Head identification in binominal constructions

Determining the head of complex noun phrases is in general not an easy task in Portuguese. In the case of uma garrafa de vinho ‘a bottle of wine’, in combination with quebrou-se ‘broke’ or derramou ‘spilled’, it is the selection restrictions of the verb that determine which noun functions as head. This paper deals with a specific type of Brazilian Portuguese NP, aquele idiota do médico ‘that idiot of a doctor’, called “binominal” by Aarts (1998). The two types of nominal elements, linked by the preposition de, are the first constituent, idiota ‘idiot’, which has an evaluative status, and the second constituent, médico ‘doctor’, which has a referential status. The hypothesis defended here is that the evaluative nature of the first constituent and the referential nature of the second consist in a conclusive criterion for the determination of headedness.

Long Distance Dependencies

Words bear relations and interact with other words in every sentence. These interactions can take the form of overt morphological reflexes as well as intuitions of semantic composition and constituency. But relations that hold between linearly adjacent words come, in a sense, pre-equipped with a quasi-mechanical explanation for any interactions that may arise between them: they interact in virtue of their obvious proximity. For example, in the phrase an apple, an takes the particular form that it does (as opposed to the consonant-less a) in virtue of being immediately followed by a word that begins with a vowel. Had a different word intervened between those two, the form of the determiner would hinge upon that new word: (a red apple). Some relations do not require that linear adjacency and can hold from a distance. When one speaks of Long Distance Dependencies, it is not obvious that there is a particular length of dependency beyond which a dependency must be deemed “long.” In this work I will use Long Distance Dependency to mean any dependency that need not hold between strictly linearly adjacent words or morphemes. As such, this will include obvious instances like wh-question (which apple did you buy?) formation as well as more bounded dependencies like those of anaphora (Jane saw herself). This admittedly broad definition serves to rule-in discussion of dependencies for which distance is immediately relevant if however delimited (say clause-bound anaphora). It will also however unfortunately rule in other such non-adjacent dependencies that are not immediately relevant and thus won’t be discussed (for example, thematic role assignment to indirect objects or semantic selection restrictions between verbs and nouns). In any case, long distance dependencies are of interest precisely because they do not come so pre-equipped with a quasi-mechanical explanation. Rather, something additional must be said to explain the a priori unexpected “action at a distance.” How can things apparently far apart come to interact as if they were adjacent? The answer to this question has repercussions for the study of language as a reflection of the human mind in general as well as the study of language for its own sake.

Constraining aspectual composition

In Modern Greek there is a rich aspectual system, which involves both morphologically expressed grammatical aspect and eventuality types, carried primarily by the meaning of the verbal predicate. Particular emphasis is paid to the interaction between grammatical aspect and eventuality types, since it is due to this interaction that the verbal predicate acquires distinct meanings. In order to explain potential changes in the meaning of the eventualities caused by the interaction with grammatical aspect, I propose a formal analysis within HPSG, using Minimal Recursion Semantics (MRS) for the semantic representations. Following the MRS architecture, I introduce a number of relations, which represent both grammatical aspect and eventuality types. The close interaction between grammatical aspect and eventuality types triggers special meanings which traditionally can be explained by inserting contextual information into the representations. In this paper, I argue against such an analysis, providing an alternative which is based on the introduction of subeventual templates formulated by Michaelis (2003) and Pustejovsky (1995). In this context, grammatical aspect combines with eventuality types and selects eventualities or subeventualities appropriate to its selection restrictions, using information that is already there in the denotation of the eventualities.

The changing role of "support" an "contiguity" : The hidden facet of the preposition "on" in Ols English

The simple relations model pervades most semantic treatments of the topological prepositions in, on and at. Concerning the preposition on, the pertinent literature has established two features, support and contiguity, which allegedly applies to all its uses. However, in Old English the preposition on categorises location in large geographic entities, i.e., nations. In the current paper we claim that such spatial relationships cannot be described in terms of support and contact and, therefore, the simple relations model is not adequate for a diachronic description of the preposition on. We also demonstrate that the selection restrictions that ruled the distribution of the prepositions in and on in Old English, in the locative relations derived from cognitive maps, are still partially active in present-day English. Thus, we conclude that the single relations model has to be reconsidered as a valid theoretical device to account for the current uses of the topological prepositions.