Argument structure

2021 ◽  
pp. 111-144
Author(s):  
Peter W. Culicover
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Central Point ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Multiple Devices ◽  
Abstract Level

This chapter applies the constructional theory to variation in systems for expressing argument structure. A central point is that there are multiple devices of comparable complexity that encode the thematic roles; hence it is not necessary to assume that all languages share a universal syntactic structure at some abstract level of representation.

THEMATIC ROLE ASSIGNMENT IN ENGLISH SENTENCES: A QUICK GLANCE AT AN INTERFACE BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eni Maharsi
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Role Assignment

This paper examines the role of elements of English sentences by employing the approach ofthematic role assignment. The emphasis is on how the positioning of words and phrases insyntactic structure helps determine the roles that the referents of NPs play in the situationdescribed by the sentences. The results reveal that the position of an NP’s determines itsthematic role and. There is a relevance between deep syntactic structure and the assignmentof thematic roles for every NP in the sentence.

Argument structure licensing and Englishhave

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
KYUMIN KIM
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Theoretical Claim ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Typological Classification

This paper provides a unified syntactic account of the distribution of Englishhavein causative constructions (e.g.John had Mary read a book) and experiencer constructions (e.g.John had the student walk out of his classroom). It is argued thathaveis realized in the context of anapplicative head(Appl) and an event-introducer v, regardless of the type of v.Haveis spelled out in the causative when Appl merges under vCAUSE, and in the experiencer construction when Appl merges under vBE. This proposal is extended tohavein possessive constructions (e.g.John has a hat/a brother):haveis realized in the context of vBEand Appl. The proposed account provides empirical evidence for expanding the distribution of Appl: (i) a causative can take ApplP as a complement, which was absent in Pylkkänen's (2008) typological classification, and (ii) Appl can merge above Voice, contrary to Pylkkänen's analysis in which Appl is argued to always merge below VoiceP, never above. Moreover, the proposed account supports the theoretical claim that argument structure is licensed by functional syntactic structure; in particular, it shows that the relevant functional heads are not aspectual heads, but Appl and v.

Again on relative clause and subordination in Latin

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Calboli
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Central Point ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

AbstractI started from the relative clause which occurs in Hittite, and in particular with the enclitic position of the relative pronoun. This is connected with the OV position and this position seems to have been prevailing in Hittite and PIE. The syntactic structure usually employed in Hittite between different clauses is the parataxis. Nevertheless, also the hypotaxis begins to be employed and the best occasion to use it was the diptych as suggested by Haudry, though he didn't consider the most natural and usual diptych: the law, where the crime and the sanction build a natural diptych already in old Hittite. Then I used Justus' and Boley's discussion on the structure of Hittite sentence and found a similarity with Latin, namely the use of an animate subject as central point of a sentence. With verbs of action in ancient languages the subject was normally an animate being, whereas also inanimate subject is employed in modern languages. This seems to be the major difference between ancient and modern structure of a sentence, or, better to say, in Hittite and PIE the subject was an animate being and this persisted a long time, and remained as a tendency in Latin, while in following languages and in classical grammar the subject became a simple nominal “entity” to be predicated and precised with verb and other linguistic instruments. A glance has been cast also to pronouns and particles (sometimes linked together) as instruments of linking nominal variants of coordinate or subordinate clauses and to the development of demonstrative/deictic pronouns. Also in ancient case theory a prevailing position was assured to the nominative case, the case of the subject.

Lexical Semantics

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-203
Author(s):  
David Stringer
Keyword(s):  
Feature Selection ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Open Class ◽  
Lexical Relations

Lexical semantics is concerned with inherent aspects of word meaning and the semantic relations between words, as well as the ways in which word meaning is related to syntactic structure. This chapter provides an introduction to some of the main themes in lexical semantic research, including the nature of the mental lexicon, lexical relations, and the decomposition of words into grammatically relevant semantic features. The mapping between the semantics of verbs and their associated syntax is discussed in terms of thematic roles, semantic structure theory, and feature selection. A review of some of the most influential findings in second language research involving both open-class and closed-class lexical items reveals important implications for classroom pedagogy and syllabus design in the domain of vocabulary instruction.

scholarly journals Is children's acquisition of the passive a staged process? Evidence from six- and nine-year-olds' production of passives

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 991-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE MESSENGER ◽  
HOLLY P. BRANIGAN ◽  
JANET F. McLEAN
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Role Mapping ◽  
Transitive Actions

ABSTRACTWe report a syntactic priming experiment that examined whether children's acquisition of the passive is a staged process, with acquisition of constituent structure preceding acquisition of thematic role mappings. Six-year-olds and nine-year-olds described transitive actions after hearing active and passive prime descriptions involving the same or different thematic roles. Both groups showed a strong tendency to reuse in their own description the syntactic structure they had just heard, including well-formed passives after passive primes, irrespective of whether thematic roles were repeated between prime and target. However, following passive primes, six-year-olds but not nine-year-olds also produced reversed passives, with well-formed constituent structure but incorrect thematic role mappings. These results suggest that by six, children have mastered the constituent structure of the passive; however, they have not yet mastered the non-canonical thematic role mapping. By nine, children have mastered both the syntactic and thematic dimensions of this structure.

Building and Interpreting Possession Sentences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Myler
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Surface Structures ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Regular Pattern ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Major Question ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Broad Agreement ◽  
Kinship Relations ◽  
The One

A major question for linguistic theory concerns how the structure of sentences relates to their meaning. There is broad agreement in the field that there is some regularity in the way that lexical semantics and syntax are related, so that thematic roles are predictably associated with particular syntactic positions. This book examines the syntax and semantics of possession sentences, which are infamous for appearing to diverge dramatically from this broadly regular pattern. On the one hand, possession sentences have too many meanings: in a given language, the construction used to express archetypal possessive meanings (such as personal ownership) is also often used to express other apparently unrelated notions (body parts, kinship relations, and many others). On the other hand, possession sentences have too many surface structures: languages differ markedly in the argument structures used to convey the same possessive meanings, with some employing a transitive verb HAVE, and others using a variety of constructions based around an intransitive verb BE. Examining and synthesizing ideas from the literature and drawing on data from many languages (including some understudied Quechua dialects), this book presents a novel way to understand the apparent irregularity of possession sentences while preserving existing explanations for the general cross-linguistic regularities we observe in argument structure.

scholarly journals On the elements activating the transmission of specialized knowledge in verbs

Terminology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Joan Casademont
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Specialized Knowledge ◽  
Combined Features

In this paper we propose an analysis of phraseological verbs in specialized discourse in order to establish syntactic and semantic characteristics likely to indicate the transmission of specialized knowledge. By adopting and adapting theoretical and descriptive proposals existing for general language, we consider elements from the relation between the verb and its arguments (such as argument structure and thematic roles) and aspects from the arguments themselves (such as semantic features and termhood). Through the detection of combined features and behaviour patterns of occurrences, we are able to more specifically establish which characteristics allow us to recognise the terminological use of phraseological verbs and which kind of information is the more relevant to its conveyance.

scholarly journals Lexical Distributivity and Implicit Arguments

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lasersohn
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Implicit Argument ◽  
Implicit Arguments ◽  
Atomic Event ◽  
Thematic Relation ◽  
Meaning Postulates ◽  
Logical Representation

Popular assumptions about distributive predicates and implicit arguments interact to predict incorrect truth conditions for sentences in which a predi­cate takes both an implicit argument and an overt distributive argument. This paper argues that the conflict provides evidence for a particular approach to argument structure and in particular to the semantics of implicit arguments: namely, a "neo-Davidsonian" approach, in which thematic roles are analyzed as relations between events and individuals, and existentially interpreted implicit arguments do not appear in the syntax or in logical representation at all. The effect of implicit arguments is produced through the use of meaning postulates guaranteeing that any atomic event of a given type must bear the appropriate thematic relation to some individual.

scholarly journals German participle II constructions as adjuncts

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 309-321
Author(s):  
Ilse Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Propositional Operator ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Interpretative Flexibility

The present investigation is concerned with German participles II (past participles) as lexical heads of adjuncts. Within a minimalist framework of sound-meaning correlation, the analysis presupposes a lexicalist conception of morphology and the differentiation of Semantic Form and Conceptual Structure. It is argued that participles II have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. As for the potential of participles to function as modifiers, it is shown that attributive and adverbial participle constructions involve further operations of conversion. Participle constructions are considered as reduced sentences. They do not have a syntactic position for the subject, for an operator (comparable to the relative pronoun in relative clauses) or for an adverbial relator (as in adverbial clauses). The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure. Two templates serve the composition of modifiers - including participle constructions - with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modification which unifies two predicates relating to participants or to situations and frame setting modification where the modifier is given the status of a propositional operator. The proposed analysis shows that the high degree of semantic underspecification and interpretative flexibility of German participle II constructions resides in the indeterminacy of participles II with respect to voice and perfect, in the absence of certain constituents in the syntactic structure and in the presence of corresponding parameters in the Semantic Form of the participle phrases.  

scholarly journals Central Taurus Sign Language: On the Edge of Conventionalization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabia Ergin ◽  
Leyla Kürşat ◽  
Ethan Hartzell ◽  
Ray Jackendoff
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Structural Variation ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Morphological Markers ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Everyday Objects ◽  
Complex Study ◽  
Under Construction

We discuss the conventionalization process in Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL), an emerging sign language in its initial stages, and present evidence from four studies for the amount of lexical and structural variation it harbors. The four studies together portray the architecture of a young system under construction. Study 1 looks at signs for everyday objects and finds considerable variation in their degree of conventionalization. Study 2 examines modifier-head and negation-head relationships, showing substantial conventionalization. Study 3 addresses the emergence and conventionalization of various word orders as argument structure markers. It shows that conventionalization increases over successive cohorts of signers, but it decreases as argument structure becomes more complex. Study 4 demonstrates the emergence and conventionalization of distinctive morphological markers to signal the subtle semantics of symmetry and reciprocity. Finally, we raise the issue of whether CTSL presents evidence of syntactic structure, or whether its properties can be characterized in terms of a simpler “linear grammar” that maps directly between phonology and semantics.

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