scholarly journals Locative Inversion as an Alternation Phenomenon in Setswana: The Case of Lexical Functional Grammar Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Setumile Morapedi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Structure Approach ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Locative Inversion

The paper has examined locative inversion constructions in Setswana, showing that the pre-posed locative phrase in these constructions is not the subject as it is viewed by other linguists in the literature. It has been argued, in this paper, that locative phrase occurs in the sentence initial position to perform the topic function which sets the scene for the focused noun phrase that alternates with it (locative phrase). The analysis has been achieved through information structure approach, showing the locative phrase that occurs in sentence initial position is a discourse phenomenon showing given information, and that the focused post-verbal noun phrase is new information that is emphasised on. Also, an appeal is made to Lexical Functional Grammar Approach to explain different ways of representing syntactic structures such as constituent structure and the functional structure.

Rheme before theme in the noun phrase

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915
Author(s):  
Carlotta Viti
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
New Information ◽  
Prague School

Information structure in the noun phrase remains unexplored or limited to the study of the s-form and the of-form in English, which are interpreted from the perspective of the Prague School. Accordingly, the prenominal s-form is chosen if the possessor expresses old information; conversely, if the possessor expresses new information, the postnominal of-form is preferred. Ancient Greek, however, indicates that this is not the sole pattern attested. In our data, drawn from Herodotus, a postposed genitive refers to the topic of the immediately preceding clauses, and has no semantically compatible referent around it. Preposed genitives denote new or discontinuous participants, and are used in contrastive and emphatic contexts. In this case, the principle “rheme before theme” can be identified.

The syntax, information structure, and prosody of German ‘VP’-fronting

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-283
Author(s):  
Vera Lee-Schoenfeld ◽  
Anya Lunden
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
High Tone ◽  
New Information ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Vp Fronting ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right ◽  
Definiteness Effect

Abstract This paper explores fronted verb phrases in German, drawing attention to the difference between passive/unaccusative VPs and fronted agentive vPs. While both kinds of verb phrases have been discussed in the literature as being frontable, it has been largely overlooked that fronted vPs typically come with a certain kind of post-fronting context and a rise-fall or bridge-contour intonation, which is characteristic of I-topicalization. We observe that, unlike VPs, agentive vPs essentially need to be I-topics, with a high tone at the right edge of the fronted domain, in order to be frontable. Given the special context required for fronted vPs, the situation described by the vP does not contain new information but must already have been under discussion and is now being commented on. We present the results of two experimental studies and appeal to the thetic/categorical distinction to offer a new angle on the definiteness effect that has been associated with fronted verb phrases. We propose that a subject-containing fronted vP is associated with a thetic rather than the default categorical judgment, which means that the fronted subject and predicate form only one information-structural unit (a topic) rather than two (topic and comment). Contributing to the literature on theticity, we observe that, unlike in non-fronting thetic statements, the subject in fronted vPs cannot be a true definite. We attribute this to clashing intonation restrictions on theticity in non-fronting constructions versus theticity in just the fronted portion of a sentence.

Sjå på han mannen! On the definiteness and specificity of Scandinavian pronoun demonstratives

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania E. Strahan
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar

Pronouns with a demonstrative function appear in most of the Scandinavian languages in phrases like Sjå på han mannen ‘Look at that man’. Despite the Scandinavian languages varying in phrase-internal morphosyntactic definiteness agreement requirements generally, the pronoun demonstrative appears universally with a definite noun (phrase). This is accounted for within a Lexical-Functional Grammar framework, where the pronoun demonstrative is treated as carrying the feature [specific = +], and the definite noun (phrase) is the morphosyntactic realisation of underlying specificity also. In addition, there is variation as to whether the pronoun demonstratives occur as a specifier within the NP, or as the head of its own DP, taking an NP object.

scholarly journals Information structuring in Akan question-word fronting and focus constructions

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-208
Author(s):  
Charles Marfo ◽  
Adams Bodomo
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Functional Structure ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar ◽  
The Individual

Wh-question fronting and focus constructions in Akan have three structural characteristics in common: constituent fronting, introduction of a clitic morpheme after the fronted constituent, and pronoun resumption in a canonical clause position. In comparing these constructions to each other and to related canonical constructions, one is confronted with the question whether the same discourse-contextual information is consistently expressed in both constructions. Using the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar, we show that both whquestion fronting and focus constructions share representations in the constituent and functional structure. Considering the individual discourse-contextual information expressed in wh-question fronting and focus constructions, as compared to the discourse-contextual information expressed in the respective in situ and canonical clause counterparts, however, we show that a variance is drawn between them in the information structure. In a further constraint-based analysis, Optimality-Theoretic LFG is used to clarify the proposals made.

scholarly journals Specificational Copular Sentences in Russian and English

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara H Partee
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Copular Sentences ◽  
Specificational Sentences ◽  
Predicate Type

The Russian sentence (1), from Padučeva and Uspensky (1979), and English (2) are examples of specificational copular sentences: NP2 provides the ‘specification’, or ‘value’ of the description given by NP1. (1) Vladelec ètogo osobnjaka – juvelir Fužere. owner-NOM this-GEN mansion-GEN jeweler-NOM Fuzhere ‘The owner of this mansion is the jeweler Fuzhere.’ (2) The biggest problem is the recent budget cuts. Williams (1983) and Partee (1986) argued that specificational sentences like (2) result from “inversion around the copula”: that NP1 is a predicate (type ) and NP2 is the subject, a referential expression of type e. Partee (1999) argued that such an analysis is right for Russian, citing arguments from Padučeva and Uspensky (1979) that NP2 is the subject of sentence (1). But in that paper I argued that differences between Russian and English suggest that in English there is no such inversion, contra Williams (1983) and Partee (1986): the subject of (2) is NP1, and both NPs are of type e, but with NP1 less referential than NP2, perhaps “attributive”. Now, based on classic work by Roger Higgins on English and by Paducheva and Uspensky on Russian, and on a wealth of recent work by Mikkelsen, Geist, Romero, Schlenker, and others, a reexamination the semantics and structure of specificational copular sentences in Russian and English in a typological perspective supports a partly different set of conclusions: (i) NP1 is of type and NP2 is of type e in both English and Russian; (ii) but NP1 is subject in English, while NP2 is subject in Russian; and (iii) NP1 in specificational sentences is universally topical (discourse-old), but only in some languages (like English) is that accomplished by putting NP1 into canonical subject position. In other words, both English (2) and Russian (1) move the -type NP1 into some sentence-initial position for information-structure reasons, but in English NP1 ends up as syntactic subject, whereas in Russian, it’s inverted into some other left-periphery position.

scholarly journals The intonation of Italian verbless exclamatives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizia Sorianello
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Subject

The present study aims to explore the prosodic properties of Italian verbless exclamatives (VEs), particular sentence structures without wh-quantifier and copula. A speech corpus formed by 250 VEs uttered by five subjects of a Southern variety of Italian was analyzed. The experimental results proved that VEs have a marked prosodic structure typically made up by two opposed constituents. The preposed predicative phrase is characterized by a salient intonation contour, while the grammatical subject is marginalized and shows a monotonous f0 pattern. The information structure is fixed too: the predicative constituent carries the new information, thus contrasting with the subject that expresses a given content.

scholarly journals Postposing and Information Structure in English and Farsi/Persian

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-55
Author(s):  
Soheila Shafiei
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Right ◽  
Canonical Position

Abstract The term postposing denotes any construction in which a phrasal constituent appears to the right of its canonical position, leaving its initial position either empty or occupied by an expletive. Ward and Birner (2004) argue that postposed constructions preserve the old-before-new information structure paradigm in English. The present paper investigates postposed constituents in Persian to find out the information structure paradigm of such constructions. The data have been taken from 34 interviews. The findings show that various constituents might undergo postposing in spoken Farsi (known as Tehrani dialect), and, in contrast to English, NPs were found to be triggered in postposed position when the referent was hearer-old.

scholarly journals Cleft as a Marker of a Thetic Sentence: Evidence from Irish and Russian

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Maria Shkapa ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Normal Position ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Sentence Construction ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Celtic Languages ◽  
Verbal Statement ◽  
The Subject

P. Mac Cana in his paper on Celtic word order notes that modern Celtic languages preserving VSO have a special construction where “the emphasis expressed by the abnormal word-order applies to the whole verbal statement and not merely, or especially, to the subject or object which takes the initial position” (Mac Cana 1973: 102). He gives examples from Welsh and Irish: ‘Faoi Dhia, goidé tháinig ort?’ ars an t-athair. by God what.it happened to.you said the father “In God's name, what happened to you?” asked the father. ‘Micheál Rua a bhuail mé,’ ars an mac. Micheál Rua rel hit me said the son “Micheál Rua gave me a beating,” said the son. In recent literature sentences of this kind acquired the name thetic. Thetic (Sentence Focus) construction is a “sentence construction formally marked as expressing a pragmatically structured proposition in which both the subject and the predicate are in focus; the focus domain is the sentence, minus any topical non-subject arguments” (Lambrecht 1997: 190). Cleft construction “designed” for focussing one XP of a clause is used in the sentence above to mark the whole clause as focussed. The effect is achieved by extracting the usual topic of a sentence – its subject – from its normal position and thus ascribing to it and to the whole clause a new pragmatic function. Such usage of cleft is by no means universal (e.g. it is not possible in English) but meets a parallel in Russian eto-cleft which has the same two meanings – focussing an XP and forming a thetic sentence. These two usages are generally regarded as two different constructions having different syntactic structures (see [Kimmelmann 2007] and literature cited there). However, existence of a typological parallel enables us to view it as a case of pragmatic homonymy.

Meaning in LFG

2021 ◽  
pp. 340-374
Author(s):  
Jamie Y. Findlay
Keyword(s):  
Functional Annotation ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Linear Logic ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Description Language ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar ◽  
Semantic Component ◽  
Glue Semantics

This chapter discusses how meaning has been handled in Lexical-Functional Grammar. As well as giving a historical overview, it also argues that the modern approach, using Glue Semantics, has a number of undesirable properties: meanings do not figure at all in the architecture of the grammar, merely standing in an unspecified correspondence with semantic structures; s-structures themselves have become an enfeebled and unimportant part of the projection architecture; and meaning constructors, when written in the ‘new glue’ format, give the impression of being quite distinct from other kinds of functional annotation, making the semantic component seem out of sync with the rest of the formalism. To remedy these issues, Findlay suggests a mechanism for representing meanings explicitly in s-structures, and for integrating linear logic into the description language of LFG more generally. This has immediate benefits for the analysis of idioms and for the theory of the semantics-information structure interface.

The Oxford Reference Guide to Lexical Functional Grammar

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Dalrymple ◽  
John J. Lowe ◽  
Louise Mycock
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Structure Information ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar

This is the most comprehensive reference work on Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), which will be of interest to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, academics, and researchers in linguistics and in related fields. Covering the analysis of syntax, semantics, morphology, prosody, and information structure, and how these aspects of linguistic structure interact in the nontransformational framework of LFG, this book will appeal to readers working in a variety of sub-fields, including researchers involved in the description and documentation of languages, whose work continues to be an important part of the LFG literature The book consists of three parts. The first part examines the syntactic theory and formal architecture of LFG, with detailed explanation and comprehensive illustration, providing an unparalleled introduction to the fundamentals of the theory. The second part of the book explores nonsyntactic levels of linguistic structure, including the syntax-semantics interface and semantic representation, argument structure, information structure, prosodic structure, and morphological structure, and how these are related in the projection architecture of LFG. The third part of the book illustrates the theory more explicitly by presenting explorations of the syntax and semantics of a range of representative linguistic phenomena: modification, anaphora, control, coordination, and long-distance dependencies. The final chapter discusses LFG-based work not covered elsewhere in the book, as well as new developments in the theory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document