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The article presents author's comments on structure and organization of writing good scientific paper. It focuses on the need for effective communication focused on scientific ideas. It mentions that the content of the paper should match the scope of the journal. It states that the alternate formulation of the introduction includes topic, problem and solution for engineering.

The article refers to "The centrality of expressive indices," by Christopher Potts, and to the expressive dimension in linguistic theory. The commentary focuses on the accessibility and non-accessibility of expressive content in relation to descriptive meanings, the internal structure of expressive indices, and the semantics of discourse particles relative to emotional language. Examples include a negative interpretation of descriptive content, or the word "bastard," when the term is in a syntactic predicate position. The type-shift account and syntax-semantics interface are mentioned.

This paper addresses two questions. First, how can we know if a language is topic-prominent (Tp) in the spirit of , )? Second, is Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) topic-prominent? This paper argues that some of the subsequent studies that adopt Li and Thompson's proposal may have over-interpreted the latter's initial claims by turning their observed characteristics of topic-prominent languages into 'defining criteria' for topic-prominence. With linguistic evidence from Chinese, Lahu, and Lisu, this paper argues that topic-prominence first conceptualized by Li and Thompson is a broad notion that covers different linguistic phenomena that make topics prominent in Tp languages. Suggestions on how to interpret Li and Thompson's list of topic-prominence characteristics are given. É. Kiss's theory of discourse configurationality (1995, 1997, 2001) is also used to investigate if HKSL is topic-prominent. It is argued that only 'scene-setting' topics, but not 'aboutness' topics, are marked non-manually in HKSL. HKSL cannot be considered topic-prominent on a par with Chinese and Lisu, because topicalization in HKSL is infrequent and the non-manual topic markers are not widespread. HKSL is not topic-prominent according to É. Kiss's theory either because thetic and categorical judgments are not realized in different syntactic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies referential accessibility marking in predicative and specificational clauses, in particular the ones in which the roles of 'description' and 'variable' are realised by an indefinite NP (e.g. He is a baker vs. One of his talents is pastry). While the indefinite NP in the two clause types has been studied in detail, little is known about how the other two roles – of 'describee' and 'value' – are typically realised. This study, therefore, examines the choice of referring expressions for the items filling these roles, as an index of their retrievability and degree of accessibility. The analysis is based on 750 corpus examples from spoken and written British English. Moreover, since specificational clauses allow for the value to be either complement or subject, this study also provides insight into what may motivate the choice for one pattern or the other. Significant differences were found between describees and values, as well as between value-subjects and value-complements. These findings are interpreted as indicative of different discourse functions of the three constructions. While predicative clauses typically elaborate familiar information, specificational clauses serve a broader discourse-organising function: starting a new discourse-topic, pivoting from one topic to another, or summarising prior propositions as concluding a topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Split noun phrase topicalization has been the subject of intense studies across languages in the syntactic literature of the last few decades. One of the key questions raised for these constructions is whether they involve syntactic movement or base-generation. This paper explores this phenomenon in two understudied Iranian languages, Gilaki (Northwestern Iranian, Caspien) and Persian. In particular, we explore splits in two contexts, possessive constructions and numeral constructions. We develop diagnostics for distinguishing the two derivational possibilities, movement or base-generation, for the cases under investigation. We show that while Gilaki uses both derivational possibilities, movement in possessor split and base-generation in numeral split, Persian only allows for the latter with very similar behavior. We argue that possessor split occurs when the whole possessum DP/DemP moves out of its base position in a small clause. Numeral split occurs when the NP is replaced by a null nominal element, which is associated with an overt or pragmatic antecedent. We end the paper with a discussion of why an operation, movement or base-generation, is available for one construction but not the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Miedzy Oryginalem a Przekladem is the property of Ksiegarnia Akademicka Sp. zo.o 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.)

Kiswahili has been presumed to be an SVO language by many scholars (Polome, 1967; Myachina, 1981; Vitale, 1981; Habwe & Karanja, 2004; Jerono 2012, etc.). However, a closer analysis of the Kiswahili clause tends to discount this widely held view. What are normally referred to as subjects and objects in Kiswahili are not subjects and objects per se but they may have other functions. The real subjects and objects in Kiswahili are the incorporated subjects and incorporated objects. This paper uses clause chaining to argue for the basic word order in Kiswahili as being V(O) and not SVO. Clause chaining is the process of linking together many clauses in which it is only the main (independent) clause that is inflected for tense, aspect and mood (TAM) while all the other (i.e. dependent) clauses lack these inflections. The dependent clauses cannot stand on their own but the main (independent) clauses can. The dependent clauses rely on the independent clauses for their tense or aspect and mood markers and hence the term used to refer to them, i.e. dependent clauses. The main clause, which controls the dependent clauses is normally referred to as the controlling clause. Clause chaining, a feature which is traditionally associated with SOV languages, is also found in Kiswahili clauses, a language usually referred to as an SVO language. In this paper, clause chaining, a pragmatic principle, is used to argue for pragmatic word order in Kiswahili as well as to illustrate that Kiswahili is not an SVO language but rather it is a V(O) language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics is the property of Nordic Council for Reindeer Husbandry Research 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.)

How is the (in)-dependence (or finiteness) of a clause identified in a language that has no tense, case, or agreement morphology, such as Chinese? This paper investigates the control verb construction and the generic sentential subject construction, bringing to light the special forms and interpretations of the subjects of the dependent clauses in the constructions. The special properties are not found in the subjects of independent clauses. Therefore, contrasts between dependent and independent clauses are attestable in the language. The paper also proposes a derived predication analysis of the interpretation patterns of embedded empty subjects of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Negative Polarity Items are generally ungrammatical in veridical environments (*I said anything), they are known to be found in factive environments that involve veridicality (I regret you said anything). There is however disagreement in the literature about the types of factive environments in which any is found. This paper proposes the first systematic large-scale survey of the use of any with factive predicates. Based on corpora totaling nearly 5 billion words, the paper establishes the relative frequency of any licensed by the different factive predicates (epistemic factives, as well positive, negative and counterexpectative emotives). Negative emotive factives (e.g. regret) were found to license any 1.8 times more frequently than counterexpectative factives (be amazed), which license any 25.8 times more than do positive emotives (be glad). Emotive factives are associated with counterfactual preferences and expectations that make available a negative reading that licenses any. The examination of the data does not support a rescuing analysis that separates these occurrences of any from other licensed uses. On the contrary, the data show that any is licensed by at-issue meaning, as proposed by (Horn, Laurence. 2016. Licensing NPIs: Some negative (and positive) results. In Pierre Larrivée & Chungmin Lee (eds.), Negation and polarity. Experimental and cognitive perspectives, 281–305. Dordrecht: Springer.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Actas de Diseño is the property of Facultad de Diseno y Comunicacion, Fundacion Universidad de Palermo 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 paper investigates the properties of syntactic edges, with special attention being paid to two central issues in cyclic syntax: the domain and the nature of cyclicity. This paper argues for the premise that predication domains form a Spell-out domain, and that Spell-out results in order preservation of the predication domain. It is shown that elements externally merged at the edge of a predication domain observe a special ordering restriction, the Edge Generalization. The ordering restriction is explained by the interaction of two premises of cyclic syntax, coupled with a theory of probe-goal Search. Empirical evidence for the proposal comes from various sub-extraction phenomena out of edges of predication domains in Korean and Japanese. In particular, the interactions between floating numeral quantifier constructions and (primary and secondary) predication constructions are closely examined. The current proposal poses some interesting challenges to the proposition-based-phase system: it argues against the claim that only strong phases undergo Spell-out, and that edges are spelled out separately from the complement. The proposal also has some implications for the structure and typology of resultative and depictive predicates, and for the finer-grained structure of VP including aspectual adverbs and small clause complements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC 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.)

Purpose To demonstrate how techniques from creative writing can be used to develop interesting and insightful journal articles.Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to use the creative writing techniques related to style, theme and character development to offer advice for academic writers.Findings Authors should venture beyond the conventional writing techniques if they seek to produce a compelling, logical and original article that is appealing to an academic reader.Originality/value This research offers insight into the writing process for authors to assist them in understanding how to avoid submitting manuscripts that are uninteresting or difficult to read. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since they were introduced by Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesive devices have been used as an instrument of analysis in a plethora of research papers that have investigated a variety of textual types. The reason behind using the 1976-model of cohesion in textual analysis is that it is probably the most comprehensive account of cohesive ties to-date. Of equal importance are the notions of Theme and Rheme since the interplay of these components has a major effect in analysing different genres. This paper espouses a micro-analytic approach, text-based analysis to explore the role of cohesive devices and the interplay of Theme and Rheme in reinforcing arguments found in newspaper editorials. Specifically, this paper analyses Krauthammer's Free-lunch Egalitarianism in terms of the author's employment of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices and Theme and Rheme variations to support his argument. Following the textual analysis, the paper concludes with a number of implications that the textual analysis can have on education, particularly the teaching of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP) and its research methods have been considered one of the prominent tools of discourse analysis and information processing. It is widely known that, combining the approaches adopted both by formalists and functionalists, the theory of FSP draws on the findings presented by the scholars of the Prague Circle. The father of FSP himself - Jan Firbas - drew on the findings of his predecessor, Vilem Mathesius, who formulated the basic principles of what was to be labelled FSP only later. Apart from the principal FSP representatives and more recent followers (as a rule associated with Prague or Brno universities), this homage paper overviews somewhat less familiar - yet significant - pioneers in the field of theories of information structure, viz. Henri Weil, Samuel Brassai, Georg von der Gabelentz and Anton Marty. It will discuss some of their writings and achievements that were forming (and inspiring) the theory of FSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses course theme and ideology in her first-year composition program. She explains that she no longer endorse the use of provocative, explicitly ideological topics that insist upon student engagement with a specific cause or civic issue. Her composition course readings ranged from fiction and film, propaganda and local journalism. She reveals why she switched her course theme to detective fiction.

This paper examines the distribution in Russian of clauses containing a post-verbal subject pronoun. It shows that in the colloquial language a major function of such clauses is to assert a speaker's control of the floor. It then illustrates some specific environments in which this constituent order occurs in literary texts, arguing that writers of fiction can extend its usage from the marking of changes in the actual narrating voice to the marking of certain types of shift in narrative point of view. The paper concludes that the stylistic interpretations of the post-verbal placement of thematic subjects which have been offered in earlier studies of Russian clause organization should be modified to recognize its pragmatic functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hausa has simple temporal clauses, introduced by the conjunction dà 'when', that many researchers derive from temporal relative clauses introduced by lookâcin dà 'time that', through the deletion of the pseudo head word lookâcii 'time'. This paper shows that this analysis, however natural it may appear, is inadequate. Indeed, the two temporal clauses have different uses, which would not be surprising if simple temporal clauses are derivationally independent from temporal relative clauses, as proposed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an alternative analysis of the thematic structure of existential clauses. In the context of Halliday's systemic-functional account, existentials provide an interesting area for study because the non-referential there throws up theoretical and other problems which suggest the need for an alternative perspective on the way the theme-theme notions are presently understood. A message development angle is proposed in this paper, one which claims that theme and theme are not merely linked in sequential terms but in terms of acceptability, forming the basis of the principle of acceptable message development (AMD). The flout-AMD procedure turns out to be a useful way of delimiting the theme of existential clauses. More crucially, the characterisation of theme and rheme in terms of message development also permits us to pin down these elusive notions in an intuitively appealing way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Possessor-subject possessee-object sentence is a particular construction with unique features in Chinese. Many studies have been carried out regarding its derivation and the status of the different nouns in the construction, i. e., the possessor, the possessee and the whole possessive phrase. It remains controversial whether Chinese Topic is base-generated or derived through movement. Based on the Phase Theory of Minimalism, this paper re-examines some Chinese possessor Topic Constructions. It is proposed that before the possessor movement the possessor and the possessee are base-generated in the same DP. When this DP is not in the edge position of a Phase, that is, not in Spec-CP or Spec-v*P, the possessor can move to the Topic position. Namely, the possessor is moved to its final landing site (i. e. Spec-TopicP) from inside the possessive phrase, and the reason for its movement lies in the need for the checking of Topic feature. Otherwise, owing to the violation of the Specifier Condition, the derived construction will be ill-formed. As to T's EPP feature, we propose that it is checked and eliminated via long-distance agreement by the in-situ possessor phrase. This new perspective provides evidence for the hypothesis that Chinese Topic is derived through movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal is the property of Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal 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.)

We offer a new account of the semantics of predicates of personal taste (PPTs) like tasty and fun which, unlike recent proposals (Lasersohn 2005; Stephenson 2007a, 2007b), does not appeal to a judge parameter as a component of the evaluation index. We identify empirical shortcomings of previous proposals, arguing that PPTs have a first-person-oriented meaning component even in cases that seem to involve an exocentric interpretation. We propose that the interpretation of PPTs involves first-person-oriented genericity in the sense of Moltmann (2006, 2010a). When I say This cake is tasty, I say roughly that for all worlds w and all individuals x such that x is relevant in w and I identify with x, the cake is tasty to x in w. We explain the shifting of the first person orientation from speaker to attitude holder in attitude reports by taking both matrix and embedded sentences to express properties rather than propositions (Stojanovic 2011). In both cases, an abstraction operator in the left periphery of the clause binds the variable responsible for the first-person-oriented interpretation of the sentence. The paper closes with a comparison with a similar proposal by Moltmann (2010b, forthcoming) and a discussion of the implications of our semantics for the analysis of attitudes de se. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper compares the cleft construction in Engli h and Norwegian. The analysis is carried out on a sample of 100 English and 100 Norwegian examples translated from Czech. The paper focuses on the motivation for the use of the cleft con !ruction. There are three main types of motivation described here: FSP, textual and syntactic. The FSP motivation is recognised either when the Czech original includes some explicit focusing device or when the only function of the cleft is to give more prominence to the focu ed element. The types of textual motivation analysed in this thesis are contra t, selection, identification, summarising function , topic launching and topic linking. The syntactic motivation appears to play its role in English clefts with a negative or restrictive adjunct in focus becau e the non-cleft counterpart would require an S-V inversion and would be stylistically marked. The second type of syntactic motivation appears in Norwegian interrogative clefts. The main function of the cleft construction in these sentences is to move the rhematic element from the subject position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses free-choice like effects in generics. Just as Jane may drink coffee or tea can be used to convey Jane may drink coffee and Jane may drink tea (she is 'free to choose'), some generics with disjunctive predicates can be used to convey conjunctions of simpler generics: elephants live in Africa or Asia can be used to convey elephants live in Africa and elephants live in Asia. Investigating these logically slightly more complex generics and especially the free-choice like effects throws light on both the semantics of generics and the interaction between world knowledge and the interpretive options generics offer. This paper presents a package of semantic and pragmatic hypotheses to account for the data, including why the effect is absent in the superficially logically similar elephants live in Africa or give birth to live young. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a novel approach to (a subpart of) the null subject parameter is proposed, in which the interpretation of a thematic pro in subject position is crucially dependent on the syntax and discourse properties of Topic constituents. Based on the analysis of spoken corpora and interface considerations, evidence is provided that preverbal ‘subjects’ sit in an A’-position in a null subject language like Italian and that the interpretation of referential null subjects depends on a matching relation (Agree) with a specific type of Topic. In a cartographic approach to discourse functions, this is identified with the Aboutness-shift Topic (Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl 2007) that is merged in the C-domain and is endowed with the edge feature [榺⺶瞬] – an ‘extended EPP feature’. A Topic Criterion is thus proposed that correlates core grammar with discourse requirements and accounts for the syntactic identification of a referential pro. The Avoid Pronoun Principle is reinterpreted as a structural condition that implies the existence of silent Topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Buddhist texts authored in Indian and Tibetan traditions of scholasticism, one is regularly directed to check one's understanding against "scripture and reasoning." To date, however, comparatively little attention has been given to the usage of the latter term of this pair (Skt. yukti, Tib. rigs pa) in Indian Buddhist texts. Building on the work of Scherrer-Schaub, Kapstein and others, this paper discusses divergent glosses of the term yukti as found in Indian Buddhist texts. By highlighting continuities and discontinuities in these accounts, the paper aims to stimulate reflection on the ways in which our assumptions regarding reasoning--and, by extension, what is to count as "Buddhist philosophy"--are represented in, and perhaps contested by, thematizations offered within the tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complex relationship between the meaning of predicates and the morphosyntactic expression of their arguments, as manifested in the swarm-class alternations in Czech. One way of getting at the nature of the alternations is to take a frame-semantic approach, which allows us to introduce the notion of scene as an important factor in linking relationships. It is proposed that linking patterns are organized in a network of generalized scene types, each of which represents a particular role configuration structured in such a way that one of its roles can be singled out as the vantage point from which that event type is conventionally presented in a particular diathesis; the analysis argues for the notion of viewpoint as an event-structuring concept (distinct from discourse-based topicness) that is directly reflected in certain conventionalized linking patterns. The results of the investigation show that what may appear to be hard-to-predict variations in subject selection can be treated as instances of regular linking relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of the theory of functional sentence perspective (Firbas 1992), the distinction between presentation and quality scale sentences plays a vital role. The present paper proposes to shed light on one of the most common configurations of presentation sentences, viz. structures with initial rhematic subject (e.g. an uninvited dwarf came), examining the way native speakers place the intonation centre in such structures, i.e. to map the correspondence between the degrees of communicative dynamism and prosodic prominence. For the purpose of the investigation selected chapters from Tolkien's The Hobbit are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Contrastive Grammar / Studii de Gramatica Contrastiva is the property of Universitatea din Pitesti 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 paper investigates the grammatical properties of wh-in situ constructions in Kavalan and Amis, two Austronesian languages in Taiwan. In Kavalan, wh-phrases cannot stay in situ in the absolutive subject position, except for mayni ‘which’. However, all Amis wh-phrases, regardless of their case marking or grammatical function, can stay in situ. The paper discusses the implications of the wh-in situ patterns in the two languages for two different analyses proposed to account for Austronesian wh-in situ constructions: the semantic/pragmatic approach and the formal-marking approach. The absolutive subject in Kavalan is assigned a definite interpretation and exhibits topic properties. A non-D-linked wh-phrase is inherently non-topical and thus cannot occupy the absolutive subject position. In contrast, the Amis absolutive subject is not always associated with a definite interpretation. A wh-phrase in Amis can thus stay in situ in the subject position without inducing any semantic incongruence. The formal-marking approach captures the empirical pattern of Amis wh-in situ but fails to explain the Kavalan pattern, whereas the semantic/pragmatic approach is both theoretically and typologically a more promising analysis of wh-in situ in Austronesian languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the Hebrew ′ATA LO MEVIN ('you don't understand') construction in a corpus of casual conversation. Employing the methodology of Interactional Linguistics and Multimodal Conversation Analysis, we show that deployment of this construction is fixed and formulaic and only rarely denotes the recipient's lack of understanding. Based on a mostly synchronic analysis, we suggest a grammaticization path followed by this construction from a negative epistemic subject-predicate construction denoting literal lack of understanding to a discourse marker signaling the opening of a new narrative, while seeking recipient alignment with the speaker's intensified affective stance. The path described reveals that embodied conduct, as well as prosodic, morphophonological, and syntactic features of the construction correlate with the weakening of its literal meaning. This sheds light on the uses speakers make of the construction, on how heightened engagement may be achieved in discourse, and on the dialogic nature of interaction and grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Linguistica is the property of Linguistica 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.)

The medieval distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic words is usually given as the distinction between words which have signification or meaning in isolation from other words (such as nouns, pronouns, verbs) and those which have signification only when combined with other words (such as conjunctions, quantifiers, and articles). Some words, however, are classified as both categorematic and syncategorematic. One such word is Latin infinita 'infinite'. Because infinita can be either categorematic or syncategorematic, it is possible to form sophisms (logical puzzles or paradoxes) using infinita whose solutions turn on the distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic uses of infinita. As a result, medieval logicians were interested in identifying correct logical rules governing the categorematic and syncategorematic uses of the term. In this paper, we look at 13th-15th-century logical discussions of infinita used syncategorematically and categorematically. We also relate the distinction to other medieval distinctions with which it has often been conflated in modern times, and show how and where these conflations go wrong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with automatic generation of all possible questions from a topic of interest. Specifically, we consider that each topic is associated with a body of texts containing useful information about the topic. Then, questions are generated by exploiting the named entity information and the predicate argument structures of the sentences present in the body of texts. The importance of the generated questions is measured using Latent Dirichlet Allocation by identifying the subtopics (which are closely related to the original topic) in the given body of texts and applying the Extended String Subsequence Kernel to calculate their similarity with the questions. We also propose the use of syntactic tree kernels for the automatic judgment of the syntactic correctness of the questions. The questions are ranked by considering both their importance (in the context of the given body of texts) and syntactic correctness. To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has accomplished this task in our setting. A series of experiments demonstrate that the proposed topic-to-question generation approach can significantly outperform the state-of-the-art results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents bibliometric research of information science topics distribution and diversity of journals. Topics discussed include the topical structure of information science, indicators of their topical diversity, topic models, and the words of the topics. The dissimilarities between topics and the disparities between journals are also estimated.

This paper describes and analyzes an unnoticed Spanish construction that includes a measure phrase and a non-comparative adjective conforming to an [MP+ de+A] pattern (e.g., Esta mesa tiene [ un metro de ancha] '(lit.) this table has one meter of wide'). It is proposed that underlying Spanish [MP+ de+A] there is a reverse (predicate-specifier) structure with an attributive interpretation (cf. Den Dikken ), in which the MP predicates over the adjective's degree argument, and the adjective acts as a restrictor of the MP's denotation. Making use of a Project Both labeling algorithm for external merge of maximal projections (cf. Chomsky , Citko ), it is further argued that the MP/QP also projects in this construction. This accounts for the fact that [MP+ de+A] has the interpretation and distribution of a QP as a whole. Finally, the properties of Spanish [MP+ de+A] are compared with those of closely related constructions in Spanish, as well as with the properties of standard constructions containing an MP and a bare adjective in other languages, and an analysis within Den Dikken's () theory of predicational relationships is provided that accounts for the similarities and differences between all these patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Ancient Greek, topics can be expressed as intra-clausal constituents but they can also precede or follow the main clause as extra-clausal constituents. Together, these various topic expressions constitute a coherent system of complementary pragmatic functions. For a comprehensive account of topic organization, therefore, a limited focus on the clause proper is insufficient. In this paper, I will argue that it is possible to distinguish five different structural positions in which topic constituents may appear in Ancient Greek. These are: (i) Theme, (ii) clause-initial, (iii) postverbal in Setting, (iv) postverbal in main clause and (v) Tail Each of these positions in the sentence is associated with a specific pragmatic function: Resumed Topic, Contrastive/New Topic, Given Topic or clarification of Given Topic. In linguistic theory, topic and focus are often seen as independent aspects of information structure instead of complementary functions. It is, therefore, attractive to posit two separate sets of constructional templates: on the one hand, a topic set comprising the aforementioned topic constructions and, on the other hand, a focus set containing two (narrow and broad) focus-constructions. This results in a flexible system in which the word order of each sentence is determined by a combination of a focus construction plus one or more topic constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista FSA is the property of Revista FSA (Faculdade Santo Agostinho) 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.)

Copyright of Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía is the property of Centro de Investigaciones Filosoficas 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.)

The semantic, functional and structural status of complement-taking predicates (CTPs) has been the subject of considerable debate among linguists during the last decades (cf. Nuyts 1994, 2001; Thompson 2002; Wierzbicka 2006; Boye and Harder 2007; Kaltenböck 2007, 2013; Schneider 2007; Verhagen 2007; Brinton 2008; van Bogaert 2009; Fetzer and Johansson 2010). One of the main structural issues discussed is whether CTPs and CTP clauses, namely constructions likeI think (that), they say (that), you see (that), are superordinate main/matrix clauses requiring some specification, which is commonly expressed by a dependent complement clause following them, or whether they should be regarded as dependent and kind of “subordinated” to the complement clauses (Thompson 2002, 155; Verhagen 2007, 215). This paper takes its point of departure from the proposal (Boye and Harder 2007) that it is necessary to distinguish between the lexical and grammaticalized occurrences of CTPs and CTP clauses and discusses whether the proposal is applicable to Lithuanian data. For this purpose, a detailed quantitative and qualitative study of the findings of a corpus-based analysis of four basic types of CTP clauses in Lithuanian has been carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper responds to in Newmeyer (2004, 2005), who gives argument defending the traditional six-way word order typology that classifies languages as SOV, SVO, etc. against arguments in Dryer (1997) in favour of an alternative typology which classifies languages according to two more basic typological parameters, VO vs. OV and VS vs. SV. The paper provides both updated and new data that is relevant to the issues. Although some of the new data actually supports some of the empirical claims made by Newmeyer, I argue that these do not provide any argument in favour of the six-way typology and that Newmeyer misconstrues the issues distinguishing the two typologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To define new property terms, we combine already familiar predicates by means of certain logical operations. Given suitable constraints, these operations may presumably include truth-functional sentence connectives and quantification over objects. What is less clear is whether we can also use modal operators for this purpose. The aim of this paper is to clarify what is involved in this question, and to argue in favor of modal property definitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to address the Spanish so-called aspectual se that appears with consumption verbs like "leer-leerse" (read) as in "Juan se leyó un libro" vs. "Juan leyó un libro". These verbs have agentive subjects, and select incremental theme objects. Previous analyses build upon the idea that se makes an aspectual contribution to the semantics of the predicate. We will argue, however, that the contribution of se in consumption predicates is thematic rather than aspectual: se is a fully functional pronoun that is interpreted as a participant of the event due to its bearing dative Case and its being theta-marked as experiencer. The presence of this thetamarked experiencer argument triggers the expansion of the predicate by adding a causally related state whose argument is the clitic. It is a lexical operation that licenses se with consumption verbs. This operation has previously been described for causativization phenomena in a variety of languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether a stative predicate licenses an existential interpretation of its subject (EIS) depends in part on the type of object it has. While previous theories have related this to the object's ability to function as a topic, this paper presents evidence that the quantized/homogeneous distinction between objects better captures EIS and proposes an event composition analysis of EIS for (transitive) stative predicates. This analysis points to the aspectual nature of EIS and also illuminates other aspectual behaviors of stage-level/individual-level states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper examines modified noun phrases with respect to the relations between their FSP structure, realization form and textual role. All four FSP structures are dealt with. The con-figuration with both context-independent components, represented by book titles, shows as the prevalent pattern the modifier in pre-position, which reflects the basic order of adjective-noun in both languages. In this arrangement the rhematic component, the modifier, precedes the thematic head noun. Within the body of the text, recurrent noun phrases whose modifiers have two realization forms show a tendency to a shift from postmodification at the first occurrence to premodification at further occurrences, thus signalling the context-dependence of the whole noun phrase. The configuration of context-independent modifier and context-dependent head is found where the head noun denotes a textual theme or subtheme, which occurs either with new modifiers or with modifiers disengaged from context-dependence by one of the context-disengaging factors. Here Czech has a specific means, due to its free word order, the postposition of adjectives. Similarly in the case of context-dependent modifier and context-independent head recurrent modifiers are found where they refer to textual themes or subthemes. The influence of the FSP functions of the NP's components on the realization form of the modifier appears to be only one of the factors involved, the others being the existence of two semantically equivalent realization forms, the basic order adjective - noun, the tendency of academic texts to condensed forms of expression, functional style and possibly others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a substantial number of languages negation of non-verbal predicates diverges from standard negation. In this paper I approach this phenomenon from a typological perspective, and claim that non-standard negation of non-verbal predicates can be described through a generalization I refer to as DNA (Direct Negation Avoidance), which means that the non-verbal predicates avoid being in the direct scope of negation. DNA can be subcategorized into various DNA strategies, and in the first half of the paper I list and describe these strategies. In the second half I argue how the DNA generalization may be extended to also include languages with standard negation of their non-verbal predicates, and that further research might reveal DNA to be a language universal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]