scholarly journals Noun phrase in Enets

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Andrey Shluinsky
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Noun Number ◽  
Linear Recursion ◽  
Number Form

The paper presents a corpus-based description of the noun phrase structure in Enets dealing with both Enets dialects – Forest Enets and Tundra Enets. An Enets noun phrase has six slots for modifiers: determiner, relative clause, possessor NP, numeral, adjective phrase, apposed NP. Determiners, relative clauses, and adjective phrases are subject to linear recursion, other modifiers are not. All modifiers precede the head NP. In Enets, there is no agreement between head noun and modifiers, but numerals have different patterns in the choice of head noun number form. Kokkuvõte. Andrej Šluinski: Noomenifraas eenetsi keeles. Artikkel esitab korpuspõhise kirjelduse eenetsi keele noomenifraasi struktuurist mõlemas eenetsi keele murdes – metsaeenetsi ja tundraeenetsi. Eenetsi noomenifraasil on kuus täiendikohta: määratleja, relatiivlause, omajat väljendav NP, numeraal, omadussõnafraas, appositsiooniline NP. Määratlejad, relatiivlaused ja omadussõnafraasid alluvad lineaarsele rekursioonile, teised täiendid mitte. Kõik täiendid eelnevad põhisõnale. Eenetsi keeles puudub põhisõna ja täiendi ühilduvus, kui numeraalid nõuavad noomenifraasi põhisõnalt erinevaid arvuvorme. Аннотация. Андрей Шлуинский: Именная группа в энецком языке. В статье представлено выполненное на материале корпуса текстов описание структуры именной группы в обоих диалектах энецкого языка – лесном тундровом. Энецкая именная группа содержит шесть позиций для модификаторов вершинного существительного: детерминатор, относительное предложение, именная группа посессора, числительное, группа прилагательного, соположенная именная группа. Детерминаторы, относительные предложения и группы прилагательного подлежат линейной рекурсии, в отличие от других модификаторов. Все модификаторы предшествуют вершинному существительному. В энецком языке отсутствует согласование между вершинным существительным и модификаторами, но представлены разные модели выбора числовой формы вершинного существительного в именных группах с числительными.

scholarly journals Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Hakha Chin

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefon M Flego
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Embedded Clause

Hakha Chin, an underdocumented Tibeto-Burman language, is reported to have internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs), a typologically rare syntactic structure in which the head noun phrase surfaces within the relative clause itself. The current study provides new data and novel observations which bear on several outstanding questions about IHRCs in this language: 1) Relativization of locative and instrumental adjuncts in IHRCs is avoided. 2) Conflicting stem allomorph requirements of negation and relativization of non-subjects give rise to optionality in stem choice when the two are brought together in an IHRC. 3) To relativize an indirect object, an IHRC is either avoided altogether, or the noun phrase is fronted to the absolute left-most position in the embedded clause. 4) Relativization of NPs with a human referent in an IHRC exhibit relativizer gender agreement, which has not been previously reported for this clause type in Hakha Chin.

Anaphor reconstruction in Japanese relative clauses

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunchuan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Binding Analysis ◽  
Truth Value

Abstract This study conducted two experiments to examine the derivation of the head noun phrase in Japanese relative clauses, with a focus on whether the anaphors jibun ‘self’ and jibun-jishin ‘self-self’ within the head noun phrase can be co-referential with the relative clause subject. It aims to settle a long-standing debate among the previous studies concerning the interpretation of the anaphors inside the head noun phrase: while several studies claimed that the co-reference between the anaphor jibun ‘self’ and the relative clause subject is prohibited, many other studies argued that such co-reference is possible. In addition, it has been claimed that while co-indexing the anaphor jibun with the relative clause subject might be marginally acceptable, it would become fully acceptable if we replace jibun with the morphologically complex anaphor jibun-jishin ‘self-self’, which implies that the morphological make-up of an anaphor may affect its ability to be co-indexed with the relative clause subject. The results of two carefully controlled truth value judgment experiments show that neither the simplex anaphor jibun nor the complex anaphor jibun-jishin within the head noun phrase of relative clauses can take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, which suggests that the head noun phrase does not reconstruct and therefore lends support to the pro-binding analysis of Japanese relative clauses. Moreover, the findings also suggest that the morphological make-up of an anaphor does not affect its ability to take the relative clause subject as its antecedent, despite the claim that it is more acceptable to co-index the complex anaphor jibun-jishin with the relative clause subject than the simplex anaphor jibun.

Acquisition of Japanese relative clauses by L1 Chinese learners: Evidence from reflexive pronoun resolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832097850
Author(s):  
Yunchuan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Syntactic Knowledge ◽  
Reflexive Pronoun ◽  
Functional Representation ◽  
Chinese Learners

This article investigates whether first-language (L1) Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese as a second language (L2) can acquire the knowledge that the reflexive pronoun jibun ‘self’ within the head noun phrase of Japanese relative clauses cannot refer to the relative clause subject. Successful acquisition would suggest that learners are able to acquire the underlying syntactic knowledge that the head noun phrase of Japanese relative clauses is base-generated external to the relative clause. A truth value judgment experiment was conducted and the findings suggest that L1 Chinese learners can indeed acquire the target syntactic knowledge in Japanese relative clauses, which argues against the Representational Deficit hypotheses and supports the Full Functional Representation hypotheses of L2 acquisition.

The relative verb forms of Cuwabo (Bantu P34) as contextually oriented participles

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-491
Author(s):  
Rozenn Guérois ◽  
Denis Creissels
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
North Western

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

scholarly journals Cyclicity and Connectivity in Nez Perce Relative Clauses

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Rose Deal
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
Nez Perce ◽  
The Core ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Relative Pronouns

This article studies two aspects of movement in relative clauses, focusing on evidence from Nez Perce. First, I argue that relativization involves cyclic Ā-movement, even in monoclausal relatives: the relative operator moves to Spec,CP via an intermediate position in an Ā outer specifier of TP. The core arguments draw on word order, complementizer choice, and a pattern of case attraction for relative pronouns. Ā cyclicity of this type suggests that the TP sister of relative C constitutes a phase—a result whose implications extend to an ill-understood corner of the English that-trace effect. Second, I argue that Nez Perce relativization provides new evidence for an ambiguity thesis for relative clauses, according to which some but not all relatives are derived by head raising. The argument comes from connectivity and anticonnectivity in morphological case. A crucial role is played by a pattern of inverse case attraction, wherein the head noun surfaces in a case determined internal to the relative clause. These new data complement the range of existing arguments concerning head raising, which draw primarily on connectivity effects at the syntax-semantics interface.

scholarly journals Nouns and noun phrase structure in Nubri

Gipan ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Dubi Nanda Dhakal
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Nominal Morphology

This paper is a preliminary investigation of the nominal morphology and noun phrase structures of Nubri, a Tibetan variety spoken in the northern Gorkha. Nubri shares a number of inflectional and derivational features with Tibetan languages, such as Kyirong Tibetan. Like its close Tibetan varieties, a number of modifiers such as, genitive-marked nouns, demonstratives, relative clauses etc. precede the head nouns, whereas some other modifiers, such as article, emphatic marker, numerals etc. follow them in the noun phrase.

Intervention in relative clauses: Effects of relativized minimality on L2 representation and processing

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832095874
Author(s):  
Vera Yunxiao Xia ◽  
Lydia White ◽  
Natália Brambatti Guzzo
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
First Language ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Intervention Effect ◽  
Intervention Effects ◽  
Relativized Minimality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Picture Identification

This article reports on an experiment investigating the effects of featural Relativized Minimality (Friedmann et al., 2009) on the representation and processing of relative clauses in the second language (L2) English of Mandarin speakers. Object relatives (ORCs) are known to cause greater problems in first language (L1) acquisition and in adult processing than subject relatives (SRCs). Featural Relativized Minimality explains this in terms of intervention effects, caused by a DP (the subject of the ORC) located between the relative head and its source. Intervention effects are claimed to be reduced if the relative head and the intervenor differ in features, such as number (e.g. I know the king who the boys pushed). We hypothesize that L2 learners will show intervention effects when processing ORCs and that such effects will be reduced if the intervenor differs in number from the relative head. There were two tasks: picture identification and self-paced reading. Both manipulated relative clause type (SRC/ORC) and intervenor type (±plural). Accuracy was high in interpreting relative clauses, suggesting no representational problem. Regarding reading times, ORCs were processed slower than SRCs, supporting an intervention effect. However, faster reading times were found in ORCs when intervenor and head noun matched in number, contrary to hypothesis. We suggest that our more stringent stimuli may have resulted in the lack of an effect for mismatched ORCs, in contrast to some earlier findings for L1 acquirers.

Cross-Structural Priming

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maaike Loncke ◽  
Sébastien M. J. Van Laere ◽  
Timothy Desmet
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Target Sentence ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Syntactic Structures

In this paper we show that attachment height (high vs. low attachment) of a modifier to a complex noun phrase (CNP; e.g., “the servant of the actress”), can be primed between dissimilar syntactic structures. In a sentence completion experiment, we found that the attachment height of a prepositional phrase (PP) in the prime sentence primed the attachment height of a relative clause (RC) in the target sentence. This cross-structural priming effect cannot be explained in terms of the priming of specific phrase-structure rules or even sequences of specific phrase-structure rules ( Scheepers, 2003 ), because the attachment of a PP to a CNP is generated by a different phrase-structure rule than the attachment of an RC. However, the present data suggest that the location at which the RC is attached to the CNP is mentally represented, independent of the specific phrase-structure rule that is attached, or by extension, that the abstract hierarchical configuration of the full CNP and the attached RC is represented ( Desmet & Declercq, 2006 ). This is the first demonstration of a cross-structural priming effect that cannot be captured by phrase-structure rules.

Headless Relative Clauses in Yucatec Maya

2021 ◽  
pp. 444-474
Author(s):  
Scott AnderBois ◽  
Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Syntactic Context

This chapter surveys headless relative clauses (i.e. ones with no overt head noun) in Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. For Indo-European languages, discussion of such constructions has focused on “free relative clauses”—those with only a bare wh-word in place of a head—and to a lesser extent, “light-headed” relative clauses⎯those with a dedicated set of pronominal elements in place of a head noun. In contrast, Yucatec Maya is shown to allow for four different kinds of surface headless relative clause forms depending on the presence or absence of a wh-word and the presence or absence of a determiner, quantifier, or other D-element. With respect to free relative clauses, whereas many more well-studied Indo-European languages have morpho-syntactically distinct constructions for definite and indefinite free relative clauses (e.g. with an infinitive or subjunctive form in the latter case), Yucatec Maya is shown to have a single morpho-syntactic form whose (in)definiteness is determined by syntactic context.

The correspondence between sentence production and corpus frequencies in modifier attachment

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 879-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Desmet ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Constantijn De Baecke
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Attachment Preference ◽  
Attachment Sites ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Relative Clause Attachment

We examined the production of relative clauses in sentences with a complex noun phrase containing two possible attachment sites for the relative clause (e.g., “Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.”). On the basis of two corpus analyses and two sentence continuation tasks, we conclude that much research about this specific syntactic ambiguity has used complex noun phrases that are quite uncommon. These noun phrases involve the relationship between two humans and, at least in Dutch, induce a different attachment preference from noun phrases referring to non-human entities. We provide evidence that the use of this type of complex noun phrase may have distorted the conclusions about the processes underlying relative clause attachment. In addition, it is shown that, notwithstanding some notable differences between sentence production in the continuation task and in coherent text writing, there seems to be a remarkable correspondence between the attachment patterns obtained with both modes of production.

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