ɸ-Features at the Syntax-Semantics Interface: Evidence from Nominal Inflection

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivona Kučerová
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
Morphology Model ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
Feature Values ◽  
Novel Model

I argue for a novel model of feature valuation in the CI interface and explore under what circumstances a syntactic feature is semantically interpretable. As the groundwork for the investigation, I propose an explicit Distributed Morphology model of Italian nouns of profession. The data provide evidence that the morphology accesses the narrow-syntax representation at two different temporal points within a phase: the earlier point (Spell-Out) returns a morphological realization faithful to feature values present in narrow syntax, while the later point (Transfer) allows for a narrow-syntax representation to be enriched by the CI component. Thus, there is no syntactic distinction between interpretable and uninterpretable features: a syntactic feature appears to be interpretable only if it has been licensed by the CI interface.

Parallel Computation in Word Formation

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis López
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Computation ◽  
Parallel Computations ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Testing Ground ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Morphology Model ◽  
The Way

Taking the Distributed Morphology model as a starting point, this article presents and develops the hypothesis that parallel computations drive some word formation processes. Along the way, some Distributed Morphology assumptions, particularly those concerning contextual allomorphy, are revised. It is argued that event structure is a syntactic head independent of the presence of a vP. Nominalizations in Spanish, which often exhibit verbal thematic vowels between the root and the nominalizing affix, turn out to be an ideal testing ground for theoretical hypotheses.

scholarly journals Hindi noun inflection and distributed morphology

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smriti Singh ◽  
Vaijayanthi M. Sarma
Keyword(s):  
Word Formation ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Morphological Operations ◽  
Indian Languages ◽  
Word Generation ◽  
Noun Classes ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Nominal Inflection

This paper primarily presents an analysis of nominal inflection in Hindi within the framework of Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994 and Harley and Noyer 1999). Müller (2002, 2003, 2004) for German, Icelandic and Russian nouns respectively and Weisser (2006) for Croatian nouns have also used Distributed Morphology (henceforth DM) to analyze nominal inflectional morphology. This paper will discuss in detail the inflectional categories and inflectional classes, the morphological processes operating at syntax, the distribution of vocabulary items and the readjustment rules required to describe Hindi nominal inflection. Earlier studies on Hindi inflectional morphology (Guru 1920, Vajpeyi 1958, Upreti 1964, etc.) were greatly influenced by the Paninian tradition (classical Sanskrit model) and work with Paninian constructs such as root and stem. They only provide descriptive studies of Hindi nouns and verbs and their inflections without discussing the role or status of affixes that take part in inflection. The discussion on the mechanisms (morphological operations and rules) used to analyze or generate word forms are missing in these studies. In addition, these studies do not account for syntax-morphology or morphology-phonology mismatches that show up in word formation. One aim of this paper is to present an economical way of forming noun classes in Hindi as compared to other traditional methods, especially gender and stem ending based or paradigm based methods that give rise to a large number of inflectional paradigms. Using inflectional class information to analyse the various forms of Hindi nouns, we can reduce the number of affixes and word-generation and readjustment rules that are required to describe nominal inflection. The analysis also helps us in developing a morphological analyzer for Hindi. The small set of rules and fewer inflectional classes are of great help to lexicographers and system developers. To the best of our knowledge, the analysis of Hindi inflectional morphology based on DM and its implementation in a Hindi morphological analyzer has not been done before. The methods discussed here can be applied to other Indian languages for analysis as well as word generation.

Reducing ‘case’ to denotational primitives

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Rita Manzini ◽  
Leonardo M. Savoia
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
Late Insertion

The nominal inflection system of Albanian includes specifications of case, definiteness, number and nominal class (gender). Our analysis recognizes three types of properties as theoretically relevant, namely N(ominal class), Q(quantification), D(efiniteness). Q inflections are responsible for the so-called oblique case - effectively a dyadic operator yielding a ‘zonal inclusion’ (possession) relation between the element to which it attaches and the internal argument of the verb (dative) or the head of a noun phrase (genitive). Q inflections are further responsible for plurality, while N inflections satisfy argument-of contexts (accusative)and D characterizes EPP contexts(nominative). Syncretisms (e.g. of dative and genitive, nominative and accusative) are not the result of morphological rules requiring Late Insertion of exponents (Distributed Morphology). Rather they are instances of ambiguity, resolved in the syntax (different embeddings) or at the interpretive interface. As such they are compatible with projection of the morphosyntax from lexical entries. Keywords: Case, nominative, accusative, oblique, syncretism, nominal class, plural, definiteness, possessor, locative.

Roots, their structure and consequences for derivational timing

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-387
Author(s):  
Ivona Kučerová ◽  
Adam Szczegielniak
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Methodological Question ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
Syntactic Features

Abstract Recent work in Distributed Morphology, most prominently Harley (2014), argues for roots being able to take syntactic complements, which opens the door for the possibility of having syntactic features within a root’s representation – something most DM literature rejects (Embick 2015). Upon a closer inspection of the arguments presented in the literature, it is not clear whether the disagreement has an empirical underpinning, or whether it stems from the lack of methodological clarity as far as the identification of the precise nature of what constitutes a syntactic feature. This paper takes this methodological question seriously and investigates a type of derivational behavior that, in our view, provides a decisive argument for the presence of syntactic features on roots. We argue that the presence of a syntactic feature on the root can be conclusively established based on a feature’s impact on specific properties within a larger syntactic structure. Based on empirical evidence form gender agreement phenomena, we introduce a model of grammar that distinguishes roots with syntactic features from those which do not have them. We propose that such a distinction between roots will manifest itself in the timing of root insertion – roots without syntactic features are late inserted, while roots with syntactic features must be early inserted.

scholarly journals The Derivation of Verb-copying Sentence in Mandarin Chinese

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 453
Author(s):  
Haojie Li
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Structural Hierarchy ◽  
Syntactic Feature

The verb-copying sentence is a special sentence in Chinese and has received extensive attention from the academic circles. Under the framework of Distributed Morphology and MP, the article makes a modified adjustment to the structure derived by phase from the narrow syntax through the post-syntactic “Feature Copying” operation, which is simply the ornamental adjustment to the resulting syntactic structure, to better explain the verb-copying sentence. This analysis does not require a specific syntactic structural hierarchy and is more natural in theory. It is also consistent with mainstream ideas such as lexical array and derivation by phase under the framework of MP.

Semantic Gender Diversity and Its Architecture in the Grammar of Arabic

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelkader Fassi Fehri
Keyword(s):  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Layered Architecture ◽  
Morphology Model ◽  
Size Evaluation

The article argues that Gender expresses a multitude of meanings including individuation, collectivity, abstractness, quantity, size, evaluation, perspectivization, in addition to the most known sex-animacy. In contrast to the dominant view in the literature, which sees Gender as essentially (a) a nominal class marking device, (b) semantically sex-based, and (c) syntactically reflected in gender agreement through sexed-animate controllers, we propose a constructional multi-layered architecture that takes into account its polysemous nature, and provides room for more ‘unorthodox’ syntactic distributions. The analysis is implemented in a Minimalist Distributed Morphology model of Grammar.

630: A Novel Model System for the Treatment of Renal Cancer by Nonmyeloablative Allogeneic Hemopoietic Cell Transplantation Using Cyclophosphamide in Mice

2005 ◽  
Vol 173 (4S) ◽  
pp. 172-172
Author(s):  
Masatoshi Eto ◽  
Masahiko Harano ◽  
Katsunori Tatsugami ◽  
Hirofumi Koga ◽  
Seiji Naito
Keyword(s):  
Cell Transplantation ◽  
Renal Cancer ◽  
Model System ◽  
Hemopoietic Cell ◽  
Novel Model

A Novel Model for Separate Estimates for Explicit and Implicit Memory

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Chechile ◽  
Lara N. Sloboda ◽  
Erin L. Warren ◽  
Daniel H. Barch ◽  
Jessica R. Chamberland
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Memory ◽  
Novel Model

His Lordship's -ship and the King of Golfdom. Against a purely functional analysis of suffixhood

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Baeskow
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Functional Elements ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Independent Model

For many decades there has been a consensus among linguists of various schools that derivational suffixes function not only to determine the word-class of the complex expressions they form, but also convey semantic information. The aspect of suffix-inherent meaning is ignored by representatives of a relatively new theoretical direction – Neo-Construction Grammar – who consider derivational suffixes to be either purely functional elements of the grammar or meaningless phonological realizations of abstract grammatical morphemes. The latter view is maintained by adherents of Distributed Morphology, who at the same time emphasize the importance of conceptual knowledge for derivational processes without attempting to define this aspect. The purpose of this study is first of all to provide support for the long-standing assumption that suffixes are inherently meaningful. The focus of interest is on the suffixes -ship, -dom and -hood. Data from Old English and Modern English (including neologisms) will show that these suffixes have developed rich arrays of meaning which cannot be structurally derived. Moreover, since conceptual knowledge is indeed an important factor for word-formation processes, a concrete, theory-independent model for the representation of the synchronically observable meaning components associated with -ship, -dom and -hood will be proposed.

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