scholarly journals Asymmetries in sub-extraction out of np in Slovenian: a magnitude estimation study

Linguistica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artur Stepanov ◽  
Manca Mušič ◽  
Penka Stateva
Keyword(s):  
Magnitude Estimation ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Locality Constraint ◽  
Left Branch ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
Previous Claim

In this work, we aim to clarify the empirical paradigm that bears on two aspects of syntactic locality in Slovenian. First, building on previous work, we investigate how robustly Slovenian observes the syntactic locality constraint precluding constituent sub-extraction out of subject noun phrases. Second, we ask whether Slovenian allows Left Branch Extraction in interrogative and non-interrogative sentences. To elucidate both issues, we conducted a magnitude estimation study, the results of which support our previous claim that there is a subject island effect in Slovenian. Furthermore, our results suggest that Slovenian disallows Left Branch Extraction, in contrast with some other Slavic languages. We also discuss theoretical consequences of our empirical findings.

scholarly journals Re-examining the relationship between the subject agreement morpheme and (in)definiteness in Northern Sotho

Literator ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mampaka L. Mojapelo
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Northern Sotho ◽  
Class 1 ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Subject Agreement

The grammatical position of the subject noun phrase in Northern Sotho is to the left of the predicate. The subject agreement morpheme is a compulsory link between the subject noun phrase and the predicate. Scholars have examined the role of this morpheme from various perspectives. It is also extensively documented that the morpheme has dual functions. Its primary function is to mark agreement between the subject and the predicate. Its secondary function is pronominal, whereby it is co-referenced to some antecedent. This article reexamined the primary role of the subject agreement morpheme in Northern Sotho in relation to the interpretation of a subject noun phrase as definite or indefinite. This was accomplished by (1) revisiting existing works that are directly or indirectly linked to (in)definiteness and subject agreement, (2) analysing texts that may facilitate discussion on the issue, and (3) relating the findings from previous works to current analyses. The first hypothesis in this article was that when some class 9 subject noun phrases, denoting persons, agree with the verb stem by a class 1 agreement morpheme, the noun phrases are interpreted as definite. The second hypothesis was that although the subject position is considered predominantly topical and definite it may not categorically exclude indefinite noun phrases. Therefore some indefinite noun phrases may also agree with predicates by means of this morpheme.

scholarly journals Possessive and transitive in Eskimo

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Mey
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Surface Structures ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Indirect Confirmation ◽  
Relative Case ◽  
Grammatical Tradition ◽  
Natural Way

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to give an account of some hitherto unexplained phenomena connected with the use of the Eskimo ‘relative case’. A deep structure is proposed that not only will account for the occurrence of certain surface morphemes, but also, and in a natural way, for the semantic affinities that exist between certain types of noun phrases and the transitive sentence in Eskimo. In particular, it is shown that in phrases of the type ‘the man's house’, there exists evidence for considering ‘man’ as the subject noun phrase, ‘house’ as the object noun phrase of some deep structure. The transformational machinery involved in deriving the correct surface structures is shown in some detail. A discussion of older terminology in Eskimo grammatical tradition provides additional, indirect confirmation of the naturalness of the proposed explanation.

Discontinuous noun phrases in existential sentences in English and German

1977 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. W. Kirkwood
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject

In Kirkwood (1970) I noted that in the passivization of a sentence such as: (i) They issued a report on recent developments. i.e. (2) A report was issued on recent developments. a prepositional phrase on recent developments, which appears in some way to be attached to the subject noun phrase a report, may be detached from it in surface structure and placed after the verb. A similar phenomenon was observed in equivalent German sentences. Compare:

Trois Constructions a Dependance Entre Sujet Et PP

1982 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjell-Åke Gunnarson
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Subject

Kjell-Åke Gunnarson: Three Constructions with a Dependency between Subject and PP. This study bears on relations between subject noun phrases and prepositional phrases found in various positions. The author discusses the action of a rule that extraposes noun complements of the subject head. Thus prepositional phrases are moved to positions that superficially appear as complement position. Complex conditions on the application of the rule lead to the distinction of three types of constructions that depend both on the main verb and on the content of the noun phrases.

scholarly journals Discontinuous noun phrases in Yucatec Maya

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
STAVROS SKOPETEAS ◽  
ELISABETH VERHOEVEN ◽  
GISBERT FANSELOW
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Left Branch

Languages differ in whether or not they allow discontinuous noun phrases. If they do, they further vary in the ways the nominal projections interact with the available syntactic operations. Yucatec Maya has two left-peripheral configurations that differ syntactically: a preverbal position for foci or wh-elements that is filled in by movement, and the possibility to adjoin topics at the highest clausal layer. These two structural options are reflected in different ways of the formation of discontinuous patterns. Subextraction from nominal projections to the focus position yielding discontinuous NPs is possible, but subject to several restrictions. It observes conditions on extraction domains, and does not apply to the left branch of nominal structures. The topic position also appears to license discontinuity, typically involving a non-referential nominal expression as the topic and quantifiers/adjectives that form an elliptical nominal projection within the clause proper. Such constructions can involve several morphological and syntactic mismatches between their parts that are excluded for continuous noun phrases, and they are not sensitive to syntactic island restrictions. Thus, in a strict sense, discontinuities involving the topic position are only apparent, because the construction involves two independent nominal projections that are semantically linked.

Fragment questions in Mandarin Chinese

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting-Chi Wei
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Intervention Effect ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Left Branch ◽  
Growing Body

Abstract This paper argues that fragment question (FQ) in Mandarin Chinese is derived from topic movement and TP deletion, contributing to the growing body of evidence that sentence fragments are syntactically full clauses (Merchant 2004). Structurally, an FQ consists of a topic-like constituent followed by a particle ne, which functions as a topic marker and as a constituent question particle simultaneously. The fragment is argued to move to the SpecTopP rather than SpecFocP (Wei 2013), because FQ exhibits topic properties and respects island effects such as the complex NP island and the adjunct island. However, it is insensitive to islands such as the sentential subject island and left branch condition. We propose that the absence of island effect can be attributed to the pied-piping of the entire topic-like island to the SpecTopP. In addition, the proposed analysis not only captures the ineligible FQs caused by intervention effect within the passive structures but also the eligible FQs induced by preposition drop in the language.

scholarly journals Elucidating Nominal Structure in Articleless Languages: A Case Study of Tatar

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Lyutikova ◽  
Asya Pereltsvaig
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Functional Architecture ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Nominal Structure ◽  
The Village

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:The central question addressed by this paper is whether languages without articles have the same highly articulated functional architecture in noun phrases, including the DP projection. Pereltsvaig (2006, 2007, 2013) argued that while some nominals in Russian and other articleless Slavic languages are DPs, others are Small Nominals (SNs) of different sizes. In this paper, we provide novel evidence for this position based on another Turkic language, Tatar (spoken by over 5 million in Tatarstan, Russia). Drawing on our fieldwork on one sub-dialect of Tatar (spoken in the village of Kutlushkino), we show that different syntactic constructions call for nominals of different sizes.

Descriptions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Neale
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Singular Term ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theory Of Descriptions

‘Definite descriptions’ are noun phrases of the form ‘the’ + noun complex (for example, ‘the finest Greek poet’, ‘the cube of five’) or of the form possessive + noun complex (for example, ‘Sparta’s defeat of Athens’). As Russell realized, it is important to philosophy to be clear about the semantics of such expressions. In the sentence ‘Aeschylus fought at Marathon’, the function of the subject, ‘Aeschylus’, is to refer to something; it is a referential noun phrase (or ‘singular term’). By contrast, in the sentence ‘Every Athenian remembers Marathon’, the subject noun phrase, ‘every Athenian’, is not referential but quantificational. Definite descriptions appear at first sight to be referential. Frege treated them referentially, but Russell held that they should be treated quantificationally in accordance with his theory of descriptions, and argued that certain philosophical puzzles were thereby solved.

scholarly journals The Agreement between Conjoined Subjects and Predicate: Croatian Church Slavonic Corpus Analysis

Slovene ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-170
Author(s):  
Ana Kovačević
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Dual Number ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Agreement Study ◽  
The Given ◽  
Semantic Agreement

The abundance of grammatical categories in Slavonic and their overlap are particularly evident in the agreement between conjoined subjects and predicate. When they are accompanied by agreement conditions, such as word order and animacy in Slavic languages, different agreement patterns, dependent also on concrete context and speaker, are to be expected. In this paper the study of the agreement between conjoined subjects and predicate is based on an analysis of the medieval Glagolitic Croatian Church Slavonic corpus. Number, gender, and person are grammatical categories, i. e., features of conjoined noun phrases and predicate agreement. The analysis includes noun phrases conjoined by coordinating and some non-coordinating conjunctions as well as noun phrases conjoined by a gradational ‛not only [. . .] but also’ structure. Comitative and reciprocal noun phrases are included as well. The research in the given corpus shows that the conjoined noun phrases with predicate agreement can be syntactic (predicate showing agreement with one conjunct) or semantic (predicate showing agreement with all conjuncts). Syntactic agreement appears as the so-called contact agreement (predicate showing agreement with the closest conjunct) and as distant agreement (predicate showing agreement with the most distant conjunct). Semantic agreement is applied mostly in accordance with G. G. Corbett’s resolution rules for Slavic languages. However, the analysis shows that some resolution rules for number should be revised due to dual number. Although absent from the majority of contemporary Slavic languages, it is precisely in historical Slavic idioms that dual number reveals its identity, highlighted in agreement study as well.

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