Identificando os núcleos aplicativos baixos no crioulo guineense e no tupinambá (família tupiguarani)

Neste trabalho, descrevemos e discutimos a manifestação de núcleos aplicativos baixos em duas línguas geneticamente não relacionadas: o crioulo guineense4 (CG) e o tupinambá5 (família tupiguarani), tendo como base a tipologia estabelecida por Pylkkänen (2002, 2008) e ampliada por Cuervo (2003). Através dos dados observados nas duas línguas, identifcamos, além dos dois tipos de morfemas aplicativos baixos postulados por Pylkkänen - to-the-possession-of e from-the-possessionof, o outro tipo defnido por Cuervo como de posse estática- (at). Em cada uma das línguas, esses três tipos de núcleos aplicativos são expressos pela mesma estrutura: dative shift em CG e possessorstranding em tupinambá.

Reference tracking mechanisms and automatic annotation based on Ob-Ugric information structure

The following paper is concerned with information structure in the Ob-Ugric languages and its manifestation in reference tracking and its mechanisms. We will show how both knowledge on information structure and on reference tracking mechanisms can be used to develop a system for a (semi-)automatic annotation of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions. We assume that the principles of information structure, i.e., the balancing of the content of an utterance, are indicated by the use of anaphoric devices to mark participants in an on-going discourse. This process in which participants are encoded by the speaker and decoded by the hearer is called reference tracking. Our model distinguishes four important factors that play a role in reference tracking: inherent (linguistic) features of a referent, information structure, referential devices and referential strategies. The interaction between these factors we call reference tracking mechanisms. Here, the passive voice and the dative shift are used to exemplify this complex interaction system. Drawing conclusions from this, rules are developed to annotate both syntactic, semantic and pragmatic roles of discourse participants (semi-)automatically.

Dative shift in a language without dative? The (allative) case of Finnish

Dative shift is a two-fold process that affects both the morphological coding and the order of T and R arguments of a three-participant construction, as in the teacher gave a book to the student vs. the teacher gave the student a book. Across languages, dative shift tends to express similar functions including differences in animacy, definiteness, semantic role of arguments, affectedness of recipient and permanence of transfer. This is understandable, since dative shift increases the formal transitivity of the affected clauses, and all the expressed functions are somehow related to transitivity. The goal of this paper is to study whether, and to what extent, mere changes in word order suffice to express the functions of dative shift. The examined language is Finnish, which suits very well for this purpose due to its relatively free word order and inherently different coding of Theme and Recipient. It can be hypothesized that mere word order changes readily express features related to definiteness and animacy, while they are less capable of expressing features such as affectedness of the recipient.

PPs without Disguises: Reply to Bruening

Bresnan and Nikitina (2009) and Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2008) show that, contrary to standard assumptions, fixed-theme idioms may appear in to-constructions under certain pragmatic circumstances. Bruening (2010a) contends that the cases they present are in fact R(ightward)-dative shifts, double object constructions with the object projected to the right. In this article, we argue that Bruening’s proposed theoretical apparatus is unnecessarily complex and ad hoc and falls short of explaining the main facts it is supposed to deal with, massively overgenerating. A regular PP structure is argued to be empirically more adequate and conceptually simpler, avoiding the main problems of the R-dative shift analysis. New empirical evidence concerning pairlist readings and scope freezing also suggests that the empirical facts about idioms should be reconsidered in completely different terms.