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In the present paper, we concentrate on (selected) Bantu and Nilotic bare-passive strategies and lay out the basis for a typology of transitive passive constructions in these languages. We argue that bare-passives constitute an optimal strategy to change prominence relations between arguments, in languages that strongly hold to the default mapping between the highest thematic role available and the grammatical subject (i.e. Spec,TP). The Nilotic and Bantu languages discussed here differ in their way of satisfying this default mapping. In particular, impersonal bare-passives satisfy it by resorting to an agentive place-holder (an indefinite subject marker) and realizing the logical agent as a lower thematic/semantic role (e.g. instrument or locative). Left-dislocation and so called 'subjectobject' reversal bare-passives realize the default matching between agent and subject in a more straightforward way, but locate the patient in a higher argument position within the inflectional domain (Spec,TopP). As argued in Hamlaoui and Makasso (2013) and Hamlaoui (2013), and in line with Noonan (1977), the present languages display a clauseinternal split between subjecthood (being the grammatical subject in Spec,TP) and topicality (being the subject of the predication, in an inflectional-domain internal Spec,TopP).
In a most recent corpus study on Persian, Faghiri & Samvelian (2014) found a significant effect of relative length in the ordering preferences between the direct and indirect objects in the preverbal domain corresponding to "long-before-short". They furthermore showed that the position of the direct object mainly depends on its degree of determination, and put into question the broadly accepted dual view based solely on differential object marking. In this paper, we provide experimental evidence in support of these corpus findings and further propose a unified account of ordering preferences between the two objects on the basis of conceptual accessibility.
Im Folgenden soll kurz geklärt werden, was Genus ist (Kap. 2) und – auch wenn diese Frage nicht mit unserem derzeitigen Wissen beantwortbar ist – woher Genus kommen könnte (Kap. 3). Hauptsächlich stellt sich jedoch die Frage: Was tun mit Genus, das heute das Endstadium einer langen Grammatikalisierung darstellt (Kap. 4)? Hier wird die wichtigste Antwort lauten: Genus hat eine neue, eine syntaktische Nutzung erfahren, indem es maßgeblich daran beteiligt ist, unsere berühmten Nominalklammern zu bauen (4.1). Außerdem gibt es weitere "Recyclingmöglichkeiten" von Genus, nämlich: a) Objekte, die Namen tragen, zu klassifizieren (die Kaiser Wilhelm), b) Beziehungen zwischen namentragenden und namenverwendenden Personen zu qualifizieren (der Peterle, das Anna) oder sogar c) Personen zu degradieren (das Merkel). Mit Punkt a) begebe ich mich in die Onomastik, mit Punkt b) in die Dialektologie, und mit Punkt c) werde ich mit der Genderlinguistik enden.
I argue for a new type of non-standard constituent in German; a modifier-collocational-cluster. This type of cluster combines (i) a modifier and (ii) a PP from a light-verb construction (or a Funktionsverbgefüge (FVG) as they are known in German) or a bare noun. Such strings are found in German in initial (prefield) position in certain cases of apparent multiple fronting. We are dealing with a syntax-semantics mismatch here since the modifier does not semantically modify the element with which it can first syntactically combine. I show that the modifier is a collocate of both its co-prefield element but also of the verb. I propose a schema which lexically licenses the building of such clusters and I show how we can encode information about what I refer to as collocational selection in the lexical entries of the type of lexemes involved in these multi-word strings. The analysis can be seen as lexical but does not require lexical storage of phrasal elements.
In Dutch, adpositions can be stranded, typically if their complement is an R-pronoun. The complement usually appears in the left part of the Mittelfeld or in the Vorfeld. In HPSG this is canonically modeled in terms of extraction, making use of nonlocal devices such as SLASH and BIND. This paper argues that the extraction analysis is indeed appropriate for cases in which the complement is realised in the Vorfeld, but proposes an alternative for the cases in which the complement is realised in the Mittelfeld. The new treatment is based on argument inheritance, as complement raising in the Mittelfeld involves a middle distance dependency rather than a long distance dependency.
Irene Heim in unpublished work proposed a new syntax-semantics interface for propositional attitude reports based on an ontology without transworld individuals, but counterpart functions instead. We show that the approach can capture the 'de re'/'de dicto' distinction, but makes different predictions from accounts with transworld individuals. Specifically, the account uses a non-invertible counterpart functions: a single individual in an alternative world can be the counterpart of many individuals of the real world. The directionality of counterpart functions predicts that a 'de dicto' interpreted DP cannot be an argument of a 'de re' interpreted predicate. We show that the predicted restriction is corroborated by existing work on restrictions on 'de re' interpretation. The derivation of constraints on 'de re' interpretation argues empirically for the counterpart ontology and Heim’s implementation thereof.
Deconstructing SYNtax
(2014)
There are at least two distinct ways of conceiving of syntax: the set of rules that enable speakers and listeners to combine the meaning of expressions (compositional syntax), or the set of formal constraints on the combinations of expressions (formal syntax). The question that occupies us in this paper is whether all languages include a significant formal syntax component or whether there are languages in which most syntactic rules are exclusively compositional. Our claims are (1) that Oneida (Northern Iroquoian) has almost no formal syntax component and is very close to a language that includes only a compositional syntax component and (2) that the little formal syntax Oneida has does not require making reference to syntactic features.
Degree adverbs in Mauritian
(2014)
In Mauritian, degree words exhibit an extreme syntactic polymorphism in combining with all major categories. When two forms coexist, *mari* ('very') and *boukou* ('a lot'), they select the predicate they modify on semantic more than syntactic criteria. We analyse degree words as adverbs with a double syntactic function: as complements in postverbal position (since they can by themselves trigger the short verbal form) and as adjuncts otherwise. We extend our analysis to inequality comparatives, *pli / plis* ('more') and *mwin / mwins* ('less') which are also polymorphic, with a double life as adjunct and complement.
The late physicist Carl Sagan, whom I quote in the first part of my title, skillfully phrased the common sense view on evidence in the mature sciences. In linguistics, however, evidence has become a controversial issue, especially so when it comes to the investigation of less well studied languages. In this paper, I argue that Sagan's principle should be applied to linguistics. The growing accessibility of a wide array of experimental techniques and computational tools to analyze such data makes it feasible to back up extraordinary claims with evidence from a variety of sources. At the same time, it is in many cases possible to agree on what constitutes an ordinary claim and focus the extra effort on extraordinary claims. For non-controversial claims no more than the minimum effort to establish the claim and properly document the evidence is necessary.
Case is traditionally approached as a lexical phenomenon in HPSG. The LinGO Grammar Matrix customization system, an HPSG-based grammar engineering toolkit and also a typological meta-resource, includes several options for case assignment, and one of them, 'focus case', assumes that case of the participants in basic clauses is handled via lexical rules rather than lexical entries. This phenomenon was previously only attributed to a group of Austronesian languages, and thus the focus case differed from all other case options in the Matrix which were attested for across language families. Our analysis of Kolyma Yukaghir, a nearly extinct language of North-Eastern Russia, shows that focus case can be successfully used outside of Austronesian family and therefore that the option is more universal than it was previously thought.