scholarly journals Case Role in the Urhobo Language

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
IMU Oghoghophia Famous
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Frame Work ◽  
The Subject

This paper examines case role in the Urhobo language. Case theory is used as theoretical frame work, the specific objectives is to investigate type of cases and to relate cases roles to argument structures in Urhobo. The study reveals that in the Urhobo language every lexically headed NP must receive case from a case assigner. The Case theory requires that the case assigner govern the NP to which its assigns case. Tense, verb and preposition are case assigners. The infinitive ‘to’ and the passive participles are not case assigners. Case assignment can take place only when the case assigner and the NP to which it assigns case bear a structural relation to one another. It also reveals that irrespective of the theory and its arguments, Urhobo verbs are the basses and centre of its expansion of its constructions. This research also finds out, that the argument structures identified in universal grammar (UG) align with the argument structure of the Urhobo language; the verb assigns arguments to the noun phrases in a sentence. This is traced to the structure of the Urhobo language which is subject-verb-object (SVO). Finally, the study reveals that the function of the nominative case is to mark the subject of the sentence; the vocative is the case of address; the accusative is used to mark the object of a transitive verb; the genitive is the case of possession, ablative case is to mark the instrument with which something is done and the dative case marks the indirect object in the Urhobo language.

“The spotty cow tickled the pig with a curly tail”: How do sentence position, preferred argument structure, and referential complexity affect children's and adults’ choice of referring expression?

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA L. THEAKSTON
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Sentence Position ◽  
Argument Realization ◽  
Curly Tail ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Structure Patterns

ABSTRACTIn this study, 5-year-olds and adults described scenes that differed according to whether (a) the subject or object of a transitive verb represented an accessible or inaccessible referent, consistent or inconsistent with patterns of preferred argument structure, and (b) a simple noun was sufficient to uniquely identify an inaccessible referent. Results showed that although adults did not differ in their choice of referring expression based on sentence position, 5-year-olds were less likely to provide informative referring expressions for subjects than for objects when the referent was inaccessible. In addition, under complex discourse conditions, although adults used complex noun phrases to identify inaccessible referents, 5-year-olds increased their use of pronominal/null reference for both accessible and inaccessible referents, thus reducing their levels of informativeness. The data suggest that 5-year-olds are still learning to integrate their knowledge of discourse features with preferred argument structure patterns, that this is particularly difficult in complex discourse contexts, and that in these contexts children rely on well-rehearsed patterns of argument realization.

scholarly journals Frá skiptisögn til ósamhverfrar aukafallssagnar: Um 'líka' í fornu máli

Orð og tunga ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 39-68
Author(s):  
Einar Freyr Sigurðsson ◽  
Heimir van der Feest Viðarsson
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Old Icelandic ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
The Subject

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.

Again on relative clause and subordination in Latin

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero Calboli
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Central Point ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

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.

scholarly journals Dative Case Verbs in Japanese

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Made Ratna Dian Aryani
Keyword(s):  
Research Method ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Dative Case

This study aimed to describe the dative case verbs in Japanese syntactically and semantically. Specifically, it aimed to explore the verbs that take an indirect object (IO) in the Japanese sentences. The theories used in this research were the theory of Givon (2001), and Nitta (1991). The data used in this research were the data obtained from Japanese corpus. The research method used was descriptive analysis.This research indicated that dative case verbs are verbs whose presence would potentially take an IO. The results of this research were (1) The verbs that require the presence of an IO in Japanese is a transitive verb, with the marker ni, and (2) those verbs are ageru 'give', oshieru 'teach', kureru 'give' and kau 'buy'. Semantically these verbs are keizoku doushi ‘continuative verbs’.

scholarly journals The Transitivity Index: Using Transitivity as a continuous measure to account for clitic case alternation in Spanish causative constructions

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0246834
Author(s):  
Gustavo Guajardo
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Measure ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Case Alternation ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Direct Causation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

In Spanish causative constructions with dejar ‘let’ and hacer ‘make’ the subject of the embedded infinitive verb can appear in the accusative or the dative case. This case alternation has been accounted for by resorting to the notion of direct vs. indirect causation. Under this account, the accusative clitic with a transitive verb denotes direct causation while the dative clitic with an intransitive verb expresses indirect causation. The problem with this account is that we lack an independent definition of (in)direct causation in this context and so this approach suffers from circularity: the case of the clitic is used to determine causation type and causation type implies use of one or the other grammatical case. Therefore, a more objective way to account for clitic case alternation is needed. In this paper, I offer one possible solution in this direction by investigating clitic case alternation against Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity parameters and a small number of other linguistic variables. The novelty of this approach is that I operationalise Transitivity as a weighted continuous measure (which I call the Transitivity Index) and use it to predict the case of the clitic. The results indicate that the transitivity of the infinitive verb, the animacy of the object and the agentivity of the subject are strong predictors of clitic case. Moreover, the Transitivity Index clearly shows that higher levels of Transitivity are associated with the dative clitic contrary to other contexts in which accusative is said to be more transitive. The findings in this paper allow us to arrive at a finer-grained characterization of the contexts in which each clitic case is more likely to occur and provide further evidence of the pervasiveness of Transitivity in natural language.

scholarly journals Siladang Syntax: A Study of Grammar Typology

2021 ◽  
pp. 541-549
Author(s):  
Purwanto Siwi
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Clause Structure ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Alignment System ◽  
Verbal Predicate ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intransitive Verbs

The analysis of basic clause structures shows that clauses in Bahasa Siladang consist of verbal and non-verbal predication. The non-verbal predicate can be filled by an adjective, noun, numeral or prepositional phrase. The analysis of the argument structure shows that the intransitive predicate requires one NP argument as the only argument functioning as the grammatical subject, which can be an agent or a patient. Meanwhile, the transitive verb predicate requires two or more arguments. The presence of these arguments in the predicate in transitive sentences is mandatory. The conclusion from the analysis of the grammatical behavior in syntactic construction is that SL is a language which has a grammatical alignment system which gives the same treatment to A and S, and a different treatment to P. It can be categorized as an accusative language, marking the direct object of transitive verbs, making them different from the subject of both transitive and intransitive verbs. Keywords: clause structure, argument structure, syntactic typology

scholarly journals On the Problem of Subject Identity in the ‘Adverbial Participle + Main Clause’ Construction in Modern Russian

Slovene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-273
Author(s):  
Fedor B. Albrekht
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Given ◽  
The Village ◽  
Modern Russian

The article discusses the subject matching between the adverbial participle construction and the main clause in Russian. Russian normative grammar requires the main clause and the adverbial participle construction within one utterance to express an action or a state of one and the same subject, as the Russian деепричастие (adverbial participle)= is typologically related to an implicit-subject converb. The adverbial participle has developed from a copredicative participle, and now it mostly expresses a subordinate action (or a subordinate state) of the main clause's subject, which has the form of the nominative case. But, according to numerous real language examples, both oral and written, the grammatical subject (if any) in the main clause does not always coincide with the semantic subject of the whole situation. Besides, there are cases when the subjects of the main clause and the adverbial participle construction are different. There exists a wider sphere of semantic and pragmatic relations between participants of the main situation and of the subordinate situation, where the communicative subject, and not the formal one, plays the main role. Several main types of constructions are analysed, in which the semantic and communicative subject, while being the same for both situations, is not expressed by means of the nominative case in the main clause. First, the semantic subject may have the form of the dative case, and that is sometimes = omitted when the subject is clear from the context: Uvidev (see-ADVP.PST) zadaniia, mne (I-DAT) stalo boiazno ‘After seeing the tasks, I became frightened’, Sidia v netoplenoi kvartire, bylo holodno ‘While sitting in the unheated apartment, I (we, etc.) was (were) cold’. Second, there can occur passivisation of the main clause: Vsio eto bylo sdelano (PASS), pod’ezzhaia (approach-ADVP.PRES) k derevne ‘All of this was done (by the author of the sentence) when he was approaching the village’. Third, the semantic subject may be expressed by different possessive constructions: Zakanchivaia (finish-ADVP.PRES) stat’iu, u menia (I-GEN) slomalsia komp’iuter ‘While I was finishing an article, my computer broke down’. The fourth case is represented by the removal of the subject, which is implicit in the given situation: Potrativ (spend-ADVP.PST) vsio na vypivku, na edu ne ostalos ‘Having spent all his/her/our etc. money on booze, nothing was left for food’. In addition, two rare types of using the adverbial participle construction are analysed: 1) when the latter neither morphologically nor semantically relates to the subject of the main clause: Rebionok gladil sobaku, viliaia (wag-ADVP.PRES) hvostom ‘The child caressed the dog (which was) wagging its tail’; 2) when the construction relates to the grammatical object of the main clause: Pozdravliaiu vas, grazhdanin, sovramshi (lie-ADVP.PST) ‘My congratulations, comrade: you’ve just lied!’. While focusing on Russian utterances, the paper also includes data from other Slavic (including ancient) and, in several cases, from Baltic languages. Comparison shows that the given phenomena are not specific to Russian. Besides, the comparative data helps us to avoid deducing some modern structural phenomena directly from older constructions. For example, there seems to be no reason to connect such structures as Rebionok gladil sobaku, viliaia (wag-ADVP.PRES) hvostom ‘The child caressed the dog (which was) wagging its tail’ directly to the absolute predicative use of participles in Old Russian. We come to the conclusion that the lack of formal and grammatical congruence (in other words, of categorial agreement) between the adverbial participle construction and the main clause is the reason why in modern Russian the adverbial participle construction is able to disconnect from the grammatical subject of the main clause. Therefore, the adverbial participle construction can now be used in any situation when the speaker has a communicative intention to designate a subordinate action and the subject of this action is clear from the context.

scholarly journals TIPE VERBA BAHASA PERANCIS DAN PERWUJUDANNYA PADA KLAUSA

LITERA ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roswita Lumban Tobing
Keyword(s):  
Structural Approach ◽  
French Language ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Language System ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Intransitive Verb ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Auxiliary Verb

This study aims to describe types of verbs and their realizations in clauses in French. The data were collected from books on the French language system. The data were analyzed using a structural approach combined with referential semantics to check the acceptability of verb uses in clauses. The results are as follows. First, an intransitive verb in a clause serves as a predicate that describes the subject action without an object. Second, a transitive verb must be followed by a direct or an indirect object which can be placed in front of the verb. Third, a dual-type verb can be a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. Fourth, in the passive voice, the construction of the main verb is ‘participe passé’ that must be accompanied by the auxiliary verb ‘etre’.

scholarly journals Case and event structure

2001 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 197-217
Author(s):  
Peter Svenonius
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Structural Case ◽  
Feature Checking

I argue in this paper for a novel analysis of case in Icelandic, with implications for case theory in general. I argue that structural case is the manifestation on the noun phrase of features which are semantically interpretable only on verbal projections; thus, Icelandic case does not encode features of noun phrase interpretation, but it is not uninterpretable either; case is properly seen as reflecting (interpretable) tense and aspect features. Accusative case in Icelandic is available when the two subevents introduced in a transitive verb phrase are identified with each other, and dative case is available when the two parts are distinct (thus Icelandic case manifests aktionsart or inner aspect, in partial contrast to Finnish). This analysis bears directly on the theory of feature checking in the Minimalist Program; specifically, it paves the way for a restrictive theory of feature checking in which no features are strictly uninterpretable: all formal features come in interpretable-uninterpretable pairs, and feature checking is the matching of such pairs, driven by legibility conditions at Spell-Out.  

ON SOME FEATURES OF TRANSMISSION OF EXPERIENTIVE SELFREFERENCE STATE IN THE ARABIC LANGUAGE (ON THE BASE OF CORPORA MATERIAL)

2020 ◽  
pp. 345-353
Author(s):  
V. V. Sheremet ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Category ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Basic Form ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Parallel Corpora ◽  
Semantic Level ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Universal Category ◽  
The Subject

The semantic category “state” (hereinafter referred to as “state”) is a fundamental universal category of language. One of the options for its implementation is an experientive-self-referential one — a designation of one’s condition by the speaker himself. The features of its verbalization in Arabic remain unexplored. Their study in this article was provided on the material of 170 Arabic expressions, sampled on the basis of equivalence to Russian expressions with dative-predicative constructions (hereinafter referred to as “DPC”) “мне стыдно” from the parallel corpora. In the contrast and comparison with them in Arabic language there were distinguished two main constructions, which verbalize semantics in question: 1) «ʃaʕara + bi + N» (38 % elements of sample), where the subject is implicated in the affix of the verb, and its experientive “state” is transmitted by means of transitive verb with indirect object «ʃaʕara» — «to feel» with different nominals «N», equal on the semantic level to the lexeme “стыд” or familiar to it: «alɁistija:Ɂu», «alɁiħra:ʒu», «alʕa:ru», «assu:Ɂu», «alħaraʒu», «alxaʒalu» etc.; 2) PronAnim + Part1/2” (29% of the sample), where is the subject is personal pronoun “Pron” in the first face (fused or separete) in the role of subject in main or subordinate (after particle “Ɂanna”) clause. And its experientive “state” is transmitted by participle “Part1” or quasi-participle “Part2”, which are represented in the role of nominal predicate. Also, along with them, various minor methods are observed, such as a metaphorical transfer of the cognitive scheme of the preposition “ʕalaː” with the implication of “state” in the subtext, the use of a transfix of the initial form of the verb with the basic form “faʕila”, an impersonal construction with a lexeme, denoting emotion.

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