scholarly journals The change that never happened: the story of oblique subjects

2003 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
JÓHANNA BARĐDAL ◽  
THÓRHALLUR EYTHÓRSSON

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the syntactic status of oblique subject-like NPs in the ‘impersonal’ construction (of the type me-thinks) in Old Germanic. The debate is caused by the lack of canonical subject case marking in such NPs. It has been argued that these NPs are syntactic objects, but we provide evidence for their subject status, as in Modern Icelandic and Faroese. Thus, we argue that the syntactic status of the oblique subject-like NPs has not changed at all from object status to subject status, contra standard claims in the literature. Our evidence stems from Old Icelandic, but the analysis has implications for the other old Germanic languages as well. However, a change from non-canonical to canonical subject case marking (‘Nominative Sickness’) has affected all the Germanic languages to a varying degree.

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS McFADDEN

It is shown that the connection posited by Roberts (1997) between the loss of case marking and the shift from OV to VO in English is contradicted by the facts of English and the other Germanic languages. It is argued that this failure is not the result of an incorrect handling of the syntactic or morphological details, but of the way that the proposal straddles the syntax–morphology interface. Parallels are explored with research on verb raising and agreement, and it is proposed that, in order to be more than a descriptive generalization, the claim that some morphological property has a syntactic effect must be couched in terms that both the morphology and the syntax can refer to in a principled way.


Author(s):  
Timothy M. Stirtz

AbstractGaahmg has ergative traces in a predominately nominative-accusative system. Clauses with object focus demonstrate ergative case marking on postverbal noun and pronoun agents, and an ergative morpheme is also bound to verbs. Other evidence for ergativity is that the ergative morpheme is morphologically and syntactically distinct from the passive morpheme. Ergative morphemes and constructions in Gaahmg are similar to those of other Nilo-Saharan languages, including Luwo, Päri, and Shilluk. The Gaahmg antipassive also resembles that of other Nilo-Saharan languages. Yet, unlike other languages with ergativity and antipassives, Gaahmg readily combines the antipassive with ergative, passive, and causative morphemes in the same verb form. The Gaahmg antipassive occurs in nominative-accusative structures, as well as in object-focus clauses with ergative-absolutive structures. Further, the antipassive co-occurs with the passive, as if both the nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive structures are simultaneously present in the same clause, and the language is currently shifting from one structure to the other.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyu-Ho Shin ◽  
Sun Hee Park

Abstract Across languages, a passive construction is known to manifest a misalignment between the typical order of event composition (agent-before-theme) and the actual order of arguments in the constructions (theme-before-agent), dubbed non-isomorphic mapping. This study investigates comprehension of a suffixal passive construction in Korean by Mandarin-speaking learners of Korean, focusing on isomorphism and language-specific devices in the passive. We measured learners’ judgment of the acceptability of canonical and scrambled suffixal passives as well as their reaction times (relative to a canonical active transitive). Our analysis generated three major findings. First, learners uniformly preferred the canonical passive to the scrambled passive. Second, as proficiency increased, the judgment gap between the canonical active transitive and the canonical suffixal passive narrowed, but the gap between the canonical active transitive and the scrambled suffixal passive did not. Third, learners (and even native speakers) spent more time in judging the acceptability of the canonical suffixal passive than they did in the other two construction types. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the mapping nature involving a passive voice, indicated by language-specific devices (i.e., case-marking and verbal morphology dedicated to Korean passives), in L2 acquisition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-222
Author(s):  
Hamada Hassanein ◽  
Mohammad Mahzari

Abstract This study has set out to identify, quantify, typify, and exemplify the discourse functions of canonical antonymy in Arabic paremiography by comparing two manually collected datasets from Egyptian and Saudi (Najdi) dialects. Building upon Jones’s (2002) most extensive and often-cited classification of the discourse functions of antonyms as they co-occur within syntactic frames in news discourse, the study has substantially revised this classification and developed a provisional and dynamic typology thereof. Two major textual functions are found to be quantitatively significant and qualitatively preponderant: ancillarity (wherein an A-pair of canonical antonyms project their antonymicity onto a more important B-pair) and coordination (wherein one antonym holds an inclusive or exhaustive relation to another antonym). Three new functions have been developed and added to the retrieved classification: subordination (wherein one antonym occurs in a subordinate clause while the other occurs in a main clause), case-marking (wherein two opposite cases are served by two antonyms), and replacement (wherein one antonym is substituted with another). Semicanonical and noncanonical guises of antonymy are left and recommended for future research.


Proglas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Getsov ◽  
◽  
◽  

The paper is part of a series of publications that set out to examine various aspects in the analysis of appositive constructions. The purpose of this particular study is to reveal the multidimensional, diverse, and complex interaction between three types of syntactic relations – attributive, predicative, and appositive. The study offers a critical review of various theories on the status of the grammatical relation between the components of non-detached (close) appositive constructions. The main argument of this paper is that determining this status, on the one hand, is a function of the morphological and semantic characteristics of the components of the construction, while, on the other hand, it determines their syntactic status.


Author(s):  
Айгуль Наилевна Закирова ◽  
Никита Алексеевич Муравьев

В статье рассматриваются две пассивные конструкции в горномарийском языке. В обеих из них используется причастная форма на -mə̑; основное различие между конструкциями состоит в падежном оформлении пациентивного участника. В одной из конструкций сохраняется исходное аккузативное маркирование пациенса, тогда как в другой конструкции пациентивный участник получает номинативное оформление. Цель исследования — сравнительный анализ двух разновидностей пассива и выявление закономерностей, лежащих в основе выбора падежного оформления пациенса. В литературе по пассивным конструкциям во многих языках отмечается наличие двух пассивных конструкций: адъективного пассива со стативной семантикой и глагольного пассива с динамической семантикой. Это же различие ожидалось увидеть и применительно к горномарийскому причастному пассиву. Для проверки этого предположения были изучены: а) синтаксические особенности конструкций, соотношение в них именных и глагольных свойств, б) аспектуальная семантика конструкций, а именно противопоставление стативной и динамической семантики, в) особенности кодирования участников и контексты с различным референциальным статусом пациенса. Было установлено, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса в целом характеризуется именным синтаксисом, стативной семантикой и обязательной определенностью пациенса, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием имеет глагольный синтаксис, динамическую семантику и не ограничен с точки зрения референциальных свойств пациенса. Единственным наблюдаемым отклонением от данных закономерностей является одинаковая допустимость обеих разновидностей пассива в хабитуальных контекстах, что подлежит дальнейшему выяснению. На основе выявленных закономерностей было сделано обобщение, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса описывает состояние, возникшее в результате некоторого события, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием описывает само событие. В качестве итога исследования предложена интерпретация семантического различия между конструкциями в теоретической парадигме синтаксиса первой фазы Дж. Рэмчанд: аккузативную конструкцию можно рассматривать как конструкцию с озвучиванием каузирующего и процессуального подсобытия, а номинативную — как конструкцию с озвучиванием результирующего подсобытия. The article provides an account of two participial passive constructions employing the -mə̑- participle in Hill Mari. The data was collected in 2017 and 2019 in the villages of Kuznetsovo and Mikryakovo of the Gornomarijskij district, Republic of Mari El. The two constructions with the -mə̑- participle differ in the first place in how the patient is marked: in one of them the patient is marked for nominative, whereas in the other construction the accusative marking is inherited from the transitive verb. The aim of this study is to compare the two constructions in terms of their syntax and semantics and explore the rules that govern the choice between them. In the existing literature two kinds of passive constructions are described: adjectival passive constructions with stative interpretation and verbal passive constructions with dynamic interpretation. The two Hill Mari -mə̑- constructions were expected to demonstrate the same distinction. In order to test this hypothesis, we considered a) the syntactic properties of the constructions, and the nominal or verbal behavior of the -mə̑- form in both cases; b) the aspectual semantics of the two constructions, i.e. the possibility of stative and dynamic interpretation in both constructions; c) the marking of the arguments in the constrictions, i.e. the possibility of overt expression of the agent and the referential properties of the patient. Syntactically, the passive construction with the nominative marking of the patient turned out to be an adjectival predication. This construction is stative, and the nominative patient NP is always definite. The construction with accusative patient marking is a verbal clause with a dynamic interpretation. The accusative patient NP may have any referential properties. However, both constructions can refer to habitual events, which needs further investigation. The observed properties of the two constructions lead to the following generalization: the construction with nominative patient marking denotes a resultant state of an event, whereas the construction with accusative patient marking denotes the event itself. This difference may be interpreted in the first phase syntax framework developed by G. Ramchand: in the nominative construction the patient is the Resultee, whereas in the accusative construction the patient is the Undergoer.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Meagher ◽  
Andreas Armuss

Pancreatic cysts are more common than before, largely because of widespread abdominal imaging. Pancreatic cystic neoplasms (PCN) are relevant to risk selection on 2 counts: they constitute more than 50% of all pancreatic cysts and, in contrast to the other 2 cyst types, are capable of malignant transformation. The majority of PCNs are benign at time of diagnosis and will follow a benign course. The challenge is to identify those PCNs that are malignant or will undergo malignant transformation with time. The purpose of this article is to provide pointers that can help meet this challenge while also summarizing the ongoing debate about their optimal management.


Author(s):  
Jan Terje Faarlund

The chapter has three parts. The first part is an introduction to the Mainland Scandinavian languages, with a brief sketch of their history, their relationship to the other Scandinavian languages, and their position among the North Germanic languages. Mainland Scandinavian is treated as one language, since it consists of a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects across Scandinavia. The second part is a presentation of the sources and the origin of the examples used in the book. They are taken from various sources, reference grammars, research literature, the internet, text corpora, and original research. The third part is a presentation of the theoretical background and the descriptive framework, which is generative grammar in its current version, known as ‘minimalism’.


Author(s):  
Raghubir Singh Chauhan ◽  
Rituparna Das

The ongoing debate regarding how to formulate an entrepreneurship policy is globally vital so it is pertinent to understand the other dimensions also. By using a broad spectrum of space and time, and covering heterogeneous correlation the why, what if, where etc. regarding policy framework and deeper fundamentals of global economic understanding as well as misunderstanding is explored on an intersubjective context. By multi-stage data substantiation, analysis and literature review the direction and important determinants of policy framework are examined.


Worldview ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 4-9
Author(s):  
Walter C. Clemens

Kto kovo? according to Lenin, is the fundamental question of politics. "Who's going to do in whom?" Lenin and others plotting against the czar came steadily to this zero-sum conception of politics. One side or the other could win—not both. Though Americans tend to expect a harmony of interests among nations, the zero-sum conception also exists in this country; it is, in fact, a prominent factor in the ongoing debate about Soviet strategic objectives and capabilities—for instance, in statements by the Committee on the Present Danger.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document