --- determines what attitude is reported. The exploration of Navajo is guided by investigation of English and German attitude reports begun by Kratzer (2006, 2013a) and developed by Moulton (2009, 2015). These authors develop a fully compositional account that presents an alternative to familiar verb-driven analyses of attitude reports; in their account, key aspects of the semantics of attitude reports come from material in the embedded clause. It is argued here that Navajo is a limiting case within the empirical landscape explored by Kratzer and Moulton, in which the attitude verb only determines the attitude holder. The third part of the dissertation (Chapter 5) builds on work published as Bogal-Allbritten (2013) and investigates the syntax and semantics of Navajo adjectival expressions and degree constructions, e.g. comparative and equative constructions. Chapter 5 argues that while all Navajo adjectival expressions have the same semantic type, their syntactic structure differs depending on the morphology they bear. The proposed syntactic heterogeneity explains differences in degree constructions which contain adjectival expressions of different morphological shapes

Multiword expressions

Multiword expressions (MWEs) are a challenge for both the natural language applications and the linguistic theory because they often defy the application of the machinery developed for free combinations where the default is that the meaning of an utterance can be predicted from its structure. There is a rich body of primarily descriptive work on MWEs for many European languages but comparative work is little. The volume brings together MWE experts to explore the benefits of a multilingual perspective on MWEs. The ten contributions in this volume look at MWEs in Bulgarian, English, French, German, Maori, Modern Greek, Romanian, Serbian, and Spanish. They discuss prominent issues in MWE research such as classification of MWEs, their formal grammatical modeling, and the description of individual MWE types from the point of view of different theoretical frameworks, such as Dependency Grammar, Generative Grammar, Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Lexicon Grammar

Recent Advances in Research on Island Phenomena

In natural languages, filler-gap dependencies can straddle across an unbounded distance. Since the 1960s, the term “island” has been used to describe syntactic structures from which extraction is impossible or impeded. While examples from English are ubiquitous, attested counterexamples in the Mainland Scandinavian languages have continuously been dismissed as illusory and alternative accounts for the underlying structure of such cases have been proposed. However, since such extractions are pervasive in spoken Mainland Scandinavian, these languages may not have been given the attention that they deserve in the syntax literature. In addition, recent research suggests that extraction from certain types of island structures in English might not be as unacceptable as previously assumed either. These findings break new empirical ground, question perceived knowledge, and may indeed have substantial ramifications for syntactic theory. This volume provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on island phenomena primarily in English and the Scandinavian languages, focusing on how languages compare to English, with the aim to shed new light on the nature of island constraints from different theoretical perspectives