scholarly journals How to become an adjective when you're not strong (enough)?

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Alexander Pfaff
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Functional Element ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article attempts to put a new spin on (the development of) weakly inflected adjectives, with a partic- ular focus on North Germanic, by recycling some traditional ideas. Point of departure is the observation that the Proto-Norse demonstrative hinn had ended up as a functional element in the extended adjectival projection in Old Norse – not as a definite article in the extended nominal projection (an otherwise well- known grammaticalization process). Following the old idea that weak inflection originally involved nominalization, it is argued that weak “adjectives” maintained their nominal status beyond Proto-Gemanic. Thus the weakening demonstrative originally occurs as a determiner in some nominal projection. At some stage prior to Old Norse, this constellation is reanalyzed at the phrasal level, from noun phrase to adjectival phrase, a process in which the demonstrative gets “trapped” inside the adjectival projection and is reanalyzed as adjectival article. This process termed phrasal reanalysis is operative at three levels, (i) lexical: N0 >> A0; (ii) phrasal: NP >> AP; (iii) functional: demonstrative >> adjectival article.

Somatic Semiotics: Emotion and the Human Face in the Sagas andÞættirof Icelanders

Traditio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 125-145
Author(s):  
Kirsten Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Human Facial Expression

The human face has the capacity to generate expressions associated with a wide range of affective states. Despite the fact that there are few words to describe human facial behaviors, the facial muscles allow for more than a thousand different facial appearances. Some examples of feelings that can be expressed are anger, concentration, contempt, excitement, nervousness, and surprise. Regardless of culture or language, the same expressions are associated with the same emotions and vary only in intensity. Using modern psychological analyses as a point of departure, this essay examines descriptions of human facial expressions as well as such bodily “symptoms” as flushing, turning pale, and weeping in Old Norse-Icelandic literature. The aim is to analyze the manner in which facial signs are used as a means of non-verbal communication to convey the impression of an individual's internal state to observers. More specifically, this essay seeks to determine when and why characters in these works are described as expressing particular facial emotions and, especially, the range of emotions expressed. The Sagas andþættirof Icelanders are in the forefront of the analysis and yield well over one hundred references to human facial expression and color. The examples show that through gaze, smiling, weeping, brows that are raised or knitted, and coloration, the Sagas andþættirof Icelanders tell of happiness or amusement, pleasant and unpleasant surprise, fear, anger, rage, sadness, interest, concern, and even mixed emotions for which language has no words. The Sagas andþættirof Icelanders may be reticent in talking about emotions and poor in emotional vocabulary, but this poverty is compensated for by making facial expressions signifiers of emotion. This essay makes clear that the works are less emotionally barren than often supposed. It also shows that our understanding of Old Norse-Icelandic “somatic semiotics” may well depend on the universality of facial expressions and that culture-specific “display rules” or “elicitors” are virtually nonexistent.

Adjectives in Modern Greek: an instance of predication, or an old issue revisited

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melita Stavrou
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Asymmetrical Distribution ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
The Way

In the present article the problem of the position of the adjectives in the noun phrase in Modern Greek is addressed. Rather than starting from their alleged ‘asymmetrical’ distribution, according to which postnominal adjectives are only allowed in indefinite DPs, I concentrate on the possible interpretations that the adjective can have relative to the noun. The differences between prenominal and apparently postnominal adjectives in indefinite DPs suggest a predicative reading of the latter. This semantic account motivates a corresponding syntactic one, according to which the noun moving upwards to a head DEF, formally distinct from D, enters a predicative relationship with the AP generated uniquely prenominally. Such a movement is precluded in definite DPs, because the DEF position is occupied by the definite article. In this way, a number of differences observed between definite and indefinite NPs, as far as ‘postnominal’ adjectives are concerned, are seen as consequences of their predicative nature and the way this interacts with the definiteness/indefiniteness of what serves as their subject.

Anchoring world and time in biblical Hebrew

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
GALIA HATAV
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Actual World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
The Other ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Reference Time ◽  
Three Components

One of the most puzzling issues in biblical Hebrew has been its verbal system. In this article, I deal with one of the forms, namely wayyiqtol, suggesting that its meaning is compositional, calculated from three components: a verbal base and two morphemes. The verbal base is shown to be modal, involving quantification over possible worlds. The two morphemes prefixed to the verbal base restrict its modal nature. One morpheme functions like the definite article in a noun phrase; it picks out one of the possible worlds, the familiar actual world (Wo), and anchors the event into it. The other morpheme builds a reference-time, locating the event in time.

scholarly journals Las oraciones de relativo y la definitud de su antecedente expreso

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-77
Author(s):  
Janusz Pawlik
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Spanish Speaker ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Definite Reference

The paper is concerned with the (in)definite reference of a noun phrase which is the head of a relative clause in Spanish. Speaker and hearer do not share any knowledge of the referent on the basis of previous mention (anaphora) or situational uses. There is something about the relative clause which makes a first-mention definite article possible. We take an insight into the contents of the description conveyed by such relatives.

Grammatical Errors in the English Version of Indonesia’s Official Tourism Website

Lexicon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Erlita Cipta Sari
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Creative Economy ◽  
Syntactic Category ◽  
English Version ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Republic

This research attempts to investigate the grammatical errors occuring in the official website of Indonesia’s tourism managed by the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry of  the Republic of Indonesia. It classifies the grammatical errors based on their lingustic categories. The data used in this research were taken from the articles containing grammatical errors. The results show that from 11037 words, 150 errors (13.59 per 1000 words) were found. The errors were evenly distributed across the three menus under investigation, with those in the News menu (15.46 errors per 1000 words) being slightly greater than those in the Discover Indonesia menu (12.97) and the Events menu (12.65). Furthermore, of the 150 errors, 131 (87.33%) belong to the syntactic category and only 19 (12.67%) belong to the morphological category.  Out of the 19 morphological errors, the most frequent errors occured in the incorrect use of nominal modifiers (9 or 47.37%), followed by the incorrect use of third person singular verb (5 or 26.32%). As for the syntactic errors, the most common (102 or 77.87%) occured in the use of the noun phrase, followed by the incorrect use of the verb phrase (15 or 11.45%). Out of the 102 errors in the use of the noun phrase, most errors (65 or 63.72%) happened because of the omission of the articles, especially the definite article. The results seem to reflect the ability of the writers which do not clearly understand about the occasions when the definite article must be used.

The Problem of the Missing Article in the Use of ‘God’

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-27
Author(s):  
Rien Op Den Brouw
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Description ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Third Place ◽  
The Third ◽  
Proper Nouns ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Christian Discourse

This article is concerned with the use of ‘God’ in Judaeo-Christian discourse. The debate over ‘God’ has mainly centred on the puzzling issue of whether ‘God’ is a proper name with no descriptive connotation at all or whether it is a descriptive term with unique reference. In my view four things have to be taken into account in analysing the use of this term. In the first place, the term ‘God’ is a speech or communication phenomenon. Any treatment of this term should therefore consider the intentions, purposes, beliefs that a speaker has in using this word. In the second place, in Christian theistic discourse this term occurs both with and without modification. ‘The God of Israel’ is an example of ‘God’ with modification. It can be analysed as a noun phrase in which ‘God’ fulfils the function of HEAD, ‘the’ is a definite article filling the DETERMINER slot, and ‘of Israel’ is a prepositional phrase functioning as POSTMODIFIER. The use of only the term ‘God’ is an example without modification. In the third place, when Christians use ‘God’, either with or without modification, they use it to refer to, to describe or address one particular being. In the fourth place, when they use ‘God’ without modification, they do not use this term with an (in-) definite article. In this article three accounts of the term ‘God’ will be discussed: the proper name analysis, the definite description analysis, and the title-phrase analysis. Grammatically speaking, among the defenders of any of these analyses there is an agreed consensus on the classification of ‘God’ as a noun, but there is a disagreement about whether ‘God’ belongs to the category of proper nouns or to that of common nouns. Those adopting one of the last two analyses assume that ‘God’ is a common noun. This article presents an inquiry into the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three analyses. In brief, the question we are seeking to answer is the following: what kind of term is ‘God’ and what is a Christian saying when he says ‘God’?

scholarly journals Microvariation in Verbal and Nominal Agreement: An Analysis of Two Lombard Alpine Dialects

Probus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Pescarini
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Nominal Agreement ◽  
Plural Subject ◽  
The Third Person

Abstract In Bregagliotto and Mesolcinese, two Lombard Alpine dialects, feminine plural agreement/concord is marked by the formative -n, a reflex of the third person plural verbal ending. In Bregagliotto, plural -n triggers mesoclisis of the feminine subject clitic in contexts of inversion, whereas in the noun phrase -n behaves as a second-position element marking plural feminine concord. Mesolcinese exhibits verbal gender agreement as the formative -n occurs on the inflected verb whenever a feminine plural subject or the feminine plural object clitic occurs; in feminine plural DPs, -n is attached to any element except the definite article. I argue that the Bregagliotto system emerged when -n was reanalysed as an adjunct pluraliser, whereas in Mesolcinese -n has been turned into a marker of morphophonological concord/agreement.

scholarly journals Word order change at the left periphery of the Hungarian noun phrase

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Egedi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Order Change ◽  
Word Order Change

This chapter studies the determination and the distribution of possessive constructions from Old to Modern Hungarian. The grammaticalization of the definite article in well-defined contexts had structural consequences, the most salient of which is the emergence of a new strategy for demonstrative modification, which is called determiner doubling throughout the paper. Word order variation arises due to the determiners’ interference with the possessor expressions at the left periphery of the noun phrase. The newly added demonstratives first adjoined to the noun phrase in a somewhat looser fashion: their combination with the dative-marked possessors resulted in a word order specific only to the Middle Hungarian period (Demonstrative-Possessor). At a later stage, demonstratives got incorporated into the specifier of the DP, giving rise to the fixed word order Possessor-Demonstrative, with the Possessor undergoing noun phrase internal topicalization, thus landing in a phrase-initial specifier position.

scholarly journals The abstract usages of the adverbs ovde (here) and tu (tamo)

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-71
Author(s):  
Tijanav Asic
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Article

The aim of this paper is to account for the abstract usages of the pronoun adverbs ovde (here) and tu (there) in Serbian. We start with the analysis of their basic spatial meanings which show that ovde is a true deictic expression that, if it is accopanied with the act of showing, can obtain the value of a demonstrative. On the contrary, tu behavies as a noun phrase with the definite article. Its spatial meaning is easily transformed into the asbtract one. We also show that the temporal usage of ovde is not completely temporal because it denotes the space captured in one relevant moment.

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