The ‘of’ word

2021 ◽  
pp. 238-248
Author(s):  
Nigel Vincent
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Architecture ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Categorial Status

This chapter explores from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives the categorial status of words like English of and equivalent items in other languages. It evaluates, and ultimately comes down in favour of, the arguments for continuing to treat such items as prepositions and heads of PP even when they have lost independent semantic content and serve instead a purely grammatical function. This analysis is contrasted both with the proposal to assign them to the functional category K(ase), as favoured within current nanosyntactic work, and with an account in which they retain prepositional status but as non-projecting members of that class. In broader theoretical terms, the chapter argues that one of the benefits of LFG’s parallel architecture is the consequential economy in its postulated inventory of functional categories.

Functional categories related to verb inflection are not differentially impaired in Greek aphasia

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
ATHANASSIOS PROTOPAPAS ◽  
SPYRIDOULA CHEIMARIOU ◽  
ALEXANDRA ECONOMOU ◽  
MARIA KAKAVOULIA ◽  
SPYRIDOULA VARLOKOSTA
Keyword(s):  
Matched Control ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Processing Load ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Verb Inflection

abstractPrevious research in Greek aphasia has indicated that functional categories related to verb inflection are differentially impacted, with Aspect most severely affected, Agreement least affected, and Tense occupying an intermediate position. However, research materials were not controlled for overall length or position of the verb within the sentence, confounding functional category with processing load. Using balanced materials, here we tested ten persons with aphasia and ten matched control participants on grammaticality judgment and sentence completion in three functional categories (agreement, tense, and aspect) using ten verbs spanning a range of familiarity. Production results indicated no difference in errors of either lexeme or inflectional morpheme selection. In grammaticality judgment acceptance of incorrect sentences was lower for Agreement but this pattern was mirrored in the control group as well. The results provide no basis to support a specific linguistic deficit in the representation of functional categories in Greek persons with aphasia.

Innovation in functional categories: slash, a new coordinator in English

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-644
Author(s):  
BRENT WOO
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
English Expression ◽  
Syntactic Behavior ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
English I

This article presents an analysis of the distribution and syntactic behavior of the English expression slash, as in John is a linguist slash musician. The interpretation of this ‘effable slash’ is largely equivalent to intersective and, but it differs from other connective devices like Latin cum, N–N compounding and the orthographic slash </>. A corpus study of American English finds that slash is productive in this use. Its syntactic properties confirm its status as coordinator, but it is distinguished from standard coordinators and and or, in that it imposes category restrictions on the conjuncts: it cannot coordinate full clauses or noun phrases with determiners. I propose that words like slash, period and quote form a class of ‘effable punctuation’ that entered the spoken language from writing. In sum, by incorporating slash into the grammar of English, I argue that slash is a rare example of innovation in a ‘very closed’ functional category.

scholarly journals On the Distribution of Determiners in Haitian Creole

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Lumsden
Keyword(s):  
Functional Category ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
General Constraint ◽  
Precise Data ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Linear Sequence ◽  
Genitive Case

Abstract The paper provides more precise data on the distribution of determiners in Haitian creole. It proposes that there are two independent constraints on the distribution of these functional categories. In Haitian, as in English, Hungarian, Turkish and Hebrew, a specific determiner is necessary to the realization of genitive Case. Moreover there is a general constraint on processing which forbids the insertion of two identical functional category signals in a linear sequence. This processing constraint can be seen in at least on other language (Fon).

scholarly journals Determiners

Linguistics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Phoevos Panagiotidis
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Syntactic Category ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Functional Layer ◽  
Defining Relations ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
Nominal Agreement ◽  
Categorial Status ◽  
Quantifier Theory

Determiners are a nominal syntactic category distinct both from adjectives and nouns, despite the close affinity among them. They are commonly understood to comprise the word classes of article, demonstrative, and quantifier, as well as some possessives and some nominal agreement markers. Determiners became a prominent topic of study in grammatical theory during the 1980s, due both to advances in semantic theorizing, such as Generalized Quantifier Theory, and to the generalization of the X’ phrasal schema to minor (functional) categories, to which determiners are posited to belong. The main questions that have been the focus of theoretical and typological inquiry ever since are the categorial status of determiners (functional or lexical), whether they are universal as a distinct syntactic category, whether they constitute a uniform category or not, their structural position, their feature content, their role in argumenthood and semantic interpretation in general, and their relation to pronouns. Answers to these questions are in part determined by whether one takes determiners to be the nominal equivalent of complementizers (i.e., to constitute the topmost functional layer of the nominal phrase) or to be all quantifiers, defining relations between predicates. At the same time, a wealth of syntactic phenomena involving determiners have been investigated, shedding light not only on the structure of the nominal phrase and on the distribution of nominal features within it, but also on the nature of adjectives, possessives, and nouns.

Nominal inflection and the nature of functional categories

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Functional Category ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Maximal Projection ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Binding

There is a widespread assumption within the Government–Binding theory as it has developed from the Barriers model (Chomsky 1986) that functional categories, that is, categories which play a role in establishing dependencies between parts of a sentence, as opposed to lexical categories, should be represented as heads projecting X-bar phrases. I shall refer to this as the Full Functional Projection Hypothesis (FFPH), stated informally in (1). (i) Full Functional Projection Hypothesis Any morphophonosyntactic formative which corresponds to a functional category in a given language is syntactically the head of a maximal projection.

The KEY to lexical semantic representations

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEAN-PIERRE KOENIG ◽  
ANTHONY R. DAVIS
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Natural Language Semantic ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Recursive Predicate ◽  
Predicate Argument Structure ◽  
Difficult Cases

It is widely accepted that the semantic content of a lexical entry determines to a large extent its syntactic subcategorization or other contexts of occurrence. However, clarifying the precise extent to which this hypothesis holds has proven difficult and on occasion controversial. To maintain this hypothesis, scholars have in many difficult cases introduced syntactic diacritics in their lexical semantic representations, thereby running the risk of rendering it vacuous. Our answer to this challenge is two-fold. First, on the substantive side, we argue that the problem lies in the assumption that the semantic content of lexical entries consists of a recursive predicate-argument structure. In contrast, we claim that the semantic content of lexical entries can consist of a set of such structures, thus eschewing semantically unmotivated predicates that merely ensure the correct semantic geometry. Second, on the structural side, we suggest that the semantic content of words can idiosyncratically select one of those predicate-argument structures for the purposes of direct grammatical function assignment. We show that this hypothesis, which builds on independently motivated proposals regarding the form of underspecified natural language semantic representations, provides a clean account of linking phenomena related to several classes of predicators: verbs whose denotata require the presence of an instrument, the semantic role of French ‘adjunct’ clitics, commercial event verbs, the spray/load alternations, and lexical subordination constructions.

18. Graphic Identification, Semantic Interpretation and Phonological Implications in the Oracle Writing of Shang

Early China ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 9 (S1) ◽  
pp. 41-44
Author(s):  
Paul L-M. Serruys
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Graphic Analysis ◽  
Chinese Writing ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTAll translations or interpretations of the Shang oracular texts are ultimately founded on the way in which one understands the system of the early Chinese writing and its underlying principles. This writing system cannot be fully understood unless the study of the graphic structure of each writing unit is combined with that of all other factors that can be observed from the point of view of semantic content and phonology. A short discussion of these three aspects or factors in the writing system is intended to show that any graphic analysis from the very beginning needs to consider the word that is represented by the graphic unit and to determine it in meaning(s) and pronunciation(s), grammatical function(s), and its relationship with other words, whether cognates, synonyms or homonyms, liable to be used as loan units ( ). The graphic analysis must not only explain the pictographic aspects of the graphs, but also determine the possible phonetic, semantic, or etymonic roles played by any of its constituent parts. In this respect, processes like polyphony, polysemy, graphic convergence and confusions, and loan graph substitutions all require vigorous scrutiny from the point of view of the phonology of the Shang language. Besides using information from later bronze texts, classics, and early dictionaries, it is important to let the Shang data speak for themselves.

Missing inflection in second language French: accidental infinitives and other verbal deficits

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Herschensohn
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Structure Building ◽  
The Third ◽  
Syntactic Differences ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This article re-examines the morphology/functional category debate in the light of empirical data drawn from the author’s longitudinal study of two intermediate learners of French as a second language (L2). It argues that inflectional deficits -which appear both as nonfinite verbs and as other morphological errors in the interlanguage data -support neither a codependence of syntax and morphology (Eubank, 1993/94) nor a gradual structure-building of L2 functional categories (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1998a, 1998b). The French data rather indicate that deficiencies in morphological mapping, not defective syntax (functional categories), are the cause of L2 failed inflection (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1996; Lardière, 1998). The data also support the claim that L2 morpholexical characteristics - the most prone to cross-linguistic variation - are more difficult to master than syntactic differences (Herschensohn, 2000). The first section reviews the theoretical issues, discussing the morphology/functional category link in L1 and then in L2 acquisition. The second section presents relevant data on infinitival forms and other errors from the author’s study. The third section discusses the data, arguing that the infinitival forms of intermediate grammars are not ‘root infinitives’ such as those seen in early stages of L1 acquisition, but rather examples of defective inflection.

scholarly journals A Comparative Functional Analysis of Discourse Markers in the Native and the Non-Native English Newspaper Business Corpus

2021 ◽  
Vol volume 05 (issue 2) ◽  
pp. 325-340
Author(s):  
Ammara Riaz ◽  
Moazzam Ali Malik ◽  
Nazia Anwar
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Quantitative Difference ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

Abstract The current study explores the functional nature of Discourse Markers (DMs) in the newspaper business corpus. DMs function as cohesive devices which, additionally, carry pragmatic and semantic meanings present in both the written and the spoken discourse. The focus of this study is to comparatively highlight the differences in the functions of DMs in the business discourse of the native and the non-native newspapers. The study has employed Fung’s (2003) multi-categorical comprehensive framework of DMs. The framework functionally divides DMs into interpersonal, cognitive, structural, and referential categories. These major categories have further been divided into many subcategories of DMs. Based on this comprehensive framework; the current study identifies different functional DMs and compares them for their quantitative and qualitative differences in use. For the analysis of this study, a corpus of one million words was collected from the native business newspapers (The Daily Mail and The Telegraph) and the non-native business newspapers (The Dawn, The Business Recorder, The Nation and Daily Times). Data analysis shows that the most frequently used functional categories of DMs among the native writers are referential and structural, while the least frequently used functional category is cognitive. On the other hand, non-native Pakistani writers make more use of functional DMs of referential, structural and cognitive categories, while the least frequently used functional category is interpersonal. This quantitative difference in the use of DMs makes the native business corpus more coherent and interactive than that of the non-native business corpus. It is expected that the findings of the study may help understand the differences of textuality in the native and the non-native newspaper corpus. It is also expected that the findings of the current study can assist curriculum developers and ESL instructors in developing better teaching materials for second language learners.

A Longitudinal Posthumous Study of Letter Writing in a Late Elderly Case

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33
Author(s):  
Angel Ball ◽  
Jean Neils-Strunjas ◽  
Kate Krival
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Elderly Woman ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
Errors Analysis ◽  
Normal Status

This study is a posthumous longitudinal study of consecutive letters written by an elderly woman from age 89 to 93. Findings reveal a consistent linguistic performance during the first 3 years, supporting “normal” status for late elderly writing. She produced clearly written cursive form, intact semantic content, and minimal spelling and stroke errors. A decline in writing was observed in the last 6–9 months of the study and an analysis revealed production of clausal fragmentation, decreasing semantic clarity, and a higher frequency of spelling, semantic, and stroke errors. Analysis of writing samples can be a valuable tool in documenting a change in cognitive status differentiated from normal late aging.

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