6,549 research outputs found
Sluicing phenomena
The paper shows that in various sluicing types, the wh-phrase in the sluicing sentence as well as its relatum in the antecedent clause must be F-marked, and it explains this observation with Schwarzschild's (1999) and Merchant's (1999) focus theory. According to the semantics of the wh-phrase, it will argue that the relatum of the wh-phrase is an indefinite expression that must allow a specific interpretation. Following Heusinger (1997, 2000), specificity will be defined as an anchoring relation between the discourse referent introduced by the indefinite expression and a discourse given item. Because specific indefinite expressions are always novel, contexts like the scope of definite DPs, the scope of thematic matrix predicates, and the scope of downward-monotonic quantifiers which all exhibit non-novel indefinites do not allow sluicing
On Adversative Coordinative Conjunctions
Adversative coordinative conjunctions necessarily involve a contrast between two elements related to the utterances they coordinate. Contrast is a heterogeneous concept. In this article, three types of contrast are identified: restrictive, corrective and additive. These types give rise to three different readings of the adversative coordinative conjunctions. In this work, a semantic function for each type of contrast is proposed, and the presuppositional character of restrictive contrast is defended. These hypotheses lead us towards the discourses in which the coordinative adversative conjuncts are inserted. The discourse has to contain alternatives such that when the type of contrast is not univocally lexicalized, the alternatives will guide the interpretation of the conjunction
To get or to be? Use and acquisition of get- versus be- passives: evidence from children and adults
The use and acquisition of the get-passive has so far yielded a variety of accounts and suggestions. This paper presents new experimental evidence concerning the use and the acquisition of the get-passive by children, as well as adult judgments of get- and be-passives. Within a prototype approach to the passive, experiments investigated when 2â4-year-old British children produce get- as opposed to be-passives. The role of direct affectedness of the patient on
get-passive production was investigated further in a follow-up experiment. In addition to the child data, ratings of get- and be-passives were obtained from British English adult speakers to investigate the acceptability of these passives and their relationship to developmental data. The
first experiment showed that the chosen prototype approach clearly predicts childrenâs acquisition of be-passives with get-passives being more peripheral members of the category
âpassiveâ than be-passives. The second study shows that even if the child herself is the affected patient in the play action, get-passives are only rarely produced. In contrast to American children, direct affectedness did not induce British children to produce a significant amount of getpassives. Last, adult ratings confirm that British English speakers rate be-passives consistently as better examples of passive sentences than get-passives. The evidence suggests that getpassives are more peripheral for British than for American children and adults. Implications for the possible role of parental input and the validity of existing accounts of the get-passive are discussed
Grammaticalisation processes in Flemish sign language
Following Hopper & Traugott (2003 [1993]: 232), grammaticalisation can be defined
as âthe change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain
linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized,
continue to develop new grammatical functions.â Grammaticalisation processes
have not been studied very extensively in sign languages yet. Pfau & Steinbach
(2006) give a very interesting survey of studies that have focused on grammaticalisation
processes in sign languages, but Flemish Sign Language (VGT) was not
one of them. Within the Deaf community in Flanders about 5000 - 6000 people
(Loots et al. 2003) claim to have Flemish Sign Language as their first or principal
language. After lengthy negotiations, VGT was officially recognized by the
Flemish Parliament in April 2006. VGT clearly is a fully-fledged sign language
in its own right, and is genealogically related to amongst others French-Belgian
Sign Language (LSBF), French Sign Language (LSF), American Sign Language
(ASL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). The common ancestor of
these daughter sign languages is Old French Sign Language (OFSL). However,
it is impossible to use historical data to look at grammaticalisation paths since
there simply are very few historical grammatical data as OFSL was never written
down. Consequently, the method to be used is that of internal reconstruction
which is a procedure for inferring part of the history of a language from material
available for a synchronic description of the language on the basis of paradigmatic
allomorphy
The universality of categories and meaning: a Coserian perspective
Studies in linguistic typology have challenged the idea that languages can be analyzed in terms of a set of preestablished universal categories. Each language should instead be described âin its own terms,â a view consistent with the âoldâ structuralist paradigm in linguistics. The renewed orientation toward differences between languages raises two questions: (i) How do we identify the meanings which are assumed to be crosslinguistically comparable? (ii) What is the relationship between language-particular categories and comparative concepts commonly used in linguistic typology? To answer these questions, this article focuses on a number of distinctions advocated by Eugenio Coseriu (1921â2002). Coseriu distinguishes three levels of meaning (designation, âsignifiĂ©s,â and sense) and three types of universals (essential, empirical, and possible universals). Their relevance for linguistic typology is discussed with regard to the expression of possession and a particular diathesis in Japanese, viz. ukemi or âindirect passive.â As well as relating language-particular categories and comparative concepts, Coseriuâs approach offers a promising avenue to account for the ways language-specific meanings interact with extralinguistic knowledge and contents of discourse and texts, which are the object of translation
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