An interface analysis of marked copular constructions: The case of there-sentences

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-307
Author(s):  
Francesca Ramaglia
Keyword(s):  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Interface Properties ◽  
Interface Analysis ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Existential Constructions ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Definiteness Effect

AbstractThis paper proposes an interface account of existential sentences, in which the examination of the semantic, morphosyntactic, discourse and prosodic properties of these and related constructions is aimed to explore the similarities and differences with other types of IS-marked copular structures. In particular, a structural parallelism is proposed between existentials and clefts, as well as between (inverted) locatives and (inverted) pseudoclefts. In the analysis of existential constructions, the investigation of the Definiteness Effect reveals the need for a distinction across there-sentences; in particular, the interface properties of the relevant structures suggest that different analyses should be provided for existential and presentational there-sentences, which present crucial formal asymmetries at various levels of analysis.

Intralinguistic analysis of medical research papers and abstracts

Terminology ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Méndez-Cendón ◽  
Belén López Arroyo
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Technical Writers ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Different Levels

Studies related to ESP genres have been carried out lately focusing on different levels of analysis, such as internal ordering, lexico-grammatical patterns or terminology. However, there are not many studies combining different levels of analysis so as to observe how information is rendered in scientific genres. The present study intends to offer a description of rhetorical and phraseological patterns observed in medical research papers and abstracts using a semantic and functional approach. Our methodology is descriptively performed on a comparable corpus composed of research papers and abstracts in the field of diagnostic imaging and published in esteemed journals. We will determine composition strategies by means of the description of the authors’ favourite structures found in our corpus. Once these favourite structures have been obtained for every genre, we will proceed with semantic analysis so as to establish their similarities and differences. Our results will, primarily, help translators, technical writers and ESP students to infer discursive strategies in these genres, as well as to better understand some of the discourse aspects of rendering scientific information in general.

Notes on Expletive There

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Kayne
Keyword(s):  
Blocking Effect ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Internal Position ◽  
Preposition Stranding ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Definiteness Effect

AbstractSentences with the verb exist and with a lexical DP in subject position show no definiteness effect. This suggests that the definiteness effect is keyed in English to the presence of expletive there. More strongly put, a definiteness effect is invariably found whenever expletive there (or a counterpart of it in other languages, whether pronounced or not) is present. This effect may in some languages be limited to the case of unstressed pronouns.Expletive there and its counterparts originate within the associate (in a way that accounts for the expletive being there, and not then). In part, this conclusion is driven by anti-homophony. Freeze noted that English is exceptional in having expletive there in subject position. The proposal will be that this is related to English allowing preposition-stranding under A-movement.The definiteness effect itself results from a blocking effect, probably not specific to existential sentences, that certain determiners such as the impose on the movement of expletive there from its DP-internal position up to a sentential subject position.

existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-240
Author(s):  
Eva-Marie Bloom Ström
Keyword(s):  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Long Form ◽  
The World ◽  
Existential Constructions ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Definiteness Effect

Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is here assumed that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when they refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing cross-linguistic question of how bare nouns are interpreted and what means languages without articles have to disambiguate between definite and indefinite readings. This question is largely unexplored for Bantu languages. The answer is sought in the use of different word orders and morphosyntactic constructions, with a focus on the existential in this paper. In many languages of the world, there is a restriction on definites as pivots in existential constructions, serving as a motivation for exploring these constructions in Xhosa. Xhosa makes use of a non-verbal copula in prototypical existentials as well as predicate locatives, to express the existence or presence of a referent. The paper argues that the existential is used for inactive referents and the predicate locative for (semi-) active referents. The inactive referents of the existential are mainly indefinite referential or non-referential. The active referents of the predicate locative are referential indefinite or definite. There is no absolute definiteness effect in the existential. A further motivation for this study is the occurrence of this copula in a short and a long form, giving rise to four different structures. The paper reveals an unexpected analogy between the use of the short and long form and the use of the so called conjoint and disjoint forms in Xhosa tense-aspect paradigms.

scholarly journals Partitivity in Slavic-Romance language contact: The case of Molise Slavic in Italy

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 837-868
Author(s):  
Walter Breu
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Short Description ◽  
Dominant Model ◽  
Italian Region ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
Existential Constructions ◽  
Subsequent Section ◽  
Similarities And Differences

AbstractMolise Slavic is a south Slavic micro-language, spoken in three municipalities in the Italian region of Molise. It has been in a situation of total language contact with Romance varieties for about 500 years, with strong foreign influence on all linguistic levels. This paper is intended as a contribution to two combined fields of linguistics: contact linguistics and the expression of partitivity in Slavic in different settings. The paper opens with a short description of the position of the (morphological) partitive case in Russian, followed by a comparison of the role of case in expressing partitive objects in Russian, Croatian and Molise Slavic. The subsequent section will deal with other means of rendering pure and ablativic partitivity in Italian as the dominant model language and in the Molise Slavic replica, in particular with respect to the similarities and differences in existential constructions. Special attention will be paid to the Italian partitive particle ne and its formal and functional equivalents in Molise Slavic, including the particle na/ne, partitive personal pronouns, quantifiers, the genitive and the role of intonation and word order. Finally we will test various hypotheses about the origin of the particle na/ne, whose formal variation in one of the Molise Slavic dialects causes serious problems for both loanword integration and semantic calquing.

scholarly journals Restrictions on definiteness in the grammars of German-Turkish heritage speakers

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Kupisch ◽  
Alyona Belikova ◽  
Öner Özçelik ◽  
Ilse Stangen ◽  
Lydia White
Keyword(s):  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Existential Constructions ◽  
Acceptability Judgments ◽  
Negative Existentials ◽  
Definite Expressions ◽  
Definiteness Effect

Abstract This paper reports on a study investigating restrictions on definiteness (the Definiteness Effect) in existential constructions in the two languages of Turkish heritage speakers in Germany. Turkish and German differ in how the Definiteness Effect plays out. Definite expressions in German may not occur in affirmative or negative existentials, whereas in Turkish the restriction applies only to affirmative existentials. Participants were adults and fell into two groups: simultaneous bilinguals (2L1) who acquired German before age 3 and early sequential bilinguals (2L1) who acquired German after age 4; there were also monolingual controls. The tasks involved acceptability judgments. Subjects were presented with contexts, each followed by a sentence to be judged, including grammatical and ungrammatical existentials. Results show that the bilinguals, regardless of age of acquisition, make judgments appropriate for each language. They reject definite expressions in negative existentials in German and accept them in Turkish, suggesting distinct grammars.

Introduction to the Field and the Issues

2018 ◽  
pp. xiv-16
Author(s):  
Robert A. Zucker ◽  
Sandra A. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
Drugs Of Abuse ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Comprehensive Description ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Clinical Symptomatology ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Social Environmental

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the origins, development, and course of substance use as it emerges and unfolds in adolescence, a period where great change at genetic, neurobiological, behavioral, and social-environmental levels is taking place. The volume also provides reviews of clinical symptomatology and the multiple methods for intervention that have developed to address this major set of public health problems. This chapter provides a brief overview of these areas; it includes sections on epidemiology, similarities and differences among the different drugs of abuse, etiology and course, clinical symptomatology and comorbidity, intervention methods, and social policy. These summaries, covering multiple levels of analysis, provide a comprehensive description of a field that is still developing, but that has already achieved a substantial level of maturity.

scholarly journals Constellations, Polysemy, and Hindi -ko

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Shravan Vasishth ◽  
Brian Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Structural Differentiation ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Phonemic Level ◽  
Different Levels

Much of linguistic analysis rests on a single key question: given entities X and Y as objects for analysis, are they the same or different? This issue pervades all components of grammar: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, etc. Moreover, in addressing this issue, one often needs to recognize the relevance of different levels of analysis, especially underlying versus surface, since underlying sameness can be surface difference, and vice versa. For example, phonemic analysis takes phones with decidedly different phonetic realizations (e.g. aspirated vs. unaspirated stops in English) and treats them as the same at the phonemic level if their distribution does not overlap. But at the same time, segments that seem to be the same phonetically on the surface and even phonemically as well, e.g. the [d] of recede and the [d] of invade, might need to be treated as different from a morphophonemic standpoint, since, in this example, the former alternates with [s] in the related noun recession whereas the latter alternates with [z] in invasion, both nominal formations having ostensibly the same suffix. In syntax, too, patterns that are alike on the surface, such as control constructions and raising constructions, can show some unlike properties that lead, in most current theoretical frameworks at least, to structural differentiation in some way, e.g., in underlying structure. An answer to the above key question regarding sameness often involves a recognition of differences too. Thus, the issue becomes one of measuring similarities and differences against one another and weighing the relative importance of one or the other, as well as deciding how to represent the sameness or difference that one ends up positing.

Budgeting Research: Three Theoretical Perspectives and Criteria for Selective Integration

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Covaleski ◽  
John H. Evans ◽  
Joan L. Luft ◽  
Michael D. Shields
Keyword(s):  
Causal Model ◽  
Management Accounting ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Participative Budgeting ◽  
Integrative Research ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Selective Integration

Budgeting is one of the most extensively researched topics in management accounting and has been studied from the theoretical perspectives of economics, psychology, and sociology. Thus, budgeting offers opportunities for research that chooses between competing theories from these perspectives or combines theories from different perspectives if they are compatible, to create more complete and valid explanations of the causes and effects of budgeting practices. In the first part of the paper we analyze budgeting research in the three theoretical perspectives, focusing on important similarities and differences across perspectives with respect to the primary research question, levels of analysis, assumptions about rationality and equilibrium, budgeting and nonbudgeting variables, and causal-model forms. In the last part of this paper we identify four interrelated criteria for selective integrative research and provide an example of using these criteria for research on participative budgeting.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document