Licensing null arguments in recipes across languages

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
ILEANA PAUL ◽  
DIANE MASSAM
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Objects

While much of the literature on recipe contexts has focused on English and the availability of null definite patients, this paper shows that both null agents and null patients are possible in recipes in a range of typologically and genetically diverse languages. It is proposed that null agents in recipes arise due to a variety of syntactic strategies, but null patients are uniformly licensed via a null topic in the left periphery in all the languages considered. These results indicate that while the recipe register does not directly dictate specific syntactic structures such as imperatives or null objects, the register can provide the pragmatic context necessary for certain syntactic processes, such as null topicalization.

Quantificational Null Objects and Argument Ellipsis

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daiko Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Traditional View ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Objects

This article provides a new argument for the analysis of null arguments in terms of ellipsis by considering null objects that behave like quantifiers. It is shown that the presence of quantificational null objects and their scopal property are difficult to accommodate under the traditional view of null arguments as pronouns but are best accounted for by the ellipsis analysis. Among the consequences of the present study are the need to postulate phonetically invisible/inaudible scrambling and its obedience to the economy requirement.

On null objects in Egyptian Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-259
Author(s):  
Usama Soltan
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Egyptian Arabic ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
Descriptive Account ◽  
Case Licensing ◽  
Strict Identity

Abstract This paper provides a descriptive account and a syntactic analysis of the grammatical distribution and properties of null objects (NOs) in Egyptian Arabic. In particular, it is shown that NOs cannot be analyzed as instances of null pro or as variables bound by a null topic operator. A Verb-Stranding VP-Ellipsis account is also shown to be empirically non-viable. Instead, I argue that NOs result from Argument Ellipsis (AE), an operation that targets arguments for deletion at PF. This AE analysis has several empirical advantages, including an account for (a) the different-entity interpretation of NOs, (b) the fact that PP and CP internal arguments can be null, (c) the availability of both strict identity and sloppy identity readings with null PPs and CPs, (d) the indefiniteness and inanimacy restrictions on the antecedents of NOs, and (e) the fact that subjects, as opposed to objects, cannot undergo AE. Following existing proposals in the generative literature on null arguments, I provide a minimalist implementation of the AE operation, whereby principles of φ-agreement, case licensing, the NP/DP distinction, and a notion of relativized phasehood, all conspire to determine when NOs occur and when they are disallowed in the language.

scholarly journals Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential acquisition: Null subjects and null objects in Polish-German bilingualism

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692098891
Author(s):  
Aldona Sopata ◽  
Kamil Długosz ◽  
Bernhard Brehmer ◽  
Raina Gielge
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Delay Effect ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
Pragmatic Information ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Sequential Acquisition ◽  
Language Pair

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The topic of cross-linguistic influence regarding the overt or null expression of arguments has been frequently considered regarding bilinguals acquiring language pairs in which the null option is licensed by one and not both of the two languages. The goal of this study is to investigate whether simultaneous and sequential bilinguals differ from monolinguals in the case of the acquisition of Polish and German; that is, languages which both license null subjects and null objects, but in which the nature of the null arguments clearly differs. We focus on the acquisition of null arguments as silent but syntactically active bundles of features. Design/methodology/approach: We compare the use of null subjects and null objects by 72 bilingual and 45 monolingual children in experimental setting: acceptability judgement and sentence repetition. Data and analysis: The distribution of null arguments in production and judgement data of simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals was compared to the data of monolinguals. Findings/conclusions: The study has revealed that early sequential Polish-German bilinguals avoid null subjects in L2 German at an advanced stage of acquisition, even though null subjects are quite frequent in their L1. The slower acquisition of null subjects in early L2 German in comparison to null objects in the case of Polish-German bilinguals demonstrates that the dissimilarity between the null subjects in both languages may lead to the delay effect in the acquisition. The findings suggest that the cross-linguistic influence is due to the increased complexity inherent to the integration of syntactic and pragmatic information in case of null arguments. Originality: Unlike previous studies, we focus on the acquisition of null arguments in a language pair, Polish and German, in which the null option is licensed by both grammars, and in which the nature of the null arguments clearly differ.

Asymmetries of null subjects and null objects in L1-English and L1-Japanese learners’ Chinese

Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 1141-1166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Chang ◽  
Lina Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Dynamic Composition ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Objects ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
L1 English

AbstractBased on the HSK Dynamic Composition Corpus, this study investigated the use of Chinese null arguments by advanced adult L1-English and L1-Japanese learners with Chinese native speakers as a baseline. Several asymmetries were found. First, the learners produced many more null subjects than null objects. Second, null subjects were mainly animate, while null objects were mainly inanimate. Third, more null subjects were used in non-matrix clauses than in matrix clauses. In addition, L1 did not seem to play a significant role in the learners’ use of Chinese null arguments, and the learners’ use Chinese null arguments was generally not native-like. Finally, it appears that null objects are not transferable or developmental and that infrequent use of null objects is universal in L2. It was argued that positive evidence in the target input as well as the nature of the subject and the object led to the asymmetric use of null subjects and null objects in L2 Chinese.

scholarly journals Does prosody meet syntax? A case study on standard Italian cleft sentences and left peripheral focus

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-330
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Pinelli ◽  
Cecilia Poletto ◽  
Cinzia Avesani
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Academic Press ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Parasitic Gaps ◽  
Syntactic Properties

AbstractIn this work we deal with two structures that have a very similar pragmatic function in Italian and have been claimed to have similar semantic and syntactic properties, namely clefts and left peripheral focus. Since Chomsky (1977. On wh-movement. In Peter W. Culicover, Thomas Wasow & Adrian Akmajian (eds.), Formal Syntax, 71–132. New York: Academic Press.) they have been both considered as instances of A’-movement and should therefore behave alike. Here we investigate their prosody and their syntax on the basis of three experimental studies and show that while the prosodic patterns found are indeed very similar, their syntax is less homogenous than expected if we apply general tests that have been traditionally used to distinguish A- from A’-movement. In particular, we will discuss three of these tests, namely parasitic gaps, weak crossover and anaphoric binding and show that the two constructions yield quite different results. We analyse the differences within the framework of featural relativized minimality originally proposed in Rizzi (2004. Locality and the left periphery. In Adriana Belletti (ed.), Structures and Beyond: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures 3, 223–251. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) and subsequent work. On this basis, we conclude that there is no one to one match between prosodic and syntactic properties, since we observe differences in the syntactic behaviour of the two constructions that do not surface in the prosodic patterns. Indirectly, this study sheds new light on the interface between prosody and syntax and is a confirmation of a modular theory of the components of grammar: some specific syntactic properties have no reflex in other components of grammar and can only be detected through purely syntactic tests.

scholarly journals Growing trees: The acquisition of the left periphery

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naama Friedmann ◽  
Adriana Belletti ◽  
Luigi Rizzi
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Adjunct Questions ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Why Questions

We suggest here a Growing Trees approach for the description of the acquisition of various syntactic structures in Hebrew, based on the main results reported in Friedmann and Reznick (this volume) and on our own research on a corpus of natural productions. The heart of our account is that stages of acquisition follow the geometry of the syntactic tree, along the lines of the cartographic analysis of the clause, with early stages of acquisition corresponding to small portions of the adult syntactic tree, which keeps growing with the growth of the child. The lower parts of the tree are acquired first, and higher parts are acquired later. We propose three stages of acquisition connected to the development of functional layers of the syntactic tree. In the first stage, the IP is acquired, including the lexical and inflectional layers. This allows for the appearance of A-movement structures, including SV/VS alternations with unaccusative verbs, alongside SV sentences with unergative/transitive verbs. The second stage involves the acquisition of the lower part of the left periphery, up to QP, which allows for the acquisition of subject and object Wh questions, some adjunct questions, yes/no questions, and sentence-initial adverbs. In the third stage, the rich structure of the left periphery is completely acquired, including the higher CP field. This is the stage in which sentential embedding (of finite declarative and interrogative clauses), subject and object relative clauses, why questions, and topicalization appear. A further, different type of stage, which occurs on the already-grown tree and which is independent of structure building, is the acquisition of intervention configurations, allowing for the mastery of structures involving movement of a lexically-restricted object across an intervening lexically-restricted subject. The paper illustrates the fruitful dialogue between the science of syntax acquisition and the cartography of syntactic structures.

From negative cleft to external negator

2019 ◽  
pp. 228-248
Author(s):  
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal ◽  
Karen De Clercq
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Agreement Morphology ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter discusses the diachronic development of the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic negator lāw, which developed from the univerbation between the sentential negator and agreement morphology in negative clefts. Whereas the semantics of negative clefts is retained in the new negator, their biclausal structure is replaced by a monoclausal one with lāw merged in the clausal left periphery. The negator then takes propositional scope and expresses the meaning of external negation (‘it is not the case’). Syntactically, it is merged in SpecFocP in the extended CP-domain, argued to host English negative DPs/PPs and wh-words. Finally, the chapter extends the analysis to Sicilian neca, opening up the route to consider the development of an external negator from a negative cleft as a path of change that has hitherto been left unexplored. This chapter also demonstrates how a similar semantic interpretation associated with two different syntactic structures can be a trigger for syntactic reanalysis.

Acquiring Syntactic Structures

1984 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 551-551
Author(s):  
Rosemary J. Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structures
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