Infinitival Clauses in the Romance Languages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Mensching
Keyword(s):  
Special Property ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Object Control ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Infinitival Clauses ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Subject Agreement

“Infinitival clauses” are constructions with a clausal status whose predicate is an infinitive. Romance infinitive clauses are mostly dependent clauses and can be divided into the following types: argumental infinitival clauses (such as subject and object clauses, the latter also including indirect interrogatives), predicative infinitival clauses, infinitival adjunct clauses, infinitival relative clauses, and nominalized infinitive clauses (with a determiner). More rarely, they appear as independent (main) clauses (root infinitival clauses) of different types, which usually have a marked character. Whereas infinitival adjunct clauses are generally preceded by prepositions, which can be argued to be outside the infinitival clause proper (i.e., the clause is part of a prepositional phrase), Romance argumental infinitive clauses are often introduced by complementizers that are diachronically derived from prepositions, mostly de/di and a/à. In most Romance languages, the infinitive itself is morphologically marked by an ending containing the morpheme {r} but lacks tense and agreement morphemes. However, some Romance languages have developed an infinitive that can be inflected for subject agreement (which is found in Portuguese, Galician, and Sardinian and also attested in Old Neapolitan). Romance languages share the property of English and other languages to leave the subject of infinitive clauses unexpressed (subject/object control, arbitrary control, and optional control) and also have raising and accusative-and-infinitive constructions. A special property of many Romance languages is the possibility of overtly expressing a nominative subject in infinitival clauses, mostly in postverbal position. The tense of the infinitive clause is usually interpreted as simultaneous or anterior to that of the matrix clause, but some matrix predicates and infinitive constructions trigger a posteriority/future reading. In addition, some Romance infinitive clauses are susceptible to constraints concerning aspect and modality.

Subordinate clauses

2019 ◽  
pp. 237-288
Author(s):  
Jan Terje Faarlund
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Infinitival Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb ◽  
Nominal Clauses

In subordinate clauses, the C position is occupied by a complementizer word, which may be null. The finite verb stays in V. SpecCP is either empty or occupied by a wh-word, or by some other element indicating its semantic function. Nominal clauses are finite or non-finite. Finite nominal clauses are declarative or interrogative. Declarative nominal clauses may under specific circumstances have main clause word order (‘embedded V2’). Infinitival clauses are marked by an infinitive marker, which is either in C (Swedish), or immediately above V (Danish). Norwegian has both options. Relative clauses comprise several different types; clauses with a relativized nominal argument are mostly introduced by a complementizer; adverbial relative clauses relativize a locative or temporal phrase, with or without a complementizer; comparative clauses relativize a degree or identity. Under hard-to-define circumstances depending on language and region, subordinate clauses allow extraction of phrases up into the matrix clause.

Ereigniskontrollierte Adjunkte im Deutschen

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-534
Author(s):  
Inghild Flaate Høyem
Keyword(s):  
Past Participle ◽  
Small Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Object Control ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Small Clauses ◽  
German Data ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract The present paper investigates small clause adjuncts displaying the phenomenon referred to as ‘event control’ in literature. Many languages, including German, employ non-finite clauses (besides finite clauses) as propositional adjuncts, for instance infinitival, participial and small clause adjuncts. The subject of these adjunct clauses is left unexpressed and must generally be interpreted co-referentially with the subject or object of the matrix clause (subject or object control), but the matrix event itself can also be interpreted as the controller. Adjuncts involving event control have, to my knowledge, never been examined jointly or particularly thoroughly. The aim of this paper is therefore to provide insight into German data involving event control in different kinds of non-finite propositional adjunct clauses, by examining common and diverging syntactic and semantic properties. The data comprises nominative DPs (Germ. Satzappositionen), adverbial infinitives headed by um (Engl. in order to), adverbial present and past participle constructions, and adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als. Furthermore, I discuss briefly how these data could be captured theoretically, by analyzing them as adjuncts in different syntactic-semantic domains and as obligatorily controlled (OC) adjuncts according to the OC-properties described by Landau (2013).

scholarly journals Exhaustive object control constructions in Greek: An LFG/XLE treatment

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Fiotaki ◽  
Katerina Tzortzi
Keyword(s):  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Object Control ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Feature ◽  
National Corpus

In this paper we propose an LFG/XLE treatment of Exhaustive Object Control (EOC) constructions in Greek na clauses. We draw on data retrieved from the Hellenic National Corpus (HNC) in order to define the verbs that allow EOC. We treat EOC using anaphoric control. We take the subject of the subordinate na clause (controllee) to be a PRO marked with nominative case that is anaphorically related to the object of the matrix clause (controller). We implement this analysis in our LFG/XLE Grammar by adding the new feature ANAPH_C_BY.

scholarly journals Featural definition of syntactic positions: Evidence from hyper-raising

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzana Fong
Keyword(s):  
Phase Problem ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Finite Clause

Hyper-raising consists in raising a DP from an embedded finite clause into the matrix clause. HR introduces a phase problem: the embedded clause is finite, which is supposed to be impervious to raising. This can be overcome by postulating A-features at the C of the the embedded clause. They trigger the movement of the subject to [Spec, CP]. Being at the edge of a phase, it is visible to a matrix probe. If successful, this analysis provides support for the claim that syntactic positions are not inherently A or A-bar; they can be defined featurally instead.

scholarly journals Anaphora and subordination in Karitiana

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Storto ◽  
Karin Vivanco
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Item ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract This paper describes the behavior of the anaphoric element ta- in Karitiana (Arikém branch, Tupian family) showing that it is a third person anaphor which must be bound (c-commanded and coindexed) by an antecedent in the same sentence. ta- may occur as a possessor clitic attached to a nominal, or as a subject or object clitic attached to a verb. We show with elicited and spontaneous data that the Karitiana anaphor is subject oriented when occurring in embedded environments, being able to refer to the subject of the matrix clause or to the subject of an embedded clause in cases of multiple embedding. We analyze this lexical item as a medium-distance anaphor, following the definition of Reuland and Koster (1991). Logophoric uses of the ta- anaphor are also exemplified and briefly discussed.

Subject control and coreference in Early Modern English free adjuncts and absolutes

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Río-Rey
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The clear-cut distinction between free adjuncts and absolutes based on the presence in absolutes of an overt subject different from the subject of the matrix clause, as opposed to the covert subject – controlled by the subject of the matrix clause – of free adjuncts, does not always hold. While it is generally agreed that unrelated free adjuncts are fairly frequent in Present-day English (PE), absolutes whose subject is identical to that of the matrix clause are regarded as obsolete (Jespersen, 1909–49; Kortmann, 1991; Söderlind, 1958; Visser, 1963–73). However, no statistical evidence has been provided on this topic for earlier stages of the history of English. This article quantitatively assesses whether the various degrees of relatedness observed in Early Modern English (EModE) coincide with those attested for PE, and concludes that the boundaries between free adjuncts and absolutes were considerably fuzzier in EModE, a phenomenon to which punctuation decisively contributed.

scholarly journals Coreference relations in complex sentence with a complement clause

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 187-202
Author(s):  
Jasmina Moskovljevic-Popovic
Keyword(s):  
Shared Control ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
The Relationship

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze different co reference relations which can be established in a complex sentence between one of the arguments of the matrix clause and the understood/implicit subject of the complement clause introduced by the complementizer ?da?. Various patterns of control relations which are present in contemporary Serbian - obligatory, non-obligatory, and shared control - have been enumerated and exemplified. Different types of constructions and different classes of verbs which introduce (or may introduce) control relations have been identified and patterns of control instantiated by them have been described. It has been argued that the analysis of the Serbian data indicates that a type of the matrix predicate is not the only factor which determines the control relations established in a complex sentence, but that a type of situation/event described in the complement clause, as well as the relationship between the events denoted by the matrix and the complement clauses have their influence too.

Deriving VOS from VSO in Tongan

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-88
Author(s):  
Maria Polinsky ◽  
Eric Potsdam
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Clitic Doubling ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Rightward Movement ◽  
Basic Order

Research on word order has established several possible ways in which VOS order can be derived from VSO order. This chapter considers the derivational relationship between VSO and VOS in the Polynesian language Tongan. VSO order is basic in Tongan, and we address the derivation of VOS from this basic order in the context of multiple possibilities. We argue that Tongan VOS is better analyzed as rightward displacement of the subject as opposed to leftward displacement of the object proposed by Otsuka (2005a,c). The clause-final subject shows many of the hallmarks of rightward movement, including information-structural restrictions, locality with respect to the matrix clause, lack of clitic doubling, and connectivity with respect to case and binding. Given that rightward movement has an uneasy place in syntactic theory, we take pains to establish that the analysis is successful and worth further scrutiny.

Systemic ambiguity as a motivation in the emergence of logophoricity

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Zygmunt Frajzyngier ◽  
Marielle Butters
Keyword(s):  
Functional Domain ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Specific Solution ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Clausal Complements ◽  
Reference Markers

Chapter 4 demonstrates that a systematic ambiguity within a domain may constitute a motivation in the emergence of a function. The functional domain discussed is the domain of reference. The systematic ambiguity at play is the coding of reference in clausal complements of verbs of saying. More specifically, the question is whether the participants in the complement clause are coreferential with the participant in the matrix clause or whether they are not coreferential. Some languages deploy pronouns in the complement clause to code disjoint reference and person, number, and gender agreement on the verb to code coreference (Polish). Other languages deploy pronouns in the complement clause to code coreference and nouns to code disjoint reference (English). The specific solution described in Chapter 4 are logophoric pronouns which code not only coreference with the subject of the matrix clause but also coreference with other arguments of the matrix clause. The Chapter describes how logophoric coding emerged from the de dicto reference markers.

SEMANTICS OF GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION: CORPUS AND QUANTITATIVE ASPECT

2019 ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
V. V. Zhukovska
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Quantitative Aspect ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Text Corpora ◽  
State Process ◽  
Grammatical Construction ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject

Recently, much research in linguistics has become increasingly interested in the use of new methods and tools to analyze authentic linguistic data provided by text corpora. One of the most reliable corpus-based methods is the collostruction analysis, developed by A. Stefanowitsch and S. Th. Gries. Through statistical corpus analysis, this method examines semantics of grammatical construction by measuring the degree of mutual association/ repulsion between a construction and lexical items flling its main slot. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of applying the collostructional analysis to study semantics of one type of the English unaugmented detached construction with explicit subject, a non-fnite construction of a binary structure consisting of a (pro)nominal subject and Participle I as a predicate, as in [ВКЕС [Subj cheeks][Pred burning suddenly]]. Using R statistical software and the script for the collostructional analysis on empirical data drawn from the BNC-BYU corpus, we identify verbs, which reveal signifcant attraction to the predicate slot. The semantic analysis of the most strongly attracted verbs allows determining the semantic verb classes most closely associated with the given construction. It appears that the construction particularly attracts verbs involving the body, verbs of emission, verbs of motion, verbs of existence, touch verbs, and verbs of perception. These verbs belong to the aspectual classes of state and process. The analysis proves that the semantics of the construction [ВКЕС with-less[Subj general noun][Verb Participle І]] sets restrictions on flling its predicate slot with only those verbs whose arguments are compatible with the semantic roles defned by the construction. In its prototypical meaning the analyzed detached construction verbalizes a scenario in which Agent (the subject of the matrix clause) has a Partitive (the subject of the construction) in State/ Process (expressed by the predicate of the construction — Participle I). The evidence from the study suggests that the collostructional analysis substantially advances our understanding of grammatical constructions and their meaning. Clearly, these are only preliminary fndings and further studies regarding collostructional semantics of other types of English detached constructions with explicit subject would be worthwhile.

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