scholarly journals The Default Case in Standard Arabic

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Mansour Alotaibi
Keyword(s):  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Structural Mechanism ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Default Case ◽  
Multiple Cross ◽  
Syntactic Constraint

The default Case is a common phenomenon in Universal Grammar (UG). There are some languages which require that all Noun Phrases have Case. For these languages default Case meets something that has become known as the Case Filter (Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980). This is to say, if a particular Noun Phrase is not assigned a Case in association with some specification in some other part of the grammar, then default Case assignment principle can apply. Typical cross-linguistic default Cases are Nominative or Genitive, though the value of the default Case can vary from one language to another. While the default Case in English is accusative, it is nominative in most languages. The default mechanism which assigns this value is only invoked when the structural mechanism is not applicable. This paper argues, by citing multiple cross-linguistic examples, that assumption of a default Case in a language accounts for a better understanding of its syntactic and morphological structure. Based on Schütze’s (2001) proposal for English, it develops a theory to account for the default Case in Standard Arabic (SA). It argues that nominal expressions in SA do not receive nominative Case by assignment of other syntactic means. As such, its mechanism does not interact with the Case Filter, which is assumed to be a syntactic constraint. This paper shows that diverse phenomena in the distribution of nominative nominal expressions in SA can be treated using default Case. Previous studies have ample evidence that such phenomena from other languages have proved that instances for default Case are common, and furthermore, that there are opportunities within the Case framework to reduce the cross-linguistic differences in Case patterns in the event of choosing a default Case. 

scholarly journals Acquisition of generic noun phrases in Chinese: learning about lions without an ‘-s’

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
TWILA TARDIF ◽  
SUSAN A. GELMAN ◽  
XIAOLAN FU ◽  
LIQI ZHU
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Chinese Learning ◽  
English Speaking

ABSTRACTEnglish-speaking children understand and produce generic expressions in the preschool years, but there are cross-linguistic differences in how generics are expressed. Three studies examined interpretation of generic noun phrases in three- to seven-year-old child (N=192) and adult speakers (N=163) of Mandarin Chinese. Contrary to suggestions by Bloom (1981), Chinese-speaking adults honor a clear distinction between generics (expressed as bare NPs) and other quantified expressions (‘all’/suo3you3 and ‘some’/you3de). Furthermore, Mandarin-speaking children begin to distinguish generics from ‘all’ or ‘some’ as early as five years, as shown in both confirmation (Study 2) and property-generation (Study 3) tasks. Nonetheless, the developmental trajectory for Chinese appears prolonged relative to English and this seems to reflect difficulty with ‘all’ and ‘some’ rather than difficulty with generics. Altogether these results suggest that generics are primary, and that the consistency of markings affects the rate at which non-generic NPs are distinguished from generics.

scholarly journals Frequency, informativity and word length: Insights from typologically diverse corpora

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Levshina
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Word Length ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Zipf's Law ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Methodological Choices

Zipf’s law of abbreviation, which posits a negative correlation between word frequency and length, is one of the most famous and robust cross-linguistic generalizations. At the same time, it has been shown that contextual informativity (average surprisal given previous context) can be more strongly correlated with word length, although this tendency is not observed consistently, depending on several methodological choices. The present study, which examines a more diverse sample of languages than in the previous studies (Arabic, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish), reveals intriguing cross-linguistic differences, which can be explained by typological properties of the languages. I use large web-based corpora from the Leipzig Corpora Collection to estimate word lengths in UTF-8 characters, as well as word frequency, informativity given previous word and informativity given next word, applying different methods of bigrams processing. The results show consistent cross-linguistic differences in the size of correlations between word length and the corpus-based measures. I argue that these differences can be explained by the properties of noun phrases in a language, most importantly, the order of heads and modifiers and their relative morphological complexity, as well as by orthographic conventions.

Adjectival modification in Truku Seediq

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 602-633
Author(s):  
Claire Saillard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Elicitation Method ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
The Right ◽  
Nominal Position

Abstract This paper investigates the position of adjectives in noun phrases in Truku Seediq, proposing that the two documented positions correspond to different semantics as well as a difference in syntax. While post-nominal adjectives, corresponding to basic word-order in Truku Seediq, may be either restrictive or descriptive, pre-nominal adjectives, seen as an innovation, are semantically restrictive. This paper also argues for a difference in syntactic structure for both kinds of adjectives, restrictive adjectives heading their own projection while descriptive adjectives are bare adjectives standing in a closer relationship to the modified noun. This paper further identifies a syntactic constraint for pre-nominal adjectival placement that applies regardless of restrictivity of the modifier, namely the presence of a possessive clitic to the right of the modified noun. Data collection is achieved through both a traditional elicitation method and an experimental task-based method. Data are further digitalized in order to ensure systematic searchability. The data thus collected are apt to support semantic analysis as well as an investigation of age-group-related variation. It is claimed that language contact with Mandarin Chinese may be one of the triggering factors for the development of a pre-nominal position for modifying adjectives in Truku Seediq.

Semantic Perspicuity and the Locative Hypothesis: Implications for Acquisition

1982 ◽  
Vol 164 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Paul Gee ◽  
Judy Anne Kegl
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Semantic System ◽  
Logical Problem

The structure of the grammar of American Sign Language (ASL) has important implications for the theory of universal grammar and the logical problem of language acquisition. A detailed study of the morphology of ASL verbs is presented, showing how all the verbs in the language are built, by rule, from six basic locative/directional verb stems. The ASL verbal system supports the “locative hypothesis,” the view that all or most grammatical and semantic structures in language ultimately derive from spatial notions, and is shown to be “semantically perspicuous,” that is, the morphological structure of ASL mediates a virtual one-to-one map (isomorphism) between its phonetic structure and its semantic structure. This perspicuity gives us a “window” onto semantics, rendering ASL an invaluable resource for the study of lexical (word) semantics. It is argued that each subsystem of ASL grammar represents something approaching “core grammar,” that is, a basic or unmarked structure, and one possibly approximating the structures acquired initially by children acquiring any language, though often obscured in other languages by the accretion of marked structures. The basic verbal system of ASL is compared to characterizations of the initial semantic system of the child crosslinguistically.

L2 AND DEAF LEARNERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF NUMERICALLY QUANTIFIED ENGLISH SENTENCES

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald P. Berent ◽  
Ronald R. Kelly ◽  
Tanya Schueler-Choukairi
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Experimental Test ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Scalar Implicatures ◽  
Restricted Access ◽  
Test Conditions ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge

This study assessed knowledge of numerically quantified English sentences in two learner populations—second language (L2) learners and deaf learners—whose acquisition of English occurs under conditions of restricted access to the target language input. Under the experimental test conditions, interlanguage parallels were predicted to arise from acquisitional pressures imposed by derivational economy on universal grammar (UG)–guided semantic interpretation. The results of a task in which participants matched sentences to multiple discourse depictions confirmed the predicted parallels. However, in matching underinformative sentences to depicted contexts, the L2 and deaf learner groups overactivated discourse-pragmatic knowledge. The restriction of indefinite noun phrases to singleton indefinites and the cancellation of scalar implicatures rendered sentences more informative in underinformative contexts, producing incorrect—although principled—interpretations. These results inform English acquisition at the interface of semantics and discourse pragmatics and provide further support that economy pressures yield L2 learner and deaf learner interlanguage parallels as observed, for instance, in learners’ interpretative knowledge of universally quantified English sentences.

Between you and I

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-224
Author(s):  
Robert Prazeres ◽  
Stephen Levey
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Default Case ◽  
Variationist Sociolinguistics ◽  
Comparison Of The Results

Variable case marking of pronouns in coordinate noun phrases (CoNPs) is a well-documented phenomenon which has elicited prescriptive censure for centuries. Drawing on the framework of variationist sociolinguistics, this study presents a detailed quantitative analysis of variable case marking in CoNPs in the Quebec English Corpus (Poplack, Walker and Malcolmson 2006), a massive compendium of vernacular speech. Operationalizing a number of extralinguistic and linguistic factors that are claimed to condition variable case marking in CoNPs, multivariate analysis revealed that speaker age and education as well as the syntactic position of the CoNP are key predictors in determining the case of pronouns in these constructions. An important finding is that case marking in CoNPs is highly variable for speakers, suggesting that the Sisyphean efforts of the prescriptive enterprise to impose uniformity on this area of the grammar have been to little avail as far as spontaneous usage is concerned. Comparison of the results with variable case marking in CoNPs in other varieties of English, as well as with diachronic patterns of variability, also raises the possibility that the accusative is increasingly assuming the role of default case in coordinate constructions.

scholarly journals Case Role in the Urhobo Language

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
IMU Oghoghophia Famous
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Case Theory ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Frame Work ◽  
The Subject

This paper examines case role in the Urhobo language. Case theory is used as theoretical frame work, the specific objectives is to investigate type of cases and to relate cases roles to argument structures in Urhobo. The study reveals that in the Urhobo language every lexically headed NP must receive case from a case assigner. The Case theory requires that the case assigner govern the NP to which its assigns case. Tense, verb and preposition are case assigners. The infinitive ‘to’ and the passive participles are not case assigners. Case assignment can take place only when the case assigner and the NP to which it assigns case bear a structural relation to one another. It also reveals that irrespective of the theory and its arguments, Urhobo verbs are the basses and centre of its expansion of its constructions. This research also finds out, that the argument structures identified in universal grammar (UG) align with the argument structure of the Urhobo language; the verb assigns arguments to the noun phrases in a sentence. This is traced to the structure of the Urhobo language which is subject-verb-object (SVO). Finally, the study reveals that the function of the nominative case is to mark the subject of the sentence; the vocative is the case of address; the accusative is used to mark the object of a transitive verb; the genitive is the case of possession, ablative case is to mark the instrument with which something is done and the dative case marks the indirect object in the Urhobo language.

Syntactic distinctions in child language

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
English Word ◽  
Syntactic Constraint ◽  
Linguistic Categories ◽  
Syntactic Theories

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a study of young children's understanding of a constraint on English word order, which is that pronouns and proper names cannot be modified by prenominai adjectives. For adults, this is a syntactic constraint: adjectives can only precede nouns, and pronouns and proper names are lexical Noun Phrases (NPs). In two analyses, the spontaneous speech of 14 one- and two-year-old children was studied. These analyses show that even in children's very first word combinations, they almost never say things like big Fred or big he. Some non-syntactic theories of this phenomenon are discussed and found to have serious descriptive problems, supporting the claim that children understand knowledge of word order through rules that order abstract linguistic categories. A theory is proposed as to how children could use semantic information to draw the noun/NP distinction and to acquire this restriction on English word order.

The positional tendencies of sentential noun phrases in universal grammar

1980 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Synge Dryer
Keyword(s):  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
List Type ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Type Number ◽  
Normal Position ◽  
Subordinate Clauses

This paper is concerned with sentential subjects and sentential objects, subordinate clauses which function as subject or object of their sentence. The clausethat John is tallis a sentential subject in (1) and a sentential object in (2):(1)That John is tallis obvious.(2)Bill knowsthat John is tall.This paper is concerned in particular with the clause positions in which such sentential subjects and objects, henceforth sentential noun phrases (or NP’s), tend to occur in different languages. In (1), the sentential subject is in clause-initial position. In (2), the sentential object is in clause-final position. More precisely, this paper is concerned with the differences between the position of sentential NP’s and the position of simple NP’s (i.e. nonsentential NP’s). For example, the position of the sentential subject in (1) is also the normal position for simple NP subjects. If we replace the sentential subject in (1) by the simple NPthe conclusion, we get (3):(3) The conclusion is obvious.

scholarly journals Words for Women’s Boots in Present-Day Polish: a Quantitative and Contrastive Onomasiological Study

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 221-234
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Complete Agreement ◽  
Clear Trend ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Accurate Picture ◽  
Problematic Area

Footwear terminology demonstrates interesting cross-linguistic differences and is, consequently, also a problematic area for non-native speakers. In order to arrive at a more accurate picture of a subset of footwear terminology in present-day Polish, 82 native speakers were asked to name a range of six contemporary women’s boot styles. No style showed a complete agreement in the preferred head noun, although a clear trend was evident for each one, with kozaki being the most commonly used overall. The possibly uniquely Polish use of a military metaphor for tall riding-style boots (oficerki) and the special subcultural case of Dr. Martens-style boots are discussed in particular. The choice of modifiers within noun phrases for boots is also examined. Some contrastive data are presented from speakers of Greek and Russian.

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