Textual Economy through Close Coupling of Syntax and Semantics

We focus on the production of efficient descriptions of objects, actions and events. We define a type of efficiency, textual economy, that exploits the hearer's recognition of inferential links to material elsewhere within a sentence. Textual economy leads to efficient descriptions because the material that supports such inferences has been included to satisfy independent communicative goals, and is therefore overloaded in Pollack's sense. We argue that achieving textual economy imposes strong requirements on the representation and reasoning used in generating sentences. The representation must support the generator's simultaneous consideration of syntax and semantics. Reasoning must enable the generator to assess quickly and reliably at any stage how the hearer will interpret the current sentence, with its (incomplete) syntax and semantics. We show that these representational and reasoning requirements are met in the SPUD system for sentence planning and realization.Comment: 10 pages, uses QobiTree.te

Usage Effects on the Cognitive Routinization of Chinese Resultative Verbs

The present study adopts a corpus-oriented usage-based approach to the grammar of Chinese resultative verbs. Zooming in on a specific class of V-kai constructions, this paper aims to elucidate the effect of frequency in actual usage events on shaping the linguistic representations of resultative verbs. Specifically, it will be argued that while high token frequency results in more lexicalized V-kai complex verbs, high type frequency gives rise to more schematized V-kai constructions. The routinized patterns pertinent to V-kai resultative verbs varying in their extent of specificity and generality accordingly serve as a representative illustration of the continuum between lexicon and grammar that characterizes a usage-based conception of language

Grain levels in English path curvature descriptions and accompanying iconic gestures

This paper confirms that the English verb system (similar to the Finnish, Dutch and Bulgarian verb systems [22], [17]) represents path curvature at three different grain levels: neutral path curvature, global path curvature and local path curvature. We show that the three-grain-level hypothesis makes it possible to formulate constraints on English sentence structure and makes it possible to define constructions in English that refer to path curvature. We furthermore demonstrate in an experiment that the proposed English lexicalization pattern regarding path curvature in tandem with the spatial information shown to English speakers correctly predicts their packaging of grain levels in iconic gestures. We conclude that the data studied confirm Nikanne and Van der Zee’s *22] three-grain-level hypothesis in relation to English and Kita and Özyürek’s [11] Interface Hypothesis in relation to gesture production

On how 'middle' plus 'associative/reciprocal' became 'passive' in the Bantu A70 languages

In this paper we show that the Bantu A70 languages did not preserve the passive morpheme inherited from Proto-Bantu (PB), but developed a new suffix. It is a morpheme that is compound in origin, consisting of two verbal derivation suffixes which still function independently in today's languages as a middle marker and an associative/reciprocal marker respectively, though with variable degrees of productivity. The genesis of a passive marker from the stacking of two pre-existing suffixes is a typologically rare evolution path, but it fits in with a wider Bantu phenomenon of double verb extensions which develop non-compositional meanings. Especially double extensions involving the Proto-Bantu associative/reciprocal marker *-an- tend to develop such idiosyncratic meanings. This suffix is also one of the constituents of the Bantu A70 passive marker Nevertheless, even within Bantu, the emergence of a productive passive marker from such double extension is unique. In this paper, we argue that the notion of co-participation may account for the rising of this passive meaning out of the stacking of the common Bantu associative/reciprocal suffix to a common Bantu middle suffix. The semantic development of this compound suffix fix (and its historical constituents) happened within the semantic continuum that links reciprocals, reflexives, middles and passives in many languages of the world, but did not necessarily follow the typologically common reflexive > reciprocal > middle > passive cline

The middle as a voice category in Bantu : setting the stage for further research

The main goal of our paper is to give a first, general description of middle voice in Bantu. As will be shown, this language group has a set of verbal derivational morphemes that challenges some of the concepts related to the middle domain. First of all, as of yet no description has been found of a language having more than one middle marker, yet many Bantu languages have up to four or five derivational morphemes that cover several parts of the semantic domain of the middle. Secondly, provided that the polysemy patterns of these morphemes only partially cover what is generally considered the “canonical” middle domain, we will call these “quasi-middle” markers. The fact that these verbal morphemes also convey notions that are usually not considered to belong to the domain of the canonical middle calls for a reassessment of what constitutes the semantic core of this voice category cross-linguistically. Although the theoretical implications of these new data are not the central focus of our paper, the basic description that we aim to provide of the middle in Bantu can nevertheless contribute to further discussion on this intricate voice category

A Cognitive Grammar Analysis of the Semantics of the Russian Verbal Prefix na-

The Russian verbal prefix na- is one of a set of aspectual prefixes that exhibit characteristics of both derivational and inflectional morphemes. In addition to forming aspectual pairs as a grammatical marker of Perfective aspect, na-, in many cases, also carries lexical meaning; in these cases, na-prefixation changes the lexical/semantic meaning of the verbal stem, resulting in a distinct lexical item. I examine a sample of 40 verbs to compare the frequencies of na- as a lexicalized prefix and as a grammaticalized prefix. I then propose a radial category model to account for the polysemous functions of na-, with several metonymically and metaphorically related functions branching out from a single spatial prototype

How typology allows for a new analysis of the verb phrase in Burmese

International audienceBurmese has been studied by westerner scholars since 18e century. Recent works containing good description of the language (or part of the language) are Allott (1965), Okell (1969), Bernot (1980), Wheatley (1982), Bernot et al (2001), Allott &. Okell (2001). However comparison of the description made by these authors leads to different analysis of the verbal phrase. For instance the list of optional verbal morphemes (particles and auxiliaries) varies depending of the criteria used by the author for his analysis. Moreover, as in many Asian languages, groups of verbs not separated by connectors exist in Burmese. These verbal phrases composed by several verb roots have identical form in surface. However, they cannot be analyzed in the same way. They can correspond to lexical expressions, or compounds and be listed in dictionaries. The verbal phrase may be analyzed as a prototypical serial verbs construction (SVC), here is to say, part of one clause only which refers to a unique event. Third possibility : some of the verb roots can be grammaticalized and be considered as auxiliaries. Given the identical surface forms and the different under-laying structures, we look for a model allowing us to treat together phenomenon traditionally analyzed separately. Therefore, the notion of serial verbs construction (CVS) recently developed by Déchaine (1993), Durie (1997) or, Aikhenvald & Dixon (in press) among others help us to build the adequate frame for a more global approach of the VP in Burmese

L1 transfer in the acquisition of manner and path in Spanish by native speakers of English

In this article the authors argue that L1 transfer from English is not only important in the early stages of L2 acquisition of Spanish, but remains influential in later stages if there is not enough positive evidence for the learners to progress in their development (Lefebvre, White, & Jourdan, 2006). The findings are based on analyses of path and manner of movement in stories told by British students of Spanish (N = 68) of three different proficiency levels. Verbs that conflate motion and path, on the one hand, are mastered early, possibly because the existence of Latinate path verbs, such as enter and ascend in English, facilitate their early acquisition by British learners of Spanish. Contrary to the findings of Cadierno (2004) and Cadierno and Ruiz (2006), the encoding of manner, in particular in boundary crossing contexts, seems to pose enormous difficulties, even among students who had been abroad on a placement in a Spanish-speaking country prior to the data collection. An analysis of the frequency of manner verbs in Spanish corpora shows that one of the key reasons why students struggle with manner is that manner verbs are so infrequent in Spanish. The authors claim that scarce positive evidence in the language exposed to and little or no negative evidence are responsible for the long-lasting effect of transfer on the expression of manner

The Development of Czech Aspectual Prefixes Through Grammaticalization and Lexicalization Processes

This masters thesis investigates the development of aspectual prefixes in Czech. The analysis in this work incorporates diachronic and synchronic perspectives and presents a theory about the path of development of aspectual prefixes in the framework of construction grammar. It draws from a central notion that grammar emerges from discourse and argues that the development of aspectual prefixes in Czech was fundamentally based in language use and processing. The synchronic layering of prefixed predicates in Czech provides evidence that the development of aspectual prefixes progressed gradually and suggests that grammaticalization and lexicalization processes took place. The analysis in this study is based on the assumption that major stages of development are attested in the synchronic layering of aspectual prefixes. Synchronic layering is transparent in semantically distinct types of prefixed predicate constructions. The semantic analysis of aspectual prefixes suggests that prefixed predicates can be categorized in relation to their characteristic stages of development. The semantic classification of prefixed predicates with prefixes za-, na-, po-, and do- defines six predicate types and studies their distributional properties in order to identify distinct developmental stages of aspectual prefixes in the Czech National Corpus. The semantic and distributional properties of predicate types present evidence that aspectual prefixes developed unidirectionally through grammaticalization and lexicalization processes. This thesis illustrates the general path of development and maps each aspectual prefix that was analyzed onto this path. It concludes that aspectual prefixes in Czech developed along the same path; however, they reflect distinct stages of development. The semantic classification of predicate types is supported by a phonological analysis of vowel durations in aspectual prefixes. The phonological analysis establishes that speakers of Czech have distinct mental representations of vowels in aspectual prefixes that directly relate to the grammaticalization and lexicalization processes hypothesized to have taken place