What are and what aren’t complex nominal expressions in flexible word order languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Uta Reinöhl
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Derivational Morphology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
The One ◽  
Question Form ◽  
Australian Languages

AbstractThis paper tackles the challenge of how to identify multi-word (or “complex”) nominal expressions in flexible word order languages including certain Australian languages and Vedic Sanskrit. In these languages, a weak or absent noun/adjective distinction in conjunction with flexible word order make it often hard to distinguish between complex nominal expressions, on the one hand, and cases where the nominals in question form independent expressions, on the other hand. Based on a discourse-based understanding of what it means to form a nominal expression, this paper surveys various cases where we are not dealing with multi-word nominal expressions. This involves, in particular, periphery-related phenomena such as use of nominals as free topics or afterthoughts, as well as various kinds of predicative uses. In the absence of clear morpho-syntactic evidence, all kinds of linguistic evidence are relied upon, including, in particular, information structure and prosody, but also derivational morphology and lexical semantics. In this way, it becomes frequently possible to distinguish between what are and what aren’t complex nominal expressions in these languages.

Changing the Topic

Mnemosyne ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger J. Allan
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Flexible System ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
The One ◽  
Topic Constructions

AbstractIn Ancient Greek, topics can be expressed as intra-clausal constituents but they can also precede or follow the main clause as extra-clausal constituents. Together, these various topic expressions constitute a coherent system of complementary pragmatic functions. For a comprehensive account of topic organization, therefore, a limited focus on the clause proper is insufficient. In this paper, I will argue that it is possible to distinguish five different structural positions in which topic constituents may appear in Ancient Greek. These are: (i)Theme, (ii)clause-initial, (iii)postverbal in Setting, (iv)postverbal in main clauseand (v)Tail.Each of these positions in the sentence is associated with a specific pragmatic function: Resumed Topic, Contrastive/New Topic, Given Topic or clarification of Given Topic. In linguistic theory, topic and focus are often seen as independent aspects of information structure instead of complementary functions. It is, therefore, attractive to posit two separate sets of constructional templates: on the one hand, a topic set comprising the aforementioned topic constructions and, on the other hand, a focus set containing two (narrow and broad) focus-constructions. This results in a flexible system in which the word order of each sentence is determined by a combination of a focus construction plus one or more topic constructions.

The Place of Conversational Data in Spanish Syntax: Topic, Focus, and Word Order

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Ocampo
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Human Factor ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Real ◽  
Grammaticality Judgments ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Spanish Syntax ◽  
The One

AbstractResults yield by conversational data are compared with those generated by elicited grammaticality judgments on the issues of topic, focus, and word order. On the one hand, most of the sentence types produced by elicited grammaticality judgments are confirmed by empirical conversational data. On the other, research utilizing grammaticality judgments detects only prototypical constructions. The cause is that invented sentences, upon which grammaticality judgments are based, are cognitively biased to be prototypical. Therefore, elicitation methodology does not provide the analyst with the whole range of possible constructions. This type of data is simplified in the sense that it consists mainly of prototypical instances placed in a context of exemplification. Conversational data, on the other hand, include the human factor, conversational and pragmatic factors, as well as the real context where a particular utterance occurs. For this reason, it is argued that syntax studies based on conversational data allow for the possibility of finding new unexpected cases that may offer new perspectives.

scholarly journals El comportamiento de los verbos haber y ser en función de auxiliar de los tiempos compuestos (siglos XIII-XVII)

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Ágnes Idrisz
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Old Spanish ◽  
Xvii Century ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
The One

In the old Spanish language the usage of the compound tenses formed with the auxiliary ’haber’ and the participle form shows several differences compared to today’s usage. It turns out from fragments from the XIII-XVII. centuries that the word order of the elements in the structure was not bound: on the one hand, the participle form could come before the auxiliary, on the other hand, other parts of the sentence could be inserted between the two elements of the structure. Furthermore, the participle form could possibly be reconciled with the direct object of the sentence. The above mentioned features can be found in the earliest fragments of the ’corpus’ on a larger scale, whereas by the XVII. century – due to the grammatical progress of the structure – these features had almost completely disappeared. Another peculiarity about the development of the structure haber + participio pasado is that the occurence of the above mentioned features depended largely on the genre of the text. There is a whole range of studies available which deal with the emergence and the forms of the compound tenses. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to examine – based on the article of Concepción Company in 1983 – how much these compound tenses are present in the texts from different ages, as well as how much the frequency of their presence was influenced by the genre of the texts.

A revisit to the [Num-Cl-Modifier-de-N]/ [Modifier-de-Num-Cl‑N] variation in Mandarin Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-253
Author(s):  
Jing Jin
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Related Condition ◽  
Neutral Context ◽  
Semantic Condition ◽  
Contrastive Topic ◽  
The One ◽  
Discourse Interface

Abstract This paper investigates the licensing condition of the [Num(eral)-Cl(assifier)-Mod(ifier)-de-N(oun)] / [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] variation in Mandarin Chinese. It is observed that this variation represents a complex interface phenomenon in the nominal domain, which is subject to the semantic condition concerning the i(ndividual)-level/​s(tage)-level nature of the modifier contained on the one hand, and the discourse-related condition concerning contrastive topic (ct) on the other. Based on this, at the syntax-semantics interface level, this paper proposes a division of the syntactic domain of adnominal modification to account for the discrepancy between i‑level and s‑level modifiers in terms of their capability in forming [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] in the neutral context. In the meanwhile, at the syntax-discourse interface level, in light of the interface-induced analysis pursued by Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008) and Horvath (2010), it is claimed that the word order of [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] could be adopted as a linguistic device to encode ct within the nominal domain in Mandarin Chinese, in which case the ordering of [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] is licensed for the purpose of establishing a transparent mapping between syntactic configuration and information structure.

Syntactic, semantic and information structures of floating quantifiers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryo Otoguro ◽  
Liselotte Snijders
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
The Other ◽  
Information Structures ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Floating Quantifiers ◽  
The One

Quantifiers canonically attach to nouns or noun phrases as modifiers to specify the amount or number of the entity expressed by the noun. However, it has been observed that quantifiers can be positioned outside of the noun phrase. These so-called floating quantifiers (FQs) exhibit intriguing syntactic and semantic characteristics. On the one hand, they appear to have a closerelationship with a noun; semantically they quantify a noun in the same way as non-floating quantifiers, and quite often they exhibit agreement with the noun. On the other hand, their phrase structure distribution is very similar to that of VP-adverbs. In this paper, we argue that the distribution of FQs is constrained not purely by syntax, but also by information structure. We show that FQs play a focus role whereas modified nouns are reference-oriented topic expressions. Building upon Dalrymple and Nikolaeva’s (2011) recent proposal, we formulate the interaction between syntactic, semantic and information structure features of FQs within LFG’s projection architecture.

scholarly journals The problem of syntactic ambivalence in corpus linguistics

2012 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Ireneusz Kida
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Computer Analysis ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Order Analysis ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The One

Abstract Ireneusz Kida. The Problem of Syntactic Ambivalence in Corpus Linguistics. Lingua Posnaniensis, vol. L IV (1)/2012. The Poznań Society for the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences. PL ISSN 0079-4740, ISBN 978-83-7654-103-7, pp. 57-63. The purpose of this article is to present a technique of dual annotation of Old English ambivalent structures in diachronic annotated corpus linguistics. In languages there are often structures which are ambivalent, and it is difficult to establish whether they are main or dependent. These clauses are problematic for a corpus linguist annotating them for computer analysis of word order configurations. As a solution to this problem we suggest that such structures be annotated in two ways, namely on the one hand as main and on the other hand as dependent. Such a procedure allows one to obtain more objective results from word order analysis. Moreover, dual annotation is more flexible and is able to grasp the changeable nature of language

Word order in the nominal phrase

2019 ◽  
pp. 108-162
Author(s):  
Alexandru Nicolae
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
The Other ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Residual Head

This chapter examines the main changes in the syntax of Romanian nominal phrases as they are reflected in the ordering of DP-internal constituents. The first part of the chapter focuses on the ‘low definite article’, i.e. structures in which the noun bearing the definite article occupies a non-DP-initial position. The low definite article is relevant to the emergence of the Romanian article (its suffixal nature singles out Romanian in Romance) on the one hand and to the understanding of the freer DP-internal word order characteristic of old Romanian on the other hand. The changes in the position of adjectives relative to the head noun and in the linearization of adjectives with respect to one another are then addressed. Finally, residual head-final structures in the nominal and adjectival domain and discontinuous constituents are analysed.

scholarly journals PASSIVE IN WESTERN MANSI

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-131
Author(s):  
Анна Юрьевна Урманчиева ◽  
Владимир Александрович Плунгян
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Primary Function ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Main Protagonist

Данная работа открывает серию статей, в которых проводится сопоставительное изучение употребления пассивных форм в диалектах мансийского языка. В мансийском языке (обско-угорские угорские уральские) выделяется несколько диалектных групп: северная (по рекам Сосьва, Ляпин и по верхнему течению р. Лозьва), южная (по р. Тавда), восточная (по р. Конда) и западная (по рекам Пелым и Вагиль и по реке Лозьва в ее среднем и нижнем течении). Южные и западные диалекты исчезли уже в начале XX века, восточные просуществовали несколько дольше, приблизительно до середины прошлого столетия; в настоящее время сохраняются только мансийские идиомы северной диалектной группы. Сравнение функций одних и тех же грамматических форм в разных вариантах многодиалектного языка в перспективе позволит реконструировать картину диалектной дивергенции мансийского: во-первых, определить междиалектные связи, во вторых, установить возможные сепаратные внешние связи того или иного локального варианта, которые привели к изменению функционирования определенных грамматических форм. Исследование проводилось прежде всего на материале мансийского корпуса проектов “Ob-Ugric languages” и “Ob-Ugric database” (http://www.babel.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/). The paper describes the following aspects of the use of passive forms in Western Mansi narratives: — grammatical semantics of forms with passive morphology (passive in a strict sense, impersonal constructions, adversative, ...); — information structure of passive utterances; — pragmatic conditions for choosing between active and passive voice. On the one hand, in Western Mansi arose a specific correlation between different functions of passive with different communicative structures: — the passive in a strict sense, like the adversative, is used only with a topical object; — the adversative can be used with a topical as well as with a focal subject, whereas the passive — only with a topical one; — the adversative developed a special discursive function: the introduction of a new (focal) subject into the narrative; On the other hand, the passive in a strict sense, whose primary function is a ranking of topics according to their communicative salience, is used in Western Mansi narratives almost automatically. It is used to promote the only one patientive argument — only the main protagonist of a story. This means that speakers do not use passive voice to rank topics; rather they choose a passive form depending on an already predetermined rank.

Stories and the Self

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Markus Appel
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lower Degree ◽  
Contrast Effects ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Abstract. Two experiments examined the influence of stories on recipients’ self-perceptions. Extending prior theory and research, our focus was on assimilation effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in line with a protagonist’s traits) as well as on contrast effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in contrast to a protagonist’s traits). In Experiment 1 ( N = 113), implicit and explicit conscientiousness were assessed after participants read a story about either a diligent or a negligent student. Moderation analyses showed that highly transported participants and participants with lower counterarguing scores assimilate the depicted traits of a story protagonist, as indicated by explicit, self-reported conscientiousness ratings. Participants, who were more critical toward a story (i.e., higher counterarguing) and with a lower degree of transportation, showed contrast effects. In Experiment 2 ( N = 103), we manipulated transportation and counterarguing, but we could not identify an effect on participants’ self-ascribed level of conscientiousness. A mini meta-analysis across both experiments revealed significant positive overall associations between transportation and counterarguing on the one hand and story-consistent self-reported conscientiousness on the other hand.

Radioimmunotherapy for treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndrome

2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (03) ◽  
pp. 107-117
Author(s):  
R. G. Meyer ◽  
W. Herr ◽  
A. Helisch ◽  
P. Bartenstein ◽  
I. Buchmann
Keyword(s):  
Acute Myeloid Leukaemia ◽  
Myeloid Leukaemia ◽  
Primary Tumour ◽  
The Other ◽  
Haematopoietic Stem Cell ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Primary Reduction ◽  
The One ◽  
Acute Myeloid

SummaryThe prognosis of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) has improved considerably by introduction of aggressive consolidation chemotherapy and haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT). Nevertheless, only 20-30% of patients with AML achieve long-term diseasefree survival after SCT. The most common cause of treatment failure is relapse. Additionally, mortality rates are significantly increased by therapy-related causes such as toxicity of chemotherapy and complications of SCT. Including radioimmunotherapies in the treatment of AML and myelodyplastic syndrome (MDS) allows for the achievement of a pronounced antileukaemic effect for the reduction of relapse rates on the one hand. On the other hand, no increase of acute toxicity and later complications should be induced. These effects are important for the primary reduction of tumour cells as well as for the myeloablative conditioning before SCT.This paper provides a systematic and critical review of the currently used radionuclides and immunoconjugates for the treatment of AML and MDS and summarizes the literature on primary tumour cell reductive radioimmunotherapies on the one hand and conditioning radioimmunotherapies before SCT on the other hand.

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