scholarly journals The nature of V2 in Old French: Evidence from subject inversion in embedded clauses

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Zaring
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Old French ◽  
Structure Change ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Annotated Corpora

AbstractOld French (OF) is often characterized as a Germanic-style asymmetric V2 language, although this characterization is often questioned. The present study evaluates the nature of OF V2 from a quantitative perspective. An extensive set of data provided by syntactically annotated corpora shows that both IP and CP structure change over the OF period. Focusing on Germanic inversion – XVS word order – I argue that most of the attested inversion in OF occurs within an elaborated IP structure and that this type of subject inversion dwindles over time due to the decreasing use of null expletives. True Germanic-style embedded V2 does not appear until the late 12thcentury, and is only rarely used throughout the 13thcentury. Thus, OF is an asymmetric V2 language, but with a difference, namely in having an IP field that allows for apparent V2 orders and a CP field that is only marginally employed.

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.

Turkish and the Southwestern Turkic (Oghuz) languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 392-410
Author(s):  
Jaklin Kornfilt
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Modern Standard

The Southwestern (Oghuz) branch of Turkic consists of languages that are largely mutually intelligible, and are similar with respect to their structural properties. Because Turkish is the most prominent member of this branch with respect to number of speakers, and because it is the best-studied language in this group, this chapter describes modern standard Turkish as the representative of that branch and limits itself to describing Turkish. The morphology of Oghuz languages is agglutinative and suffixing; their phonology has vowel harmony for the features of backness and rounding; their basic word order is SOV, but most are quite free in their word order and are wh-in-situ languages; their relative clauses exhibit gaps corresponding to the clause-external head, and most embedded clauses are nominalized. Fully verbal embedded clauses are found, too. The lexicon, while largely Turkic, also has borrowings from Arabic, Persian, French, English, and Modern Greek and Italian.

scholarly journals Word order in heritage Russian: clause type and majority language matter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Zuban ◽  
Maria Martynova ◽  
Sabine Zerbian ◽  
Luka Szucsich ◽  
Natalia Gagarina
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
The Us ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Properties

AbstractHeritage speakers (HSs) are known to differ from monolingual speakers in various linguistic domains. The present study focuses on the syntactic properties of monolingual and heritage Russian. Using a corpus of semi-spontaneous spoken and written narratives produced by HSs of Russian residing in the US and Germany, we investigate HSs’ word order patterns and compare them to monolingual speakers of Russian from Saint Petersburg. Our results show that the majority language (ML) of HSs as well as the clause type contribute to observed differences in word order patterns between speaker groups. Specifically, HSs in Germany performed similarly to monolingual speakers of Russian while HSs in the US generally produced more SVO and less OVS orders than the speakers of the latter group. Furthermore, HSs in the US produced more SVO orders than both monolingual speakers and HSs in Germany in embedded clauses, but not in main clauses. The results of the study are discussed with the reference to the differences between main and embedded clauses as well as the differences between the MLs of the HSs.

scholarly journals Big data in Russian linguistics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tore Nesset
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Statistical Models ◽  
Large Datasets ◽  
Russian Linguistics ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Relevant Case ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Feminine Noun

Summary With the advent of large web-based corpora, Russian linguistics steps into the era of “big data”. But how useful are large datasets in our field? What are the advantages? Which problems arise? The present study seeks to shed light on these questions based on an investigation of the Russian paucal construction in the RuTenTen corpus, a web-based corpus with more than ten billion words. The focus is on the choice between adjectives in the nominative (dve/tri/četyre starye knigi) and genitive (dve/tri/četyre staryx knigi) in paucal constructions with the numerals dve, tri or četyre and a feminine noun. Three generalizations emerge. First, the large RuTenTen dataset enables us to identify predictors that could not be explored in smaller corpora. In particular, it is shown that predicates, modifiers, prepositions and word-order affect the case of the adjective. Second, we identify situations where the RuTenTen data cannot be straightforwardly reconciled with findings from earlier studies or there appear to be discrepancies between different statistical models. In such cases, further research is called for. The effect of the numeral (dve, tri vs. četyre) and verbal government are relevant examples. Third, it is shown that adjectives in the nominative have more easily learnable predictors that cover larger classes of examples and show clearer preferences for the relevant case. It is therefore suggested that nominative adjectives have the potential to outcompete adjectives in the genitive over time. Although these three generalizations are valuable additions to our knowledge of Russian paucal constructions, three problems arise. Large internet-based corpora like the RuTenTen corpus (a) are not balanced, (b) involve a certain amount of “noise”, and (c) do not provide metadata. As a consequence of this, it is argued, it may be wise to exercise some caution with regard to conclusions based on “big data”.

De plaats van het voorzetselvoorwerp

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Regular Position ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This paper presents the results of a corpus study of Dutch complement PPs. On the basis of a collection of 3400 occurrences in negative sentences, the four major word order patterns (regular position, scrambling order, topicalization and extraposition) are studied, both in main and subordinate clauses, and linked to the properties of the prepositional phrases, in particular weight and definiteness. Greater weight corresponds to higher likelihood of extraposition, and definiteness to higher likelihood of scrambling and topicalization. This corresponds well with earlier studies of word order variation in Dutch, but had not been established for the class of complement PPs. Among definite phrases, PPs with so-called R-pronouns, such as hieraan ‘here-on’ and daarvan ‘thereof’ showed especially high preferences for topicalization and scrambling. Negative sentences were selected for this study to avoid cases where regular order and scrambling order could not be distinguished due to lack of adverbial elements in the middle field. The data set is temporally stratified. This made it possible to study changes over time, and the most robust finding was a continuous retreat of the scrambling order throughout the period 1700-2014.

The position of object pronouns in the German middlefield

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 1059-1115
Author(s):  
Markus Bader
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Language Resources ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Role Hierarchy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Object Pronouns

AbstractThis paper presents a corpus study of the position of object pronouns relative to a non-pronominal subject in embedded clauses of German. A total of 4322 embedded clauses from the deWaC corpus (Baroni, Marco, Silvia Bernardini, Adriano Ferraresi & Eros Zanchetta. 2009. The WaCky Wide Web: A collection of very large linguistically processed web-crawled corpora. Language Resources and Evaluation Journal 23(3). 209–226), a corpus of written German Internet texts, were analyzed. In 67.0% of all clauses, the object pronoun occurred in front of the subject. Several factors that have been proposed in the literature on word order alternations were found to govern the choice between subject–object and object–subject order in the corpus under investigation. The most important findings are: (i) The Extended Animacy Hierarchy and the Semantic Role Hierarchy independently contribute to the choice of word order. (ii) The Definiteness Hierarchy has a strong effect on the position of the object pronoun. (iii) Word order effects of constituent weight, measured as length in number of words, cannot be reduced to effects of grammatical factors, nor can effects of grammatical factors be reduced to effects of weight.

Some quantitative aspects of written and spoken French based on syntactically annotated corpora

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-380
Author(s):  
Rafaël Poiret ◽  
Haitao Liu
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Dependency Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Relations ◽  
Annotated Corpora

ABSTRACTBased on two syntactically annotated corpora, and within the theoretical tradition of dependency grammar, the current study investigates the quantitative differences and similarities between written and spoken French. Our findings support the assumption that spoken and written French are two realizations of one language that do not differ in the syntactic categories, but in the frequency of these categories, and also in their organization in sentence. The subjects in spoken French are mostly pronouns, whereas in written French the subjects are mostly nouns and pronouns. Spoken and written French share many syntactic relations, but with different frequencies. For instance, dislocations are more diverse and frequent in spoken French. Spoken French and written French differ in the word order of vocative nominal phrases. Finally, written French is slightly more difficult to process than spoken French.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document