scholarly journals Syntactic Head Movement in Japanese: Evidence from Verb-Echo Answers and Negative Scope Reversal

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Yosuke Sato ◽  
Masako Maeda

We investigate the syntax of verb-echo answers in Japanese. We first present two arguments showing that this answer form is best analyzed through overt V-to-T-to-C movement, followed by TP-ellipsis. We further show that verb-echo answers exhibit a scope reversal effect: the otherwise robust wide scope reading of focus-marked phrases with respect to negation is reversed in this construction, a pattern that holds across all grammatical positions. This ubiquitous scope reversal pattern indicates that certain instances of head movement in Japanese are syntactic, contrary to the view (Chomsky 2000, 2001) that head movement is to be relegated to the postsyntactic, phonological component.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Larralde ◽  
Alina Konradt ◽  
Kriszta Eszter Szendrői

In this paper we investigate the scopal reading of disjunctions in French negative sentences with pre-schoolers. We posit that the French disjunctor “ou” does not fit the traditional disjunction PPI/non-PPI dichotomy according to which a wide scope is taken by a PPI disjunction and a narrow scope when the disjunction is not a PPI. We hypothesized that focus could be a succesful scopal manipulator. Using Truth Value Judgment Tasks (TVJT), we tested French pre-schoolers' scopal reading of negated disjunctions in a neutral prosody condition and with prosodic focus on the disjunctor in a between subject design. We found that as predicted, prosodic focus often enduced participants to adopt a disjunction wide scope reading whereas a disjunction narrow scope reading was favored in the neutral prosody condition. This confirmed our hypothesis that focus can manipulate disjunction scope paramaters. It also shows that, when the disjunction is focalised, children have access to the disjunction wide scope reading earlier than previously thought. Finally, we can conclude that the distinction between PPI-disjunctor vs. non-PPI disjunctor languages needs to be more fine-grained.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 9-47
Author(s):  
Katrin Axel-Tober ◽  
Kalle Müller

Abstract This article addresses the semantic and morphosyntactic development of the German evidential adverbs offensichtlich, offenbar, anscheinend, and scheinbar ‘obviously’/‘apparently’/‘seemingly’ and their meaning contribution in present-day German. It will be argued that these expressions, most of which are historically derived from adjectives, innovated separate lexical entries as sentence adverbs in New High German resulting from a morphosyntactic reanalysis of an ambiguous surface structure. This reanalysis was accompanied by a profound semantic change, as a result of which the expressions acquired a wide-scope reading of the type ‘there is (clear) evidence that p’. The diachronic results are corroborated by experimental data from Present-Day German that show that these evidential sentence adverbs are underspecified with respect to evidence type (inference and report). The diachronic and synchronic findings are furthermore discussed in the light of grammaticalization and subjectification theory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 630-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiwon Yun

This article presents an experiment investigating the relative contribution of two different prosodic properties to the interpretation and scope configuration of wh-indeterminates in Korean. The experiment shows that it is prosodic phrasing after the wh-indeterminate that determines whether it is interpreted as interrogative or indefinite. Prosodic prominence on the wh-indeterminate does not contribute to such a distinction; rather, it increases the possibility of a wide scope reading. The results support the theory that prosodic phrasing is crucial in forming wh-questions, and call for consideration of the influence of prosody on scope-taking properties of wh-indefinites.


1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 170-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara S. Muller ◽  
Pierre Bovet

Twelve blindfolded subjects localized two different pure tones, randomly played by eight sound sources in the horizontal plane. Either subjects could get information supplied by their pinnae (external ear) and their head movements or not. We found that pinnae, as well as head movements, had a marked influence on auditory localization performance with this type of sound. Effects of pinnae and head movements seemed to be additive; the absence of one or the other factor provoked the same loss of localization accuracy and even much the same error pattern. Head movement analysis showed that subjects turn their face towards the emitting sound source, except for sources exactly in the front or exactly in the rear, which are identified by turning the head to both sides. The head movement amplitude increased smoothly as the sound source moved from the anterior to the posterior quadrant.


Metahumaniora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Dicky Rachmat Pauji

Amâlî (Imla) is a methodology used in studying Arabic language and literature that has a very wide scope. Amâlî (Imla) itself can be translated as: to dictate, to add, to fill in and etc. Amâlî (Imla) may also be interpreted further by the following narration: A teacher (ustadz) comes to a place like a mosque, an Islamic school or any learning space in general. In the process of teaching and learning, all that are spoken by the teacher is written down by the students on pieces of paper they had prepared earlier then be compiled into a book which will be preserved. This paper presents a brief summary of Amâlî (Imla) as a methodology which is discussed in many Amâlî (Imla) related literature works written from the beginning of 7th century until the 14th century. The subject Amâlî (Imla) is written in exceedingly diverse manner, unique to each of numerous known authors. This paper also discusses about various meaning of the word Amâlî (Imla) that has been interpreted differently among authors. In addition, the method of separating chapters and other minor distinct writing style that each of various groups of Amâlî (Imla) authors had developed was presented in this work. And lastly, this paper discusses the fact that Amâlî (Imla) related textbook authors were not only originated from the Middle East, but also from regions such as Iran (Huzistan) and Andalusia


This project is regarding the Motion controlled wheelchair for disabled. We are going to control motorized wheelchair using a head band having motion sensor and Arduino as controller. Problem: “often disabled who cannot walk find themselves being burden for their families or caretakers just for moving around the house. Disabled who are paralysed below head, who may not have functioning arms cannot control joystick controlled electric wheelchair.” This project is to solve their problem using a motion sensor to control their wheelchair. We are aiming towards building a more affordable, unique, low maintenance and available for all kind of head-controlled wheel chair.


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