Interclausal relations with Old English verbs of inaction

The aim of this article is to analyse the syntactic and semantic interclausal relations that hold with Old English verbs of inaction. These verbs are studied from the perspective of juncture-nexus relations and the semantic relations Phase, Psych-action and Causative. The results are compared on the grounds of the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy. The comparison of semantic content and syntactic expression evidences discrepancies between too weak juncture-nexus types, such as clausal subordination, and very close semantic relations, like Phase. Two main conclusions are drawn. Firstly, the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy allows us to describe the variation in the complementation of inaction verbs in Old English; and to make predictions on the diachronic axis, given that the loss of finite clause complementation and the change to infinitival complementation presented by Present-Day English verbs of inaction are fully predicted by the IRH. Secondly, semantic relations and nexus types remain stable throughout the change, whereas juncture levels change.

The Welsh of Jesus and Job: Verb-second in Middle Welsh

Middle Welsh is a VSO language with the verb before the subject in all kinds of finite clause. However, positive declarative main clauses normally show verb-second order with a constituent of some kind before the finite verb. There are questions about the nature of this restriction. There are also questions about subject-initial sentences, which show surprising agreement properties, whether the subject is a topic or a focused constituent. All these questions can be given plausible answers within HPSG.

Nominalization and Its Role in the Formation of Noun Phrase in Japanese

This study sheds light on the yields of nominalization and their role in the formation of Noun Phrases in Japanese in an envisaged framework which considers nominalization to be a morphosyntactic process. Nominalization operates on the linguistic constituent to transform it into a derivative/transformed constituent. It brings forth derivative nouns by operating on the words other than nouns involving the process of derivation as well as action nominal constituent and nominal clause respectively involving the simultaneous process of desententialization and transformation, and the process of reduction of clausal properties from a finite clause. It fundamentally differs from the prevalent nominalizer approach, which derives bound-noun-headed nominals by juxtaposition of a dependent constituent with the nominalizers, e.g. no and koto. The derivative noun, bound-noun-headed constituent, action nominal constituent as well as nominal clause together form a grammatical category called nominals, which partake both as the head or the adnominal in the formation of NP involving certain grammatical rules.

Appositive possession in Ainu and around the Pacific

Some languages around the Pacific have multiple possessive classes of alienable constructions using appositive nouns or classifiers. This pattern differs from the most common kind of alienable/inalienable distinction, which involves marking, usually affixal, on the possessum, and has only one class of alienables. The Japanese language isolate Ainu has possessive marking that is reminiscent of the Circum-Pacific pattern. It is distinctive, however, in that the possessor is coded not as a dependent in an NP but as an argument in a finite clause, and the appositive word is a verb. This paper gives a first comprehensive, typologically grounded description of Ainu possession and reconstructs the pattern that must have been standard when Ainu was still the daily language of a large speech community; Ainu then had multiple alienable class constructions. We report a cross-linguistic survey expanding previous coverage of the appositive type and show how Ainu fits in. We split alienable/inalienable into two different phenomena: argument structure (with types based on possessibility: optionally possessible, obligatorily possessed, and non-possessible) and valence (alienable, inalienable classes). Valence-changing operations are derived alienability and derived inalienability. Our survey classifies the possessive systems of languages in these terms.

Register-specific subject omission in English and French and the syntax of coordination

In both English and French, as such non-pro drop languages, finite clause subjects can be omitted in second-conjunct subject ellipsis in the core grammar and as a result of register-specific subject omission (as in diary style writing). The parallelisms between second-conjunct ellipsis present and register-specific subject omission present a challenge for accounts viewing register-specific subject omission as a register-related grammatical property. This chapter shows that the two phenomena cannot be assimilated. Based on patterns with quantificational subjects, the small conjunct coordination analysis is invoked to derive second-conjunct subject ellipsis. For register-specific subject omission a register-specific account for the derivation of subject omission is retained. The chapter introduces a novel set of data of register-specific subject omission, namely the ellipsis of a second-conjunct subject not coreferential with the first-conjunct subject. This pattern is the output of the coordination of two full-fledged clauses, the second of which with register-specific subject omission.

On complementizers and relative pronouns in Germanic vs. Romance

Many Germanic languages have a finite-clause complementizer that resembles a demonstrative, e.g. English that, Dutch dat, German dass. No Romance language does. The traditional view of complementizers as simplex projecting heads that take IP or some comparable category as a complement has no way of accounting for this difference between Germanic and Romance. In this chapter, I will attempt to make progress toward an account, in part by reinterpreting finite-clause complementizers as relative pronouns.

Headless Relative Clauses in Southeastern Tepehuan (O'dam)

Varieties of headless relative clauses in the Uto-Aztecan language Southeastern Tepehuan (O’dam) are discussed, together with two related constructions: wh- interrogative clauses and headed relative clauses. O’dam encodes relative clauses using two strategies: nominalization and finite clause formation. Unlike most of the Uto-Aztecan family, O’dam uses the nominalization strategy only in ritual speech. Elsewhere, the language uses the general subordinator particle na to introduce all types of embedded clauses: adverbial, completive, and relative. This mode of subordination is typologically interesting for the Uto-Aztecan family because it results in an innovative strategy: finite clauses instead of nominalization. O’dam distinguishes between headed and headless relative clauses. Unlike headed relative clauses, headless relative clauses in O’dam lack a nominal head and require a wh-word. Two main varieties are attested: free relative clauses (maximal and existential, but not free choice) and light-headed relative clauses.

Условные конструкции с деепричастием и союзными словами в калмыцком и бурятском языках

Introduction. The paper deals with different conditional constructions in Buryat and Kalmyk. Traditionally, the main way to express the conditional meaning in Mongolic languages is a non-finite clause with a converb (there are the conditional form on -bal in Buryat and Khalkha and new marker -xla in Kalmyk). Alongside with it, there are some new conditional constructions with connectives, with conjunction-like markers herbee in Buryat and Khalkha and kemər in Kalmyk co-occurring with a form of conditional converb. The language contact approach presupposes that connectives as well as a structural pattern with a conjunction are frequently borrowed from dominant languages. Thus, the research question of the paper is how to explain the new conditional construction. Results. In particular, the paper discusses the distribution of different types of conditional construction according to the data from Buryat and Kalmyk corpora. It suggests that conjunction-like markers herbee ‘if’ in Buryat and kemər ‘if’ in Kalmyk may be viewed as grammatical interference from Russian. Nevertheless, the form of conditional converb gixlä developing to a connective in Kalmyk is grammaticalized among other forms of the verb gi- ‘say’ and its grammaticalization of a verb of saying to marker of a conditional clause is frequent cross-linguistically.

The Syntax and Semantics of Clause-Chaining in Toposa

Some languages make extensive use of clause-chaining. According to Payne (1997: 312), clause-chaining has been documented for languages in the highlands of New Guinea, Australia and the Americas. In Africa it is found in Ethiopia (Völlmin et al. 2007), in Kiswahili, a Bantu language (Hopper 1979: 213-215, Mungania 2018), in Anuak, a Western Nilotic language (Longacre 1990: 88-90 and 2007: 418) and in Toposa, a VSO language of South Sudan (Schröder 2011). Clause-chaining is characterized by a long combination of non-finite clauses that have operator dependency on a finite clause, and it usually signals foregrounded information in discourse (see also Dooley 2010: 3). Besides its discourse function, clause-chaining exhibits morpho-syntactic and semantic properties as demonstrated in this paper with examples from Toposa, an Eastern Nilotic language.

Tunnekausatiivilauseen argumenttirakenne II

Suomen tunnekausatiivilause muodostuu tunnetta ilmaisevasta verbistä, johon liittyy tyypillisesti partitiivimuotoinen kokija, aiheuttaja tai kumpikin. Aiheuttaja voi olla paitsi nominatiivimuotoinen NP myös lausemainen, kuten ­A-infinitiivi, kun-lause, että-lause tai alisteinen kysymyslause. Tämän artikkelin tavoitteena on osoittaa generatiivisen syntaksin työkaluja käyttäen, että A-infinitiivi ja että-lause sijoittuvat tunnekausatiivi­lauseen argumenttirakenteessa komplementti­positioon, kun taas aiheut­tajana toimiva kun-lause voi sijoittua joko adjunkti- tai komplementti­positioon. Lisäksi artikkelissa esitetään Suomi24-korpusaineiston perusteella, että tunne­kausatiivien luokittelu tunne- ja tuntemusverbeihin korreloi lausemaisen aiheuttaja-argumentin yleisyyden kanssa. Artikkeli on toinen osa kahden artikkelin sarjasta. Ensimmäisessä osassa esitettiin, että aiheuttajana toimiva NP asettuu rakenteessa tyypillisesti ylemmäs kuin kokija. Koska lausemainen aiheuttaja asettuu välttämättä komplementtiin ja alemmas kuin kokija, tunnekausatiivilauseen argumenttirakenne näyttää siis vaihtelevan ainakin aiheuttaja-­argumentin tyypin mukaan. The argument structure of the Finnish experiencer construction II: An embedded clause as a causer argument This paper investigates the Finnish experiencer construction, which involves a psychological predicate and two optional arguments: the nominative causer and the partitive experiencer. The causer argument can be clausal, such as the A infinitive, the kun clause, a finite clause headed by the complementizer että, or an embedded interrogative clause. Mua jännittää kertoa tämä sulle. (colloquial) I.par excite.caus.pres.3sg tell.inf this.nom you.to ‘I’m excited to tell you about this.’ The aim of this paper is to show within the framework of generative syntax that the A infinitive and the finite complement clause occupy the complement position in the experiencer construction, while the kun clause may occupy either the adjunct or complement position. The syntactic analysis is complemented with a corpus analysis of a corpus taken from the Suomi24 online messaging site. The comprehensive Finnish grammar divides experiencer verbs into two classes: those that express emotion and those that express sensation. The corpus analysis shows that verb type correlates with the frequency of a clausal causer. This article is the second in a series of two. The first article investigated constructions in which the causer argument was an NP. It demonstrated that the causer NP -occupies a higher position in the argument structure than the experiencer NP. In this -article, the author argues that a clausal causer occupies a lower position than the experiencer. This means that the experiencer construction has alternating argument structures for different types of causers.