Syntactic Configurations Research Articles

Çince Söz Diziminin Tipolojik Açıdan Rusça ve Kırgızca ile Karşılaştırılması

Dillerde tipolojik yönelimi belirlemede kullanılan cümle kalıpları aracılığıyla yapılan incelemede “VO” sıralamalı diller ile aynı grupta yer almış olan Çin dilinin “OV” sıralamalı diller ile daha benzer bir yapıya sahip olduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Bu nedenle çalışmamız Çin dilini tipolojik açıdan “OV” sıralamalı dil olarak kabul görmüş olan Kırgızca ve “VO” sıralamalı dil olarak kabul görmüş olan Rusça ile karşılaştırıp, dillerin tipolojik açıdan “OV” tip mi, yoksa “VO” tip mi olduğunu belirlemede kullanılan cümle kalıplarının geçerliliğini somut örnekleme yöntemi ile yeniden test etmiştir. Yapılan inceleme ile dillerin yönelimini belirlemede kullanılan kalıpların geçerli olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır. Çince tipolojik açıdan incelendiğinde “VO” tip bir dil olan Rusçadan farklı, “OV” tip bir dil olan Kırgızca ile daha benzer bir sıralamaya sahiptir. Bu da Çincenin fiil konumları açısından “VO” diller ile benzerlik gösteren ancak diğer cümle ögelerinin sıralamaları açısından “OV” tip bir dil olarak değerlendirilmesi gerektiğini açık bir şekilde göstermektedir. Çincenin “OV-VO” diller ile benzer ve farklı yönlerinin anlaşılması, Çince öğrenen her iki tip dilin kullanıcıları açısından oldukça önemlidir.

The concept Muslim: discourses in Bosnian, Croatian, German and Serbian webcorpora

The aim of this contribution is to examine the meaning of the word musliman or German Muslim and to answer the question whether the meaning of this word in a dictionary can be mapped by means of classical distributional analysis, and whether further meanings can be captured by this method. In addition, a simple method for a distributional semantic analysis is presented. The basis of the investigation is the assumption common in corpus–based semantics and lexicography that the meaning of words can be interpreted from the context and thus polysemy and synonymy can be recognized. The article examines four web corpora for Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and German. First, the context is analysed, assuming that the syntactic structures in the context are themselves inherently meaningful. Specifically, adjective attributes are used to analyse properties of the keyword, coordination partners as indicators for relevant categories, verbs with the keyword as subject and accusative object as indicators for typical actions the keyword performs or is target of. In a second step, the lexemes that occur in these four contexts are clustered and the semantic dimensions of the keyword are determined. The results suggest that the distributional method can in principle map dictionary definitions well. However, this is mainly true for contexts which involve attributes and coordination but not for action–related syntactic configurations. Overall, the most salient semantic dimensions of the lexeme are those pertaining to members of a religious community, members of a regional ethnic group, and experienced or induced aggression. Here, the four corpora differ considerably: while German usage almost exclusively focuses on religion–related aspects, the other corpora also contain ethnic/regional components, as well as the discourse of aggression. This aggression is mainly verbal in German, but physical in the other corpora. Neutral meaning components for the word musliman are salient only in the Bosnian corpus.

Decoding Spatial Configuration: Resiliency in the Periphery (Case Study: Sedati Sidoarjo)

Rural and urban communities merge. Sedati’s districts are vulnerable due to a lack of infrastructure, dispersed populations, disaster management capacities, and subsistence. A city is resilient if its citizens can survive and recover from a disaster. These relationships allow for implementing programs that promote urban and rural resilience. How do urban spatial patterns affect resilience determinants? This research examines the typo-morphological urban layout of Sedati District to discover the periphery’s resilience and current situation. By using typo – morphological analysis and space syntax analysis researcher seeks the configuration of typology and morphology of the area. The results show that global connectivity and integration exist only in the center of Sedati District (HH3). Disconnecting two nodes won’t stop the network if there are multiple pathways. Sedati’s axial lines cease in space. Decreases road strength. Controlling expansion and using land efficiently, fostering urban and peri-urban agriculture, and making urban hubs inaccessible to nature are local solutions. Sedati lacks mixed-use clusters and pedestrian mobility. Urban livelihood, activity, and total life resilience reflect a ‘center-periphery’ spatial structure with expanding and declining gradients. Looping spatial syntactic configurations are needed for a robust urban fabric. Mixed-use land helps urban clusters’ peripheries.

German measurement structures: case-marking and non-conservativity

This paper addresses the syntactic and semantic analysis of nominal measurement structures like two liters of black coffee in German. German allows the case-marking on the substance noun phrase black coffee to vary: it can appear in genitive case or in the same case as the measure noun liter. The choice of case lacks semantic import with absolute measures like liter, but a semantic distinction does arise for proportional measures like percent, with the interpretation in the case-matching configuration serving as a prima facie counterexample to Keenan and Stavi’s Conservativity Hypothesis of DP quantification. We argue that (i) measurement structures do not have different syntactic configurations depending on the choice of measure noun (e.g., liter vs. percent); (ii) genitive and case-matching structures do, however, have different syntactic configurations; (iii) the semantic contrast between absolute and proportional measure nouns can be traced to their lexical interpretations; and (iv) the apparent violation of the Conservativity Hypothesis is only a surface-level phenomenon, and at LF all DP quantification is conservative.

Accessing the availability of inverse scope in German in the covered box paradigm

This paper presents the results of a novel experimental approach to relative quantifier scope in German that elicits data in an indirect manner. Applying the covered-box method (Huang et al. 2013) to scope phenomena, we show that inverse scope is available to some extent in the free constituent order language German, thereby validating earlier findings on other syntactic configurations in German (Radó & Bott 2018) and empirical claims on other free constituent order languages (Japanese, Russian, Hindi), as well as recent corpus findings in Webelhuth (2020). Moreover, the results of the indirect covered-box experiment replicate findings from an earlier direct-query experiment with comparable target items, in which participants were asked directly about the availability of surface scope and inverse scope readings. The configuration of interest consisted of canonical transitive clauses with deaccented existential subject and universal object QPs, in which the restriction of the universal QP was controlled for by the context.

Reconsidering inalienable possession with definite determiners in French

In many Romance and Germanic languages, definite determiners can indicate possession for a subset of nouns that have often been called nouns of ‘inalienable’ possession. This paper addresses the question of why and how the definite determiner contributes to the interpretation of ‘inalienable possession’. Following Freeze (1992) and others, I argue that ‘inalienable possession’ cannot be properly characterized as inalienable and does not involve possession. Relevant ‘inalienably possessed’ nouns are not restricted to body parts, but include a broader set of nouns that are commonly expected to be located in or on the possessor: mental or physical faculties, facial expressions, as well as articles of clothing, protection, and adornment. I argue that the relevant cases are best captured in terms of an analysis that combines a syntactic configuration for locative prepositions (RP in den Dikken’s 2006 sense) with the semantics of weak definites for the ‘inalienable’ use of the definite determiner. All observed restrictions derive from the requirement that the semantic properties of weak definites and the syntactic configuration of the RP need to be compositionally respected. Finally, I propose some ideas about how this analysis can be extended to crosslinguistic variation in German and English.

VS SYNTACTIC CONFIGURATIONS IN ROMANCE ADVERBIAL CLAUSES

Based on an original corpus, and also on the important contributions of Haegeman 2012, Pană Dindelegan & Maiden 2013, and Lahousse 2010, I intend to demonstrate in this article that there are specific factors that influence the VS syntactic configurations of Romance languages (Romanian, Italian, and French), and these factors are directly connected to the internal information structure. From a methodological point of view, this is an empirical study, combining comparative and corpus analyses, qualitative and quantitative observations, and using the instruments of Morphosyntax and Pragmatics. In the end, the results of the analysis highlight the idea that both information structure and the “pro-drop” feature have a big impact on the word order of the constituents, generating a significant discrepancy between Romanian and Italian, on the one hand, and French, on the other hand.

On the Use of Complementisers in Istro-Romanian

"On the Use of Complementisers in Istro-Romanian. This article deals with the description of certain aspects of the complementiser system in Istro-Romanian (hereinafter IR), a severely endangered Romance variety. The prototypical IR complementisers are ke (‘that’), neca (subjunctive marker), and in rarer occurrences se (‘that/if’). Their main features are their high degree of heterogeneity, as well as their occurrence in various syntactic configurations that either makes IR pattern with Daco-Romanian (its closest sister), or sets IR apart across Romance. Our analysis is carried out on a corpus made of: Traian Cantemir’s Texte istroromâne (data collected during 1932-1933), Sextil Pușcariu’s Studii istroromâne. Texte I (1906-1926), Sârbu, R., V. Frățilă’s Dialectul istroromân (1982-1996). Among the situations at which we will take a closer look, we should mention the occurrence of the complementiser ke ‘that’ in places where Daco-Romanian and other Romance varieties would not use it or would use it differently. Keywords: Istro-Romanian syntax, (Eastern) Romance dialectology, IR complementisers, word order "

Clausal Adjuncts of Romance Languages. A Corpus-driven Comparison

"Clausal Adjuncts of Romance Languages – a Corpus-Driven Comparison. Continuing the traditional comparative analysis of Romance languages, the present paper brings evidence for the fact that the syntactic configuration (the word order) of a Romance complex sentence (henceforth CS) with clausal adjuncts is the result of many competing forces. The analysis is based on an original media discourse corpus, collected from three Romance varieties (Romanian, Italian, and French), and the focus will be both on the word order of the temporal, causal, and concessive adjuncts (their occurrence in sentence-initial, in sentence-final position, sometimes even in sentence-middle position), and on the comparative analysis of the results. What I intend to prove is that the ordering of a CS in the three Romance languages is motivated by three types of factors: discourse pragmatics, semantics, and parsing. Keywords: clausal adjuncts, morphosyntactic analysis, word order, Romance languages "

Prosodic phrasing and the emergence of phrase structure

AbstractTo clarify the role of prosodic phrasing in the emergence of phrase structure, it is necessary to be clear as to how syntactic phrasing relates to prosodic phrasing. The core proposal here is that a distinction must be made between two basic types of syntactic constructions; namely, syntactic configurations for which prosodic phrasing is part of the definition of the construction, and phrase structure proper, which is independent of prosodic phrasing. This distinction implies a somewhat more complex view of the interface between syntax and prosody than is currently widely assumed. Rather than conceiving of prosodic phrases as derivative of syntactic phrases, prosodic phrasing and syntactic phrase structure are seen here as alternative ways of relating words to each other, forming larger units from smaller ones. Against this background, the emergence of phrase structure is conceived of as the emancipation of syntax from prosodic scaffolding.

Interaction and Grammar: Predicative Adjective Constructions in English Conversation

This article studies the function of Copular Predicate Constructions in everyday English conversation. We compare predicate adjective constructions (PA) and constructions with a predicate nominal containing an adjective (PAN). We ask whether the attributive function of the adjective or the presence of a noun in the PAN leads to a difference in function in the two constructions. We propose that in most cases the adjective determines the function of the construction, leading to many parallels in usage between the PA and PAN constructions. A comparison with predicate nominal constructions (PN), in contrast, shows that not including an adjective in the constructions leads to a different set of meanings and implications. The conversational usage of these constructions provides evidence for a partial correspondence of form to function: Copular Predicate Constructions often constitute a complete turn in conversation, and if not a full turn, form their own prosodic units. Other properties of these constructions—the definiteness of the NP and the presence or absence of a N—correspond to different interactional work. A comparison of all three constructions shows that the adjective plays a determining interactional role, despite differences in syntactic configuration.

Syntactic Configuration of Code-Switching between Indonesian and English: Another Perspective on Code-Switching Phenomena

Code-switching, an alternation or mixing one language with another, has been an unmarked phenomenon for a multilingual society. In Indonesia, this phenomenon nowadays lives and thrives among the people. This study discusses the syntactic configuration of code-switching between Indonesian and English in terms of switched segments, points, and changing types. The study is descriptive qualitative in nature. The data comprise 25 recording hours of natural speech produced by 119 Indonesians in 4 types of interaction: seminars, meetings, TV dialogues, and chitchats conducted in six metropolitan cities—Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar. The sample drawn purposively comprises 550 switching discourses consisting of 666 switching corpora. It is found that nouns serving as subjects, predicators, objects of verbs, and prepositions to be the most dominant switched segments. A switch between Indonesian noun phrases and English noun phrases, Indonesian verbs or prepositions, and English objective noun phrases, Indonesian conjunctions, and English conjoined noun phrases or clauses is the most popular switched points, and intercausal switching including intraporal and interlexical switching is the most frequent switching type of code-switching between Indonesian and English. ANOVA Friedman’s test confirms that these patterns are the same among the four types of discourses, implying that such a syntactic configuration of Indonesia-English code-switching is universally applicable to any situation and type of interaction. In conclusion, the domination of nouns indicates that the syntactic configuration of Indonesian-English code-switching mainly occurs at minor constituents such as within a clause, phrase, and word boundaries. This demonstrates that code-switching between Indonesian and English is more likely to occur intrasentential rather than intersentential, which is the most popular anywhere in literature.

Deriving four generalizations about nominals in three classifier languages

AbstractThis squib presents a set of facts concerning nominal structures in Bahnar, Mandarin, and Vietnamese. It proposes an account of these facts which reduces them to cross-linguistic differences with respect to the availability of particular syntactic configurations involving the bare noun and its extended projection. These differences, in turn, are derived from cross-linguistic variations with respect to the availability of items in the functional lexicon.

Correction by Focus: Cleft Constructions and the Cross-Linguistic Variation in Phonological Form.

A challenging issue of cross-linguistic variation is that the same syntactic construction may appear in different arrays of contexts depending on language. For instance, cleft constructions appear with contrastive focus in English, but in a larger array of contexts in French. A part of the cross-linguistic variation may be due to prosodic differences, since prosodic possibilities determine the array of focus structures that can be mapped onto one and the same syntactic configuration. In the present study, we compare languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German), with languages that do not use this prosodic strategy (French, Mandarin Chinese). In a speech production experiment, we examine the prosodic realization of contrastive focus and identify prosodic reflexes of focus in all languages. The presence of different phonetic reflexes of focus suggests that – anything else being equal – the same syntactic constructions should be possible in the same array of contexts. In an acceptability study with written questionnaires, we examined the felicity of cleft constructions in contexts licensing a focus within the cleft clause. This focus structure is orthogonal to the preferred focus structure of cleft constructions and can appear in cases of second-occurrence foci (in contexts of correction). The obtained judgments reveal a distinction between languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German) and languages with other types of reflexes of focus (French, Chinese): languages of the former type have an advantage in using cleft constructions with a focus within the cleft clause, which shows that the array of contexts of using clefts in English and German is not a proper subset of the array of contexts applying to the same constructions in French and Chinese. The obtained differences can be explained by the role of prosodic devices and corroborate the view that prosodic reflexes of focus have different semantic-pragmatic import: it is easier to establish a focus structure that is orthogonal to the syntax in a language with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German); this does not hold for prosodic correlates of focus that reinforce the articulation of prosodic constituents (French) or the articulation of lexical tones (Chinese).

“Expletives” as Discourse Markers: Semantic and Pragmatic Considerations in “It” and “There”

This paper explores the syntactic and semantic configurations of expletives “it” and “there.” It attempts to show that expletives are not just syntactic fillers; they are semantic markers and are pragmatically bound NPs that can be co-indexed with covert referents. The study follows a theoretical approach and applies Bolinger’s (1977) Meaning and Form model to the syntactic configurations of expletives. The syntactic structures of expletives are based on the syntactic theories of generativist linguists, namely Chomsky (1986). Chomskyan syntactic theories describe the various formal characteristics of expletives without analyzing their semantic and pragmatic implications. This study premises that Bolinger’s theoretical modal can fill these missing gaps and can provide a conclusive yet not final description of these gaps. The study recognizes expletives as discourse-bound markers and authenticates their contextual and sociological significance.

Delimiting durative events with manner

Abstract Durative events by default are atelic. However, temporal targets are typically required for durative verbs with a rushing manner, such as ‘We are catching the 3:30 flight’ and ‘The farmer rushed to harvest before the storm’. Why and how does manner introduce delimiting temporal concepts to durative verbs? This puzzle is addressed by our current study of two near-synonymous Mandarin durative verbs describing events carried out in a rushing manner: 赶 gǎn and 抢 qiǎng. Our event-based account will examine both their compositional meanings and their constructional patterns. We will show that 赶 gǎn and 抢 qiǎng not only coerce eventive readings from their nominal objects, but also require certain delineating temporal targets. The verb 赶 gǎn requires an understood deadline, while the verb 抢 qiǎng requires the presupposition of the limited availability of the object. As neither temporal targets mark the time of the actual activities, these are exceptional cases of aktionsart. We will show that the different ways to delineate event meanings of the constructions [gǎn/qiǎng+ noun] can be predicted from the lexical meaning of the two verbs and can in turn predict the event types represented by the object with the MARVS theory. Based on this lexical semantic representation, we further show that the Generative Lexicon theory predicts the coercions of the rushing meaning from the original activity verb senses, and that the Construction Grammar theory accounts for their sharing of the same syntactic configuration.

Relativized Prosodic Domains: A Late-Insertion Account of German Plurals

In late-insertion, realizational models of morphology such as Distributed Morphology (DM), the insertion of Vocabulary Items (VIs) is conditioned by cyclic operations in the syntax. This paper explores whether an isomorphic relationship can be established between cyclic operations such as phases and prosodic domains. In the spirit of D’Alessandro and Scheer’s (2015) proposal of a Modular Phase Impenetrability Condition (MPIC), we strive to provide an analysis in which prosodic boundaries in even smaller, word-level-like syntactic structures—the ‘lexical domain’—can be identified solely within the syntax. We propose a DM-account for the distribution of nominal plural exponency in German, which reveals a dominant trend for a trochaic-foot structure for all but -s-plural exponents (Wiese 2001, 2009). Inspired by Gouskova’s (2019) and Svenonius’ (2016) work concerning the prosody–morphology interface, we argue that the index of a Prosodic Word ω in non-s-plurals is associated with a specific feature configuration. We propose that only a n[+pl(ural)] configuration, in which the nominalizing head n hosts the SynSem-feature Num(ber)[+pl(ural)], rather than a general cyclic categorizing phase head such as n, indexes a Prosodic Word ω for nominal plural exponents in (Standard) German. Based on this empirical evidence from German plural exponency, we argue that (i) prosodic boundaries can be established directly by syntactic structures, (ii) these prosodic boundaries condition VI insertion during the initial stages of Spell-Out, and (iii) prosodic domains are based on individual languages’ syntactic structures and feature configurations, and are thus relativized and language-specific in nature.

The most, the fewest and the least: On the relative readings of quantity superlatives

This paper makes the empirical observation that so-called ‘NP-internal relative readings’ are available for certain speakers of English (as well as Dutch) for quantity superlatives but never for superlatives of other gradable adjectives. Previous accounts of this phenomenon in other languages attribute the availability of this type of reading to the absence of a definite article or DP layer. Contra the predictions of such accounts, in English, it is when the nominal expression containing the quantity superlative appears to be definite that these readings are generated. I account for these readings by building on the theory that many/much and their antonyms are fundamentally degree-predicates of scalar intervals, not degree-predicates of individuals. This leads me to propose a novel syntactic configuration in which the definite article forms a measure phrase constituent with the quantity superlative to the exclusion of the focused element. The NP-internal relative reading is derived through focus-association, with the superlative morpheme remaining in situ inside the definite measure phrase. The proposal adds to an emerging consensus that the quantity expressions much, many, few and little and their crosslinguistic counterparts are of a distinct type and are syntactically more complex than other gradable adjectives. It also provides indirect support for an in situ approach to deriving the relative readings of superlatives in definite contexts. EARLY ACCESS

A developmental study of expressing simultaneous events in film-based narratives

This study examines the expression of simultaneity in the film-based oral narratives of 100 English monolinguals in the following three age groups: preschoolers (4–6 years), school-aged children (7–10 years), and adults (19–48 years). Participants told a story of what happened in the film, in an off-line task, to an interviewer who had not seen the film. The film was rich in simultaneous events at various sites through the episodic structure. Focus was on quantitative and qualitative aspects of simultaneity, from the perspective of forms and functions. Quantitative results showed very little simultaneity at preschool and almost similar expression at school age and adulthood. Qualitative analyses revealed that perceptual, semantic, and discourse factors affected the profiles of development. Preschool children expressed local simultaneity between situations in adjacent clauses, more frequently between unbounded situations that are implicitly simultaneous. Besides, they tended to express more simultaneity in scenes that were perceived in a single screen shot. From age 7, children became more able to express simultaneity across larger stretches of the text, covering a wider scope on situations on parallel timelines. Top-down knowledge of narrative organization guided older narrators to take temporal perspectives that go beyond the semantic properties of events, giving way to discourse-motivated simultaneity where causality plays a substantial role. Language forms to express simultaneity showed a long developmental route – through verb semantic and tense-aspect alternations as the widest, basic usage to specific lexical forms like conjunctions (e.g. while), adverbs (e.g. meanwhile), and more sophisticated syntactic configurations. The form-function analyses enabled an exploration of the cognitive and language abilities in the production of simultaneous relations under the constraints of narrative discourse organization. The study reinforced the results of previous developmental studies of temporality, shedding further light on the relatively unexplored topic of simultaneity expression.

Efficiency in discourse processing: Does morphosyntax adapt to accommodate new referents?

Abstract The introduction of new referents into discourse has traditionally been regarded as a major challenge to language processing, for which speakers deploy specific syntactic configurations, guided by the speaker’s assessment of the recipient’s state of mind (‘recipient design’). In this paper we probe these assumptions against discourse data from nine languages. We find little evidence for specialized syntactic configurations accommodating new referents; the only notable exception is the association of new reference with direct objects, suggests that linking new referents to already established discourse frames through a transitive construction is preferable to isolating them in an intransitive one. Where specific intransitive predicates are indeed found to host new referents, we find this to be motivated primarily by semantic considerations. Contrary to long-held assumptions, we conclude that the cognitive challenge of referent introduction is only weakly reflected in morphosyntax; instead, discourse production is most efficient when new referents are integrated seamlessly with content-driven demands of the narration.