Nominal Arguments Research Articles

Linearization and unaccusativity: The relative order of dative and nominative arguments with five German verbs of success and failure

The present study maps out the word order distributions in verb-second clauses of five German verbs of success and failure: gelingen ‘to succeed’, glücken ‘to succeed’, missglücken ‘to fail’, misslingen ‘to fail’, and missraten to fail’. Given their status as unaccusatives, they display an asymmetric mapping between case marking and thematic roles. As a consequence, several researchers have argued that they sanction an inversion of the canonical nominative-before-dative word order pattern. Two positions emerge: those scholars who associate these verbs with a dative-before-nominative order and those who claim that they license both a dative-before- nominative order as well as a nominative-before-dative order. A corpus study of 982 tokens principally shows the latter claim to be true in that, in a configuration with double NPs, the Nom-Dat order is attested 200 times (or 40%), and the Dat-Nom order 299 times (or 60%). Remarkably, when both arguments are realised as pronouns, the variation in word order is neutralised almost entirely in favour of the nominative-before-dative order.

Adversative and experiential applicative constructions in Northern Amis (Austronesian)

Abstract Experiential constructions is an understudied topic in western Austronesian languages. The focus is on Northern Amis (Formosan), with some crosslinguistic comparison. In Amis, experiential constructions are derived by a syncretic suffix –en, which is also an Undergoer Voice suffix. In experiential constructions, –en is suffixed to stative-intransitive verbs compatible with experiences, and functions as an applicative voice that licenses an extra-thematic experiencer marked as the nominative argument, generally with adverse meaning. Though reminiscent of adversative passives in some Asian languages, experiential constructions in Amis are not passives, nor are they standard Undergoer Voice –en constructions for two main reasons: (i) they are restricted to stative and intransitive stems; (ii) their argument structure and case-marking are different. It is argued that the source of Amis experiential constructions is a Proto-Austronesian adversative *ka- … -an/-en construction (Blust, Robert. 1999. Notes on Pazeh phonology and morphology. Oceanic Linguistics 38(2). 321–365) and that Amis innovated by creating a verbal ma- … -en experiential applicative construction from that originally non-finite construction.

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

This paper examines the syntax and semantics of the unaccusative verb wystarczać/wystarczyć ‘to suffice’ in Polish. We argue that this verb is polysemous. Besides its idiosyncratic meaning ‘to suffice’, it may also mean ‘to be enough’ or ‘to have enough’. The three above-mentioned meanings of the verb wystarczać/wystarczyć are associated with three different syntactic structures. The idiosyncratic meaning of this verb is found with the nominative argument. The second meaning of the verb surfaces in existential clauses with the genitive DP and an optional locative PP. The third - possessive meaning - arises when the verb appears with the dative possessor and the genitive theme.

Adjectives and their Attributives and Predicative Variations

It has been difficult for adjectives to be identified as a lexical category. This paper examines adjectives (attributively and predicatively) to locate points of challenge and difficulty. By employing a theoretical analysis depending on a number of previous studies. This procedure is applied to examine such studies. Perceptions about the aforementioned types of adjectives are carried out to ensure that sample of the study correspond to the aim of the study itself. However, other adjectives can have a solo function either as an attributives or predicatives. In this paper, an identification as well as a differentiation of adjectives as a lexical category is to be shown. However, this paper argues that the semantic treatment of attributive adjectives can denote to second-order identity-typed functions. This has a conceptual merit for a theory assuming that attributive adjectives signify properties. It is shown that the merits of analyzing the attributive adjectives as second-order identity-typed functions captivating nominal arguments. Moreover, it is apparent that both types function as properties of a type-shifting operator to derive the attributive use of adjectives from the predicative use.

Malagasy N-bonding: A licensing approach

This paper provides an account of N-bonding in Malagasy, a predicate-initial Austronesian language of Madagascar. N-bonding refers to a morphological process in which material from nominal arguments is morphologically bound to certain heads (Keenan 2000). I argue that N-bonding can be analyzed as a reflection of head-head adjunction configurations which can be derived in Malagasy through Local Dislocation (Embick & Noyer 2007; Levin 2015; Erlewine 2018), a post-syntactic operation that yields a complex head. Following Levin 2015, I assume that Local Dislocation is implemented in Malagasy due to licensing constraints. More specifically, I show that N-bonding occurs in all constructions in which an argument cannot be licensed by the structural mechanisms available in the language. The resulting head-head configuration then feeds a language- specific morphophonological operation that inserts a bundle of features which surface as the N-bonding element. This approach not only accounts for the distribution of N-bonding and is consistent with the observed phonological patterns, but also offers an alternative view of underlying clausal structure and voice morphology in Malagasy.

Completivas de para no Português de Moçambique

This paper a nalyses verb c omplements, finite a nd i nfinitival, i ntroduced by para 'for' in Mozambican Portuguese (MP). In the analysed data, on the one hand, there is a tendency already studied and referred to in the literature (Issak 1998, P. Gonçalves 2002, 2010, a.o.), which consists of introducing finite complements to directive verbs by the preposition para and, on the other hand, the tendency not yet studied, which consists of introducing corresponding infinitival complements by the same preposition. These results reveal a tendency to standardize the c-selection properties of finite and infinitival complements of directive verbs. Furthermore, they allow to infer that para is a true preposition, as an alternative to previous analyses which have shown that para is a complementizer (Duarte 2003, Barbosa & Raposo 2013, A. Gonçalves et al. 2018) or it is as part of the conjunctional phrase para que'for that' (see Barbosa 2013, for European Portuguese (EP)), and also as part of the complex c omplementizer para-que (see P . G onçalves 2 002, 2 005, 2 010, f or MP). I n MP, but not in EP, para complements selected by directive verbs can be taken up anaphorically by demonstratives like isso 'that'preceded by this preposition. Furthermore, the preposition para can also occur when directive verbs are constructed with nominal arguments. These facts favour the assumption that, in PM, the complements to directive verbs, finite and infinitival, introduced by para, are oblique complements and the preposition para is external to the complement clause/CP.

Person effects in agreement with Icelandic low nominatives: An experimental investigation

This paper investigates agreement—in particular person agreement—in two configurations in Icelandic where there are two potential controllers of agreement and where at least in some cases agreement is with the lower of the two (a “low nominative”). One case is the Dative-Nominative construction, where there is a dative subject and a lower nominative argument. The other is the Specificational Copular Clause (SCC) construction, where there are two nominative arguments. A much-discussed aspect of agreement in the former case is that agreement in number with the low nominative is generally possible, but agreement in person is at best highly restricted, leading in some cases to ineffability. This person effect has been claimed to be ameliorated by syncretism in the agreement paradigm, but there is limited data available substantiating this effect, which is however crucial to deciding between two recent types of account. This paper reports on a pair of experimental rating studies on the Dat-Nom and SCC configurations in Icelandic. We show that, taken together, the two sets of data provide evidence against the Person Licensing Condition and in favour of an account of the Dat-Nom construction in terms of morphological conflict arising from double agreement, although we show that the ameliorating effect of morphological syncretism, while real, is limited. Further, we show that there is no evidence of double agreement in the copular clauses investigated. We argue that full agreement with the low nominative here arises if the first nominal can move out of the domain of agreement entirely. The possibility of agreement with the initial nominal we suggest indicates that nominatives, unlike datives, cause the search of the agreement probe to terminate.

Ana dil Türkçe konuşanların ikinci dil Rusçada görünüş bilgisini edinimi

This study examines the acquisition of functional morphology which overtly marks lexical aspect in Russian by adult second language (L2) learners of Turkish. Russian and Turkish are different in the ways they mark both grammatical and lexical aspects. In Russian, both grammatical and lexical (telic) aspects are marked by overt verbal morphology. In Turkish, however, while the grammatical aspect of verbs is marked by inflectional morphemes, which also express tense and/or mood (Kornfilt, 1997), lexical aspect (telicity) is marked by quantized nominal arguments combined with dynamic verbs. We tested 16 L1 Turkish/L2 Russian learners and 16 L1 Russian speakers on a Semantic Entailment (SE) task with telicity and boundedness semantic features and a Truth-Value Judgment (TVJ) task involving sentences with perfective and imperfective forms including quantity and non-quantity internal argument themes. The results of the SE task indicated that L2 Russian speakers were not as successful as L1 Russian speakers in choosing the most logical entailment to perfective sentences rather than imperceptive sentences. The differences between the two groups were statistically significant. The results of the TVJ task also indicated that L2 Russian speakers were less successful than L1 Russian speakers in matching perfective and imperfective sentences with correct pictures. These findings support the claim that adult L2 speakers have difficulty with the acquisition of functional morphology, in particular aspectual morphology and its telicity feature.

Referential transparency as the proper treatment for quantification

An important motivation for Montague’s work on quantification (Montague 1974) was to achieve uniformity with respect to referential and quantificational subjects. This was attained by type raising all NPs to denote sets of sets (indeed there are claims that such a move is theoretically necessary) and by giving up a subject–predicate semantics where the verbal predicate predicates of the nominal argument. In this paper we argue for essentially the opposite move whereby all predication is genuine predication and involves arguments -- witnesses of type individual or set of individuals (for plurals). We argue that such an approach is crucial if one is to capture a variety of fundamentally important phenomena involving anaphora, clarification interaction, and speech-gesture cross-references associated with the use of quantificational noun phrases in dialogue, and to explicate several recent key psycholinguistic results on quantifier processing -- all features of an NP semantics which give rise to what we call “Referential Transparency”. The discussion is couched in a new set-denotational framework for plural count nouns, namely sets of ordered set bipartitions. We argue that quantification happens entirely within the noun phrase and involves ref(erence)sets, comp(lement)sets, and max(imal)sets. As a corollary of this denotational foundation, the semantic conservativity universal is an immediate consequence and the range of quantifier denotations is significantly reduced. In addition to collecting empirical motivation for quantification from Referential Transparency Theory and to developing a count noun semantics, a theoretically grounded explanation for complement set anaphora is given. EARLY ACCESS

Going city

Abstract In certain varieties of Dutch spoken among young people, the preposition and determiner in locative and directional PPs can sometimes be omitted. We argue on the basis of language data taken from Twitter and intuitions of young speakers of Dutch that nominal arguments in these constructions do not have a DP layer, the absence of which leads to a special interpretation. The option to omit the preposition is related to the structural and semantic complexity of the verb. The bare construction is possible only with simple verbs, and not with manner-of-motion verbs. We present an analysis that accounts for the non-pronunciation of prepositions in directional predicates by claiming that they can be licensed through incorporation into the verb. This type of incorporation is blocked if the verb is structurally complex.

Introducing Arguments and Modifiers in the Noun Phrase

Noun phrases, such as this photo, can often appear both with modifiers, such as the adjective old, and with arguments, typically PPs such as of the queen. Most of the literature on the syntax of DPs has adopted the hypothesis that adjectives are base-generated higher than nominal arguments, just as adverbs are merged higher than arguments in the clause. This squib looks at the syntax of the Italian DP, focusing on the distribution of modifier PPs and argument PPs, and offers novel evidence that, contrary to the received view, nominal modifiers such as adjectives are in fact base-generated lower than nominal arguments.

Optional agreement in Santiago Tz’utujil (Mayan) is syntactic

AbstractSome Mayan languages displayoptionalverbal agreement with 3plarguments (Dayley1985; Henderson2009; England2011). Focusing on novel data from Santiago Tz’utujil (ST), we demonstrate that this optionality is not reducible to phonological or morphological factors. Rather, the source of optionality is in the syntax. Specifically, the distinction between arguments generated in the specifier position and arguments generated in the complement position governs the pattern. Only base-complements control agreement optionally; base-specifiers control agreement obligatorily. We provide an analysis in which optional agreement results from the availability of two syntactic representations (DP vs. reduced nominal argument). Thus, while the syntactic operationAgreeis deterministic, surface optionality arises when the operation targets two different sized goals.

Pragmatic Influences on Argument Word Order in Karuk Narrative Texts

Karuk is a non-configurational, polysynthetic, headmarking language spoken near the Klamath River in Northern California (Davis et al., 2020). This paper seeks to answer the following question about Karuk word order: what factors significantly influence the order in which nominal arguments appear with respect to their verbs? Specifically, I examine whether or not the following factors have a significant effect on word order: referential distance, topic persistence, thematic continuity, predicate transitivity, and animacy. Using a logistic regression model, I found that referential distance was a significant predictor of subject position (p < 0.05) and that animacy was a significant predictor of object position (p < 0.05). My findings indicate that for subjects, lower values of referential distance are correlated with a greater frequency of postverbal realizations. In addition, I found that animate objects are more likely than inanimate ones to appear postverbally. With some variations, my findings concerning referential distance are similar to findings from Ute (Givon, 1983a), Klamath (Meyer, 1992), and Chamorro (Cooreman, 1992), and my study supports the prediction that postverbal position has a tendency to encode continuous referents in languages with pragmatically controlled word order (Givon, 1983b). On the other hand, my findings concerning animacy suggest an iconic relationship between the markedness of animate objects in Karuk and the markedness of postverbal word order.

Linguistic system and sociolinguistic environment as competing factors in linguistic variation: A typological approach

AbstractThis paper brings together typological and sociolinguistic approaches to language variation. Its main aim is to evaluate the relative effect of language internal and external factors on the number of cases in the world’s languages. I model word order as a language internal predictor; it is well-known that, for instance, languages with verb-final word order (that is, languages in which both nominal arguments precede the main lexical verb) tend to develop complex case systems more often than languages with SVO word order do. I model population size and the proportion of second language speakers in the speech community as sociolinguistic predictors; these factors have been suggested recently to influence the distribution of the number of cases in the world’s languages. Modelling the data with generalized linear mixed effects modelling suggests an interaction between the number of cases, word order, and the proportion of second language speakers on the one hand, and between the number of cases, word order, and population size, on the other. This kind of complex interactions have not been previously reported in typological research wherefore they call for more complex explanations than previously suggested for cross-linguistic variation.

Frá skiptisögn til ósamhverfrar aukafallssagnar: Um 'líka' í fornu máli

In Modern Icelandic the verb líka ‘like’ occurs with a subject in the dative case and an object in the nominative case. It has been argued that this was also the case in Old Icelandic. In this paper we argue that in contrast to Modern Icelandic, the nominative argument of líka could also constitute the subject during the Old Icelandic period and the dative argument the object. More specifically, we maintain that the verb líka was an alternating (or symmetric) verb where the nominative and the dative argument could raise to the subject position, whereas in Modern Icelandic only the dative is able to raise to the subject position. In other words, we argue that a change in the argument structure of the verb has taken place such that líka has changed from being an alternating (symmetric) verb to an asymmetric oblique subject verb. The main argument that is used to substantiate this claim comes from control infinitives in Old Icelandic, taking on the form in (i): (i) girntiz meirr at líka einum guði en mönnum desired.mid more to PRO.nom like.inf alone.dat god.dat than men.dat ‘(He) desired more to please God alone than men.’ (Æv 150.15) Based on a generative analysis of syntactic structure, we present evidence that reveals that the dative argument functions syntactically as the object, in addition to discussing other potential evidence based on word order. When the nominative argument is the subject, the meaning of 'líka' is sometimes closer to that of English 'please' than 'like'. We also discuss how this might be accounted for.

Topic Strategies and the Internal Structure of Nominal Arguments in Greek and Italian

In this article, we argue that a set of unexpected contrasts in the interpretation of clitic-left-dislocated indefinites in Greek and Italian derive from structural variation in the nominal syntax of the two languages. Greek resists nonreferential indefinites in clitic left-dislocation, resorting to the topicalization of an often bare noun for nonreferential topics. By contrast, clitic left-dislocation is employed in Italian for topics regardless of their definite/indefinite interpretation. We argue that this contrast is directly linked to the wide availability of bare nouns in Greek, which stems from a structural difference in the nominal syntax of the two languages. In particular, we hypothesize that Greek nominal arguments lack a D layer. Rather, they are Number Phrases. We situate this analysis in the context of Chierchia’s (1998) typology of nominals. We argue that, on a par with Italian nouns, Greek nouns are [−arg, +pred]. However, they do not employ a syntactic head (D) for type-shifting to e . Rather, they resort to covert type-shifting, a hypothesis that is necessary to account for the distribution and interpretations of bare nouns in Greek, vis-à-vis other [−arg, +pred] languages like Italian and French.

Scalarity, degree reading and maximality in a Mandarin numeral construction

Abstract This paper investigates the semantics of an understudied Mandarin numeral construction type, here dubbed da-NumPs (i.e. number word < da ‘big’ < noun). Drawing primarily upon evidence from online Mandarin corpora, we argue for a taxonomy of this construction that comprises two distinct interpretations, based on the scalarity of the morpheme da and its composition with the other constituents within the construction. Specifically, one reading of da-NumPs is a degree superlative reading, in which da relates a domain of comparison, denoted by the nominal argument, to a plural group of entities ranked along the upper bound of a contextually determined scale. Second, da-NumPs have a definite description reading, in which da behaves on a par with a maximality-denoting iota operator, such that the construction refers to the maximal group individual that satisfies the property denoted by the nominal argument. We further show that at the discourse level, both readings encode the way the speaker subjectively construes the situation being described, indicating the speaker’s evaluative attitude towards the significance of said situation. This pragmatic condition distinguishes the use of da-NumPs against that of alternative, truth-conditionally identical numeral construction types. We further propose that in cases where the nominal component includes a degree argument, a process of degree intensification enables the definite description reading to verify the same situation as is licensed under a superlative semantics. We show that this process provides a way to make sense of the systematic ambiguity available to da-NumPs, and allows us to capture its polysemy.

D-Licensing in Adjectival Passives.

This article argues that in addition to the familiar Case licensing requirement known as the ‘Case Filter’, nominal arguments (DPs) are subject to a requirement that I refer to as ‘D‐licensing’, construed as a requirement of DPs themselves. It is claimed that this notion of D‐licensing is useful in the characterization of restrictions on adjectival participle formation. Adjectival participles fail to license the full complement frame of the corresponding verb not because they fail to assign Case, but because they lack D‐licensing structure.

Non-Verbal Clauses with Demonstrative Identifiers in the History of Croatian

The paper presents a corpus-based typological and diachronic study of nonverbal clauses with demonstrative identifiers in Croatian. As one of the four types of demonstratives proposed by H. Diessel, demonstrative identifiers occur in copular and non-verbal clauses. They are used to focus the hearer’s attention on entities in the surrounding situation or in the universe of discourse. The paper reviews the typologies of demonstratives discussed in recent literature with respect to the status of demonstrative identifiers. Furthermore, it investigates the history of non-verbal clauses with demonstrative identifiers in Croatian: 1. se človêkь 2. evo čovjeka DEM man-NOM.SG DEM man-GEN.SG ‘Here is the man!’ ‘Here is the man!’ The main change occurred in the case marking on the argument. In the first Croatian literary language, Croatian Church Slavonic (1), the argument appears in the nominative case. In contemporary Croatian (2), the demonstrative identifier is predominantly followed by a genitive argument. Apart from shedding some light on the diachronic development of non-verbal clauses with demonstrative identifiers and their constituents in Croatian, the paper shows how they differ from similar constructions in other Slavic languages, as well as in some major European languages. In addition, they are compared to other non-verbal constructions with genitive and nominative arguments in Croatian.

Lability in Andi

This paper deals with the identification of labile verbs in Andi (Nakh-Daghestanian, Russia), and more specifically its methods, results and conclusions for the definition of transitivity in Andi. Lability is traditionally defined as an unmarked valency-changing phenomenon characterizing verbs that can be used both transitively and intransitively without any formal change. Andi happens to feature a combination of three typological characteristics that challenges not only the identification of its labile verbs, but also the application of traditional definitions of lability and transitivity to its context. These characteristics are a radical P-alignment, the absence of any agent demoting or removing morphology, and the possibility for interpreting any unexpressed agent as arbitrary. They are crucial for the analysis of labile phenomena in Andi, because they were shown by D. Creissels to be responsible for a formal ambiguity between 'less labile' passive lability (when a labile verb used intransitively has a passive meaning) and 'more labile' anticausative lability (when a labile verb used intransitively has an anticausative meaning). Several syntactic tests were designed by different authors to distinguish cases of anticausative lability from those of passive lability. These tests involve the semantic interpretation of a reflexive-emphatic pronoun, compatibility with the intransitive imperative in combination with an imperative addressee referring to the nominative argument, and the possibility of the verb being used in an involuntary agent construction. Applied to Andi, these tests show that both anticausative and passive lability concern all transitive verbs, which suggests that they do not differ with respect to their syntactic status and that both involve a change in syntactic transitivity. This conclusion supports D. Creissels's suggestion that in languages sharing with Andi the relevant typological features, transitivity applies not to the predicative constructions themselves, but to their realizations.