scholarly journals Integrating linguistic dimensions: The scope of adverbs

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Bonami ◽  
Danièle Godard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Three distinctions seem relevant for the scope properties of adverbs: their function (adjuncts or complements), their prosody (incidental or integrated) and their lexical semantics (parenthetical or non parenthetical). We propose an analysis in which the scope of French adverbs is aligned with their syntactic properties, relying on a view of adjuncts as loci for quantification, a linearization approach to the word order, and an explicit modelling of dialogue.

Prosodic differences between declaratives and interrogatives in infant-directed speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 968-994 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN GEFFEN ◽  
TOBEN H. MINTZ
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
American English ◽  
Standard American English ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Maternal Speech

AbstractIn many languages, declaratives and interrogatives differ in word order properties, and in syntactic organization more broadly. Thus, in order to learn the distinct syntactic properties of the two sentence types, learners must first be able to distinguish them using non-syntactic information. Prosodic information is often assumed to be a useful basis for this type of discrimination, although no systematic studies of the prosodic cues available to infants have been reported. Analysis of maternal speech in three Standard American English-speaking mother–infant dyads found that polar interrogatives differed from declaratives on the patterning of pitch and duration on the final two syllables, butwh-questions did not. Thus, while prosody is unlikely to aid discrimination of declaratives fromwh-questions, infant-directed speech provides prosodic information that infants could use to distinguish declaratives and polar interrogatives. We discuss how learners could leverage this information to identify all question forms, in the context of syntax acquisition.

Syntax

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-87
Author(s):  
Jochen Zeller
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This chapter presents an overview of the most important syntactic properties of African languages and language families. It investigates the status of syntactic word categories (noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, etc.) and examines the different word orders and word order alternations that are observed phrase-internally and at the level of the clause. Also discussed are syntactic constructions such as the passive, wh-questions, and relative clauses, as well as morphological phenomena that bear a close relation to syntax, such as case and agreement. Special attention is drawn to syntactic traits which are attested in African languages but which occur rarely, or not at all, outside Africa, such as the SVO–S-Aux-OV word order alternation (found in Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages as well as in Northern Khoisan), the construct state nominal (a characteristic of Afro-Asiatic languages), or logophoricity (a feature of subgroups of Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afro-Asiatic).

The partitive construction in Mandarin Chinese

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Jin
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Small Clause ◽  
Parametric Variation ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Syntactic Derivation

This paper investigates the semantic and syntactic properties of [N(oun)+de+Q(uantifier)] in Mandarin Chinese. Based on a comparison with the quantitive construction [Q+N], the paper advocates that [N+de+Q] is the Chinese partitive construction. Adopting a clausal approach to the syntactic derivation of partitives, it is hypothesized that Chinese partitives are formed via applying Predicate Inversion to a small clause that features a BELONG-type possession relationship. The difference between Chinese partitives and English-type partitives in terms of the surface word order is a result of a parametric variation with respect to whether the remnant of Predication Inversion undergoes further raising or not.

scholarly journals Word order in heritage Russian: clause type and majority language matter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Zuban ◽  
Maria Martynova ◽  
Sabine Zerbian ◽  
Luka Szucsich ◽  
Natalia Gagarina
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
The Us ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Properties

AbstractHeritage speakers (HSs) are known to differ from monolingual speakers in various linguistic domains. The present study focuses on the syntactic properties of monolingual and heritage Russian. Using a corpus of semi-spontaneous spoken and written narratives produced by HSs of Russian residing in the US and Germany, we investigate HSs’ word order patterns and compare them to monolingual speakers of Russian from Saint Petersburg. Our results show that the majority language (ML) of HSs as well as the clause type contribute to observed differences in word order patterns between speaker groups. Specifically, HSs in Germany performed similarly to monolingual speakers of Russian while HSs in the US generally produced more SVO and less OVS orders than the speakers of the latter group. Furthermore, HSs in the US produced more SVO orders than both monolingual speakers and HSs in Germany in embedded clauses, but not in main clauses. The results of the study are discussed with the reference to the differences between main and embedded clauses as well as the differences between the MLs of the HSs.

Disjunction in Kannada and Korean

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 197-218
Author(s):  
Youngjun Jang
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Existential Quantifier ◽  
Question Formation ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Abstract. This paper compares disjunction in Kannada and Korean and examines the morpho-syntactic properties of it in these languages, focusing on Kannada -oo/illa and Korean -na. Kannada and Korean are genealogically unrelated, but share SOV word order. It is thus expected that the disjunction head follow its complement. Indeed, Kannada -oo and Korean -na follow their comple-ments. What is truly intriguing is that it shows surprisingly parallel properties. For example, Kan-nada -oo and Korean -na not only yield disjunction but also invoke indirect question interpretation. That is, both of them are used as a disjunctive conjunct as well as a question marker. In this paper, we examine the parallels and differences between the disjunction in these languages and show that the conjunctive and disjunctive reading is expressed in different modes. Under the present analysis, we can readily explain the indirect question formation, wh-scope marking, and the dummy wh-phrases in the oo-complementation. We also show that the existential quantifier interpretation of wh-indefinites plus -oo can be accounted for, assuming -oo to be a wh-question marker. Unlike what Amritavalli (2003) predicts, wh-indefinites plus disjunctive morpheme yields universal quantifier interpretations in languages like English, Japanese, and Korean.

The syntax of participial adjuncts in Eastern Bengali

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Van Der Wurff
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Binding Properties ◽  
Case Assignment ◽  
Syntactic Properties

In this article I will discuss the syntactic properties of participial adjuncts in Eastern Bengali. From a GB-point of view, these constructions are quite interesting, because they can contain a nominative which is apparently not assigned by AGR, and because they show a quite intricate pattern of possibilities for coreference and disjoint reference, with some seemingly arbitrary differences among the three types of adjuncts. In Section 2, I shall present the empirical data for these constructions. In Section 3 I will discuss the relevant general syntactic principles of Eastern Bengali, specifically those responsible for Case-assignment, word-order, pro-drop (including ergative verbs) and binding properties. In Section 4, I will show that the characteristics of the participial constructions, including the apparently haphazard binding properties, follow from the general syntactic principles of Eastern Bengali, if we assume one simple statement for each type of adjunct. No further construction-specific stipulations need be made. To the extent that the analysis I propose can be upheld, it will constitute indirect support for the GB-mechanisms that are crucially involved in it. Apart from various principles of configurationality and binding, I will make use of the idea that there is no abstract AGR, in these cases at least, and also of the analysis of pro-drop as a silent clitic phenomenon, proposed in Safir (1985). It is of course a fact that the principles of grammar I appeal to still need to be investigated more carefully, and may have to be modified on the basis of data not yet taken into account or accurately analyzed. However, as they stand, the relevant principles of GB-theory appear to be able to account for the Eastern Bengali facts I discuss here. Apart from these more theoretical concerns, this paper naturally has an important descriptive component too, which I hope will make it also interesting to linguists working in a different theoretical framework and may stimulate linguists specifically concerned with Bengali to explore further the intricascies of this area of Bengali grammer.

scholarly journals Parameter Preservation at the Syntax-PF Interface: The Ba Construction Revisited

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-66
Author(s):  
Chih-hsiang Shu
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Shape Preservation ◽  
Object Shift ◽  
Ba Construction ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Pf Interface ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Movement Structure

Abstract In this paper, I argue for an analysis that treats the ba construction in Chinese as a case of shape preservation-induced movement structure. Specifically, the robust preverbal adverbial and PP expressions and the mandatory ba-DP movement in ditransitive structures are both derived from a violable head directionality macroparameter under the Symmetrical Syntax Hypothesis, which allows directionality parameters to examine word order throughout the derivation. In addition to being able to capture the parallel syntactic properties of Scandinavian object shift, this account receives further empirical support from word order facts of Archaic Chinese and Bambara.

The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Other ◽  
Experimental Investigations ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Typological Characteristic ◽  
Split Ergativity ◽  
Syntactic Properties

As any quick survey of the syntactic literature will show, there are almost as many different views of ergativity as there are so-called ergative languages (languages whose basic clause structure instantiates an ergative case-marking or agreement pattern). While ergativity is sometimes referred to as a typological characteristic of languages, research on the phenomenon has made it more and more clear that (a) languages do not fall clearly into one or the other of the ergative/absolutive vs. nominative/accusative categories and (b) ergative characteristics are not consistent from language to language. This volume contributes to both the theoretical and descriptive literature on ergativity and adds results from experimental investigations of ergativity. The chapters cover overview approaches within generative, typological, and functional paradigms, as well as approaches to the core morpho-syntactic building blocks of an ergative construction (absolutive case and licensing, and ergative case and licensing); common related constructions (anti-passive); common related properties (split-ergativity, syntactic vs. morphological ergativity, word order, the interaction of agreement patterns and ergativity); and extensions and permutations of ergativity (nominalizations, voice systems). While the editors all work within the generative framework and investigate the syntactic properties of ergativity through fieldwork, and many of the chapters represent similar research, there are also chapters representing different frameworks (functional, typological) and different approaches (experimental, diachronic). The theoretical chapters touch on many different languages representing a wide range of language families, and there are sixteen case studies that are more descriptive in nature, attesting to both the pervasiveness and diversity of ergative patterns.

Some observations on wh-clauses in Japanese Sign Language

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asako Uchibori ◽  
Kazumi Matsuoka
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Japanese Sign Language ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This paper offers basic observations about wh-questions in JSL with clause-final wh-signs, i.e., wh-finals. Basic word order of matrix wh-sentences in Japanese Sign Language (JSL) have been reported by previous studies such as Morgan (2006), Fischer and Gong (2010), Kimura (2011), and Akahori and Oka (2011), among others, which reported that wh-signs can appear in the clause-final position in addition to clause-initial and in-situ positions. In order to investigate the syntactic mechanism of JSL wh-constructions, it is also necessary to confirm basic syntactic properties of wh-signs in embedded clauses. However, distributions of wh-signs in embedded clauses have not been fully investigated in previous studies. Based on the discussion on the word order of sentences with direct and indirect speech in JSL in Uchibori et al. (2011), this paper demonstrates that wh-signs occur in embedded clauses that are not instances of direct speech (or quotations) of wh-questions, but those of syntactically embedded indirect speech. In embedded clauses, wh-finals appear as in the matrix wh-questions. Relevant theoretical issues are discussed concerning the relation between linear properties (i.e., distributions of wh-expressions) and the structural properties of natural language.

Syntactic reflexes of information structure in heritage Spanish: Evidence from psych-predicate constructions

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada Gómez Soler ◽  
Diego Pascual y Cabo
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
The Status ◽  
Syntactic Properties

AbstractThis study examines the status of discourse-dependent syntactic properties in Spanish heritage grammars. In particular, we focus on pragmatically-driven word order patterns with Spanish psychological predicates (e. g.,

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