Bare Complements Research Articles

The status of Dative case in the Moksha case paradigm

In this paper, I discuss the structure of the Moksha case system and its implications for linguistic theory. Based on their morphological properties, Moksha (Uralic) cases are divisible into two groups, which seem to correspond to structural and inherent cases. Dative, however, presents a puzzle: distributionally, it behaves as an inherent case, but morphologically it patterns with the structural ones. To resolve this discrepancy, I argue that inherent cases are always headed by a P, providing a finer classifi cation of P heads (relational vs. non-relational) based on their morphosyntactic properties. Synchronically, inherent “case” markers are bound counterparts of free-standing postpositions and relational nouns. Diachronically, the latter grammaticalize to the former. The nature of a free-standing element gives rise to two diff erent patterns once it is grammaticalized into a case marker, and thus the case marker continues to echo either the relational nature (< relational noun) or non-relational nature (< postposition) of the element it came from. Dative is a non-relational P head that assigns structural genitive to its complement, explaining why the morphological behavior is the one found with structural cases. On the other hand, other inherent cases are relational P heads, which take bare complements.

The As If-Construction: A Grammaticalization Perspective

This paper aims to address language change of the complex conjunction as if from lexicalization, grammaticalization, pragmatics, and corpus study. The combined complex conjunction as if does not show the semantic bleach and decategorization in the developmental path from the adjunct clause to the complement clause. The as if in the monoclause and bare complement clause develop to the discourse marker and speech act, carrying derision, counterexpectation, and denial. In this process epistemic and negative attitudinal stances are recognized. Insubordination, accompanied with phonological erosion, reanalysis and pragmatic inference, plays in the grammaticalization of the as if-construction. The corpus-based study shows that hypotheticals are dominant but the present indicatives are little by little on the rise, even though their collocational frequencies are still comparatively very low.

Over lexicale voorkeuren in de alternantie tussen de "skoon bysin" en de "dat-bysin": Een distinctieve collexeemanalyse

Het is bekend dat de variatie in het hedendaagse Afrikaans tussen (i) de complementzin met bijzinsvolgorde en het onderschikkend voegwoord dat en (ii) de zgn. "skoon bysin" zonder voegwoord en met hoofdzinsvolgorde onder meer bepaald wordt door lexicale factoren: de skoon bysin zou vooral voorkomen na matrixzinnen met sê, dink, glo, hoop of een ander (hoog frequent) werkwoord van communicatie of cognitie (zie bv. Malherbe 1966; Feinauer 1990; Bosch 1999). Empirisch onderzoek naar de lexicale voorkeuren van allerlei matrixwerkwoorden voor deze of gene constructie is echter nog nauwelijks voorhanden. In deze bijdrage wordt aan de hand van een distinctieve collexeemanalyse (Gries & Stefanowitsch 2004) nagegaan welke werkwoorden een significante voorkeur vertonen voor de dat-bijzin dan wel de skoon bysin in een corpus hedendaags journalistiek taalgebruik. We vergelijken de resultaten met de bevindingen van Van Rooy & Kruger (2016) en formuleren enkele voorzichtige conclusies over de semantische subtypes van werkwoorden die wel en niet worden aangetrokken tot de constructie met een skoon bysin.

Another Look at the Topology of Serial Verb Constructions: The Grammaticalization of Temporal Relations in Bislama (Vanuatu)

Another Look at the Typology of Serial Verb Constructions:The Grammaticalization of Temporal Relations in Bislama (Vanuatu) Miriam Meyerhoff Abstract This paper analyzes serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Bislama, the creole spoken in Vanuatu. The form of SVCs in Bislama does not appear to fit neatly into existing formal typologies of SVCs, and evidence is introduced in favor of this pattern being a direct transfer from some of the substrate languages in Vanuatu. It is proposed that Seuren's (1990) typology of SVCs be extended to include the Vanuatu data. The paper notes that another property of Bislama and other languages of Vanuatu is that there is no grammaticalization of a past/nonpast temporal relation as in, for example, English. One way of analyzing this difference is to say that Bislama and English differ with respect to which relationship between temporal operators is grammaticalized in a finite clause: in English, the ordering of S(peech time) and E(vent time) is realized overtly; in Bislama, the ordering of S and R(eference time) is. If R is associated with a functional projection (FP) below tense (TP), a number of constraints on the second verb in Bislama SVCs follow from the claim that this FP is anaphorically dependent on the first clause and the second verb phrase is not finite (but also not nonfinite). 1. Introduction. This paper analyzes series of verbs in Bislama (the pidgin/creole spoken in Vanuatu).1 It shows that serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Bislama (and several substrate languages) do not fit neatly into existing typologies of SVCs, and the paper demonstrates how such typologies need to be extended to [End Page 247] accommodate the Vanuatu data. It suggests that the form of these constructions in Bislama and several constraints barring modification of the second verb in series may be accounted for by positing an impoverished structure associated with the second verb. It is suggested that the second verb in series lacks an independent specification for what Reichenbach (1947) calls reference time (R). In Bislama, it is argued, R is required for a clause to be finite. A language-specific definition of finiteness is given (the verb may occur with all person and number agreement options); when it is not finite, an unmarked inflection occurs on the verb. A terminological point is needed from the outset. Calling these series of lexical verbs SVCs perhaps suggests that (a) SVCs are a more unified class than is actually the case (Durie 1997, Senft 2001), and (b) that they differ from other syntactic constructions in a more systematic way than they in fact do. The class of constructions under consideration in this paper is a good deal narrower than those considered by Durie (1997) in his cross-linguistic review of SVCs. Narrowing the focus of investigation like this is not a covert claim about what is or is not a "proper" SVC; it is simply a pragmatic decision to try and make sure the constructions being compared are indeed comparable in the face of this heterogeneity. There is undoubtedly something to be said about the relationship between the Bislama SVCs discussed here and Bislama verbs that select bare complements, such as want and try, but this matter will only be touched on briefly. In addition, it seems likely that there are similarities between the SVCs to be discussed here and what have been called complex predicates and have been discussed in some detail for Indo-European languages, for example, in Romance (Kayne 1975, Zubizaretta 1985, Burzio 1986), Urdu (Butt 1997), Bengali (Fitzpatrick-Cole and Lahiri 1998), and Hindi (Bhatt 1998). The goal of this paper is not to provide a typology of all such complex verb constructions, but it is hoped that the data will add to the growing cross-linguistic corpus in a manner that contributes something to the development of more general theory. What the paper focuses on is an unusual property of the second verb in SVCs in Bislama (and some other Vanuatu languages). Although the lower verb is inflected, the usual subject-verb agreement paradigm does not appear. Since this pattern for SVCs has not been discussed in the literature, these data are of some...

Maximality and idealized cognitive models: the complementation of Spanish tener

In this paper, we discuss the bare-NP complementation pattern of the Spanish verb tener ‘ have.' We show that the maximality of the complement NP is dependent upon three factors: (i) idiosyncratic valence requirements; (ii) encyclopedic knowledge related to possessions; and (iii) contextualized semantic construal. More specifically, we present evidence suggesting that whether such bare count-noun complements can be interpreted as maximal or not hinges on specific facets of world knowledge and morphosyntax: bare complement NPs that are usually possessed in numbers greater than one need a plural marker in order to be maximal; those that are usually possessed in quantities of only one need no such marking. This interpretation of the facts stands in direct contradiction with the Chomskyan notion of grammar as an autonomous module, isolated from general knowledge. Contrary to the autonomy thesis, we show here that encyclopedic-knowledge structures can play a significant role in syntax.

Dressing up for Vocabulary Insertion: The parasitic supine

In the context of a subclass of bare complements in Swedish, the present paper argues for a structure of grammar that partly separates the mechanisms that build syntactico-semantic structures from those determining the phonological expression of these. The parasitic supine construction displays the properties that are relevant for such a separation: a clear-cut discrepancy between form and meaning. The construction type exemplifies a complementation strategy available for a restricted class of infinitive selecting verbs in variants of the Scandinavian languages. The complement verb surfaces with an inflection identical to that of the matrix verb, yet the form has no effect on the interpretation, which remains the same as for the infinitival counterpart used in the standard language. The approach makes use of grammatical feature underspecification, the seeming gap between meaning and form being bridged by selectional restrictions and constraints on the relevant syntactic configuration. On the basis of its distribution, it is proposed that the phenomenon is a restructuring effect. The form is the result of morphological manipulations of the underspecified syntactico-semantic structure, providing it with the necessary clothes for Vocabulary Insertion.