scholarly journals Clitic ʨə in Maloe Karachkino dialect of Chuvash: A copula, a retrospective shift marker, a focus particle

2021 ◽  
Vol XVII (1) ◽  
pp. 306-338
Author(s):  
E.A. Romanova ◽  
D.A. Saparova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Chiara Gianollo

This chapter explores some determining factors for the development of indefinites participating in Negative Concord from Latin to Romance (with special attention to Old French and Old Italian). In particular, the discussion concentrates on the subclass of Romance n-words formed with the negative morpheme ne- / ni- < Latin nec. In its role as building block of the new indefinites, nec is a negative scalar focus particle meaning ‘even not’ (a use that first emerges in Post-Classical Latin); the cardinal numeral unus provides the scalar end point. With nec specific syntactic patterns are observed that quite systematically result in the redundant expression of negation, this occurring already in Classical Latin. These structures are easily prone to reanalysis once the prerequisites for Negative Concord are present. The chapter provides a reconstruction of how the facts emerging from Latin may help toward an improved understanding of optional Negative Concord in Early Romance.


2009 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-283
Author(s):  

AbstractIt may be argued that current lexica provide "translation values" for most of the nuances that can be expressed by. However, these resources provide very little or no criteria for establishing when a translation value x, y or z should be opted for. Descriptions of the most typical use of or the difference between and in other linguistic works are also not substantiated by means of empirical evidence. In this study the syntax and semantics of each instance of is investigated, and the most prototypical patterns of use are described and compared with those of. It is established that, although the two lexemes are sometimes near-synonyms, the former is prototypically a conjunctive adverb and the latter a focus particle. As far as the semantic potential of is concerned, five semantic-pragmatic polysemically-related categories (the most typical which are labelled as "noteworthy addition" and "affirmation) are distinguished, as well as the syntactic constructions and translation values that could be associated with each category of use.


2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (10) ◽  
pp. 1423-1445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin B. Paterson ◽  
Simon P. Liversedge ◽  
Ruth Filik ◽  
Barbara J. Juhasz ◽  
Sarah J. White ◽  
...  

Three eye movement experiments investigated focus identification during sentence comprehension. Participants read dative or double-object sentences (i.e., either the direct or indirect object occurred first), and a replacive continuation supplied a contrast that was congruous with either the direct or the indirect object. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated focus by locating only adjacent to either the direct or indirect object of dative (Experiment 1) or double-object (Experiment 2) sentences. Reading-time effects indicated that the surface position of the focus particle influenced processing. In addition, Experiment 1 reading times were longer when the replacive was incongruous with the constituent that only adjoined, and particle position modulated a similar effect in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 showed that this effect was absent when only was omitted. We conclude that the surface position of a focus particle modulates focus identification during on-line sentence comprehension.


2006 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Klaus Abels ◽  
Peter Muriungi

In this paper we argue that Kîîıtharaka in situ and ex situ object focus constructions are exhaustive. Sentences with a preverbal focus marker are argued to be nonexhaustive. Our conclusions are based on felicity in mention-some contexts, simple and multiple questions and entailment relations.  


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