Syntactic Predicate Research Articles

Argument Coreference Between Content Verbs and Predicative Nouns in Brazilian Portuguese

The literature on complement clauses and support/light verb constructions provides most of the available information on coreference between arguments of matrix and subordinate syntactic predicates. However, this phenomenon is largely unexplored when it comes to verb phrases consisting of a content verb and a predicative noun in object position, such as declarar paixão (“declare passion”), cumprir a promessa (“fulfill the promise”), responder perguntas (“answer questions”), or resistir à tentação (“resist temptation”). The notions of obligatory and non-obligatory coreference do not fully explain this phenomenon, since non-coreferential usage of these phrases leads to different types of coercion, which are relevant properties to classify these phrases. This paper proposes a pilot study of verb phrases of this kind, extracting them from a Brazilian Portuguese newspaper corpus aiming at their syntactic-semantic classification. This procedure revealed a total of 75 such verb phrases. Based on semantic coercion and distributional properties, four major classes divided into seven subclasses are proposed to cover two-thirds of the data. There is also a fifth class with 17 items in which coreference appears to be a contextual property, i.e., unrelated to lexical semantics, and eight hapax legomena. The results provide a new perspective on this understudied topic, identifying also irregular aspects deserving further studies

Chinese tag questions: the CP/DP pro-form analysis

Abstract This paper investigates the behaviors of tag questions in Chinese and proposes a unifying analysis involving empty CP/DP pro-forms and predication. It is found that there are universally two types of Tag questions – (i) the invariable type and (ii) the (modal) verbal type, which correspond to the question-types in Chinese syntax. Previous research by Culivocer (1992. English tag questions in Universal Grammar. Lingua 88. 193–226) analyzed English tag questions as a pro-IP structure that is bound by a previous sentence. However, in Chinese, two types of tag questions include both A-not-A form and particle form. Furthermore, both the two kinds of tag questions display syntactic predication between the tag and an empty subject pro. An abbreviated “yes-no question” is attached to empty CP/DP constituents in these constructions.

Seeing is believing

Abstract Verbs of perception are known for their prolific use in various non-literal functions that are usually argued to have developed from their denotational semantics (San Roque, Kendrick, Norcliffe & Majid 2018). In this study we document interactional practices involving the Estonian 2nd person verb form näed ’you see’ to demonstrate that its usage is anchored in face-to-face situations where the speaker guides a co-present other’s visual attention. Through multimodal analysis we show how näed is coordinated with the participants’ body orientations, gestures, and gazes to point to visually available proof for one’s current arguments, rendering it an evidential meaning even in its most “literal” uses of seeing, when a co-participant is invited to consider the visual evidence. We argue that the spatially anchored uses constitute a natural habitat of verbs of seeing, as visual perception is a mutually calibrated interactional accomplishment. Relevant syntactic constructions emerge in real time conversation where näed, calling for a visual orientation, is either preceded or followed by clausal specifications of what is to be seen, which makes it look like a particle. This challenges the argument that perception verbs start out as syntactic predicates in full clauses to then develop other uses.

Danguolės Mikulėnienės mokslinės veiklos metmenys

Danguolės Mikulėnienės mokslinės veiklos metmenys

Focus marking in Bura: semantic uniformity matches syntactic heterogeneity

The present article introduces a theory of (morpho-)syntactic focus marking on nominal categories in Bura, a Central Chadic SVO language spoken in the northeast of Nigeria. Our central claim is that the particle an plays a crucial role in the marking of subject and non-subject focus. We put forward a uniform analysis of an as a focus copula that selects for syntactic predicates of type and a focused constituent of type . This uniform semantic representation is transparently mapped onto different syntactic structures: In a clause with a focused subject, the focus copula appears between the subject in SpecTP and the predicative VP. On the other hand, syntactically focused non-subjects are fronted and appear in a bi-clausal cleft structure that contains the focus copula and a relative cleft-remnant. The non-uniform analysis of focus marking is further supported by the structure of predicative constructions, in which the focus copula separates the focused subject and the adjectival or nominal predicate. It is also shown that alternative unified analyses fail to account for the full range of Bura data. The latter part of the article provides an analysis of the Bura cleft construction. Based on syntactic and semantic evidence, we come to the conclusion that the clefted constituent is base-generated in its initial surface position, and that an empty operator moves within the relative clause. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the potential conceptual reasons behind the observed subject/non-subject asymmetry in Bura.

Rethinking Split Ergativity In Chol

All Mayan languages exhibit ergative–absolutive systems of agreement. However, Chol and some other members of the family display aspectually based splits: while perfective clauses show the expected ergative–absolutive alignment, imperfective and progressive (hereafter “nonperfective”) clauses show a nominative–accusative alignment (Larsen and Norman 1979, Bricker 1981, and Quizar and Knowles-Berry 1988). In addition to this difference in agreement, there are also important differences in stem morphology between perfective and nonperfective stems. I argue in this paper that nonperfective forms in Chol are formally possessed nominals. The main syntactic predicate is in fact the aspect marker, which shows absolutive agreement with its sole argument, the nominalized clause. Under this analysis, all predicates in Chol show an ergative–absolutive pattern of agreement. The illusion of split ergativity results from the nominalization of the notional predicate, along with the fact that ergative and genitive morphemes are identical in Mayan languages. This proposal builds on the suggestion in Larsen and Norman (1979) that the majority of splits in the Mayan family may be reduced to subordination.

Предложные фразы как предикаты в русском языке<br>(Prepositional phrases as predicates in Russian)

According to valency properties PPs can be divided into those with semantic and those with syntactic preposition. Amongst the latter (which here are referred to as PRPs) we must distinguish those which behave as predicates and those which don't, that is PRPs with and PRPs withoutvalency.The paper deals with PRPs functioning as predicates. These are treated as transforms of more underived constructions. Often the PRP functionsas part of the syntactic predicate, together with the copula or an empty verb. There are cases when it is not easy to decide whether the preposition is semantic or syntactic, or whether the verb is empty or not.

Object specificity in Chinese: A view from the vP periphery

This article deals with an indicative-modal asymmetry in Chinese, where a variety of specificity effects are found in fronted object indefinites. To provide a coherent solution under the cartographic approach (Rizzi 1997, Cinque 1999), we propose that there are two types of landing sites for Chinese object fronting: The outer focus position is in the left periphery, and occupied by a specific nominal. By contrast, the inner focus position is located in the peripheral area around vP (a clause-internal focus in Belletti 's 2004 terms), where a bare NP is interpreted as specific in realis sentences, but non-specific in irrealis sentences. It is argued that this object specificity follows from a dynamic mechanism of syntax-semantics mapping encoded in the Extended Mapping Hypothesis, and should be treated on a par with Chinese subject specificity. Along this line, we are able to lay out the topography of Chinese foci based on the inner-outer dichotomy, and provide a solution to the indicative-modal asymmetry through the interaction between syntactic predication and aspectual quantification.

A Pinch of Salt for Frege

Michael Dummett has argued that a formal semantics for our language is inadequate unless it can be shown to illuminate to our actual practice of speaking and understanding. This paper argues that Frege’s account of the semantics of predicate expressions according to which the reference of a predicate is a concept (a function from objects to truth values) has exactly the required characteristics. The first part of the paper develops a model for understanding the distinction between objects and concepts as an ontological distinction. It argues that, ontologically, we can take a Fregean function to be generated by a property detection device that can register for any object the presence or absence of that property. This provides a direct connection between the semantics of sentences and the structure of perceptual judgment. The second part of the paper deals with arguments that have been mounted against the coherence of Frege’s semantics. It argues that some of these are question begging, while others are correct in so far as Frege’s claim is untenable if we assume that the syntactic categories singular term and predicate are primary, and the ontological categories are simply projections of these syntactic categories. However, the objections dissipate once we recognize that an independent ontological characterization of the distinction is available.

Semantic composition in reflexivization

It has been commonly assumed since Chomsky (1981) that the distribution of reflexive pronouns is subject to Binding Condition A. Reinhart and Reuland (1993) formulate Condition A in terms of the notion of syntactic predicate. The proposal I will develop in this paper is to factor out semantic and syntactic conditions on the occurrence of reflexive pronouns and to reduce them to independently motivated semantic and syntactic mechanisms. The semantic part is attributed to a theory of semantic composition recently developed by Chung and Ladusaw (2004), while the syntactic residue falls into the proper characterization of syntactic chains, as proposed by Reinhart and Reuland (1993) and Reuland (2001). To the extent that this approach is successful, Binding Condition A is rendered superfluous.

Actions and their Results in Greek and English: The Complementarity of Morphologically Encoded (Viewpoint) Aspect and Syntactic Resultative Predication

This article addresses the issue of why some languages permit the interpretation of what are basically simple-action transitive verbs (e.g. beat) as causative change-of-state verbs in the context of a 'resultative' adjective (e.g. beat the metal flat), while others do not. This crosslinguistic asymmetry has not received an entirely satisfactory explanation, despite the fact that resultative predication has been widely discussed from a variety of perspectives. We note that languages show a systematic correlation between (1) the presence of a grammaticalized opposition between perfective and imperfective aspect lexically/morphologically encoded in verb forms and (2) the absence of secondary syntactic predication encoding result states in combination with verbs otherwise denoting simple actions. Greek and English are taken as representative of the two 'types' of language. Building on the insights of Talmy (1985), Tenny (1987, 1994) and Snyder (1995), among others, an explanation is proposed for the absence of such secondary predication in Greek and similar languages based on the restrictive effects of grammatical aspect marking on the contextual (re)interpretation of a verb's inherent aspectual character (Aktionsart)-effects which render impossible the conversion by syntactic means of VPs denoting atelic activities into VPs denoting accomplishments. We also show that the 'failure' of some languages to allow the unaccusativization of agentive verbs of motion (e.g. unergative walked in the park v. unaccusative walked into the park) is closely related to this issue, though the outcome is also subject to a given language having the resources to mark 'goals' unambiguously. An important conclusion of the analysis is that the 'deficit' of languages like Greek in not encoding such resultative predication syntactically is not syntactic in character, but located at the interface of inflectional morphology and lexical semantics.

Syntactical truth predicates for formulas with atomic negation

We define a language for second-order arithmetic using the (positive) connectives ∧ and ∨, the (positive) quantifiers ∀ and ∃, and with negation ‘pushed to the atoms’ under the form of atomic formula teu, t≠u, t∈X, t∈X where t and u stand for first-order terms and X for a second-order variable.We define and study the translation from this language to the more usual implicational language containing the entailment connective →. We also study the converse translation. Next we define the appropriate notion of syntactical truth predicate for this language (such a notion has been introduced for the implicational language in Colson and Grigorieff (1998)). We establish using the previous translations that the existence of such a predicate for this language is equivalent to the the existence of such a predicate for the implicational language. This result is established in a predicative formal system. We conclude by discussing some elementary attempts to construct such a truth predicate by a fixed point technique.

On Subject Specificity and Theory of Syntax-Semantics Interface.

This paper distinguishes two types of language, V-to-I type vs. V-to-V type, with a view to deriving two distinct patterns of associating (non-)specific interpretations with subject positions. In the former type, verbs move to a higher functional head, either overtly or covertly, and non-specific numeral indefinites may appear in [Spec, TP] at S-structure. This is the case with English, where cardinal subjects are commonplace. In the latter type, verbs do not move to a higher functional head, and non-specific numeral indefinites cannot appear in [Spec, TP] at S-structure. This is the case with Chinese, where cardinal subjects are relatively rare. Developing the idea that syntax-semantics mapping is cyclic and closely aligned with syntactic predication, we provide a principled account of an asymmetry between Chinese declarative and modal constructions with respect to their subject specificity.

A Theorem Concerning Syntactical Treatments Of Nonidealized Belief

In ‘Syntactical Treatments of Modality, with Corollaries on Reflexion Principles and Finite Axiomatizability’, Acta Philosophica Fennica16 (1963), 153–167, Richard Montague shows that the use of a single syntactic predicate (with a context-independent semantic value) to represent modalities of alethic necessity and idealized knowledge leads to inconsistency. In ‘A Note on Syntactical Treatments of Modality’, Synthese44 (1980), 391–395, Richmond Thomason obtains a similar impossibility result for idealized belief: under a syntactical treatment of belief, the assumption that idealized belief is deductively closed, together with certain other plausible conditions on idealized belief, imply that an ideal believer with consistent beliefs cannot believe the truth of Robinson's Arithmetic. In this essay I show that an impossibility result similar to Thomason's can be obtained which does not assume that belief is deductively closed or ideal in any other way.

Syntactic predication in Japanese

This paper argues that Japanese provides evidence for an independent syntactic relation of predication. Predication is shown to be an independent syntactic relation in two respects. First, evidence from the multiple nominative construction in Japanese and two constructions in English demonstrates that predication is independent of the thematic structure of heads: a phrase may be the subject of a syntactic predicate in the absence of θ-role assignment. Second, it is argued that the subject—predicate relation is defined in configurational terms: a syntactic predicate is a maximal projection, and must have a subject in an external position. Consequently, complements of the verb cannot be syntactic subjects. This prediction is borne out by theDat-Nom constructions in Japanese, where the nominative argument is not a syntactic subject. These constructions are contrasted with apparently parallel constructions in German, the different behavior of which is argued to follow from the existence of a null expletive in this language. Finally, on the basis of the data presented in the paper, a revision to the θ-Criterion is proposed.

The consistency of syntactical treatments of knowledge1 (How to compile quantificational modal logics into classical FOL)

The relative expressive power of a sentential operator □α is compared to that of a syntactical predicate L(‘α’) in the setting of first‐order logics. Despite well‐known results by Montague and by Thomason that claim otherwise, any of the so‐called “modal” logics of knowledge and belief can be compiled into classical first‐order logics that have a corresponding predicate on sentences. Moreover, through the use of a partial truth predicate, the standard modal axiom schemata can be translated into single sentences, making it possible to use conventional first‐order logic theorem provers to directly derive results in a wide class of modal logics.

On the existence of a modal antinomy

1. Our interest here is in the relations between the syntactical predicate fi_is true' and the syntactical modal predicates such as '_is necessary', *_is possible', '_is contingent', and *_entails...' That there should be similarities between these predicates is not surprising since the modal predicates are so-called because they deal with what used to be known as 'modes' of truth. '_is necessary', for example, is synonymous with '_is necessarily true'. The alleged pre-analytic view of the correct use of the predicate *_ is true' is that we may accept all instances of the schema