Expressive intensifier

2019 ◽  
pp. 124-171
Author(s):  
Daniel Gutzmann
Keyword(s):  
Special Class ◽  
Determiner Phrase ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
External Degree ◽  
Degree Modification ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Expressive intensifiers (EIs) are a special class of degree expressions found in informal variants of German. They are distinguished from ordinary degree intensifiers like ‘very’ by several special semantic and syntactic properties. Most importantly EIs can appear in what is called the external degree modification construction (EDCs), in which the EI precedes the determiner, but still intensifies an adjective or noun inside the determiner phrase. The main analysis of this EDC is that they are derived via movement, which in turn is triggered by an uninterpretable expressivity feature in D, which attracts the intensifier in order to establish an agreement relation. This also provides a possibility to analyse the form-meaning mismatches that can be observed with EDCs. The upshot of this chapter for the hypothesis of expressive syntax is that expressivity as a syntactic feature can trigger movement.

ON THE (UN)-AMBIGUITY OF ADJECTIVAL MODIFICATION IN SPANISH DETERMINER PHRASES

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Rothman ◽  
Tiffany Judy ◽  
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes ◽  
Acrisio Pires
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Determiner Phrase ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Functional Features ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Adjectival Modification ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This study contributes to a central debate within contemporary generative second language (L2) theorizing: the extent to which adult learners are (un)able to acquire new functional features that result in a L2 grammar that is mentally structured like the native target (see White, 2003). The adult acquisition of L2 nominal phi-features is explored, with focus on the syntactic and semantic reflexes in the related domain of adjective placement in two experimental groups: English-speaking intermediate (n= 21) and advanced (n= 24) learners of Spanish, as compared to a native-speaker control group (n= 15). Results show that, on some of the tasks, the intermediate L2 learners appear to have acquired the syntactic properties of the Spanish determiner phrase but, on other tasks, to show some delay with the semantic reflexes of prenominal and postnominal adjectives. Crucially, however, our data demonstrate full convergence by all advanced learners and thus provide evidence in contra the predictions of representational deficit accounts (e.g., Hawkins & Chan, 1997; Hawkins & Franceschina, 2004; Hawkins & Hattori, 2006).

Program Text, Programming Style, Programmer Labor

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-394
Author(s):  
Brian Lennon
Keyword(s):  
Programming Languages ◽  
Special Class ◽  
Computer Programming ◽  
Program Text ◽  
Natural Language Text ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Human Labor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Language Text

Computer programming can be understood as both a kind of writing and a special class of human labor activity facilitating the automation of other human labor activities, not excluding itself. From the very beginning of the history of computer programming, it was recognized that the technical logic of programming is a logic of automation, indeed, a logic of self-automation or even recursive automation. This article suggests that a syntactic feature common to all programming languages used today serves as a register of this logic of automation, leaving traces in code that are legible if one knows where to look. That feature is the comment: natural-language text within a computer program that is written exclusively for human readers of the program and is separated from executable code, though it stands alongside it. At their most interesting, in patterns of use to which a managerial discourse of software craftspersonship is actively hostile, yet to which so-called literate programming practice is indifferent, program comments are traces of a mode of technical labor whose privilege and precarity both rest on its obscurity, an obscurity in no way resistant to reading.

Expressive intensifiers and external degree modification

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Gutzmann ◽  
Katharina Turgay
Keyword(s):  
External Degree ◽  
Degree Modification

scholarly journals Syntactic Category Changing in Syntax: Evidence from Finnish Participle Constructions

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-166
Author(s):  
Päivi Koskinen
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Category ◽  
Functional Feature ◽  
Temporal Reference ◽  
Temporal Characteristics ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
Lexical Feature ◽  
Vocabulary Insertion ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Nominal Morphology

ABSTRACT In most languages there are lexical elements that manifest morpho-syntactic properties associated with more than one lexical category. I examine here a group of Finnish participle constructions that manifest such categorial inconsistencies. Those forms are analyzed as containing a hybrid category: the lexical feature [Adjectival Reference] accounts for their adjectival qualities and seemingly nominal morphology, while a functional feature [Temporal Reference] (= Tense) explains their verbal and temporal characteristics. Consequently, I argue that changes in syntactic category take place not only through morphological derivation, but also within the syntactic component. This is possible under a view of morphological derivation as vocabulary insertion based on the syntactic feature matrices that surface at the end of the computational component.

Sentence Repetition: A Clinical Marker for Developmental Language Disorder in Danish

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4450-4463
Author(s):  
Rikke Vang Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Likelihood Ratios ◽  
Clinical Marker ◽  
Sentence Repetition ◽  
Good Identification ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Purpose The aim of the study was to explore the potential of performance on a Danish sentence repetition (SR) task—including specific morphological and syntactic properties—to identify difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) relative to typically developing (TD) children. Furthermore, the potential of the task as a clinical marker for Danish DLD was explored. Method SR performance of children with DLD aged 5;10–14;1 (years;months; n = 27) and TD children aged 5;3–13;4 ( n = 87) was investigated. Results Compared to TD same-age peers, children with DLD were less likely to repeat the sentences accurately but more likely to make ungrammatical errors with respect to verb inflection and use of determiners and personal pronouns. Younger children with DLD also produced more word order errors that their TD peers. Furthermore, older children with DLD performed less accurately than younger TD peers, indicating that the SR task taps into morphosyntactic areas of particular difficulty for Danish children with DLD. The classification accuracy associated with SR performance showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity (> 90%) and likelihood ratios indicating good identification potential for clinical and future research purposes. Conclusion SR performance has a strong potential for identifying children with DLD, also in Danish, and with a carefully designed SR task, performance has potential for revealing morphosyntactic difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.10314437

Special Class Pupils with Learning Disabilities: A Five-Year Follow-Up Study

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Special Class ◽  
Follow Up Study

An Intervention in a “Special” Class

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Monroe ◽  
Lisa Ford
Keyword(s):  
Special Class

Focus Position for Stripping Remnant

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Al Zahrani ◽  
Khulud Helal Al Thagafi
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Focus Movement ◽  
The One ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Pf Deletion ◽  
Minimalist Framework

The current paper examines the syntactic properties of HA stripping: a type of ellipsis. Within the Minimalist framework, the paper adopts the PF-Deletion approach to show that stripping in HA is derived firstly by the movement of the remnant constituent from TP to Focus Position (FP), and, secondly, by the deletion of the TP. These two operations are licensed by the Ellipsis feature (E) located in the focus head F°. Thus, on the one hand, the paper contributes to the existing body of literature supporting the hotly-debated issues on the movement of the stripping remnants, and on the other, enriches the very minimal HA studies on ellipsis. The findings show that HA stripped constituents must move to Spec, FP, before the TP- deletion process. Two pieces of evidence in support of the focus movement to FP spring from Island sensitivity and p-stranding facts in HA.

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