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Zur Entstehung und Struktur ungebändigter Allomorphie : Pluralbildungsverfahren im Luxemburgischen
(2006)
Aus gesamtgermanistischer Perspektive verfügt das Luxemburgische über ein außergewöhnliches Maß an Pluralallomorphie bzw., nach H. GIRNTH (2000), an Heterograffimie. Oberstes Prinzip dabei scheint die deutliche Markierung der Kategorie 'Plural' direkt ani bzw. im Substantiv zu sein. Die morphologische Komplexität betrifft mehrere Dimensionen: Zum einen ist es die Vielzahl an Pluralisierungsprinzipien, die von additiven über modulatorische und Nullprozesse bis hin zu subtraktiven Techniken reichen, zum zweiten die Vielzahl an konkret sich manifestierender Allomorphie. Schließlich ist der maximale . Ausbau des reinen Umlauttyps auch bei Einsilblern hervorzuheben. Selbst Fremdwörter können noch heute ihren Plural mit reinem Vokalwechsel bilden, und dies auch auf nebenbetonten Silben. Aus diachroner Perspektive bildet. der reine Vokalwechsel einen wichtigen Endpunkt einer sich seit Jahrhunderten in diese Richtung vollziehenden Entwicklung. Aus synchroner Perspektive ist es mittlerweile verfehlt, noch - wie etwa beim deutschen Pluralsystem - von Umlaut zu sprechen, da längst eine Arbitrarisierung .des Vokalwechsels stattgefunden hat, die fast ablautähnliche Züge erreicht hat. Zusammenfassend gelangt man zu dem Eindruck, dass sich das Luxemburgische - etwa im Hinblick auf die subtraktive Pluralbildung - fast jedweden phonologischen Wandel zu Nutze macht bzw. - im Hinblick auf den Umlaut über die Morphologisierung sogar produktiv werden lässt. Aus der vorliegenden Untersuchung ergeben sich mehrere Fragestellungen, die Gegenstand weiterer Untersuchungen sein sollten. Zuerst wären genaue quantitative Erhebungen vorzunehmen, um die Nutzung und Verteilung der einzelnen Verfahren zu ermitteln. Auch die Produktivität der Regeln müsste untersucht werden. Des Weiteren ist noch ungeklärt, welche Regeln es genau sind, die die Distribution der Allomorphe steuern. Nimmt man z.B. das Englische mit seinen drei Pluralallomorphen [IZ], [z] und [s], so ist deren Verteilung rein phonologisch - nach dem Auslaut des Substantivs - gesteuert: Endet es auf einen Sibilanten, folgt silbisches [IZ] (horse-s ['horsIz]), endet es auf einen stimmhaften Laut, folgt stimmhaftes [z] (dog-s), und auf einen stimmlosen folgt stimmloses [s] (cat-s). Das Deutsche, das insgesamt neun konkrete Pluralallomorphe "besitzt, erlaubt auf grund der Singularform kaum Erschließbarkeit des Plurals, wie die folgenden drei einsilbigen Reimwörter gleichen Genus demonstrieren: der Hund - die Hunde, der Grund - die Gründe, der Mund - die Münder. Prosodische Kriterien wie die AkzentsteIle, syllabische (Silbenzahl), phonologische (Auslaut) und morphologische Kriterien " einschließlich der Genuszugehörigkeit fuhren nicht immer zum Ziel: Bei vielen Substantiven muss der Plural - siehe oben - mitgelernt werden, d.h. er ist Bestandteil des Lexikons. Was das Luxemburgische betrifft, so scheint das Steuerungsinstrumentarium komplexer zu sein, doch ist dies nur eine durch Stichproben gewonnene Vermutung, die zu fundieren wäre.
We propose a compositional analysis for sentences of the kind "You only have to go to the North End to get good cheese", referred to as the Sufficiency Modal Construction in the recent literature. We argue that the SMC is ambiguous depending on the kind of ordering induced by only. So is the exceptive construction – its cross-linguistic counterpart. Only is treated as inducing either a 'comparative possibility' scale or an 'implication-based' partial order on propositions. The properties of the 'comparative possibility' scale explain the absence of the prejacent presupposition that is usually associated with only. By integrating the scalarity into the semantics of the SMC, we explain the polarity facts observed in both variants of the construction. The sufficiency meaning component is argued to be due to a pragmatic inference.
The German causal preposition durch ('by', 'through') poses a challenge to formal-semantic analyses applying strict compositionality. To deal with this challenge, a formalism which builds on recent important developments in Discourse Representation Theory is developed, including a more elaborate analysis of presuppositional phenomena as well as the integration into the theory of unification as a mode of composition. It is argued that that the observed unificational phenomena belong in the realm of pragmatics, providing an argument for presuppositional phenomena at a sentence- and word-internal level.
The expressions few and a few are typically considered to be separate quantifiers. I challenge this assumption, showing that with the appropriate definition of few, a few can be derived compositionally as a + few. The core of the analysis is a proposal that few has a denotation as a one-place predicate which incorporates a negation operator. From this, argument interpretations can be derived for expressions such as few students and a few students, differing only in the scope of negation. I show that this approach adequately captures the interpretive differences between few and a few. I further show that other such pairs are blocked by a constraint against the vacuous application of a.
This paper demonstrates that there are no empirical and theoretical motivations for regarding verbal predicate focus constructions as (diachronically) derived from cleft constructions. Instead, it is argued that predicate fronting for the purpose of focus or topic is comparable to verb (phrase) fronting structures in other languages (e.g., Germanic). The proposed analysis further indicates that related doubling strategies observed in certain languages are the consequences of parallel chains that license the fronted verb (phrase) in the left periphery, and the Agree-tense-aspect features inside the proposition.
This paper revisits the question of whether propositions in situation semantics must be persistent (Kratzer (1989)). It shows that ignoring persistence causes empirical problems to theories which use quantification over minimal situations as a solution for donkey anaphora (Elbourne (2005)), while at the same time modifying these theories to incorporate persistence makes them incompatible with the use of situations for contextual restriction (Kratzer (2004)).
According to standard Binding Theory, pronouns and reflexives are in (nearly) complementary distribution. However, representational NPs (e.g. 'picture of her/herself') allow both. It has been suggested that in English, reflexives in representational NPs (RNPs) have a preference for 'sources of information' and that pronouns prefer 'perceivers of information.' We conducted two experiments investigating the effects of structural and non-structural (source/perceiver) factors on the interpretation of two kinds of RNP structures in a typologically different language, namely Finnish. Our results reveal source/perceiver effects for postnominal but not for prenominal RNPs in Finnish, with a difference in the degree of sensitivity that pronouns and reflexives exhibit to the source/perceiver manipulation, and our results also suggest that morphological differences in Finnish reflexives correspond to interpretation differences. As a whole, these results support a multiple-factor model of reference resolution, which assumes that multiple factors can play a role in reference resolution and that the relative contributions of these factors can be different for different anaphoric forms (Kaiser 2003b, Kaiser & Trueswell in press).
Wang Li (1900-1986)
(2006)
Thematic Roles (or Theta-Roles) are theoretical constructs that account for a variety of well known empirical facts, which are more or less clearly delimited. In other words, Theta-Roles are not directly observable, but they do have empirical content that is open to empirical observation. The objective of the present paper is to sketch the nature and content of Theta-Roles, distinguishing their universal foundation as part of the language faculty, their language particular realization, which depends on the conditions of individual languages, and idiosyncratic properties, determined by specific information of individual lexical items.
Zulu shows an alternation of conjoint and disjoint (conjunctive/disjunctive, short/long) verb forms. Certain contexts suggest that the distribution of these forms is related to focus. For example, certain adverbial expressions receive a focal interpretation when preceded by a conjoint form but not when preceded by a disjoint form. Similarly, a wh-phrase must be preceded by a conjoint form. This has led some researchers to argue or suggest that the alternation encodes focus directly. This paper examines two different focal hypotheses, one in which a disjoint form encodes focus on the verb and another in which the conjoint form encodes focus on the element following the verb. It is shown that both of these hypotheses are inadequate because certain contexts requiring the conjoint form do not display the predicted focal interpretation. Relativization morphology is argued to also support an analysis independent of focus. It is proposed that the alternation is regulated entirely by the position of the verb within the surface constituencies first proposed in Van der Spuy (1993) and that the associated focal interpretations are the result of a range of interpretations permitted within the different constituencies. Elements remaining within the relevant constituent are nontopical, and focus is one of a range of interpretations they can receive.