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In this paper, we propose a comprehensive account of the paradigms of Frisian verb-classes. Verb-classes in Frisian are an example of a more general phenomenon of inflectional classes that we encounter in many natural languages across the major word classes. Members of different inflectional classes show different paradigms. Traditionally, inflectional classes have been analyzed using class-features (see e.g., Marzi et al. 2020). However, such features suffer from being ad hoc devices that seem to have no other function in the grammar than to code this difference. In the present analysis we propose that the verb stems from different classes show a difference in size. Using phrasal spell-out, we will show that these stems differ in the amount of morpho-syntactic structure that they may realize, rendering class-features superfluous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the syntax and semantics of Old English End verbs on the basis of the framework of verb classes and alternations and the theory of Role and Reference Grammar. The analysis focuses on class membership and includes meaning components and argument realisation--linking in simplex and complex constructions and alternations. The inventory of verbs under analysis comprises ablinnan, ætstandan, blinnan, for(e)sacan, geblinnan, linnan, ofersittan, oflinnan, oðstillan and (ge)trucian. The main conclusion is that the morphologically related verbs ablinnan and blinnan are the strongest candidates for End verbs, given the syntactic constructions and morphosyntactic alternations in which they are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the syntax and semantics of Old English End verbs on the basis of the framework of verb classes and alternations and the theory of Role and Reference Grammar. The analysis focuses on class membership and includes meaning components and argument realisation--linking in simplex and complex constructions and alternations. The inventory of verbs under analysis comprises āblinnan, ætstandan, blinnan, for(e)sacan, geblinnan, linnan, ofersittan, oflinnan, æstillan and (ge)trucian. The main conclusion is that the morphologically related verbs āblinnan and blinnan are the strongest candidates for End verbs, given the syntactic constructions and morphosyntactic alternations in which they are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of the high frequency of occurrence of a verb in a syntactic frame on speakers' selection of that syntactic frame for other verbs. We hypothesize that the frequent co-occurrence of a syntactic frame and a particular verb (what we call an anchor verb) leads to a strong association between the verb and the frame analogous to the relationship between a category and its best exemplar. Our Verb Anchor Hypothesis claims that verbs that are more semantically similar to the anchor are more likely to occur in that syntactic frame than verbs that are less semantically similar to the anchor. We tested the Verb Anchor Hypothesis on the dative alternation which involves the meaning-preserving ditransitive and prepositional frames. A corpus study determined that give was the anchor verb for the ditransitive frame. We then examined whether high semantic similarity to give increases the likelihood of an alternating verb (e.g. to hand) occurring in the ditransitive frame (Mary handed the boy a book) rather than in the prepositional frame (Mary handed a book to the boy). The results of several logistic regression analyses show that semantic similarity to give makes a unique contribution to predicting the choice of the ditransitive frame aside from other factors known to affect syntactic frame selection. Additional analyses suggest that the Verb Anchor Hypothesis might also hold for more narrowly-defined subclasses of alternating verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an eye-tracking experiment that examined argument linking and the role of prominence in Spanish sentence comprehension by testing the interplay between word order and verb type. Previous evidence from a self-paced reading study (Gattei, Dickey, Wainselboim, & París, 2015). showed that comprehenders use morphosyntactic information to form predictions about the thematic structure of the upcoming verb. In this study we focussed on the time course of this process. Results showed an interaction between verb type and word order for late eye movement measures but not for early eye movement measures. Participants regressed more and for longer time when word order did not match the canonical order for each verb class. This interaction is observed from the verb region onwards, independently of word order. We interpret that these effects take place due to the misinterpretation of the prominence status of the preverbal argument, leading to differential reading strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard Dutch and German have two reflexive forms: a weak form ( zich in Dutch and sich in German) and a strong form ( zichzelf in Dutch and sich selbst in German). The choice between the two reflexive forms in Dutch has been explained by the selectional restrictions of the verb, distinguishing between three verb classes: inherently reflexive verbs, accidentally reflexive verbs and transitive verbs. The same three verb classes can be distinguished in German, suggesting that the factors governing reflexive choice in Dutch and German are similar. However, several studies have pointed out that Dutch zich is more restricted in its use than German sich. We used a forced-choice task to test adult Dutch and German participants on their preference for the weak versus strong reflexive form with various verb classes and sentence types. Comparing similar sentences across the two languages, we observe an overall preference for the strong reflexive in Dutch but an overall preference for the weak reflexive in German. Looking at the participants' reflexive choices within each language, we found effects of verb class, syntactic structure (transitive versus ECM constructions) and semantic features. Whereas the semantic feature habituality did not affect reflexive choice in either language, intentionality did so in Dutch only, and tense and possibly focus affected reflexive choice in both languages. These observations seem problematic for the syntactically motivated dual-entry account of reflexive choice, but are consistent with the likelihood account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present investigation comprises a statistical analysis of the use in Spanish of the possessive dative versus the use of possessive adjectives, with nouns that have the grammatical role of subject, direct object, or copula predicate. The corpus analysed here consists of dialogue taken from four Spanish-language plays dating from the second half of the twentieth century. The results of the analysis provide statistically significant support for the claim that there is a relationship in Spanish between the choice of possessor encoding and the noun class of the possessum and the class of verb. The dative encoding reflects the affected state of the possessor, casting the possessor as a participant in the event. These results follow from Hopper and Thompson's (1980) Transitivity Hypothesis and from the conceptual proximity that obtains between possessor and possessum (Maldonado 2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]