A comparative analysis of three-place predicates in Lakhota within the RRG framework

This paper provides a Role and Reference Grammar (hereafter RRG) (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997) study of transitivity in Lakhota, putting special emphasis on the analysis of three-place predicates and the coding alternations they enter into. Since there exists a reasonable range of typological variation regarding the realization of this type of predicates morpho-syntactically, the main aim of this paper will be the classification of this language into one of the three major ditransitive alignment types posited by Dryer (1986) on the basis of which of the two semantic roles, that is, the Patient or Recipient, is treated like the monotransitive Undergoer. In order to achieve this goal, some obstacles concerning the fact that Lakhota is a pronominal-argument language and, consequently, all their obligatory arguments appear coded as pronominal affixes within the verb will have to be overcome. In the final section, a representation of the bidirectional linking algorithm will be offered in order to confirm the validity of this theory to represent comparable structures in different languages in an analogous way.Este artículo proporciona un estudio de la transitividad en Lakhota de acuerdo con el marco de la Gramática del Papel y la Referencia (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997), haciendo hincapié en el análisis de predicados triádicos y las alternancias de codificación que admiten. Debido a que existe bastante variación tipológica en cuanto a la realización de este tipo de predicados morfo-sintácticamente, el principal objetivo de este trabajo será la clasificación de esta lengua en uno de los tres tipos más importantes de alineamiento ditransitivo propuestos por Dryer (1986) teniendo en cuenta cuál de los dos papeles semánticos, es decir, Paciente o Recipiente, es tratado como el Padecedor monotransitivo. Para lograr esta meta, algunos obstáculos relacionados con el hecho de que el Lakhota es una lengua de argumento pronominal y, como consecuencia, todos sus argumentos obligatorios aparecen codificados como afijos pronominales dentro del verbo tendrán que ser superados. En la sección final, se ofrecerá una representación del algoritmo de enlace bidireccional para confirmar la validez de esta teoría para representar estructuras comparables en diferentes lenguas de forma análoga

A study of DOM in asturian ('Dialectu Vaqueiru')

The present paper explores Differential Object Marking in a variety of Asturian (Western Iberian Romance) spoken in western Asturias (northwestern Spain). This ancestral form of speech stands out from Central Asturian and especially from Standard Spanish. For a number of reasons, ranging from profound changes in pronunciation, vocabulary, morphology and information structure to slight but very relevant effects on syntax. The main goal of this study is to examine the special marking of direct objects in order to find out what triggers the distribution of Differential Object Marking in this variety. To this aim, this paper will examine, from a variationist perspective, the influence of a number of semantic and discourse-pragmatic parameters on the marking of direct objects in this Western Asturian language as well as in Standard Spanish 1 and Central Asturian (which is generally considered the normative variety of Asturian). The results obtained from this comparison will allow us to outline the differences between these three varieties in terms of object marking, shedding more light on the origin and function of Differential Object Marking in Spanish

The Asturian language and the evolution of Romance clausal structure

Over the past few years, the comprehensive study of syntactic variation across both the Germanic and the Romance branches of languages in relation to the unmarked word order pattern has meant a more in-depth knowledge of the nature of the verb-second phenomenon – an extremely intricate typological concept because of the complex factors that give rise to such a word order restriction. The aim of this paper is to investigate word order phenomena in the Asturian language (Romance, Western Iberian: Spain) from a comparative perspective1 by examining the word order patterns found in a number of documents written over the course of two centuries, with a view to determining what constitutes the unmarked word order and gaining a better understanding of its core syntax. Such a study has entailed collating research on the verb-first, verb-second and subjectverb- object orders. Finally, it aims to shed more light on the evolutionary development of the Romance language

A Role And Reference account of interrogative sentences In Lakhota

This article has investigated interrogative sentences in Lakhota within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (hereafter RRG) (Van Valin, 1995; Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997), with the aim of explaining their structure as well as finding out the restrictions on ´wh´-question formation that this language exhibits. By means of this study, we will be able to verify the close relationship that also exists between the interrogative words and the indefinite pronouns in this language, see the constraints on linking in simple ´wh´-questions and give an account of the subjacency effects that block the formation of ´wh´-questions involving complex constructions. All in all, this paper will show the remarkable role that the interplay between several syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features plays in the formation of interrogative sentences, hence it will prove that the RRG analysis provides an adequate explanatory account of the structure of interrogative sentences and also of the restrictions on extraction phenomena. This is very relevant because it demonstrates that these restrictions can be accounted for through the interaction of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, rather than simply through syntactic movement rules

The structure of content questions in Cheyenne

This article has as its main goal to investigate interrogative sentences in Cheyenne and therefore adds to the diversity of such analyses found in other Algonquian languages. This paper attempts to provide evidence that content questions in this language differ in structure depending on the status of the questioned element as an argument or adjunct and that content questions involving an interrogative pronoun are bi-clausal, as they exhibit a cleftlike structure such that the fronted ‘wh’-word functions as the stative predicate of a copular clause that is generated sentence-initially encoding the focus of the construction. By contrast, content questions requiring an interrogative adverb are mono-clausal and exhibit ‘wh’-movement in the traditional sense, that is through ‘wh’-fronting. Thus, this paper intends to contribute to the long-standing discussion on whether Algonquian ‘wh’-questions have a mono-clausal structure, involving traditional ‘wh’-movement or a bi-clausal structure, exhibiting ‘wh’-cleftin

A Functional Discourse Grammar account of voice in Plains Algonquian Languages

Algonquian languages have always attracted considerable interest due to their rich and complex grammar, and this paper offers an account of voice in Plains Algonquian languages (USA) within the theoretical framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld 2004; Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2006, 2008). One of the main reasons why the study of this grammatical phenomenon seems so interesting is because it concerns every grammatical level (especially, the morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels). Thus, the main purpose of the paper is, firstly, to explore the correlation between the pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic properties of a passive-style construction in these Algonquian languages; secondly, I analyse how the Functional Discourse Grammar model represents this interaction; and thirdly, I examine the possible mismatches that arise from the correspondence between levels. Finally, the findings will serve to shed light on whether the Algonquian direct / inverse distinction should be treated in the same manner as the active / passive voice alternation. This theory has been chosen because it is strongly typologically-oriented, concerns both sentence grammar and discourse structure, and, consequently, seems ideally suited to the study of voice in Plains Algonquian language

An account of the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English

Unlike Standard English, Celtic English varieties generally use word order shifts or special syntactic devices to give emphasis to a specific clausal constituent. This study analyses the frequency of use of focusing devices in a number of Cornish English stories and compares the results with those obtained in other studies for other Celtic English varieties. Likewise, this paper attempts to provide an explanation for why Cornish English shows a preference for fronting over clefting by referring to the structure of focal constructions in Cornish. Finally, this paper offers an account of the discourse-pragmatic functions of fronting and clefting in Cornish English and compares them with those found in Standard English to provide evidence in support of its Celtic substratu

Layers and operators in Lakota

Categories covering the expression of grammatical information such as aspect, negation, tense, mood, modality, etc., are crucial to the study of language universals. In this study, I will present an analysis of the syntax and semantics of these grammatical categories in Lakota within the Role and Reference Grammar framework (hereafter RRG) (Van Valin 1993, 2005; Van Valin and LaPolla 1997), a functional approach in which elements with a purely grammatical function are treated as ´operators`. Many languages mark Aspect-Tense- Mood/Modality information (henceforth ATM) either morphologically or syntactically. Unlike most Native American languages, which exhibit an extremely complex verbal morphological system indicating this grammatical information, Lakota, a Siouan language with a mildly synthetic / partially agglutinative morphology, expresses information relating to ATM through enclitics, auxiliary verbs and adverbs, rather than by coding it through verbal affixes

Tracing the development of intercultural competence in telecollaborative interaction: An analysis of evaluative language in eTandem exchanges

Numerous studies have been conducted into telecollaborative eTandem exchanges and their potential to foster the development of participants’ intercultural competence. These studies have included content analyses of learner interaction, end-of-project questionnaires, interviews and attitudinal surveys. However, studies that analyse the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration through a linguistically grounded approach are still scarce. To address this gap in the literature, in this chapter we analyse how forty American and Spanish university students used evaluative language in their samples of attitudinal objectives (Byram, 1997) taking Vinagre and Corral’s (2017) data and findings as a starting point for this analysis. Preliminary results show that the participants used similar evaluative tokens both in their interaction and attitudinal objectives, which could be understood as a strategy to converge by adapting to their partners’ communicative practicesThis research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (EDU2014-54673R