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Wenn man die syntaktischen Eigenschaften des Hildebrandliedes betrachtet, so zeigen sich einerseits Eigenschaften, die auch für die Syntax des Nhd. charakteristisch sind: von Komplementierern eingeleitete Nebensätze, Deklarativsätze im Verb-Zweit-Format, Argumentstrukturen von Verben und Adjektiven, Attributions- bzw. Modifikationsverfahren. Andererseits werden Eigenschaften sichtbar, die im Nhd. verlorengegangen oder ausgedünnt worden sind: Deklarativsätze im Verb-End-Format, Pro-drop-Phänomene (in finiten Sätzen), nicht präpositional regierte Adverbiale (in Gestalt von NP mit reinen Kasus), artikellose Nominalphrasen (insbesondere solche mit definiter Interpretation). Die Betrachtung lehrt, dass auch über einen zeitlichen Abstand von mindestens zwölfhundert Jahren und trotz verschiedener Wandlungen, die zu syntaktischer Diskontinuität führen, syntaktische Kontinuität erkennbar bleibt, und zwar in einem Maße, das man angesichts der ungeheuer verfremdenden phonologischen, morphologischen und lexikalischen Veränderungen, die einem heutigen, sprachhistorisch nicht geschulten Muttersprachler das Hildebrandlied als einen Text von einem anderen Stern erscheinen lassen, nicht erwarten mag, in einem Maße, das allerdings denjenigen Linguisten nicht so sehr überraschen wird, dessen Blick durch universalgrammatische Einsichten der letzten Jahrzehnte geschärft worden ist für Invarianzen und Kontinuitäten.
Der Titel dieses Beitrags variiert den berühmten Titel eines der Hauptwerke Nietzsches "Also sprach Zarathrustra". In seiner englischen Übersetzung lautet der Titel meist wie folgt: "Thus spoke (spake) Zarathrustra". Thus kennzeichnet Konklusivität, eine Schlussfolgerung aus einem zuvor genannten Umstand oder Sachverhalt. Das englische also, in seiner Schreibung dem deutschen also identisch, beinhaltet semantisch keine Konklusivität, sondern drückt Additivität aus. Der formgleiche Konnektor ist also (!) semantisch unterschiedlich im Deutschen und Englischen. Um diesen Unterschied und seine Bedeutung für türkische DaF-Lerner soll es im folgenden Artikel gehen.
Der folgende Beitrag stellt kein GIP-Projekt vor, das Projekt hat aber doch Einfluss auf die GIP Bochum-Ulan Ude genommen, die sich seit langem mit Multimediaaspekten im DaF-Unterricht beschäftigt. So werden etwa einige der im Folgenden beschriebenen Erfahrungen genutzt, um für das landeskundlich orientierte Lehrwerk Burjatien im Deutschunterricht (2005) eine multimediale Ergänzung zu schaffen.
'Enough'-/'too'-constructions (E/T constructions) have an implicative reading: e.g., "Mary was clever enough to leave early yesterday" entails Mary left early yesterday. I argue that this implicative reading is not due to the lexical semantics proper of 'enough'/'too', but due to its bi-clausal structure (e.g., the above-mentioned example is analyzed as "Mary left early yesterday because she was clever enough"). I analyze 'enough' and 'too' simply as degree modifiers that involve a comparison: 'enough' means reaching the lower bound of an interval, while 'too' means exceeding the upper bound of an interval. Then inspired by Schulz (2011), Baglini and Francez (2015), and Nadathur (2016), I relate the semantics of E/T constructions to causal dependence: due to some sufficiency/excess, the infinitival complement clause in E/T constructions is episodically or generically (depending on its aspect being perfective or imperfective) true/false. I also argue that this infinitive has its tense and aspect marked on the main predicate of sentences, resulting in the seeming correlation between aspect and implication in languages that overtly make a distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects (e.g., French).
Aus der Faktenlage ergeben sich folgende Probleme, die derzeit in der einschlägigen Literatur diskutiert werden bzw. bisher noch nicht zur Diskussion gelangt sind und die nun im vorliegenden Beitrag behandelt werden:
(i) Worauf sind Unterschiede in der Kodierung deontischer und epistemischer Lesarten von Modalverben durch (synthetische) Präsens- bzw. Präteritalformen und (analytische bzw. periphrastische) Perfekt- bzw. Plusquamperfektformen zurückzuführen? Worin liegt der genuine Beitrag des (periphrastischen) Perfekts/Plusquamperfekts bei der Manifestierung der kategorialen Funktion von Modalverben?;
(ii) Welches sind die Spezifika der Perfektformen von Modalverben in der Diachronie bzw.welchen kategorialen Wandel erfahren sie im Laufe ihrer Entwicklung?;
(iii) Wie ist die formale und funktionale Konstellation zwischen den Konstruktionen Modalverb + Infinitiv II und der Umschreibung würde + Infinitiv II synchron wie diachron zu beurteilen?;
(iv) Darf vor dem Hintergrund der Formenasymmetrie im Indikativ und Konjunktiv der Umschreibung werden + Inf. I/II (würde + Inf. I/II vs. *wurde + Inf. I/II) von einer "Lücke" im Verbalparadigma gesprochen werden?
The paper proposes a new semantics for good-predications involving finite if -and that-clauses. The proposal combines a standard semantics for conditionals with a standard semantics for the positive form of gradable adjectives and a minimal semantics for modal good. The predicted truth-conditions and conditions of use solve the mood puzzle presented in the first part of the paper. The remainder of the paper defends the classical notion of comparative goodness in terms of a comparison between possible worlds against Lassiter (2017)’s challenge.
"Habt ihr schon mal davon gehört gehabt?" Fällt Ihnen bei diesem Satz etwas auf? Wie würden Sie den Satz interpretieren, insbesondere die Zeitform des Prädikates hören? Weist sie, Ihrer Meinung nach, eher auf Expressivität, seine Abgeschlossenheit, die (Vor-)Vorvergangenheit eines Geschehens oder eine einfache Vergangenheit hin? Im letzteren Fall würde der Satz die gleiche Semantik ausdrücken wie ohne das zweite Partizip II: Habt ihr schon mal davon gehört? Im Fokus dieser Arbeit stehen empirische Evidenzen zum Gebrauch des doppelten Perfekts und Plusquamperfekts in der deutschen Sprache. Im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung wurde ein Fragebogen mit 202 deutschen Muttersprachlern durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie zeigen, dass das doppelte Plusquamperfekt bei der Interpretation von ca. 86% der untersuchten deutschen Muttersprachler akzeptiert wird. Weiterhin deuten die Ergebnisse dieser Studie auf viele Unterschiede bei der Akzeptanz der doppelten Konstruktionen zwischen Studierenden verschiedener Fachrichtungen hin.
Mit Erstaunen stellen LinguistInnen aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz immer wieder fest, dass sich in der "kleinen" Schweiz der geschlechtergerechte Sprachgebrauch in Öffentlichkeit und Alltag weit stärker durchgesetzt hat als in den anderen deutschsprachigen Ländern. Diese Einschätzung gilt es hier zu überprüfen und, falls sie zutrifft, zu belegen. Ausserdem werden - als erster Schritt fur weitere Untersuchungen - Thesen formuliert, die Erklärungen liefern, worauf diese Entwicklung zurückgeführt werden kann. Mit diesem Artikel geben wir anband von ausgewählten, konkreten Beispielen einen Einblick in die Situation, wie sie sich zur Zeit in der Schweiz präsentiert. Wir konzentrieren uns - unter sprachsoziologischer Perspektive - auf eine erste Bestandesaufnahme mit dem Blick auf die Diskussion in den Medien, die Institutionalisierung und die Einstellungen, die die spezifische sprachliche Situation in der Deutschschweiz prägen. Einen Rahmen fur unsere Untersuchung bilden die Überlegungen von Schräpel (SCHRÄPEL 1986), die die Auseinandersetzung um nichtsexistische Sprache als ein besonderes Sprachwandelphänomen untersucht. Sprachwandel im Vollzug ist einerseits einfacher zu erfassen als einer, der weiter zurückliegt, andererseits erschwert die Fülle des greifbaren Materials auch den Durchblick und das klare Erkennen von Tendenzen. Aus diesem Grund werten wir unser Datenmaterial nicht quantitativ aus, sondern konzentrieren uns darauf, für verschiedene Aspekte typische Beispiele zu geben und so den Stand der öffentlichen Diskussion und die Breite der vertretenen Meinungen darzustellen. Es wäre verlockend, das hier vorliegende Material auch allgemeinerer Form unter der Thematik "Sprachkritik" oder "Einstellungen" zu analysieren. Dies ist jedoch nicht im Zentrum unserer Fragestellung, weshalb wir bei einigen Beispielen auf entsprechende Untersuchungen (z.B. BLAUBERGS 1980, SCHOENTHAL 1989) verweisen.
The paper focuses on experience gained at the university of Hildesheim (Germany) where a modular course programme has been introduced which concentrates on less frequently learnt European languages, such as Dutch, Danish, Portuguese and Italian, putting into practice relevant results of research in the field of Contrastive Linguistics. The paper ends with a presentation of the outline of a Turkish reading course for German learners, raising the question to what extent experience gained by comparing and teaching Indo-European languages can be applied to fundamentally different languages like German and Turkish.
With the rise of minimalism, many concepts related to the geometrical relations of phrase structure held fast to in earlier approaches have been reconsidered. This article deals with distinguishing (relational and technical) properties of specifiers and adjuncts in a Bare Phrase Structure framework (X'-Theory). I extend specific aspects of X-structure relevant to the discussion of specifiers vs. adjuncts. I argue that unique specifiers can be derived from the system and that adjunction, possibly multiple, results from Direct Merge only. The final product is a series of relationships in line with recent thoughts and minimalist premises, but formally more similar to earlier conceptions of the X'-schema.
I address conceptual, empirical and theoretical arguments against multiple specifiers and related issues next, that is beyond the predictions immediately following from the tripartitional view of clause structure proposed in Grohmann (2000). After laying out my motivations to critically consider the issue, I present a set of data that casts serious doubt over the justifications offered to replace Agr with v as the accusative casemarker. Having conceptual and empirical back-up, I then tackle the theoretical validity of specifiers, and ways to distinguish unique specifiers from (multiple) adjuncts. I introduce a version of Bare Phrase Structure that does so, yet keeps the spirit of defining structural identification over relational rather than categorial properties.
This paper investigates the production and comprehension of intrasentential anaphoric pronominal reference in Russian. In particular, it examines the elicited imitation and comprehension of three anaphoric pronouns in subject position – personal 3rd singular masculine, demonstrative and zero – in one hundred and eighty monolingual Russian-speaking children and twenty adults. The three types of pronouns were designed to have an antecedent in the preceding sentence containing a verb and two arguments. These antecedents differ in their syntactical role and animacy. The sentence position, agentivity and topicality remained constant. The sentences with (in)animate subjects and objects constituted the following four 'conditions': two sentences with a subject and an object being either animate or inanimate and two sentences with a subject and an object exhibiting a diverse (in)animacy. Regarding the resolution of the anaphoric pronouns the similarity principle (or feature-concord rule) and its possible violations were tested. This principle suggests that an anaphoric pronoun is most likely resolved to the antecedent with a maximum of similar characteristics or features and it primarily governs the assignment of an antecedent to anaphoric pronouns in subject position in the absence of the violating conditions. Results show the influence of this rule on the anaphora resolution process increasing with age, on the one hand, and the development of the impact of animacy, syntactic role and the type of anaphoric pronouns that violate the feature-concord rule, on the other.
Seit einem Jahrzehnt zählt Russisch zu den häufig gesprochenen Migrationssprachen an deutschen Schulen und rückt nun als weitere Lernersprache in den Fokus der linguistischen Migrationsforschung. Russischsprachige Schüler und Schülerinnen, die als Aussiedler vornehmlich aus Russland und Kasachstan immigrieren, bilden seit Beginn der 90er Jahre die bedeutendste Gruppe jugendlicher Einwanderer nach Deutschland. Aussiedlerjugendliche erhalten zwar in den meisten Fällen kurz nach ihrer Einreise die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit, diese ist jedoch längst kein Garant mehr für eine reibungslose Integration. Neuere Befunde zeigen, dass eine wachsende Zahl junger AussiedlerInnen aus den GUS-Staaten Gefahr läuft, den Anschluss an eine adäquate schulische und berufliche Ausbildung zu verpassen (vgl. Dietz/Roll 1998, Strobl/Kühnel 2000). Ihre Bildungsbeteiligung hat sich der benachteiligten Bildungssituation anderer Immigrantenjugendlicher angenähert.
Wie Hashtags bei Twitter als Teile von Komposita verwendet werden, zeigt Markus Majewski in seinem Beitrag #Erdogan-Diktatur - Hashtags als Elemente von Substantivkomposita in politischen Tweets. Als Grundlage dient ihm das Korpus aus Tweets von SpitzenpolitikerInnen der großen Parteien während des Wahlkampfs, in dem er alle Substantivkomposita mit einem Hashtag als Bestandteil wie #Energiewende auf funktionale, graphematische und strukturelle Aspekte untersucht. Insbesondere bei der Schreibung der Komposita zeigt sich eine große Kreativität. Zudem lassen sich Twitter-spezifische Kommunikationsfunktionen der Hashtag-Erstglieder beobachten.
"Je suis Charlie" was used over 619.000 times in the two days that have followed the attack of the editorial team of Charlie Hebdo (Le Progrès, The Huffington Post) and has regularly been taken up in both written and spoken form since. In this paper, we argue that the structure of this sentence actually clashes with its meaning. More specifically, whereas its word order and default rightmost sentence stress are compatible either with an all-focus reading or a narrow focusing of Charlie, the context of use of this sentence as well as the solidarity/empathy message it intends to communicate suggest that its subject is narrowly focused. We will propose that two strategies have emerged to solve this conflict: (i) various alternative forms have appeared that allow proper subject focusing and (ii) speakers have reinterpreted the structure so as to pragmatically retrieve the (additive) focused nature of the subject.
Modifiability by almost has been used as a test for the quantificational force of a DP without stating the meaning of almost explicitly. The aim of this paper is to give a semantics for almost applying across categories and to evaluate the validity of the almost test as a diagnosis for universal quantifiers. It is argued that almost is similar to other cross-categorial modifiers such as at least or exactly in referring to alternatives ordered on a scale. I propose that almost evaluates alternatives in which the modified expression is replaced by a value close by on the corresponding Horn scale. It is shown that a semantics for almost that refers to scalar alternatives derives the correct truth conditions for almost and explains selectional restrictions. At the same time, taking the semantics of almost seriously invalidates the almost test as a simple diagnosis for the nature of quantifiers.
Wortformen wie Berliner und Potsdamer treten in pränominaler attributiver Funktion auf: eine Position, in der sowohl Adjektive als auch Substantive stehen können. Substantive kommen in der Position vor als sächsische Genitive (Leos Auto), als vorangestellte Genitivattribute (des Vaters Pflicht) oder als Bestandteile einer engen Apposition (Bundeskanzler Schröder). Adjektive stehen an dieser Stelle als adjektivische Attribute (rotes Auto). Gegen jede dieser Interpretationen von Berliner sprechen jeweils formale Argumente, die im wesentlichen darauf hinauslaufen, daß Berliner in Berliner Ballen niemals flektiert wird - weder wie ein Substantiv noch wie ein Adjektiv.
Welcher Wortart sind Wortformen wie Berliner in Berliner Ballen also zuzuordnen? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage folgen zunächst einige (kommentierte) Literaturstellen, anschließend werde ich die Bezeichnung 'Stadtadjektive' einführen, ich nehme also zum Zwecke der Benennung eine Entscheidung vorweg. Darauf folgt die Untersuchung: das Verhalten der Stadtadjektive in Bezug auf Flexion, Derivation, Komposition und Syntax.
In this paper, we investigate two pairs of structures in German and English: German Weak Pronoun Left Dislocation and English Topicalization, on the one hand, and German and English Hanging Topic Left Dislocation, on the other. We review the prosodic, lexical, syntactic, and discourse evidence that places the former two structures into one class and the latter two into another, taking this evidence to show that dislocates in the former class are syntactically integrated into their 'host' sentences while those in the latter class are not. From there, we show that the most straightforward way to account for this difference in 'integration' is to take the dislocates in the latter structures to be 'orphans', phrases that are syntactically independent of the phrases with which they are associated, providing additional empirical and theoretical support for this analysis — which, we point out, has a number of antecedents in the literature.
'Je-desto'-Sätze scheinen in struktureller Hinsicht Einzelgänger zu sein. Das Ungewöhnliche ist, dass sie wie eine obligatorische Verb-dritt-Konstruktion daherkommen: An erster Stelle steht scheinbar der durch je eingeleitete Nebensatz im linken Außenfeld bzw. Vor-vor-Feld, dann folgt die desto-Konstituente, die das Vorfeld einnimmt, und dann an dritter Stelle das finite Verb des Matrixsatzes. Angesichts der Semantik der involvierten Konstituenten ist diese Strukturbeschreibung ungewöhnlich und widerspricht plausiblen Erwartungen. Der Aufsatz bietet eine Analyse, nach der der 'je'-Satz und die 'desto'-Konstituente zusammen eine komplexe Konstituente bilden, die eine einzige, ganz reguläre Einheit konstituiert, was bedeutet, dass der Gesamtsatz eine ziemlich reguläre Verb-zweit-Struktur ist.
Depiction verbs such as paint license i(mage)- and p(ortrait)-readings; for instance, Ben painted a cow can convey that Ben produced an image of an unspecific cow or a portrait of a specific cow. This paper takes issue with a property-based intensional analysis of depiction verbs (Zimmermann, 2006b, 2016) and instead argues for an extensional account. Accordingly, the i-reading is rooted in the introduction of worldly representations by the explicit noun cow as such, whereas the p-reading is rooted in the interpolation of an implicit representation via coercion. This take on the ambiguity captures the following key traits. On i-readings, only representations are accessible to quantifiers and anaphors; moreover, intensional effects such as substitution failure disappear once ordinary objects and representations are adequately distinguished. P-readings, by contrast, involve representations that depend on the portrayed ordinary objects as particulars; correspondingly, only ordinary objects are accessible to quantifiers and anaphors. The proposal is spelled out in Asher’s (2011) Type Composition Logic.
This paper is the second in a series arguing for a discourse·based analysis of grammatical relations in Chinese in which there is a direct mapping between semantic role and grammatical function, and there are no relation-changing lexical rules such as passivization that can change that mapping. The correct assignment of semantic roles to the constituents of a discourse is done by the listener purely on the basis of the discourse structure and pragmatics (real world knowledge). Though grammatical analyses of certain constructions can be done on the sentence level, the sentence is generally not the central unit for understanding anaphora and grammatical relations in Chinese. Two related arguments are presented here: the question of 'subject' and the structure of discourse developed from an analysis of the nature of discourse referent tracking.
As part of a major project on the syntactic organisation of written discourse in the recent history of the English language, this paper tackles the distribution of sentences comprising left-dislocated constituents in a corpus of texts from late Middle English onwards. Once the phenomenon of left dislocation has been properly defined, this investigation will concentrate on the analysis of the corpus in the following directions: (i) statistical evolution of left dislocation in the recent history of the English language; (ii) the influence of orality and genre on left dislocation; (iii) information conveyed by the left-dislocated material, that is, the discourse-based referentiality potential of the left-dislocated constituents in terms of recoverability, and its association with end-focus; and (iv) grammatical complexity of the left-dislocated material and its association with end-weight.
This paper focuses on definite descriptions. It will be shown that a definite description refers to a given discourse referent if the descriptive content is completely deaccented. But if there is a focussed element within the descriptive content it introduces a novel referent. This amounts to allowing two readings for definite descriptions without, however, allowing two readings for the definite article.
(Non)retroflexivity of slavic affricates and its motivation : Evidence from polish and czech <č>
(2005)
The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, it revises the common assumption that the affricate <č> denotes /t͡ʃ/ for all Slavic languages. On the basis of experimental results it is shown that Slavic <č> stands for two sounds: /t͡ʃ/ as e.g. in Czech and /ʈʂ/ as in Polish.
The second goal of the paper is to show that this difference is not accidental but it is motivated by perceptual relations among sibilants. In Polish, /t͡ʃ/ changed to /ʈʂ/ thus lowering its sibilant tonality and creating a better perceptual distance to /tɕ/, whereas in Czech /t͡ʃ/ did not turn to /ʈʂ/, as the former displayed sufficient perceptual distance to the only affricate present in the inventory, namely, the alveolar /t͡s/. Finally, an analysis of Czech and Polish affricate inventories is offered.
This paper evaluates trills [r] and their palatalized counterparts [rj] from the point of view of markedness. It is argued that [r]s are unmarked sounds in comparison to [r ]s which follows from the examination of the following parameters: (a) frequency of occurrence, (b) articulatory and aerodynamic characteristics, (c) perceptual features, (d) emergence in the process of language acquisition, (e) stability from a diachronic point of view, (f) phonotactic distribution, and (g) implications.
Several markedness aspects of [r]s and [rj] are analyzed on the basis of Slavic languages which offer excellent material for the evaluation of trills. Their phonetic characteristics incorporated into phonetically grounded constraints are employed for a phonological OT-analysis of r-palatalization in two selected languages: Polish and Czech.
The aim of this paper is to try to explain how the Tooro system, which phonologically lacks tone, has come into being, by examining comparatively the tone system of each language itself and also by closely looking at the differences which exist among the Haya, Ankole and Nyoro systems (Kiga data insufficient) in order to look for phonetic reasons of the tone changes.
This paper compares the modal particle fei (Schlieben-Lange, 1979; Thoma, 2009) with the modal particle/sentence adverb aber (not to be confused with the conjunction aber, ‘but’). Intuitively, both items express some form of contrast and correction. We will show that both are special among discourse particles in the following sense: They make a contribution that is interpreted at a level distinct from the level where at-issue content (Potts, 2005) is interpreted, as is standard for modal particles (see Gutzmann, 2015 and the references therein). But more interestingly, they exclusively relate to propositions that have not entered the Common Ground via being the at-issue content of an assertion made by the addressee.
The paper presents a novel approach to explaining word order variation in the early Germanic languages. Initial observations about verb placement as a device marking types of rhetorical relations made on data from Old High German (cf. Hinterhölzl & Petrova 2005) are now reconsidered on a larger scale and compared with evidence from other early Germanic languages. The paper claims that the identification of information-structural domains in a sentence is best achieved by taking into account the interaction between the pragmatic features of discourse referents and properties of discourse organization.
This paper argues that Double Access sentences in English (Smith, 1978) are a kind of loose talk. When the meaning of a Double Access sentence is computed literally, the result is infelicity. Double Access sentences can be used meaningfully only when rescued by pragmatics which intervenes to interpret the embedded clause loosely. A formal model for loose interpretation, building on Klecha (2018), is provided.
Setswana distinguishes between conjunctive and disjunctive verb forms in the present positive tense. Creissels (1996) shows that this is also true of a number of other tenses (present negative, future positive and perfect positive). This work is used as a starting point to investigate the conjunctive/disjunctive distinction in my own Setswana data. Further to those presented in Creissels, there is data on the past and past progressive tenses, and environments such as relatives and subordinates. Creissels' analysis is supported by different examples, including those that do not utilise a frame intended to limit boundary effects. There are also examples not within this frame that raise questions about how flexible the conjunctive/disjunctive system can be. This paper is a work in progress.
This paper contributes to the understanding of vocal folds oscillation during phonation. In order to test theoretical models of phonation, a new experimental set-up using a deformable vocal folds replica is presented. The replica is shown to be able to produce self sustained oscillations under controlled experimental conditions. Therefore different parameters, such as those related to elasticity, to acoustical coupling or to the subglottal pressure can be quantitatively studied. In this work we focused on the oscillation fundamental frequency and the upstream pressure in order to start (on-set threshold) either end (off-set threshold) oscillations in presence of a downstream acoustical resonator. As an example, it is shown how this data can be used in order to test the theoretical predictions of a simple one-mass model.
This paper proposes a new strategy for accounting for the narrow scope readings of quantificational contrastive topics in Hungarian, which is based on a consideration of the types of questions that declaratives with such contrastive topics can be uttered as partial or complete congruent answers to. The meaning of the declaratives with contrastive topics will be represented with the help of the structured meaning approach to matching questions proposed in Krifka 2002.
Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India) has two series of epistemic indefinites: one whose epistemic effects arise via an anti-singleton constraint similar to Spanish alg´un (Alonso-Ovalle and Men´endez-Benito, 2010), and another, wide-scope indefinite whose epistemic effects must be derived differently. I propose that for these latter indefinites, ignorance arises not through domain constraints, but as a result of their choice functional nature through competition with other indefinites. Tiwa’s wide scope indefinites then constitute a new kind of epistemic indefinite, showing that ignorance implicatures for indefinites can arise through different sorts of competition.
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 many languages, a passive-like meaning may be obtained through a noncanonical passive construction. The get passive (1b) in English, the se faire passive (2b) in French and the kriegen passive (3b) in German represent typical manifestations. This squib focuses on the behavior of the get-passive in English and discusses a number of restrictions associated with it as well as the status of get.
It is argued that there is a surprising gap in the distribution of adverbial modifiers, namely that there are (practically) no adverbs that modify exclusively stative verbs. Given the general range of selectional restrictions associated with adverb/verb modification, this comes as a surprise. It is argued that this gap cannot be the result of standard selectional restrictions. An independently motivated account of the state-event verb contrast, in which state verbs are proposed to lack Davidsonian arguments is presented and argued to account for this stative adverb gap. Some apparent and real problems with the analysis are discussed.
It has been shown that visual cues play a crucial role in the perception of vowels and consonants. Conflicting consonantal stimuli presented in the visual and auditory modalities can even result in the emergence of a third perceptual unit (McGurk effect). From a developmental point of view, several studies report that newborns can associate the image of a face uttering a given vowel to the auditory signal corresponding to this vowel; visual cues are thus used by the newborns. Despite the large number of studies carried out with adult speakers and newborns, very little work has been conducted with preschool-aged children. This contribution is aimed at describing the use of auditory and visual cues by 4 and 5-year-old French Canadian speakers, compared to adult speakers, in the identification of voiced consonants. Audiovisual recordings of a French Canadian speaker uttering the sequences [aba], [ada], [aga], [ava], [ibi], [idi], [igi], [ivi] have been carried out. The acoustic and visual signals have been extracted and analysed so that conflicting and non-conflicting stimuli, between the two modalities, were obtained. The resulting stimuli were presented as a perceptual test to eight 4 and 5-year-old French Canadian speakers and ten adults in three conditions: visual-only, auditory-only, and audiovisual. Results show that, even though the visual cues have a significant effect on the identification of the stimuli for adults and children, children are less sensitive to visual cues in the audiovisual condition. Such results shed light on the role of multimodal perception in the emergence and the refinement of the phonological system in children.
Starting from the basic observation that, across languages, the anticausative variant of an alternating verb systematically involves morphological marking that is shared by passive verbs, the goal of this paper is to provide a uniform and formal account of these arguably two different construction types. The central claim that I put forward is that passives and anticausatives differ only with respect to the event-type features of the verb but both arise through the same operation, namely suppression by special morphology of a feature in v that encodes the ontological event type of the verb. Crucially, I argue for two syntactic primitives, namely act and cause, whereto I trace the passive/anticausative distinction. Passive constructions across languages are made compatible by relegating the differences to simple combinatorial properties of verb and prepositional types and their interactions with other event functors, which are in turn encoded differently morphologically across languages. New arguments are brought forward for a causative analysis of anticausatives. Agentive adverbials are examined, and doubt is cast on the usefulness of by-phrases as a diagnostic for argumenthood.
This paper discusses a semantic analysis of three syntactic types of English each, namely, floated each, binominal each, and prenominal each. It is argued that floated each consists of two parts, a quantifier and an inaudible element which functions as its restrictor, which together form a tripartite quantificational structure when they compose with the predicate. Binominal each and an associated NP such as two topics (which is generally called the 'distributive share') are syntactically analyzed as forming a subject-predicate relation within a DP in which the NP undergoes so-called 'predicate inversion'. Semantically, binominal each is analyzed as having the same semantic value as floated each, while prenominal each is shown to have a different logical type from floated and binominal each. As can be seen from analogous constructions in some Romance languages, it does not lexically contain its restrictor.
A visual articulatory model and its application to therapy
of speech disorders : a pilot study
(2005)
A visual articulatory model based on static MRI-data of isolated sounds and its application in therapy of speech disorders is described. The model is capable of generating video sequences of articulatory movements or still images of articulatory target positions within the midsagittal plane. On the basis of this model (1) a visual stimulation technique for the therapy of patients suffering from speech disorders and (2) a rating test for visual recognition of speech movements was developed. Results indicate that patients produce recognition rates above level of chance already without any training and that patients are capable of increasing their recognition rate over the time course of therapy significantly.
The bulk of this paper deals with an analysis of the voice system of Tukang Besi, which, has both a complex verbal agreement system as well as the last fully developed (and obligatory) case marking system among Austronesian languages with an increasingly head-marking trend to the east (case marking of core constituents only becomes functional again in Vanuatu and the Solomons, and is well-developed in Polynesia). For that reason, as well as personal acquaintance with the language, it is a sensible starting point.
The paper characterizes three different domains in the German middle field which are relevant for the interpretation of an indefinite. It is argued that the so-called 'strong' reading of an indefinite is the basic one and that the 'weak' reading needs special licensing which is mirrored by certain syntactic requirements. Some popular claims about the relation between the position and the interpretation of indefinites as well as some claims about scrambling are discussed and rejected. From the findings also follows that the strong reading of an indefinite is independent of its information status.
Hier sollen verschiedene Möglichkeiten, die Valenz von AcI-Verben zu analysieren, diskutiert werden. Dabei werden nicht nur Ansätze berücksichtigt, die sich explizit auf den Valenzbegriff beziehen, sondern auch neuere Vorschläge im Rahmen der generativen Syntax zur Analyse der AcI-Konstruktionen. Es handelt sich im wesentlichen um drei verschiedene Analysemöglichkeiten, die auf ihre empirische Adäquatheit und die theoretischen Probleme, die sie aufwerfen, untersucht werden. Als adäquateste Lösung wird sich eine Analyse von AcIVerb und infinitem Verb als Verbalkomplex erweisen, wobei für die Wahrnehmungsverben, kausatives und nicht-kausatives lassen ein unterschiedlicher Grad an Auxiliarisierung vorliegt.
In this study, cross-dialectal variation in the use of the acoustic cues of VOT and F0 to mark the laryngeal contrast in Korean stops is examined with Chonnam Korean and Seoul Korean. Prior experimental results (Han & Weitzman, 1970; Hardcastle, 1973; Jun, 1993 &1998; Kim, C., 1965) show that pitch values in the vowel onset following the target stop consonants play a supplementary role to VOT in designating the three contrastive laryngeal categories. F0 contours are determined in part by the intonational system of a language, which raises the question of how the intonational system interacts with phonological contrasts. Intonational difference might be linked to dissimilar patterns in using the complementary acoustic cues of VOT and F0. This hypothesis is tested with 6 Korean speakers, three Seoul Korean and three Chonnam Korean speakers. The results show that Chonnam Korean involves more 3-way VOT and a 2-way distinction in F0 distribution in comparison to Seoul Korean that shows more 3-way F0 distribution and a 2-way VOT distinction. The two acoustic cues are complementary in that one cue is rather faithful in marking 3-way contrast, while the other cue marks the contrast less distinctively. It also seems that these variations are not completely arbitrary, but linked to the phonological characteristics in dialects. Chonnam Korean, in which the initial tonal realization in the accentual phrase is expected to be more salient, tends to minimize the F0 perturbation effect from the preceding consonants by taking more overlaps in F0 distribution. And a 3-way distribution of VOT in Chonnam Korean, as compensation, can be also understood as a durational sensitivity. Without these characteristics, Seoul Korean shows relatively more overlapping distribution in VOT and more 3-way separation in F0 distribution.
The present article is a follow-up study of the investigation of labiodentals in German and Dutch by Hamann & Sennema (2005), where we looked at the perception of the Dutch labiodental three-way contrast by German listeners without any knowledge of Dutch and German learners of Dutch. The results of this previous study suggested that the German voiced labiodental fricative /v/ is perceptually closer to the Dutch approximant /ʋ/ than to the corresponding Dutch voiced labiodental fricative /v/. These perceptual indications are attested by the acoustic findings in the present study. German /v/ has a similar harmonicity median and a similar centre of gravity to Dutch /ʋ/, but differs from Dutch /v/ in these parameters. With respect to the acoustic parameter of duration, German /v/ lies closer to the Dutch /v/ than to the Dutch /ʋ/.
Four speakers repeated 8 times 15 sentences containing 'pVp' syllables (V being /a/, /i/ and /u/). The 'pVp' syllables were located in final, penultimate and antepenultimate position relatively to the Intonational Phrase (IP) boundary. They were embedded in lexical words of 1-3 syllables and were either word-initial or word-final. Results show that the closer the vowel in word-final position is to the IP boundary, the longer the duration and the higher the fundamental frequency of the vowel; it is also characterised by larger lip opening gestures. The potential reduction or coarticulation of vowels in wordinitial position compared to their counterparts in word-final position is discussed.
This paper is about what Ninan (2014) (following Wollheim 1980) calls the Acquaintance Inference (AI): a firsthand experience requirement imposed by several subjective expressions such as Predicates of Personal Taste (PPTs) (delicious). In general, one is entitled to calling something delicious only upon having tried it. This requirement can be lifted, disappearing in scope of elements that we will call obviators. The paper investigates the patterns of AI obviation for PPTs and similar constructions (e.g., psych predicates and subjective attitudes). We show that the cross-constructional variation in when acquaintance requirements can be obviated presents challenges for previous accounts of the AI (Pearson 2013, Ninan 2014). In place of these, we argue for the existence of two kinds of acquaintance content: (i) that of bare PPTs; and (ii) that of psych predicates, subjective attitudes and overt experiencer PPTs.
For (i), we propose that the AI arises from an evidential restriction that is dependent on a parameter of interpretation which obviators update. For (ii), we argue that the AI is a classic presupposition. We model both (i) and (ii) using von Fintel and Gillies’s (2010) framework for directness and thus connect two strands of research: that on PPTs and that on epistemic modals. Both phenomena are sensitive to a broad direct-indirect distinction, and analyzing them along similar lines can help shed light on how natural language conceptualizes evidence in general.
Our results indicate some differences in the use of aspect between French and Croatian speaking children. In Croatian language children always manage to keep the appropriate aspect, unlike French children. However, the imperfective aspect seems to be better acquired in French children than the perfective aspect. The perfective aspect, the marked form both in French as well as in Croatian, is related to the lexical meaning of the verbs. The acquisition of the Aktionsart in both languages seems to be more a matter of semantics than of morphology. Furthermore, our data suggest the existence of a specific developmental trend in the use of Aktionsart (intensive, iterative and inchoative), which is similar for children speaking Slavic and Romanic languages.