Some Interdefinability Results for Syntactic Constraint Classes

2010 ◽  
pp. 72-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Graf
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Constraint

Early, but not overwhelming: The effect of prior context on segmenting overlapping ambiguous strings when reading Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (9) ◽  
pp. 1382-1395
Author(s):  
Linjieqiong Huang ◽  
Xingshan Li
Keyword(s):  
Word Segmentation ◽  
Neutral Condition ◽  
Context Information ◽  
Prior Context ◽  
Fixation Durations ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
Reading Chinese ◽  
Informative Condition

The current study investigated how the prior context influences word segmentation of overlapping ambiguous strings when reading Chinese. Chinese readers’ eye movements were recorded as they read sentences containing a three-character overlapping ambiguous string (ABC), where both AB and BC were two-character words. In the informative condition, prior contexts provided syntactic information that supported either the first word segmentation (AB-C) or the second word segmentation (A-BC). The neutral condition did not provide syntactic constraint for word-segmentation. The post-target contexts were syntactically consistent with either the first word (AB-C) or the second word (A-BC) segmentation. The results showed that there were higher skipping rates and shorter first-fixation durations on the overlapping ambiguous string region in the informative AB-C condition than those in the informative A-BC condition, whereas no difference between the AB-C and A-BC segmentation types was found in the neutral condition. Readers still made regressions into the overlapping ambiguous string region in the informative condition. These results imply that readers use sentence context information immediately to segment the overlapping ambiguous words, but they do not use the context information fully. The first word (AB) has processing advantages over the second word (BC), suggesting a left-side word advantage.

French subject island constraint?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-128
Author(s):  
Elodie Winckel ◽  
Anne Abeillé
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Syntactic Constraint

Summary We present new experimental results (corpora and experiments) showing that extraction out of subject, compared with extraction out of object, obeys a pragmatic constraint and not a syntactic constraint. We show how such a constraint can be formalized in an HPSG grammar of French which views relative clauses, wh-questions and it-clefts as different constructions.

scholarly journals A Centering Theory Analysis of Discrepancies on Subject Zero Anaphor in English to Thai Translation

MANUSYA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Saranya Pathanasin ◽  
Wirote Aroonmanakun
Keyword(s):  
Transition State ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
Centering Theory ◽  
Language Pair

Centering theory (CT) has been adopted in analyzing 84 zero anaphors in 50 informative texts. It is found that most zero anaphors occur in Continuation state both in English texts (source texts (ST)) and Thai translation (target texts (TT)). Zero anaphors in the TT outnumber those in ST and are found in more environments. In terms of translation, most zero anaphors in source texts remain in the same form in the target texts although some items are translated into different anaphor forms. Results indicate that zero anaphor is used to keep discourse coherence and to refer to the backward-looking center (Cb) of current utterances in both languages. Therefore, most zero anaphors in source texts are translated into zero anaphors in target texts when the CT transition state of utterances in source texts and target texts is Continuation, and are translated into other anaphors when the CT transition state in source texts is changed to another transition state in the target texts. Constraints in translation of zero anaphors can be explained in terms of anaphor interpretation, salience of entities, syntactic constraint, and naturalness of translation. However, this paper focuses only on one type of anaphor, namely subject zero anaphor; investigation of other types of anaphor will reveal other discrepancies in using and translating anaphors from this language pair.

scholarly journals COMP-trace effects in German: the role of processing

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Ankelien Schippers ◽  
Margreet Vogelzang ◽  
David Öwerdieck
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Controversial Issue ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Data Support ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
The Status ◽  
Embedded Clause

This article reports on the processing and comprehension of COMP-trace violations in German. The status of the COMP-trace effect in German is a controversial issue. It has been argued that judgments on long-distance (LD) subject questions are distorted because of parsing problems in the main clause, the embedded clause, or both, and that LD subject questions are sometimes misinterpreted as object questions. Our self-paced reading data shows that processing difficulties with LD subject questions occur in the embedded clause, not the main clause, particularly at the point at which an embedded subject gap is postulated. Our study furthermore shows that readers are garden-pathed towards object readings of subject long-distance questions, but only when the embedded clause contains a case-ambiguous DP. A case-ambiguous DP thus functions as a superficial work-around for a COMP-trace violation. As we argue, our data support the view that German has a genuine COMP-trace effect and that potential parsing problems only occur in the context of local ambiguities. We propose that differences in the magnitude and fatality of COMP-trace violations between languages can be explained by formulating the COMP-trace effect in terms of accessibility, rather than a categorical syntactic constraint.

Adjectival modification in Truku Seediq

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 602-633
Author(s):  
Claire Saillard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Elicitation Method ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
The Right ◽  
Nominal Position

Abstract This paper investigates the position of adjectives in noun phrases in Truku Seediq, proposing that the two documented positions correspond to different semantics as well as a difference in syntax. While post-nominal adjectives, corresponding to basic word-order in Truku Seediq, may be either restrictive or descriptive, pre-nominal adjectives, seen as an innovation, are semantically restrictive. This paper also argues for a difference in syntactic structure for both kinds of adjectives, restrictive adjectives heading their own projection while descriptive adjectives are bare adjectives standing in a closer relationship to the modified noun. This paper further identifies a syntactic constraint for pre-nominal adjectival placement that applies regardless of restrictivity of the modifier, namely the presence of a possessive clitic to the right of the modified noun. Data collection is achieved through both a traditional elicitation method and an experimental task-based method. Data are further digitalized in order to ensure systematic searchability. The data thus collected are apt to support semantic analysis as well as an investigation of age-group-related variation. It is claimed that language contact with Mandarin Chinese may be one of the triggering factors for the development of a pre-nominal position for modifying adjectives in Truku Seediq.

Spanish embedded question island effects revisited: an experimental study

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Pañeda ◽  
Dave Kush
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Structural Difference ◽  
Constraint Violation ◽  
Embedded Questions ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
Syntactic Islands

Abstract It is often reported that embedded questions (EQs) are not syntactic islands in Spanish. However, some authors have observed that the acceptability of filler-gap dependencies (FGDs) into Spanish EQs varies with the EQ-embedding verb: FGDs into EQs under responsive verbs (e.g., know) do not result in island effects, but FGDs into EQs under rogative verbs (e.g., ask) do yield island effects. One account attributes the contrast to a structural difference between the two EQs, due to which ask-EQs violate Bounding constraints, but know-EQs do not. In two acceptability studies we investigated the reliability of verb-dependent island effects in EQs introduced by si ‘whether’ and cuándo ‘when’. We found no qualitative acceptability differences between ask and know EQ-island sentences, suggesting that the syntactic islandhood of Spanish EQs is not verb-dependent. Nevertheless, average island effects were numerically greater with ask, suggesting the presence of a non-syntactic constraint. In addition, FGDs into whether-EQs were generally acceptable, whereas FGDs into when-EQs obtained unacceptable average ratings and highly variable judgments. We argue that in neither case there is a Bounding constraint violation. Instead we explore alternative potential explanations for the differences in terms of features, presuppositions and processing pressures.

scholarly journals Probing the nature of an island constraint with a parsed corpus: A case study on the Coordinate Structure Constraint in Japanese

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Kubota ◽  
Ai Kubota
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Coordinate Structure ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
The Status ◽  
Structure Constraint ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Coordinate Structure Constraint

This paper presents a case study of the use of the NINJAL Parsed Corpus of Modern Japanese (NPCMJ) for syntactic research. NPCMJ is the first phrase structure-based treebank for Japanese that is specifically designed for application in linguistic (in addition to NLP) research. After discussing some basic methodological issues pertaining to the use of treebanks for theoretical linguistics research, we introduce our case study on the status of the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC) in Japanese, showing that NPCMJ enables us to easily retrieve examples that support one of the key claims of Kubota and Lee (2015): that the CSC should be viewed as a pragmatic, rather than a syntactic constraint. The corpus-based study we conducted moreover revealed a previously unnoticed tendency that was highly relevant for further clarifying the principles governing the empirical data in question. We conclude the paper by briefly discussing some further methodological issues brought up by our case study pertaining to the relationship between linguistic research and corpus development.

scholarly journals The Default Case in Standard Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Mansour Alotaibi
Keyword(s):  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Structural Mechanism ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Default Case ◽  
Multiple Cross ◽  
Syntactic Constraint

The default Case is a common phenomenon in Universal Grammar (UG). There are some languages which require that all Noun Phrases have Case. For these languages default Case meets something that has become known as the Case Filter (Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980). This is to say, if a particular Noun Phrase is not assigned a Case in association with some specification in some other part of the grammar, then default Case assignment principle can apply. Typical cross-linguistic default Cases are Nominative or Genitive, though the value of the default Case can vary from one language to another. While the default Case in English is accusative, it is nominative in most languages. The default mechanism which assigns this value is only invoked when the structural mechanism is not applicable. This paper argues, by citing multiple cross-linguistic examples, that assumption of a default Case in a language accounts for a better understanding of its syntactic and morphological structure. Based on Schütze’s (2001) proposal for English, it develops a theory to account for the default Case in Standard Arabic (SA). It argues that nominal expressions in SA do not receive nominative Case by assignment of other syntactic means. As such, its mechanism does not interact with the Case Filter, which is assumed to be a syntactic constraint. This paper shows that diverse phenomena in the distribution of nominative nominal expressions in SA can be treated using default Case. Previous studies have ample evidence that such phenomena from other languages have proved that instances for default Case are common, and furthermore, that there are opportunities within the Case framework to reduce the cross-linguistic differences in Case patterns in the event of choosing a default Case. 

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