Cross-Linguistic Variation in the Layered Structure of PP

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-217
Author(s):  
Hisako Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Layered Structure ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Case Morphology ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Parallel Pattern ◽  
Principled Account ◽  
Nominal Morphology

This chapter provides a novel observation concerning cross-linguistic variation regarding NP-ellipsis (henceforth NPE) inside articulated PPs and considers its theoretical implications. It first shows that although NPE is equally available in nominals in English, Chinese, and Japanese, the parallel pattern breaks down when NPE takes place within PPs. This study proposes a principled account of the cross-linguistic variation in question on the basis of (i) the layered internal structure of PPs, (ii) the syntactic reflection of fusional/non-fusional case morphology, and (iii) a phase-based analysis of ellipsis. The proposed analysis correctly predicts not only the availability of NPE within PPs but also one without PPs in English, Chinese, and Japanese. This chapter also provides theoretical implications for the role of phases in ellipsis and the cross-linguistic differences in nominal morphology.

scholarly journals Correction by Focus: Cleft Constructions and the Cross-Linguistic Variation in Phonological Form

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Greif ◽  
Stavros Skopeteas
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Focus Structure ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Phonological Form ◽  
Cleft Constructions ◽  
The Cross

A challenging issue of cross-linguistic variation is that the same syntactic construction may appear in different arrays of contexts depending on language. For instance, cleft constructions appear with contrastive focus in English, but in a larger array of contexts in French. A part of the cross-linguistic variation may be due to prosodic differences, since prosodic possibilities determine the array of focus structures that can be mapped onto one and the same syntactic configuration. In the present study, we compare languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German), with languages that do not use this prosodic strategy (French, Mandarin Chinese). In a speech production experiment, we examine the prosodic realization of contrastive focus and identify prosodic reflexes of focus in all languages. The presence of different phonetic reflexes of focus suggests that – anything else being equal – the same syntactic constructions should be possible in the same array of contexts. In an acceptability study with written questionnaires, we examined the felicity of cleft constructions in contexts licensing a focus within the cleft clause. This focus structure is orthogonal to the preferred focus structure of cleft constructions and can appear in cases of second-occurrence foci (in contexts of correction). The obtained judgments reveal a distinction between languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German) and languages with other types of reflexes of focus (French, Chinese): languages of the former type have an advantage in using cleft constructions with a focus within the cleft clause, which shows that the array of contexts of using clefts in English and German is not a proper subset of the array of contexts applying to the same constructions in French and Chinese. The obtained differences can be explained by the role of prosodic devices and corroborate the view that prosodic reflexes of focus have different semantic-pragmatic import: it is easier to establish a focus structure that is orthogonal to the syntax in a language with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German); this does not hold for prosodic correlates of focus that reinforce the articulation of prosodic constituents (French) or the articulation of lexical tones (Chinese).

scholarly journals Language Use and International Business: What Can We Learn from Anthropology?

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (38) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Jakob Lauring ◽  
Toke Bjerregaard
Keyword(s):  
International Business ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
International Firms ◽  
International Firm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Challenges ◽  
The Impact

This article addresses the role of language use in international business. It argues that the impact of linguistic differences on the daily workings of international business activities and communication is shaped by the way in which these differences intersect with the social and professional structures of international firms. Thus, the analysis of management across linguistic variation requires an understanding of the character of the social and professional ties in which international business is embedded. The intensity of cross-linguistic challenges in international management is not given by the formal character and structure of linguistic differences only. While the daily practices of language use in an international firm are shaped by its social and professional structure, linguistic practices may also strengthen the social and professional ties shaping the dissemination of information. The role of linguistic differences in everyday business communication both shapes and is shaped by the character of social and professional groupings and networks in an international firm. For management, this means that handling linguistic variation and challenges also requires a consideration of the specific social as well as professional structure of a given international firm. The dynamics between language use and the social structures in which information and resources are embedded and communicated are multidirectional. This is especially clear in an international context. The article is informed by material obtained through an ethnographic fieldwork in a Saudi-Arabian subsidiary of a multinational corporation.

scholarly journals Getting the ball rolling: the cross-linguistic conceptualization of caused motion

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUILLERMO MONTERO-MELIS ◽  
EMANUEL BYLUND
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Ball Rolling ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Way

abstractDoes the way we talk about events correspond to how we conceptualize them? Three experiments (N= 135) examined how Spanish and Swedish native speakers judge event similarity in the domain of caused motion (‘He rolled the tyre into the barn’). Spanish and Swedish motion descriptions regularly encode path (‘into’), but differ in how systematically they include manner information (‘roll’). We designed a similarity arrangement task which allowed participants to give varying weights to different dimensions when gauging event similarity. The three experiments progressively reduced the likelihood that speakers were using language to solve the task. We found that, as long as the use of language was possible (Experiments 1 and 2), Swedish speakers were more likely than Spanish speakers to base their similarity arrangements on object manner (rolling/sliding). However, when recruitment of language was hindered through verbal interference, cross-linguistic differences disappeared (Experiment 3). A compound analysis of all experiments further showed that (i) cross-linguistic differences were played out against a backdrop of commonly represented event components, and (ii) describing vs. not describing the events did not augment cross-linguistic differences, but instead had similar effects across languages. We interpret these findings as suggesting a dynamic role of language in event conceptualization.

scholarly journals Polysemy and grammaticalization of verbs of throwing: evidence from Hill Mari

2020 ◽  
Vol XVI (1) ◽  
pp. 494-520
Author(s):  
E. Kashkin ◽  
◽  
Daria Mordashova ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Oral Narratives ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Verb Constructions ◽  
Distributional Constraints ◽  
The Cross

The paper deals with verbs of throwing in Hill Mari (Finno-Ugric). The data were collected in fieldwork mainly by elicitation, as well as by analyzing the corpus of transcribed oral narratives. First of all, two dominant lexemes of this semantic field are taken into account. These lexemes display clear differences in their Aktionsart properties. The differences between the lexemes with regard to a number of parameters previously proposed in typology are investigated, their relevance is evaluated. New parameters for their opposition are put forward. In addition, the article discusses the peripheral verbs of adjacent semantic fields (destruction and distribution in space). The correlations between more general distributive semantics of the peripheral lexemes and their semantic content in the contexts of throwing are considered. Special attention is paid to the grammaticalization of dominant verbs of throwing in complex verb constructions and to the analysis of their distributional constraints. Both the similarities between the constructions (participant with a semantic role of Patient, semantics of destruction) and the diff erences between them (constraints on plurality) are studied. Data on complex verb constructions are also discussed in the light of the cross-linguistic variation in the semantic shifts typical of the domain under consideration

Morphology and Pro Drop

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Koeneman ◽  
Hedde Zeijlstra
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
English Only ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Nominal Morphology

Many, and according to some estimates most, of the world’s languages allow the subject of the sentence to be unexpressed, a phenomenon known as ‘pro(noun) drop’. In a language like Italian, Gianni parla ‘Gianni speaks’ and Parla ‘(S)he speaks’ are both grammatical sentences. This is in contrast to a language like English, in which not expressing the subject leads to an ungrammatical sentence: *Speaks. The difference between being and not being able to leave the subject unexpressed (or, to put it differently, to have a ‘null subject’) has been related to the richness of the verbal paradigm of a language. Whereas Italian has six different agreement endings in the present tense, English only marks the third-person singular differently (with an -s affix, as in John speak-s). Although this correlation with rich agreement is pervasive, it does not successfully capture all the cross-linguistic variation that is attested. Languages like Japanese and Chinese, for instance, allow unexpressed arguments (including subjects) in the absence of any agreement. For these languages, it has been observed that their pronominal paradigms tend to have transparent, agglutinative nominal morphology, expressing case or number features. Trickier perhaps are languages that allow pro drop under certain conditions only. Some languages, such as Finnish or colloquial variants of German, allow it in certain but not all person/number contexts. Other languages, such as Icelandic, allow the subject to be unexpressed only if it is an expletive, the counterpart of English it (cf. It is raining) or there (There is a man in the garden). For these so-called partial pro drop languages, it is still unclear if one can relate their more restricted absence of overt subjects to other observable properties that they possess.

Cross-linguistic variation in metonymies for PERSON

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiwei Zhang ◽  
Dirk Speelman ◽  
Dirk Geeraerts
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Source Selection ◽  
Chinese And English ◽  
Relevant Factors

This paper investigates metonymies for person in Chinese and English in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics with an emphasis on cross-linguistic variation. Our central goal is to highlight the important role of cultural elements on the use of metonymy. Three main types of cross-linguistic variation were found at different degrees of granularities of metonymies: variation in metonymic patterns for the general target category person, variation in metonymic patterns for a specific kind of person, and variation in metonymic sources in a specific pattern. The variation was examined against its cultural background, and we conclude that some cross-linguistic differences are to a large extent rooted in culturally relevant factors. The findings suggest that although bodily experience as the general cognitive basis for metonymic pattern/source selection implies the universality of metonymies across different languages, cultural elements contribute to the language-specific preferences for metonymies of a given target.

Maintaining harmony across the globe: The cross-cultural role of closeness in interpersonal forgiveness

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Karremans ◽  
Camillo Regalia ◽  
Giorgia Paleari ◽  
Frank Fincham ◽  
Ming Cui ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Interpersonal Forgiveness ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Cultural Role

Zeit und gutes Leben

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-513
Author(s):  
Holmer Steinfath
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Good Life ◽  
External Factor ◽  
Life Time ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
Gutes Leben

Time is a neglected subject in recent, especially analytically minded reflections on the good life. The article highlights the fundamental role of time and temporality for an adequate understanding of the good life. Time functions both as an external factor with which we have to reckon in our practical deliberations and as an internal structure of living our lives. It is argued that striving for a good life also means striving for being in harmony with the time of one's life. The exploration of this idea allows to link analytical with phenomenological approaches to time and good life.

The Role of Sensing Peptides in the Cross-talk between Microbiota and Human Cancer Cells

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (18) ◽  
pp. 1567-1571
Author(s):  
Anna Lucia Tornesello ◽  
Luigi Buonaguro ◽  
Maria Lina Tornesello ◽  
Franco M. Buonaguro
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Cells ◽  
Cross Talk ◽  
Human Cancer ◽  
Human Cancer Cells ◽  
The Cross

The Power of the Cross and Cruciform Devices in the Carolingian World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Manuscript Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Early Byzantine

This chapter shows the unquestionable role of the sign of the cross as the primary sign of divine authority in Carolingian material and manuscript culture, a role partly achieved at the expense of the diminishing symbolic importance of the late antique christograms. It also analyses the appearance of new cruciform devices in the ninth century as well as the adaptation of the early Byzantine tradition of cruciform invocational monograms in Carolingian manuscript culture, as exemplified in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura and several other religious manuscripts. The final section examines some Carolingian carmina figurata and, most importantly, Hrabanus Maurus’ In honorem sanctae crucis, as a window into Carolingian graphicacy and the paramount importance of the sign of the cross as its ultimate organizing principle.

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