scholarly journals Effects of Focus Type and Argument Length on the Dative Alternation

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Mary Byram ◽  
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Focus Type ◽  
Information Focus

The arguments of English double object verbs appear in the dative form (ex: “Give the sailor the cup.”) or the PP-frame (ex: “Give the cup to the sailor.”). We conducted a production study to test (i) whether information focus or contrastive focus drives this word order variation, and (ii) whether focus interacts with weight. The study found that heavy themes and information focused constituents appear sentence finally, but contrastive focus does not effect the word order. Furthermore, information focus was a stronger motivator than weight. This suggests that at least two types of focus need to be considered in any theory of word in addition to weight.

scholarly journals Prosodic and information-structural factors in word order variation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Hinterhölzl ◽  
Svetlana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
New Information ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Semantic Types ◽  
Information Focus

This chapter proposes an analysis that derives the word order variation in dependent clauses in OHG within a universal VO base order, plus additional cyclic leftward movement operations that target different information-structural projections in the complex left periphery of the clause. More precisely, it is argued that categories conveying contrastive information land in [Spec,FocP], with the finite verb targeting Foc° and marking the left edge of the new-information focus domain, while background information is placed further left, between ForceP and FocP. This positional realization of the verb and phrases expressing different semantic types of focus is considered a special strategy of disambiguating broad from narrow focus, as well as of avoiding the clash of two focus phrases in the middle field of clauses with multiple foci.

scholarly journals On the cardinal system in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 795-829
Author(s):  
LARA MANTOVAN ◽  
CARLO GERACI ◽  
ANNA CARDINALETTI
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Measure Phrases ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Principled Explanation ◽  
Comprehensive Discussion

This paper offers a comprehensive discussion of the cardinal numeral system of Italian Sign Language. At the lexical level, we present the different formational strategies used to generate cardinal numerals and we provide evidence that in the younger generations of signers, the signonehas lost the function of indefinite determiner and is now used as a cardinal only. At the syntactic level, we show that the attested variation in the ordering between the cardinal and the noun is in part due to definiteness and contrastive focus. We account for this variation within the cartographic approach to syntax. Finally, we offer a principled explanation for the reason why cardinals inside Measure Phrases are not subject to word order variation, but always precede the measure noun.

The relative cycle in Hungarian declaratives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Fixed Order ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Head Positions

This chapter examines word order variation and change in the high CP-domain of Hungarian embedded clauses containing the finite subordinating C head hogy ‘that’. It is argued that the complementizer hogy developed from an operator of the same morphophonological form, meaning ‘how’, and that its grammaticalization path develops in two steps. In addition to the change from an operator, located in a specifier, into a C head (specifier-to-head reanalysis), the fully grammaticalized complementizer hogy also changed its relative position on the CP-periphery, ultimately occupying the higher of two C head positions (upward reanalysis). Other complementizers that could co-occur with hogy in Old Hungarian eventually underwent similar reanalysis processes. Hence the possibility of accommodating two separate C heads in the left periphery was lost and variation in the relative position of complementizers was replaced by a fixed order.

OV versus VO in Old High German

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Petrova ◽  
Helmut Weiß
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
The Right

This chapter surveys the word order variation in the right periphery of the clause in OHG. The investigation is based on a corpus including all dependent clauses introduced by the complementizer thaz ‘that’ in the minor OHG documents, a collection of up to forty smaller texts of various genres. The analysis shows that the majority of the data can be explained within a standard OV grammar, assuming additional extraposition of heavy XPs to the right. But apart from these cases, there is evidence supporting the assumption of leftward movement of the verb to an intermediate functional projection vP which is optional with basic OV but obligatory with basic VO. In addition, the chapter presents patterns which evidently involve verb movement to a higher functional head, above vP, and discusses the nature of the landing site of the verb in these cases.

Syntactic complexity, discourse status and animacy as determinants of grammatical variation in Modern English

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELENA SEOANE
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Corpus Data

The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the syntactic, pragmatic and semantic determinants of word-order variation in Modern English, exemplified by the specific case of the use of long passives as order-rearranging devices. Word order in English and in most other SVO languages is affected by a number of factors such as animacy, semantic role, discourse status and syntactic complexity (Sornicola 2006). In this article, which analyses the influence of such factors in the use of long passives, I will try to show that their effects are construction-specific; in particular, that factors which are crucial in determining word order in some constructions – factors such as the animacy of the constituents involved – are entirely overruled by others in the case of Modern English long passives. Corpus data presented here will also serve to address issues pertaining to the nature of the determinants of grammatical variation, such as their independent versus epiphenomenal character, their interactions, and the locus of their effects on word order.

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