scholarly journals Discourse particles in the left periphery

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 543-566
Author(s):  
Malte Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Type ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Peripheral Position ◽  
Discourse Particle ◽  
Semantic Properties

This article analyses the German discourse particle wohl 'I suppose', 'presumably' as a syntactic and semantic modifier of the sentence types declarative and interrogative. It is shown that wohl does not contribute to the propositional, i.e. descriptive content of an utterance. Nor does it trigger an implicature. The proposed analysis captures the semantic behaviour of wohl by assuming that it moves to SpecForceP at LF, from where it can modify the sentence type operators in Force0 in compositional fashion. Semantically, a modification with wohl results in a weaker commitment to the proposition expressed in declaratives and in a request for a weaker commitment concerning the questioned proposition in interrogatives. Cross-linguistic evidence for a left-peripheral position of wohl (at LF) comes from languages in which the counterpart of wohl occurs in the clausal periphery overtly. Overall, the analysis sheds more light on the semantic properties of the left periphery, in particular of the functional projection ForceP.  

Discourse Particles in LSJ

2019 ◽  
pp. 268-287
Author(s):  
David Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Semantic Properties

This chapter contrasts the Liddell and Scott (LSJ) account of the particle γε‎ with an approach that takes advantage of some of the conceptual tools of twenty-first century semantics and pragmatics. It begins by discussing the question of why describing the meaning of discourse particles is so challenging. From here, it homes in on the particle γε‎, ‘one of the subtlest and most elusive particles’, according to Denniston (1954). After critically reviewing its article in LSJ, it presents the results of a fresh examination of the particle in two Platonic dialogues, Meno and Cratylus, focusing on the most salient aspects of its meaning, especially phenomena that LSJ does not mention. It argues that γε‎ is characterized by two semantic properties: scalar interpretation and non-at issue semantics.

On the left periphery of three languages of Northern Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-117
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola
Keyword(s):  
Northern Italy ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Simple Description ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pragmatic Interpretation ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

Abstract Through a focus on the properties of subject-finite verb inversion and XP fronting in three relaxed V2 languages, namely Cimbrian, Ladin and Mòcheno, this paper aims to widen and refine our understanding of relaxed V2 languages, i.e. languages in which the V2 property should be understood in a technical sense as obligatory V-to-C movement, not as a simple description referring to linearisation (Benincà 2006, 2013; Ledgeway 2016). It will be shown that inversion differs across relaxed V2 languages in two ways. In a first subtype, inversion is not associated with any marked pragmatic interpretation of the lexical subject and the subject appears in an A position in the IP area: this type is instantiated by Old Italian (Benincà 2006, Poletto 2014). A second option, instantiated by the languages considered in this paper, is that the lexical subject receives a pragmatically marked interpretation which is encoded in a Functional Projection (FP) in the vP periphery (Belletti 2004, Poletto 2006). This paper confirms that V3/V4 word orders involve the presence of a double articulation for foci and wh-elements, which appear in different positions in the CP layer in relaxed V2 languages (Poletto 2002, Wolfe 2015 a,b). It also contributes to our understanding of the syntax of topics in relaxed V2 languages by showing that (i) topics can be moved to CP and (ii) the movement option is not restricted to main clauses lacking an XP in the left periphery; it also occurs in interrogative clauses (unlike in the relaxed V2 varieties considered in Walkden 2014, 2015).

scholarly journals Little pro’s, but how many of them? – On 3SG null pronominals in Hungarian

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Gréte Dalmi
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Free Variation

While Hungarian 3SG individual reference null pronominals are in free variation with their lexical counterparts, 3SG generic reference null pronominals do not show such variation. This follows from the fact that Hungarian 3SG generic null pronominals behave like bound variables, i.e. they always require a 3SG generic lexical antecedent in an adjacent clause. Both the 3SG generic lexical antecedent and the 3SG generic null pronominal must be in the scope of the GN operator, which is seated in SpeechActParticipantPhrase (SAPP), the leftmost functional projection of the left periphery in the sentence (see Alexiadou & D’Alessandro, 2003; Bianchi, 2006). GN binds all occurrences of the generic variable in accessible worlds (see Moltmann 2006 for English one/oneself). These properties distinguish Hungarian from the four major types of Null Subject Languages identified by Roberts & Holmberg (2010).

scholarly journals Parenthetical "I'm telling you" as a marker of private evidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Brian Reese ◽  
Hooi Ling Soh
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Content ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
English Expression ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Epistemic States ◽  
Discourse Particle

We present an analysis of parenthetical uses of the English expression I'm telling you as a discourse particle, i.e., an expression that conveys information about the epistemic states of discourse participants with respect to the propositional content of an utterance (Zimmermann 2011). The analysis connects I’m telling you to other discourse particles that mark the speaker’s assumptions about whether the (evidence for the) asserted proposition is shared knowledge between the speaker and addressee and whether or not the (evidence for the) proposition is ``verifiable on the spot'', e.g. German ja (Kratzer 1999, 2004), Mandarin de (Soh 2018).

Remnant-internal relativization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Peripheral Position ◽  
Specific Configuration ◽  
The Right

Chapter 2 investigates a specific configuration (dubbed “remnant-internal relativization”) in which the head noun and some modifier/complement related to it appear discontinuously (as in the so-called split or discontinuous noun phrases). It is argued that the analysis of remnant-internal relativization is of particular interest from the theoretical and diachronic point of view. Theoretically it can illuminate the long-standing debate between the right adjunction and the head raising analyses of RRCs, providing evidence in favor of the latter. From a diachronic perspective, it is argued that the loss of remnant-internal relativization with the modifier/complement in the left periphery of the Portuguese relative clauses might be due to a restriction on movement that emerges inside the DP, which blocks the extraction of the modifier/complement to a left peripheral position.

Linearization and typology

2019 ◽  
pp. 497-522
Author(s):  
D. Gary Miller
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Linear Order ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Default Position ◽  
Object Pronouns

This chapter focuses on the linear order of phrasal constituents. Subject pronouns preferentially precede the verb directly. Object pronouns generally follow the verb. Reflexives with few exceptions follow the verb and precede non-reflexives. D-words generally precede nouns and adjectives. Only prepositional phrases occur, from which non-deictic Ds are excluded. Attributive and possessive adjectives tend to follow the noun, quantifiers to precede. The default position for genitives is postnominal. Partitive genitives are nearly always postposed. Discourse particles belong to the left periphery. Some force their host to sentence-initial, especially V1, position. In native Gothic, verbs follow predicate adjectives and auxiliaries follow verbs, as is typical of verb-final languages. Imperatives raise to the left periphery. The negator ni forms a tight constituent with the verb. The chapter closes with a brief overview of Gothic in the context of Germanic word order typology.

scholarly journals The Syntax and Semantics of Prepositions in the Task of Automatic Interpretation of Nominal Phrases and Compounds: A Cross-Linguistic Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxana Girju
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Classification Rules ◽  
Training Set ◽  
Automatic Interpretation ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Semantic Properties

In this article we explore the syntactic and semantic properties of prepositions in the context of the semantic interpretation of nominal phrases and compounds. We investigate the problem based on cross-linguistic evidence from a set of six languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Romanian. The focus on English and Romance languages is well motivated. Most of the time, English nominal phrases and compounds translate into constructions of the form N P N in Romance languages, where the P (preposition) may vary in ways that correlate with the semantics. Thus, we present empirical observations on the distribution of nominal phrases and compounds and the distribution of their meanings on two different corpora, based on two state-of-the-art classification tag sets: Lauer's set of eight prepositions and our list of 22 semantic relations. A mapping between the two tag sets is also provided. Furthermore, given a training set of English nominal phrases and compounds along with their translations in the five Romance languages, our algorithm automatically learns classification rules and applies them to unseen test instances for semantic interpretation. Experimental results are compared against two state-of-the-art models reported in the literature.

Cross-Linguistic Evidence for Number Phrase

1992 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Call Number

In this paper I provide cross-linguistic evidence for a functional projection between D and NP, which I call “Number Phrase” (NumP). In a full noun phrase, the head of this projection is, among other things, the locus of number specification (singular or plural) of a noun phrase. Pronominal noun phrases are distinguished from full noun phrases by the fact that they lack a lexical projection, i.e., they lack a NP. The existence of two distinct functional categories predicts the existence of at least two classes of pronouns, those of the category D, and those of the category Num. In both Modern Hebrew and Haitian, there is evidence that this prediction is borne out.

scholarly journals A Balkan View on the Left Periphery: Modal and Discourse Particles

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Anna Roussou
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Item ◽  
Similar Distribution ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
The Future ◽  
Analytic Expressions

The present paper discusses two sets of so-called particles in the Balkan languages, arguing that the correspondences attested in the E-languages reveal abstract properties at the level of the I-language. The first set involves modal particles which participate in the analytic expressions of the “future” and the “subjunctive”. Future markers are construed as V-related elements externalizing a scope position of the verb, while the subjunctive markers take their features from the nominal set. The second set of data involves the discourse marker “haide” which is argued to externalize features associated with the force of the sentence and its anchoring to the discourse participants. In the case of modal particles, the languages under consideration retain their own lexica, while in the case of the discourse marker, they share the same lexical item (lexical borrowing). Analysis of these phenomena supports an articulated left periphery which also accounts for the similar distribution of the discourse marker “haide”. At the same time, the different externalizations leave room for further microparametric variation.

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