Open Access

This dissertation explores the compositionality of adjective noun constructions. It investigates the question to what extent local modification – to be distinguished from non-local modification – can be captured with an intersective analysis. Chapter 2 is concerned with the theoretical background and introduces the two general approaches that have been suggested for the analyses of adjectives: the predicate and the modifier analysis. Moreover, a further variety of adjectival modification is addressed: non-local modification. Despite being syntactically located in an adjective noun construction, in this reading the adjective takes material outside its syntactic domain in its semantic scope. Non-local readings of adnominal adjectives can therefore not emerge through the standard analyses for local adjectives and instead call for more radical measures. With this distinction in mind, focus is put on local adjectives. In chapter 3, the semantics of local adjectives like blonde, tall and skillful is in the focus. An adjective like blonde can straightforwardly be analyzed as a predicate. Other local adjectives first need to be “made” expressing a property. For many adjectives, such as small and tall, adding a mute parameter – a comparison class – will do. For other adjectives, such as skillful, famous and talented, apart from a comparison class an additional parameter is needed: a comparison property. It is argued that the context-sensitivity of the parameters enables a predicate analysis of these adjectives. In chapter 4, it is investigated how the context dependence of the comparison property can be implemented in the theory. This is discussed in the form of two possible theories: theory A, which assumes noun and context dependence, and theory B, which assumes only context dependence. Since it turns out that theory A actually overgenerates, the decision is eventually made in favour of theory B. As a result, also an adjective like skillful can receive a predicate analysis. Cases where the modified noun serves as the basis to determine the parameter(s) are captured by the “Preference principle for the pragmatic specification of free variables” (Maienborn 2020). In chapter 5, it is investigated how the comparison property is derived from the modified noun to obtain the default reading. In the first part of the chapter, the ability of a noun to serve as the basis for the determination of the comparison property is captured by the assumption that these nouns have an event argument in their denotation (Rapp 2015). Importantly, both deverbal and non-deverbal nouns can have an event argument. According to the approach suggested in this dissertation, the event argument is not accessed compositionally by the adjective. Rather, the pragmatic reasoning behind the determination of the comparison property is assumed to be sensitive to the presence of an event argument. In the second part of the chapter, event denoting nouns like teaching and performance are addressed. Since it turns out that context sensitivity of the adjective can also be observed in the presence of an event denoting noun, the claim that an intersective analysis suffices for local modification can be maintained. In chapter 6, further local adjectives are addressed. While for seemingly non-subsective adjectives like fake even an intersective analysis seems to be possible, temporal and modal adjectives such as former and alleged are more problematic. These adjectives behave different than “ordinary” local adjectives in crucial aspects. Thus the question emerges how temporal and modal adjectives affect the claim that all local modification can be captured by means of an intersective analysis. Eventually, an adverbial analysis is assumed for temporal and modal adjectives (Zimmermann 2022). This allows to reduce the complexity of the lexicon and reflects the meaning of these adjectives in an intuitively more appropriate way. As a consequence of this approach, it turns out that the modifier analysis is not needed to capture the meaning of adjective noun constructions.

The comprehension of subject-verb agreement shows “attraction effects,” which reveal that number computations can be derailed by nouns that are grammatically unlicensed to control agreement with a verb. However, previous results are mixed regarding whether attraction affects the processing of grammatical and ungrammatical sentences alike. In a large-sample eye-tracking replication of Lago et al. (2015), we support this “grammaticality asymmetry” by showing that the reading profiles associated with attraction depend on sentence grammaticality. In ungrammatical sentences, attraction affected both fixation durations and regressive eye-movements at the critical disagreeing verb. Meanwhile, both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences showed effects of the attractor noun number prior to the verb, in the first- and second-pass reading of the subject phrase. This contrast suggests that attraction effects in comprehension have at least two different sources: the first reflects verb-triggered processes that operate mainly in ungrammatical sentences. The second source reflects difficulties in the encoding of the subject phrase, which disturb comprehension in both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences.

This study investigates Modal Complement Ellipsis (MCE), Sluicing, and Fragment answers in Likpakpaanl, a Mabia language spoken in the Northern, Oti, and North-East regions of Ghana. I propose a movement plus deletion approach for the ellipsis in Likpakpaanl. I argue that deleted constituents under ellipsis possess the same underlying syntactic structure as their non-elided counterparts. I also adopt a Minimalist approach to account for the derivation of these ellipsis constructions. The study shows that only root modals ŋmàà 'can’ and bàn 'want' can license MCE. The E-feature is merged on the head of the modal phrase (ModP) and 'deletes' its vP (in the case of ŋmàà or a TP complement ( when the Mod-head is bàn). I propose a unified account for sluicing and fragment answers. I show that both elliptical phenomena target the FocP for deletion and not a tense phrase (TP) as in English or Dutch. The evidence for this is that the focus particle that is present in non-elliptical sluicing and fragment constructions must be elided under ellipsis in conformity with Merchant's (2001) Sluicing-Comp Generalisation, which proposes that in sluicing, for instance, on the wh-phrase may escape the ellipsis site and not the non-operator like a focus particle. Drawing on Merchant's (2001) assumption that ellipsis phenomena are licensed by an ellipsis (E)-feature, hosted on a single syntactic element, I propose that Likpakpaanl sluicing and fragments are licensed by an E-feature merged on a Licensing Phrase (LP) above FocP. Fragments and sluicing are derived via an Agree relationship between the wh-sluice or fragment element in the vP periphery and a Foc0 with an interpretable but unvalued focus feature. After feature valuation, the EPP feature on FocP extracts the constituent to Spec-FocP. Once the LP bearing the E-feature and an EPP feature merge in the derivation, it moves the wh-phrase or fragment element to Spec-LP, with the E-feature licensing the deletion of the complement FocP. Evidence from island effects (Complex Noun Phrase, Coordinate Structure, Adjunct), binding effects, and the inability of wh-phrases like kinyé 'how' and bàŋà 'why,' which cannot undergo ex-situ movement, to license sluicing, were used to support the claim for a movement approach to the derivation of MCE, Sluicing and Fragment answers in Likpakpaanl.

Some of the most important and most contentious political questions of our time concern the anticipation and pre-emption of future harm. The fight against the corona pandemic, with its focus on precautionary measures and projections of case numbers is only one example in a long line of threats that include nuclear war, climate change, and transnational terrorism, all of which challenge us to act based scenarios and predictions of future harm. The apprehension of such threats is to our experience of globality in the contemporary world. However, these hazards are very often removed from immediate perception, so that our knowledge of global risks is often second-hand knowledge, shaped as much by science as by transcultural flows of images, metaphors and narratives about technological hazards. The thesis explores how 20th and 21st century Anglophone fiction narrates the experience of living at risk from global technological and environmental hazards. In six contrastive readings that bring British, American, and postcolonial anglophone writing into dialogue, the book examines how the politics of fictional texts are connected to its narrative strategies for writing global risk: Engaging global risks means focusing on events which have not taken place yet and which are often hard or impossible to localize in a single geographical setting. Moreover, understanding how texts engage the temporality and location of global hazards not only helps us comprehend the role of fiction in debates about global risk, it also helps us explore how scenarios of the future are imagined and narrated more broadly.

This dissertation investigates L1 and L2 language comprehension via translation task that accounts for “good -enough” language comprehension pioneered by Lim and Christianson (2013a,b). There are two main experiments, the first one tests native Urdu speakers with English as L2, the second experiment test native German speakers with English as L2. The nature of stimuli in both experiments consisted of matched L1 and L2 sentences with either subject relative clauses (SRCs) or object relative clauses (ORCs) – that is a first factor ‘word order canonicity’ varied whether relative clauses occurred with either canonical or non-canonical word order. All relative clauses were semantically irreversible. By reversing the arguments within the relative clause, implausible relative clauses were created, resulting in a second factor ‘Plausibility’. The two factors Word Order Canonicity and Plausibility were combined with the different translation directions (English–Urdu and Urdu–English in Experiment 1, English–German and German–English in Experiment 2) so that the combined effects of structure and meaning could be investigated for different language pairs and different directions of translation, addressing the question of whether the “good-enough” approach to language comprehension proposed by Ferreira (2003) (see Karimi and Ferreira, 2016) provides a valid framework for L1 and L2 language processing.