scholarly journals Language Mixing in the Nominal Phrase: Implications of a Distributed Morphology Perspective

Languages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Michèle Burkholder
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Artemis Alexiadou

AbstractThis paper discusses two patterns of language mixing involving verbal predicates produced by bilingual speakers, the so-called light verb construction and the so-called affixal pattern. The empirical focus of the study is on Greek-German and Cypriot Greek-English varieties, which are contrasted to the Spanish-German variety discussed in González-Vilbazo and López (2011). An analysis of the constructions is offered using the tools of Distributed Morphology and Minimalist Syntax. The paper shows that bilingual speakers have very detailed knowledge of fine properties of their two linguistic systems that become apparent in the context of building verbs.


2020 ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Frederic Blum

In this article, I will discuss the syntax of language mixing in the verbal domain for Spanish verbs within Shipibo-Konibo. Against earlier explanations which assume a nominal source for verbal borrowings, it will be argued for an insertion process of uncategorized roots. First, the study of Valenzuela (2006) presenting the incorporation of Spanish verbs in Shipibo- Konibo and the der- ivational role of the causative affix -n will be summarized. Afterwards, a detailed definition of language mixing and Distributed Morphology will be given (Embick & Marantz 2008, Embick 2010). Finally, I will apply the Distributed Morphology framework to the present study of verbal borrowings and contrast the predictions uttered by both models present in this article.


Nordlyd ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren Berg Grimstad ◽  
Terje Lohndal ◽  
Tor A. Åfarli

This paper discusses word-internal mixing in American Norwegian. The data show that the functional vocabulary is Norwegian whereas many of the lexical content items come from English. We argue that language mixing provides important evidence for grammatical theory: Specifically, the data support a late-insertion exoskeletal model of grammar like Distributed Morphology, in which the primitives of syntax are abstract feature bundles (morphemes) and bare roots. In such a theory, the structure is a separate entity, a sort of skeleton or frame, built of abstract morphemes. The phonological exponents of the roots and abstract morphemes are inserted late into designated slots. We show how such a model can explain the observed pattern for mixing within verb phrases and noun phrases in American Norwegian.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Harizanov

A major goal in the study of the interface between syntax and morphology (understood as part of the PF component) is to understand mismatches between syntactic representations and the corresponding morphological representations. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian provide one such mismatch. In morphology, they are composed of a nominal component D adjoined to an adjectivizing head F. In syntax, however, the nominal component D behaves like a nominal phrase occupying the specifier of F. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian thus present both a structural mismatch whereby a syntactic specifier-head relation is mapped to head adjunction at PF and a mismatch between the syntactic and morphological category of denominal adjectives. I analyze these mismatches as the result of a morphological (postsyntactic) operation, which converts nominal phrases into denominal adjectives postsyntactically, as part of the word formation process that combines the nominal phrases with adjectivizing morphology. The proposal is an extension of the theory of the syntax-morphology mapping developed within Distributed Morphology ( Embick and Noyer 2001 , et seq.) on the basis of Marantz’s (1984) Morphological Merger and relies on the implementation of Morphological Merger developed by Harizanov (2014a) in the context of cliticization, itself an elaboration of Matushansky’s (2006) and Nevins’s (2011) proposals.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Baeskow

For many decades there has been a consensus among linguists of various schools that derivational suffixes function not only to determine the word-class of the complex expressions they form, but also convey semantic information. The aspect of suffix-inherent meaning is ignored by representatives of a relatively new theoretical direction – Neo-Construction Grammar – who consider derivational suffixes to be either purely functional elements of the grammar or meaningless phonological realizations of abstract grammatical morphemes. The latter view is maintained by adherents of Distributed Morphology, who at the same time emphasize the importance of conceptual knowledge for derivational processes without attempting to define this aspect. The purpose of this study is first of all to provide support for the long-standing assumption that suffixes are inherently meaningful. The focus of interest is on the suffixes -ship, -dom and -hood. Data from Old English and Modern English (including neologisms) will show that these suffixes have developed rich arrays of meaning which cannot be structurally derived. Moreover, since conceptual knowledge is indeed an important factor for word-formation processes, a concrete, theory-independent model for the representation of the synchronically observable meaning components associated with -ship, -dom and -hood will be proposed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Alberto Morales ◽  
Bexi Perdomo ◽  
Daniel Cassany ◽  
Rosa María Tovar ◽  
Élix Izarra

AbstractTitles play an important role in genre analysis. Cross-genre studies show that research paper and thesis titles have distinctive features. However, thesis and dissertation titles in the field of dentistry have thus far received little attention. Objective: To analyze the syntactic structures and their functions in English-language thesis and dissertation titles in dentistry. Methodology: We randomly chose 413 titles of English-language dentistry theses or dissertations presented at universities in 12 countries between January 2000 and June 2019. The resulting corpus of 5,540 running words was then analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, the two complementary focuses being grammatical structures and their functions. Results: The average title length was 13.4 words. Over half of the titles did not include any punctuation marks. For compound titles, we found that colons, dashes, commas, and question marks were used to separate the different components, colons being the most frequent. Four syntactic structures (nominal phrase, gerund phrase, full-sentence, and prepositional phrase) were identified for single-unit titles. Single-unit nominal phrase titles constituted the most frequent structure in the corpus, followed by compound titles. Four particular rhetorical combinations of compound title components were found to be present throughout the corpus. Conclusions: Titles of dentistry theses and dissertation in English echo the content of the text body and make an important contribution to fulfilling the text’s communicative purposes. Thus, teaching research students about the linguistic features of thesis titles would be beneficial to help them write effective titles and also facilitate assessment by teachers.


Author(s):  
Laurie Beth Feldman ◽  
Vidhushini Srinivasan ◽  
Rachel B. Fernandes ◽  
Samira Shaikh

Abstract Twitter data from a crisis that impacted many English–Spanish bilinguals show that the direction of codeswitches is associated with the statistically documented tendency of single speakers to prefer one language over another in their tweets, as gleaned from their tweeting history. Further, lexical diversity, a measure of vocabulary richness derived from information-theoretic measures of uncertainty in communication, is greater in proximity to a codeswitch than in productions remote from a switch. The prospects of a role for lexical diversity in characterizing the conditions for a language switch suggest that communicative precision may induce conditions that attenuate constraints against language mixing.


2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
INKIE CHUNG

This paper provides a Distributed Morphology analysis of the paradoxical interaction of the two cases of verbal suppletion in Korean, and argues that the two suppletion types are characterized by two different types of morphological operations. The two roots found with short-form negation and honorification suggest different morphological structures: [[Neg-V] Hon] for al- ‘know’, molu- ‘not.know’, a-si- ‘know-hon’, molu-si- (not *an(i) a-si-) ‘neg know-hon’; and [Neg [V-Hon]] for iss- ‘exist’, eps- ‘not.exist’, kyey-si- ‘exist-hon’, an(i) kyey-si- (not *eps-(u)-si-) ‘neg exist-hon’. Predicate repetition constructions support the [[Neg-V] Hon] structure. In this structure, however, the negative suppletion (analyzed as fusion of negation and the root) is blocked by the honorific suffix structurally more peripheral to the root. C-command is the only requirement for context allomorphy in Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993). Since the [+hon] feature c-commands the root, the root can show honorific suppletive allomorphy in the first cycle with negation intervening between the root and [+hon]. Negation fusion occurs in the second cycle after vocabulary insertion of the root. Fusion, then, should refer to vocabulary items, not abstract features, and will be interleaved with vocabulary insertion. If the output of the root is /kyey/ due to the honorific feature, negative suppletion will not apply and the correct form an(i) kyey-si- will be derived. Therefore, both of the distinct morphological operations for suppletion, i.e., fusion and contextual allomorphy, are necessary. The revised formulation of fusion shows that certain morphological operations follow vocabulary insertion. This derivational approach to the suppletion interaction provides support for separation of phonological and nonphonological features and for late insertion of phonological features.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 756-759
Author(s):  
Artemis Alexiadou

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