scholarly journals A New Argument for the Lexical Underspecification of Causers

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 803-824
Author(s):  
James E. Lavine ◽  
Leonard H. Babby

This article shows how a systematic impersonalization alternation in Russian provides additional evidence for underspecification in argument structure. In the case of a large class of lexically causative verbs, the causer is realized either as a volitional Agent in the nominative case or as an oblique-marked, nonvolitional causer, depending on how the event is construed. A causative theory of accusative is advanced, according to which the mere presence of external causation is a sufficient condition for accusative licensing, including those cases that lack an external argument altogether. The analysis is extended to explain accusative preservation in the Icelandic “fate accusative” construction.

10.37236/1056 ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
É. Janvresse ◽  
T. de la Rue ◽  
Y. Velenik

We present a variation of James Propp's generalized domino shuffling, which provides an efficient way to obtain perfect matchings of weighted Aztec diamonds. Our modification is specially tailored to deal with cases when some of the weights are zero. This allows us to tile efficiently a large class of planar graphs, by embedding them in a large enough Aztec diamond. We also give a sufficient condition on the size of the latter diamond for the algorithm to succeed.


1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Goodman

AbstractWhen does a non-singular flow on a 3-manifold have a 2-dimensional foliation everywhere transverse to it? A complete answer is given for a large class of flows, those with 1-dimensional hyperbolic chain recurrent set. We find a simple necessary and sufficient condition on the linking of periodic orbits of the flow.


Author(s):  
Edith Aldridge

This chapter surveys pathways that have been proposed for how ergative alignment develops diachronically in an accusative language. The most common source cited for ergative alignment is a clausal nominalization. This is because the v (or n) in the nominalization has the same case-licensing featural composition as transitive v in an ergative language: 1) the external argument in the specifier is assigned inherent (typically genitive) case; and 2) there is no structural licensing capability for an object. After reanalysis, the external argument continues to receive inherent case, and the object values nominative case with T, resulting in an ergative pattern in transitive clauses. Other proposed sources are also typically intransitive constructions lacking accusative objects and in which the external argument is assigned inherent case or is packaged as a PP, for example possessive constructions and passives


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. p1
Author(s):  
Abdellatif ED-DARRAJI

This paper attempts to examine some argument-structure-reducing operations in Standard Arabic (SA for short). It is proposed here that some affixes (viz. prefixes and infixes) can decrease the argument structure (or valence) of the subclass of change-of-state (COS for short) verbs in the language under study. More specifically, these affixes function as unaccusativizers or decausativizers in that they can derive unaccusative COS verbs from causative COS verbs by suppressing the external argument of the latter verbs and syntactically promoting the direct object to subject position. Crucially, the ability of these affixes to affect the argument structure and the morphosyntactic realization of arguments is not limited to SA, but it has been attested in some other languages, such as Italian, Russian, Chichewa, Spanish, French, Eastern Armenian, West Greenlandic, and Tzutujil, among others.            


The structure of the VP, its complexity, its semantics, its function, and the universality of the heads that it contains are a fascinating puzzle. A lot of progress has been made: this volume features cutting-edge research on the verbal domain, while tackling the problem of the nature and structure of the vP-VP domain. It includes some chapters based on papers presented at the “Little v” workshop which was held at Leiden University on October 25–26, 2013. The volume is divided into three main sections, representing the areas in which contemporary debate on the verbal domain is most active. The first part, entitled Root and Verbalizer, includes four chapters discussing the setup of verbal roots, their syntax, and their combination with other functional heads like Voice and v. This part focuses on the V head. The second section, Voice, discusses the content and necessity of a Voice head in the structure of a clause, and whether Voice is different from v. Voice was originally intended as the head hosting the external argument in its specifier, as well as transitivity. This section explores its relationship with “syntactic” voice, intended as the alternation between actives and passives. The third section, Event and Argument Structure, is dedicated to event structure, inner aspect, and Aktionsart. The main issues it tackles are the one-to-one relation between argument structure and event structure, and whether there can be minimal structural units at the basis of the derivation of any sort of XP, including the VP.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-163
Author(s):  
Maria Bloch-Trojnar

Abstract Deverbal nominals in Irish support Grimshaw’s (1990) tripartite division into complex event (CE-), simple event (SE-) and result nominals (R-nominals). Irish nominals are ambiguous only between the SE- and R-status. There are no CE-nominals containing the AspP layer in their structure. SE-nominals (also found in Light Verb Constructions) are number-neutral and incapable of pluralizing and are represented as [nP[vP[Root]]]. R-nominals are devoid of the vP layer and behave like ordinary nouns. The Irish data point to v as the layer introducing event implications and the vP or PPs as the functional heads introducing the internal argument (Alexiadou and Schäfer 2011). Event denoting nominals in Irish can license the internal argument but aspectual modification and external argument licensing are not possible (cf. synthetic compounds in Greek (Alexiadou 2017)), which means that, counter to Borer (2013), the licensing of Argument Structure need not follow from the presence of the AspP layer.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
Bożena Cetnarowska

Abstract The article compares the occurrence of pronominal possessive adjectives and denominal group adjectives in Polish event nominals. It is demonstrated that while in other Slavonic languages (e.g., in Russian) relational adjectives clearly contrast with possessive adjectives (both pronominal and lexical ones), in Polish denominal group adjectives, such as prezydencki ‘presidential’, ministerialny ‘ministerial’, or urzędniczy ‘clerk.ADJ’, resemble possessive pronouns in functioning as elements which can satisfy the argument structure of event nominals. The focus is laid on intransitive nominals, in view of the Possessor Principle proposed for Polish by Rozwadowska (1997). While some Polish intransitive nominals accompanied by possessives or by group adjectives are recognized as referential nominals (as is predicted by the analysis of Greek and Romanian group adjectives presented by Alexiadou and Stavrou, 2011, and Moreno, 2015), other intransitive nominals with such adjectival satellites are argued to be argument-supporting nominals. The association with the agentive reading (i.e., external argument interpretation) is shown to be characteristic, but not obligatory, with thematic group adjectives.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-65
Author(s):  
István Gyori ◽  
Janos Turi

AbstractIn this paper, extending the results in [ 1 ], we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for oscillation in a large class of singular (i.e., the difference operator is nonatomic) neutral equations.


1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 37-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques-Edouard Dies

In order to study the transience of Hendricks libraries, we introduce and study a special class of Markov chains, the Tsetlin d-piles, generalizing Tsetlin libraries and briefly defined as follows: a 1-pile is a Tsetlin library and a d-pile is a Tsetlin library where each book is replaced by a (d − 1)-pile. We give a stationary measure of these chains and establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for positive recurrence and transience. Finally, the study of d-piles allows us to determine a sufficient condition for transience of quite a large class of Hendricks libraries.


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