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This paper summarizes our research efforts in functional modelling of the relationship between the acoustic properties of vowels and perceived vowel quality. Our model is trained on 164 short steady-state stimuli. We measured F1, F2, and additionally F0 since the effect of F0 on perceptual vowel height is evident. 40 phonetically skilled subjects judged vowel quality using the Cardinal Vowel diagram. The main focus is on refining the model and describing its transformation properties between the F1/F2 formant chart and the Cardinal Vowel diagram. An evaluation of the model based on 48 additional vowels showed the generalizability of the model and confirmed that it predicts perceived vowel quality with sufficient accuracy.
Approaching the grammar of adjuncts : proceedings of the Oslo conference, September 22 - 25, 1999
(2000)
This paper proposes that we can predict which adverbs cannot adjoin to the right in headinitial languages by means of a particular semantic property, that of being a "subjective" adverb, one which maps an event or proposition onto a scale with the high degree of indeterminacy and context-dependence. Such adverbs, such as 'probably' or 'luckily', cannot adjoin to the right with non-manner readings, while other adverbs (like 'politically', 'often', or 'deliberately') may. This supports the view that the distribution of adverbs depends heavily, and subtly, on their lexicosemantic properties.
This paper shows the early development of the first approximately 50 verbs found in the recorded speech production of one Croatian girl. The aim is to analyse and interpret the child's verb development in terms of the distinction of a pre- and a protomorphological phase before modularised morphology in language acquisition (Dressler & Karpf 1995). Furthermore, focus will be laid on the emergence of first verb paradigms.
Acquisition of aspect
(2003)
In this work, I provide an analysis of adjectival depictive constructions which accounts for most of their fundamental properties. First, I focus on the restrictions having to do with the integration of the depictive and the verbal predicate: they are based on aspectual compatibility between the two predicates, which, in turn, will depend on the ability, on the part of the depictive, to make reference to some (sub)event in the event structure of the verbal predicate. Facts not captured by previous approaches in the literature will be straightforwardly accounted for, among them the possibility to have I-L depictive constructions, and the impossibility to combine a depictive with some non-stative verbal predicates. Second, it will be shown that the informational import of the depictive in the sentence can be equivalent to that of the verbal predicate: both can be the primary lexical basis of predication. This is reflected in the sentence in various ways, having to do with aspectual modifiers, and in the properties of the sentential subject. In this connection, we will reconsider the notion of subject, arguing that no subject-predicate relation takes place in the lexical domain of sentences, and hence that the argument the depictive is oriented to, the common argument, cannot be a subject of the depictive. Finally, a minimalist analysis is proposed for the syntax of the construction, in terms of direct syntactic merge of predicative constituents and sidewards (q-to-q) movement for the common argument, from the lexical domain of the depictive to the lexical domain of the verb. As to morphosyntactic properties, a syntactic Double Agree relation is assumed to hold between T/v, as probes, on the one hand, and the common argument and depictive, as simultaneous goals, on the other, which would allow for the deletion of Case features on both goals. The assumed presence of Structural Case on the adjectival depictive will be responsible for the well-known restriction on the orientation of depictives to the sentential subject or object.
This volume presents a collection of papers touching on various issues concerning the syntax and semantics of predicative constructions.
A hot topic in the study of predicative copula constructions, with direct implications for the treatment of he (how many he's do we need?), and wider implications for the theories of predication, event-based semantics and aspect, is the nature and source of the situation argument. Closer examination of copula-less predications is becoming increasingly relevant to all these issues, as is clearly illustrated by the present collection.
Specifics
(2001)
In all these examples there appears to be mismatch between the position at which an indefinite appears and its preferred interpretation. Following many of the more recent contributions to the literature, I will assume that this is the hallmark of specificity (e.g. Ahusch 1994, Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997, van Geenhoven 1998). Such mismatches are not the norm: indefinites are often interpreted in situ, and there is some reason for taking this to be the default option. The reason is that comparatively 'neutral', i.e. semantically attenuate, indefinites have a preference for in situ readings [...].
Many authors who subscribe to some version of generative syntax account for the two readings of [...] sentences [...] in terms of LF-ambiguity. There is assumed to be covert quantifier raising (QR), which results in two distinct possibilities for the indefinite quantificational expressions involved to take scope over each other [...] In this paper, an alternative account is proposed which dispenses with the idea that there are different scope relations involved in the readings of […] sentences [...] and, consequently, with QR as the syntactic operation to be assumed for generating the respective LFs. I argue that it is rather focus structure in connection with type semantic issues pertaining to the indefinite quantificational expressions involved which result in the different readings associated with [...] sentences.
This volume presents working versions of presentations heard at and selected for the Workshop on Syntax of Predication, held at ZAS, Berlin, on November 2-3, 2001 (except the editor’s own paper).
Predication is a many-faceted topic which involves both syntax and semantics and the interface between them. This is reflected in the papers of the volume.
Some conceptual and empirical issues in linguistic theory : an illustration with pronominal clitics
(2001)
I would like to discuss a few general conceptual issues in linguistic theory, and see how they bear on some empirical facts about pronominal clitics. In particular, I would like to show that the conception of linguistic theory, justified on independent grounds, limits the class of issues and possible explanations for grammatical properties of specific linguistic expressions. I argue that this is not simply a consequence of a specific conception of grammar, conceived of as a system of principles and rules governing language, but has non-trivial empirical ramifications. Pronominal clitics are a good case study, since their grammatical properties bear on a wide range of facts falling under the purview of principles of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics.
Even if we can generate a logical form, principles of use may limit the ways in which we can use it. In this paper, I motivate one such principle of use, and explore its effects. Much of the discussion involves kinds of sentences that have received attention in the literature on "individual-level predicates".
What are incremental themes?
(2001)
In this paper I examine the approach to incremental themes developed in Krifka 1992,1998, Dowty 1991 and others, which argues that the extent of a telic event is determined by the extent of its incrementally affected theme. This approach identifies the defining property of an accomplishment event as being the fact that the theme relation is a homomorphism from parts of the event to parts of the (incremental) theme. I show that there are a large number of accomplishments, both lexical and derived via resultative predication, which cannot be characterised in this way. I then show that it is more insightful to characterise accomplishments in terms of their internally complex structure: an accomplishment event consists of a non-incremental activity event and an incrementally structured 'BECOME' event, which are related by a contextually available one-one function in such a way that the incremental structure of the latter is imposed on the activity.
This study examines intraoral pressure for English and German stops in bilabial and alveolar place of articulation. Our subjects are two speakers of American English and three speakers of German. VOICING is the main phonological contrast under evaluation in both word initial and word final position. For initial stops, a few of the pressure characteristics showed differences between English and German, but on the whole the results point to similar production strategies at both places of articulation in the two different languages. Analysis of the pressure trajectory differences between VOICING categories in initial position raises questions about articulatory differences. In the initial closing gesture, time from start of gesture to closure is roughly equivalent for both categories, but the pressure change is significantly smaller on average for VOICED stops. Final stops, however, present a more complicated picture. German final stops are neutralized to a presumed VOICELESS phonological state. English final /p/ is broadly similar to German /p/, but English /t/ often shows no pressure increase at all which is at odds with the conventional account of phonation termination via pressure increase and loss of pressure differential. The results raise the question of whether the German final stops should be considered VOICELESS or some intermediate form, at least as compared to English final stops.
The papers of this 33th volume of the ZAS Papers in Linguistics present intermediate results of the ZAS-project on language acquisition. Currently we deal with the question of which functions children assign to the first grammatical forms they use productively. The goal is to identify grammatical features comprising the child's early grammar. This issue is investigated within the analyses of longitudinal data (cf. the papers of Gagarina/Bittner, Gagarina, Kühnast/Popova/Popov, Bewer) as well as within experimental research (see the papers of Bittner, Kühnast/Popova/Popov). The main topic of this volume is the acquisition of definite articles and verbal aspect.
Bewer – who has worked as a student assistant in the project for a long time and wrote her MA-thesis on the topic of the project – investigates children's acquisition of gender features in German. Kühnast/Popova/Popov discuss the correlations between the acquisition of definite articles and verbal aspect in Bulgarian. Bittner presents results of an experimental study on definite article perception in adult German. Gagarina traces the emergence of aspectual oppositions in Russian and examines the validity of the 'aspect before tense' hypothesis for L1-speaking children. Additionally, the paper of Gagarina/Bittner deals with the interrelation between the acquisition of finiteness and verb arguments in Russian and German.
The study examines the hypotheses that the acquisition of the finite verb is an indispensable and linking constituent of the development of SVO utterances. Four apparently separate or at least separable processes are analysed over 6 months in one Russian and one German child: a) the emergence of verbs in the child’s utterances, b) the occurrence of correctly inflected (finite) verb forms, c) the development of multi-component utterances containing a verb, and c) the emergence of (potential) subjects and objects. Russian and German exhibit rich verb morphology, and in both languages finiteness is strongly correlated with inflectional categories like person, number and tense. With both children we find a correlation in the temporal order of these four processes and – what is more relevant for our study – a dependency of a certain development on the utterance level on the emergence of finite verbs. Further, our investigation shows that language-specific development comes in to play already when children start to acquire verb inflection and becomes more contrastive when we observe the onset of the production of the SVO utterances.
This paper investigates the semantic underpinnings of the distinction between two syntactic types of "manner of movement" verbs in Levin (1993), namely the RUN and ROLL classes. According to Levin's (1993) and Levin & Rappaport's (1995) work on unaccusativity, a semantic factor of "internal causation" should be the trigger for the classification of a movement verb as intransitive (=not-unaccusative), and hence for its belonging to the RUN class. We point out empirical problems for this characterisation, mainly coming from the different readings of the German verb fliegen (fly). From a comparison with other semantically similar verbs, we conclude that the semantic description which underlies the class distinction should be refined: instead of "internal causation", the crucial semantic factor is described here as "inherent specification for a momentum of movement". This result indicates that forces, and relations between forces, have to be part of the semantic description of the manner component in movement verbs.
Starting from a consideration of the internal make-up of adverbial clauses this paper shows that the widespread assumption that fronted arguments in English and CLLD constituents in Romance occupy the same position leads to a number of problems. I will conclude that the position occupied by English topicalized arguments differs from that of the CLLD topics in Romance. In particular, English topics occupy a higher position in the left periphery. The final part of the paper compares three proposals for the lower topic position in Romance.