scholarly journals German participle II constructions as adjuncts

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 309-321
Author(s):  
Ilse Zimmermann

The present investigation is concerned with German participles II (past participles) as lexical heads of adjuncts. Within a minimalist framework of sound-meaning correlation, the analysis presupposes a lexicalist conception of morphology and the differentiation of Semantic Form and Conceptual Structure. It is argued that participles II have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. As for the potential of participles to function as modifiers, it is shown that attributive and adverbial participle constructions involve further operations of conversion. Participle constructions are considered as reduced sentences. They do not have a syntactic position for the subject, for an operator (comparable to the relative pronoun in relative clauses) or for an adverbial relator (as in adverbial clauses). The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure. Two templates serve the composition of modifiers - including participle constructions - with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modification which unifies two predicates relating to participants or to situations and frame setting modification where the modifier is given the status of a propositional operator. The proposed analysis shows that the high degree of semantic underspecification and interpretative flexibility of German participle II constructions resides in the indeterminacy of participles II with respect to voice and perfect, in the absence of certain constituents in the syntactic structure and in the presence of corresponding parameters in the Semantic Form of the participle phrases.  

1999 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 123-146
Author(s):  
Ilse Zimmermann

This contribution concerns the interaction of morphology, syntax and semantics. It treats German past participles and concentrates on their function as heads in attributive and adverbial modifier phrases. It is argued that participles have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. Since these three operations involve changes in the morphosyntactic categorization they are considered as zero affixation. Two affixless templates – without any categorical changes – convert participle constructions to modifiers relating to participants or to situations. These phrases do not have a syntactic position for the grammatical subject, an operator or an adverbial relator. The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure. Two further templates serve the composition of participle constructions as modifiers with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modifiers which function as predicates and those which have the status of a propositional operator. In syntax, these different semantic functions correspond to different adjunct positions of the respective participle phrases.  


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Calboli

AbstractI started from the relative clause which occurs in Hittite, and in particular with the enclitic position of the relative pronoun. This is connected with the OV position and this position seems to have been prevailing in Hittite and PIE. The syntactic structure usually employed in Hittite between different clauses is the parataxis. Nevertheless, also the hypotaxis begins to be employed and the best occasion to use it was the diptych as suggested by Haudry, though he didn't consider the most natural and usual diptych: the law, where the crime and the sanction build a natural diptych already in old Hittite. Then I used Justus' and Boley's discussion on the structure of Hittite sentence and found a similarity with Latin, namely the use of an animate subject as central point of a sentence. With verbs of action in ancient languages the subject was normally an animate being, whereas also inanimate subject is employed in modern languages. This seems to be the major difference between ancient and modern structure of a sentence, or, better to say, in Hittite and PIE the subject was an animate being and this persisted a long time, and remained as a tendency in Latin, while in following languages and in classical grammar the subject became a simple nominal “entity” to be predicated and precised with verb and other linguistic instruments. A glance has been cast also to pronouns and particles (sometimes linked together) as instruments of linking nominal variants of coordinate or subordinate clauses and to the development of demonstrative/deictic pronouns. Also in ancient case theory a prevailing position was assured to the nominative case, the case of the subject.


2020 ◽  
pp. 38-52
Author(s):  
Valentina Bianchi

In past and future perfect sentences, punctual time adverbials like at five o’clock can specify either the Event Time or the Reference Time. In Italian, their interpretation is affected by syntactic position: a clause-peripheral adverbial allows for both interpretations, while a clause-internal adverbial only has the E-interpretation. Moreover, for clause-peripheral adverbials the presence of the adverb già (already) blocks the E-interpretation. It is shown that this pattern can be accounted for under a smuggling analysis, in which (i) the adverbial is merged as a DP in a functional projection intervening between T and the subject in the edge of v/VP, thus blocking Agree between them; (ii) smuggling of v/VP past the adverbial solves the intervention effect; and (iii) an E-adverbial originates in a projection below già (already), while an R-adverbial originates in a projection above it. A compositional semantic analysis is provided for the proposed syntactic structure.


2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Bob Coats ◽  
Roger E. Backhouse ◽  
Sheila C. Dow ◽  
Daniel R. Fusfeld ◽  
Craufurd D. Goodwin ◽  
...  

The central theme of this session is the changing relationship between “orthodox” (i.e., mainstream, neoclassical) and “heterodox” economics, especially in the USA, during the past two or three decades. Economics is such a large and heterogeneous discipline that it cannot be characterized both briefly and accurately. Alongside the growth of formalization and mathematization, and the high degree of uniformity in the undergraduate and graduate curricula and in the leading textbooks, there are also within the subject a number of dissenting or deviant doctrinal schools, rival methodological approaches, and innovative developments designed to remedy its defects and/or overcome its limitations. Moreover, many of the outspoken criticisms of the status quo, proposed remedies, and innovations, originate with or are endorsed by prominent economists with impeccable professional credentials. Indeed, in some cases their contributions threaten the discipline's foundations and can, therefore, be considered a species of “orthodox subversion.”


2018 ◽  
pp. 177-186
Author(s):  
Aleksander Kiklewicz

The subject of the article is the mental verbs (verbs of knowledge, understanding and thinking) of the modern Russian language, treated in terms of syntactic valence. The author examines the grammatical forms of the realization of propositional argument in sentences with mental verbs with the predicate-argument structure P (x, q). The forms of representation of propositional argument are divided into three types: observance, compression and splitting. The author shows that in this area we have to deal with an analog reflection of the propositional structure, or more or less a compression of proposition argument, or its dismemberment and doubling of its syntactic position. The author takes into account the regularity of the implementation of each grammatical form, quoting the relevant quantitative data.


Orð og tunga ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 39-68
Author(s):  
Einar Freyr Sigurðsson ◽  
Heimir van der Feest Viðarsson

In Modern Icelandic the verb líka ‘like’ occurs with a subject in the dative case and an object in the nominative case. It has been argued that this was also the case in Old Icelandic. In this paper we argue that in contrast to Modern Icelandic, the nominative argument of líka could also constitute the subject during the Old Icelandic period and the dative argument the object. More specifically, we maintain that the verb líka was an alternating (or symmetric) verb where the nominative and the dative argument could raise to the subject position, whereas in Modern Icelandic only the dative is able to raise to the subject position. In other words, we argue that a change in the argument structure of the verb has taken place such that líka has changed from being an alternating (symmetric) verb to an asymmetric oblique subject verb. The main argument that is used to substantiate this claim comes from control infinitives in Old Icelandic, taking on the form in (i): (i) girntiz meirr at líka einum guði en mönnum desired.mid more to PRO.nom like.inf alone.dat god.dat than men.dat ‘(He) desired more to please God alone than men.’ (Æv 150.15) Based on a generative analysis of syntactic structure, we present evidence that reveals that the dative argument functions syntactically as the object, in addition to discussing other potential evidence based on word order. When the nominative argument is the subject, the meaning of 'líka' is sometimes closer to that of English 'please' than 'like'. We also discuss how this might be accounted for.


2021 ◽  
pp. 9-27
Author(s):  
V. A. Burtsev

The categorical affiliation and semantic characteristics of propositions that do not have the status of assertions in the current utterance are considered. Such propositions are denoted by the term “pre-conservative”. It is shown that the preassertive status of propositions is determined by two main factors: the grammatical factor of precedence / following of explicit or implicit predication with respect to the moment of speech and the discourse factor of presentation in the proposition of the preassertive information reflecting religious mentality and religious ideology. The action of these factors gives rise to the phenomenon of asubjectivation. With asubjectivization, the semantic content of a linguistic expression is determined only by the properties of the described situation, and not by the locutionary activity of the subject of speech. It has been established that whole sentences, including those with non-propositional meanings, can receive the “pre-passive” status. It is shown that, in terms of some properties, the preassertive is comparable to a number of units of different articulations of the semantic-syntactic structure of an utterance, however, its specific manifestation in connection with asubjectivation proves that this is a special category in relation to explicit predication. The research was carried out on the basis of the material of the Russian Orthodox sermon. The novelty of the research consists in the characterization of the preassertive as a new syntactic relation on the axis “assertion — non-assertive component” of the utterance. Relevance is determined by the fact that the work develops a fundamentally new aspect of the study of subjectivity in language.


Author(s):  
Nataliia Shcherbii ◽  

One of the most debatable topics in modern linguistics is the study of intercategorical relations between several related languages. These multidimensional linguistic phenomena include the verbal formations, the so-called «hybrid forms of verbs» (participles, transgressive, reflexive verbal nouns), which are on the border of several parts of speech displaying syncretism at the morphological, semantic and syntactic levels. The article defines the status of verbal nouns in Slavic linguistics. It describes the intercategorical links of verbal formations and characterizes their hybridity. It provides comparison of specific features of reflexive verbal nouns in Slavic languages, including word-forming, morphological and semantic aspects. It also analyzes the use of reflexive verbal nouns in modern texts. Verbal nouns are a special hybrid form of the verb, which covers the features of diametrically opposite parts of the language, namely the noun and the verb. Reflexive verbal nouns are a specific feature of Polish, partly Czech and Slovak as well, which maintain the category of aspect and reflexivity. The postposition of the reflexive formant się, as well as the phenomenon of haplology and omission of się in lexicalized constructions mostly characterize reflexive verbal nouns. There are five groups of verbal nouns: 1) reflexive verbal nouns, in which the subject is the object of the action being performed as well. The reflexive deverbatives include words that denote the action directed at the appearance or surface of one’s body; 2) reciprocal verbal nouns, which denote the mutual (symmetrical) action of the subject and object against each other; 3) medial verbal nouns, in which the reflexive formant does not perform an independent function, but forms an inseparable unity with the noun and is a component of a non-permanent verbal lexeme; 4) terminative verbal nouns expressing a high degree of intensity, limit or achievement of the result of the action performed; 5) decausal verbal nouns describing situations that arise spontaneously, unconsciously, and are primarily typical for scientific literature. Decausatives state the change in the subject’s state, although the reason for this change remains unclear. The use of verbal nouns in Polish is characterized by high productivity, as evidenced by the formation of entirely new lexemes from loanwords used to denote modern information processes, and some formations even take on specific Polish reflexive features.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
N. A. Kabanova ◽  
I. K. Alekseeva

The article is devoted to the assessment of potential investment risks of the pharmaceutical company “R-Pharm” JSC with the aim of identifying the highest priority risks and developing methods for minimizing them. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that the pharmaceutical business is characterized by a high degree of social orientation and annually invests $ 140 billion in the development of production and research, which determines the need for a risk-based approach to ensure the return on investment. The subject of this article is the investment risks of pharmaceutical companies, and the subject of research is the domestic pharmaceutical company “R-Pharm”. In order to assess the potential investment risks of “R-Pharm” JSC, the authors used elements of simulation modeling and system analysis. The proposed methods to minimize key investment risks are aimed at improving the efficiency of investment activities and is recommended as an element of the strategic planning of the company.


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