Non-verbal Predication Research Articles

La négation dans la devinette en arabe marocain

Grammatical negation in Moroccan Arabic riddles is realized by two strategies according to the type of context. In contexts of verbal predication, the discontinuous marker ma…ši is used, while in contexts of non-verbal predication, the continuous marker maši occurs. In some cases, negation can be expressed only by the morpheme ma. In this paper, we also discuss different elements of negation reinforcement. In the final section, the uses of the negative marker la will be discussed.

Semantic Role Labeling System for Persian Language

In this article, we present an automatic semantic role labeling system in Persian consisting of two modules: argument identification for specifying argument spans and argument classification for categorizing their semantic roles. Our modules have been trained on Persian Proposition Bank in which predicate-argument information is manually added as a layer on top of Persian Dependency Treebank with about 30,000 sentences. Therefore, our system was trained on 216,871 verbal predicates and 42,386 nonverbal ones consisting of 40,813 nouns and 1,573 adjectives with 33 semantic classes. As a supervised method, we used maximum entropy for building an argument identifier that results in human-level accuracy of 99% and support vector machine for an argument classifier with an F1 of 84. Regarding both verbal and nonverbal predicates with an expanded role set, we achieved reasonable results.

Two types of morphologically expressed non-verbal predication

AbstractThe morphological expression of non-verbal predication is a geographically widespread, although not very frequent, typological feature. This paper highlights the existence of two radically contrasting types of non-verbal predicative inflection. Construction A has already been described in the literature. It consists of attaching person-sensitive inflection markers to non-verbal predicates, possibly extending this treatment to adverbs and adverbial phrases (locational and temporal), pronouns and quantifiers. This type is well attested in Uralic, Turkic, and Paleosiberian, as well as in some Amazonian language families (most notably Chicham), but it has also been pointed out for some sparse languages of Oceania and Africa. Such non-verbal person inflections diachronically stem from incorporation of conjugated copula elements. Construction B, by contrast, is much rarer and is described here for the first time. It also consists of a dedicated morphological form of the non-verbal predicate (limited, however, to nouns and adjectives), but such form stands out as morphologically lighter than any other form to be found in nouns or adjectives in argument or attribute position. While the latter forms carry some kind of case marker, the noun/adjective predicate merely consists (or historically did) of the word’s root. This type of construction can be found in the small Zamucoan family and still survives in some Tupí-Guaraní languages. Diachronic inspection of Semitic indicates, however, that this predicative strategy was possibly adopted in some ancient varieties, although at later stages it intertwined with the expression of referential specificity. The paper compares the two construction types, highlighting similarities and differences.

The problem of non-truth-conditional, lower-level modifiers: a Functional Discourse Grammar solution

This article discusses two groups of prosodically and linearly integrated modifiers: evaluative (‘subject-oriented’) adverbs (e.g.cleverly,stupidlyandrecklessly) and non-restrictive prenominal modifiers (e.g.oldas inmy old mother). What these two groups of elements have in common is the rather puzzling fact that both are (or have been analysed as) relatively low-level modifiers (i.e. as part of the proposition), while at the same time being non-truth-conditional/non-restrictive (suggesting they are non-propositional). In this article it is argued that although there is indeed compelling syntactic evidence that these elements modify a relatively low layer in the clause (proposition or lower), this need not be incompatible with their non-truth-conditional/non-restrictive status. Using the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), an analysis is proposed in which these elements are not part of the proposition expressed by the clause in which they occur, but instead form part of a separate proposition, in which they function as non-verbal predicates taking a specific layer of analysis (e.g. a proposition, State-of-Affairs, entity or property) as their argument. The analysis proposed not only reconciles the specific semantic and syntactic properties of the modifiers in question, but also reveals the similarities between the two groups of modifiers discussed.

Small clauses in English and Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian / Male klauze u engleskom i bosanskom, hrvatskom i srpskom jeziku

Small Clauses in English represent one of the basic concepts of modern generative grammar and they are characterized as minimal units of non-verbal predication, where the predication relation between the subject and the predicate is established in the absence of a finite verb form. In traditional grammars, they are generally referred to as “secondary predication” constructions. As the concept of a “small clause” is not familiar in the context of traditional descriptive grammars of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, the aim of this paper is to make a preliminary contrastive analysis of how these or similar constructions are realized in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian through translation equivalents and how they are treated in traditional grammars. Additionally, we have applied several tests typically used in English literature to prove the constituency of small clauses in order to establish whether or not these constructions could form a separate constituent at the sentence level in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian as well.

Against the PredP Theory of Small Clauses

Since Bowers 1993 , it has been accepted that nonverbal small clauses are headed by a functional head, Pred0, whose function is to obligatorily mediate all nonverbal predication. I argue against this hypothesis by critically reanalyzing the original syntactic arguments for PredP, examining possible semantic support for mediated predication, and reviewing the putative crosslinguistic evidence for overt equivalence of Pred0. I first demonstrate that the facts originally taken as motivating a functional head in small clauses can now be accounted for by independently needed assumptions. I then show that standard Montagovian semantics treating NPs, APs, and PPs as unsaturated functions requires no mediating projection and that suggested alternative meanings for Pred0either fail or cannot be used as motivation for its existence. Finally, I provide evidence that the syntax of copular particles and other “overt predicators” is different from that expected of Pred0in such ways that they cannot be taken as prima facie evidence for it either. I sketch an alternative theory linking the use of predicative particles to nominal predication and provide evidence for it from crosslinguistic lexicalization patterns of copular particles. In sum, neither theoretical nor empirical considerations require a mediating functional head in small clauses, and therefore the PredP hypothesis should be abandoned.

Predicados não-verbais em Tuparí

Descrevem-se os tipos de predicados não-verbais identificados até o presente na língua Tuparí, pertencente à família Tuparí do tronco Tupí (Rodrigues 1964, 1984-85, 1986). A análise tomou por base dados do Tuparí contidos em Rodrigues e Caspar (1957), em Alves (2004), e novos dados coletados em 2011 e 2016 em Brasília, em 2013 em Ji-Paraná, e em 2017 e 2018 na Terra Indígena Rio Branco. A análise referencia-se nas tipologias de predicados propostas por Payne (1997) e por Dryer (2007). O artigo contribui com os estudos linguísticos sobre a língua Tuparí, abordando um tema ainda muito pouco estudado no âmbito dessa língua.

Predication Transformation: A parallel corpus-based study of Russian verbless sentences and their English translations

<p class="Default">Artykuł przedstawia opartą na korpusie, kontrastywną analizę predykacji związanej z tłuma­czeniem zdań bezczasownikowych z języka rosyjskiego na język angielski w oparciu o pilotażowy paralelny korpus składający się z opartego na dialogach języka rosyjskiego <em>Braci Karamazow </em>Fiodora Dostojewskiego (1880) i angielskiego tłumaczenia Peveara i Volokhonsky <em>The Brothers Karamazov </em>(1990). W przeciwieństwie do angielskiego, znanego z zależności od frazy werbalnej z osobową formą czasownika, rosyjski pozwala na użycie zdań bezczasownikowych bardziej pro­duktywnie niż jakikolwiek inny język indoeuropejski (McShane, 2000; Kopotev, 2007). Łącząc założenia tekstu paralelnego w odniesieniu do językoznawstwa kontrastywnego opracowane przez Guillemin-Flescher (2003) z nową metodą automatycznej ekstrakcji zdań bezczasownikowych, niniejsze studium bada powtarzające się wzorce dotyczące sposobu, w jaki struktury językowe zyskują lub tracą wartość predykacji w tłumaczeniu. Po automatycznej segmentacji, morfosyn­taktycznej adnotacji i ekstrakcji zdania bezczasownikowych i ich tłumaczeniowe odpowiedniki są ręcznie przypisywane do typu predykacji werbalnej i niewerbalnej zgodnie z definicjami Hen­gevelda (1992). Wyniki przedstawiają typologię zjawiska zwanego “transformacją predykacyjną”, w której odpowiedniki translacyjne są efektem transformacji ze względu na typ predykacyjny. Wyniki ilościowe ukazują, w jakim stopniu czasowniki są wykorzystywane w tłumaczeniu zdań bezczasownikowych z języka rosyjskiego na język angielski, a także są wskaźnikiem werbalizacji predykatów. Twierdzimy, że powiązane z czasownikiem pojęcie semantycznej predykacji nie jest stabilne międzyjęzykowo.</p>

Nominalized Predicates in Vurës, Vanuatu

In Vurës, spoken on the island of Vanua Lava in northern Vanuatu, clauses are categorized as either verbal or nonverbal. A verbal clause has as the head of the predicate a verb, which can be preceded by verbal proclitics or particles. Verbs are classified as either active or stative. While stative verbs can occur underived as the head of either a verbal or nonverbal predicate, active verbs can, for the most part, occur only as the head of a verbal predicate. Active verbs can generally only occur as the head of a noun phrase if the verb is nominalized via reduplication, and such noun phrases can be arguments or adjuncts, but cannot be predicates. There is, however, a clause type with a limited distribution—approximately one percent of clauses in a corpus of 7,095 clauses—in which the head of the predicate is an underived active verb, preceded by o. O is the form of the common noun article, suggesting that these are nominalized predicates. This paper examines the form, functions, and distribution of this predicate type in order to confirm that o in these clauses is the common article marking a nominalized predicate and not a homophonous verbal particle with a specific function.

The morphologization of negation constructions in Nalca (Mek, Tanah Papua), or, how nothing easily moves to the middle of a word

AbstractThe Mek language Nalca has undergone a rapid synthetization of verbal negation by way of two successive stages of asymmetric negation, the first one involving referential zeroing with a verbal noun, the second one reintroducing person marking with an auxiliary in analogy to non-verbal predicates. This development can be traced in texts in the more conservative closely related Mek language Eipo. Referential zeroing originally had the connotation of absolute negation (more than the denial of one specific event). As Nalca negation was integrated into inflectional morphology, it developed some of the hallmarks of autonomous morphology – morphomes and empty morphs. Nalca negation illustrates how grammaticalization and analogy can go hand-in-hand. The fusion of verbal negation is a case of the morphologization of a construction which does not occur in isolation but in concert with other similar processes, together entailing a fragmentation of negation marking. Finally, the Nalca development shows that cases of fusion of verbal negation must be taken into account when dealing with the interplay of existential negation and verbal negation in terms of cyclic processes.

Non-Verbal Predicate in English: Evidence from Iraqi Nominal Sentences

The fact that Iraqi nominal sentences are expressed without a verbal element has led the author to examine the status of the copula (be) in English. The aim is to reach at an explanation as to why Iraqi does not use a copula while English does. Explanation of this sort is significant because it has some direct implications on English language teaching and translation in Iraq. Using inductive method of reasoning, it has been established that tracing grammatical properties such as tense and agreement may lead to find-out the reason behind this cross-linguistic variation; and subsequently reach at a generalization that maybe applicable to other languages. The latter is an issue that remains open for further research. While placing the discussion within the parameters of the Government and Binding (GB) theory, the author concluded the reason as non-verbal predication in Iraqi, unlike English, can support a combination of these grammatical properties and thus rendering the need for a copula redundant.

La sintaxis de la predicación no verbal en maya yucateco

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Неглагольные предложения башкирского языка и способы выражения отрицания в них

Неглагольные предложения башкирского языка и способы выражения отрицания в них

Типологические особенности выражения компонентов ситуации местонахождения в кетском языке: структурно-семантический анализ неглагольных предикатов

Типологические особенности выражения компонентов ситуации местонахождения в кетском языке: структурно-семантический анализ неглагольных предикатов

Non-Verbal Predicate in English: Evidence from Iraqi Nominal Sentences

The fact that Iraqi nominal sentences are expressed without a verbal element has led the author to examine the status of the copula (be) in English. The aim is to reach at an explanation as to why Iraqi does not use a copula while English does. Explanation of this sort is significant because it has some direct implications on English language teaching and translation in Iraq. Using inductive method of reasoning, it has been established that tracing grammatical properties such as tense and agreement may lead to find-out the reason behind this cross-linguistic variation; and subsequently reach at a generalization that maybe applicable to other languages. The latter is an issue that remains open for further research. While placing the discussion within the parameters of the Government and Binding (GB) theory, the author concluded the reason as non-verbal predication in Iraqi, unlike English, can support a combination of these grammatical properties and thus rendering the need for a copula redundant.

Nonverbal Predication in Chukchi

In this paper, I describe and analyze several types of nonverbal predication in Chukchi. Following, I assume that Case is a realization of bundle formed by percolation of features assigned by different heads above the terminal node and explain the equative/absolutive variation in case marking pattern observed in Chukchi nominal predication by feature percolation. The analysis of nominal predicational constructions is then extended to account for peculiar properties of adjectival predication.

On the perfect tense-aspect in K'ichee'an Mayan: An LFG approach

Previous accounts of the perfect tense-aspect in the K'ichee'an languages have concluded that the category or part-of-speech of the perfect is a verb, or less often, a participle. We believe otherwise. Empirical support is presented for the hypothesis that the perfect is expressed using either a deverbal participial adjective or a deverbal possessed nominal in the form of a detransitivized non-verbal predicate. We show that the perfect always consists of a one-place intransitive but that it, nonetheless, retains the capacity to express two argument roles. Further, we argue that the perfect is, in fact, a perfect. We present the various semantic types of perfect, including the perfect of result and the experiential perfect, and also show the temporal restrictions that constrain the perfect. The analyses are implemented using the syntactic architecture of LFG.

What does it take to be a copula?

AbstractThis paper argues that copular sentences without an overt copular predicate do project a VP with a phonologically null head, hence so-called “verbless” copular sentences are illusory. Data from Standard Arabic, Spanish, Maltese, Russian, Jamaican Creole, Finnish and Hungarian copular sentences are used to support this claim. It is also claimed here that variation between the habitual property vs.ad hocproperty interpretations (traditionally called the individual level vs. stage level distinction) of non-verbal predicates found in copular sentences is closely related to the choice of the copula in multiple BE-system languages. Whilst the current accounts explain this variation by introducing an abstract aspectual operator or an incorporated abstract preposition in the functional layer of the copular predicate, the present proposal derives these interpretive differences from the presence or absence of an OPaltalternative state operator, which can bind the temporal variable of non-verbal predicates in two ways.Negation and temporal adverbials show scope ambiguity in copular sentences. They either take scope over the whole proposition or only over the non-verbal predicate. Such interpretive differences are demonstrated in Russian and Hungarian in Section 4 of this paper, however, they are taken to be valid cross-linguistically. These amibiguities cannot be explained under the “verbless copular sentence” account but fall out naturally from the “zero copula” analysis.The “alternative state” approach can be extended to dream narratives and other nonveridical contexts, which serve as alternative triggers. The existing analyses have nothing to say about such contexts.

The Pronominal Copula in Arabic

The literature on the syntax of verbless predication in Arabic is rich, but little attention has been given to the ‘pronominal copula’, PRON. Its main characteristics are well-known: it only takes the form of third person independent pronouns; it is limited to equational sentences, in which the predicate is a definite noun phrase; and it must always occur between the subject and the predicate nominal. A standard view (e.g. Eid 1991, and more recently, Ouhalla 2013) has been to assume that PRON, like its verbal counterpart KN, realizes subject agreement in T. In this paper, I examine the syntax of PRON and review its characteristics in contrast with those of KN. I show that the complex distribution of PRON challenges the standard view and supports an alternative analysis. I propose that equational sentences are underlyingly more complex than predicational verbless sentences: they project an extra functional head F between T and the small clause structure, PredP, in which the non-verbal predicate and its subject are generated. PRON is in FP, while KN is in T. I argue that, because equational sentences involve two elements of the same category, i.e. DP, they are subject to the Distinctness Condition of Richards (2010). FP provides the Spell-Out domain boundary necessary to avoid a Distinctness violation. Finally, I suggest that FP is always headed by a pronominal element that functions as a linker (Philip 2012, Franco et al. 2015), a syntactic head which marks an existing grammatical relation, namely predication, between two DPs. More broadly, my account is in line with the view that the identity/predicational divide in copular sentences corresponds to a difference in syntactic structure.

The Directionality of Agree: A Case from Number and Gender Agreement in Standard Arabic

This paper argues for the necessity of a reversed upward Agree. There are three perspectives on the directionality of Agree. Agree conventionally operates downwards with the probe searching for a matching goal that is structurally lower (Chomsky 2000). A reversed upward Agree is also proposed (Zeijlstra 2012). The third perspective involves a parametric variation of Agree whereby Agree can operate either way (Baker 2011). We investigate number and gender agreement in Standard Arabic (SA) because they are independently sensitive to the configuration in which agreement operates. We compare the number and gender agreement patterns of verbal to non-verbal predicates with subjects in different word order alternations. We advocate a unidirectional upward Agree to account for agreement patterns in SA. W argue that while the gender feature of the probe is valued once the goal is structurally higher than the probe; the valuation of the number feature is delayed till the spell-out on the condition that the goal c-commands the probe; otherwise, a default singular value is assigned..