scholarly journals On the semantics of when-clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 544
Author(s):  
David Patrick Hall ◽  
Ivano Caponigro
Keyword(s):  
Main Idea ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Semantic Mapping ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Formal Identity ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Interrogative Clauses

This paper is about non-interrogative temporal embedded clauses introduced by when (temporal when-clauses), their semantic interpretation and their syntax/semantics mapping. Our goal is to provide a fully compositional account of temporal when-clauses that accounts for their formal identity with interrogative clauses and their difference in meaning. The main idea is that temporal when-clauses are syntactically and semantically free relative clauses. Previous syntactic analyses (Grimshaw 1977, Bresnan and Grimshaw 1978, a.o) have provided robust support to the syntactic side of this claim. On the other hand, the semantic proposals for temporal when-clauses that we are aware of (Bonomi 1997, Vikner 2004, Moens and Steedman 1988) have ignored these syntactic conclusions and have argued for analyses that are problematic for the syntactic/semantic mapping. These semantic analyses are also not fully adequate in handling the interpretative properties of these clauses. We provide evidence from the distributional and interpretive properties of when-clauses as well as from the temporal alignment of the matrix clause with the when-clause that supports our analysis.

scholarly journals On the semantics of when-clauses

2015 ◽  
pp. 544
Author(s):  
David Patrick Hall ◽  
Ivano Caponigro
Keyword(s):  
Main Idea ◽  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Semantic Mapping ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Formal Identity ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Interrogative Clauses

This paper is about non-interrogative temporal embedded clauses introduced by when (temporal when-clauses), their semantic interpretation and their syntax/semantics mapping. Our goal is to provide a fully compositional account of temporal when-clauses that accounts for their formal identity with interrogative clauses and their difference in meaning. The main idea is that temporal when-clauses are syntactically and semantically free relative clauses. Previous syntactic analyses (Grimshaw 1977, Bresnan and Grimshaw 1978, a.o) have provided robust support to the syntactic side of this claim. On the other hand, the semantic proposals for temporal when-clauses that we are aware of (Bonomi 1997, Vikner 2004, Moens and Steedman 1988) have ignored these syntactic conclusions and have argued for analyses that are problematic for the syntactic/semantic mapping. These semantic analyses are also not fully adequate in handling the interpretative properties of these clauses. We provide evidence from the distributional and interpretive properties of when-clauses as well as from the temporal alignment of the matrix clause with the when-clause that supports our analysis.

Scope Marking at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veneeta Dayal ◽  
Deepak Alok
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Semantic Properties

Natural language allows questioning into embedded clauses. One strategy for doing so involves structures like the following: [CP-1 whi [TP DP V [CP-2 … ti …]]], where a wh-phrase that thematically belongs to the embedded clause appears in the matrix scope position. A possible answer to such a question must specify values for the fronted wh-phrase. This is the extraction strategy seen in languages like English. An alternative strategy involves a structure in which there is a distinct wh-phrase in the matrix clause. It is manifested in two types of structures. One is a close analog of extraction, but for the extra wh-phrase: [CP-1 whi [TP DP V [CP-2 whj [TP…t­j­…]]]]. The other simply juxtaposes two questions, rather than syntactically subordinating the second one: [CP-3 [CP-1 whi [TP…]] [CP-2 whj [TP…]]]. In both versions of the second strategy, the wh-phrase in CP-1 is invariant, typically corresponding to the wh-phrase used to question propositional arguments. There is no restriction on the type or number of wh-phrases in CP-2. Possible answers must specify values for all the wh-phrases in CP-2. This strategy is variously known as scope marking, partial wh movement or expletive wh questions. Both strategies can occur in the same language. German, for example, instantiates all three possibilities: extraction, subordinated, as well as sequential scope marking. The scope marking strategy is also manifested in in-situ languages. Scope marking has been subjected to 30 years of research and much is known at this time about its syntactic and semantic properties. Its pragmatics properties, however, are relatively under-studied. The acquisition of scope marking, in relation to extraction, is another area of ongoing research. One of the reasons why scope marking has intrigued linguists is because it seems to defy central tenets about the nature of wh scope taking. For example, it presents an apparent mismatch between the number of wh expressions in the question and the number of expressions whose values are specified in the answer. It poses a challenge for our understanding of how syntactic structure feeds semantic interpretation and how alternative strategies with similar functions relate to each other.

Headless Relative Clauses in Southeastern Tepehuan (O'dam)

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-78
Author(s):  
Gabriela García Salido
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Innovative Strategy ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Finite Clause ◽  
Ritual Speech

Varieties of headless relative clauses in the Uto-Aztecan language Southeastern Tepehuan (O’dam) are discussed, together with two related constructions: wh- interrogative clauses and headed relative clauses. O’dam encodes relative clauses using two strategies: nominalization and finite clause formation. Unlike most of the Uto-Aztecan family, O’dam uses the nominalization strategy only in ritual speech. Elsewhere, the language uses the general subordinator particle na to introduce all types of embedded clauses: adverbial, completive, and relative. This mode of subordination is typologically interesting for the Uto-Aztecan family because it results in an innovative strategy: finite clauses instead of nominalization. O’dam distinguishes between headed and headless relative clauses. Unlike headed relative clauses, headless relative clauses in O’dam lack a nominal head and require a wh-word. Two main varieties are attested: free relative clauses (maximal and existential, but not free choice) and light-headed relative clauses.

Adverbial clauses and V3

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (s3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Csipak
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
The Other ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Biscuit Conditionals

AbstractThis paper discusses word order effects in German adverbial clauses: often, the matrix clause can exhibit either V2 or V3 word order. I argue that adverbial clauses with V3 word order have an obligatory ‘biscuit’ interpretation and receive a speech act modifying interpretation, as has previously only been argued for ‘biscuit conditionals’. I show that this phenomenon holds more generally. On the other hand, a pragmatic analysis for V2 biscuit conditionals remains necessary.

Differential grammaticalization of copulas in Tsúùt’ínà and Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì

Diachronica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-293
Author(s):  
Nicholas Welch
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
The Other ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clause

Abstract The languages of the Dene (aka Athapaskan) family in North America almost universally employ two copular verbs. In several languages of this family, copular forms are also employed as verbal auxiliaries: forms of one copula mark clausal focus while forms of the other mark TAM (tense/aspect/mode) categories. With reference to two Dene languages in particular, Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì and Tsúùt’ínà, I explain this difference by positing distinct grammaticalization paths and motivations for each copula: both focus and TAM markers originate in a uniclausal reanalysis of biclausal constructions, the former from constructions where the matrix clause asserts the truth of the embedded clause, and the latter from those where the matrix clause supplies extra TAM information to the embedded clause. Both grammaticalizations involve an upward reanalysis of copulas as functional heads.

scholarly journals Vom Matrixsatz zum Diskursmaker: Die Grammatikalisierung von Hauptsache

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Ferran Robles Sabater
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Functional Characteristics ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The One ◽  
Discourse Particle ◽  
Conceptual Meaning

<p>This paper has a double purpose. On the one hand, it intends to prove the existence of a discourse marker (DM) Hauptsache. This element preserves the core conceptual meaning of the homonymous noun, but differs from it with regard to its morphosyntactic and semantic features as well as to its discourse-organizing, information structuring, and modal functions. On the other hand, the emergence of Hauptsache as a discourse particle is explained on the grounds of a grammaticalization process similar to the ones described for the prototypical German DMs. Evidence drawn from a corpus of German and Austrian parliamentary protocols will show in which ways the six fundamental processes implied in the grammaticalization of DMs (decategorization, scope expansion, subjectification, persistence, syntactic fixation, phonetic and/or morphosyntactic reduction) can be found in the evolution from the matrix clause die Hauptsache is to the monolexematic Hauptsache. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the formal, semantical, and functional characteristics of Hauptsache.</p>

scholarly journals The Morphosyntax of Embedded Clauses in Western Neo-Aramaic: Arabic Influence or Retention from Older Aramaic?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-54
Author(s):  
Ivri J. Bunis
Keyword(s):  
Direct Object ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Purpose Clauses ◽  
Aramaic Dialects

Abstract The article asks whether the morphosyntax of embedded direct object clauses and purpose clauses in Western Neo-Aramaic reflects retention from older stages of Aramaic, or innovation under the influence of contact Arabic. To this end, direct object clauses and purpose clauses are analysed in Western Neo-Aramaic, in older stages of Aramaic, namely, Old, Official, Biblical and Qumran Aramaic, as well as Syriac, the three Western Late Aramaic dialects (CPA, JPA, SA), and in contemporaneous Syrian Arabic. The analysis considers the embedded verb form, the formal means of linking the embedded clause to the matrix clause, and the co-referentiality of the matrix and embedded subjects, and relates these features to tense-aspect-mood. The article compares the constructions in the various sources of Aramaic and Syrian Arabic and finds features that Western Neo-Aramaic has retained from Late Aramaic, which differ from Syrian Arabic, despite the well documented influence of the latter.

Morrison's Beloved and its Two "Amadas": Postcolonial Signifying upon Translation within African-American Intertextualities

1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Endoença Martins
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Black Nationalism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Specific Source ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Specific Concern

This article compares two different Brazilian translated versions of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved: the first published in 1994, the other in 2007, both as Amada. The analysis concentrates on the speech delivered by Baby Suggs, in which she exhorts her listeners to care for their bodies. The main idea behind this article is that Beloved and the Amadas converse or talk, thus performing signifyin(g), a concept which, in Henry Louis Gates's words, explains how intertextual conversation happens through “repetition and revision, or repetition with a signal of difference” (xxiv). Its general theoretical foundations include interconnections involving several instantiations of signifyin(g): between Black nationalism and negritude, postcolonialism and African Americanism. In its specific concern with translation, the conversation that the source keeps with the target texts involves two translation theories: fluency and resistance; two kinds of translating interventions: omission and addition; and three types of strategies: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. These distinct categories help readers grasp translation as a continuum by means of which a specific source text encounters its target equivalents and, then, returns to its origin. The original article is in English.

Pembobotan Berdasarkan Tingkat Kesamaan Semantik pada Metode Fuzzy Semi-Supervised Co-Clustering untuk Pengelompokkan Dokumen Teks

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-51
Author(s):  
Galang Amanda Dwi P. ◽  
Gregorius Edwadr ◽  
Agus Zainal Arifin
Keyword(s):  
Supervised Learning ◽  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Classification Result ◽  
Document Similarity ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Index Terms ◽  
Membership Value ◽  
Degree Of Similarity

Nowadays, a large number of information can not be reached by the reader because of the misclassification of text-based documents. The misclassified data can also make the readers obtain the wrong information. The method which is proposed by this paper is aiming to classify the documents into the correct group.  Each document will have a membership value in several different classes. The method will be used to find the degree of similarity between the two documents is the semantic similarity. In fact, there is no document that doesn’t have a relationship with the other but their relationship might be close to 0. This method calculates the similarity between two documents by taking into account the level of similarity of words and their synonyms. After all inter-document similarity values obtained, a matrix will be created. The matrix is then used as a semi-supervised factor. The output of this method is the value of the membership of each document, which must be one of the greatest membership value for each document which indicates where the documents are grouped. Classification result computed by the method shows a good value which is 90 %. Index Terms - Fuzzy co-clustering, Heuristic, Semantica Similiarity, Semi-supervised learning.

Da eine oder mehrere betroffen …

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-100
Author(s):  
Melitta Gillmann
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Formal Language ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Very High Frequency ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Very High

AbstractBased on a corpus study conducted using the GerManC corpus (1650–1800), the paper sketches the functional and sociosymbolic development of subordinate clause constructions introduced by the subjunctor da ‘since’ in different text genres. In the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, the da clauses were characterized by semantic vagueness: Besides temporal, spatial and causal relations, the subjunctor established conditional, concessive, and adversative links between clauses. The corpus study reveals that different genres are crucial to the readings of da clauses. Spatial and temporal usages, for example, occur more often in sermons than in other genres. The conditional reading, in contrast, strongly tends to occur in legal texts, where it displays very high frequency. This could be the reason why da clauses carry indexical meaning in contemporary German and are associated with formal language. Over the course of the 18th century, the causal usages increase in all genres. Surprisingly, these causal da clauses tend to be placed in front of the matrix clause despite the overall tendency of causal clauses to follow the matrix clause.

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