1,181 research outputs found

    The syntax of manner quotative constructions in English and Dutch

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    This paper proposes an account of some properties of the manner quotative constructions be like [Quote] in English and hebben (zo)iets van [Quote] in Dutch. We make two main claims about these constructions. First, in the spirit of Rothstein’s (1999) proposal for adjectival predicates of copula be, we propose that eventive direct speech interpretations of these quotatives are derived via a coercion mechanism akin to those that make count readings out of mass nouns in the nominal domain. Second, adapting a proposal for be like originally made by Kayne (2007), we propose that some exceptional syntactic properties of be like as a quote introducer in English are explained by the presence of a silent something quantifier, which takes a like-headed PP as its complement. We compare English be like quotatives with innovative (zo)iets van quotative constructions in Dutch, which contain an overt something quantifier and behave similarly

    Implicit internal arguments, event structure, predication and anaphoric reference

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    International audienceThis chapter deals with zero or implicit internal arguments of predicates which may take one or two internal arguments, realizable syntactically. It begins by distinguishing implicit (internal) arguments in terms of a predicate's semantic valency in relation to the syntactic valency of the verb or adjective corresponding to that predicate (§2), and continues with an attempt to distinguish three semantic or discourse-referential values assumable by null complements (§3). Section 4 then examines one of the three sub-types of null complement isolated in §3 (the contextually-definite anaphoric subtype), in an attempt to make precise its anaphoric potential, as compared with that of unaccented 3rd person personal pronouns. It is shown that this is a function of an interaction amongst the event-type designated by the clause as a whole, the host predicate's selection restrictions, the choice of zero vs. overt pronoun as complement, and wider contextual factors. Finally, section 5 examines the role of the host predication as a whole in the functioning of non-referential and anaphoric null complements, and attempts to arrive at certain generalisations licensing the possible occurrence of null complements bearing the three types of values isolated

    Subjects, Topics, and Anchoring to the Context

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    The article discusses the connection between the syntactic and semantic properties of weak, strong, and referential DP subjects. In particular, I argue that nominal expressions possess a situation argument and that their interpretation and their distribution follow from the presuppositional requirements that the determiner imposes on the individual argument and situation argument of its complement nominal. These presuppositional requirements, I then argue, are embodied by local relations of the subject to a distinct head in the C domain, Fin(0) in the system of Rizzi 1997, where specific referential values of discourse antecedents are accessible

    Indirect Reports in Modern Eastern Armenian

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    In this work we consider the distribution of complementizers in Modern Eastern Armenian. There are two complementizers: wor and t‘e. They both introduce complement clauses, but t‘e also expresses a dubitative value, implying that the speaker has doubts on the content following the complementizer. Moreover, t‘e, when embedded under verbs of saying, shifts the anchoring of indexicals, moving the anchor from the speaker – better called utterer – to the subject of the saying predicate. On the basis of this and further evidence coming from the analysis of sequence of tense and if-clauses, we will argue that the position of t‘e in the left periphery of the clause occupies a high position in the syntactic hierarchy. The aim of this work is on one hand, a better understanding of indirect reports and their syntax and, on the other, a more precise characterization of indexicals across languages

    Papers on predicative constructions : Proceedings of the workshop on secundary predication, October 16-17, 2000, Berlin

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    This volume presents a collection of papers touching on various issues concerning the syntax and semantics of predicative constructions. A hot topic in the study of predicative copula constructions, with direct implications for the treatment of he (how many he's do we need?), and wider implications for the theories of predication, event-based semantics and aspect, is the nature and source of the situation argument. Closer examination of copula-less predications is becoming increasingly relevant to all these issues, as is clearly illustrated by the present collection

    Indexical Expressions: Syntax and Context

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    Indexicals are those expressions in natural language–such as I, you, here, and now–whose reference varies with occasion of use, picking out individuals in virtue of their contextual roles. Although analyses of the semantics of indexicals have been advanced–most notably by Kaplan–their syntax has heretofore been largely ignored. This dissertation puts forth a theory of the syntax of indexical expressions, within the framework of generative grammar, and proposes a new model of the formal context for natural language. The central argument against prior accounts of indexicals is that such theories draw the distinction between the first and second person pronouns versus third person incorrectly. Evidence for syntactic uniformity –that first, second and third person expressions are individuated in the same way–is presented in chapter 2. It is concluded that Kaplan\u27s notion of character as a semantic function from context to individual is theoretically inadequate. Hypothesized instead is syntactic orientation, a function that operates at the syntactic level of logical form, the output of which is not individuals but syntactic indices. The resulting proposed structure of the formal context is thus two-tiered; the syntactic input to the semantic component is uniform across first, second and third person expressions. Analysis of the switch phenomenon in chapters 3 and 4 lends support to the syntactic orientation hypothesis. A natural account of switch is advanced within Fiengo and May\u27s dependency theory, through the assumption that dependencies may occur among syntactic orientations. The existence of two derivational levels at logical form–as proposed in the new model–is revealed to be crucial to the explanation of more complicated switch data. Additionally, evidence is presented that oriented sentences are the structure of choice in the making of expressive utterances such as speech acts. In chapter 5, syntactic orientation is shown to provide a natural way of describing the pronominal systems across languages. Furthermore, the new model is generalized to include non-pronominals, yielding a general theory of indexical expressions. Finally, demonstrative expressions are defined with respect to indexicals, with which they are argued to be in complementary distribution

    African linguistics on the prairie

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    African Linguistics on the Prairie features select revised peer-reviewed papers from the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the University of Kansas. The articles in this volume reflect the enormous diversity of African languages, as they focus on languages from all of the major African language phyla. The articles here also reflect the many different research perspectives that frame the work of linguists in the Association for Contemporary African Linguistics. The diversity of views presented in this volume are thus indicative of the vitality of current African linguistics research. The work presented in this volume represents both descriptive and theoretical methodologies and covers fields ranging from phonetics, phonology, morphology, typology, syntax, and semantics to sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, language acquisition, computational linguistics and beyond. This broad scope and the quality of the articles contained within holds out the promise of continued advancement in linguistic research on African languages

    The Blackfoot demonstrative system: Function, form, and meaning

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    This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the Blackfoot demonstrative system. Previous research on Blackfoot (Uhlenbeck 1938, Taylor 1969, Frantz 2009) identifies sixteen morphemes that make up demonstrative words in the language. I propose a demonstrative template that takes into account the fixed morpheme ordering observed in demonstrative forms. Based on the proposed template, I motivate the analysis of the suffix -ka as encoding motion towards the speaker as this accounts for its position together with the suffixes -ya, -ma, and -hka, each of which encode features of motion or visibility. In describing situational functions of each of the morphemes, I make use of Imai’s (2003) inventory of spatial deictic features. I present the first analysis of the morphologically analyzable, but heretofore undescribed suffix -o as encoding the geometric configuration feature [interior]. This thesis also offers the first explanation of the syntactic contexts that govern the two identificational suffixes -ayi and -ao’ka. Earlier analyses of the Blackfoot demonstrative system focus on the spatial features encoded by situational uses of demonstratives to the exclusion of other pragmatic functions. As a result, the proposals do not address variations in meaning when used in non-situational pragmatic contexts. To address this gap in the literature, I examine non-situational pragmatic functions, as well as symbolic situational demonstrative uses (e.g. deictic projection, wider-context). The result of this study is a comprehensive analysis of the Blackfoot demonstrative system which takes into account both syntactic and pragmatic functions, providing new insights into the meanings of many of the morphemes that comprise the system. It also provides support from Blackfoot for Himmelmann’s (1996) claim that there are four universal pragmatic functions of demonstratives, and support for Diessel’s (1999) claim that situational uses are the basic demonstrative uses from which the others are derived

    Az adverbiumok mondattani és jelentéstani kérdései = The syntax and syntax-semantics interface of adverbial modification

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    A határozószók és a határozók alaktani, mondattani és funkcionális kérdéseit vizsgáltuk a generatív nyelvelmélet keretében, főként magyar anyag alapján. Olyan leírásra törekedtünk, melyből a különféle határozófajták mondattani viselkedése, hatóköre, valamint hangsúlyozása egyaránt következik. A különféle határozótípusok PP-ként való elemzésének lehetőségét bizonyítottuk. A határozók mondatbeli elhelyezése tekintetében a specifikálói pozíció (Cinque 1999) ellen és az adjunkciós elemzés (Ernst 2002) mellett érveltünk. Megmutattuk, hogy a határozók szórendjének levezetéséhez bal- és jobboldali adjunkció feltételezése egyaránt szükséges. A különféle határozófajták szórendi helyét mondattani, jelentéstani és prozódiai tényezők összjátékával magyaráztuk. A jelentéstani tényezők között pl. a határozók inkorporálhatóságát korlátozó típusmegszorítást, a negatív határozók kötelező fókuszálását előidéző skaláris megszorítást, egyes határozófajták és igefajták komplex eseményszerkezetének inkompatibilitását vizsgáltuk. Az ige mögötti határozók szórendjét befolyásoló prozódiai tényező például a növekvő összetevők törvénye. Megfigyeltük az intonációskifejezés- újraelemzés kiváltódásának feltételeit és jelentéstani következményeit is. A helyhatározói igekötők egy típusát a mozgatási láncok sajátos fonológiai megvalósulásaként (a fonológiailag redukált kópia inkorporációjaként) elemeztük. A tárgykörben mintegy 60 tanulmányt publikáltunk. Adverbs and Adverbial Adjuncts at the Interfaces (489 old.) c. könyvünket kiadja a Mouton de Gruyter (Berlin). | This project has aimed to clarify (on the basis of mainly Hungarian data) basic issues concerning the category "adverb", the function "adverbial", and the grammar of adverbial modification. We have argued for the PP analysis of adverbials, and have claimed that they enter the derivation via left- and right-adjunction. Their merge-in position is determined by the interplay of syntactic, semantic, and prosodic factors. The semantically motivated constraints discussed also include a type restriction affecting adverbials semantically incorporated into the verbal predicate, an obligatory focus position for scalar adverbs representing negative values of bidirectional scales, cooccurrence restrictions between verbs and adverbials involving incompatible subevents, etc. The order and interpretation of adverbials in the postverbal domain is shown to be affected by such phonologically motivated constraints as the Law of Growing Constituents, and by intonation-phrase restructuring. The shape of the light-headed chain arising in the course of locative PP incorporation is determined by morpho-phonological requirements. The types of adverbs and adverbials analyzed include locatives, temporals, comitatives, epistemic adverbs, adverbs of degree, manner, counting, and frequency, quantificational adverbs, and adverbial participles. We have published about 60 studies; our book Adverbs and Adverbial Adjuncts at the Interfaces (pp. 489) is published in the series Interface Explorations of Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin

    The domain of Finiteness: Anchoring without Tense in copular amalgam sentences

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    The central thesis of this work is that a clause consisting only of left-peripheral functional structure can be fully finite. Generative models of clause structure typically assume that a finite clause must be tensed, including a projection of T and a temporal relation between the proposition and the utterance context. In light of evidence from tenseless languages, this assumption has come under scrutiny in recent years. This dissertation offers a new body of evidence from English, a tensed language, in support of the claim that finite clauses can lack the projection of T. Drawing on the results of formal acceptability experiments, this dissertation presents an original investigation of the understudied family of specificational copular amalgam sentences (e.g., She wrote about finiteness is what she did), which differs from canonical specificational copular sentences with respect to a number of syntactic and semantic properties. The most salient of these properties is the occurrence of a root clause in the role of logical and structural subject. I propose that copular amalgam sentences are finite, but their functional spine consists only of the C-domain, lacking projections of T and V. Since C-domain heads can project in the absence of T and V, there can be no implicational relation between higher and lower heads in the functional sequence. Copular amalgams show that finiteness can be reduced to phenomena originating in the left periphery of the clause. These phenomena include [T] and [phi] inflection, the licensing of an independently referential subject, and independent anchoring of the proposition to the utterance context. Independent anchoring, which is typically conflated with temporal anchoring in the T domain, obtains via deixis to the utterance context in finite clauses that lack T. This dissertation has two main contributions: to catalogue the properties of a typologically rare, yet understudied construction, and to challenge the Extended Projections model of the clause
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