Q-particles in embedded declaratives, mood, and clausal complementation

Q-particles are functional items that are used to form alternative-related constructions. This paper investigates a hitherto understudied use of the Japanese Q-particle ka in which it occurs immediately below the declarative complementizer and imposes constraints on the doxastic state of the attitude holder. I show that this use of ka is licensed only under a limited range of attitude predicates, and once licensed, it encodes the presupposition that the attitude holder is 'uncertain' regarding the truth value of the proposition denoted by the embedded sentence.

Evidence from Oromo on the typology of complementation strategies

This paper explores the clausal complementation strategies found in Oromo (Cushitic). Recent work by Wurmbrand and Lohninger (2019) suggests that languages distinguish three broad semantic categories of complement clauses, which are hierarchically ordered with respect to their syntactic complexity. Based on newly elicited data and examples from the literature, I propose that Oromo complement clauses also show this three-way split, lending support to Wurmbrand and Lohninger’s (2019) proposal. However, the distribution of clausal complement categories appears to diverge somewhat from what has been reported for other languages, suggesting some flexibility in the way certain states and events can be linguistically encoded. Situating Oromo within the typology of clausal complementation thus sheds light on the diversity of ways in which basic semantic building blocks may be incorporated into the expression of complex meanings and speaks to the import of understudied languages to typological research.

Essentials of Semantic Syntax

Semantic Syntax (SeSyn), originally called Generative Semantics, is an offshoot of Chomskyan generative grammar (ChoGG), rejected by Chomsky and his school in the late 1960s. SeSyn is the theory of algorithmical grammars producing the well-formed sentences of a language L from the corresponding semantic input, the Semantic Analysis (SA), represented as a traditional tree structure diagram in a specific formal language of incremental predicate logic with quantifying and qualifying operators (including the truth functions), and with all lexical items filled in. A SeSyn-type grammar is thus by definition transformational, but not generative. The SA originates in cognition in a manner that is still largely mysterious, but its actual form can be distilled from the Surface Structure (SS) of the sentences of L following the principles set out in SeSyn. In this presentation we provide a more or less technical résumé of the SeSyn theory. A comparison is made with ChoGG-type grammars, which are rejected on account of their intrinsic unsuitability as a cognitive-realist grammar model. The ChoGG model follows the pattern of a 1930s neopositivist Carnap-type grammar for formal logical languages. Such grammars are random sentence generators, whereas, obviously, (nonpathological) humans are not. A ChoGG-type grammar is fundamentally irreconcilable with a mentalist-realist theory of grammar. The body of the paper consists in a demonstration of the production of an English and a French sentence, the latter containing a classic instance of the cyclic rule of Predicate Raising (PR), essential in the general theory of clausal complementation yet steadfastly repudiated in ChoGG for reasons that have never been clarified. The processes and categories defined in SeSyn are effortlessly recognised in languages all over the world, whether indigenous or languages of a dominant culture—taking into account language-specific values for the general theoretical parameters involved. This property makes SeSyn particularly relevant for linguistic typology, which now ranks as the most promising branch of linguistics but has so far conspicuously lacked an adequate theoretical basis.

Remarks on prepositional object clauses in Germanic

This paper analyses the variation we find in the realization of finite clausal complements in the position of prepositional objects in a set of Germanic languages. The Germanic languages differ with respect to whether prepositions can directly select a clause (North Germanic) or not and instead need a prepositional proform (Continental West Germanic). Within the Continental West Germanic languages, we find further differences with respect to the constituent structures. We propose that German strong vs. weak prepositional proforms (e.g. drauf vs. darauf) differ with respect to their syntax, while this is not the case for the Dutch forms (ervan vs. daarvan). What the Germanic languages under consideration share is that the prepositional element can be covert, except in English. English shows only limited evidence for the presence of P with finite clauses in the position of prepositional objects generally, but only with a selected set of verbs. This investigation is a first step towards a broader study of the nature of clauses in prepositional object positions and the implications for the syntax of clausal complementation.