scholarly journals Word order change at the left periphery of the Hungarian noun phrase

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Egedi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Word Order Change

This chapter studies the determination and the distribution of possessive constructions from Old to Modern Hungarian. The grammaticalization of the definite article in well-defined contexts had structural consequences, the most salient of which is the emergence of a new strategy for demonstrative modification, which is called determiner doubling throughout the paper. Word order variation arises due to the determiners’ interference with the possessor expressions at the left periphery of the noun phrase. The newly added demonstratives first adjoined to the noun phrase in a somewhat looser fashion: their combination with the dative-marked possessors resulted in a word order specific only to the Middle Hungarian period (Demonstrative-Possessor). At a later stage, demonstratives got incorporated into the specifier of the DP, giving rise to the fixed word order Possessor-Demonstrative, with the Possessor undergoing noun phrase internal topicalization, thus landing in a phrase-initial specifier position.

scholarly journals Word order change from a diachronic generative syntax perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Maria Martins ◽  
Adriana Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Generative Syntax ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Word Order Change

This introductory overview chapter focuses on the relation between movement operations and word order by assembling the pieces of information offered by the book’s authors. It shows how the essays published in the book indicate, when considered together, that word order change is mainly the effect of the interaction between clause structure and syntactic movement, thus identifying these two components of grammar as the main factors behind word order variation. It also demonstrates that the study of word order change (set within the framework of diachronic generative syntax) is a means to test the descriptive adequacy and explanatory potential of competing analyses of word order phenomena not restricted to historical change, and identifies (theoretical and empirical) research issues that emerge from the type of approach to word order change envisaged in the book.

Particle-verb order in Old Hungarian and complex predicates

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Hegedűs
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Complex Predicates ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Secondary Predicates ◽  
Particle Verb ◽  
Word Order Change

This chapter examines the distribution of verbal particles in Old Hungarian, and argues that despite the word order change from SOV to SVO in Hungarian, the particle-verb order did not change because the previous pre-verbal argument position was reanalysed as a pre-verbal predicative position where complex predicates are formed in overt syntax. Predicative constituents other than particles show significant word order variation in Old Hungarian, apparently due to optionality in predicate movement (while variation found with particle-verb orderings can be attributed to independent factors). It is proposed that after the basic word order was reanalysed as VO, internal arguments and secondary predicates could appear post-verbally and it was the still obligatory movement of particles that triggered the generalization of predicate movement, making all predicates pre-verbal in neutral sentences at later stages. This process involves a period of word order variation as predicate movement gradually generalizes to different types of predicates.

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.

scholarly journals Prosodic and information-structural factors in word order variation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Hinterhölzl ◽  
Svetlana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
New Information ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Semantic Types ◽  
Information Focus

This chapter proposes an analysis that derives the word order variation in dependent clauses in OHG within a universal VO base order, plus additional cyclic leftward movement operations that target different information-structural projections in the complex left periphery of the clause. More precisely, it is argued that categories conveying contrastive information land in [Spec,FocP], with the finite verb targeting Foc° and marking the left edge of the new-information focus domain, while background information is placed further left, between ForceP and FocP. This positional realization of the verb and phrases expressing different semantic types of focus is considered a special strategy of disambiguating broad from narrow focus, as well as of avoiding the clash of two focus phrases in the middle field of clauses with multiple foci.

Duplicity in possessive merger: evidence from Spanish alienable possessive constructions

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-412
Author(s):  
Sangyoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The Core ◽  
Internal Category ◽  
Direct Modification ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Principled Explanation

Abstract In this paper, I argue that Spanish prenominal and postnominal possessives target different external merge positions focusing on alienable possessive constructions. The analysis is developed alongside a proposal on the organization of DPs, according to which articles are merged as a DP-internal category between the domains assigned to direct and indirect modifiers. Prenominal possessives are determiners reanalyzed from direct modification adjectives whereas postnominal possessives are indirect modification adjectives that arise as predicates of reduced relative clauses. This analysis provides a principled explanation on the behavior of Spanish possessives that is lacking in the generalized idea that they are pronouns with a unique merge position. Arguments are also presented showing that syntax-driven phonological restrictions condition the derivation of DPs. The account successfully derives the core properties of word order variation and related issues within possessive constructions.

The parallelism between NPs and clauses in terms of pragmatic effects on word order

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. v-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bingfu LU ◽  
Bingfu LU
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation

This article argues that the two word order typologies at the clause level (V, S, O) and at the noun phrase level ([D]emonstrative, [A]djective, [N]oun) are both crucially motivated by the same two principles, that is, the principle of Semantic Head-Proximity (SHP) and the pragmatic Identifiability Precedence Principle (IPP). The interaction of the SHP and the IPP can explain several major left-right asymmetries of word order variation, such as the observation that the order of pre-nominal modifiers is usually fixed while that of post-nominal ones is fairly variable. In particular, to comprehensively account for the order of modifiers, an extended IPP is posited, which states that the higher the degree of identifiability (definiteness, etc.) a modifier contributes to its matrix NP, the stronger is its tendency to appear earlier.

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).

An Information Structure scenario for V2 loss in Medieval French

Diachronica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Larrivée
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Gradual Loss ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Informational Cues ◽  
Word Order Change ◽  
Informational Value

Abstract This paper discusses word order change in Medieval French. Verb-second (V2) configurations are generally understood as having an initial XP and the verb in the left periphery. How has this configuration been lost in French? Under an Information Structure scenario, the XP is in initial position because of its characterized (discourse-old) informational value, which motivates the left-peripheral position of the verb. The decline of the characterized informational value of the XP thus accounts for the gradual loss of V2. The informational behaviour of XPs was examined in unambiguous V2 configurations with an overt post-verbal subject in Medieval French. This detailed quantitative study of a calibrated corpus shows that XPs with a characterized informational value were predominant with productive V2 configurations, that they gradually declined as productive V2 was lost, and that they increasingly failed to attract the verb to the left periphery. These observations can be accounted for if V2 in Medieval French was driven by informational values and if it disappeared along with the informational cues provided by the XPs.

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