scholarly journals The syntax and prosody of apposition in Shingazidja

Phonology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-145
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. O'Connor ◽  
Cédric Patin
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Intonational Phrases ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Match Theory

This paper investigates the syntax–prosody interface with respect to apposition in Shingazidja. We examine the syntactic properties of two types of apposition (restrictive and non-restrictive). While restrictive apposition appears to form a single constituent, the syntactic data for non-restrictives are ambiguous between a single constituent analysis and an analysis in which the appositive and its anchor are syntactically separate. Prosodic data confirm the single constituent analysis for restrictive apposition, and provide evidence that non-restrictive appositives are syntactically linked to their antecedent and prosodically embedded in their host clause. The phenomenon of final raising emerges as the principal indicator of intonational phrases in Shingazidja; tone shift signals phonological phrasing. Our analysis is formalised in Optimality Theory through a comparison of Align/Wrap theory and Match theory. A Match-theory account predicts the existence of recursive phonological phrasing, and we present evidence supporting this prediction.

scholarly journals Overtly Headed XPs and Irish Syntax-Prosody Mapping

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Kalivoda ◽  
Jennifer Bellik
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Relative Ranking ◽  
Irish Data ◽  
Theory Application ◽  
Match Theory ◽  
Constraint Ranking

Analyses of Irish phonological phrasing (Elfner 2012 et seq.) have been influential in shaping Match Theory (Selkirk 2011), an OT approach to mapping syntactic to prosodic structure. We solve two constraint ranking paradoxes concerning the relative ranking of Match and StrongStart. Irish data indicate that while XPs with silent heads can fail to map to phonological phrases in certain circumstances, overtly headed XPs cannot. They also indicate that rebracketing due to the constraint StrongStart occurs only sentence-initially, contrary to predictions. We account for these puzzles by invoking Van Handel's (2019) Match constraint which sees only XPs with overt heads, and by positing a new version of StrongStart which only applies to material at the left edge of the intonational phrase. Our analysis is developed using the Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory application (SPOT) and OTWorkplace.

scholarly journals The perfect prosodic word in Danish

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junko Ito ◽  
Armin Mester
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The Status ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Presence And Absence ◽  
Match Theory

The Danishstød, a kind of glottal prosody associated with certain syllables, as inbarʔn‘child’ (cf. stødlessbarnlig‘childish’), has long been the target of intense phonological investigation. In this paper, we show that its analysis requires an understanding of the prosodic constituent structure of Danish, and of the essential role of theperfect prosodic word(coextensive with one foot). After motivating this notion on independent grounds, both in other languages and in the context of acquisition, we show that the Danish stød system, analyzed in Optimality Theory, provides a window on the workings of the perfect prosodic word, regulating the presence and absence of stød in some of the much-discussed cases in the literature. In conclusion, we discuss the status of the perfect prosodic word in the light of recent developments in phonological theory, such as Match Theory.

scholarly journals An Optimality Theoretic Description on the Characteristics of Postpositions in Mandarin Chinese

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402095872
Author(s):  
Yu-Ching Tseng
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Chinese And English ◽  
Theoretic Description

In this paper, we adopt optimality theory to describe some important properties of postpositions. First, they follow the complement in their own projections. Second, they select either an NP or a PrepP as the complement, but they do not select another PostP as the complement to avoid the adjacency of two postpositions. Third, when occurring in a VP, they precede the head verb if they are complements of verbs and follow the verb if they are adjuncts. Fourth, the insertion of de between a postposition and its complement is prohibited. Fifth, postpositional stranding is disallowed. As will be shown in this paper, by using OT as the theoretical framework, we establish a theoretical model that is able to account for the syntactic properties, configurations, and restrictions involving the category of postpositions. Finally, this paper provided a brief cross-linguistic generalization of syntactic properties related to postposition between Mandarin Chinese and English from the perspective of OT.

scholarly journals Adjunction and Branchingness Effects in Syntax-Prosody Mapping

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bellik ◽  
Nick Kalivoda
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Lower Segment ◽  
Arbitrary Length ◽  
Tree Structures ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Maximal Projection ◽  
Match Theory ◽  
Proper Interpretation ◽  
Do So

Match Theory (Selkirk 2011) and approaches to syntax-prosody mapping involving alignment and Wrap(XP) (Truckenbrodt 1995, 1999) insist that syntatic phrases at least partially map onto phonological phrases. Each approach specifies that certain XPs are visible for mapping, while others are not. Both Truckenbrodt (1999) and Selkirk (2011) suggest that when an XP hosts an adjunct, only the lower segment of that XP is visible at the interface. We undertake several case studies of these theories' predictions, drawing primarily on data from phrasing in the Bantu language Kinyambo (Bickmore 1990), in order to address the proper interpretation of syntactic adjunction structures at the syntax-phonology interface. To do so, we employ a new JavaScript application which we have developed, Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory (SPOT; Bellik, Bellik, & Kalivoda 2016) allowing us to automatically generate and evaluate prosodic tree structures of arbitrary length and depth. We conclude that high segments of XP in syntactic adjunction structures must be visible to Match (pace Selkirk 2011) in order to predict attested prosodic phrasings in Kinyambo, and that treatments of adjunction which ignore the highest segment of a maximal projection make surprising and possibly problematic predictions.

Sentence Repetition: A Clinical Marker for Developmental Language Disorder in Danish

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4450-4463
Author(s):  
Rikke Vang Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Likelihood Ratios ◽  
Clinical Marker ◽  
Sentence Repetition ◽  
Good Identification ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Purpose The aim of the study was to explore the potential of performance on a Danish sentence repetition (SR) task—including specific morphological and syntactic properties—to identify difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) relative to typically developing (TD) children. Furthermore, the potential of the task as a clinical marker for Danish DLD was explored. Method SR performance of children with DLD aged 5;10–14;1 (years;months; n = 27) and TD children aged 5;3–13;4 ( n = 87) was investigated. Results Compared to TD same-age peers, children with DLD were less likely to repeat the sentences accurately but more likely to make ungrammatical errors with respect to verb inflection and use of determiners and personal pronouns. Younger children with DLD also produced more word order errors that their TD peers. Furthermore, older children with DLD performed less accurately than younger TD peers, indicating that the SR task taps into morphosyntactic areas of particular difficulty for Danish children with DLD. The classification accuracy associated with SR performance showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity (> 90%) and likelihood ratios indicating good identification potential for clinical and future research purposes. Conclusion SR performance has a strong potential for identifying children with DLD, also in Danish, and with a carefully designed SR task, performance has potential for revealing morphosyntactic difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.10314437

A Quick Visual Mind Can be a Slow Auditory Mind

2009 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander Martens ◽  
Addie Johnson ◽  
Martje Bolle ◽  
Jelmer Borst
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Conscious Level ◽  
Visual Targets ◽  
Concurrent Information

The human mind is severely limited in processing concurrent information at a conscious level of awareness. These temporal restrictions are clearly reflected in the attentional blink (AB), a deficit in reporting the second of two targets when it occurs 200–500 ms after the first. However, we recently reported that some individuals do not show a visual AB, and presented psychophysiological evidence that target processing differs between “blinkers” and “nonblinkers”. Here, we present evidence that visual nonblinkers do show an auditory AB, which suggests that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB is likely to be modality-specific. In Experiment 3, we show that when the difficulty in identifying visual targets is increased, nonblinkers continue to show little or no visual AB, suggesting that the presence of an AB in the auditory but not in the visual modality is not due to a difference in task difficulty.

Anticipated ambiguity prolongs the present: Evidence of a return trip effect.

2016 ◽  
Vol 145 (11) ◽  
pp. 1415-1419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam J. Maglio ◽  
Cherrie Y. N. Kwok
Keyword(s):  
Trip Effect ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Return Trip

Phonologically conditioned allomorphy in the morphology of Surmiran (Rumantsch)

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Extended Sense ◽  
Phonological Rule

Alternations between allomorphs that are not directly related by phonological rule, but whose selection is governed by phonological properties of the environment, have attracted the sporadic attention of phonologists and morphologists. Such phenomena are commonly limited to rather small corners of a language's structure, however, and as a result have not been a major theoretical focus. This paper examines a set of alternations in Surmiran, a Swiss Rumantsch language, that have this character and that pervade the entire system of the language. It is shown that the alternations in question, best attested in the verbal system, are not conditioned by any coherent set of morphological properties (either straightforwardly or in the extended sense of ‘morphomes’ explored in other Romance languages by Maiden). These alternations are, however, straightforwardly aligned with the location of stress in words, and an analysis is proposed within the general framework of Optimality Theory to express this. The resulting system of phonologically conditioned allomorphy turns out to include the great majority of patterning which one might be tempted to treat as productive phonology, but which has been rendered opaque (and subsequently morphologized) as a result of the working of historical change.

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