The emergence of middle voice structures with and without agents

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Fábregas ◽  
Michael Putnam
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Modal Operator ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Middle Voice ◽  
Existentially Closed ◽  
Existential Closure ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Event Variable

AbstractThis article presents evidence that, cross-linguistically or within the same language (family), there appears to be no morphosyntactic properties and/or structures specifically designated for the formation of middle voice constructions. What has been labeled a ‘middle voice construction’ is a semantic interpretation that, crucially, is blocked when an event variable is existentially closed by T. This article focuses on two ways of expressing a middle statement; namely (i) middle voice readings that occur with lexical-s passives, and (ii) adjectival middles – in Mainland Scandinavian, showing that properties such as the availability of an agent in middles pattern with whether an event variable is present (in the structure) or not. These are the result of two equally valid and productive grammatical structures: one where an event variable is present, an agent is projected and a modal operator blocks existential closure of the event variable, and another one where the event variable is not present in the structure, and therefore the operator is not necessary – hence impossible.

scholarly journals A PSEUDOEXPONENTIAL-LIKE STRUCTURE ON THE ALGEBRAIC NUMBERS

2015 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1339-1347
Author(s):  
VINCENZO MANTOVA
Keyword(s):  
Algebraic Varieties ◽  
Algebraic Numbers ◽  
Exponential Functions ◽  
Existentially Closed ◽  
Existential Closure ◽  
Independent Functions ◽  
Schanuel's Conjecture

AbstractPseudoexponential fields are exponential fields similar to complex exponentiation which satisfy the Schanuel Property, i.e., the abstract statement of Schanuel’s Conjecture, and an adapted form of existential closure.Here we show that if we remove the Schanuel Property and just care about existential closure, it is possible to create several existentially closed exponential functions on the algebraic numbers that still have similarities with complex exponentiation. The main difficulties are related to the arithmetic of algebraic numbers, and they can be overcome with known results about specialisations of multiplicatively independent functions on algebraic varieties.

Finite Verb Morphology in Kinnauri

1995 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anju SAXENA
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Language Group ◽  
Language Family ◽  
The West ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Descriptive Account ◽  
Morphological Distribution ◽  
Finite Verb

The Kinnauri language belongs to the West Himalayish language group, the most underdocumented subgroup of the Bodish branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family (DeLancey 1989). This paper presents a descriptive account of Kinnauri finite verb morphology, concentrating on the copula construction and the inflectional morphology of affirmative finite verbs; the paper further analyzes the morphological distribution as well as the semantic interpretation of various finite verb morphemes.

scholarly journals Neodavidsonianism in Semantics and Syntax

2019 ◽  
pp. 286-313
Author(s):  
Terje Lohndal
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Original Proposal ◽  
Original Insight ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Event Variable

This chapter discusses the impact and development of Donald Davidson’s original proposal that there is an event variable in the logical forms that encode meaning in natural languages. Originally, Davidson was concerned with adjuncts and their entailments, but this chapter demonstrates how these insights were extended to apply to thematic arguments. It is argued that there is a family of Neodavidsonian proposals that all have in common that they argue for Neodavidsonian logical forms. However, they differ substantially in how they derive these logical forms, notably in what assumptions they make concerning the syntactic structure that serves as an input to the semantic interpretation. The chapter provides an overview of some of the different approaches, closing by defending a view that can be viewed as a natural consequence of the original insight due to Davidson: not only event predicates, but also argument predicates are linked together by way of conjunction.

Pseudo-Incorporated Antecedents and Anaphora in Persian: The Influence of Stereotypical Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 224
Author(s):  
Fereshteh Modarresi ◽  
Manfred Krifka
Keyword(s):  
Existential Closure ◽  
Event Variable ◽  
Specific Number ◽  
Proper Analysis ◽  
Neutral Case

There are different theories about the nature of pseudo-incorporated nouns (PINs), which feature a non-specific, number-neutral interpretation. For a proper analysis it is crucial to take their anaphoric potential into account. This paper investigates if and how PINs introduce discourse referents, with evidence from Persian, and which theory matches this behavior best. We report on experiments in which the stereotypical enrichment of the number-neutral interpretation was systematically varied with two types of biases — towards a singular or a plural interpretation — and in the neutral case, when such a bias is lacking. The results of the experiments are compatible with Krifka & Modarresi (2016), which considers PIN objects as dependent singular definites (similar to weak definites) within existential closure over an event variable.

Framework for Selecting Vocabulary for Preliterate Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1000-1009
Author(s):  
Allison Bean ◽  
Lindsey Paden Cargill ◽  
Samantha Lyle
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Augmentative And Alternative Communication ◽  
Developmentally Appropriate ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Alternative Communication ◽  
School Based ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Nonverbal Children ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Insufficient Knowledge

Purpose Nearly 50% of school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) provide services to school-age children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). However, many SLPs report having insufficient knowledge in the area of AAC implementation. The objective of this tutorial is to provide clinicians with a framework for supporting 1 area of AAC implementation: vocabulary selection for preliterate children who use AAC. Method This tutorial focuses on 4 variables that clinicians should consider when selecting vocabulary: (a) contexts/environments where the vocabulary can be used, (b) time span during which the vocabulary will be relevant, (c) whether the vocabulary can elicit and maintain interactions with other people, and (d) whether the vocabulary will facilitate developmentally appropriate grammatical structures. This tutorial focuses on the role that these variables play in language development in verbal children with typical development, verbal children with language impairment, and nonverbal children who use AAC. Results Use of the 4 variables highlighted above may help practicing SLPs select vocabulary that will best facilitate language acquisition in preliterate children who use AAC.

Sentence Structures of Trainable and Educable Mentally Retarded Subjects

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 722-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn S. Bliss ◽  
Doris V. Allen ◽  
Georgia Walker
Keyword(s):  
Mentally Retarded ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Completion Task ◽  
Mentally Retarded Children ◽  
Educable Mentally Retarded ◽  
Story Completion ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Trainable Mentally Retarded

Educable and trainable mentally retarded children were administered a story completion task that elicits 14 grammatical structures. There were more correct responses from educable than from trainable mentally retarded children. Both groups found imperatives easiest, and future, embedded, and double-adjectival structures most difficult. The children classed as educable produced more correct responses than those termed trainable for declarative, question, and single-adjectival structures. The cognitive and linguistic processing of both groups is discussed as are the implications for language remediation.

Linguistic Data Model for Natural Languages and Artificial Intelligence. Part 5. Introduction to Logic

Discourse ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
O. M. Polyakov
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Mathematical Logic ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
General View ◽  
World Model ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
The World ◽  
Linguistic Aspect

Introduction. The article continues the series of publications on the linguistics of relations (hereinafter R–linguistics) and is devoted to an introduction to the logic of natural language in relation to the approach considered in the series. The problem of natural language logic still remains relevant, since this logic differs significantly from traditional mathematical logic. Moreover, with the appearance of artificial intelligence systems, the importance of this problem only increases. The article analyzes logical problems that prevent the application of classical logic methods to natural languages. This is possible because R-linguistics forms the semantics of a language in the form of world model structures in which language sentences are interpreted.Methodology and sources. The results obtained in the previous parts of the series are used as research tools. To develop the necessary mathematical representations in the field of logic and semantics, the formulated concept of the interpretation operator is used.Results and discussion. The problems that arise when studying the logic of natural language in the framework of R–linguistics are analyzed. These issues are discussed in three aspects: the logical aspect itself; the linguistic aspect; the aspect of correlation with reality. A very General approach to language semantics is considered and semantic axioms of the language are formulated. The problems of the language and its logic related to the most General view of semantics are shown.Conclusion. It is shown that the application of mathematical logic, regardless of its type, to the study of natural language logic faces significant problems. This is a consequence of the inconsistency of existing approaches with the world model. But it is the coherence with the world model that allows us to build a new logical approach. Matching with the model means a semantic approach to logic. Even the most General view of semantics allows to formulate important results about the properties of languages that lack meaning. The simplest examples of semantic interpretation of traditional logic demonstrate its semantic problems (primarily related to negation).

Antonio Negri

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Diran
Keyword(s):  
Critical Distance ◽  
Middle Voice ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Antonio Negri

Agamben describes his posture as a reader as one of seeking a text’s Entwicklungsfähigkeit, or capacity for elaboration.1 In examining Agamben’s practices of reading, we can attend to the opposite phenomenon: the counter-elaboration that a text, in having being read by the philosopher, performs upon Agamben’s own thought. This reciprocal elaboration might constitute a paradigm for Agamben’s use of reading, according to his own idiosyncratic definition of use as an event in the middle voice, in which (according to a definition of Benveniste) the subject ‘effects an action only in affecting itself (il effectue en s’affectant)’ (UB 28). With this definition in mind, we could say that Agamben effects a text (he writes) only to the extent that he is also affected by another text (he reads). This is why Agamben’s position as a reader proves particularly important to any assessment of his work, quite aside from the problem of influence or intellectual genealogy. For this same reason, however, assessing Agamben’s relation to Antonio Negri – a figure with whom, by most measures, he is at odds – poses an unexpected challenge: how can Agamben’s thought be a use of Negri? Answering this question means not only assessing the critical distance between the two thinkers, but also taking this distance as a measure, in the Spinozan sense, of mutual affection.

The place of the plant world in the worldview system of transoxiana sufism in 16th century

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Extra-A) ◽  
pp. 157-161
Author(s):  
Lutfullo Eshonovich Ismoilov ◽  
Ramil Tagirovich Yuzmukhametov ◽  
Markhabo Tukhtasunovna Rajabova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
The World ◽  
Lives Of The Saints

The article considers the topic of the Plant World in the Sufi writings of the 16th century Transoxiana, based on the material of manakibs, i. e. the so-called Lives of the Saints. The significance and relevance of the topic is due to the need to study the issues of semantic interpretation of the concept of plant and plant world in Sufi writings. Hence, the purpose of this article is to disclose the diverse meanings of the concept of the “World of Plants” contained in the 16th-century Transoxiana manakibs of such authors as Abdurakhman Jami, Abu-l Baka b. Khodzha Bakha-ud-din, Khusein Serakhsi. The main method in the study of this issue is the historical and comparative method, and the method of literary analysis, which allows you to create a holistic understanding of the symbolism of the Plant World in Sufi writings of Transoxiana of the 16th century.      

DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN GERMAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES/Actual Problems of Applied Sciences Journal World, 2(12), 2019/ Chief Editor Markus Hemmer: Open European Academy of Public Sciences (OEAPS Inc.). Barcelona, Spain, 2019. PP.18-21.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamola Akmalovna Abdukhakimova ◽  
Makhliyo Tulkin qizi Absamadova
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Chief Editor ◽  
European Academy ◽  
Grammatical Structures

This article illustrates not only differences but also some similarities between German and English languages. Students who are learning both languages which mentioned before will confuse them during learning process. They may face some issues including grammatical structures, word patterns and its formation, pronunciation as well. In order to deal with above-mentionedproblem, researchers vividly give basic examples for, especially, Uzbek learners who are about to acquire both English and German languages simultaneously or respectively.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document