Deriving the predicate-argument structure for a free word order language

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.

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Niuean

10.1093/oso/9780198793557.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Diane Massam

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Argument Structure ◽

Word Formation ◽

Left Periphery ◽

Sentence Structure ◽

Noun Incorporation ◽

The Pacific ◽

Theta Role ◽

Predicate Argument Structure

This book presents a detailed descriptive and theoretical examination of predicate-argument structure in Niuean, a Polynesian language within the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family, spoken mainly on the Pacific island of Niue and in New Zealand. Niuean has VSO word order and an ergative case-marking system, both of which raise questions for a subject-predicate view of sentence structure. Working within a broadly Minimalist framework, this volume develops an analysis in which syntactic arguments are not merged locally to their thematic sources, but instead are merged high, above an inverted extended predicate which serves syntactically as the Niuean verb, later undergoing movement into the left periphery of the clause. The thematically lowest argument merges as an absolutive inner subject, with higher arguments merging as applicatives. The proposal relates Niuean word order and ergativity to its isolating morphology, by equating the absence of inflection with the absence of IP in Niuean, which impacts many aspects of its grammar. As well as developing a novel analysis of clause and argument structure, word order, ergative case, and theta role assignment, the volume argues for an expanded understanding of subjecthood. Throughout the volume, many other topics are also treated, such as noun incorporation, word formation, the parallel internal structure of predicates and arguments, null arguments, displacement typology, the role of determiners, and the structure of the left periphery.

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Discontinuous Constituents in a Free Word Order Language

Discontinuous Constituency ◽

10.1163/9789004373204_010 ◽

1987 ◽

pp. 241-255

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Order Language ◽

Free Word

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Word order in Latin locative constructions: a corpus study in Caesar’s De bello gallico

Language Typology and Universals ◽

10.1524/stuf.2011.0014 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 64 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Stavros Skopeteas

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Information Structure ◽

Motion Verbs ◽

Structural Domains ◽

Corpus Study ◽

First Order ◽

Order Language ◽

Free Word

AbstractClassical Latin is a free word order language, i.e., the order of the constituents is determined by information structure rather than by syntactic rules. This article presents a corpus study on the word order of locative constructions and shows that the choice between a Theme-first and a Locative-first order is influenced by the discourse status of the referents. Furthermore, the corpus findings reveal a striking impact of the syntactic construction: complements of motion verbs do not have the same ordering preferences with complements of static verbs and adjuncts. This finding supports the view that the influence of discourse status on word order is indirect, i.e., it is mediated by information structural domains.

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Parsing Korean: A Free Word Order Language

Literary and Linguistic Computing ◽

10.1093/llc/1.3.123 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 123-128

Author(s):

K.-S. CHOI

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Order Language ◽

Free Word

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Turkish Discourse Bank: Porting a discourse annotation style to a morphologically rich language

Dialogue & Discourse ◽

10.5087/dad.2013.208 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 174-184 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Deniz Zeyrek ◽

Işın Demirşahin ◽

Ayışığı B. Sevdik Çallı

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Target Language ◽

Derivational Morphology ◽

Paper Briefly ◽

Order Language ◽

Free Word

This paper briefly describes the Turkish Discourse Bank, the first publicly available annotated discourse resource for Turkish. It focuses on the challenges posed by annotating Turkish, a free word order language with rich inflectional and derivational morphology. It shows the usefulness of the PDTB style annotation but points out the need to expand this annotation style with the needs of the target language.

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When discourse matches syntax: On meta-informative centering theory and discourse coherence in the recent history of English

International Journal of English Studies ◽

10.6018/ijes/2011/2/149661 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 97

Author(s):

Ana Elina Martínez Insua

Keyword(s):

Middle English ◽

Word Order ◽

Information Structure ◽

Recent History ◽

Syntactic Structures ◽

Discourse Coherence ◽

Order Language ◽

History Of ◽

Centering Theory ◽

Free Word

This paper is concerned with how <em>there</em>-constructions may have helped to achieve discourse coherence in the recent history of English. From the theoretical framework of Meta-Informative Centering Theory (MIC) the paper explores the possibility to establish a relation between the syntactic structures under analysis and the distinction between 'smooth-shift' and 'rough-shift' transitions from one centre of attention to another (Brennan, Friedman & Pollard, 1987). This will help, ultimately, to investigate the interaction between centering and MIC theories, word order and information structure in a 'non-free' word order language such as English. A corpus- driven analysis of the behaviour of spoken and written <em>there</em>-constructions from late Middle English to Present Day English will show their capacity to function either as highly coherent structures that continue with the same local topic as the previous utterance(s), or as means to shift the local focus of attention.

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