In Defence of a Structural Account of Indirect Realism

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 815-837
Author(s):  
Michael Sollberger
Keyword(s):  
Structural Account ◽  
Indirect Realism

A SUBJECT-OBJECT ASYMMETRY IN THE ACQUISITION OF RELATIVE CLAUSES IN KOREAN AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O'Grady ◽  
Miseon Lee ◽  
Miho Choo
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Distance Effect ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Structural Account ◽  
Linear Distance ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Object Relative

A variety of studies have reported that learners of English as a second language find subject relative clauses easier to produce and comprehend than direct object relatives, but it is unclear whether this preference should be attributed to structural factors or to a linear distance effect. This paper seeks to resolve this issue and to extend our understanding of SLA in general by investigating the interpretation of subject and direct object relative clauses by English-speaking learners of Korean, a left-branching language in which subject gaps in relative clauses are more distant from the head than are object gaps. The results of a comprehension task conducted with 53 beginning and intermediate learners point toward a strong preference for subject relative clauses, favoring the structural account.

scholarly journals On the control/raising ambiguity with aspectual verbs: a structural account

2007 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 159-195
Author(s):  
Shin Fukuda
Keyword(s):  
Basic Assumption ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Control Analysis ◽  
External Argument ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Selectional Restrictions ◽  
Structural Account ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Aspectual Verbs

In what follows, I first briefly review Perlmutter (1968, 1970), in which it is argued that aspectual verbs are ambiguous between control and raising. I suggest that while the argument for the raising analysis is solid, the arguments supporting the control analysis of aspectual verbs are less so. As an alternative hypothesis to consider, I introduce the structural ambiguity hypothesis. In Section 3, I review three recent analyses of control and raising. Although there are important differences among them, they all share the basic assumption that the control/raising distinction is due to differences in selectional restrictions that the lexical items impose. Under such an assumption, the lexical ambiguity hypothesis is the only available option. In Section 4, I present evidence for the structural ambiguity hypothesis from studies concerning aspectual verbs in languages from four distinct families, German (Wurmbrand 2001), Japanese (Fukuda 2006), Romance languages (Cinque 2003), and Basque (Arregi Molina-Azaola 2004). These data strongly suggest that across languages aspectual verbs can appear in two different syntactic positions, either below or above vP, or the projection with which an external argument is introduced (Kratzer 1994, 1996, Chomsky 1995). Given these findings, I argue that it is the aspectual verbs' position with respect to vP which creates the control/raising ambiguity. When an aspectual verb appears in a position that is lower than vP, an external argument takes scope over the aspectual verb. Thus, it is interpreted as control. When an aspectual verb appears in a position that is higher than vP, on the other hand, it is the aspectual verb that takes scope over an entire vP, including the external argument. Thus, it is interpreted as raising. In section 5, I extend the scope of this study to include a discussion of want-type verbs in Indonesian, as analyzed in Polinsky & Potsdam (2006). Polinsky & Potsdam argue that the Indonesian want-type verbs must be raising in at least certain cases where they allow a rather peculiar interpretation. Although they assume that there are also control counterparts of the want-type verbs, I argue that applying the proposed analysis to the want-type verbs does away with the need for stipulating two distinct lexical entries for these verbs. Section 6 concludes the paper.  

scholarly journals The Argument from Pain: A New Argument for Indirect Realism

2016 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Franken
Keyword(s):  
Sense Data ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Traditional Argument ◽  
Indirect Realism

The author puts forward and defends a new argument for indirect realism called the argument from pain. The argument is akin to a well-known traditional argument to the same end, the argument from hallucination. Like the latter, it contains one premise stating an analogy between veridical perceptions and certain other states and one premise stating that those states are states of acquaintance with sense-data. The crucial difference is that the states that are said to be analogous to veridical perceptions are pain-states instead of hallucinations. This difference makes the argument from pain immune to the standard objections against the argument from hallucination.

Frankfurt and the Problem of Self-Control

2020 ◽  
pp. 421-433
Author(s):  
Ryan Cummings ◽  
Adina L. Roskies
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Structural Account ◽  
The Will

Frankfurt’s compatibilist account of free will considers an individual to be free when her first- and second-order volitions align. This structural account of the will, this chapter argues, fails to engage with the dynamics of will, resulting in two shortcomings: (1) the problem of directionality, or that Frankfurtian freedom obtains whenever first- and second-order volitions align, regardless of which desire was made to change, and (2) the potential for infinite regress of higher-order desires. The authors propose that a satisfying account of the genesis of second-order volitions can resolve these issues. To provide this they draw from George Ainslie’s mechanistic account of self-control, which relies on intertemporal bargaining wherein an individual’s self-predictions about future decisions affect the value of her current choices. They suggest that second-order volitions emerge from precisely this sort of process, and that a Frankfurt-Ainslie account of free will avoids the objections previously raised.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Dowding
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Dispositional Property ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Structural Account ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 1 introduces the subject matter of the book. It analyses the methodological issues that arise when conceptualizing power in society. It first looks at the definitional divisions that demarcate different approaches to power. The first division describes causal approaches to power and dispositional accounts of power. It argues that power is a disposition concept – power is best seen as a property of individuals that they can choose or not to wield. The second division concerns structural versus individualist accounts. The chapters argues we need to transcend this division. Whilst in this book power is seen as a dispositional property of agents, and can thus be seen as methodologically individualist, it is equally a structural account. A structure is the relationship between people which can be described in terms of their relative powers. We concentrate on actors for some questions and the structure for others.

A Structural Account of Root Node Deletion in Loanword Phonology

1999 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvan Rose
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Constraints ◽  
Loanword Adaptation ◽  
Root Node ◽  
Nasal Vowels ◽  
Loanword Phonology ◽  
Structural Account ◽  
Segmental Representations

AbstractParadis and LaCharité (1996, 1997) have proposed a model of loanword adaptation, couched within theTheory of Constraints and Repair Strategies(Paradis 1988a,b). One of the mechanisms used in their model, called the Threshold Principle, first advanced by Paradis, Lebel, and LaCharité (1993), poses problems. This principle, whose implementation implies arithmetic counting, goes counter to standard views of generative phonology against counting. In this article, an analysis of deletion contexts found in loanwords which accounts for the data observed on structural grounds only is developed without any appeal to arithmetic counting. Based on the adaptation of French rising diphthongs and nasal vowels in two languages, Fula and Kinyarwanda, it is argued that an analysis based solely on the segmental representations of the foreign forms to adapt and the segmental and syllabic constraints of the borrowing language is sufficient to make correct predictions regarding the adaptation patterns found in these languages.

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