scholarly journals Objektklitika und Informationsstrukturierung im Bulgarischen

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valja Janewa
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Explanatory Model ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Generative Theory ◽  
Extended Projection ◽  
Object Clitics

Auf der Grundlage der Chomskyschen Grammatiktheorie sowie der jüngsten Ergebnisse zur Informationsstrukturierung erfolgt die Untersuchung von Syntax, Morphologie und Semantik pronominaler Klitika in der bulgarischen Sprache. Im Mittelpunkt stehen die morphosyntaktischen Konfigurationen, in denen die Objektklitika vorkommen und deren prosodische, semantische und informationsstrukturelle Interpretation. Dabei geht es vor allem um folgende Punkte: • lexikalische Kategorisierung der Objektklitika • Bedingungen für das Vorkommen der Objektklitika • Kongruenzbeziehung zum verdoppelten Objekt • Funktion der Klitika und ihre Bedeutung für die informationsstrukturelle Gliederung des Satzes Rudin (1995) und Franks (1998) faßten die bulgarischen Klitika als funktionale Köpfe in der erweiterten lexikalischen Projektion von Verben auf, bei Dimitrova-Vulchanova (1998) sind sie Köpfe einer komplexen klitischen Projektion in satzinitialer Position. Schick & Zimmermann (1995) betrachten die Klitika als Adjunkte einer funktionalen Kategorie mit der Funktion, Topikalität auszudrücken. In meiner Darstellung folge ich diesen Ansätzen nicht, sondern versuche für die Fälle, in denen Klitika Stellvertreter für Nominalphrasen sind bzw. diese verdoppeln, ein anderes Erklärungsmuster zu geben. On the basis of Chomsky's Generative Theory as well as of the latest results in information structure the syntax, morphology, and semantics of object clitics in modern Bulgarian are investigated. The study examines the morphosyntactic configurations in which object clitics occur, as well as their prosodic and semantic interpretation, and the interpretation of their information structure. The following points are emphasized: • lexical categorisation of object clitics • conditions under which object clitics occur • agreement relation between object clitic and argument noun phrase • function of clitics and their meaning for the information structure of the sentence. Rudin (1997) and Franks (1998) analyse the object clitics as functional agreement (nonargument) heads in the extended projection of the verb. Dimitrova-Vulchanova (1998) argues that pronominal clitics head their own projection ClP. Schick & Zimmermann (1997) analyse the pronominal clitics as non-projecting adjuncts to a functional category F. The functional category F triggers raising of topics from the lexical projection VP. In my analysis, instead of following this approach, I try to give a different explanatory model for those cases where the clitics stand in place of argument noun phrases or double these phrases.

The grammar of ‘content’ and ‘container’

1976 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Schwartz-Norman
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
The State ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
Grammatical Relations ◽  
Grammatical Relation ◽  
Made In ◽  
Syntactic Frames

I. In this paper I will examine the systematic alternation in grammatical relations (or functions) of noun phrases in the semantic rôles that I will refer to as ‘content’ and ‘container’ for that class of English verbs which appear in the syntactic frames given in (I):(I)(a)…V NP1 IN/ON(TO) NP2…load the hay on the waggon(b)…V NP2 WITH NP1…load the waggon with the hay.This class of verbs, exemplified by load, spread and spray is particularly interesting because of the claim made in Anderson (1971) that the noun phrase which stands in the grammatical relation of direct object is semantically interpreted as being wholly involved in the action or wholly in the state indicated by the verb. Thus, for verbs that may appear in both of the frames in (I), if Anderson's analysis is correct, the semantic interpretation of structures like (a) and (b) will be distinct in that in (a), NP1 should be interpreted holistically and NP2 should not, while in (b), NP2 should be interpreted holistically, and NP1 should not. After first examining some general characteristics of this class of verbs, I will point out some problems which are presented by Anderson's analysis.

Syntactic, semantic and information structures of floating quantifiers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryo Otoguro ◽  
Liselotte Snijders
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
The Other ◽  
Information Structures ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Floating Quantifiers ◽  
The One

Quantifiers canonically attach to nouns or noun phrases as modifiers to specify the amount or number of the entity expressed by the noun. However, it has been observed that quantifiers can be positioned outside of the noun phrase. These so-called floating quantifiers (FQs) exhibit intriguing syntactic and semantic characteristics. On the one hand, they appear to have a closerelationship with a noun; semantically they quantify a noun in the same way as non-floating quantifiers, and quite often they exhibit agreement with the noun. On the other hand, their phrase structure distribution is very similar to that of VP-adverbs. In this paper, we argue that the distribution of FQs is constrained not purely by syntax, but also by information structure. We show that FQs play a focus role whereas modified nouns are reference-oriented topic expressions. Building upon Dalrymple and Nikolaeva’s (2011) recent proposal, we formulate the interaction between syntactic, semantic and information structure features of FQs within LFG’s projection architecture.

Pragmatics for Latin

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Devine ◽  
Laurence D. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Association With Focus ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

Latin is often described as a free word order language, but in general each word order encodes a particular information structure: in that sense, each word order has a different meaning. This book provides a descriptive analysis of Latin information structure based on detailed philological evidence and elaborates a syntax-pragmatics interface that formalizes the informational content of the various different word orders. The book covers a wide ranges of issues including broad scope focus, narrow scope focus, double focus, topicalization, tails, focus alternates, association with focus, scrambling, informational structure inside the noun phrase and hyperbaton (discontinuous constituency). Using a slightly adjusted version of the structured meanings theory, the book shows how the pragmatic meanings matching the different word orders arise naturally and spontaneously out of the compositional process as an integral part of a single semantic derivation covering denotational and informational meaning at one and the same time.

scholarly journals The Role of Prosodic Breaks and Pitch Accents in Grouping Words during On-line Sentence Processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 2447-2467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Bögels ◽  
Herbert Schriefers ◽  
Wietske Vonk ◽  
Dorothee J. Chwilla
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
On Line ◽  
Group Words ◽  
Pitch Accents

The present study addresses the question whether accentuation and prosodic phrasing can have a similar function, namely, to group words in a sentence together. Participants listened to locally ambiguous sentences containing object- and subject-control verbs while ERPs were measured. In Experiment 1, these sentences contained a prosodic break, which can create a certain syntactic grouping of words, or no prosodic break. At the disambiguation, an N400 effect occurred when the disambiguation was in conflict with the syntactic grouping created by the break. We found a similar N400 effect without the break, indicating that the break did not strengthen an already existing preference. This pattern held for both object- and subject-control items. In Experiment 2, the same sentences contained a break and a pitch accent on the noun following the break. We argue that the pitch accent indicates a broad focus covering two words [see Gussenhoven, C. On the limits of focus projection in English. In P. Bosch & R. van der Sandt (Eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives. Cambridge: University Press, 1999], thus grouping these words together. For object-control items, this was semantically possible, which led to a “good-enough” interpretation of the sentence. Therefore, both sentences were interpreted equally well and the N400 effect found in Experiment 1 was absent. In contrast, for subject-control items, a corresponding grouping of the words was impossible, both semantically and syntactically, leading to processing difficulty in the form of an N400 effect and a late positivity. In conclusion, accentuation can group words together on the level of information structure, leading to either a semantically “good-enough” interpretation or a processing problem when such a semantic interpretation is not possible.

Rheme before theme in the noun phrase

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915
Author(s):  
Carlotta Viti
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
New Information ◽  
Prague School

Information structure in the noun phrase remains unexplored or limited to the study of the s-form and the of-form in English, which are interpreted from the perspective of the Prague School. Accordingly, the prenominal s-form is chosen if the possessor expresses old information; conversely, if the possessor expresses new information, the postnominal of-form is preferred. Ancient Greek, however, indicates that this is not the sole pattern attested. In our data, drawn from Herodotus, a postposed genitive refers to the topic of the immediately preceding clauses, and has no semantically compatible referent around it. Preposed genitives denote new or discontinuous participants, and are used in contrastive and emphatic contexts. In this case, the principle “rheme before theme” can be identified.

Romance Object Clitics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Pescarini
Keyword(s):  
Previous Literature ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Generative Theory ◽  
Morphological Aspects ◽  
Object Clitics ◽  
Clitic Placement ◽  
Theoretical Side

This book focuses on the evolution of object clitic pronouns in the Romance languages. It aims to explore the empirical facets of cliticization and elaborate on the theoretical ramifications of the topic. On the empirical side, the book deals with data ranging from Latin to modern languages and less well-known dialects from all areas of Romance. Medieval vernaculars take centre stage both in the reconstruction of the evolution from Latin to Romance and in the modelling of clitic placement in the modern languages. Syntactic, phonological, and morphological aspects are examined, but the main focus is on syntactic placement, which is the hallmark of Romance clitics. On the theoretical side, the books engage with the previous literature, in particular with Generative literature. In recent decades, our understanding of Romance clitics has grown in symbiosis with the Generative theory, and the importance of most empirical findings cannot be fully appreciated without being acquainted with the terms of the ongoing debate. The book challenges the received idea that cliticization resulted from a form of syntactic deficiency. Instead, it proposes that clitics resulted from the feature endowment of discourse features, which caused freezing of certain pronominal forms first and—through reanalysis—their successive incorporation into verbal hosts. This approach entails revising analyses of well-known phenomena such as interpolation, climbing, and enclisis/proclisis alternations (the so-called Tobler-Mussafia law), and addressing orthogonal phenomena such as V2 syntax, scrambling, and stylistic fronting.

scholarly journals A Machine Learning Approach to Coreference Resolution of Noun Phrases

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wee Meng Soon ◽  
Hwee Tou Ng ◽  
Daniel Chung Yong Lim
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Coreference Resolution ◽  
Machine Learning Approach

In this paper, we present a learning approach to coreference resolution of noun phrases in unrestricted text. The approach learns from a small, annotated corpus and the task includes resolving not just a certain type of noun phrase (e.g., pronouns) but rather general noun phrases. It also does not restrict the entity types of the noun phrases; that is, coreference is assigned whether they are of “organization,” “person,” or other types. We evaluate our approach on common data sets (namely, the MUC-6 and MUC-7 coreference corpora) and obtain encouraging results, indicating that on the general noun phrase coreference task, the learning approach holds promise and achieves accuracy comparable to that of nonlearning approaches. Our system is the first learning-based system that offers performance comparable to that of state-of-the-art nonlearning systems on these data sets.

Abstractions and exemplars: The measure noun phrase alternation in German

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 729-771
Author(s):  
Roland Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Experimental Validation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Prototype Model ◽  
Weak Effect ◽  
Specific Measure ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Large Corpus

AbstractIn this paper, an alternation in German measure noun phrases is examined under a varying-abstraction perspective. In a specific measure NP construction, the embedded kind-denoting noun either agrees in case with the measure noun (eine Tasse guter Kaffee‘a cup of good coffee’) or it stands in the genitive (eine Tasse guten Kaffees). Each of the two alternants is syntactically similar to a non-alternating construction. I propose a prototype model which assigns a common prototypical meaning to each of the alternants and its corresponding non-alternating construction. Based on this, I argue that lexical, morphosyntactic, and stylistic features help to predict the choice of the alternant. A large corpus study is presented which supports this analysis. However, in addition to the prototype effects, an exemplar effect is also shown to influence the choice, namely the relative frequencies with which lemmas occur in the non-alternating constructions. I argue that allowing both prototype and exemplar effects is more adequate than following radical prototype or exemplar approaches. It is also verified in two experiments that the corpus-derived model corresponds to the behaviour of native speakers. The weak effect size of the experimental validation is discussed in the context of corpus-based cognitive linguistics and the validation of corpus-derived models.

scholarly journals The Post-Modification of Noun Phrase: Types and Distributions on Abstracts of Local and International Journals

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Shanty A.Y.P.S Duwila
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Efl Teachers ◽  
Post Modification

Focusing on single and multiple post-modification of noun phrase complexity in academic writing, this study adopted Berlage’s (2014) types of single and multiple post-modification of noun phrase to investigate the types and distributionof noun phrase on 15 abstracts of accredited local journal and 15 international journal indexed by Scopus. Subjects, objects, and complements are coded manually and then extracted for noun phrases. The findings revealed that both groups of writers heavily relied on noun phrase involving prepositional phrase in single-post modification and noun phrase involving prepositional phrase(s) and coordination(s) in multiple-post modification. This finding may give contribution to EFL teachers and material developers in order to provide information and materials about NP post modifiers that can be used in academic writing.  

scholarly journals Bhadarwahi: A Typological Sketch

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Amitabh Vikram DWIVEDI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Main Verb

This paper is a summary of some phonological and morphosyntactice features of the Bhadarwahi language of Indo-Aryan family. Bhadarwahi is a lesser known and less documented language spoken in district of Doda of Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. Typologically it is a subject dominant language with an SOV word order (SV if without object) and its verb agrees with a noun phrase which is not followed by an overt post-position. These noun phrases can move freely in the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object generally precedes the direct object. Aspiration, like any other Indo-Aryan languages, is a prominent feature of Bhadarwahi. Nasalization is a distinctive feature, and vowel and consonant contrasts are commonly observed. Infinitive and participle forms are formed by suffixation while infixation is also found in causative formation. Tense is carried by auxiliary and aspect and mood is marked by the main verb.

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