scholarly journals Structures à subordonnée comparative en français

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-61
Author(s):  
Catherine Fuchs ◽  
Nathalie Fournier ◽  
Pierre Le Goffic
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Qualitative Comparison ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Matrix

This article deals with syntactic and semantic representation of comparative structures in French. We propose an analysis of quantitative comparatives (plus, moins, aussi … que) and qualitative comparatives (comme) which highlights their common properties as well as their specificities. The first section (§ 1) offers a syntactic typology of matrix clause structures and (comparative) subordinate clause structures. The following sections consider the various aspects of semantic representations, as related to syntactic structures : we successively deal with (§ 2.) the type of parameter, (§ 3.) the type of differential constituant in the subordinate clause, (§ 4.) the type of parallel constituant in the matrix clause (with restitution of ellipses and anaphora), (§ 5.) the type of compared terms, by contrasting quantitative comparisons and qualitative comparison, and (§ 6.) the type of comparison, accounting for prototypical structures as well as for pragmatic effects induced by certain configurations.

Da eine oder mehrere betroffen …

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-100
Author(s):  
Melitta Gillmann
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Formal Language ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Very High Frequency ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Very High

AbstractBased on a corpus study conducted using the GerManC corpus (1650–1800), the paper sketches the functional and sociosymbolic development of subordinate clause constructions introduced by the subjunctor da ‘since’ in different text genres. In the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, the da clauses were characterized by semantic vagueness: Besides temporal, spatial and causal relations, the subjunctor established conditional, concessive, and adversative links between clauses. The corpus study reveals that different genres are crucial to the readings of da clauses. Spatial and temporal usages, for example, occur more often in sermons than in other genres. The conditional reading, in contrast, strongly tends to occur in legal texts, where it displays very high frequency. This could be the reason why da clauses carry indexical meaning in contemporary German and are associated with formal language. Over the course of the 18th century, the causal usages increase in all genres. Surprisingly, these causal da clauses tend to be placed in front of the matrix clause despite the overall tendency of causal clauses to follow the matrix clause.

scholarly journals An HPSG analysis of the non-integrated wh-relative clauses in German

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Holler
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Abstract Entity ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Restrictive Relative Clauses

In this article, the so-called wh-relative clause construction is investigated. The German wh-relative clauses are syntactically relevant as they show both, root clause and subordinate clause properties. They matter semantically because they are introduced by a wh-anaphor that has to be resolved by an appropriate abstract entity of the matrix clause. Additionally, the wh-relative clause construction is discourse-functionally peculiar since it evokes coherence. Besides these interesting empirical characteristics, whrelatives raise important theoretical questions. It is argued that the standard HPSG theory has to be extended to account for non-restrictive relative clauses in general, and to cope with the particular properties of the wh-relative construction.

scholarly journals syntax-semantics interface for tense and aspect in French

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Bonami
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Tense And Aspect

This paper proposes an HPSG account of the French tense and aspect system, focussing on the analysis of the passé simple (simple past) and imparfait (imperfective) tenses and their interaction with aspectually sensitive adjuncts. Starting from de Swart's (1998) analysis of the semantics of tense and aspect, I show that while the proposed semantic representations are appropriate,  the analysis of implicit aspectual operators as coercion operators is inadequate. The proposed HPSG analysis relies on Minimal Recursion Semantics to relate standard syntactic structures with de Swart-style semantic representations. The analysis has two crucial features: first, it assumes that the semantic contribution of tense  originates in the verb's semantic representation, despite the fact that tense can get wide scope over other semantic elements. Second, it allows the occurrence of implicit aspectual operators to be controlled by the verb's inflectional class, which accounts for their peculiar distribution.

scholarly journals Implicational Complement Coordination and beyond: Towards a coherent theory of asymmetric coordination in German

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Weisser
Keyword(s):  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Asymmetric Coordination

Abstract A certain class of predicates in German optionally allows for their complement clause to appear as coordinated with the matrix clause rather than embedded into it. This construction, which I will call Implicational Complement Coordination, exhibits all the hallmark properties of Asymmetric Coordination: Despite technically being in a conjunct position, the clause in question behaves like a subordinate clause with respect to asymmetric binding, asymmetric scope of negation and adverbs as well as asymmetric extraction. Based on the detailed description of the phenomenon by Reis (1993), it can be shown that this coordinate construction mimics its infinitival counterpart with respect to these syntactic tests. In this paper, I argue that this can be accounted for by saying that the coordinate construction is derived on the basis of its subordinate counterpart by means of movement. The subordinate properties of the second conjunct then derive from its derivational history as a subordinate clause. Further, I will show that even though other cases of Asymmetric Coordination (in German) lack a minimally different infinitival counterpart, they can and should still be derived from an underlyingly subordinate syntax.

scholarly journals Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonella Sorace ◽  
Francesca Filiaci
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Subject Pronoun

This study presents data from an experiment on the interpretation of intrasentential anaphora in Italian by native Italian speakers and by English speakers who have learned Italian as adults and have reached a near-native level of proficiency in this language. The two groups of speakers were presented with complex sentences consisting of a main clause and a subordinate clause, in which the subordinate clause had either an overt pronoun or a null subject pronoun. In half of the sentences the main clause preceded the subordinate clause (forward anaphora) and in the other half the subordinate clause preceded the main clause (backward anaphora). Participants performed in a picture verification task in which they had to indicate the picture(s) that corresponded to the meaning of the subordinate clause, thus identifying the possible antecedents of the null or overt subject pronouns. The patterns of responses of the two groups were very similar with respect to the null subject pronouns in both the forward and backward anaphora conditions. Compared to native monolingual speakers, however, the near-natives had a significantly higher preference for the subject of the matrix clause as a possible antecedent of overt subject pronouns, particularly in the backward anaphora condition. The results indicate that near-native speakers have acquired the syntactic constraints on pronominal subjects in Italian, but may have residual indeterminacy in the interface processing strategies they employ in interpreting pronominal forms.

scholarly journals INTERPRETING DETACHED CONSTRUCTIONS WITH EXPLICIT SUBJECT THROUGH THE PRISM OF RELATED TERMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Victoria Zhukovska
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Theoretical Substantiation ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Linguistic Approach ◽  
The Given ◽  
Cognitive Construction Grammar

This article provides a comprehensive account of the English detached nonfinite and nonverbal constructions with the explicit subject within the framework of construction grammar. The study overviews the terms utilized in Western grammatical studies to nominate the investigated syntactic structures. Depending on the ontological and gnoseological assumptions of a particular linguistic approach, the analyzed terms highlight specific aspects of the syntactic structures under study (morphosyntactic features, syntactic functions, the subject’s case, coreference with the matrix clause, intonation and punctuation marking), and, therefore, cannot fully reveal the nature of the given syntactic phenomenon. The paper discusses the advantages of the term “detached nonfinite and nonverbal constructions with the explicit subject” for cognitive and quantitative operationalization and theoretical substantiation of the examined structures. The component construction is used in the interpretation of the cognitive construction grammar and defined as a noncompositional language sign, a complex pairing of form and meaning, where some aspects of the forms or the meanings cannot be derived from the form and the meaning of its components or from other existing constructions. In present-day English detached [aug/øaug[SubjNP] [PredNF/VL]] constructions constitute a taxonomic constructional network represented through a multiple hierarchy of adjunct clauses combined with the plane of detachment. The network of the analyzed constructions is developed around the constructional schema, represented by the construction of the highest degree of schematicity and abstraction (macro-construction). The features of the macro-construction are inherited by the constructions of a lower level – meso-constructions and individual micro-constructions and are reflected in the specific realized constructions – constructs.

scholarly journals Derived verbs with suffix -ang in Balinese: syntactic and semantic analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nyoman Sujaya ◽  
Ni Ketut Sukiani
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Syntactic Structures

This paper accounts for the suffix -ang in Balinese and it focuses on its syntactic and semantic representation. Using I Madé’s Sugianto’s Ki Bari Gajah, a one hundred fifty-page Balinese novel and informants as the data, and applying the RRG theory by Van Valin and Randy (1999) other thoughts of the experts of Balinese, it was found out that -ang functioning as a transitivizing suffix can attach to noun, adjective, adverbs and verbs and imply various syntactic structures and semantic representations. Suffix -ang attached to the base in imperative sentences express no meaning. In this case, it is just used to imply that the sentence is in the form of imperative. Like other languages, English for example, one derived verb with -ang may be used transitively or intransitively.

scholarly journals English Speaker Acquisition of Topic and Subject in Multiple Clause Sentences in Japanese

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-84
Author(s):  
Shinichi Shoji
Keyword(s):  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Japanese Learners

This study investigated native English speakers’ acquisition of the constraint for topic-wa and the preference for subject-ga in multiple-clause sentences in Japanese. The constraint for topic-wa is that the topic-wa cannot appear in certain types of subordinate clauses, and the preference for subject-ga is that the overt subject-ga in a subordinate clause should not overlap the topic for a matrix clause. Two sentence-completion experiments were conducted with native English-speaking participants, who were considered advanced-level Japanese learners, as well as native Japanese-speaking participants (the control group). The results indicated that although English speakers followed the constraint for the topic-wa, they frequently used the topic-wa as non-subject topics (unlike native Japanese speakers) when an embedded subordinate clause intervened between the topic-wa and the rest of the matrix clause. Also, English speakers used the same subject-ga for both subordinate and matrix clauses, unlike the native Japanese speakers’ preference. The outcome implies that English speakers associated the topic-wa with English non-subject topics, and the subject-ga with English subjects.

Similarities in the Syntactic Structure of the German and Croatian Language

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
Manuela Svoboda
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
German Language ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Subordinate Clauses

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse any potential similarities between the Croatian and German language and present them adopting a contrastive approach with the intent of simplifying the learning process in regards to the German syntactic structure for Croatian German as foreign language students. While consulting articles and books on the theories and methods of foreign language teaching, attention is usually drawn to differences between the mother tongue and the foreign language, especially concerning false friends etc. The same applies to textbooks, workbooks and how teachers behave in class. Thus, it is common practice to deal with the differences between the foreign language and the mother tongue but less with similarities. This is unfortunate considering that this would likely aid in acquiring certain grammatical and syntactic structures of the foreign language. In the author's opinion, similarities are as, if not more, important than differences. Therefore, in this article the existence of similarities between the Croatian and German language will be examined closer with a main focus on the segment of sentence types. Special attention is drawn to subordinate clauses as they play an important role when speaking and/or translating sentences from Croatian to German and vice versa. In order to present and further clarify this matter, subordinate clauses in both the German and Croatian language are defined, clarified and listed to gain an oversight and to present possible similarities between the two. In addition, the method to identify subordinate clauses in a sentence is explained as well as what they express, which conjunctions are being used for each type of subordinate clause in both languages and where the similarities and/or differences between the two languages lie.

Preschoolers’ imitation of sentential complement sentences: Does the nature of the matrix clause matter?

2021 ◽  
pp. 014272372110242
Author(s):  
Ian Morton ◽  
C. Melanie Schuele
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Developmental Progression ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Group 3 ◽  
Sentence Imitation ◽  
Experimental Findings

Preschoolers’ earliest productions of sentential complement sentences have matrix clauses that are limited in form. Diessel proposed that matrix clauses in these early productions are propositionally empty fixed phrases that lack semantic and syntactic integration with the clausal complement. By 4 years of age, however, preschoolers produce sentential complement sentences with matrix clauses that are more varied. Diessel proposed that the matrix clauses in these later productions semantically and syntactically embed the complement clause. We refer to these matrix clauses as formulaic and true, respectively. Diessel’s hypothesis about the development of sentential complement sentences was based on an analysis of spontaneous language. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Diessel’s hypothesis with an experimental sentence imitation task wherein stimuli varied in the nature of the matrix clause. Thirty children with typical language development participated; 10 children in each age group (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) imitated 50 sentential complement sentences that included either a true or a formulaic matrix clause; the structure of the dependent clauses did not vary. Dependent variables were percent sentence imitation and percent matrix clause imitation. There was a significant main effect for matrix clause type on imitation of sentences and matrix clauses. There was also a significant main effect for age on imitation of sentences and matrix clauses. Significant matrix clause type-by-age interactions were such that percent sentence imitation and percent matrix clause imitation varied by age. Three- and 4-year-olds were less proficient than 5-year-olds on imitation of sentences with true matrix clauses and on imitations of true matrix clauses. Only 3- and 4-year-olds were less proficient imitating true matrix clauses than formulaic matrix clauses. Experimental findings support Diessel’s hypothesis that there is a developmental progression in the nature of preschoolers’ production of sentential complement sentences.

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