scholarly journals Syntactic Category Changing in Syntax: Evidence from Finnish Participle Constructions

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-166
Author(s):  
Päivi Koskinen
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Category ◽  
Functional Feature ◽  
Temporal Reference ◽  
Temporal Characteristics ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
Lexical Feature ◽  
Vocabulary Insertion ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Nominal Morphology

ABSTRACT In most languages there are lexical elements that manifest morpho-syntactic properties associated with more than one lexical category. I examine here a group of Finnish participle constructions that manifest such categorial inconsistencies. Those forms are analyzed as containing a hybrid category: the lexical feature [Adjectival Reference] accounts for their adjectival qualities and seemingly nominal morphology, while a functional feature [Temporal Reference] (= Tense) explains their verbal and temporal characteristics. Consequently, I argue that changes in syntactic category take place not only through morphological derivation, but also within the syntactic component. This is possible under a view of morphological derivation as vocabulary insertion based on the syntactic feature matrices that surface at the end of the computational component.

scholarly journals How to Merge a Root

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijke De Belder ◽  
Jeroen van Craenenbroeck
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Syntactic Category ◽  
Functional Material ◽  
Structural Position ◽  
Vocabulary Insertion

The main goal of this article is to show that four properties of roots can be derived in a principled manner from the theory of Merge. The properties in question are the following: (a) roots have no grammatical features, (b) roots have no syntactic category, (c) roots are defined structurally rather than lexically, and (d) roots are dominated by functional material (rather than the other way around). We argue that the first Merge operation in each cyclic domain creates a radically empty structural position at the foot of the structure in which a root can be inserted at the level of Vocabulary Insertion. The four abovementioned properties of roots can then be shown to follow straightforwardly from this theory.

Meanings of Constructions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Michaelis
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Category ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Feature Structures ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Meanings are assembled in various ways in a construction-based grammar, and this array can be represented as a continuum of idiomaticity, a gradient of lexical fixity. Constructional meanings are the meanings to be discovered at every point along the idiomaticity continuum. At the leftmost, or ‘fixed,’ extreme of this continuum are frozen idioms, like the salt of the earth and in the know. The set of frozen idioms includes those with idiosyncratic syntactic properties, like the fixed expression by and large (an exceptional pattern of coordination in which a preposition and adjective are conjoined). Other frozen idioms, like the unexceptionable modified noun red herring, feature syntax found elsewhere. At the rightmost, or ‘open’ end of this continuum are fully productive patterns, including the rule that licenses the string Kim blinked, known as the Subject-Predicate construction. Between these two poles are (a) lexically fixed idiomatic expressions, verb-headed and otherwise, with regular inflection, such as chew/chews/chewed the fat; (b) flexible expressions with invariant lexical fillers, including phrasal idioms like spill the beans and the Correlative Conditional, such as the more, the merrier; and (c) specialized syntactic patterns without lexical fillers, like the Conjunctive Conditional (e.g., One more remark like that and you’re out of here). Construction Grammar represents this range of expressions in a uniform way: whether phrasal or lexical, all are modeled as feature structures that specify phonological and morphological structure, meaning, use conditions, and relevant syntactic information (including syntactic category and combinatoric potential).

Expressive intensifier

2019 ◽  
pp. 124-171
Author(s):  
Daniel Gutzmann
Keyword(s):  
Special Class ◽  
Determiner Phrase ◽  
Syntactic Feature ◽  
External Degree ◽  
Degree Modification ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Expressive intensifiers (EIs) are a special class of degree expressions found in informal variants of German. They are distinguished from ordinary degree intensifiers like ‘very’ by several special semantic and syntactic properties. Most importantly EIs can appear in what is called the external degree modification construction (EDCs), in which the EI precedes the determiner, but still intensifies an adjective or noun inside the determiner phrase. The main analysis of this EDC is that they are derived via movement, which in turn is triggered by an uninterpretable expressivity feature in D, which attracts the intensifier in order to establish an agreement relation. This also provides a possibility to analyse the form-meaning mismatches that can be observed with EDCs. The upshot of this chapter for the hypothesis of expressive syntax is that expressivity as a syntactic feature can trigger movement.

Sentence Repetition: A Clinical Marker for Developmental Language Disorder in Danish

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4450-4463
Author(s):  
Rikke Vang Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Likelihood Ratios ◽  
Clinical Marker ◽  
Sentence Repetition ◽  
Good Identification ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Purpose The aim of the study was to explore the potential of performance on a Danish sentence repetition (SR) task—including specific morphological and syntactic properties—to identify difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) relative to typically developing (TD) children. Furthermore, the potential of the task as a clinical marker for Danish DLD was explored. Method SR performance of children with DLD aged 5;10–14;1 (years;months; n = 27) and TD children aged 5;3–13;4 ( n = 87) was investigated. Results Compared to TD same-age peers, children with DLD were less likely to repeat the sentences accurately but more likely to make ungrammatical errors with respect to verb inflection and use of determiners and personal pronouns. Younger children with DLD also produced more word order errors that their TD peers. Furthermore, older children with DLD performed less accurately than younger TD peers, indicating that the SR task taps into morphosyntactic areas of particular difficulty for Danish children with DLD. The classification accuracy associated with SR performance showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity (> 90%) and likelihood ratios indicating good identification potential for clinical and future research purposes. Conclusion SR performance has a strong potential for identifying children with DLD, also in Danish, and with a carefully designed SR task, performance has potential for revealing morphosyntactic difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.10314437

Temporal Characteristics of Speech in Simultaneous Communication

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 1014-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Whitehead ◽  
Nicholas Schiavetti ◽  
Brenda H. Whitehead ◽  
Dale Evan Metz
Keyword(s):  
Pause Duration ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Temporal Characteristics ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Temporal Features ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Word Duration ◽  
Rate Of Speech ◽  
Speech Condition

The purpose of this investigation was twofold: (a) to determine if there are changes in specific temporal characteristics of speech that occur during simultaneous communication, and (b) to determine if known temporal rules of spoken English are disrupted during simultaneous communication. Ten speakers uttered sentences consisting of a carrier phrase and experimental CVC words under conditions of: (a) speech, (b) speech combined with signed English, and (c) speech combined with signed English for every word except the CVC word that was fingerspelled. The temporal features investigated included: (a) sentence duration, (b) experimental CVC word duration, (c) vowel duration in experimental CVC words, (d) pause duration before and after experimental CVC words, and (e) consonantal effects on vowel duration. Results indicated that for all durational measures, the speech/sign/fingerspelling condition was longest, followed by the speech/sign condition, with the speech condition being shortest. It was also found that for all three speaking conditions, vowels were longer in duration when preceding voiced consonants than vowels preceding their voiceless cognates, and that a low vowel was longer in duration than a high vowel. These findings indicate that speakers consistently reduced their rate of speech when using simultaneous communication, but did not violate these specific temporal rules of English important for consonant and vowel perception.

Is the Future the Right Time?

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Ouellet ◽  
Julio Santiago ◽  
Ziv Israeli ◽  
Shai Gabay
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Task ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Time Line ◽  
Temporal Reference ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Reading Direction ◽  
Mental Time Line ◽  
The Right

Spanish and English speakers tend to conceptualize time as running from left to right along a mental line. Previous research suggests that this representational strategy arises from the participants’ exposure to a left-to-right writing system. However, direct evidence supporting this assertion suffers from several limitations and relies only on the visual modality. This study subjected to a direct test the reading hypothesis using an auditory task. Participants from two groups (Spanish and Hebrew) differing in the directionality of their orthographic system had to discriminate temporal reference (past or future) of verbs and adverbs (referring to either past or future) auditorily presented to either the left or right ear by pressing a left or a right key. Spanish participants were faster responding to past words with the left hand and to future words with the right hand, whereas Hebrew participants showed the opposite pattern. Our results demonstrate that the left-right mapping of time is not restricted to the visual modality and that the direction of reading accounts for the preferred directionality of the mental time line. These results are discussed in the context of a possible mechanism underlying the effects of reading direction on highly abstract conceptual representations.

Quantification of the spatio-temporal characteristics of walking trajectories of patients suffering from cerebellar disease

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (S 1) ◽  
Author(s):  
H Golla ◽  
W Ilg ◽  
P Thier ◽  
M Giese
Keyword(s):  
Cerebellar Disease ◽  
Temporal Characteristics ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Temporal Characteristics of Swallowing in Infants and Young Children with Dysphagia : A Preliminary Videofluoroscopic Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-116
Author(s):  
Hye Ju Han ◽  
Tae Ok Park ◽  
Byung Mo Oh ◽  
Young Sun Kim
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Temporal Characteristics ◽  
Infants And Young Children
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