Indirect adverbial clauses in chinese

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Halvor Eifring
Keyword(s):  
Adverbial Clauses

scholarly journals French adverbial clauses, rescue by ellipsis and the truncation versus intervention debate

Probus ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-Marc Authier ◽  
Liliane Haegeman
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Relativized Minimality ◽  
Adverbial Clauses

AbstractThis paper investigates the restrictions on movement to the left periphery found in non-root environments such as French central adverbial clauses and argues that an analysis of main clause phenomena based on intervention/Relativized Minimality is to be preferred to one based on structural truncation. The empirical basis for this claim consists of an examination of some asymmetries between French infinitival TP ellipsis and infinitival TP Topicalization. Adopting Authie's (2011) approach to TP ellipsis whereby the to-be-elided TP undergoes fronting in the computational component but fails to be spelled out at PF, we argue that these asymmetries follow from the fact that in French, while a spelled out fronted TP is an intervener for

Examining individual variation in learner production data: A few programmatic pointers for corpus-based analyses using the example of adverbial clause ordering

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Stefanie Wulff
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

ABSTRACT This study examines the variable positioning of a finite adverbial subordinate clause and its main clause with the subordinate clause either preceding or following the main clause in native versus nonnative English. Specifically, we contrast causal, concessive, conditional, and temporal adverbial clauses produced by German and Chinese learners of English with those produced by native speakers. We examined 2,362 attestations from the Chinese and German subsections of the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger, Dagneaux, Meunier, & Paquot, 2009) and from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (Granger, 1998). All instances were annotated for the ordering, the subordinate clause type, the lengths of the main and subordinate clauses, the first language of the speakers, the conjunction used, and the file it originated from (as a proxy for the speaker producing the sentence so as to be able to study individual and lexical variation). The results of a two-step regression modeling protocol suggest that learners behave most nativelike with causal clauses and struggle most with conditional and concessive clauses; in addition, learners make more non-nativelike choices when the main and subordinate clause are of about equal length.

The syntax of peripheral adverbial clauses

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
LINDA BADAN ◽  
LILIANE HAEGEMAN
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Context ◽  
Speech Event ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Integration Analysis

This paper explores the relation between the interpretations of while in English and mentre in Italian introducing adverbial clauses. Central while/mentre clauses express a temporal/aspectual modification of the proposition in the host clause. Peripheral while/mentre clauses make accessible a proposition from the discourse context enhancing the relevance of the host proposition. In one approach, clauses introduced by adversative while/mentre are analyzed as ‘less integrated’ with the associated clause than those introduced by temporal while/mentre. In another approach, adverbial clauses introduced by adversative while/mentre are considered not syntactically integrated with the host clause. This paper re-examines the nature of the syntactic integration of the adverbial clauses with the host clause, revealing a parallelism between the adversative peripheral while/mentre clauses and speaker-related sentential adverbs, leading to the conclusion that the non-integration analysis is not appropriate for this type of peripheral clauses and that any analysis must be aligned with that of the relevant non-clausal adverbials, supporting Frey (2018, 2020a, b). We also argue that central adverbial clauses recycled as speech event modifiers must be considered non-integrated. Concretely, we propose that they are integrated in discourse, through a specialized layer FrameP (Haegeman & Greco 2018).

Syntax from and for discourse II: More on complex sentences as meso-constructions

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beate Hampe ◽  
Stefan Th. Gries
Keyword(s):  
Multinomial Regression ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

Abstract This paper presents a direct continuation of preceding corpus-linguistic research on complex sentence constructions with temporal adverbial clauses in a cognitive and usage-based framework (Diessel 2008; Hampe 2015). Working towards a more systematic construction-based account of complex sentences with before-, after-, until- and once-clauses in spontaneously spoken English, Hampe (2015) hypothesised that the morpho-syntactic realisations of configurations with initial adverbial clauses systematically diverge from those of configurations with final ones as a reflection of the specific functionality of each and that usage properties that are found across instantiations with a coherent functional load are retained in the schematisations creating constructions. This paper employs a multinomial regression in order to test to which extent each of eight closely related complex-sentence constructions with either initial or final before-, after-, until- and once-clauses can be predicted from the realisation of a few key morpho-syntactic properties of the respective adverbial and matrix clauses involved. The results support an analysis of complex-sentence constructions as meso-constructions that are not only specific about the subordinator and the positioning of the adverbial clause, but also retain “traces” of characteristic usage properties.

Corpora and intuition: a study of Mandarin Chinese adverbial clauses and subjecthood

Corpora ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
May L-Y Wong
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Semantic Classes ◽  
New Information ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Linguistic Methods

This paper presents a corpus-based approach to investigating the distribution of adverbial clauses and their subjects (overt vs. non-overt) in spoken and written Mandarin Chinese. It argues that the choice of subject type is determined by three variables, namely, given-new information, semantic function of adverbial clause and text type. In written Chinese, the distribution of subject types varies across semantic classes of adverbial clauses, but not across text categories. The influence of semantic classes on the distribution of subject types, however, depends on text type. For the same semantic function, the decision as to whether to include a subject is governed by given and new information. In contrasting the distribution of subject types of adverbial clauses across speech and writing, it was found that both spoken and written Chinese use more overt subjects in clauses of reason. Methodologically, this study demonstrates how quantitative corpus-linguistic methods can be used to supplement introspective theoretical assumptions with authentic, observable evidence in order to gain better insights into the behaviour of adverbial clauses in speech and writing.

scholarly journals The understanding of complex syntax in children with Down syndrome

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Frizelle ◽  
Paul A. Thompson ◽  
Mihaela Duta ◽  
Dorothy V. M. Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Digit Recall

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is associated with poor language skills that seem disproportionate to general nonverbal ability, but the nature and causes of this deficit are unclear. We assessed how individuals with DS understand complex linguistic constructions, and considered how cognitive ability and memory and impact the ability of those with DS to process these sentence types. Methods: There were three groups participating in the study: children with DS (n = 33) and two control groups composed of children with cognitive impairment of unknown aetiology (CI) (n = 32) and children with typical development (n = 33). The three groups did not differ on raw scores on a test of non-verbal cognitive ability. Using a newly devised animation task, we examined how well individuals with DS (n = 33) could understand relative clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses compared to children with CI and typically developing controls. Participants also completed the Test for the Reception of Grammar-2, three measures of memory (forward and backward digit recall, visuo-spatial memory) and a hearing screen. Results: Results indicated that (1) with the exception of intransitive subject relative clauses, children with DS performed at floor on all other complex sentences, (2) they performed at a significantly lower level than both control groups, and (3) DS status accounted for a significant proportion of the variance over and above memory skills. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that children with DS have a disproportionate difficulty understanding complex sentences compared to two control groups matched on mental age. Furthermore, their understanding of syntax is not completely explained by poor cognitive or memory skills, rather it appears to be a specific deficit that may distinguish children with DS from other neurodevelopmental disorders.

scholarly journals La posición de las cláusulas temporales con cuando

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilián Guerrero ◽  
◽  
Rebeca Gerardo-Tavira ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Temporal Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clauses

Previous typological studies have shown that temporal clauses, unlike other adverbial clauses, can occur before or after the main clause, and this order variation has been observed across languages and within the same language. In the case of Spanish, some studies have found that temporal clauses tend to occur at the beginning of the clause. In this paper, we extend the assumptions of typological studies into the analysis of temporal clauses introduced by cuando ‘when’. Based in used data, we found that the initial position is preferred in oral data, while both positions are equally common in writing data. We examine some semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic motivations that, together, may explain this order variation: the semantic nature of cuando, sequential iconicity, length, and syntactic complexity, as well as pragmatic order.

scholarly journals Masked by annotation: Minor declarative complementizers in parsed corpora of historical English

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-158
Author(s):  
María José López-Couso ◽  
Belén Méndez-Naya
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Annotation

This article discusses some of the potential problems derived from the syntactic annotation of historical corpora, especially in connection with low-frequency phenomena. By way of illustration, we examine the parsing scheme used in the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English (PPCHE) for clauses introduced by so-called ‘minor declarative complementizers’, originally adverbial links which come to be occasionally used in complementizer function. We show that the functional similarities between canonical declarative complement clauses introduced by the major declarative links that and zero and those headed by minor declarative complementizers are not captured by the PPCHE parsing, where the latter constructions are not tagged as complement clauses, but rather as adverbial clauses. The examples discussed reveal that, despite the obvious advantages of parsed corpora, annotation may sometimes mask interesting linguistic facts.

scholarly journals Adjuncts, attitudes and aspect: Some additions to a tense theory for Russian

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atle Grønn ◽  
Arnim Von Stechow
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Temporal Adverbial ◽  
Temporal Organisation

Compared to other languages, the temporal organisation in Russian relative clauses and temporal adverbial clauses is as simple as it can possibly be: The tense morphology is licensed locally and the adjunct tense and matrix tense are independent of each other. It is tempting to give a purely deictic analysis of adjunct tense in Russian. However, there are some exceptions to the deictic story, the most important one being adjunct tense embedded under attitudes and modals. For these cases, we argue that the highest tense in the adjunct is anaphoric (Tpro). We show that our previous analyses of complement tense and adjunct tense can be combined to successfully treat adjuncts in such intensional contexts. Furthermore, we discuss some residual issues in our tense theory for Russian, such as the insertion of covert tenses at LF (Russian lacks overt perfect tenses) and the integration of aspect in our system of feature transmission via semantic binding.

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