Analyticization and the syntax of the synthetic residue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris H. Reintges ◽  
Sonia Cyrino
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Parameter Change ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Verb Constructions ◽  
Auxiliary Verb ◽  
High Degree

Current understanding of syntactic variation and change relies on the notion of parameters of varying magnitude (micro- and macroparameters). This chapter focuses on the flipside of parameter change, namely the retention and survival of synthetic morphological structure in a context of widespread analyticization. The global effects of synthetic-to-analytic drift are examined in two diachronic scenarios: one in which the process has almost, though not entirely been completed (Coptic Egyptian), and another one in which the process is still under way (Brazilian Portuguese). Coptic has gone very far in abandoning its former synthetic features and thus exhibits a high degree of analyticity. In Brazilian Portuguese, the analyticization process is an advanced state, with synthetically inflected tenses exhibiting a decreasing productivity and gradually being replaced by the corresponding auxiliary verb constructions in the spoken language. The restriction on verb movement is a side effect of ongoing analyticization that affects language’s word order.

scholarly journals BASIC WORD ORDER IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: A HYBRID EXTENDED PROJECTION PRINCIPLE (EPP) | A ORDEM BÁSICA DE PALAVRAS NO PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO: UM PRINCÍPIO DA PROJEÇÃO ESTENDIDO (EPP) HÍBRIDO

2017 ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Michelle Sheehan
Keyword(s):  
Hybrid Model ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Small Clause ◽  
External Argument ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Explanatory Account ◽  
Extended Projection ◽  
The Subject

<p>This paper proposes a novel analysis of word order in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), based on a hybrid model of EPP satisfaction. It is proposed that the subject requirement or EPP is a [uD] feature on T which can be satisfied either by DP movement or by movement of an inflected verb bearing a [D] feature in BP. This, it is claimed, offers an explanatory account of basic word order patterns in BP.  External argument DPs, merged above V, are closer to T than V, meaning that they must raise to satisfy the EPP, predicting SV(O) order with transitive and unergative predicates, including transitive psych-predicates. Internal arguments are merged below V, however, and so with unaccusatives, it is movement of the verb bearing a [uD] feature which satisfies the EPP, giving rise to VS order. With copular verbs which take small clause complements, a similar affect holds, as the copular verb can satisfy the EPP. Verb movement can also satisfy the EPP in impersonal contexts, hence the fact that BP lacks overt expletives.</p><p>Resumo: Este artigo propõe uma nova análise da ordem de palavras no Português Brasileiro (PB), baseada num modelo hibrido de satisfação do Princípio da Projeção Extendido (PPE). Propõe-se que o requisito de sujeito ou PPE é um rasgo [uD] no núcleo T, que se pode satisfazer ou por alçamento de um DP ou por movimento de um verbo flexionado com um traço [D] no PB. Esta abordagem oferece uma análise explanatória da ordem básica das palavras no PB. Os argumentos externos (dos verbos transitivos e inergativos) que originam acima do verbo, são mais perto de T, assim que devem mover para satisfazer o PPE, o que prediz corretamente a ordem SV(O) com estes verbos (incluso os predicados psicológicos transitivos).  Os argumentos internos originam abaixo do verbo, assim que com os verbos inacusativos, e o verbo com um traco [D] que deve satisfazer o PPE, ocasionando a ordem VS. Com os verbos copulares com clausulas pequenas como complemento, observamos algo parecido porque a verbo copulativo também pode satisfazer o PPE. O alçamento do verbo também pode satisfazer o PPE em contextos impessoais, por isso a falta de expletivos no PB. </p><p> </p>

Coalescence and contraction of V-to-Vinf sequences in American English – Evidence from spoken language

2017 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lorenz ◽  
David Tizón-Couto
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
American English ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Type V ◽  
Morphological Parsing ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Speech Situation

AbstractThis paper addresses the issue of coalescence of frequent collocations and its consequences for their realization and mental representation. The items examined are ‘semi-modal’ instantiations of the type V-to-Vinf, namely have to, used to, trying to and need to, in American English. We explore and compare their realization variants in speech, considering the effects of speech-internal and extra-linguistic factors (speech rate, stress accent, phonological context, speech situation, age of the speaker), as well as possible effects of analogy with established contractions like gonna, wanna. Our findings show a high degree of coalescence in the items under study, but no clear pattern of contraction. The propensity for contraction in analogy to gonna/wanna is strongly affected by phonological properties – it is inhibited by the presence of a fricative in have/used to. Moreover, the most frequent reduced realizations are conservative in terms of transparency and still allow morphological parsing of the structure. More radical contractions are restricted to rapid and informal speech, and less entrenched as variants. This shows the limitations of reduction as a frequency effect in light of the balance between articulatory ease and explicitness in speaker–hearer interaction. Even in highly frequent and strongly coalesced items, reduction (articulatory ease) is restricted by a tendency to retain cues to morphological structure (explicitness). Finally, we propose a network of pronunciation variants that includes representation strengths as well as analogy relations across constructional types.

OV versus VO in Old High German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
The Right

This chapter surveys the word order variation in the right periphery of the clause in OHG. The investigation is based on a corpus including all dependent clauses introduced by the complementizer thaz ‘that’ in the minor OHG documents, a collection of up to forty smaller texts of various genres. The analysis shows that the majority of the data can be explained within a standard OV grammar, assuming additional extraposition of heavy XPs to the right. But apart from these cases, there is evidence supporting the assumption of leftward movement of the verb to an intermediate functional projection vP which is optional with basic OV but obligatory with basic VO. In addition, the chapter presents patterns which evidently involve verb movement to a higher functional head, above vP, and discusses the nature of the landing site of the verb in these cases.

scholarly journals On the lack of adaptation in the Tristichaceœ and Podostemaceœ

1914 ◽  
Vol 87 (598) ◽  
pp. 532-550 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Living Condition ◽  
Flowering Plants ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Dead Material ◽  
Dry Seasons ◽  
Great Uniformity ◽  
High Degree

With the exception of some of the parasitic orders, such as the Balanophoraceœ , there are probably no families of flowering plants—one might almost include flowerless—which are so completely transformed from the average or mesophytic type of the phanerogams into types which are so completely unique and peculiar, as the Tristichaceæ and still more the Podostemaceæ. Nor are there any in which, with such very great uniformity in the conditions of life, there is such remarkable variety in the morphological structure. The structure of the orders, or rather of their members, being unique, and the conditions under which they live being also unique, it has been taken for granted that the former is in a high degree adapted to the latter, the flat thallus-like expansions of stem or root being looked upon as admirably suited to the rushing water in which they live. So long as we were almost completely ignorant of the actual living plants, and content with dead material collected mainly in the dry seasons, this was all very well, but now that for 17 years I have devoted much attention to these plants,* have studied them in the living condition in their natural habitats in India, Ceylon, and Brazil, have followed them from germination right through their life-history, and in other ways become absolutely familiar with them, and as a result of all this have arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions, it will repay us to examine into the question in some detail.

scholarly journals On the Acquisition of Word Order in WH-Questions in theTromsø Dialect

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.48 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Wh Questions

This article reports on a study of three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian which allows two different word orders in certain types of WH-questions, verb second (V2) and and verb third (V3). The latter is only allowed after monosyllabic WH-words, while the former, which is the result of verb movement, is the word order found in all other main clauses in the language. It is shown that both V2 and V3 are acquired extremely early by the children in the study (before the age of two), and that subtle distinctions between the two orders with respect to information structure are attested from the beginning. However, it is argued that V3 word order, which should be ìsimplerî than the V2 structure as it does not involve verb movement, is nevertheless acquired slightly later in its full syntactic form. This is taken as an indication that the V3 structure is syntactically more complex, and possibly also more marked.

Review of Anderson (2006): Auxiliary Verb Constructions

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 234-238
Author(s):  
Elly van Gelderen
Keyword(s):  
Verb Constructions ◽  
Auxiliary Verb

Morphological Means in Russian: Clarification of the Concept

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Galina I. Panova ◽  
Tatiana V. Viktorina ◽  
Antonina E. Kuzmina
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Similar Function ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
The Russian Language

The concept of “morphological / grammatical means” is widely used in studies on the Russian language, although there is no generally accepted interpretation. This work analyzes the reflection of this concept in Russian studies and clarifies the status of those linguistic units that are traditionally referred to as morphological means: form-building affixes, alternating sounds (internal inflection), stress, supplementary word stems, auxiliary words, intonation, as well as word order. Our research has shown that these linguistic units have different functional status in the morphological structure of the Russian language. First, these are categorical, or actually morphological, means, represented by formative affixes and auxiliary words. They are carriers of morphological meanings in the structure of abstracted morphological forms – the basic units of inflectional Russian morphology. Secondly, a non-categorical means, syncretic and accidental for morphology, are supplementary stems that contain not only lexical, but also morphological meaning and thus duplicate the expression of morphological information in a word form with a form-building affix. Thirdly, these are linguistic units that are not elements of the morphological structure, but have morphological significance, which is manifested in their ability to differentiate homonymous morphological forms in the structure of word forms (alternating sounds and stress) or utterances (intonation). Word order can also perform a similar function. The study allows us to clarify the definition of the concept under consideration: morphological means are linguistic units that are carriers of morphological meanings and constituents of morphological forms.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document