Morphosyntactic Properties Research Articles

Exploring color metaphor with Behavioral Profiles: A usage-based analysis on the metaphorical meanings of the Chinese color term bái “white”

This paper conducts a usage-based, cognitive-semantic study on semantic relations between the twelve metaphorical meanings of the Chinese color term, bái 白 “white”, with the Behavioral Profiles approach. The contextual variations of the twelve metaphorical meanings of bái are captured by 51 contextual features, including collocational patterns, morphosyntactic and semantic properties, and discourse information. With a dataset consisting of 1200 instances, two statistical methods are adopted to explore the semantic relations of these meanings, namely Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The results show that the twelve metaphorical senses of bái fall into four clusters, and their semantic relations can be empirically distinguished based on the proposed contextual features. Furthermore, we found that the identified semantic relations can be explained by mutually related conceptual metaphors based on the perceptual experiences of the white color regarding its three perceptual properties – absence of hue, highest brightness, and zero colorfulness. The present study ultimately demonstrates how the semantic relations among the twelve metaphorical meanings of bái can be empirically distinguished based on their linguistic encodings and explained by cognitive principles in line with the Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Small complements of Ps and genitive case assignment

This paper deals with possessor case assignment in Samburg Izhma-Komi subjects and oblique nominals. The problem is that the case assigned to the possessor depends on the syntactic position of the enclosing nominal; possessors are genitive in subjects and nominative in obliques. This is not predicted by the current theories of case. Looking at morphosyntactic properties of P-complements in Samburg Komi such as possessive agreement within the complement, possessive agreement with the complement, and plural marking of the complement, I show that these complements are not full DPs. The possessor case-marking follows straightforwardly. Since P-complements are not DPs, as opposed to subjects, genitive cannot be assigned. Independently, I show that nominative is the case assigned in PPs. In absence of a D, the case associated with P is assigned to possessors in obliques. This analysis has several theoretical implications. First, I show that inherent cases are better analyzed as syntactic P-heads alongside free-standing postpositions. Second, I provide an argument in favor of DP-hypothesis. Finally, I show that not all arguments within a language must be full DPs.

ARABIC EQUIVALENTS OF THE ENGLISH MODALITY

The paper offers a general overview for the general linguistic category of modality. This is followed by a description of modal forms in Arabic and English by discussing the linguistic resources that each one of the two languages makes use of in the realisation of modal meanings by categorizing their modal markers into homogeneous groups on the basis of their morpho-syntactic properties and type modal marking. The model of analyzing modality in the two languages is that of van der Awera and Plungian (1998). Conclusions are then drawn about the most general characteristics of the modal markers in each language. Finally, the paper is rounded off with a comparative analysis of the points of convergence and divergence in the morpho-syntactic and semantic properties of modal markers of the two languages

The Typology of Reciprocal Constructions

Reciprocal constructions involve a complex mapping of semantics onto morphosyntax, requiring multiple propositions to be overlaid onto a single clause and the permutation of semantic roles within the set of participants involved. This complexity challenges the standard processes relating predicates to situations, and thus languages arrive at a great diversity of solutions for how reciprocal situations are encoded within a single clausal structure. Recent typological work has showcased this diversity from different perspectives, but further work is needed to determine how different morphosyntactic and semantic properties interact and what implicational connections and correlations exist with other parts of the linguistic system. Theoretical typologies highlight the importance of reciprocal constructions for our understanding of grammatical structure crosslinguistically.

Towards a typology of semantic development of the verbs meaning ‘see’: Evidence from Tatyshly Udmurt

The article deals with a previously undescribed construction in Tatyshly Udmurt (< Uralic),which consists of a grammaticalized verb aˀǯ’ə̑nə̑ ‘see’ (адӟыны in Standard Udmurt) and a lexical verb in the infinitive. I discuss the semantics of this construction and the related distributional restrictions, as well as some of its morphosyntactic properties. The data were collected in fieldwork by elicitation. The construction in question indicates that the situation described by the infi nitive has negative consequences. From the morphosyntactic point of view, the components of the construction cannot be separated or switch places; the construction only allows the habitual reading in the present tense (being used without this restriction in the other tenses), it cannot fall under the scope of question or of negation. The semantic pattern of the construction under discussion is analyzed against the typological data on the possible development of the verbs meaning ‘see’. As far as I could find out, no examples which could be considered parallel to my data were previously attested. An explanation involving Turkic contact influence (plausible for some other phenomena in Tatyshly Udmurt) is problematic in this case, since there is no evidence of a similar construction in Turkic. A possible parallel is provided by the constructions with the items okazyvaetsja ‘it turns out’ and ja vižu ‘lit.: I see’ in Russian. Both these constructions also point at the situation of discovery and express contrast, which refers, however, to the speaker’s expectations rather than the evaluation of a situation as undesirable.

The structure of the semantic domain of modality in Russian: Modelling systemic relations between constructions (based on the Russian Constructicon)

This paper proposes an analysis of systemic relations between constructions with modal semantics in Russian. Based on the data from the Russian Constructicon resource, I build a classification of 124 constructions expressing root (dynamic and deontic) and epistemic meanings. The classification relies on the taxonomy of constructions, which is being developed in recent studies in Construction Grammar and constructicography. This taxonomy involves groups of constructions of various size (namely, families, clusters, and networks of constructions). A constructional family comprises modal constructions with similar semantic (and often also morphosyntactic) properties. Families form larger units — constructional clusters and networks, which have a radial category structure, where more central and more peripheral members can be identified. This paper pinpoints that some semantic domains are better described in terms of scalar rather than radial structures, and epistemic modal constructions serve as an example of such domain. I establish conceptual links between the families of constructions, such as specification vs. generalization strategies, contrast, intensification vs. attenuation of particular semantic components, etc. The classification proposed in the paper contributes both to typology in that it refines the existing view on the structure of modality and its linguistic expression, and to constructicography, which is concerned with the mechanisms of constructional interaction within the system of a given language.

On Robustness and Sensitivity of a Neural Language Model: A Case Study on Italian L1 Learner Errors

In this paper, we propose a comprehensive linguistic study aimed at assessing the implicit behavior of one of the most prominent Neural Language Models (NLM) based on Transformer architectures, BERT Devlin et al., when dealing with a particular source of noisy data, namely essays written by L1 Italian learners containing a variety of errors targeting grammar, orthography and lexicon. Differently from previous works, we focus on the pre-training stage and we devise two complementary evaluation tasks aimed at assessing the impact of errors on sentence-level inner representations in terms of semantic robustness and linguistic sensitivity. While the first evaluation perspective is meant to probe the model's ability to encode the semantic similarity between sentences also in the presence of errors, the second type of probing task evaluates the influence of errors on BERT's implicit knowledge of a set of raw and morpho-syntactic properties of a sentence. Our experiments show that BERT's ability to compute sentence similarity and to correctly encode multi-leveled linguistic information of a sentence are differently modulated by the category of errors and that the error hierarchies in terms of robustness and sensitivity change across layer-wise representations.

Multiple wh-interrogatives in child heritage Romanian: On-line comprehension and production.

This study compared the online comprehension and the production of multiple interrogatives in 18 Romanian-English bilingual children aged 6;0-9;2 (MAGE = 8;0) living in the UK who have Romanian as heritage language (L1) and English as majority language (L2) and 32 Romanian monolingual children aged 6;11 to 9;8 (MAGE = 8;3). We examined whether differences emerge between heritage and monolingual children in the online comprehension and in the production of multiple interrogatives in Romanian, which requires fronting of all wh-phrases, contrary to English. The main aim was to uncover to which extent similarities or differences in morphosyntactic properties between the L1 and the L2 systems affect the acquisition and processing of the heritage language/L1. Online comprehension was assessed in a self-paced listening task, while production was assessed using an elicitation task. The results reveal that Romanian heritage children show similar online comprehension patterns to monolingual children for multiple interrogatives in Romanian. A different pattern emerges for production as heritage children produce less complex multiple questions in Romanian and avoid movement of two wh-phrases in all elicited structures. Given that their predominant responses for multiple interrogatives only make use of the structural option present in English, namely one fronted wh-phrase and one in-situ, we take this to show that there is transfer from the majority language to the heritage language. Thus, language production in the children's L1 seems to be affected by properties of the dominant L2, under cross-linguistic influence. Taken together, the results for both comprehension and production suggest that heritage children are able to establish the underlying representation of multiple wh-movement structures, similarly to monolinguals, but have difficulties activating the more complex structure in production.

The contribution of amazonian languages to the typology of purpose clauses

This investigation offers an analysis of the variation in the expression of purpose relations in a sample of 49 Amazonian languages. The most common strategies are conjunctions and converbs. Interestingly, in a number of Amazonian languages, positive purpose meanings are expressed with a conjunction or a converb in combination with other morphosyntactic properties. We briefly examine the areality of positive purpose clause-linkage patterns in four contact zones in the Amazonia: the Vaupés region, the Caquetá-Putumayo region, the Southern Guiana region, and the Marañon-Huallaga region. Besides analyzing the range of ways by which positive purpose clauses are realized in the sample, we also investigate avertive clauses in a number of languages of the database. Amazonian languages show an interesting typological picture in that they tend to have avertive markers which may be intraclausal or relational.

In the Middle of Korean Middles

This paper proposes a Distributed Morphology account of middle sentences in Korean. In the middle of Korean middles lie the functional head Voice bearing [-ACT] and the generic operator GEN, interacting with each other to produce the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of Korean middles. VoiceSUB[-ACT]/SUB is responsible for the demotion of an external argument of eventive verbs, characteristic of middle sentences where a theme occupies the grammatical subject position. This functional head also figures prominently in passives, where the same range of verbalizing suffixes of middle sentences also appear. This functional head is responsible for the external argument demotion and the sharing of the same verbal suffixes with passives. The generic operator unselectively binds the event variable e and consequently ascribes a disposition to the theme occupying the grammatical subject position. This binding prevents Existentential Closure from binding this variable which would result in an episodic reading of the event that middles sentence are incapable of yielding. Unlike English middles which employ VoiceSUB[+ACT]/SUB, Korean middles are generic passives.

An areal typology of kin terms in the Nuba Mountain languages

Abstract Despite the relatively large amount of linguistic and anthropological data on kinship terminologies in the languages of the Nuba Mountains, we still lack cross-linguistic studies attempting at reconstructing the areal history of this highly variable lexical field. This paper aims at comparing the formal and semantic features of kin terms across the languages of the Nuba Mountains in order to provide historical evidence for their transmission through inheritance or their possible diffusion via language contact. The comparative study surveys the kinship terminologies of 10 languages belonging to the three phyla attested in the Nuba Mountains (i.e. Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Kadu). In the first part of the paper, I analyze the morphosyntactic properties and functions of kin terms. By adopting a componential perspective of analysis, I then focus on the semantics of kin terms in the languages of the sample. The comparison eventually illustrates a high degree of typological variation whose origins can be traced back to the different genetic affiliations of the Nuba Mountain languages. It is also argued that matter and/or pattern borrowing can possibly occur in the domain of kin terms. However, language contact is less significant than shared sociocultural factors in triggering formal and semantic similarities across different kin terminologies. Above and beyond, the study intends to contribute to the ongoing debate on whether the Nuba Mountains constitute an ‘accretion’ zone and to point out some instances of micro-scale linguistic convergence between the languages of the region.

The Status of English Modals Prior to Their Recategorization as T and the Trigger for Their Recategorization

This is an account of English modals that invokes their exceptional morpho-syntactic tense properties as original preterite-present verbs in order to explain their becoming T elements. Within the framework of minimalist theory, I argue that modal verbs in OE and ME (up to approx. 1470) have an exceptional syntactic status that con- sists in that they merge directly under v, whereas strong verbs merge as a stem-by-default prior to v, and weak verbs merge as a root with a vowel-by-default also prior to v. Modals necessarily differ from both strong verbs and weak verbs in their τ–licensing, whereas they share with the latter (with both strong verbs and weak verbs) φ–licensing. A specific Probe of T is in charge of the latter for all verbs in the language. Modals pass on to merge directly under T when v ceases to be a locus of interpretable τ–features. A symptom that v loses such a capacity is the loss of the Pret.1/Pret.2 ablaut distinction.

Verbal Extension and Valence in Gumer Variety of Gurage

This article aimed to uncover the interaction between verbal extension and valence in the Gumer, an Ethiosemitic language. We used basic linguistic theory (BLT) as a methodology. We collected data from language assistants living in the Gumer district of Gurage. We grouped verbs in Gumer based on root patterns and morphosyntactic properties. We found four categories of verbal extensions that either increase, decrease or maintain valence. The valence increasing operations are causative and applicative. There are two causative forms, direct and indirect that are expressed with {a-} and {at-}, respectively. Benefactive applicative and malefacive applicative are shown with {-lv}/ {-nv} and {-bv}/ {-wv}, respectively. Valence reducing verbal extensions are passive, reflexive and reciprocal, all shown with a homophonous prefix {tə-}. Valence maintaining verbal extensions in the language are frequentative, intensive and iterative. There are a few stems forming extensions that encode but do not change valence.

THE MORPHO-SYNTACTIC ASPECT OF MEDIA POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Manipulation through different media platforms can immediately span practically every element of human life since it attracts, maintains and processes human attention very quickly. This unparalleled technical potential for propaganda and manipulation on social networks can be realized through different language means that may be utilized to influence others. In this paper, our main task will be to find out how manipulation in media is realized through the morpho-syntactic properties of language.

Bidirectional Language Contact Effects at the DP Domain: The Case of Greek and Vlach Aromanian Speakers

We investigate the effects of the historical language contact of Modern Greek (MG) with Vlach Aromanian (VA) in bilingual speakers of three generations living in Epirus, Greece. We focus on a VA variety spoken in a specific language community, with our study constituting one of the early attempts in this field of research. (1) Background: Given that bilingualism is a dynamic process in which language domains are not uniformly affected by external (i.e., sociolinguistic) factors, the investigation of bidirectional crosslinguistic influence can shed light on the resilience of morphosyntactic and semantic feature changes. MG differs from VA in a number of morphosyntactic properties at the DP domain, namely definiteness marking, positioning the adjective and gender marking. (2) Methods: To examine the language contact effects in VA–MG bilinguals, we elicited spontaneous language production in VA and MG from speakers across three generations with different levels of proficiency in each language. (3) Results: The data analysis showed evidence of bidirectional crosslinguistic influence since (a) MG seems to affect VA in definiteness marking and adjective positioning in younger bilingual groups and (b) VA influences MG in gender marking in older bilinguals. (4) Conclusions: The present study presents original language data from VA–MG bilinguals and provides evidence of bidirectional language contact effects.

Semantic maps and temperature: Capturing the lexicon-grammar interface across languages

AbstractTraditionally, lexical typology has to a large extent been interested inlexical categorizationof various cognitive domains (e. g.,colour,perception,body), i. e., in how these are cut up by the most important words in a language, and inlexical motivation, or formal relatedness, i. e., in whether words for certain concepts are completely unrelated or related to others via polysemy or derivation (e. g., intransitive vs. transitive verbs, words for ‘day’ and ‘sun’, etc.).Grammatical behaviorof words andmorphosyntactic patternsas encoding meanings traditionally belong to grammatical typology. In this paper, I consider the domain oftemperatureand show how the close interaction between lexicon and grammar in the encoding of the temperature domain across languages calls for an integrated lexico-grammatical approach to these phenomena. As a useful tool for such an enterprise I suggest an elaborated semantic map comprising three layers – the layer specifying the words with the information on their mutual formal relations (i. e., whether they are identical, completely unrelated or related via derivation or inflection), their morphosyntactic properties (e. g., their part-of-speech affiliation, inflectional potential, etc.), and the constructions they occur in.

Talmy’s typology in serializing languages: Variations on a VP

Two types of resultative constructions that are unevenly distributed across languages (Talmy 2000) can be identified based on the lexicalization of manner and result meaning in the verbal main predicate: resultative secondary predication lexicalizes the manner component, while so called means constructions lexicalize the result component instead. However, this typology has been based primarily on non-serializing languages such as English and certain Romance varieties, in which the secondary manner or result predicate is necessarily non-verbal. This contrasts with resultatives in serializing languages, in which both the manner and result component are realized by verbal predicates, making it difficult to determine the underlying syntactic status of the respective predicates. By investigating the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of resultative serial verb constructions (RSVCs) in two serializing languages, Mandarin and Samoan, I argue that RSVCs are neither a uniform nor special phenomenon (contra Larson 1991; Slobin 2004), but show the same split observed in non-serializing languages. This observation has further implications on a unified configurational analysis of manner and result meaning within a syntactic account of event and argument structure building.

The morphosyntax and semantics of cardinal numerals in classical sanskrit

AbstractA complete study of numeral syntax in Classical Sanskrit has yet to be written. Grammars provide concise, decontextualised surveys which mainly focus on the morphology of cardinal numerals. Given their textual genre, reference grammars can neither devote much space to this very topic nor give exhaustive data; very little is said about Sanskrit numeral constructions outside of this kind of resources. By combining modern linguistic frameworks and philological analysis, the following investigation is offered as a first step toward addressing this desideratum. The present analysis provides a novel approach to understand the semantics of numerals and shed some light on Sanskrit numeral syntax and the morphosyntactic properties of cardinal numerals. This research is organised as follows: I first provide a brief overview of some key features of Sanskrit numeral series and then propose a theoretical framework to conceptualise the main components of numeral systems; section 3 explores the lexicon‐prosody interface and is followed by an analysis of Sanskrit numeral constructions. Textual evidence of cardinal numerals from medieval Sanskrit mathematical works is investigated in detail. The linguistic framework employed by von Mengden (2010) to examine cardinal numerals in Old English has been particularly fruitful in the present study. I demonstrate that, unlike most other languages, Sanskrit makes extensive use of non‐systemic expressions of cardinality and that authors employ and combine a great variety of numeral constructions.

Differential place marking beyond place names: Evidence from two Amazonian languages

Not all spatial adjuncts behave alike. In some languages, certain spatial adjuncts display different marking or different combinatorial possibilities than others. Recent functional-typological studies make two claims about this differential place marking phenomenon: (1) it is primarily motivated by noun semantics, opposing place names and other nouns; and (2) it is primarily realized as a contrast between zero-marking and overt marking of spatial adjunct function. We evaluate this view against new fieldwork data from two Indigenous Amazonian languages, Dâw (Naduhup) and Ticuna (isolate). In Dâw and Ticuna, differential place marking is conditioned not only by noun semantics, but also by the perceptual properties of noun referents and by morphosyntactic and semantic properties of verbs. Further, the phenomenon is realized not only by alternations between zero and overt marking, but also by alternations among overt markers and alternations in the set of markers with which the adjunct can combine. These findings suggest that differential place marking – like other differential case phenomena, such as split ergativity – is conditioned by a cross-linguistically diverse suite of factors within and beyond the noun phrase.

Double causatives, lability and elusive agent in Mehweb

Abstract In this paper, I consider double causatives in Mehweb, a one village language spoken in Daghestan, Russia, and belonging to the Dargwa branch of East Caucasian. The capability of stacking two causative suffixes seems to be lexically restricted, and mapping onto verbal meanings that are typically P-labile in the languages of the family. Interestingly, the verbs allowing double causatives are not morphosyntactically labile in Mehweb, which is generally poor in labile verbs as compared to sister languages. I conclude that the ability to form double causatives is not a consequence of the morphosyntactic property of being labile; rather, both morphosyntactic properties follow from the same component of the lexical semantics of these verbs and ultimately from the properties of the situational concepts they convey. As a tentative functional explanation I suggest that the relevant property is the weakened status of the agentive participant.