Syntactic Options Research Articles

Pushing the limits of V2


 
 
 Studies of urban dialects in the Germanic languages show a development where the otherwise strict V2 syntax rules are supplemented with V3 syntax in specific syntactic and social contexts. Based on recordings of naturally occurring interaction in multilingual areas of Aarhus, Denmark, this paper adds to existing research with an interactional collection analysis of actions supporting V3. It describes six structural subtypes of V3 characterised by different adverbial and object material in first position and shows how the subtypes are connected to three interactional resources used in organising storytelling, claiming epistemic authority and reframing referents or discourse. V3 is often used when contrasting one type of information with another. It does not result in a different semantic meaning, rather it existing possible meanings that could also be emphasised by extra wording or multiple sentences. In the discussion, I argue that the extra syntactic options allow speakers to say more with fewer words by pushing the limits of the rather strict V2 syntax of Standard Danish.
 
 

Discourse markers in L1 and L2 Italian: A cartographic analysis of the sentence-internal position

This article compares the use of discourse markers (DMs) in Italian as a second language (L2) produced by Belgian-Dutch learners, with the DMs produced by Italian native (L1) speakers. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that L1 speakers produce more DMs than L2 speakers, whereas the comparison between the levels of proficiency in L2 reveals an effect of the type of task on the frequency of DMs. From the qualitative analysis, interesting discrepancies emerge between the L1 and the L2 use of DMs, especially those uttered in sentence-internal position. We offer an analysis within the cartographic approach and we demonstrate that the sentence-internal DMs with an epistemic value realize specific syntactic positions dedicated to the expression of modality within the IP layer. We also show that the L2 learners, despite projecting the correct syntactic structure, realize it with pragmatically infelicitous forms as a result of linguistic interference with their L1. Our study brings original evidence on the syntactic status of DMs: given their multifunctionality, more syntactic options are available depending on the markers’ discursive and pragmatic import. Furthermore, sentence-internal DMs reveal intriguing properties of the L2 acquisition at the syntax and discourse–pragmatics interface.

Syntactic optionality in heritage Spanish: How patterns of exposure and use affect clitic climbing

Aims and Objectives: This study explores Spanish heritage speakers’ (HSs) knowledge of clitic climbing and the (extra-)linguistic factors that modulate it. Design: Heritage speakers of Spanish completed three screening tasks (a background language questionnaire, a productive vocabulary task, and proficiency task) and two experimental tasks (an elicited production task, and a forced choice task) examining their knowledge of clitic climbing in different contexts. Data and Analysis: Thirty-nine participants completed two experimental tasks. Each task included 32 critical items distributed in four conditions. The data were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Findings: Patterns of language exposure and use are a strong predictor for clitic climbing knowledge while the effects of age of onset of bilingualism found contradict our hypothesis. Originality: This study examines production and interpretation data of clitic climbing knowledge in combination with extralinguistic factors that may facilitate heritage language acquisition and maintenance. Sequential bilinguals show a stronger enclisis bias than simultaneous bilinguals. Significance: The results show that, in cases of optionality, self-reported heritage language exposure and use may be a stronger predictor than age of onset of bilingualism of the dominant language. Limitations: This study does not have acceptability data on either grammatical or ungrammatical instances of proclisis or enclisis. In addition, because the test items feature different verbs, no lexical analysis can be conducted. Finally, using an adapted version of the BLP instead of its original normed version restricts opportunities for comparability and reproducibility.

Case transmission in Classical Latin control structures: Between syntax and morphology

Latin nonfinite structures with nonovert subjects exhibit puzzling properties with regard to the case- and ϕ-features of their subjects and their relationship to overt NPs in matrix clauses. While the transmission of case- and ϕ-feature related properties is obligatory when there is a nominative or accusative controller NP, it is only ϕ-feature transmission that remains obligatory when there is a dative controller, case transmission being apparently optional. To avoid an assumption of syntactic optionality, accounts of the phenomenon which rely on syntactic mechanisms propose that the apparent optionality reflects a syntactic difference between two types of nonfinite structures. It is instead proposed that mechanisms of linking of objects via Agree and ϕ-feature and case transmission should be assigned to different components of the grammar, syntax and morphology. The hypothesis allows a unified treatment of the syntactic phenomenon of control in Latin.

Measurement and optional classifiers in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract This paper presents a compositional analysis of the fact that Mandarin individuating classifiers are systematically optional in various degree constructions (see also Lin & Schaeffer 2018 for experimental evidence), by taking a mixed approach incorporating the insights from Chierchia (1998; 2010) that Mandarin nouns denote kind terms and individuating classifiers offer the level of individuation and those from Krifka (1995) that (bare) numerals do not encode the cardinality function. By considering (bare) numerals as degree terms (e.g., Hackl 2001; Nouwen 2010; Rett 2014; Kennedy 2015, among many others), the mixed approach advocated here embraces the hypothesis that the locus of variation between English and Mandarin lies in neither the semantics of nouns nor that of numerals, but in the measure operators: these linguistic elements (including sortal/individuating classifiers) are necessary to mediate between numerals and nouns to avoid the semantic type-mismatch. The proposed analysis of individuating classifiers not only explains the role of Mandarin individuating classifiers in degree constructions (i.e., their syntactic optionality, along with a semantic variation in the dimension of comparison), but also closely connects with Bale & Barner’s (2009) idea about quantity judgments that comparative constructions can be used as a reliable diagnostic of the mass-count distinction in natural languages beyond English. Specifically, the fact that Mandarin unclassified nouns allow both cardinality and non-cardinality monotonic dimensions in a variety of degree constructions based on quantity judgments indicates that they are mass-count neutral; a tentative semantics of Mandarin nouns for their mass-count neutrality is thus suggested. Some factors leading to the individuation of nouns are also discussed.

Syntactic Optionality in Heritage Language Use: Clause Type Preferences of German Heritage Speakers in a Majority English Context

Abstract This study focuses on the syntactic and pragmatic resources heritage speakers (HS s) use to structure their discourse according to register. Drawing on a corpus of narratives produced by German HS s living in the United States, as well as by monolingually-raised speakers (MS s) of English and German, we investigated HS s’ syntactic resources by analyzing how they approached clause type optionality across registers. Concerning overall clause type frequencies, HS s performed similarly to MS s in their majority English, but showed differences in their heritage German compared to German MS s. This can be attributed to the majority language dominance and different complexity of clause types in the heritage language. However, regarding the pattern of clause types across registers, HS s’ productions are similar to those of German MS s, and across HS s’ two languages. This suggests an underlying register awareness that HS s can draw upon in their heritage language.

Absolute Participial Construction Theory: Controversial Issues

The study focuses on current problems associated with the evolution of absolute participial construction and its linguistic status in the French language. It has been established that, borrowed from classical Latin, the absolute construction with an ablative was accepted to the Old French language, presumably in the 13 th –14 th centuries thanks to translations from the Latin language. Widely used in literature, the construction caused disputes among grammarians and only at the beginning of the 20 th century it was recognized as normative. In the second part of the article, a review of the Russian and foreign scientific literature is made, the most controversial issues and the author's own position based on corpus data are formulated. The properties inherent in all types of absolute participial constructions are determined: binarity, semantic duality, expression of predominantly temporary, causal meaning or value of an accompanying action, mobility, syntactic optionality in relation to a matrix sentence, the possibility of functioning only as part of a complex sentence. It was revealed that this construction is an economical formal way of expressing a proposition based on a secondary predicative connection. The features of constructions with present participles, past participles and complex past participles are analyzed. The conclusion is made about the need for a differentiated approach to the analysis of these types of absolute structures. The prospect of further studies of linguistic structures is shown.

Code-switching alone cannot explain intraspeaker syntactic variability: Evidence from a spoken elicitation experiment

AbstractWe address the question whether speakers activate different grammars when they encounter linguistic input from different registers, here written standardised language and spoken dialect. This question feeds into the larger theoretical and empirical question if variable syntactic patterns should be modelled as switching between different registers/grammars, or as underspecified mappings from form to meaning within one grammar. We analyse 6000 observations from 26 high school students from Tromsø, comprising more than 20 phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic variables obtained from two elicited production experiments: one using standardised written language and one using spoken dialect as the elicitation source. The results suggest that most participants directly activate morphophonological forms from the local dialect when encountering standardised orthographic forms, suggesting that they do not treat the written and spoken language as different grammars. Furthermore, the syntactic variation does not track the morphophonological variation, which suggests that code/register-switching alone cannot explain syntactic optionality.

Noun/pronoun asymmetry in Polish: Against the nominal perspective and the DP-hypothesis

AbstractThis paper argues that the Polish noun-pronoun asymmetry in which the intensifier sam ‘self’ precedes nouns and follows pronominals is not a simple case of configuration in the DP, whereby pronouns, unlike nominals, target D0 for referential reasons (cf. Rutkowski 2002, 2012). Such viewpoints, in the case of Polish, are unfortunate because they appear to underlyingly work on and draw from the syntax of nominal projections characteristic of English or Italian i.e., languages with articles. We show that the asymmetry pertains to various semantic interpretations of sam, the different semantic specification of nominals and pronominals, and the flexible word order property. What we need, therefore, is a broader clausal perspective coupled with necessary remarks on the abovementioned issues. Thus, rather than employing the DP-hypothesis, we assume two cornerstone phenomena i.e. flexible word order and rich agreement to be crucial here as they facilitate syntactic options like focalisation or topicalisation which manifest discourse information and in which sam functions as a focus or topic particle (cf. Constantinou 2014). These contexts are held typical of the asymmetry, thereby making it an interplay between semantic properties of nominal/pronominal expressions and organisation of discourse information that syntax makes available.

What usage can tell us about grammar: Embedded verb second in Scandinavian

This paper uses large-scale data extracted from a series of Swedish corpora to investigate the factors responsible for conditioning the choice of (optional) embedded V2 in Swedish. Embedded V2 has been argued to represent a more general kind of syntactic optionality found across languages: syntactic structures typically found in matrix clauses, but which are also available in certain types of embedded environments (so called Main Clause Phenomena). While the received view, going back to Hooper & Thompson (1973), is that the availability of main clause syntax has a semantic-pragmatic correlate in the presence of Illocutionary Force, pinpointing exactly what this amounts to has remained an open problem. Through statistical analysis of the Swedish corpus data, combined with results from a semantic-inference task, we are able to falsify certain previous (theoretical and empirical) claims about the distribution and interpretation of embedded V2. We additionally evaluate, and find no evidence to support, a processing or usage-based view of optionality in embedded V2. We argue instead that the interpretive notion driving the distribution of embedded V2 is discourse novelty; whether the embedded proposition is treated as discourse-old or new information. We argue that embedded V2 is licensed in contexts where p is discourse novel. While this is fundamentally a pragmatic notion, it is nevertheless tightly constrained by both lexical-semantic properties of the matrix predicate and other aspects of the grammatical context. An important methodological consequence of this work is that by looking at particular interactions of lexical and grammatical contexts, statistical analysis of usage data can be used to test specific predictions made by syntactic and semantic theory.

THE COMMUNICATIVE HORIZON OF MODERN SOCIETY AS A REFLECTION OF PROSPECTS AND CONSTRAINTS

The dynamics of social processes have always been substantially determined by the level, efficiency, and peculiarities of communicative interaction between people. The reason for the communication difficulties that arise when people communicate in a culturally heterogeneous society is in such characteristics of speech as intonation, rhythm, choice of lexical, phonetic and syntactic options.

Functions and translations of discourse markers in TED Talks: A parallel corpus study of underspecification in five languages

Discourse markers are highly polyfunctional, particularly in spoken settings. Because of their syntactic optionality, they are often omitted in translations, especially in the restricted space of subtitles such as the parallel transcripts of TED Talks. In this study, we combine discourse annotation and translation spotting to investigate English discourse markers, focusing on their functions, omission and translation equivalents in Czech, French, Hungarian and Lithuanian. In particular, we study them through the lens of underspecification, of which we distinguish one monolingual and two multilingual types. After making an inventory of all discourse markers in the dataset, we zoom in on the three most frequent and, but and so. Our small-scale yet fine-grained corpus study suggests that the processes of underspecification are based on the semantics of discourse markers and are therefore shared cross-linguistically. However, not all discourse marker types nor their functions are equally affected by underspecification. Moreover, monolingual and multilingual underspecification do not always map for a particular marker. Beyond the empirical analysis of three highly frequent discourse markers in a sample of TED Talks, this study illustrates how translation and annotation can be combined to explore the multiple facets of underspecification in a monolingual and multilingual perspective.

Towards an explanation of the syntax of West Germanic particle verbs: A cognitive-pragmatic view

AbstractWhile the unusual behaviour of particle verbs in West Germanic has been the subject of much debate, it still awaits a substantive explanation. These verbs undergo reversal and/or intercalation subject to such syntactic constraints as finiteness and clause type. Situated within Prototype Theory, this study defines the relevant grammatical categories in terms of varying degrees of syntacticity (i.e., sentence-likeness vs. word-likeness) of which cohesiveness is a major indicator. The higher the cohesiveness of a given category, the more resistant it is to syntactic processes. The following scale of increasing cohesiveness is proposed: main clauses, finite verbs, subordinate clauses, non-finite verbs, nouns. Thus, reversal and intercalation are found in the leftward, though not in the rightward categories. This scale is pragmatically motivated. Generally speaking, main clauses are communicatively more important than subordinate clauses. Therefore, the former require a wider choice of expressive means such as reversal and intercalation than the latter. The availability of syntactic options is argued to be an iconic reflection of communicative needs.

AltGr-Ergo, a Graphical User Interface for the SMT Solver Alt-Ergo

Due to undecidability and complexity of first-order logic, SMT solvers may not terminate on some problems or require a very long time. When this happens, one would like to find the reasons why the solver fails. To this end, we have designed AltGr-Ergo, an interactive graphical interface for the SMT solver Alt-Ergo which allows users and tool developers to help the solver finish some proofs. AltGr-Ergo gives real time feedback in order to evaluate and quantify progress made by the solver, and also offers various syntactic manipulation options to allow a finer grained interaction with Alt-Ergo. This paper describes these features and their implementation, and gives usage scenarios for most of them.

A comparative study of headings in theses and research articles in

This study examined the internal headings of theses and research articles in applied linguistics. Headings collected from 110 theses and headings selected from 500 research articles underwent quantitative and qualitative analyses. The goal was to investigate possible differences between the heading writing styles adopted by the writers of each genre in focus. Analyses revealed the higher incidence of functional headings in both genres, particularly in research articles. Virtually, all functional and conventional syntactic options used in headings testified to be significantly different. Moreover, deployment of functional headings evidenced to act as a gatekeeper alternative that might have enhanced the publication chance of research articles in prestigious ISI-indexed journals. The study provides assistance for the writers of style guide manuals and syllabus designers in paving the way for novice writers to gain recognition in academia as professionals. Keywords: applied linguistics, conventional heading, functional heading, research article, thesis

The status of interrogative subject–verb inversion in Spanish-English bilingual children

The present cross-sectional study examines the status of interrogative subject–verb inversion in Spanish among twenty-seven (n=27) Spanish-English bilingual children born and raised in the United States. Results from an oral elicited production task show significant low levels of target inversion in both matrix and embedded wh-questions, compared with monolingual children. Lack of inversion was more significant with embedded questions, and among the youngest children. It is argued that the differences observed stem from syntactic transfer from English, language dominance and the complexity of the structure. This leads to a process of syntactic optionality in child heritage Spanish similar to what is found in Caribbean varieties of Spanish.

Variation, individual differences and second language processing

Abstract Research on second language acquisition has located individual variation, without clarifying whether language processing prompts learners to differ systematically in the production of syntax and morphology. To address this issue, the study examined the hypothesis on variation in Processability Theory. This theory predicts that, within second language development, individual learners vary systematically in how they respond to developmental conflicts. Specifically, learners have distinct types, which are evident in their use of options and 'trailers' (structures which emerge late). Longitudinal spoken data were collected over one academic year from six adolescent ESL learners. The results revealed different learner types in terms of syntactic options and trailers. However, the learners had less clear types for the morphological options, used unpredicted options, and lacked consistency in their use of syntactic and morphological trailers. The paper suggests that learners vary in processing due to diverse orientations towards the acquisition of either syntax or morphology.

Bilingual Dictionaries for Communication in the Domain of Economics: Function-Based Translation Dictionaries

<p>With their focus on terms, bilingual dictionaries are important tools for translating texts on economics. The most common type is the multi-field dictionary covering several related subject fields; however, multi-field dictionaries treat one or few fields extensively thereby neglecting other fields in contrast to single-field and sub-field dictionaries. Furthermore, recent research shows that economic translation is not limited to terms so lexicographers who identify and analyse the needs of translators, usage situations and stages in translating economic texts will have a sound basis for designing their lexicographic tools. The function theory allows lexicographers to study these basics so that they can offer translation tools to the domain of economics. Dictionaries should include data about terms, their grammatical properties, and their combinatorial potential as well as language varieties such as British, American and international English to indicate syntactic options and restrictions on language use. Secondly, translators need to know the meaning of domain-specific terms to properly understand the differences in the structure of the domains in the cultures involved. Finally, pragmatic data will tell authors and translators how textual resources are conventionally used and what is textually appropriate in communication within the fi eld of economics. The focus will mainly be on translations between Danish and English.</p>

'Ser' focalizador como mezcolanza sintactica

<p>ABSTRACT. This paper recovers the point of view that <em>ser focalizador </em>constructions C-SF are syntactic blends, in opposition to two other contending views, according to which <em>ser focalizador </em>is either a focal proyection within a monoclausal structure or a reduced pseudo-cleft. It is also claimed that a merely constructionist analysis of C-SF is insufficient to account for the distributional properties of these hybrid constructions. Among the syntactic options, the monoclausal claim is chosen. Finally, it is shown that there are better alternatives, with a simpler syntax, than focal syntactic projections. Thus, complications are sent back to the study of rules projecting focus upwards in the syntactic tree, as a fundamental aspect of the interface between grammar, interpretation, and sound.</p>

Interpreting resultative sentences in German: Stages in L1 acquisition

This article presents the results of a study on the interpretation and acceptance of adjectival resultatives of German children between 6 and 9 years of age and adults. These results brought to light significant differences, due to age, in the interpretation and acceptance of these resultatives, that is to say, sentences with an adjective in the final position. The youngest participants were prone to accept ungrammatical sentences by assigning a resultative meaning. The ungrammaticality of the sentences in question was not due to semantic inconsistencies but to violations of the selectional properties of verbs, as for instance in *die Kinder erschrecken die Katze ängstlich ‘the children frighten the cat scared’. In contrast, the adults rejected or amended those sentences. The conclusion is (a) that the children seemed to rely on the sentence structure as a primary cue to compute the meaning of an utterance and (b) that, in contrast with adults, the youngest children in particular had not yet learned the relevant semantic properties of verbs that determine the selectional restrictions and thus the syntactic options of verbs. This means that differences in interpretation and acceptance of sentences are due to differences in knowledge of semantic verb properties between adults and children. The relevant semantic knowledge increases in gradual stages during language acquisition.