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.

The Relevance of the principle of Relevance for Word Order Variation in Complex Referring Expressions in Mandarin Chinese

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Chen ◽  
Tao Ming ◽  
Xiangyu Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
Corpus Data

AbstractWord order variation in Mandarin Chinese results in two constructions consisting of a noun phrase (NP), a cluster of a demonstrative and a classifier (DM), and a relative clause (RC): the OMN with the RC+DM+NP order and the IMN with DM+RC+NP order. This study used corpus data to show correlational patterns of constructional choices. Specifically, OMN is associated with new and inanimate NPs serving the grammatical role of object in the relative clause that serves the discourse function of identification. By contrast, for IMN, the head NP tends to carry given information, tends to be an animate entity, tends to serve the grammatical role of subject in the relative clause, and tends to have an RC that serves the discourse function of characterization. We suggest that the usage patterns can be interpreted in terms of the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance (Sperber and Wilson 1995).

Pre- and postnominal onymic genitives in (Early) New High German

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Ackermann
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Pragmatic Information ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Information Status ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
The Stability ◽  
First Time

Abstract This empirical study focuses on the diachrony of adnominal genitives of proper names in (Early) New High German (17th to 19th centuries), e.g., Carls Haus vs. das Haus Carls ‘Carl’s house’. Starting from the observation that word order variation exists within the whole period investigated, the study identifies determining factors for this variation and weights them in a multifactorial model of word order variation and change, the first time this has been done for German. The focus is on formal factors such as syntactic complexity, a factor that increases in importance over the observed time span. The historical data allow not only the investigation of established formal parameters but also the identification of new factors such as the type of inflectional marker (due to genitive allomorphy in older stages of German). In addition to these formal factors, genitive semantics, pragmatic information status and genre are also taken into account. Explanations for the trend towards the postnominal position of complex adnominal genitives as well as the stability of bare name possessors in the prenominal position are discussed.

Prosodic and syntactic-pragmatic mechanisms of grammatical variation

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert De Sutter ◽  
Dirk Speelman ◽  
Dirk Geeraerts
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Statistical Measures ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Verb Clusters ◽  
Auxiliary Verb ◽  
Stratified Analysis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This paper reports on a quantitative corpus-based study of the impact of a postverbal constituent (PVC) on the choice of word order in Dutch written clause final verb clusters consisting of a participle and an auxiliary verb. The study verifies the results of previous research by analyzing the effect of the presence vs. the absence of a PVC, while at the same time extending previous research by scrutinizing this effect more in depth. More specifically, it is investigated whether there is an effect of the grammatical relationship between the PVC and its head, the syntactic weight of the PVC and the accent distribution within the PVC. Based on several statistical measures for bivariate and stratified analysis, we are able to show that these factors simultaneously affect the choice of word order in written clause final verb clusters. These results lead us to explore the relationship between the prosodic and syntactic-pragmatic determinants of word order variation.

scholarly journals Word Order Variation is Partially Constrained by Syntactic Complexity

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingqi Jing ◽  
Paul Widmer ◽  
Balthasar Bickel
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation

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.

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