scholarly journals High Vs Low: Turkish Parser’s Attachment Preferences to Relative Clauses

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-270
Author(s):  
Cengiz TURAN
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Eye Tracker ◽  
General Direction ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
Fixation Durations ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Early Processing ◽  
Main Verb

The present study investigates parsing preferences to Turkish relative clauses (RC) using eye-tracker method and comprehension questions presented to the participants following each experimental sentences. In this framework, the possible effects of the RC on attachment types (low – high) were analyzed. The data gathered from a total of sixty participants were considered. Twenty-eight experimental sentences were developed based on RC and two attachment types thus, testing four conditions along with twenty-eight filler sentences. General direction of processing is that the high attachment (HA) configuration caused slightly less cognitive load than the low attachment (LA). Nevertheless, reading times belonging to HA sentences statistically longer on NP2 (the second noun phrase following the RC area). Longer fixation durations on main verbs were observed with significant differences in LA sentences. Regarding the answers to the comprehension questions, the data complement the findings from online processing. It  can be stated that Turkish parser prioritizes syntactic operations during the early processing. However, lexical-semantic information of the main verb  overrides these operations in the event of a structural ambiguity. Processing of HA sentences is more rapid than the LA sentences. Overall, Turkish is suggested to be a HA language.

On amharic Relative Clauses

1972 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailu Fulass
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Right

In what follows I would like to discuss the structure of Amharic relative clauses. In the course of the discussion, I would like to make the following three claims which I will attempt to substantiate in turn. First, I believe that relativization is a kind of pronominalization and, consequently, the particle yä- that is attached to the main verb (or its auxiliary) of the relative clause is not a relative pronoun. Second, I maintain that the ‘yä- clause’ in subject position in Amharic cleft sentences is also a relative clause with an unspecified element as its head. My third claim is that Amharic genitive phrases originate from relative clauses and that the noun (phrase) in the genitive phrase to which the particle yä- is attached in surface structure is governed by a preposition in underlying structure, and the head of a genitive phrase is the head of the under-lying relative clause. In this connexion, I also argue that there is a rule in Amharic which moves the particle yä- (to the right) over, at least, one constituent.

The relative verb forms of Cuwabo (Bantu P34) as contextually oriented participles

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-491
Author(s):  
Rozenn Guérois ◽  
Denis Creissels
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
North Western

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

PROCESSING OF THE REDUCED RELATIVE CLAUSE VERSUS MAIN VERB AMBIGUITY IN L2 LEARNERS AT DIFFERENT PROFICIENCY LEVELS

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Rah ◽  
Dany Adone
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L1 Influence ◽  
Versus Main ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
L1 And L2

This article presents new evidence from offline and online processing of garden-path sentences that are ambiguous between reduced relative clause resolution and main verb resolution. The participants of this study are intermediate and advanced German learners of English who have learned the language in a nonimmersed context. The results show that for second language (L2) learners, there is a dissociation between parsing mechanisms and grammatical knowledge: The learners successfully process the structures in question offline, but the online self-paced reading task shows different patterns for the L2 learners and the native-speaker control group. The results are discussed with regard to shallow processing in L2 learners (Clahsen & Felser, 2006). Because the structures in question differ in English and German, first language (L1) influence is also discussed as an explanation for the findings. The comparison of the three participant groups’ results points to a gradual rather than a fundamental difference between L1 and L2 processing.

scholarly journals Bhadarwahi: A Typological Sketch

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Amitabh Vikram DWIVEDI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Main Verb

This paper is a summary of some phonological and morphosyntactice features of the Bhadarwahi language of Indo-Aryan family. Bhadarwahi is a lesser known and less documented language spoken in district of Doda of Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. Typologically it is a subject dominant language with an SOV word order (SV if without object) and its verb agrees with a noun phrase which is not followed by an overt post-position. These noun phrases can move freely in the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object generally precedes the direct object. Aspiration, like any other Indo-Aryan languages, is a prominent feature of Bhadarwahi. Nasalization is a distinctive feature, and vowel and consonant contrasts are commonly observed. Infinitive and participle forms are formed by suffixation while infixation is also found in causative formation. Tense is carried by auxiliary and aspect and mood is marked by the main verb.

Anatomy of a Counterexample: Extraction from Relative Clauses

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivy Sichel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Fine Grained Structure ◽  
Lebanese Arabic

Relative clauses (RCs) are considered islands for extraction, yet acceptable cases of overt extraction from RCs have been attested over the years in a variety of languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese, Hebrew, English, Italian, Spanish, French, and also in Lebanese Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, where covert extraction from an RC is observed. The possibility for extraction has often been presented as evidence against a syntactic theory of locality, and in favor of constraints defined in terms of information structure, or processing limitations and constraints on working memory. Another possibility, still hardly explored, is that locality is determined syntactically, combined with a more fine-grained structure for RCs and a theory of how extraction from this structure interacts with the theory of locality. I argue in favor of the latter approach. I assume the structural ambiguity of RCs and argue that while externally headed RCs do block extraction, extraction is possible, under certain conditions, from a raising RC, and is formally similar to extraction from an embedded interrogative.

Stoic syntax and semantics

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 281-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urs Egli
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Definite Clause Grammar ◽  
Explicit Statement ◽  
Structural Ambiguity

Summary The Stoic theory of loquia (lekta) contained a fairly explicit statement of formation rules. It is argued that one type of rule was called syntaxis (combination or phrase structure rule) by Chrysippus (e.g., “a subject in the nominative case and a complete predicate form a statement”). Two other types of rule were assignments of words to lexical categories (“Dion is a Noun Phrase”) and subsumption rules (“Every elementary statement is a statement”), often formulated in the form of subdivisions of concepts. A fourth type of rule seems to have been the class of transformations (enklisis, e.g., “A statement transformed by the preterite transformation is a statement”). Every syntactic rule was accompanied by a semantic interpretation according to a version of the compositionality principle familiar in modern times since Frege and elaborated by Montague and his followers. Though the concrete example of a syntax was a fairly elaborate version of some sort of Montague type or definite clause grammar, there was no effort to introduce a theory of grammar in the style of Chomsky. But the texts show awareness of the problem of the infinity of structure generated and of the concept of structural ambiguity. The Stoic system has been transformed into the formulation of the Word and Paradigm Grammar of the technical grammarians – “transformation” (enklisis) was the historical antecedent of paragôgê, declinatio, “inflection”, etc. Some formulations have survived into modern times, e.g., the notion of government, for which Stoic type formulations like “a deficient predicate can be combined with a subject in the accusative case to form a complete predicate” are a historical antecedent.

Free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Yucatan Peninsula ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Unified Description

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis and description of the syntax of free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya, the Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The description and analysis focus on two structural properties of these free relative clauses; a) the internal nature of the relative pronoun, and, b) the absence of matching effects observed in Yucatec free relatives when a prepositional phrase is relativized. I show that these two phenomena receive a unified description in an analysis where Yucatec, in contrast with a language like English, allows the head of the noun phrase to be null.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document