Search

This paper presents the syntactic dimension of ditransitive verbs in terms of the universal theory of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). This theory is syntactic in nature, but it also covers the semantic as well as the pragmatic aspects of any linguistic phenomenon. It assumes a universal framework through which syntactic constructions can be analyzed. However, the morphological structure that each language enjoys renders the universal treatment more complicated and can question the universal nature of such a theory. In this paper, an attempt is made to check if the universal tenet of the theory is maintained over two typologically different languages: English and Arabic in respect of the way that double-object constructions (DOCs) are represented in the theory. A limitation is made to answer these questions: does the rich morphological nature of Arabic affect the universality of RRG in so far as Layered Structure of the Clause (LSC) is concerned? and; where and how does the information about tense is represented in both languages? The results show that this theory is indeed universal when it deals with a syntactic phenomenon like DOCs and that a separate projection is dedicated to represent some related information about the clause and this is concluded from the analysis of the selected data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two different strategies found in direct object encoding on the basis of a sample of 159 languages. In particular, this paper deals with the differences between symmetric (i.e. the alternation between two or more overt markers) and asymmetric (i.e. the alternation between a zero and one of more overt markers) alternations. The investigation is aimed at determining whether there are any evident cross-linguistic regularities with respect to the factors involved in these two kinds of alternation. It will be argued that the difference in the formal realization of direct object encoding is related to the distinct functions that these two structures perform cross-linguistically.While asymmetric alternations are regulated by referential properties of the direct object referent, symmetric alternations are governed by parameters related to verbal semantics, such as affectedness and boundedness, polarity, and quantification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paucal constructions represent a specific sub-area in the grammar of Russian in which a kind of morphosyntactic variation can be found that is unattested elsewhere in the language. This variation occurs in some animate paucal constructions especially when these are in the direct object function. In this position, these constructions can be assigned either the genitive-accusative case (that is, the animate form), as would be expected given their semantics, or, alternatively, the nominative-accusative case, as with inanimate paucal constructions. This paper explores several aspects of this variability, focusing mainly on the statistical correlations of the competing forms, their implications for the Animacy Hierarchy, and their diachronic evolution. The evidence at hand points to the interaction of semantic (animacy, individuation, modality) and formal (gender, inflectional class) factors on the selection of one or the other form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yurakaré (unclassified, central Bolivia) marks core arguments on the verb by means of pronominal affixes. Subjects are suffixed, objects are prefixed. There are six types of head-marked objects in Yurakaré, each with its own morphosyntactic and semantic properties. Distributional patterns suggest that the six objects can be divided into two larger groups reminiscent of the typologically recognized direct vs. indirect object distinction. This paper looks at the interaction of this complex system of participant marking and verbal semantics. By investigating the participant-marking patterns of nine verb classes (four representing a gradual decrease of patienthood of the P participant, five a gradual decrease of agentivity of the A participant), I come to the conclusion that grammatical roles in Yurakaré can be defined semantically, and case frames are to a high degree determined by verbal semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims at further investigating the relative degree of flexibility of constituent order in Greek, which has been classified as a free word order language (Tzartzanos 1946, 1963; Greenberg 1963; Philippaki-Warburton 1982, 1985, 1987; Lascaratou 1984, 1989, 1994, among others). In this study we present additional evidence in support of the view expressed in Lascaratou (1989, 1994, 1999) that, though very flexible, Greek word order is not completely free, but rather it is the result of tension between competing forces determining linear arrangements. Focusing on the analysis of various VP structures drawn from the Hellenic National Corpus (HNC)", we observe that no single (syntactic and/or lexical/semantic) factor appears to override the others in a salient manner, the relative strength of each individual factor not always being clearly and reliably measurable. In particular, it seems that constituent length does not constitute a more important factor than the syntactic and/or lexical/semantic relations holding between elements in the Greek VP. What is more, with respect to the concept of "adjacency" put forward by Hawkins (2001, 2004) to interpret the preference for certain linearization patterns vs. others, we propose that constituent length essentially operates in a substantially different way and direction than syntactic and/or lexical/semantic dependency relations. More specifically, while-for parsing efficiency-constituent length may often be responsible for the postposition of heavy constituents thus resulting in the disruption of adjacency by separating elements which "belong together", syntactic and/or lexical/semantic relations, on the other hand, intrinsically motivate the adjacency of elements which "belong together", thus resisting any rearrangement that would bring them apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although contrastive stress in English facilitates context disambiguation, this paper shows that Taiwan Mandarin adult speakers were insensitive to contrastive stress in resolving ambiguity in zhi ‘only’ associated arguments in triadic constructions. The first experiment, which contained sixteen true/false responses to sentences containing zhi associated arguments inferred from corresponding narrated stories, was conducted to test the judgments of one hundred college students. The results showed that the direct object (DO) focus tended to be interpreted as the most prominent in both the dative and double object constructions, contra to the results attested in the dative construction by English-speaking adults in Gualmini et al. (Children’s insensitivity to contrastive stress in sentences with ONLY: University of Pennsylvania, 2003) and Dutch children in Szendrői (Acquisition evidence for an interface theory of focus: 457–468, LOT, 2003), and the prediction of the VP default focus by Reinhart's (Interface strategies: Optimal and costly computations, MIT Press, 2006) focus interface strategy. The second experiment with a multiple-choice questionnaire of the same sixteen contexts as in the first experiment was designed for a different group of fifty-one participants to identify which element (indirect object (IO), DO or VP focus) was interpreted most prominently. The results again showed the correction rates of the DO focus were higher than those of the IO, and those of the default VP focus was the lowest, contra to Reinhart's prediction. The conspicuous nature of the DO focus in triadic constructions in both experiments is accounted for by its syntactic basicness to the predicate and its preferred thematic prominence over the IO. The DO focus surfaces in Mandarin in which stress is not lexically distinctive; hence prosody is not served as the primary cue for disambiguation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses syntactic and semantic aspects of direct object scrambling in Ukrainian. Given the complex nature of scrambling, the investigation is narrowed to only one of its types: the change SVO→SOV, defined as Middle Object Scrambling (MOS). This strategy affords a detailed examination of this phenomenon at a micro-level. MOS is scrutinized with regard to its syntactic aspects (e.g., position of a moved element) and semantic properties (e.g., possible interpretations of a direct object). The semantic features of definiteness, referentiality, and partitivity are particularly emphasized, as previous studies have claimed they play an important role in the process. This research demonstrates that the most relevant feature in Ukrainian MOS is specificity in the sense of partitivity/presuppositionality. The implication of this is that Slavic data provide further support for the universality of interpretational properties of the vP edge, in line with Chomsky 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Slovo (05836255) is the property of Slovo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study investigates the historical development of the particle away in English. Assuming the three-layered VP structure proposed by Ramchand (2008), and the Inner Aspect proposed by Travis (1994, 2010), Fujita and Matsumoto (2005), and Ogawa and Niinuma (2013), I argue that there are three positions available for the particle away: the directional away is located in Res, which is the lowest in the VP structure, the completive aspectual away is in Asp(completive), which is above Proc, and the continuative or iterative aspectual away is in Asp(continuative or iterative), which is above Asp(completive). The data from Corpus of Historical American English show that the continuative or iterative aspectual away has been concatenated with the activity verbs earlier than accomplishment verbs, which is compatible with the syntactic analysis of grammaticalization proposed by Roberts and Roussou (2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model of syntactic development proposes that children's very first word-combinations are already generated via productive rules that express in syntactic form the relation between a predicate word and its semantic argument. An alternative hypothesis is that they learn frozen chunks. In Study 1 we analyzed a large sample of young children's early two-word sentences comprising of verbs with direct objects. A majority of objects were generated by pronouns but a third of children's sentences used bare common nouns as objects. We checked parents' twoword long sentences of verbs with objects and found almost no bare common nouns. Children cannot have copied sentences with bare noun objects from parents' two-word long sentences as frozen chunks. In Study 2 we raised the possibility that children's early sentences with bare nouns are rote-learned 'telegraphic speech', acquired as unanalyzed frozen chunks from longer input sentences due to perceptual problem to hear the unstressed determiners. To test this explanation, we tested the children's speech corpus for evidence that they avoid determiners in their word-combinations. The results showed that they do not; in fact they generate very many determiner-common noun combinations as two-word utterances. The findings suggest that children produce their early word-combinations of the core-grammar type by a productive rule that maps the predicate-argument relations of verbs and their semantic arguments to headdependent syntax, and not as frozen word-combinations. Children mostly learn to use indexical expressions such as pronouns to express the variable semantic arguments of verbs as context dependent; they also employ bare common nouns to express specific values of the arguments. The earliest word-combinations demonstrate that children understand that syntax is built on the predicate-argument relations of words and use this insight to produce their early sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ffectedness-usually construed as a persistent change in or impingement of an event participant-has been implicated in argument realization, lexical aspect, transitivity, and various syntactic operations. However, it is rarely given a precise, independently-motivated definition. Rather, it is often defined intuitively or diacritically, or reduced to the properties it is meant to explain, especially lexical aspect. I propose a semantic analysis of affectedness as a relationship between a theme participant that undergoes a change and a scale participant that measures the change (following Beavers , and Kennedy and Levin ). I justify this analysis by re-examining the empirical diagnostics for affectedness, and argue that affectedness is not reducible to lexical aspect, but is tightly correlated with it in a way that motivates an analysis involving two interdependent participants. This model also provides a precise way of defining the pervasive notion of degrees of affectedness, as a hierarchy of monotonically weakening truth conditions about the result state of the theme on the scale. This hierarchy further captures important subset relations among predicates regarding affectedness diagnostics, and ultimately brings together many of the above phenomena under a single, unified approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pustejovsky’s well-known analysis of so-called logical metonymy, such as she began the book (= ‘reading’ or ‘writing’ the book), fails in several respects (cf. e.g. Godard & Jayez 1993, Lascarides & Copestake 1998, Verspoor 1997). The main problem is that his account is based on just a few prototypical examples of logical metonymy. When more examples with other verbs and other objects are analysed, his theory runs into problems. Since verb-concrete object combinations diverge widely in their interpretations, one can even ask to which extent metonymy is actually involved. With the help of FrameNet, this article analyses the semantics of these verbs and their combinations with metonymical objects. On this basis, a new analysis of logical metonymy is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the reasons for an argument to be chosen as sentence topic are discussed. I argue that a topic expression can be prototypical or not, depending on how its thematic/semantic properties reflect humans' preference to talk about certain things and not others. Although subjects are mostly prototypical topics, I show that a non-subject topic is prototypical with predicates that select a patient subject and an IO with protoagent properties but volition (psych-verbs, unaccusative verbs). Constructions like passives or arbitrary subjects may also have a prototypical topic object. As for nonprototypical topics, they are generally left dislocated direct objects. Their presence is justified by the fact that discourse needs may overrule the requirement of a topic to be prototypical. In particular, they are used in contrastive contexts. It follows that whenever a topic is non-prototypical, it is automatically interpreted as contrastive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]