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Abnormitäten oder Analogien bei Übersetzungen deutscher und türkischer Nebensatzkonstruktionen
(2016)
Jede Sprache hat ihre eigene grammatikalische Struktur und dementsprechend unterscheidet sich auch der Aufbau der Sätze. Was in der Grammatik als ein Teilsatz bezeichnet wird, ist ein Nebensatz, welcher in jeder Sprache seine eigene Struktur besitzt. Diese strukturellen Merkmale, Unterschiede und Ähnlichkeiten im Deutschen und im Türkischen werden in dieser Arbeit dargestellt und miteinander verglichen. In dieser Arbeit werden die deutschen Nebensatzarten samt den dazugehörigen Beispielen dargestellt. Nach denselben Gesichtspunkten werden auch die jeweiligen türkischen Übersetzungen wiedergegeben. Diese Aufteilung soll als Mittel zum Zweck der übersichtlicheren Darlegung der Nebensätze und zur Erklärung der Übersetzungsmöglichkeiten dienen. Es ist klar, dass eine konkrete Übersetzung mehr oder weniger angleichend bzw. mehr oder weniger verfremdend erscheint, welche auf Varietät der Zielsprache zurückzuführen ist. Die Gegenüberstellung zwischen von Grund aus unterschiedlichen Sprachen scheint in erster Linie in Bezug auf den Wortschatz (z. B. kulturspezifische Begriffe) und Redeweisen getroffen worden zu sein. Sie ist jedoch auch für den grammatikalischen Bereich relevant. Nach diesem Exkurs werden einige deutsche Märchen mit ihren türkischen Übersetzungen verglichen und analysiert
Causative, which is analyzed in the context of voice, differs widely in Turkish and German languages. A causative can be obtained nearly from each verb in Turkish language while this category is not productive in German Language. Like prefixes, which are of great importance in German language, the causative has the same significance in Turkish language. Causatives can be divided into three: a) lexical causative, causative existing in words' own meaning; for instance, there exists such a relationship between the words "slide" and "fall"; b) morphological causative consists of morphemes (öl-dür-t-mek); c) whereas, the context is important for the operant causative. When we say “It smells gas in here’ it may have been intended to open a window and we can make it done. There is a direct connection between the causative and causality. Because, in causative instead of doing something directly, it may be caused to be done or occurred. The notion of causative in German has been reviewed in the semantic context at a low degree. This is because of the fact that, morphological causative verbs are fewer and new causative voices can't be formed. However, this issue has been handled in a very detailed manner especially at morphological level in Turkish language. There is even fine detail under the title causative itself. The most important characteristic of causative is to change the combination value of the verbs. However, the relation between causative and passive is just the opposite of this and asymmetric. Structures having semantic similarities with causatives and named as Funktionsverbgefüge (put into practice = apply) in German exist. Reciprocal voices and reflexive voices, the most important voices of Turkish language, generally allow the formation of causative verb.
"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.
Objavljene gramatike hrvatskoga kajkavskog književnog jezika pokušaj su, prije svega, olakšavanja učenja toga jezika strancima s njemačkoga govornog područja. Iako imaju opisni karakter, one su i ogledalo stupnja normiranosti hrvatskoga kajkavskog književnog jezika. U ovom radu donosi se opis i sistematizacija tvorbe komparativa u kajkavskim gramatikama.
U radu se analiziraju definicije vrsta riječi u gramatici hrvatskoga kajkavskog književnog jezika Josipa Đurkovečkoga (Jezičnica horvatsko-slavinska, Pešta, 1826.). Razmatra se koje se vrste riječi opisuju u gramatici, koje hrvatske nazive autor upotrebljava pri njihovu imenovanju te se propituju načini opisa definicija vrsta riječi s posebnim obzirom na to temelje li se definicije na leksičko-semantičkome, morfološkome ili sintaktičkome planu. Analizom opisa vrsta riječi u gramatici J. Đurkovečkoga pokazuje se način promišljanja o jezičnim spoznajama i obilježja gramatičkoga diskursa u okviru povijesti hrvatske gramatikografije, posebice u domeni gramatika hrvatskoga kajkavskog književnog jezika.
U radu se opisuju primjeri češće uporabe akuzativa bez prijedloga u suvremenim hrvatskim medijima i razgovornom jeziku. Primjeri se takve uporabe razvrstavaju u nekoliko skupina: 1. sintagme s nepunoznačnim glagolom i besprijedložnim akuzativom, 2. glagol + *imenska riječ (A) + imenska riječ (A) < glagol + od + imenska riječ (G) + imenska riječ (A), 3. neprijelazni glagol → prijelazni glagol. Među sintagmama s akuzativom promjene se primjećuju i u sljedećoj, 4. skupini: glagol + unutrašnji objekt → glagol + hiponimni objekt (rubni izravni objekt?). Pri opisu se potvrđuje da se akuzativ kao puni, središnji padež, kojim se predmet obuhvaća u potpunosti, nameće rubnosti ostalih perifernih padeža, pr. instrumentala (kod glagola kontaktirati). Pokazuje se da su, usprkos normi koja uz glagole traženja ne preporuča uporabu dvaju akuzativa bez prijedloga, nego jednoga besprijedložnoga akuzativa (ili dijelnoga genitiva) te drugoga genitiva s prijedlogom od, uz glagol tražiti u jeziku suvremenih medija česte potvrde dvaju besprijedložnih akuzativa.
U ovome se radu razmatra odabir naziva diskursnih oznaka za određene jezične elemente i ukazuje na moguće zakonitosti njihova nastanka. Raščlanjuju se pojedine karakteristike, formalne i funkcionalne prirode, koje se najčešće povezuju s diskursnim oznakama. Pri određivanju jezičnih elemenata u funkciji diskursnih oznaka opredjeljuje se, prije svega, za funkcionalni kriterij, dok su formalne karakteristike tek pokazatelji njihove pripadnosti zajedničkoj kategoriji.
Der Status der Satzadverbien
(2010)
Satzadverbien, auch Modalwörter genannt, sind Ausdrücke, mit denen der Sprecher oder die Sprecherin eines Satzes zum Geltungsgrad des geäußerten Satzes Stellung nimmt. Es handelt sich um Wörter wie tatsächlich, wahrscheinlich, leider, hoffentlich und andere. Mit ihnen wird der Satz, in dem sie vorkommen, bekräftigt oder abgeschwächt, bewertet und in bestimmter Weise kommentiert. Sie sind ein äußerst effektives Mittel, Sätze mit solchen Stellungnahmen und Bewertungen anzureichern und dadurch die Kommunikation kompakter und beweglicher zu machen. Für den Fremdsprachenunterricht ist die Kenntnis ihrer Funktionsweise unverzichtbar. Auch die Beobachtung ihres Stellungsverhaltens ist wichtig, vor allem, wenn sie in Kombination auftreten, was nicht selten der Fall ist.
Mein Beitrag stützt sich auf die in Münster, in Nitra und in Bochum gehaltenen Vorträge zum Problem der Satzklammerverletzung am Beispiel der Subjunktoren weil und obwohl. Die Analyse der Mannheimer Korpora wies eine niedrige Anzahl von weil- und obwohl-Sätzen mit Erststellung auf, was mich dazu veranlasste, die weil- und obwohl-Erststellung als Tendenzerscheinung zu bezweifeln. Ich habe beschlossen, meine Untersuchung zu erweitern und auch die anderen kausalen Subjunktoren da, damit, wobei zu berücksichtigen. Dadurch wird fast der ganze Kausalbereich abgedeckt, was es ermöglicht, meine Thesen zu verifizieren bzw. zu präzisieren.
Negation und Modalität
(2009)
Der vorliegende Artikel behandelt die Problematik der Negation im Rahmen der Modalität. Die Aufmerksamkeit richtet sich auf formale und inhaltliche Aspekte der Negation auf dem modalen Feld. Nach dem Vergleich der Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten der Negation im Deutschen und Slowakischen werden die Auswirkungen der Negation auf die semantische Ebene der Modalverben (weiter nur MV) in beiden Sprachen konkret behandelt. Es gibt mehrere Verfahren zur Skopusfestlegung des Negators. Im Artikel wird ein Modell präsentiert, das die Diskrepanz zwischen der oberflächlichen und tatsächlichen Negation in beiden Sprachen zeigt.
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 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.
A contrast to a trace
(2001)
For movement, such as quantifier raising, the three different structures illustrated in (1) are discussed in the recent literature.
(1) A girl danced with every boy
a. [every boy]x a girl danced with x (copy + replace)
b. [every boy]x a girl danced with [every boy] (copy)
c. [every boy]x a girl danced with [thex boy] (copy + modify)
In this paper, I'll call the proposal illustrated by (1a) the copy+replace theory since the movement is analyzed as first copying the moving phrase followed by replacing the moving phrase with a trace in the base position of movement. Chomsky (1993) and Fox (1999) argue against the copy+replace theory (1a) on the basis of Condition C data that show that moved material can behave as if it occupied the base position of movement. This behavior would, for example, be expected on the copy theory of movement illustrated by (1b), which also seems conceptually simpler than the copy+replace theory since it involves only copying without replacement. This conceptual advantage, however, is probably only apparent since a theory of the interpretation of structures like (1b) would probably be more complicated than for (1a). Standard assumptions about interpretation, at least, don't predict the right meaning when applied to (1b). For this reason, Chomsky and Fox propose what I'll call the copy+modify-theory illustrated in (1c). This proposes that copying is followed by a trace modification operation that replaces the determiner of the moved DP with something else. I assume that this is an indexed definite determiner, the interpretation of which is to be clarified below.
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.
Early features
(1995)
It has been claimed and widely assumed that caseless direct objects in Turkish exhibit a sort of syntactic incorporation, and only their cased counterparts are true syntactic arguments (Kornfilt 1997; Knecht 1986; Nilsson 1986; Öztürk 2005 among others). Cased and caseless objects are thus widely taken as derivationally related, crystallized in Kelepir's (2001) proposal that objects pick up overt accusative as they move out of the VP. In this paper, I would like to revisit both the empirical evidence and the interpretation leading to these claims and propose revisions.
I first show that not all caseless objects are the same. Mostly drawing on Aydemir (2004), I argue that bare caseless objects and those with indefinite expressions have differences that would be very unusual if they were both incorporated. However, adopting Öztürk (2005) and against Aydemir (2004), neither of the cases can be analyzed as head incorporation.
I then turn to the cased vs. caseless distinction and argue that cased and caseless objects are not that different after all. Based on data with strictly controlled information structure, I arrive at a different generalization than most of the earlier reports and claim that caseless objects are morphosyntactically as moveable as their cased counterparts.
Hence, I propose to replace the notion of incorporation in the literature of Turkish syntax with the notion of weak case (de Hoop 1992) and conclude by a discussion of the domain of syntactic analysis in this primarily semantic phenomenon.
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.
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.
This book is a full reference grammar of Qiang, one of the minority languages of southwest China, spoken by about 70,000 Qiang and Tibetan people in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern Sichuan Province. It belongs to the Qiangic branch of Tibeto-Burman (one of the two major branches of Sino-Tibetan). The dialect presented in the book is the Northern Qiang variety spoken in Ronghong Village, Yadu Township, Chibusu District, Mao County. This book, the first book-length description of the Qiang language in English, is the result of many years of work on the language.
This paper argues that long-standing problems in the analysis of Chinese, such as the question of word classes and grammatical relations, can be resolved, or actually done away with completely, if we take a constructionist approach in the analysis. This means the constructions are taken as basic, so we only need to look at the propositional functions of elements in the construction (referential, modifying, or predicative), and do not need to posit global categories such as word classes and grammatical relations.
Chinese is often taken as a prime example of an isolating language. Most relation marking takes the form of particles rather than affixes or inflections. Possibly relevant to the facts that are presented below, Chinese has been argued to not have grammaticalized the sort of pivot constructions normally associated with grammatical relations. That is, it has been argued to not have any particular alignment, as there are no grammatical relations, and the clause pattern is simply topic-comment (Chao 1968, Lü 1979, LaPolla 1993, 1995, 2009; LaPolla & Poa 2005, 2006). We will first talk more generally about structures found in Sino-Tibetan languages, and then focus on Modern Mandarin Chinese.
Using arguments based on the data on verb agreement (pronominalization) in Tibeto-Burman, LaPolla 1989 (see also LaPolla 1992) argues that Proto-Tibeto-Burman should be reconstructed as a language with no inflectional morphology. In that paper it is argued that the Proto-Tibeto- Burman system of grammatical relations1 was closer to the typical 'role-dominated' (Van Valin & Foley 1980) Burmese-Yipho system (epitomized by Lahu—see Matisoff 1973). That is, a system where there is no definable 'subject' or 'direct object'; a system where semantic and pragmatic principles govern the organization of discourse, not syntactic functions. In this paper we look at the nature of 'objects' in Tibeto-Burman languages, and here also find support for this view of Proto-Tibeto-Burman grammatical relations. From a survey of ninety-five reliable grammars or descriptions of languages in the Tibeto-Burman family, I found eleven languages with no nominal object marking, twenty languages with nominal morphology consistently marking the patient as object, regardless of clause type, and sixty-four languages with a type of marking where the patient in monotransitve clauses is often or always marked with the same postposition as the goal or beneficiary (dative) in ditransitve clauses. This type of marking is discussed in Dryer 1986 as Primary Object marking. I argue that this type of marking in the Tibeto-Burman languages reflects the semantically based nature of grammatical relations in Proto-Tibeto-Burman.
The bulk of this dissertation is an analysis of grammatical relations (including syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic relations) in Modern Mandarin Chinese. In Chapter I the background, functional framework, and concepts used in the dissertation are introduced. In Chapter II it is shown that Chinese has not grammaticalized the syntactic functions 'subject' and 'object', and has no syntactic function-changing passive construction. In Chapter III the nature of word order and its relationship to information structure in Chinese is examined. It is argued that word order in Chinese does not mark 'definite' and 'indefinite' NPs, as is commonly assumed, but marks information structure. A number of marked focus structure constructions are also discussed. In Chapter IV the discussion is of the structure of Chinese discourse, developed from an analysis of the nature of discourse referent tracking. It is shown that recovery of anaphora is not based on syntactic functions, but is based on real world knowledge (semantics and pragmatics) and discourse structure. Chapter V gives the conclusions, followed by a discussion of some of the diachronic considerations that arose in the course of this investigation. It is suggested that within Sino-Tibetan, Chinese should be seen as an innovator in terms of word order, and that grammatical relations in Proto-Sino-Tibetan should be seen to be pragmatically based rather than syntactically based.
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.
Locative inversion in Cuwabo
(2014)
This paper proposes a detailed description of locative inversion (LI) constructions in Cuwabo, in terms of morphosyntactic properties and thematic restrictions. Of particular interest are the use of disjoint verb forms in LI, and the co-existence of formal and semantic LI, which challenges the widespread belief that the two constructions cannot be found in the same language.
Introduction
(2014)
Bantu languages have been at the heart of the research on the interaction between syntax, prosody and information structure. In these predominantly SVO languages, considerable attention has been devoted to postverbal phenomena. By addressing issues related to Subjects, Topics and Object-Verb word orders, the goal of the present papers is to deepen our understanding of the interaction of different grammatical components (syntax, phonology, semantics/pragmatics) both in individual languages and across the Bantu family. Each paper makes a valuable contribution to ongoing discussions on the preverbal domain.
It has long been observed that subjects cross-linguistically have topic properties: they are typically definite, referential and/or generic (Givón 1976). Bantu languages are said to illustrate this generalization: preverbal position for NPs is equated with both subject and topic status and postverbal position with focus (and non-subject). However, there is a growing body of work showing that preverbal subjects are not necessarily syntactically or semantically equivalent to topics. For example, Zerbian’s (2006) careful study of preverbal position in Northern Sotho shows that preverbal subjects meet few of the semantic tests for aboutness topics. The study of restrictions on preverbal subjects in Durban Zulu presented in this paper builds on Zerbian (2006) and Halpert (2012). In particular, we investigate the interpretational properties of preverbal indefinite subjects. These subjects show us that preverbal subjects carry a presupposition of existence. We explore an analysis connecting the "strong reading" of preverbal subjects with how high the verb moves in Zulu (following Tsai’s 2001 work on Mandarin).
The papers in this volume take up some aspects of the preverbal domain(s) in Bantu languages. They were originally presented at the Workshop BantuSynPhonIS: Preverbal Domain(s), held at the Center for General Linguistics (ZAS), in Berlin, on 14-15 November 2014. This workshop was coorganized by ZAS (Fatima Hamlaoui & Tonjes Veenstra) and the Humboldt University (Tom Güldemann, Yukiko Morimoto and Ines Fiedler).
The aim of this paper is to give a unified account of the way that German demonstrative pronouns (henceforth: D-pronouns) like der, die and das behave (a) in sentences where they receive a coreferential interpretation, and (b) in sentences where they receive a covarying interpretation because they are in some way dependent on a quantificational expression – either via direct binding or indirectly, because the value they receive varies with the value that is assigned to the variable bound by an indefinite determiner.
A grammar of Pite Saami
(2014)
Pite Saami is a highly endangered Western Saami language in the Uralic language family currently spoken by a few individuals in Swedish Lapland. This grammar is the first extensive book-length treatment of a Saami language written in English. While focussing on the morphophonology of the main word classes nouns, adjectives and verbs, it also deals with other linguistic structures such as prosody, phonology, phrase types and clauses. Furthermore, it provides an introduction to the language and its speakers, and an outline of a preliminary Pite Saami orthography. An extensive annotated spoken-language corpus collected over the course of five years forms the empirical foundation for this description, and each example includes a specific reference to the corpus in order to facilitate verification of claims made on the data. Descriptions are presented for a general linguistics audience and without attempting to support a specific theoretical approach, but this book should be equally useful for scholars of Uralic linguistics, typologists, and even learners of Pite Saami.
Bu çalışmada, Türkçedeki emir kipinin bir alt ulamı olan ve Almancada Jussiv terimiyle karşılanan 3. kişilere yönelik emir-istek1 biçimleri ve bunların Almancaya nasıl aktarılabileceği konulaştırılmaktadır. Bu amaçla Yaşar Kemal’in Kuşlar da Gittiromanındaki söz konusu emir-istek biçimleri aynı kitabın Almanca çevirisi Auch die Vögel sind fort’taki çevirileriyle karşılaştırılmaktadır. Karşılaştırmanın amacı çeviri eleştirisi değildir; yalnızca durum saptaması yapılmaktadır. Saptanan çeviri olanaklarının Alman dili eğitimi öğrencilerinde nasıl yansıma bulacağını görebilmek için bir de dar kapsamlı bir çeviri anketi uygulanmıştır. Türk dilinin bu dolaylı emir-istek için somut dilbilgisel bir ulam (Ali gelsin!) geliştirmişken, Almancada bire bir karşılaştırılabilir dilbilgisel bir eşdeğerlilik saptanmamıştır. Bu ulamın işlevi Almancada özellikle 3. kişi dolaylı anlatımla (Jeder kehre vor seiner eigenen Haustür!) ve yardımcı eylemlerle (Das Feuer soll von hier mitgenommen werden) karşılanmaktadır. Anlamsal bir ulam olan kipselliğin Türkçe ifadesindeki birçok örtüşmezlik, bu konunun Almanca öğretiminde daha çok dikkate alınması gerektiğini göstermiştir. Öğrencilerle yaptığımız çeviri uygulamasındaki diğer saptamamız, çevirilerdeki yetersizliğin sözlük kullanımındaki yetersizliğe dayandığıdır.
The aim of this article is to follow the changes that took place in the history of easy-to-please constructions. To fully apprehend that, we will begin by looking at Middle English infinitives and the change which affected them. Our attempt here is to prove that Early Middle English to was at its intermediate stage of development, i.e. it was neither a preposition nor inflection. In Late Middle English, to reached its final stage of a gradual evolution heading TR On account of the analysis of to and infinitives in Middle English, new constructions in which easv-to-please appear will be explained.
Der Beitrag präsentiert die Problematik der Possessivität in zwei typologisch diversen Sprachsystemen. Die Autoren analysieren die Ausdrucksweisen und die Spezifika der Kategorie der Possessivität in der deutschen Sprache (als einem Repräsentanten der germanischen Sprachgruppe) und in der slowakischen Sprache (als einem Repräsentanten der slawischen Sprachgruppe und zugleich der Muttersprache der Autoren). Es werden die vielseitigen semantischen und strukturellen Aspekte in beiden Sprachen beschrieben, wobei die konfrontative und kontrastive Betrachtung von Bedeutung ist. Es wurden die Konstruktionen beider Sprachen ausgewählt, die nach der von den Autoren angenommenen Begriffsbestimmung der Possessivität als possessiv zu betrachten sind. Die präsentierte Problematik kann für weitere Analysen und Untersuchungen sowohl im Bereich der Sprachwissenschaft als auch für die Erweiterung der interlingualen Kompetenz in beiden Sprachsystemen inspirierend und hilfreich sein.
Issues on topics
(2000)
The present volume contains papers that bear mainly on issues concerning the topic concept. This concept is of course very broad and diverse. Also, different views are expressed in this volume. Some authors concentrate on the status of topics and non-topics in so-called topic prominent languages (i.e. Chinese), others focus on the syntactic behavior of topical constituents in specific European languages (German, Greek, Romance languages). The last contribution tries to bring together the concept of discourse topic (a non-syntactic notion) and the concept of sentence topic, i.e. that type of topic that all the preceding papers are concerned with.
Nominalizations
(2002)
The present volume is a selection of the papers presented in workshops at ZAS in Berlin in November 2000 and at theUniversity of Tübingen in April 2001, devoted to synchronic and, diachronic aspects of various types of nominalizations. Nominalization has a long history in linguistic research. Its nature can only be captured by taking into account the interface between morphology, syntax and semantics on the one hand, and the interface between semantics and conceptual structure on the other.
In this paper I argue that the set of formal features that can head a functional projection is not given by UG but derived through L1 acquisition. I formulate a hypothesis that says that initially every functional category F is realised as a semantic feature [F]; whenever there is an overt doubling effect in the L1 input with respect to F, this semantic feature [F] is reanalysed as a formal feature [i/uF]. In the first part of the paper I provide a theoretical motivation for this hypothesis, in the second part I test this proposal for a case-study, namely the cross-linguistic distribution of Negative Concord (NC). I demonstrate that in NC languages negation has been reanalysed as a formal feature [i/uNEG], whereas in Double Negation languages this feature remains a semantic feature [NEG] (always interpreted as a negative operator), thus paving the way for an explanation of NC in terms of syntactic agreement. In the third part I discuss that the application of the hypothesis to the phenomenon of negation yields two predictions that can be tested empirically. First I demonstrate that negative markers X° can be available only in NC languages; second, independent change of the syntactic status of negative markers, can invoke a change with respect to the exhibition of NC in a particular language. Both predictions are proven to be correct. I finally argue what the consequences of the proposal presented in this paper are for both the syntactic structure of the clause and second for the way parameters are associated to lexical items.
On the syntax and pragmatics interface : Left-peripheral, medial and right-peripheral focus in greek
(2004)
The present paper explores the extent to which narrow syntax is responsible for the computation of discourse functions such as focus/topic. More specifically, it challenges the claim that language approximates ‘perfection’ with respect to economy, conceptual necessity and optimality in design by reconsidering the roles and interactions of the different modules of the grammar, in particular of syntax and phonology and the mapping between the two, in the representation of pragmatic notions. Empirical and theoretical considerations strongly indicate that narrow syntax is ‘blind’ to properties and operations involving the interpretive components — that is, PF and LF. As a result, syntax-phonology interface rules do not ‘see’ everything in the levels they connect. In essence, the architecture of grammar proposed here from the perspective of focus marking necessitates the autonomy of the different levels of grammar, presupposing that NS is minimally structured only when liberated from any non-syntactic/discourse implementations, i.e., movement operations to satisfy both interface needs. As a result, the model articulated here totally dispenses with discourse projections, i.e. FocusP.
Dislocation without movement
(2004)
This paper argues that French Left-Dislocation is a unified phenomenon whether it is resumed by a clitic or a non-clitic element. The syntactic component is shown to play a minimal role in its derivation: all that is required is that the dislocated element be merged by adjunction to a Discourse Projection (generally a finite TP with root properties). No agreement or checking of a topic feature is necessary, hence no syntactic movement of any sort need be postulated. The so-called resumptive element is argued to be a full-fledged pronoun rather than a true syntactic resumptive.
In this paper topic and focus effects at both left and right periphery are argued to be epiphenomena of general properties of tree growth. We incorporate Korean into this account as a prototypical verb-final language, and show how long- and short-distance scrambling form part of this general picture. Multiple long-distance scrambling effects emerge as a consequence of the feeding relationship between different forms of structural under-specification. We also show how the array of effects at the right periphery, in both verb-final and other language-types, can also be explained with the same concepts of tree growth. In particular the Right Roof Constraint, a well-known but little understood constraint, is an immediate consequence of compositionality constraints as articulated in this system.
Chicheŵa, a Bantu language of East Central Africa, displays mixed properties of configurationality such as the existence of VP, on the one hand, and discontinuous constituents (DCs), on the other. In the present work we examine the discourse and syntactic properties of DCs, and show that DCs in Chicheŵa arise naturally from the discourse-configurational nature of the language. We argue that the fronted DCs in Chicheŵa are contrastive topics that appear in a leftdislocated external topic position, with the remnant part of the split NP in the right-dislocated topic position. Once the precise discourse functions of DCs are properly integrated into the syntactic analysis, all the facts and restrictions observed in Chicheŵa DCs can be explained in a straightforward fashion.
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.
We argue that Malagasy (and related W. Austronesian languages!) has a positive setting for a macro-parameter RICH VOICE MORPHOLOGY which builds complex predicates that code the theta role of their argument: S = [[PreN(6) + (X)] + DP]. Manifestations of this parameter are: (1) Case and theta role are assigned in situ in nuclear clauses with no movement or co-indexing to a topic position. (2) Relative Clauses (and other "extraction" structures) satisfy the "Subjects Only" constraint, again with no movement or indexing. (3) UTAH is freely violated, as theta role assignment derives from compositional semantic interpretation. Predicates resemble lexical Ns in assigning case directly to arguments without using Prepositions and in combining directly with Dets to form DPs that include tense and negation (Keenan 1995, 2000). The major Predicate-Argument type is modeled on the Noun+Possessor one, not the Verb+Object one.