Predicate Phrase Research Articles

A categorisation solution to the incompleteness puzzle in Mandarin

Abstract This paper means to re-examine the source of incompleteness for a clause with a bare verb as predicate and no other markings in Mandarin. I propose that the reason comes from the need for categorial labels at the syntax-semantic interface to produce a clear interpretation. Since there are no grammatical affixes marking category V available in Mandarin, it has to make use of functional morphemes which shape their complement space categorially. The result is that overt (or at least inferable) morphemes from the extended projections of VP must occur to assign category V for the predicate phrase, while a root needs merge with degree morphemes to be a predicate adjective. The analysis shows that some issues traditionally related to finiteness may have a pure syntactic account.

Сочетаемость слова «будущее» как лингвокогнитивный инструмент изучения образной семантики поэтического концепта

The study aims to present various mechanisms of cognitive modelling as a way to detect integrity and stability in the figurative system of poetic language. The paper considers the semantic representation of one element of the figurative-associative level of the FUTURE concept, i.e., the lexeme будущее (the future) in comparison with the element прошлое (the past) of the same conceptual macro-field “Time”. The scientific novelty lies in identifying the general patterns of figurative conceptualization of a poetic reality fragment, i.e., the Future universal. As a result of the study, it was found that the system of figurative paradigms developed on the basis of cognitive metaphors is characterized by stability and reproducibility, serves to store and transmit methods of poetic thinking in linguistic forms. When examining asymmetry of related literary concepts as independent units of literary discourse, collocability becomes an effective tool for identifying the figurative-associative content of the concept. Predicative and non-predicative phrases perform the task of cognitive modelling in different ways. The semantic compatibility of the lexeme representing the concept is stable in poetic language as a secondary semiotic system.

On an undocumented type of predicate ellipsis in Spanish and its consequences for the theory of ellipsis licensing

In this paper, we introduce and discuss a type of ellipsis in Spanish, undocumented in the previous literature, which we will refer to as Predicate Phrase Ellipsis (PredP-Ellipsis), and its consequences for the theory of ellipsis licensing. PredP-Ellipsis is a type of ellipsis in which the complement of a copular verb undergoes deletion, whenever there is contrastive focus (typically encoded in Polarity) involved in the sentence. We provide an account for why this type of ellipsis is allowed in a language that lacks lower ellipses in the verbal domain (such as vP-Ellipsis), and implement our proposal by introducing an [E]-feature which is typically licensed when it enters into an Agree relation with a Polarity head higher in the structure.

ÎN PROBLEMA TIPOLOGIEI SINTAGMELOR: SINTAGMA VERBALĂ vs SINTAGMA PREDICATIVĂ

This article aims at (re)examining two types of subordinating phrases (= created based on a subordination relation) identified in scientific literature, i.e. verb phrases and predicative phrases. The latter differs from the former in that the P(redicate) is a DT (=dependent) to the S(ubject), and subordination takes place exclusively through agreement, contrarily to the usual means of complement subordination. The verb phrase is classified depending on the H (head), the relevant subphrases are classified depending on the D, and the predicative phrase is organised around a P in its capacity as a D related to an S.

The Construction of Complex Sentences with Predicative Phrases of Transitive Verbs in Japanese Language Learners Utterances: A Transformational Generative Grammar Study

This research examines how fukubun (complex sentence) with transitive verbs is constructed in the utterance of Japanese language learners in universities. The fukubun constructions are described and analyzed through transformational generative grammar. This research method is descriptive-qualitative, with data collection techniques in the form of semi-structured interviews. Data analysis uses an analytical approach of transformational generative grammar, namely analysis of phrase structure rules and analysis of the transformation process. The results showed that there were 4 (four) types of B-derived constructs, namely: BB type, BB (1) type, BB (2) type, and BB (3) type. Among the four types of derivatives, type BB construction is dominant in the utterance of learners. This is indicated by the tendency to use the BB-type construction when describing various situations, even though the utterance events use various conjunctions. The dominance of the BB-type shows that the utterances by learners are still relatively simple because it only requires one object in the subordination clause and main clause. Furthermore, B fukubun found eight varieties of conjunctive transformation used in this type. All varieties of conjunctive transformation appeared in the BB-type construction, with relatively frequent use of causality, serial, selection/alternative, and temporal conjunctions. The T-process analysis shows several tendencies in the elementary transformation process in the utterance, namely the omission of the subject in both the subordination clause or the main clause, the merger of the subject or the predicate of the verb, whereas in causality conjunctive transformation learners showed a more varied and complex T-process.

On the Syntax of Existential Sentences in Standard Arabic

Existential sentences are noncanonical sentences that express the (non)existence of an entity. They have not received considerable attention in Standard Arabic (SA). This paper, thus, aims to propose a syntactic analysis of SA existential sentences. We first discuss the key grammatical properties of the four syntactic items, namely the copular verb, the expletive hunaaka, the pivot, and the coda phrase, that comprise the SA existential sentence. The expletive and the pivot are obligatory items in the structure, whereas the copular verb and the coda are optional. In our proposed analysis, we assume that the expletive is inserted in the Spec-TP to satisfy the EPP feature on T. We argue for the presence of a predicate phrase headed by Pred which hosts the pivot in its specifier and takes a null existential predicate as its complement. The fact that the expletive must precede the pivot and the locality requirement of the predication relation support locating the pivot in the Spec-PredP. We also assume that the coda is an adjunct, which is supported by its optionality and its inability to function as an NP. The conclusions reached may contribute to the ongoing discussion of existential constructions by presenting the perspective of SA.

Tracing and classifying German intensifiers via information theory

We apply information theoretic notions to model intensifiers in German. We show that information theory can explain that despite their common referential meaning, some intensifiers are extremely frequent (so), while others are uncommon (arsch ‘butt’), and seem to induce a stronger intensifying effect. We introduce two notions to model the expressivity of an intensifier in a given message: the local (paradigmatic) information content of an intensifier (surprisal), and the transitional information, based on Markov transition probabilities. Based on a large corpus of intensified predicative adjective phrases from German Twitter data, we confirm that (1) local information and transitional information are strongly anti-correlated: The more common an intensifier is, the lower its expressive value in communication and the less it constrains following adjectival heads; and (2) “stackings” of multiple intensifiers are frequent and are used to frame and strengthen the expressiveness of the intensification. We further confirm that stackings tend to occur in incremental surprisal rank order, following the Uniform Information Density hypothesis. Our analyses show that information theory is not limited to the domain of referential semantics and morphosyntactic patterns of reduction, but offers a framework to capture the expressive function of German intensifiers.

ПОЛИПРЕДЛОЖНИ КОНСТРУКЦИИ В ПРЕДИКАТИВНА ПОЗИЦИЯ / MULTI-PREPOSITIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN A PREDICATIVE POSITION

The paper deals with the use of phrases with two or more prepositions in the predicative position in Bulgarian. The study is an attempt to systematize the different cases: on the one hand, not all prepositions found in adjacent position form a phrase (usually such constructions are the result of movement at the surface syntax level), and on the other – the construction may be elliptical (in this case the first preposition heads an elliptical noun or adverbial phrase which has as a constituent the second PP). There are also constructions with a PP selecting another PP as its complement. The main goal is to identify the possible combinations, paying attention to the syntactic and semantic properties of the prepositions and their constituents. Keywords: prepositions, predicative phrases, syntactic transformations, constituent movement, ellipsis

Romance Genitives: Agreement, Definiteness, and Phases*

AbstractIn this paper, which discusses data from Gargano Apulian Italo‐Romance, I propose that prepositional and non‐prepositional genitives are fundamentally two different types of phrases, and that the interpretation of a non‐prepositional noun as the possessor is not due to a silent preposition or head‐modifier inversion, but rather to an agreement mechanism taking place between the modifier and its head. We propose that, just as a genitive can agree with its head for gender and number features so it can for definiteness, and that agreement for definiteness yields a genitival interpretation of the non‐prepositional noun. I.e., definiteness can externalize the syntactic relation between head and modifier. We also propose that in this Apulian variety, non‐prepositional genitives are syntactic phases (Chomsky 2001), and that the same holds for non‐prepositional ‘qualitative’ predicative phrases in the same language. This would explain the impossibility of accessing the phrase through syntactic operations such as extraction.

Exploring Language Hierarchy for Video Grounding.

The understanding of language plays a key role in video grounding, where a target moment is localized according to a text query. From a biological point of view, language is naturally hierarchical, with the main clause (predicate phrase) providing coarse semantics and modifiers providing detailed descriptions. In video grounding, moments described by the main clause may exist in multiple clips of a long video, including both the ground-truth and background clips. Therefore, in order to correctly discriminate the ground-truth clip from the background ones, this co-existence leads to the negligence of the main clause, and concentrate the model on the modifiers that provide discriminative information on distinguishing the target proposal from the others. We first demonstrate this phenomenon empirically, and propose a Hierarchical Language Network (HLN) that exploits the language hierarchy, as well as a new learning approach called Multi-Instance Positive-Unlabelled Learning (MI-PUL) to alleviate the above problem. Specifically, in HLN, the localization is performed on various layers of the language hierarchy, so that the attention can be paid to different parts of the sentences, rather than only discriminative ones. Furthermore, MI-PUL allows the model to localize background clips that can be possibly described by the main clause, even without manual annotations. Therefore, the union of the two proposed components enhances the learning of the main clause, which is of critical importance in video grounding. Finally, we evaluate that our proposed HLN can plug into the current methods and improve their performance. Extensive experiments on challenging datasets show HLN significantly improve the state-of-the-art methods, especially achieving 6.15% gain in terms of [Formula: see text] on the TACoS dataset.

Repair-by-deletion/insertion and the distribution of the copula in African American English

The copula in African American English (AAE) has the characteristic that it is optionally present but there are some contexts in which its presence is obligatory. This paper provides a repair-by-deletion/insertion account of the distribution of the copula in AAE, while assuming that T can take a non-verbal predicate phrase as its complement. T, being an affix, must be attached to a verbal host, and so it is stranded when its complement is not a bare VP. This problem is shown to be resolved in two different ways: either T is deleted as an instance of repair-by-deletion, or be is inserted as an instance of repair-by-insertion, but the option of T-deletion is not available if T is semantically, syntactically, or morphologically marked. After showing that the repair approach can provide a principled account of the distribution of the copula, this paper extends it to the distribution of perfective have and dummy do in AAE.

NEGATIVE EXISTENTIAL CONSTRUCTION WITH ĀČIN IN EVENKI: THE INTERNAL SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

In the paper, the Evenki negative existential construction with āčin is considered. The analysis is based on the use of this construction in the 21st century’s oral and written texts. The grammatical features of āčin are considered. In a finite clause, āčin agrees in number with the subject, and it cannot attach tense affixes. With these features as central for its 21st century use, we analyze āčin as a predicative adjective. Importantly, the āčin construction is not used in the noun modifier function in the 21st century Evenki. We propose that āčin is the head of a predicative adjective phrase (AdjPredP). The derivations of constructions with the nominative [NOM] and the partitive [PART] of missing object are compared. In the partitive object construction, the group [NP [PART] + āčin] is the predicate, and the subject is normally the possessor. The formal analysis of both cases is based on the assumption that [NP + āčin] is a small clause (SCi). This analysis accounts for the agreement patterns of āčin, and it includes the mechanisms of the nominative vs. partitive case assignment. In the adverbial use, there is a distinction between oral and written language. In the written language (that is close to the literary language), āčin has morphological properties of a noun (it can attach case and possessive affixes), and it is similar to the nominal head of a quasipossessive construction. In the oral language, the predicative adjective āčin construction [NP [PART] + āčin] is used primarily in the adverbial function. This and other oral speech innovations that create additional problems for the proposed formal analysis are discussed.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CYK ALGORITHM TO SEPARATE SENTENCE-FORMING ELEMENTS IN INDONESIAN

A sentence contains some constituent elements. Those elements have its own function. The four main elements in Bahasa Indonesia are subject, predicate, object, and prepositional phrase. The structure of this sentence often mixed up while determining those elements. This research aims to help people who confused to determined what are the constituent element in a sentence. The sentence can be inputted and the program identified the sentence that inputted. It started by separating the sentence into words and put it inside the cyk matrix table. After that, the program will identify if each word has some degree of similarity with any of constituent element characteristic. The program showed what are the constituent elements of the sentence. It will be shown for the words for each element and the rules that used to determined it. So the people can figure the constietuent element.

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The article focuses on the issue of participation of lexical-semantic variants of the polysemous noun Eng. fire in the process of formation of phraseological units. The goal of our article is to find out how the semantic range of the polysemous noun Eng. fire is reproduced in the structure of idioms. To achieve this goal, the author uses the following research methods: descriptive, comparative, the method of dictionary definitions, the method of phraseological application to establish phraseological meanings, as well as the method of establishing the content of language stereotypes. Occasionally, the historical and etymological methods were used, as well as methods of frame modeling and quantitative estimation. The author describes the peculiarities of actualization of the system of lexical meanings of the polysemantic noun Eng. fire at the phraseological level and establishes structural types of phraseological units which are formed with the help of semantemes of the noun Eng. fire. The object of our research is English phraseological units sharing the common key lexical component � polysemanti� noun of thermal semantics Eng. fire. We conduct the research using not only nominative and predicative idiomatic phraseological units, but also comparative phrases, proverbs and speech formulae. In modern phraseology the problem of interrelationships between the lexico-semantic and lexico- -phraseological levels of the language system is currently important. The specificity of functioning of polysemous adjective with thermal meaning Eng. fire in phraseological units is analysed within the framework of research of the general problem of interrelationships between the lexico-semantic and lexico-phraseological levels of the language system. The author finds general trends of sense development of this noun within the structure of idiomatic set phrases sharing the common key lexical component Eng. fire. The analysis shows that lexical meanings of the polysemantic of noun Eng. fire at the phraseological level are actualized unevenly and selectively. In the structure of nominative and predicative idiomatic phraseological units and comparative phrases the key noun Eng. fire implements almost exclusively its original �thermal� semanteme as a formative one, but its lexical semantemes used in the formation of idioms rarely coincide with its phraseo-derived meanings. Individual semantemes of the noun Eng. fire differ with respect to the number of phrasemes they occur in, besides there are many phraseo-derived meanings that don�t have the corresponding lexico-semantic variants of the noun Eng. fire, though some of them have synonymic lexical meanings. To continue the research of semantic relations between lexical and phraseological levels of the language we should involve to our analysis other parts of speech. This aspect, together with the use of information from other languages is necessary for our better understanding of the role of high temperature characteristics, objects and processes in linguistic world image.

“ze davar shehu ktsat muzar [That’s a thing which is a bit strange]”:The |ze (copula) NP she‑Relative Clause|—Construction in Spoken Hebrew DiscourseDiscussion

In this article I explore a complex syntactic sequence in spoken Hebrew discourse that is composed of a deictic subject pronoun (ze) followed by a predicative phrase consisting of a noun phrase (NP) and a relative clause (RC) which is introduced by the general subordinator she-, schematically |ze (copula) NP she‑RC|. I demonstrate that this sequence is regularly used by speakers to perform the social act of stancetaking and that in these cases the functional content of the RC is evaluative with regard to the preceding NP. My analysis is supported by quantitative evidence from a survey contrasting evaluative with non‑evaluative uses of this sequence, from which I conclude that when it is used as a stancetaking device the sequence |ze (copula) NP she‑RC| shows signs of an emergent construction. My discussion of this phenomenon contributes to the research of RCs in conversational Hebrew and across languages to the extent that it recognises an evaluative use of RCs, which adds to the most frequently employed and widely acknowledged uses of RCs in discourse, i.e. (1) providing new information concerning a referent or (2) facilitating an interlocutor in identifying a previously mentioned referent. Moreover, this article is also a contribution to the study of how grammatical means are used for and shaped by the ubiquitous enactment of stance in naturally occurring discourse.

The Structure and Hierarchy of Sentence-endings in Tibetan Language

This paper discusses the structure and hierarchy of sentence-endings in Tibetan language. Tibetan sentence-endings are hierarchical. They can be divided into two levels from the perspectives of structure, distribution and expressive function. The first level comes after the predicate or verb phrase, indicating the category of tense/aspect/mood (TAM). The second level, which follows a self-sufficient sentence, mainly expresses the meaning of the speaker’s hint, inference, evaluation and attitude to the information. Each level includes several different types of endings, which act on different syntactic categories or manifest different degrees of subjectivity. The lower the degree of correlation between the endings and the information of the self-sufficient sentence is, the higher the corresponding semantic category and the speaker’s subjective participation are. Some lower-level endings can also express the grammatical meaning of the higher level in certain context with increasing subjectivity.

Verbos copulativos com locativos em Português Europeu e em Língua Gestual Portuguesa

Verbs and their syntactic and semantic properties have been studied in several languages, in different theoretical frameworks. However, as for copulative verbs, studies of Sign Languages are still scarce, mainly of Portuguese Sign Language. Therefore, in this paper, some properties of predicative phrases with adjectives, participles and locatives in European Portuguese and Portuguese Sign Language are studied, comparing them with other Oral Languages, in particular Iberian Romance languages, and also with other Sign Languages. Portuguese Sign Language data seem to indicate that the copulative verb is lexically realized when there is a locative predicate and that with a non-locative predicate a null copula occurs.

The role of parentheses in semantics and syntax

This article analyzes parentheses units and their features. The role of parentheses in semantics and syntax has been explored from the point of view of the text. Their spiritual characteristics and types are described in excerpts from the text. At the same time, in the intonation flow of the sentence, the parenthesis, which is sometimes two or three times more common than the parentheses, that is, the parentheses, is expressed with special intonation. Nevertheless, the main factor that distinguishes these two parentheses is that they are, as previously mentioned, meaning. The form and semantic structure of the main sentence play an important role in the introduction of parentheses into the literary text. Because parentheses are characterized by the interpretation of a section, a compound, a sentence, and sometimes a complex unit in the form of a micromatn. It should be noted that, although there seems to be an introductory relationship between the components of the phrases in the joint sentence, they have the corresponding lexical-grammatical indicators of the subordinate. Therefore, in our view, joint prediction parenthesis cannot be equated to anecdotes. It is well known that the main essence of parentheses is to add to the main idea that is expressed, to fill in the idea, to express information that is subjective. As described in the preceding section, by the nature of these data, parentheses are divided into two major groups, in the form of inputs that represent the subjective-modal relationship and inputs that express the objective-explanatory relation. On the basis of these considerations, it is advisable to consider predicate parenthesis phrases as a very distinctive type of joint discourse. As parentheses enter into the main sentence with the main sentence, in addition to the relevant units in the wider text, it is directly linked to the parts of the main sentence, the whole sentence, and the micromatn.

Linguistic representation of the abortion in the france mass media

The article analyzes 52 articles from the leading France press mass media, which discuss the topic of abortion. Among the 152 analyzed statements containing a direct mention of abortion 55 have a clearly positive connotation, 72 have negative one, 25 have neutral one. Statements with positive semantics mainly characterize abortion as an inalienable right of a woman; therefore, many articles are devoted to discussing abortion not in France, but in those countries where it is illegal. Statements with negative semantics characterize abortion as an illegal procedure without touching on the moral and ethical side of the issue. The ethic aspect of the problem, however, is expressed in slogans, which are often used in articles. A positive attitude to the linguocultural phenomenon “abortion” in the French press is mainly expressed in statements with the predicative type of phrases, and both the predicative and adjective phrases are used for expressing a negative attitude.

Grammatical Errors Made by English Department Students in Writing Analytical Exposition Essay

This research was aimed to find out the students’ grammatical errors in writing analytical exposition essay. Besides, it is also to find out the processes of how the errors occur on the students’ writing and the causes of the errors. Sources of data were English department students of UNP in the fourth semester that were from four different classes, namely K1, K2, K3, and K4 in which each of the classes consisted of 30 students. So, total of the students was 120 students. However, only 30 students that were chosen randomly as samples of this research. The type of this research was a descriptive research. The data were collected by using writing test and interview. The findings of this research showed that the students’ grammatical errors in using simple present tense were in the use of subject, verb/ predicate, object, complement, and prepositional phrase. Besides, there were also the causes of the students’ errors, namely overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restriction, incomplete application of the rules, dan false concept hypothesized. From the data gotten, it could be concluded that the students made errors in six elements of grammar in analytical exposition essay.