scholarly journals Nominal suffixes as markers of information structure in Basketo

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-120
Author(s):  
Hideyuki Inui
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Short Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Information Function ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Pragmatic Information ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Zero Anaphora ◽  
Subject Pronoun

This paper deals with the information function of two nominal suffixes, -i appearing in all nouns, and -n- in first- and second-person pronouns in Basketo, a North Omotic language predominantly spoken in the Basketo Special Woreda in Ethiopia. The suffix -i is often described as nominative. However, object nouns without definite marker can be marked by -i, and as a result -i can appear in both subject and object in the same sentence. We analyze morpheme -i as a marker of specificity. Suffix -n- distinguishes short and long forms of the first- and second-person subject pronoun. The short form is the same as the possessive. In general, the possessive does not bear any pragmatic information in discourse. Therefore, short pronouns also show no pragmatic function, but show what is subject or agent in a clause. On the other hand, long pronouns are morphologically and pragmatically marked. We analyze morpheme -n- as the foregrounded topic in discourse in contrast with zero anaphora.

Changing the Topic

Mnemosyne ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger J. Allan
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Flexible System ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
The One ◽  
Topic Constructions

AbstractIn Ancient Greek, topics can be expressed as intra-clausal constituents but they can also precede or follow the main clause as extra-clausal constituents. Together, these various topic expressions constitute a coherent system of complementary pragmatic functions. For a comprehensive account of topic organization, therefore, a limited focus on the clause proper is insufficient. In this paper, I will argue that it is possible to distinguish five different structural positions in which topic constituents may appear in Ancient Greek. These are: (i)Theme, (ii)clause-initial, (iii)postverbal in Setting, (iv)postverbal in main clauseand (v)Tail.Each of these positions in the sentence is associated with a specific pragmatic function: Resumed Topic, Contrastive/New Topic, Given Topic or clarification of Given Topic. In linguistic theory, topic and focus are often seen as independent aspects of information structure instead of complementary functions. It is, therefore, attractive to posit two separate sets of constructional templates: on the one hand, a topic set comprising the aforementioned topic constructions and, on the other hand, a focus set containing two (narrow and broad) focus-constructions. This results in a flexible system in which the word order of each sentence is determined by a combination of a focus construction plus one or more topic constructions.

The diachronic relationship between demonstratives and first/second person pronouns

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osamu Ishiyama
Keyword(s):  
Historical Data ◽  
Functional Similarity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Third Person

It is well known that demonstratives are the cross-linguistically common source of third person pronouns due to the functional similarity between them. For this reason, they are morphologically related to or formally indistinguishable from one another in many languages. First and second person pronouns, on the other hand, typically have historical sources other than demonstratives. However, unlike the close relationship between demonstratives and third person pronouns, the fact that demonstratives and first/second person pronouns have a very tenuous diachronic relationship has not attracted much attention in previous studies. Based primarily on historical data from Japanese, the present study shows that there are at least three functional reasons why demonstratives do not usually give rise to first/second person pronouns. This study also discusses a limited context in which a demonstrative does develop into a second person pronoun.

scholarly journals Den intima ledaren?: Om ledarartiklar, informalisering och språklig förändring

2019 ◽  
Vol NF 28 (2018) ◽  
pp. 78-111
Author(s):  
Sanna Skärlund
Keyword(s):  
Formal Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western World ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Public Language ◽  
The Past ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Time Period

Public language is generally considered to have become more informal in the Western world in the past few decades. The same holds true for Swedish public language and the language of Swedish newspapers in particular. However, two former studies of opinion articles in five Swedish newspapers revealed that the language used in this genre was surprisingly unchanged during the time period 1945–2000. This article replicates the two former studies by analysing 36 Swedish opinion articles from 2015 from a quantitative perspective. The results of the analysis are then compared to those of the earlier studies to see if, and to what extent, tendencies of informalization have now become noticeable in the opinion articles. It is demonstrated that there are indeed signs of informalization in the articles from 2015. Words and sentences have become shorter, colloquial expressions (such as swear words) are used, and both incomplete sentences and personal pronouns in first and second person are more frequent than before. On the other hand, subordinate clauses are more common in the articles from 2015 than in 1985–2000. Since subordinate clauses in former studies of Swedish have been considered a formal trait, this is quite unexpected. In the article, it is argued that the connection between subordination and formal language is more complex than has sometimes previously been acknowledged –, and that subordinate clauses have different functions, not all of them characterizing a formal style.

Resumption or contrast?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Cerrón-Palomino
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Other ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Resumptive Pronouns ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The One

This article is a contribution to the study of subject resumptive pronouns (RPs) in Spanish relative clauses (RCs). Previous studies have focused only on the constraints governing RPs across the different functions relativized: subject, direct object and oblique. In this variationist study, two analyses were conducted for the Peruvian Limeño variety: on the one hand, RPs were analyzed as a whole, following the aforementioned tradition; on the other hand, subject RPs were studied separately. When comparing the results of both analyses, it was found that the constraints favoring subject RPs are only a subset of the ones governing RPs as a whole, and the ranking of these constraints is also different. In addition, upon closer inspection, a different type of non-standard subject pronoun was identified: a contrastive one.

What are and what aren’t complex nominal expressions in flexible word order languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Uta Reinöhl
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Derivational Morphology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
The One ◽  
Question Form ◽  
Australian Languages

AbstractThis paper tackles the challenge of how to identify multi-word (or “complex”) nominal expressions in flexible word order languages including certain Australian languages and Vedic Sanskrit. In these languages, a weak or absent noun/adjective distinction in conjunction with flexible word order make it often hard to distinguish between complex nominal expressions, on the one hand, and cases where the nominals in question form independent expressions, on the other hand. Based on a discourse-based understanding of what it means to form a nominal expression, this paper surveys various cases where we are not dealing with multi-word nominal expressions. This involves, in particular, periphery-related phenomena such as use of nominals as free topics or afterthoughts, as well as various kinds of predicative uses. In the absence of clear morpho-syntactic evidence, all kinds of linguistic evidence are relied upon, including, in particular, information structure and prosody, but also derivational morphology and lexical semantics. In this way, it becomes frequently possible to distinguish between what are and what aren’t complex nominal expressions in these languages.

scholarly journals An LFG analysis of pronominal binding in Mandarin Chinese

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Hongyuan Dong
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
The Other ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Control Structures ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
And Control ◽  
Matrix Subject

Pronominal binding in Mandarin Chinese can be affected by different embedding verbs. For example, verbs like “gǎnxiè” (“to thank”) impose a negative constraint that requires the embedded subject pronoun not to be bound by the matrix subject DP. On the other hand verbs like “zhīdào” (“to know”) do not have such a requirement, thus conforming to the Binding Principle B. Importantly, binding relations of pronouns in sentences with verbs like “gǎnxiè” (“to thank”) cannot be accounted for within the framework of the standard Binding Theory. It cannot be explained by the control theory that involves PRO, either, although there is indeed some similarity between such negative constraints and control structures. Therefore I propose to add a negative constraint in the lexical entries of such verbs, based on how control is handled in LFG. This proposal has both theoretical and application advantages.

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.

scholarly journals Els mecanismes de referència en la interfície gramàtica-discurs. Cohesió, coherència i cognició

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (23) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Josep E. Ribera i Condomina ◽  
Maria Josep Marín Jordà ◽  
Núria Alturo Monné
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Thematic Progression ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Coherence Relations ◽  
Zero Anaphora ◽  
Textual Cohesion ◽  
The One

Referential cohesion integrates a series of phoric-type lexical grammatical mechanisms that exhibit syntactic and semantic links between discursive entities. By means of referential devices, textual meanings interweave so that a series of coreferential and meaning networks are created through which nouns are linked in order to contribute to textual cohesion. As a phenomenon that includes pronominalisation, ellipsis or zero anaphora, textual deixis (which essentially materialises in a non-exophoric use of demonstratives) and a variety of lexical cohesion devices (relationships of repetition, reiteration and association), referential cohesion is located at the interface between grammatical and pragmatic-discursive levels. On the one hand, it establishes structural and hierarchical syntactic-semantic relations between sentence constituents; on the other hand, it reveals the degree of activation of discursive entities in the memory of interlocutors and therefore shows evidence of discursive organisation, which licences an interpretation of thematic progression and coherence. Thus, the variety of referential mechanisms is linked to textual cohesion in the microstructural level. It stands as an obvious and tangible trace of coherence relations at the level of macrostructure and allows to track the cognitive processes by which interlocutors interact in order to communicate - the main aim of discourse - at the contextual and pragmatic levels.

scholarly journals Studying text coherence in Czech – a corpus-based analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-47
Author(s):  
Magdaléna Rysová
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Text Annotation ◽  
Text Coherence ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Automatic Text ◽  
Newspaper Articles

Abstract The paper deals with the field of Czech corpus linguistics and represents one of various current studies analysing text coherence through language interactions. It presents a corpusbased analysis of grammatical coreference and sentence information structure (in terms of contextual boundness) in Czech. It focuses on examining the interaction of these two language phenomena and observes where they meet to participate in text structuring. Specifically, the paper analyses contextually bound and non-bound sentence items and examines whether (and how often) they are involved in relations of grammatical coreference in Czech newspaper articles. The analysis is carried out on the language data of the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT) containing 3,165 Czech texts. The results of the analysis are helpful in automatic text annotation - the paper presents how (or to what extent) the annotation of grammatical coreference may be used in automatic (pre-)annotation of sentence information structure in Czech. It demonstrates how accurately we may (automatically) assume the value of contextual boundness for the antecedent and anaphor (as the two participants of a grammatical coreference relation). The results of the paper demonstrate that the anaphor of grammatical coreference is automatically predictable - it is a non-contrastive contextually bound sentence item in 99.18% of cases. On the other hand, the value of contextual boundness of the antecedent is not so easy to estimate (according to the PDT, the antecedent is contextually non-bound in 37% of cases, non-contrastive contextually bound in 50% and contrastive contextually bound in 13% of cases).

scholarly journals ПОЛНИ АСПЕКТ СТРАТЕГИЈА СУОЧАВАЊА СА СТРЕСОМ И ЊИХОВЕ ПОВЕЗАНОСТИ СА ПОТЕНЦИЈАЛОМ ЗА РАЗВОД

TEME ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 965
Author(s):  
Ивана Стризовић ◽  
Јелена Шакотић-Курбалија ◽  
Биљана Трифуновић
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Short Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Coping With Stress ◽  
Self Blame ◽  
Brief Cope ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
The Relationship

The study was conducted in order to determine the relationship between the coping strategies and divorce potential in couples. Based on the Levinger’s Model of cohesiveness and Bodennman’s stress-model, the existence of gender differences in coping with stress was expected, and that the non-adaptive coping skills were to be positive about the potential for divorce, while the adaptive strategies of coping with stress should be linked with a lower potential for divorce. 378 couples have participated in this study. The instruments used were the Brief COPE Scale (Carver, 1997) and a short form of the Martial Instability Index (Booth, Johnson & Edwards, 1983; retrieved from Tadinac et al., 2005). The results showed that the woman in dealing with stressful situations use self-destruction, denial of problems and venting, and also search for emotional and instrumental support. On the other hand, in dealing with stressful situations, males abuse substances. Using logistic regression it was showed that within both males and females there are significant differences between the coping strategies and divorce potential. Looking at the results more precisely, the males who deny the problem, use emotional support, rarely use venting, accept problems and rarely self-blame themselves have greater divorce potential. On the other hand, women who more frequently use emotional support and venting have greater divorce potential. The results are in line with the basic theoretical assumptions of this study.

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