Tough Construction Research Articles

Direct synthesis of construction material from low-quality sand reacted with KOH and ethanol

A strong construction material was synthesised directly from low-quality sand (defined as the sand that particle size smaller than 250 μm) via the sol–gel method with ethanol as the solvent. Appropriate KOH content and ethanol concentration could improve the reaction degree and promote the compressive strength. The main results indicated that the specimen with 50 mass% KOH and 80 v/v% EtOH had the highest strength (>25 MPa) with the lowest porosity (5.79%). The high strength was attributed to microcline and tetraethoxysilane formation. Microcline was formed due to the dissolution and reorganization of Si-O-Si(Al) bonds in the raw sand, leading to a more homogenous structure and the decrease in the porosity. Formed tetraethoxysilane was a good consolidate, which could function as glue to further increase the strength. The carbon emission of the sand-based material in the construction phase was 233 kg CO2 eq/m2, which could be greatly reduced after reusing waste solution and utilizing waste heat. Therefore, a tough construction material was synthesised, which can partially substitute concrete, thus addressing the problem of insufficient concrete raw materials.

French missing object constructions

This paper discusses a class of French à-infinitival constructions, where the missing direct object corresponds to an external argument, either being the antecedent noun in an attributive use, or else a raised argument in a subject or object predication or in the tough construction.  We investigate the internal and external properties of these constructions and show that (i) the construction displays passive-like properties and (ii) control and raising verbs may intervene between the marker à and the missing object verb, as shown on the basis of a corpus study. We observe that while the construction as a whole behaves like a passive where the erstwhile logical object ends up being promoted to external argument, the logical subject is still accessible for control, both from within the à-infinitive and from outside. Building on Grover (1995), we analyse these double subjects by way of a two-step passivisation, where the direct object valency is lexically promoted to subject without concomitant subject demotion. Raising of the missing object as a secondary subject will make it available on the marker à, which finally promotes it to external argument, thereby completing the passivisation effect. The present analysis thus captures the full set of à-infinitival missing object constructions in a unified fashion, capturing its passive-like properties and the extended domain of locality.

A Study on the Middle Construction in Mandarin Chinese--A Prototype Middle Construction Perspective

English middle construction (MC) is one of the most heatedly discussed language phenomenon, however, disagreements and inconsistencies still exist among scholars as for the research scope of the Chinese MC. Based on the prototype elements of English MC, this paper compares the features of those constructions in different scholars’ paper and pin down which one is the prototype of Chinese MC and offer an order of their closeness to the prototype. Findings and explanations are demonstrated as follows: firstly, under the framework of prototype theory, it is argued that MC has its own prototype. The author assumes” the bread slices smoothly” as the English prototype for the high frequency of being cited at discussing the related topics of MC in literature. The prototypical properties of prototype elements are presented below: (1) implicit agent; (2) active in form; (3) simple present tense; (4) patient subject; (5) primary responsibility of subject; (6) adverb and experiencer sub-role of agent; (7) the aspect of the middle verb is either activity or accomplishment verb; (8) general modality reading; (9) causative and affected subject. Secondly, a closer look at Chinese MC is conducted, which reveals that different scholars have different ideas on what kind of construction is Chinese MC. Taking the prototype elements of prototypical English middle construction as criterion, the author compares the constructions in those scholars’ paper with them and finds out that they share different number of features. Construction in Yu &Si’s paper and parts of construction in Cao’s paper are regarded as typical Chinese MC because they share all the prototype elements of prototypical English MC. Their closeness to the prototype depends on the number of similarities they have in common. The author ranks these constructions from the most typical member to the worst member in the following order: Yu &Si, He, Chen, Ding, Cao, and GU. They structure around the prototype and exhibit graded centrality to the prototype. Thirdly, this paper also explains why the same construction can be classified into different grammatical categories, to be more specific, why the construction in Ding’s paper is regarded as notional-passives and construction in Chen’s paper is classified into the grammatical category of tough construction. According to prototype theory, category has fuzzy boundaries and a category may merge with neighboring category, therefore, MC merges with notional-passives and tough construction for they have overlapping areas.

Learnability in the acquisition of the English tough construction by L1-Korean adult and child L2 learners

In the English tough construction (TC), knowledge of tough movement is necessary for target performance (the object-interpretation only; e.g. Johni is easy to see ei). The acquisition of the English TC raises a learnability problem for first-language (L1) Korean learners of English as a second language (L2): (1) Korean has no tough movement; (2) no input dictates that the ‘subject interpretation’ is disallowed in the English TC; and (3) no classroom instruction covers the English TC. According to the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis, L2 children – but not L2 adults – can overcome this learnability problem. L1-Korean adult ( n = 49) and child ( n = 30) L2 learners’ (L2ers’) knowledge of the English TC was assessed via a truth-value judgment task manipulating (1) verb transitivity to make the infinitival object gap more vs. less salient and (2) context to avoid vs. strengthen bias toward the (erroneous) subject interpretation. Notably, some high-proficiency adult L2ers showed significantly above-chance performance, despite the error-inducing manipulations, suggesting that adult L2ers can overcome the learnability problem.

Les adjectifs tough et le marquage de l’infinitif en néerlandais

En néerlandais, les adjectifs du type ‹difficile› ou ‹facile› entrent dans deux constructions qui se distinguent par la présence ou l’absence du complémenteur OM. L’objectif de cette étude est de montrer que ces deux constructions correspondent à deux analyses de la construction Tough proposées pour l’anglais et qu’elles donnent lieu à deux délimitations différentes de la classe des adjectifs tough . La construction appelée easy-to-please (avec OM) peut s’analyser comme une relative réduite, donc comme un ‹mouvement non A› alors que l’infinitif modal (sans OM) a les propriétés d’une structure à montée, donc de ‹mouvement A›. Nous montrons également que les adjectifs tough au sens strict, signifiant ‹difficile›, ‹facile›, ont une préférence nette pour la construction à infinitif modal, qui est donc la vraie construction Tough du néerlandais.

Des adjectifs tough dans des langues sans construction Tough ? Le cas du russe

En russe, les adjectifs signifiant ‹facile›, ‹difficile›, accompagnés d’un infinitif, ne présentent pas le phénomène de Object-to-Subject Raising (Rosenbaum 1967) puisque l’objet monté garde le cas qui lui est assigné par l’infinitif. La montée consiste donc en un simple changement de l’ordre des mots. Néanmoins, malgré l’absence d’une construction Tough sur le modèle de l’anglais, les adjectifs russes trudnyj ‹difficile›, legkij ‹facile›, etc. présentent des particularités par rapport aux autres adjectifs dans la mesure où ils sont les seuls à pouvoir entrer dans trois autres constructions : le passif réfléchi, le participe présent passif et une construction prépositionnelle en dlja ‹pour› + Ndéverbal. L’aptitude de ces adjectifs à entrer dans ces trois constructions confirme leur propension aux phénomènes de montée, due à leur affinité sémantique avec la modalité.

A Study on the Acquisition of Tough-Construction by Korean EFL Learners

The present study aims to inquire current linguistic approaches to the Tough Construction (TC) and examine how Korean EFL learners comprehend the TCs. Taking interdisciplinary approach to the TCs, the present study investigates how the Korean EFL learners acquire the TCs and whether their comprehension develops as a result of English proficiency development. Since Korean EFL learners at the age of 13 or 14 are likely to be first exposed to TCs according to the national curricula, 180 middle school students participated in this study. The findings indicate that Korean learners of English with low proficiency demonstrate two interpretations of the TC whereas learners with high proficiency performs in a target-like way only. The findings provide some useful pedagogical implications for teaching and learning English in general and specific structures in particular for English learners of different language proficiency levels. (Jijok Middle School, Kongju National University)

The Study of Syntactic Constituents and Meaning of the “NP+容易/难+V”

There is a special structure of “NP+容易/难+V” which is called Tough Construction in many studies of Modern Chinese. In this structure, even though the subject “NP” is actually the semantic object of the verb, the verb is still in active form but not in the passive form. There are many previous researches of this phenomenon, but most of them are framed in the syntactic structure or acquisition perspective. A comprehensive description and analysis of the syntactic constituents and meaning of this structure in the real textual environment as well as the analysis of the formation of this structure from the cognitive perspective have not been adequately performed. This article defines “NP+容易/难1+V” and “NP+容易/难2+V” according to the meaning which “容易”and “难”express, and analyzes the syntactic role of the NP , the selection of the verb and the syntactic meaning of the construction. This article concludes that “NP+容易/难1+V” and “NP+容易/难2+V” show the inherence relation in the syntactic meaning, and what this structure is expressing is the subjective evaluation and judgement of the possibility of the result or the difficulty of the operation of the verb. From the cognitive perspective, the more controlling the speaker is, the more prominent the semantic object might be, and the more possible the object becomes the focus of the sentence, with the subjectivity becoming stronger. For the case of the negative tone, the speaker adds distance to the semantic object, putting the semantic object in the back of the verb and the evaluation becoming more objective.

Rare -class adjectives in the tough -construction

I examine the behavior of rare and other frequency adjectives in the tough -construction (TC). Due to the effects of a heretofore overlooked semantic selectional restriction, such adjectives have not generally been recognized as grammatical in the TC. I show here that they do occur grammatically in this construction when the relevant selectional restriction is satisfied. Specifically, as it does in non-TC sentences, rare in the TC requires that its subject be kind-denoting, a requirement not imposed on the embedded-clause gap position whose reference the TC matrix subject controls. In this, TCs with rare exemplify a previously unattested selectional and thematic asymmetry in the construction. On their face, the facts appear to argue strongly in favor of treating the rare -TC matrix subject as a thematic argument of the TC matrix predicate, an intriguing and challenging prospect given the fact that such an analysis has been roundly (though not universally) rejected for canonical TCs. Instead, I take the prima facie counterintuitive position that the rare -TC matrix subject is not a thematic argument of the TC matrix predicate; I argue that rare -TCs are thematically and syntactically identical to canonical TCs in this respect. I propose that the kind-denotation requirement for rare -TC matrix subjects is imposed indirectly, through the interaction of a selectional restriction on the infinitival argument of rare and the Agree calculus (Chomsky 2000, 2001) that identifies the TC matrix subject with the embedded gap position whose reference it controls (Rezac 2004, 2006). Beyond its contribution to our theoretical understanding of the perennially thorny TC, the present study constitutes, to the best of my knowledge, the first detailed empirical investigation of the behavior of adjectives like rare in the TC.

On The Absence of Scope Reconstruction in Tough Subject A-Chains

On The Absence of Scope Reconstruction in <i>Tough</i> Subject A-Chains

Tough-Constructions and Their Derivation

This article addresses the syntax of the notorious tough(-movement) construction (TC) in English. TCs exhibit a range of apparently contradictory empirical properties suggesting that their derivation involves the application of both A-movement and Ā-movement operations. Within previous principles-and-parameters models, TCs have remained “unexplained and in principle unexplainable” (Holmberg 2000:839) because of incompatibility with constraints on θ-role assignment, locality, and Case. This article argues that the phase-based implementation of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2004) permits a reanalysis of null wh-operators capable of circumventing the previous theoretical difficulties. Essentially, tough-movement consists of A-moving a constituent out of a “complex” null operator that has already undergone Ā-movement, a “smuggling” construction in the terms proposed by Collins (2005a,b).

The Tough Construction is neither Extraction nor Control

Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Phonetics and Phonological Universals (1998)

Dynamism and Tough Constructions.

In this paper, a tough-moved sentence in English is analyzed within the framework of the Dynamic Model of Grammar developed mainly by Kajita (1977, 1986, 1992). It is shown that a tough construction like The book is easy to read is lexically or pragmatically extended from a simple basic predication sentence like The book is easy through syntactico-semantic discrepancy called meaning-concealment and the rule of syntactic realization. It will be argued that this extension hypothesis can account for many idiosyncratic problems concerning tough constructions, for example, (i) control of an empty subject in an embedded clause, (ii) strict semantic restriction in the selection of embedded verbs, and (iii) difference in syntactic behavior between an embedded infinitival clause of a tough-sentence and that of an eager-sentence.

On Tough Movement in Spanish

Competing analyses of the tough construction in Spanish (e.g., ellibro esfdcilde lee;') make some very different predictions concerning the kinds of predicate adjectives that can govern the construction as well as the co-occurrence of an acceptable it is counterpart (esfdcil leer el libro) . These predictions were recently tested in the grammatical judgment survey discussed in the present study. The results of the survey indicate, among other things, that the choice of adjectives which govern Spanish tough sentences varies from one speaker to another. However, there are some definite patterns that emerge from these judgments which lend credence to the claim that tough constructions and it is constructions are transformationably related.