A discourse-pragmatic study of the word order variation in Chinese relative clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Ming ◽  
Liang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Pragmatic Study

scholarly journals Ledstilling i ledsætninger i dansk som arvesprog i Argentina. Et foreløbigt studium

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (23) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sofie Hartling
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Incomplete Acquisition

This paper presents a case study of word order variation in subordinate clauses (henceforth ‘subclauses’) in Heritage Danish in Argentina. In European Danish, the placement of the sentence adverbial traditionally distinguishes so-called main clause word order (conj>S>Vfin>Adv) and subclause word order (conj>S>Adv>Vfin). The paper shows that this normative distinction still holds in more than half of the subclauses in Heritage Danish in Argentina, and, except for the relative clauses, to an even higher degree than in colloquial European Danish. Hence, the word order distribution in Heritage Danish also differs from Heritage Norwegian and Swedish where word order in subclauses has become optional due to incomplete acquisition of the heritage language.

Duplicity in possessive merger: evidence from Spanish alienable possessive constructions

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-412
Author(s):  
Sangyoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Core ◽  
Internal Category ◽  
Direct Modification ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Principled Explanation

Abstract In this paper, I argue that Spanish prenominal and postnominal possessives target different external merge positions focusing on alienable possessive constructions. The analysis is developed alongside a proposal on the organization of DPs, according to which articles are merged as a DP-internal category between the domains assigned to direct and indirect modifiers. Prenominal possessives are determiners reanalyzed from direct modification adjectives whereas postnominal possessives are indirect modification adjectives that arise as predicates of reduced relative clauses. This analysis provides a principled explanation on the behavior of Spanish possessives that is lacking in the generalized idea that they are pronouns with a unique merge position. Arguments are also presented showing that syntax-driven phonological restrictions condition the derivation of DPs. The account successfully derives the core properties of word order variation and related issues within possessive constructions.

A corpus-based analysis of word order variation in Yami relative clause construction

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-122
Author(s):  
Hui-Huan Chang ◽  
D. Victoria Rau
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Grammatical Roles ◽  
The Given

Abstract Yami relative clauses (RCs) can either precede the head noun, for example, kanakan ‘child,’ as in ko ni-ma-cita o [ji yákneng] a kanakan ‘I saw the child who cannot hold still’, functioning as restrictive RCs ([RC] + a + Head NP), or follow it as in ko ni-ma-cita o kanakan a [ji yákneng] ‘I saw that child, who cannot hold still’, functioning as nonrestrictive RCs for complementation strategy (Head NP + a + [RC]). The VARBRUL results demonstrate that head final RCs are predominant in Yami, and Yami speakers use them to connect the given referent with the previous discourse to convey given information. The study found that Subject head nouns outnumber other grammatical roles of head NPs, and that Subject head noun with Subject RC construction is produced more than any other RC constructions, which indicates that Yami RCs are used to modify the Subject for topic continuity.

The relative cycle in Hungarian declaratives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Fixed Order ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Head Positions

This chapter examines word order variation and change in the high CP-domain of Hungarian embedded clauses containing the finite subordinating C head hogy ‘that’. It is argued that the complementizer hogy developed from an operator of the same morphophonological form, meaning ‘how’, and that its grammaticalization path develops in two steps. In addition to the change from an operator, located in a specifier, into a C head (specifier-to-head reanalysis), the fully grammaticalized complementizer hogy also changed its relative position on the CP-periphery, ultimately occupying the higher of two C head positions (upward reanalysis). Other complementizers that could co-occur with hogy in Old Hungarian eventually underwent similar reanalysis processes. Hence the possibility of accommodating two separate C heads in the left periphery was lost and variation in the relative position of complementizers was replaced by a fixed order.

OV versus VO in Old High German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
The Right

This chapter surveys the word order variation in the right periphery of the clause in OHG. The investigation is based on a corpus including all dependent clauses introduced by the complementizer thaz ‘that’ in the minor OHG documents, a collection of up to forty smaller texts of various genres. The analysis shows that the majority of the data can be explained within a standard OV grammar, assuming additional extraposition of heavy XPs to the right. But apart from these cases, there is evidence supporting the assumption of leftward movement of the verb to an intermediate functional projection vP which is optional with basic OV but obligatory with basic VO. In addition, the chapter presents patterns which evidently involve verb movement to a higher functional head, above vP, and discusses the nature of the landing site of the verb in these cases.

Syntactic complexity, discourse status and animacy as determinants of grammatical variation in Modern English

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELENA SEOANE
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Corpus Data

The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the syntactic, pragmatic and semantic determinants of word-order variation in Modern English, exemplified by the specific case of the use of long passives as order-rearranging devices. Word order in English and in most other SVO languages is affected by a number of factors such as animacy, semantic role, discourse status and syntactic complexity (Sornicola 2006). In this article, which analyses the influence of such factors in the use of long passives, I will try to show that their effects are construction-specific; in particular, that factors which are crucial in determining word order in some constructions – factors such as the animacy of the constituents involved – are entirely overruled by others in the case of Modern English long passives. Corpus data presented here will also serve to address issues pertaining to the nature of the determinants of grammatical variation, such as their independent versus epiphenomenal character, their interactions, and the locus of their effects on word order.

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