scholarly journals The negation of cualquier NP

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Ana Clara Polakof
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Alternative Semantics ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Original Proposal ◽  
Syntactic Approach ◽  
The Subject

Even though the interpretation of Free Choice Items such as any has been on debate for more than 50 years (Vendler, 1974, Dayal, 1998, Horn, 2000, etc.), it is relatively more recent in Spanish (Menéndez-Benito, 2005, Giannakidou and Quer, 2013, among others). Some have analyzed it as a universal quantifier, neither taking its free choiceness into account nor contexts which seem to be problematic for the universal account (see, for instance, Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria, 2011). In this article, we defend that cualquier is a universal indeterminate pronoun which involves freedom of choice (as in the original proposal by Vendler, 1974). We will take into account data (taken from https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/web-dial) which has not been properly considered. We will analyze the interaction of negation and cualquier in Rioplantese Spanish in the subject position of negative generic statements, in the object position in negative episodic statements, and in a non argumental position. We will combine an alternative semantics approach to the analysis of the FCI cualquier, inspired in Menéndez-Benito (2010) and Aloni (2019), with a syntactic approach to negation inspired in Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria (2011).  

scholarly journals On Vendler’s freedom of choice

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. e460
Author(s):  
Ana Clara Polakof
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Alternative Semantics ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Existential Import ◽  
The One ◽  
Short Essay

In this short essay, we will provide some contemporary remarks to Vendler (1962 and 1974). We will propose that his characterization of the Free Choice Item any can be properly explained if we take into account an alternative semantics framework. We will assume with Menéndez-Benito (2010) that it is a universal indeterminate pronoun, and with Aloni (2007) that it involves an exhaustification operator to explain its behavior. We will show that, if we take into account this approach, we will be able to explain what Vendler called freedom of choice, lack of existential import, lawlike propositions, among other characteristics. In addition, we will try to do some linguistics in philosophy, and try to explain how a proper understanding of FCI may help to better understand some reference related problems. Finally, we will show that if we take into account a speech act theory, as the one proposed by Searle (1985), we may account for some of the FCI particular behavior with regard to free choice.

Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist*

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 556-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary D. Garrard
Keyword(s):  
Women Artists ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Sofonisba Anguissola ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Art And Society

An Unusual Portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola has gained new prominence from its illustration in color in a recent publication. In her Women, Art, and Society (1990), Whitney Chadwick claims of the portrait in question, Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola (fig. 1), that in presenting herself in the guise of a portrait being painted by her teacher, Anguissola produced “the first historical example of the woman artist consciously collapsing the subject-object position.” Chadwick's succinct observation opens up the possibility of understanding the painting in a new way, for she points to the peculiar conflation of subject and object that uniquely befell women artists in the Renaissance and complicates their art, especially their self-portraits. From this starting point, I will here explore the form of self-presentation offered by Anguissola in the Siena portrait and several other works in the context of what was a fundamental problem for the Renaissance female artist: the differentiation of herself as artist (the subject position) from her self as trope and theme for the male artist (the object position).

scholarly journals Processing cataphors: Active antecedent search is persistent

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Giskes ◽  
Dave Kush
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Incremental Processing ◽  
Active Search ◽  
The Subject

AbstractCataphors precede their antecedents, so they cannot be fully interpreted until those antecedents are encountered. Some researchers propose that cataphors trigger an active search during incremental processing in which the parser predictively posits potential antecedents in upcoming syntactic positions (Kazanina et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 56[3], 384–409, 2007). One characteristic of active search is that it is persistent: If a prediction is disconfirmed in an earlier position, the parser should iteratively search later positions until the predicted element is found. Previous research has assumed, but not established, that antecedent search is persistent. In four experiments in English and Norwegian, we test this hypothesis. Two sentence completion experiments show a strong off-line preference for coreference between a fronted cataphor and the first available argument position (the main subject). When the main subject cannot be the antecedent, participants posit the antecedent in the next closest position: object position. Two self-paced reading studies demonstrate that comprehenders actively expect the antecedent of a fronted cataphor to appear in the main clause subject position, and then successively in object position if the subject does not match the cataphor in gender. Our results therefore support the claim that antecedent search is active and persistent.

Conjunctive agreement in Lamaholot

2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
KUNIO NISHIYAMA
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Related Language ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Verbal Agreement

This paper presents a description and a theoretical analysis of agreement within coordination in Lamaholot (Austronesian), where the first conjunct agrees with the conjunction ‘and’. Conjunctive agreement is obligatory in the subject position but is optional in the object position. The analysis is couched in terms of markedness of case and proposes that the case of the subject (nominative) is unmarked compared to the case of the object (accusative), and that only unmarked case enables phi-features of the agreement control to be copied onto the agreement host. Apparent optionality is accounted for by manners of case spreading in coordination. Conjunctive agreement is also reported in the genetically unrelated but areally related language of Walman. Although conjunctive agreement originates in verbal agreement with the comitative function in both languages, it is shown that grammaticalization from the comitative to the conjunction is more advanced in Lamaholot, at least in terms of syntax and morphology.

scholarly journals Marked Causative Structures of Chinese Verb-Resultative Construction

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxia Pan ◽  
Limin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Resultative Constructions ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Complement 3 ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Resultative Construction ◽  
Causative Relation ◽  
Causative Structure ◽  
Resultative Complement

This paper aims to study the syntactic and semantic features of ‘marked VRC causative structures’, those special syntactic-semantic structures formed by verb-resultative constructions (VRCs) which violate both the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis and the Thematic Hierarchy. Their syntactic and semantic features are defined as follows: 1) VRC has a causative relation within itself; 2) the argument in the object position is the causee and the only argument of the resultative complement; 3) the causer in the subject position is any conceptual component from the cause event other than the agent of the predicate verb. This paper then attempts to propose an extended account to expound how they are formed syntactically and semantically. On this account, a marked VRC causative structure is re-causativization of a VRC when the VRC is self-causative; it enables other conceptual components of the cause event than the agent to become the causer when a VRC is not self-causative. There are some constraints on what becomes the causer of a marked VRC causative structure.

scholarly journals Russian constructions with numerals and quantifiers: Their non-standard use in the subject and object position

Rhema ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 70-89
Author(s):  
Alexander В. Letuchiy
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Verbal Agreement ◽  
Object Behavior

In the article, I describe cases of special behavior of Russian phrases with quantifiers like neskol’ko ‘some’, mnogo ‘many, much’ and small numerals like dva ‘two’. I show that they can occur in the subject position in contexts that usually do not contain a canonical DP/NP subject (constructions with the verb xvatat’ ‘be enough’, negation contexts with the verb byt’ ‘be’ and its habitual / iterative correlate byvat’), and for neskol’ko-like quantifiers, the direct object position with intransi- tive predicates like na-...-sja circumfixed verbs is also available. The reason of non- canonical subject behavior is the possibility to be subjects without controlling plural verbal agreement, while the non-canonical direct object behavior is possible because neskol’ko-like quantifiers lack the category of case.

These

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-208
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
The Third ◽  
Syntactic Approach ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Properties

In this work, we study the transformational relations between adjectival and verbal constructions in a syntactic approach. This study is composed of three parts. First, we describe the characteristics of this type of adjectives and we deal with different problems such as the collection of these adjectives, the description of their syntactic properties, etc. The second part includes the chapters 3 and 4, in which we describe the similarities and the differences between the two constructions. Syntactic and transformational regularities appear but they are not systematic, thus the construction of the lexicon-grammar of these adjectives is necessary. In the third part, which contains chapters 5 and 6, we describe adjectival constructions that have an appropriate noun in subject position. First, we classify these nouns according to semantic criteria, then we investigate the properties of the constructions obtained with different transformations, i.e., a nominal sentence containing a support verb, a sentence in which the subject is restructurated and a metonymical sentence.

Change of state and valency

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Labelle
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
The Subject

The goal of this article is twofold. First, I explore the hypothesis that a number of regularities in the distribution of the two types of inchoative constructions with verbs of change of state in French, the superficially intransitive construction and the reflexive construction (illustrated in (1)–(3)), can be captured by an analysis whereby monovalent verbs of change of state may project the Patient argument to the subject or to the object position. When the Patient argument is projected to the subject position (as in (1a) and (3a)), the construction is unergative. When it is projected to the object position, the construction is unaccusative (as in (1b)–(3b)). Verbs of change of state in French diner as to whether they may enter an intransitive inchoative construction (1), a reflexive inchoative construction (2) or both (3).

scholarly journals Indefinites and free choice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Degano ◽  
Maria Aloni
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Alternative Semantics ◽  
Current Usage ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Grammatical Theories ◽  
Indefinite Pronouns

AbstractIndefinites display a great functional variety and they give rise to different pragmatic effects. We focus on free choice indefinites and in particular on the Italian qualsiasi. Our aim is to reconstruct the grammaticalization path of this item and understand how diachronic data might shed some light on existing semantic theories of free choice. We employ corpus-based tools to build a database containing occurrences of qualsiasi from its origin and early forms to its current usage. We show that qualsiasi emerged from a particular unconditional construction and we outline the different stages which led to its grammaticalization. We analyze the compatibility of our diachronic study with formal accounts of free choice inferences, with a focus on Alternative Semantics analyses for indefinite pronouns and so-called grammatical theories of free choice. Our work shows that an integration between formal semantics and historical linguistics is fruitful and worth pursuing.

scholarly journals The Illness Experience: Palliative Care Given the impossibility of Healing

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (spe) ◽  
pp. 47-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarida Maria Florêncio Dantas ◽  
Maria Cristina Lopes de Almeida Amazonas
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Experience Of Illness ◽  
Therapeutic Possibilities

This paper presents a reflection about being terminally ill and the various ways that the subject has at its disposal to deal with this event. The objective is to understand the experience of palliation for patients undergoing no therapeutic possibilities of cure. The methodology of this study has the instruments to semi-structured interview, the participant observation and the field diary, and the Descriptive Analysis of Foucault’s inspiration how the narratives of the subjects were perceived. The Results of paper there was the possibility of looking at the experience of illness through the eyes of a subject position assumed by the very sick. As conclusion we have than when choosing palliative care, the terminally ill opts for a way to feel more comfortable and resists the impositions of the medical model of prolonging life.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document