scholarly journals Postpositions in Munduruku (Tupi): Formal and Functional Features

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-150
Author(s):  
Dioney M. Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Mato Grosso ◽  
Functional Features ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Syntactic Relation ◽  
Source Of Information

The Munduruku people live in the states of Pará and Amazonas, including a handful of residents in Mato Grosso, in Brazil. My research about the language takes place within the Munduruku population of Pará. It is a language of the Tupi stock, that belongs to the Munduruku family. It is of head-marking type. The most common constituent order is s(o)v. The arguments do not receive morphologic marks, usually occurring in noun phrases. The verb receives person marks, which indicate/co-refer subject and direct object. Our objective here is to present the inventory of the postpositions,  in order to discuss the properties they share; what their structural and functional features are; and their participation in the passive voice, causative, subordination, modality, source of information, and locative and possessive predication. We also approach the isomorphism among postpositions, nouns and verbs; the syntactic relation that establishes the postpositional phrase with the rest of the sentence: whether argument or adjunct. Finally we will also reflect upon its typology.

scholarly journals Bhadarwahi: A Typological Sketch

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Amitabh Vikram DWIVEDI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Main Verb

This paper is a summary of some phonological and morphosyntactice features of the Bhadarwahi language of Indo-Aryan family. Bhadarwahi is a lesser known and less documented language spoken in district of Doda of Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. Typologically it is a subject dominant language with an SOV word order (SV if without object) and its verb agrees with a noun phrase which is not followed by an overt post-position. These noun phrases can move freely in the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object generally precedes the direct object. Aspiration, like any other Indo-Aryan languages, is a prominent feature of Bhadarwahi. Nasalization is a distinctive feature, and vowel and consonant contrasts are commonly observed. Infinitive and participle forms are formed by suffixation while infixation is also found in causative formation. Tense is carried by auxiliary and aspect and mood is marked by the main verb.

scholarly journals Lexicalist vs. exoskeletal approaches to language mixing

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren Berg Grimstad ◽  
Brita Ramsevik Riksem ◽  
Terje Lohndal ◽  
Tor A Åfarli
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Functional Features ◽  
Mixing Patterns ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The One

Abstract This article presents empirical evidence that disfavors using highly lexicalist minimalist models, such as the one presented in Chomsky (1995), when analyzing language mixing. The data analyzed consist of English – Spanish mixed noun phrases discussed in Moro (2014) as well as English – Norwegian mixed noun phrases and verbs taken from the Corpus of American Norwegian Speech. Whereas the lexicalist model in Chomsky (1995) only can explain a subset of the mixing patterns attested in both authentic English – Spanish mixed noun phrases and the American Norwegian corpus, we show that an alternative exoskeletal model can account for all of them. Such a model would entail that rather than assuming lexical items with inherent, functional features that determine the derivation, syntactic structures are generated independently from the lexical items that come to realize them.

Clitics as input to the acquisition of verbal transitivity in French

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux ◽  
Mihaela Pirvulescu ◽  
Yves Roberge ◽  
Nelleke Strik
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Verb Learning ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Direct Objects ◽  
Object Pronouns

Abstract We investigate the effect of French clitic construction on verb learning. In French, object pronouns precede the verb, and the canonical direct object position remains empty. We test whether children treat such contexts as input for transitivity (since a direct object is morphologically identified) or optional transitivity (due to the empty direct object position). Forty-eight monolingual French preschoolers heard verb input with clitics and noun phrases as direct objects, in two input conditions: obligatory transitivity, and mixed optional transitivity. Results show that children are sensitive to the input, but produce more sentences with null implicit objects in the clitic conditions. This provides evidence that specific properties of a language (e.g. clitic constructions), affect the acquisition of verbal classes.

scholarly journals On Agree without agreement as a source of reflexive voice constructions

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark C Baker
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Semantic Component ◽  
The Subject

Switch-reference has recently been argued to be the result of clausal functional heads entering into Agree with two nearby noun phrases, creating pointers to those noun phrases but not actually copying their morphosyntactic features. Instead, the semantic component interprets the pointers as referential dependency holding between pointed-to noun phrases. This article applies this analysis to reflexive voice constructions in which a feature-invariant affix appears on the verb to indicate that the (highest, direct) object is referentially dependent on the (thematic) subject of the same clause. First it surveys the properties that such constructions should have if reflexive voice is maximally like switch-reference. Then it argues that the Bantu language Lubukusu has just such a construction, the verbal affix i partnering with the overt anaphor omweene to create reflexive clauses. Dravidian reflexive voices are presented as another possible case. Finally, it turns to reflexive and reciprocal voice constructions in Shipibo (Panoan), which seem to have a detransitivizing effect. However, no major detransitivizing account fits all the facts. Rather, reflexive voice in Shipibo is like Lubukusu, except that the anaphor is phonologically null and deficient in phi-features, failing to trigger ergative case on the subject for that reason. True detransitivization may happen in some languages with reflexive voice, but not in all, and it will take considerable care to sort out which are which.

Topic-Continuity and Topic-Shift Effects in Spanish Discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Iker Zulaica-Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Narrow View ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Syntactic Prominence ◽  
Previous Sentence

Differences in use among referring expressions are usually explained on the basis of the cognitive accessibility of their antecedents, where antecedent accessibility has been operationalized differently in the literature; i.e. as a grammatical role, as syntactic prominence or as antecedent distance. On these grounds, it has been proposed that personal pronouns prefer topical antecedents whereas demonstratives prefer non-topical antecedents. This paper investigates the referring properties of Spanish demonstratives and direct object personal pronouns with the aim to unveil their differences and similarities. My analysis shows that these two expressions are very similar referentially when a narrow view of discourse context is considered. However, important differences show up when a broader notion of context is thrown into the picture; i.e. contexts that extend beyond the immediate previous sentence and beyond the immediate local topic of discourse. Based on my corpus evidence and on previous research on the pragmatic interpretation of referring expressions, I claim that direct object personal pronouns and demonstrative noun phrases crucially differ in the way they contribute to discourse coherence; the former playing the role of topic continuity markers and the latter focalising referents that reintroduce suspended or declining topics and marking (sub)-topic shifts in the discourse.

Ordering patterns

2020 ◽  
pp. 387-394
Author(s):  
Gerjan van Schaaik
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Tabular Form ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Constituent Ordering

After an extensive account of the basics of Turkish grammar, this chapter offers nothing but ordering principles: the first two sections are about the morphotactics of nouns and verbs, and noun phrase structure. All this is represented in tabular form. The ordering principles for noun phrases (including adverbial and postpositional phrases) in a clause is dealt with next, and thus, constituent order in nominal, existential, and verbal sentences is discussed in the third section. Dependent clauses are the topic of the fourth section, which also gives an overview of verbal linking suffixes to form such clauses. The final section shows that constituent ordering in verbal sentences can better be understood in terms of the pragmatic notions Topic and Focus than in terms of traditional distribution of Subject and Objects (SOV).

Do grammatical relations reflect information status? Reassessing Preferred Argument Structure theory against discourse data from Tondano

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy C. Brickell ◽  
Stefan Schnell
Keyword(s):  
Information Flow ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Austronesian Language ◽  
Grammatical Relations ◽  
Information Status ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Corpus Data

AbstractWe test Preferred Argument Structure theory against corpus data from Tondano, an Austronesian language with symmetrical voice. Investigating the use of full noun phrases in individual argument positions, we find no significant clustering of both S and P as opposed to A, hence no discourse ergativity. Moreover, neither pivotal nor non-pivotal grammatical relations appear to specialise in the accommodation of full noun phrases. Thus, grammatical relations do not serve as architecture for regulating information flow in discourse. Only constituent order reflects information flow, so that full noun phrases tend to occur in clause-final position. More generally, correlations of humanness and topicality predict most straightforwardly attested patterns of argument realisation.

The grammar of ‘content’ and ‘container’

1976 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Schwartz-Norman
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
The State ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
Grammatical Relations ◽  
Grammatical Relation ◽  
Made In ◽  
Syntactic Frames

I. In this paper I will examine the systematic alternation in grammatical relations (or functions) of noun phrases in the semantic rôles that I will refer to as ‘content’ and ‘container’ for that class of English verbs which appear in the syntactic frames given in (I):(I)(a)…V NP1 IN/ON(TO) NP2…load the hay on the waggon(b)…V NP2 WITH NP1…load the waggon with the hay.This class of verbs, exemplified by load, spread and spray is particularly interesting because of the claim made in Anderson (1971) that the noun phrase which stands in the grammatical relation of direct object is semantically interpreted as being wholly involved in the action or wholly in the state indicated by the verb. Thus, for verbs that may appear in both of the frames in (I), if Anderson's analysis is correct, the semantic interpretation of structures like (a) and (b) will be distinct in that in (a), NP1 should be interpreted holistically and NP2 should not, while in (b), NP2 should be interpreted holistically, and NP1 should not. After first examining some general characteristics of this class of verbs, I will point out some problems which are presented by Anderson's analysis.

Inevitable reanalysis

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frans Plank
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Numerical Approximation ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Case Assignment ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Grammatical Relations

When local adpositions, whatever their own sources, are metaphorically extended to the domain of numerical approximation (as in ‘around five bottles’), as they not uncommonly are, and when such expressions are then admitted to grammatical relations otherwise reserved for noun phrases, such as subject and direct object, as is only natural, a conflict is bound to arise: the internal structure of such expressions is that of an adpositional phrase, headed by the ex-local adposition, but their external distribution is that of a noun phrase. German and several other languages demonstrate that repair is inevitable in this dilemma, unless wholly different ways of expressing numerical approximation were to be resorted to. By necessity, such approximative numerical expressions will gradually be reanalysed from being adpositional phrases to being noun phrases for many, most, or indeed all external and internal purposes, such as subcategorization, verb agreement, case assignment, and determination. Instead of new grammar emerging as in grammaticalization, the old grammar of phrase types is reasserting itself in such reanalyses.

Verb argument structure acquisition in young children: defining a role for discourse

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 662-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
LETITIA R. NAIGLES ◽  
ASHLEY MALTEMPO
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Verb Argument Structure ◽  
Source Of Information

ABSTRACTTwo-, three- and four-year-old English learners enacted sentences that were missing a direct object (e.g. *The zebra brings.). Previous work has indicated that preschoolers faced with such ungrammatical sentences consistently alter the usual meaning of the verb to fit the syntactic frame (enacting ‘zebra comes’); older children are more likely to repair the syntax to fit the meaning of the verb (enacting ‘zebra brings something’; Naigles, Gleitman & Gleitman, 1993). We investigated whether young children performed more repairs if an informative context preceded the ungrammatical sentences. Test sentences were preceded by short vignettes that created a relationship between three characters. Children repaired more sentences than had been found previously; however, older preschoolers also repaired significantly more frequently than younger preschoolers. Discourse context thus seems relevant to the acquisition of verb argument structure, but is not the sole source of information.

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