scholarly journals Processing cataphors: Active antecedent search is persistent

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Giskes ◽  
Dave Kush
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Incremental Processing ◽  
Active Search ◽  
The Subject

AbstractCataphors precede their antecedents, so they cannot be fully interpreted until those antecedents are encountered. Some researchers propose that cataphors trigger an active search during incremental processing in which the parser predictively posits potential antecedents in upcoming syntactic positions (Kazanina et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 56[3], 384–409, 2007). One characteristic of active search is that it is persistent: If a prediction is disconfirmed in an earlier position, the parser should iteratively search later positions until the predicted element is found. Previous research has assumed, but not established, that antecedent search is persistent. In four experiments in English and Norwegian, we test this hypothesis. Two sentence completion experiments show a strong off-line preference for coreference between a fronted cataphor and the first available argument position (the main subject). When the main subject cannot be the antecedent, participants posit the antecedent in the next closest position: object position. Two self-paced reading studies demonstrate that comprehenders actively expect the antecedent of a fronted cataphor to appear in the main clause subject position, and then successively in object position if the subject does not match the cataphor in gender. Our results therefore support the claim that antecedent search is active and persistent.

Possessor Raising in Nuu-chah-nulth

2007 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 167-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Ravinski
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Possessor Raising ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
Minimal Link Condition ◽  
Syntactic Dependency

AbstractNuu-chah-nulth possessor raising is semantically unrestricted and affects only subjects: subject agreement matches the person and number of the possessor (rather than the possessed subject), and the possessive-marking clitic attaches to the head of the clause (rather than to the possessum). Nuu-chah-nulth possessor raising is analyzed as a syntactic dependency between the possessive clitic in the main clause and the base-generated possessor position within DP. A Possessive Phrase can appear in either the DP or the clausal domain, and the possessive clitic may be generated in either position. When the possessive clitic is generated in the main clause, a possessor may raise out of subject position via feature-driven movement; the Minimal Link Condition prevents such movement from occurring out of object position.

Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist*

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 556-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary D. Garrard
Keyword(s):  
Women Artists ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Sofonisba Anguissola ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Art And Society

An Unusual Portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola has gained new prominence from its illustration in color in a recent publication. In her Women, Art, and Society (1990), Whitney Chadwick claims of the portrait in question, Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola (fig. 1), that in presenting herself in the guise of a portrait being painted by her teacher, Anguissola produced “the first historical example of the woman artist consciously collapsing the subject-object position.” Chadwick's succinct observation opens up the possibility of understanding the painting in a new way, for she points to the peculiar conflation of subject and object that uniquely befell women artists in the Renaissance and complicates their art, especially their self-portraits. From this starting point, I will here explore the form of self-presentation offered by Anguissola in the Siena portrait and several other works in the context of what was a fundamental problem for the Renaissance female artist: the differentiation of herself as artist (the subject position) from her self as trope and theme for the male artist (the object position).

Un effet du principe C chez l’enfant francophone

2000 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Helen Goodluck ◽  
Lawrence Solan
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Object Position ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Work Done

AbstractWe report a study that tests children’s knowledge of an effect of Principle C of the binding theory: In the adult grammar of English and French, coreference between a main clause object pronoun and a non-pronominal subject of a sentence-final temporal clause is permitted, whereas coreference between a subject pronoun and the subject of a temporal clause is blocked. In an act-out task, both French-speaking adults and children aged 3–7 were found to be sensitive to the position of a main clause pronoun (subject vs object) in selecting a referent for the subject of a temporal clause, permitting coreference more frequently when the pronoun was in object position. This result replicates earlier work done on English. A sentence judgement task produced clear results only for adults. Results from the act-out suggest that children are relatively inept at integrating non-mentioned participants into their interpretation of sentences. We suggest that children’s knowledge of the principle C effect we tested constitutes a “poverty of the stimulus” argument for innateness.

scholarly journals The negation of cualquier NP

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Ana Clara Polakof
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Alternative Semantics ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Original Proposal ◽  
Syntactic Approach ◽  
The Subject

Even though the interpretation of Free Choice Items such as any has been on debate for more than 50 years (Vendler, 1974, Dayal, 1998, Horn, 2000, etc.), it is relatively more recent in Spanish (Menéndez-Benito, 2005, Giannakidou and Quer, 2013, among others). Some have analyzed it as a universal quantifier, neither taking its free choiceness into account nor contexts which seem to be problematic for the universal account (see, for instance, Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria, 2011). In this article, we defend that cualquier is a universal indeterminate pronoun which involves freedom of choice (as in the original proposal by Vendler, 1974). We will take into account data (taken from https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/web-dial) which has not been properly considered. We will analyze the interaction of negation and cualquier in Rioplantese Spanish in the subject position of negative generic statements, in the object position in negative episodic statements, and in a non argumental position. We will combine an alternative semantics approach to the analysis of the FCI cualquier, inspired in Menéndez-Benito (2010) and Aloni (2019), with a syntactic approach to negation inspired in Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria (2011).  

Conjunctive agreement in Lamaholot

2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
KUNIO NISHIYAMA
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Related Language ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Verbal Agreement

This paper presents a description and a theoretical analysis of agreement within coordination in Lamaholot (Austronesian), where the first conjunct agrees with the conjunction ‘and’. Conjunctive agreement is obligatory in the subject position but is optional in the object position. The analysis is couched in terms of markedness of case and proposes that the case of the subject (nominative) is unmarked compared to the case of the object (accusative), and that only unmarked case enables phi-features of the agreement control to be copied onto the agreement host. Apparent optionality is accounted for by manners of case spreading in coordination. Conjunctive agreement is also reported in the genetically unrelated but areally related language of Walman. Although conjunctive agreement originates in verbal agreement with the comitative function in both languages, it is shown that grammaticalization from the comitative to the conjunction is more advanced in Lamaholot, at least in terms of syntax and morphology.

scholarly journals Ultimate attainment of anaphora resolution in L2 Chinese

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Xia Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
L2 Chinese ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Null Element ◽  
External Interface ◽  
Discourse Interface

The current study tests the Interface Hypothesis through forward and backward anaphora in complex sentences with temporal subordinate clauses in highly proficient English-speaking learners’ second-language (L2) Chinese. Forward anaphora is involved when the overt pronoun ta ‘he/she’ or a null element appears in the subject position of the main clause, whereas backward anaphora is involved when it is in the subject position of the temporal clause, because the main clause always follows the temporal clause in Chinese. Specifically, the article tests the syntactic and discourse constraints in the interpretation and representation of ta and the null element in complex sentences. Ta is constrained by the syntactic cyclic-c-command condition. Thus it is possible for ta to refer to the other sentential subject in forward anaphora, but not in backward anaphora in Chinese. Unlike English, Chinese allows a null element in subject positions of finite subordinate and main clauses. It is proposed in the article that the null element in these positions is a Øtopic, a syntax–discourse interface category. Results from an acceptability judgement task and a picture judgment task indicate that Øtopic at the external interface has been acquired, whereas the cyclic-c-command condition within narrow syntax is fossilized in L2 Chinese.

scholarly journals Marked Causative Structures of Chinese Verb-Resultative Construction

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxia Pan ◽  
Limin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Resultative Constructions ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Complement 3 ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Resultative Construction ◽  
Causative Relation ◽  
Causative Structure ◽  
Resultative Complement

This paper aims to study the syntactic and semantic features of ‘marked VRC causative structures’, those special syntactic-semantic structures formed by verb-resultative constructions (VRCs) which violate both the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis and the Thematic Hierarchy. Their syntactic and semantic features are defined as follows: 1) VRC has a causative relation within itself; 2) the argument in the object position is the causee and the only argument of the resultative complement; 3) the causer in the subject position is any conceptual component from the cause event other than the agent of the predicate verb. This paper then attempts to propose an extended account to expound how they are formed syntactically and semantically. On this account, a marked VRC causative structure is re-causativization of a VRC when the VRC is self-causative; it enables other conceptual components of the cause event than the agent to become the causer when a VRC is not self-causative. There are some constraints on what becomes the causer of a marked VRC causative structure.

scholarly journals Russian constructions with numerals and quantifiers: Their non-standard use in the subject and object position

Rhema ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 70-89
Author(s):  
Alexander В. Letuchiy
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Verbal Agreement ◽  
Object Behavior

In the article, I describe cases of special behavior of Russian phrases with quantifiers like neskol’ko ‘some’, mnogo ‘many, much’ and small numerals like dva ‘two’. I show that they can occur in the subject position in contexts that usually do not contain a canonical DP/NP subject (constructions with the verb xvatat’ ‘be enough’, negation contexts with the verb byt’ ‘be’ and its habitual / iterative correlate byvat’), and for neskol’ko-like quantifiers, the direct object position with intransi- tive predicates like na-...-sja circumfixed verbs is also available. The reason of non- canonical subject behavior is the possibility to be subjects without controlling plural verbal agreement, while the non-canonical direct object behavior is possible because neskol’ko-like quantifiers lack the category of case.

Change of state and valency

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Labelle
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
The Subject

The goal of this article is twofold. First, I explore the hypothesis that a number of regularities in the distribution of the two types of inchoative constructions with verbs of change of state in French, the superficially intransitive construction and the reflexive construction (illustrated in (1)–(3)), can be captured by an analysis whereby monovalent verbs of change of state may project the Patient argument to the subject or to the object position. When the Patient argument is projected to the subject position (as in (1a) and (3a)), the construction is unergative. When it is projected to the object position, the construction is unaccusative (as in (1b)–(3b)). Verbs of change of state in French diner as to whether they may enter an intransitive inchoative construction (1), a reflexive inchoative construction (2) or both (3).

Notes on the history of reciprocal NP-strategies in Semitic languages in a typological perspective

Diachronica ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

Among Semitic reciprocal constructions, a division is seen between two types: 1) two-unit constructions, with two components, each filling a different argument position of the verb, and 2) one-unit constructions, with an anaphora that co-refers with the subject (that must be plural) and occupies only the non-subject position required by the verb. The goal of this paper is to explain how these constructions developed, specifically: 1) how did the various types of two-unit constructions evolve? and 2) could diachronic chains be identified in order to explain the development of the one-unit constructions from the two-unit constructions? Previous work on question (1) focuses on the range of phrases that tend to develop into reciprocal markers. Such accounts, however, do not explain how these constructions developed the specific meanings they have. I argue that consideration of the semantics of these constructions is crucial for understanding their evolution. Instead of ‘reciprocal constructions’ it is better to see them as denoting ‘unspecified relations’. As for (2), various attempts have been made to explain such processes focusing on Indo-European languages, which do not capture the Semitic developments; therefore I propose an alternative hypothesis, according to which the one-unit constructions result from a reanalysis of the two-unit constructions.

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