Temporal Clauses Research Articles

The grammaticalization of the particlelein Mandarin Chinese

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the grammaticalization process ofliaoas a main verb in 10th-century vernacular texts toleas an aspectual particle in modern Chinese. I propose that two processes are involved. First, with the “resultative construction” coming into existence in the language, some instances ofliaowere reanalyzed as the phase complement of the new morphological construction. Second, other instances of the verb began to lose their verbness by taking sentential subjects and occurring in temporal clauses only. These processes gave rise to the positional change ofliaofrom after the complement of the verb to before the complement of the verb ofle.

La Localisation Temporelle

The paper proposes a new approach to temporal clauses and temporal adverbs, which are mostly said to "localize" the main verb. In recent work of Vicenzo Lo Cascio and others, temporal clauses and adverbs are treated completely differently and independently. We want to show that they should be handled together. Therefore, we start from a different conception of temporal localization, based on non-linguistic localization, as used in f.e. geography. So, we are able to show similarities between temporal clauses and adverbs. Our conclusion is that the localizer is always the time interval which is situated at the background, although it is not necessarily expressed by the temporal clause or adverb. On the contrary, a temporal clause or adverb can also be localized by the verb of the main clause.

Deficits in sentence comprehension: Are they syntactic? Comments on Stein, Cairns, and Zurif

In a recent paper in Applied Psycholinguistics, Stein, Cairns, and Zurif (1984) demonstrate that reading disabled children perform at a less advanced level relative to normals of the same age in comprehending a number of complex sentence types, including sentences with temporal adverbial clauses, such as (1): 1. The pig kissed the cow after jumping over the fence. (Please see erratum page at back of this issue for the corrected figures concerning this sentence from the Stein, Cairns, and Zurif article.)While adults require the (missing) subject of jump in (1) to be interpreted as coreferential with the main clause subject (the pig in the example), normal children are frequently 6 or older before they develop this restriction, permitting a direct object NP (the cow in the example) to be made subject of (to control) the temporal clause. Stein et al. demonstrate that reading disabled children are slower than normals to develop the adult rule, a finding that generalized over both their comprehension of written and spoken language. In what follows, I point out some difficulties with the analysis of the adult grammar and normal development that Stein et al. adopt, and speculate on alternative ways of dealing with the facts of grammar and development for sentences of type (1). To the extent that these speculations are correct, our view of the nature of deficits may also be changed.

"And have they fixed the where and when?": temporal clause placement in Ælfric's Lives of Saints

"And have they fixed the where and when?": temporal clause placement in Ælfric's Lives of Saints

The Sequence of Tenses in French Temporal Clauses

Grammarians have long made explicit the relationship existing between the tense of the main verb of certain types of sentences and the tenses employed in dependent clauses of these sentences. Thus conditional sentences have long been described as containing one of the following sets of sequences: future/present indicative, conditional/imperfect, conditional anterior/pluperfect. I According to this description, sentence (1) is acceptable while (2) is considered to be ungrammatical.

Leo T. Phillips: The Subordinate Temporal, Causal, and Adversative Clauses in the Works of St. Ambrose. Pp. xiv + 165. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1937. Paper, $2.

Leo T. Phillips: The Subordinate Temporal, Causal, and Adversative Clauses in the Works of St. Ambrose. Pp. xiv + 165. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1937. Paper, $2.

The Syntax of the Temporal Clause in Old English Prose

The Syntax of the Temporal Clause in Old English Prose

Temporal Clauses in the Aeneid. In Two Parts—Part I

Temporal Clauses in the Aeneid. In Two Parts—Part I

Temporal Clauses in Cicero's Epistles

Temporal Clauses in Cicero's Epistles

Temporal Clauses in Herodotus

Temporal Clauses in Herodotus

Contributions to Avestan Syntax, the Subordinate Clause

A STUDY of the subordinate clause in Avestan is important for the syntax of Indo-Germanic as well as of Indo-Iranian, since Avestan, Old Persian, Sanskrit, and Greek are the only dialects which have preserved the primitive distinction between the sub.junctive and the optative, the chief moods of the subordinate clause. In view of previous contributions' to this subject, I shall confine myself to temporal, causal, characteristic, and final clauses, and to the types which may be called indirect question and indirect discourse. In such clauses the indicative seems to denote reality, while the dependent moods, subjunctive, optative, and injunctive express more or less desirable contingencies. The same modal distinctions, I think, hold here which I have sought to show elsewhere in my studies on the syntax of the Avesta (Annals N. Y. Acad. Sciences, xii. 549-552, 562). 'lhe conjunctions which introduce subordinate clauses in Avestan are yat (GAv. hyat), yaO4, yad4l, yavat, yavata, ya&5it, and compound conjunctions one of whose parts is derived from the stem ya-. The cognates of Avestan yaare given by Hermann, Gab es im Indogermanisehen Ncbensdtze, lena Diss. = KZ. xxxiii. 481-535 [cited here as Diss.], 14, Pronomen *Los als Adjektivum, Coburger Programnm [cited here as Pr.], 15-16. The etymological equivalents of yavata, ya&5it, and vispam &a ahmnat yat are not found as conju1nctions in other Indo-Germanic dialects. The original meaning of yais somewhat doubtful. Hermann after an exhaustive discussion concludes that Taos was originally an anaphoric substantive, and that the relative pronoun Taos was derived from it (Pr., 16, 26). This does not seem to me as plausible as the older view that Laos was originally an anaphoric adjective which later developed a relative signification (Windiseb, Curt. Stud., ii. 201-419, Jolly, 72-73, 119-120, Spiegel, 525-527, Delbrftck, SF i. 30-32, 103, Hermann, Diss., 13-16, Streitberg,