On the structure of doublecoordinator constructions

This paper offers a variationist analysis of object and adverbial clitic position in coordinated affirmative verb-first main declaratives introduced bye(t)“and” in Old Occitan. In this context, clitics occur in either preverbal (e·l vestit“and clothed him”) or postverbal position (e perdonet li“and pardoned him”). Following recent work on Medieval Romance coordination, I posit that proclitic and enclitic examples reflect different coordination structures at the underlying syntactic level. Data from complete analyses of five major 13th- and 14th-century texts, analyzed in a variationist approach using logistic regression, reveal that the choice between coordination structures – and hence, between proclisis and enclisis – is principled rather than random and depends on the degree of continuity or rupture/discontinuity between the conjuncts.

This paper examines the nature of predicate coordination and its nominalization in modern Chinese, which have been a field of limited research. In English and Korean, when a verb appears at the position of a subject or an object, it goes through a process of explicit nominalization by changing its form or adding a suffix, but in Chinese, it can come to the position of a subject or an object without a morphological change. This pattern also appears in the predicate coordination connected by multiple verbs or adjectives. In modern Chinese, the most common conjunctions used in predicate coordination structures are “而”, “幷” and “和”, but their usages vary considerably. While the predicate coordinate structure using “和” could be freely positioned, the predicate coordinate structure that uses “幷” or “而” can come to the predicative or adnominal position only but cannot come to the subject or object position. This paper finds that the verbal coordinate structure connected by “幷” has verbal characteristics only, but the verbal coordinate structure connected by “和” has both noun and verbal characteristics, which makes the noun or verbal characteristics stronger or weaker depending on its position. In other words, the predicate coordinate structure connected by “和” has strong noun characteristics when it comes to the position of a subject or an object, and has strong verbal characteristics when it is in the position of the predicate. However, even if it comes to the position of a predicate, it does not lose its noun characteristics completely. Its verbal characteristics could manifest with the support of other supplementary elements, such as adverb, object, and complement.

This paper explores the syntax of free relative clauses in Zahrani Spoken Arabic (henceforth ZSA). The paper shows that ZSA possesses two types of free relative clauses, viz., nominal free relative clauses and adverbial free relative clauses. The focus of the paper is on nominal free relative clauses. It is shown that nominal free relative clauses can appear in a subject position and a direct object position, and the range of relativization involves subject, direct object, indirect object, prepositional object and possessor relativization. The derivation of free relatives in ZSA involves resumption relativization strategy only where gaps are treated as null resumptive pronouns. As for distribution of null and overt resumptive clitics, there is an alternation between the use of null and overt resumptive pronouns/clitics in subject and direct object position. However, the utilization of overt resumptive pronouns/clitics is mandatory in indirect object, prepositional object and possessor position. It is argued that the free relative markers illi: and mi:n are complementizers. Furthermore, as null and overt resumptive clitics exhibit a big resemblance with respect to their behaviour in the coordinate structures and parasitic gaps, both free relatives with null or resumptive pronouns/clitics involve a null operator movement (in non-island contexts) from inside the free relative clause to the specifier of a complementizer phrase (spec CP). The CP is adjoined to a null antecedent occupying the head of a noun phrase (NP) which is a complement of a determiner phrase (DP) with an empty D.

Despite the lack of consensus on English facts, this study demonstrates that both parasitic gap (PG) and across‐the‐board (ATB) constructions in Mandarin Chinese exhibit parallel effects in variable binding reconstruction, while also displaying asymmetries in gap licensing categories. I argue that these patterns in Mandarin Chinese align with the sideward movement approach, supporting a version of the unified approach to deriving both constructions. Specifically, the gaps in question are filled by variables, consistent with both constructions being derived via sideward movement. The observed asymmetries lend support to the view that the licensing of ATB gaps is more permissive than that of PGs, as additional conditions (such as the Parallelsim Requirement) on coordinate structures can license sideward movement in ATB sentences.

It has long been assumed that in the English passive a passive subject (such as the boy in The boy was scolded by Professor Smith ) undergoes NP-movement from its original object position to get Nominative Case. Similarly, the direct passive in Japanese (e.g., Sono-otokonoko-ga Smith-sensei-ni oko-rare-ta . ‘The boy was scolded by Professor Smith.’), which has been assumed to correspond to the abovementioned English passive, has been proposed to involve NP-movement of a passive subject from the object position (Kuno 1973;Miyagawa 1989; Kubo 1990, among others). The main evidence provided by researchers which advocate such an NPmovement view for the direct passive comes from the behavior of a floating quantifier in direct passives.Miyagawa (1989) offers the mutual c-command requirement on a floating quantifier, according to which, in Japanese, a floating quantifier is allowed only when it mutually c-commands the host NP (or a trace of the host NP) which the floating quantifier modifies. Thus if a floating quantifier for a passive subject is possible in the direct passive, it has been thought to indicate that there is a trace of the passive subject in the object position, which in turn suggests that the passive subject undergoes NP-movement. Indeed, the direct passive allows a floating quantifier (e.g., Otokonoko-ga Smith-sensei-ni san-nin oko-rare-ta . ‘Three boys were scolded by Professor Smith.’). In this way the view that the direct passive involves NP-movement similar to the English passive seems to be well motivated. However, I argue against the NP-movement view for the direct passive. I show that the evidence from floating quantifiers is not conclusive enough to conclude that a passive subject in the direct passive undergoes NP-movement. A closer inspection reveals that the mutual c-command requirement itself has to be dismissed, and furthermore, a floating quantifier does not necessarily imply that there is a trace. Therefore, theNP-movement view supported by the evidence fromfloating quantifiers is nullified. The NP-movement view has to be recast in a broader empirical investigation. I present several new pieces of empirical evidence on the direct passive, which unequivocally support the totally opposite view from the NP-movement view: a passive subject is not derived by NP-movement; rather it is base-generated in the subject position, [Spec, TP], throughout the derivation (cf. Kuroda 1979; Hoshi 1991; Kitagawa & Kuroda 1992; Matsuoka 2002). Empirical evidence comes from (i) Binding Conditions in the passive, (ii) scope interpretation (scope of negation) in the passive, (iii) Variable Binding in the passive, (iv) V-V compound (long passive) in the passive, and (v) a negative polarity item, sika- phrase, in the passive.

Verb-initial ordering may be derived by fronting the VP (or a larger constituent) to a specifier position higher than the subject. For VSO languages, this analysis requires that the object raise out of the VP to a position below the subject before the (remnant) VP fronts to the higher position. This paper builds a comprehensive analysis of VSO order in the Polynesian language Samoan, employing the VP-fronting analysis, arguing the account does better than competing derivational accounts (e.g., a head movement account). I argue that evidence for the raising of the complement of V to a VP-external position comes from data showing that the coordination of unaccusative and unergative verbs is not possible in Samoan. This paradigm has a ready explanation under the VP-fronting account: as the complement of V must raise out of the VP before VP-fronting takes place, unaccusative subject DPs are predicted to bind a VP-internal copy. This blocks coordination with unergative VPs which do not contain DP copies (via the Coordinate Structure Constraint). I provide a generalized account of DP movement whereby the functional head v is specified to trigger the movement of all DPs in its local c-command domain to its projected specifier positions. In cases where v does not locally c-command any DP, the requirement is trivially satisfied. I show how this accounts for the observed VSO/VOS word order alternations in Samoan.

Hebrew and Italian manifest a relative freedom in the ordering of complements in double complement constructions. Hypothesizing that the base order is NP PP, we proceed to delineate the transformational processes involved in the derivation of the alternative PP NP order. This leads us to identify a strategy of structural focalization involving a Focus projection which we take to be responsible for the derivation of a subset of the structures displaying the order PP NP. We discuss the interaction of this strategy with ‘subject inversion’ which we interpret as also involving structural focalization. Differences between Hebrew and Italian are correlated with the linear position of Spec/FocusP in the clause structure and the availability or non-availability ofpro in object position. It is observed that the range of options open to heavy objects is greater than that available to non-heavy or light objects. We claim that the order PP NPheavy does not submit to a uniform analysis and that a process of heavy NP Shift must be admitted alongside a process shifting the PP over NPheavy.

Coreference relations are at the heart of ASL grammar. This statement is of no surprise since it is true of every language, but ASL distinguishes itself in expressing many of its coreference relations overtly by means of a spatial system of co-indexing. This paper reviews characteristics of this overt co-indexing system and goes on to focus upon those factors which condition the absence of pronouns in topic and argument positions. The factors to be considered are spatial agreement markers, the presence of role prominence and object clitics, and the presence of topics (both overt and null). This paper follows from work presented in Shepard-Kegl (1985; Section 6.2 Typological Parameters and Empty Categories) where research by Huang (1984) and McCloskey and Hale (1982) was used as a springboard for distinguishing two types of null pronouns in ASL. The analysis in my dissertation is revised with respect to the behavior of verbs which take object clitics. Previously I argued that these verbs condition pro-drop in object position. However, I argue here that these object clitics are arguments serving as case absorbers which prohibit the presence of any argument in object position. The topicalized NPs that optionally appear in sentences with object clitics are not coindexed with an empty category in object position, but rather bind the object clitic and by virtue of this variable binding relationship inherit the case and thematic characteristics it possesses. I conclude by discussing some of the characteristics of ASL’s overt co-indexing system and how it interacts with Binding Theory, Case Theory and Theta Theory as presented in Chomsky (1981) and its extensions. This is not an exhaustive treatment of the issues. My goal is to bring to light some interesting questions, issues and possible problems raised by a language with overt preferential indices and multiple types of null pronouns.

The paper proposes a systemic transition from the location and orientation of tolerance product features to linear and angular coordinates in the coordinate system of the product electronic model. The coordinate system is formed by designing datums set with a total informativeness content of six constrains on the object degrees of freedom, three of them being linear and three of them being angular constrains. The main design datums determine the object position in the product and form a generalized coordinate system. Auxiliary design datums determine the position of the attached object on the considered object and form an auxiliary coordinate system. Each element of the product has a certain informativeness content to limit the degrees of freedom, both linear and angular. When forming a Cartesian coordinate system, the datum element transfers piece or all of its informativeness content to it. As a result, the coordinate planes acquire different informativeness of three, two and one, and the coordinate axes acquire that of four, two and zero. The coordinate axes and planes informativeness content determines the number of linear and angular coordinates that can be set relative to them. Similarly, the feature datums informativeness means the number of linear and angular coordinates that must be specified in the coordinate system for its single-task location and orientation. The transition to a coordinate system for standardizing location and orientation deviations demonstrates compliance with a systematic approach that improves the quality of products in terms of the geometric specifications accuracy.