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This paper presents the analyses of transitivity and questions about transitivity in two languages (Rawang and Qiang) that have been described using very different definitions of transitivity, with a view to showing that each language must be analysed on its own terms, and so the criteria used for identifying transitivity, if it is to be identified at all, might be different between languages. In the case of these two languages it is at least partly due to the two languages differing in terms of the degree of systematicity of the marking, with the Rawang marking being more systematic.
Nominalization in Rawang
(2009)
This paper discusses the types of relative clause and noun complement structures found in the Rawang language, a Tibeto-Burman language of northern Myanmar, as well as their origin and uses, with data taken mainly from naturally occurring texts. Two types are preposed relative clauses, but in one the relative clause is nominalized, and in the other it is not. The non-nominalized form with a general head led to the development of nominalizing suffixes and one type of nominalized relative clause structure. As the nominalized form is a nominal itself, it can be postposed to the head in an appositional structure. There is also discussion of the Rawang structures in the context of Tibeto-Burman and the development of relative clause structures in the language family.
Many linguists in China and the West have talked about Chinese as a topic-comment language, that is, a language in which the structure of the clause takes the form of a topic, about which something is to be said, and a comment, which is what is said about the topic, rather than being a language with a subject-predicate structure like that of English. Y. R. Chao (1968), for example, said that all Chinese clauses have topic-comment structure and there are no exceptions.
Middle voice marking is very rarely recognized as such in the grammars written on Tibeto-Burman languages. It is often simply treated as a normal direct reflexive or as an intransitivizer. In order to draw the attention of scholars to the existence and function of middle voice marking in Tibeto-Burman languages, the present paper discusses the form and function of middle marking in several of these languages. We will first discuss key facts about middle marking in general, then discuss the individual Tibeto-Burman examples.
On transitivity
(2011)
This paper critically discusses and contrasts some of the different conceptualisations of transitivity that have been presented in the literature, and argues that transitivity as a morphosyntactic phenomenon and effectiveness of an event as a semantic concept should be separated in discussions of transitivity, and also, like many other aspects of grammar, transitivity should be seen as a constructional phenomenon, and so each construction in a language needs to be examined separately, in natural contexts. An Appendix presents some general questions one can consider when analysing language data.
On describing word order
(2006)
One aspect that is always discussed in language descriptions, no matter how short they may be, is word order. Beginning with Greenberg 1963, it has been common to talk about word order using expressions such as "X is an SOV language", where "S" represents "subject", "0" represents "object", and "V" represents "verb". Statements such as this are based on an assumption of comparability, an assumption that all languages manifest the categories represented by "S", "0", and "V" (among others), and that word order in all languages can be described (and compared) using these categories.
The study offers a discourse-based account of the Spanish copula forms ser and estar, which are generally considered to be lexical exponents of the stage-level/individual-level contrast. It argues against the popular view that the distinction between SLPs and ILPs rests on a fundamental cognitive division of the world that is reflected in the grammar. As it happens, conceptual oppositions like “temporary vs. permanent” or “arbitrary vs. essential“ provide only a preference for the interpretation of estar and ser. In addition, the evidence for an SLP/ILP impact on the grammar turns out to be far less conclusive than is currently assumed. The study argues against event-based accounts of the ser/estar contrast in particular, showing that ser and estar pattern alike in failing all of the standard eventuality tests. The discourse-based account proposed instead assumes that ser and estar both display the same lexical semantics (which is identical to the semantics of English be, German sein, etc.); estar differs from ser only in presupposing a relation to a specific discourse situation. By using estar a speaker restricts his or her claim to a specific discourse situation, whereas by using ser, the speaker makes no such restriction. The preference for interpreting estar predications as denoting temporary properties and ser predications as denoting permanent properties follows from economy principles driving the pragmatic legitimation of estars discourse dependence. The analysis proposed in this paper can also account for the observation that ser predications do not give rise to thetic judgements. The proposal is couched in terms of the framework of DRT.
Podravski kajkavski dijalekt
(2011)
Syntactic negation and particularly the position of the negative particle 'nicht' are challenging themes not only for learners of German as a foreign language, but also for teachers and researchers of the grammar of German. This paper gives an overview of recent studies related to negation in Modern German. In its main part, it presents results of empirical research on the relationship between syntax and prosody in the field of negation.
This paper presents results of research into syntactic negation in both German and Brazilian Portuguese dialogues. After some considerations on the nature of negation, its occurrence in a corpus is investigated based on semantic negation categories established from works by Polenz and Engel. Based on Ilari's works, possible syntactic negation forms are presented as formulae that express the relationships between their components. Use frequency of syntactic negation in the semantic categories in each language is presented, as well as possible sources of interference in the use of such elements by foreign speakers, along with considerations about negation, culture and language.
An important role in the coherence of texts is played by the distribution of information in the sentence. The present paper especially examines the beginning of sentences (topics). Which syntactic elements are most adequate to initiate a sentence, and which of their characteristics can be considered responsible for this? After a short review of the pertinent literature, we shall present grammatical, semantic and pragmatic factors that organize topicalization. The point of departure are the patterns of basic serialization as defined by the grammar. Deviations of these patterns can particularly be a result of the principle of known information. In addition to this constitutive principle, we can distinguish five regulative principles that lead to non-marked topicalizations (situation, empathy, iconicity, lengthening terms, text connection). In the closing sections, the positioning of phrasal accents and some special types of topics will be discussed. All the examples given are from modem German.
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.
Contemporary German abounds in doubtful cases where linking elements alternate with zero elements, such as Seminar(+s?+)arbeit 'term paper', Respekt(+s?+)person 'person who commands respect'. This variation indicates a profound language change in the course of which the linking +s+ has spread continuously since Early New High German and is replacing the zero element more and more often. Today, +s+ is the most productive, progressive and most frequently occurring linking element. In this paper, we provide an explanation for the doubtful cases. Most often, the linking +s+ depends directly on the phonological quality of the first part of the compound: the worse its phonological structure, the more likely the occurrence of the linking +s+. It occurs most regularly after first parts of compounds containing a suffix or an unstressed prefix (Verkáuf+s+gespräch 'sales conversation'), while words with an ideal phonological structure (monosyllabic or trochaic words) rarely attract the linking +s+. The variation concentrates on compounds whose first parts feature a stressed prefix (Éinkauf(+s?+)führer 'shopping guide'). There is, however, a further factor which leads to fluctuation in the occurrence of the linking +s+. In cases where the second part of synthetic compounds such as Auftrag(+s?+)geber 'client' contain a high degree of verbality, the linking +s+ blurs the syntactic relation between the immediate constituents, strengthening the morphological character of the compound.
Příspěvek z oblasti kontrastivní lingvistiky se zabývá jednotlivými typy ĉeských etických dativŧ, popisuje jejich funkce, sémantické a syntaktické vlastnosti a protějšky v němĉině. Výzkum se opírá o autentická jazyková data vytěţená z elektronických korpusŧ.
The case of German relatives
(1995)
In der diachronen Entwicklung des Deutschen lassen sich mehrere Veränderungen hinsichtlich des Relativpronomens beobachten. Im Alt- und Mittelhochdeutschen (im folgenden AHD und MHD) war die sog. "Kasusattraktion" möglich, d.h. das Relativpronomen konnte einen vom Matrixsatz geforderten Kasus tragen, obwohl die Verhältnisse im Relativsatz einen anderen Kasus erfordert hätten. Zudem konnte im AHD und MHD das Relativpronomen im Gegensatz zum Neuhochdeutschen (im folgenden NHD) ganz fehlen.
Zur Syntax von Parenthesen
(1995)
In diesem Aufsatz sollen die syntaktischen Eigenschaften der als "Parenthesen" oder auch "Einschübe" bezeichneten Einheiten untersucht werden. Dabei wird sich zeigen, daß die gemeinhin unter Parenthesen subsumierten Strukturen überhaupt keine einheitlichen syntaktischen Eigenschaften aufweisen. Die häufig behauptete und als Definitionskriterium eingesetzte strukturelle Unabhängigkeit gegenüber dem Trägersatz erweist sich dabei als äußerst problematisch und gilt zumindest für einen Teil der Einschübe nicht.
In diesem Aufsatz werden syntaktische und semantisch-pragmatische Eigenschaften von wie- und so- Sätzen in redekommentierender Funktion (z.B. wie er sagte, so meinte sie) untersucht. Verschiedene Unterschiede zwischen diesen beiden Satztypen resultieren daraus, daß wie-Sä tze Verbendstellung, so- Sätze dagegen Verbzweitstellung aufweisen. Beide Satztypen können parenthetisch eingeschoben werden, wobei sie - entgegen üblichen Annahmen zur Stellung von Parenthesen - die Satzgliedgrenzen durchbrechen können. Dies wird auf ihre metakommunikative Funktion zurückgeführt. Es wird dafür plädiert, wie-Sä tze zu den Adverbialsätzen zu rechnen, die sich auf den Sprechakt beziehen. Die ihrer Form nach selbständigen so-Sätze haben keine Satzgliedfunktion im kommentierten Satz. Abschließend werden Unterschiede in den semantisch-pragmatischen Eigenschaften der so- und wie- Sätze diskutiert. Die beobachteten Unterschiede lassen sich darauf zurückführen, daß so die aktuelle Äußerung mit der wiedergegebenen identifiziert, wie dagegen eine Beziehung zwischen der aktuellen und einer anderen Äußerung herstellt, die jedoch keine Identifikation beinhaltet.
In der Regel stehen Quantoren bei dem Nomen, das sie quantifizieren. Im Deutschen wie auch in einigen anderen Sprachen können Quantoren jedoch auch in Distanzstellung zu dem quantifizierten Nomen auftreten. In diesem Aufsatz soll die Fragestellung verfolgt werden, ob das Auftreten von Quantoren in Distanzstellung als Ergebnis von Extraktion aus Nominalphrasen erklä rt werden kann, d.h. ob die Distanzstellung durch eine Bewegung entsteht, bei der eine NP aufgespalten wird. Dabei wird sich zeigen, daß eine ganze Reihe von Daten gegen eine solche Extraktionsanalyse sprechen.
Freie Relativsätze geben eine Reihe von Rätseln auf. Wie schon der Terminus andeutet, handelt es sich hier um eine widersprüchliche Erscheinung, da ein Relativsatz sich per definitionem auf ein Element im Matrixsatz bezieht, dies bei „freien Relativsätzen" jedoch nicht der Fall ist. Sie üben im übergeordneten Satz selbständig eine Satzgliedfunktion aus. Andererseits drängt sich der Eindruck auf, daß ein Bezugselement im Matrixsatz weggelassen wurde, es sich mithin also um verkappte Attributsätze handelt. Leirbukt hat sich kürzlich in einer empirischen Studie mit durch das Pronomen wer eingeleiteten Relativsätzen beschäftigt, und zwar vor allem im Hinblick auf die Frage, wann ein Bezugselement gesetzt wird bzw. nicht gesetzt wird (Leirbukt 1995). Hierzu haben eine Reihe von Grammatikern die Auffassung vertreten, daß ein Bezugselement im Matrixsatz nur dann fehlen kann, wenn das Relativpronomen die Kasusforderung des Matrixsatzes für die entsprechende Leerstelle erfüllt.
Zur Zeit erweckt die Frage großes Interesse, wie die Semantik und die Syntax von Kasusrahmen zusammenhängen. Dabei geht es darum, herauszufinden, nach welchen Regeln bestimmte thematische Rollen mit bestimmten syntaktischen Positionen verknüpft werden. Dieser Vorgang wird als Argumentselektion oder auch argument linking bezeichnet.
This paper deals with restitutive and repetitive wieder. Proceeding from the assumption that adverbial adjuncts have base positions which reflect their semantic relations to the rest of the sentence, it is shown that repetitive wieder belongs to the class of event adverbs minimally c-commanding the base positions of all arguments whereas restitutive wieder has many properties in common with process adjuncts, minimally c-commanding the final verb.
In diesem Aufsatz geht es um Sätze, deren Vorfeld mit einem anaphorischen d-Pronomen des Typs der/die/das besetzt ist und die - im Gegensatz zu Relativsätzen - Zweitstellung des Finitums aufweisen (d-V2-Sätze), wie in: "Ich habe einen Bekannten, der fährt einen Porsche." Sätze dieser Art werden in drei Perioden der Sprachgeschichte untersucht. Das Korpus besteht aus Texten aus dem Frühneuhochdeutschen, dem 19. Jahrhundert und der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. In allen drei Perioden kommen d-V2- Sätze vor. Sie werden nach ausgewählten Kriterien untersucht und mit Relativsätzen verglichen. Es werden Bedingungen formuliert, unter denen Relativsätze durch d-V2-Sätze substituiert werden können.
Tento ĉlánek se zabývá sémantikou německých ĉástic wohl a vielleicht a ĉeské ĉástice snad ve zvolacích větách. Uvádí se argumenty pro analýzu, podle které si v těchto typech vět – na rozdíl od jiných – zachovaly tyto ĉástice svoje pŧvodní "zesilující" významy, a proto by tento kontext měl být povaţován za autonomní. Dále ĉlánek podává vysvětlení pro toto sémantické/pragmatické chování.
The present tense is vacuous
(2002)
Early features
(1995)
The interpretation of traces
(2004)
This paper argues that parts of the lexical content of an A-bar moved phrase must be interpreted in the base position of movement. The argument is based on a study of deletion of a phrase that contains the base position of movement. I show that deletion licensing is sensitive to the content of the moved phrase. In this way, I corroborate and extend conclusions based on Condition C reconstruction by N. Chomsky and D. Fox. My result provides semantic evidence for the existence of traces and gives semantic content to the A/A-bar distinction.
This paper addresses the syntax and semantics plurals, and then applies it to reciprocal expressions. In the course of this investigation, I address two problems for the conventional view that a reciprocal makes essentially the same semantic contribution to the sentence as other noun phrases, but has an interesting internal structure. I will show that both problems are properties of plurality in general, and can be successfully explained along these lines. As a result, the paper is more about plurality in general than reciprocals though the goal of the paper is to account for the two problems relating to reciprocals.
This paper corroborates the interpretability proposal of Chomsky (1995) with evidence from scrambling in Japanese and German. First it is shown that scrambling in Japanese is semantically vacuous, whereas scrambling in German is semantically contentful. Chomsky’s proposal then predicts that the feature driving Japanese scrambling is erased after checking, while the corresponding feature in German remains visible, specifically for the Shortest Attract condition. Looking at patterns of movement that result in overlapping paths, this prediction is seen to be correct.
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.
Why variables?
(1999)
This paper addresses the question of how sentence-internal semantic dependencies are computed? The kind of semantic dependency I am looking at is that between a so called "bound (variable) pronoun" and its binder illustrated in (1), where the dependency is indicated by a connecting line. With all the literature on the topic (see for example Partee 1973, Percus 1998), I assume that this case is the prototype of all semantic dependencies, and therefore any result for this case generalizes to all types of sentence-internal semantic dependencies.
In German, prosody interacts with quantifier scope. We investigate this interaction in inverse linking constructions. We present evidence from elicited production of linguistically naive speakers supporting the following two claims: 1) There are two kinds of inverse linking constructions of which only the prepositional type requires a marked intonation contour for inverse scope. 2) In the prepositional construction, a double focus contour is employed with inverse scope rather that a topic-focus (rise-fall) contour as previously assumed (Krifka 1998).
The relation between word-formation and syntax and whether they form distinct domains of grammar or not has been discussed controversially in different theoretical frameworks. The answer to this question is closely connected to the languages under discussion, among other things, because languages seem to differ considerably in this regard. The discussion in this paper focuses on nominal compounds and phrases. On the basis of a great variety of data from a total of 14 European languages, it is argued that the relation between compounds and phrases, and, more generally, between word formation and syntax, should be characterized not in terms of a categorical but instead in terms of a gradient distinction.
The article deals with emotionality in marginal (disjunct or adjunct) syntactic structures. This issue is explored in the text of the first German translation of Karel Čapek's novel 'Hordubal', in which it is a characteristic feature. The analysis shows that those parts of the text expressing emotionality feature particularly right dislocation (with structures known in German as Nachtrag, Rechtsversetzung and Ausklammerung); the emotional content of these syntactic structures is frequently intensified by their expressive lexical form.
One of the means of expressing emotional content is the naming of people. Many negative personal names are created using derivation (suffixes); the goal of this study is to determine which suffixes are frequently used and whether any German suffixes have primarily negative meanings.
U radu se analizira sintaktička funkcija participa u hrvatskome jeziku 15./16. st. jer su se otprilike u to vrijeme u sintaktičkom ustrojstvu (staro)hrvatskoga jezika događale vrlo krupne jezične promjene, koje su posljedica “departicipijalizacije” participa, tj. preobrazbe naslijeđenih participnih oblika u glagolske priloge.
V německých gramatikách i speciálních studiích se často uvádějí prefigovaná slovesa, jako einschlafen, ausziehen aj., jako příklad sloves dokonavých (perfektivních, telických). Na druhé straně atributivním prézentním participiím (Partizip I) z nich tvořeným (einschlafende, ausziehende) se přisuzuje vid pouze nedokonavý. Na základě korpusového výzkumu se v této studii dokazuje, že prézentní atributivní participia mají v německých textech i význam dokonavý, i když se tento význam uplatňuje poměrně zřídka.