Polynesian languages and their contributions to theoretical linguistics

This chapter introduces the volume on Polynesian syntax and its interfaces. It presents an overview of the Polynesian language family and outlines the key typological features of the languages. The history of research on Polynesian languages is reviewed, with a focus on modern research in theoretical syntax and semantics. This historical overview is followed by a summary of each chapter in the volume, in which the connecting theoretical issues are highlighted.

Polynesian Syntax and its Interfaces

This volume presents research in theoretical syntax and its interfaces with semantics and prosody within the Polynesian language family, with chapters focusing on Hawaiian, Māori, Niuean, Samoan, and Tongan. It includes in-depth analyses of issues within particular languages, as well as chapters that take a comparative-Polynesian approach. Theoretical issues addressed include ergativity and case systems, word order variations, modality and superlatives, causativization, negation, resumption and linearization, raising, the Extended Projection Principle (EPP), and the left periphery of both the sentential and nominal domains. The volume showcases the theoretical typology of Polynesian languages with their varying case systems, word orders, and isolating particle-based morphology.

SYNTACTIC IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEGATIVE CLITIC NICHT IN THE MODERN GERMAN LANGUAGE

The article focuses on the main approaches to the analysis of sentence negation in the modern German language. The phenomenon of full and partial sentence negation has been presented. The special attention is focused on the grammatical meaning of negation. In traditional studies negation is characterized as an expression of non-existing relationships within lingual elements, or when an affirmative sentence is denied by a speaker as an incorrect one. In Germanic grammar studies there is no consensus as to the concept of negation as well as means for its implementation. Theoretical syntax deals with an absolute and double negation. The typology of neg-elements in the German language is not sufficiently highlighted due to their heterogeneity in classification. It causes opacity in the treatment of negative constructions, resulting in ambiguous outcome, and complicates the assignment of the lingual units to the appropriate category. In theoretical grammar the grammatical negation is classified according to word classes. In German a general pattern of sentence negation is represented by the clitic “nicht” in the pre-position and the post-position in relation to the verb. Traditionally negation is regarded in terms of volume of negation and the focus of negation, when the semantic function of negation has been implemented. Also grammatical studies of the German language distinguish between full negation, when the whole sentence is denied, and partial negation, which refers to certain parts of the sentence. Thereby for the grammatical negation in the German sentence the regulated order of subject and verb plays an important role. Regarding the above mentioned the article outlines the criteria for distinguishing the full and the partial negation depending on position of sentence elements in the frame construction. The position of constituents in the negative sentence and its influence on the scopus of negation has been analyzed. The analysis of syntactic distribution of clitic “nicht” in relation to full and partial negation in the models of verbal representation has been outlined.Key words: category of negation, clitic, full negation, partial negation, volume of negation, focus of negation, syntactical distribution. У статті викладено основні підходи до аналізу реченнєвого заперечення в сучасній німецькій мові. Представлено явище повного й часткового реченнєвого заперечення, увагу зосереджено на граматичному змісті заперечення. У статті проаналізовано заперечення як синтаксичну категорію щодо й змісту, й граматичного оформлення. У традиційних мовознавчих студіях заперечення схарактеризовано як вираження ненаявних відношень у межах мовних елементів. У германістиці відсутній консенсус стосовно концепції заперечення та засобів його реалізації. Теоретичний синтаксис має справу з абсолютним і подвійним запереченням. Типологію заперечних елементів у німецькій мові розглянуто не досить через їх неоднорідність у класифікації. Це спричиняє непрозорість у трактуванні заперечних конструкцій, що призводить до неоднозначних результатів та ускладнює зарахування мовних одиниць до відповідної категорії. Теоретична граматика класифікує граматичні засоби вираження заперечення відповідно до класів слів. У німецькій мові загальну модель реченнєвого заперечення представлено клітиком nicht у препозиції або постпозиції щодо дієслова. Традиційно категорія заперечення розглядається в термінах об’єму й фокусу заперечення, коли реалізується семантична функція негації, а запере-чення постає як форма модифікації дійсності. Також у граматичних студіях із німецької мови розрізняють повне й часткове заперечення. У німецькій мові граматичне заперечення пов’язано з рамковою структурою речення. У роботі окреслено граматичне оформлення та функціонування речень із повним і частковим запереченням у німецькій мові, наголошено на їх відмінностях. Проаналізовано позицію конституентів заперечного речення та їхній вплив на сферу заперечення. Визначено критерії виокремлення спеціального заперечення залежно від позиції елементів речення в рамковій конструкції. Також у статті здійснено аналіз синтаксичної дистрибуції клітика nicht щодо повного й часткового заперечення в моделях вербальних репрезентацій заперечення та про-ілюстровано їх неоднорідність.Ключові слова:категорія заперечення, клітик, повне заперечення, часткове заперечення, об’єм заперечення, фокус заперечення, синтаксична дистрибуція.

Natural language syntax complies with the free-energy principle

Natural language syntax yields an unbounded array of hierarchically structured expressions. We claim that these are used in the service of active inference in accord with the free-energy principle (FEP). While conceptual advances alongside modelling and simulation work have attempted to connect speech segmentation and linguistic communication with the FEP, we extend this program to the underlying computations responsible for generating elementary syntactic objects. We argue that recently proposed principles of economy in language design—such as “minimal search” and “least effort” criteria from theoretical syntax—adhere to the FEP. This permits a greater degree of explanatory power to the FEP—with respect to higher language functions—and presents linguists with a grounding in first principles of notions pertaining to computability. More generally, we explore the possibility of migrating certain topics in linguistics over to the domain of fields that investigate the FEP, such as complex polysemy. We aim to align concerns of linguists with the normative model for organic self-organisation associated with the FEP, marshalling evidence from theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics to ground core principles of efficient syntactic computation within active inference.

Caribbean Spanish and Theoretical Syntax: An Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the main phenomena of syntactic variation that correspond to Caribbean Spanish. It also develops a critical review of the formal analyses proposed in the literature to account for them. After a short theoretical introduction, the presentation of the data is organized into two groups. The first is devoted to constructions that are characteristic of the area under study (including Mexico, Central America, Antilles Islands, Colombia, and Venezuela). The second reviews constructions also found in other territories, but more frequently attested in the Caribbean area. The set of constructions studied relates to major aspects of Spanish grammar, such as the pronominal system, wh- constructions, infinitival subjects, agreement, possessives, cleft constructions, and negation, among others.

Japanese subject markers in linguistic change: A quantitative analysis of data spanning 90 years and its theoretical implications

Based on a statistical analysis of a corpus data from the period of 1915–2005, this article discusses two variants for a subject marker in Japanese, and argues that it is a case of linguistic change in progress. While representing effects of three linguistic factors on the use of the variants, the chronological observation of each factor revealed that this phenomenon demonstrates the Constant Rate Effect. The quantitative data also provides firm evidence for effects of other independent diachronic changes on the current phenomenon, pushing the change further by shrinking the linguistic environment for the dying-out variant. Dissecting the relationship between those diachronic changes and the current phenomenon in a quantitative manner, the findings of the study reveal that the two competing hypotheses in theoretical syntax properly capture the essential syntactic properties of the phenomenon in the contemporary Japanese and the discrepancy of the two accounts is attributable to their data reflecting a different stage of its ongoing change.

The locative syntax of Experiencers. The case study of phraseological units as psych-predicates

The name psych-verbs is commonly assigned to verbs denoting mental or emotional states, such as fear, worry, frighten, or surprise. Such verbs select a participant/an individual who experiences an emotional or mental state, usually referred to as an Experiencer, and a non-Experiencer argument, sometimes called stimulus, trigger of emotion, causer or target/subject matter, or subsumed under the label of ‘theme’ (Landau, 2010, p. 5). The special behaviour of Experiencers, related to the so-called ‘psych effects’, is the reason why psychological predicates have been a subject of debate in theoretical syntax for several decades. The aim of this study is to check whether English verbal phraseological units, which denote a psychological condition of an Experiencer and occur with locative Prepositional Phrases (PPs), may serve as evidence for Landau’s (2010, p. 6) hypothesis of ‘Experiencers as mental locations’. Landau’s theory has been chosen since it covers a much broader variety of data, in comparison with the previous approaches, offered by Belletti & Rizzi (1988), Grimshaw (1990), and Pesetsky (1995), among others. The data analysed in the paper have been extracted from English dictionaries of idiomatic expressions, supported with the COCA Corpus. The study focuses on Object Experiencer verbal phraseological units that display a structure V + PP. The results of the study reveal that, in total, out of 3,000 tokens, there are only 50 psychological verbal idiomatic expressions with an Object Experiencer. However, the data show that a lexical P with the Experiencer as an object appears only in 13 (26%) idiomatic expressions out of the 50, whereas 37 items (74%) include an Experiencer preceded with no P. The latter might be treated as exhibiting an oblique Experiencer with a null preposition. However, no relevant syntactic evidence can be found in support the claim that there is a covert P in this type of phrase. Therefore, the results do not provide enough evidence in favour of Landau’s (2010) theory of Experiencers as mental locations, placed either in a covert or overt PP.

The conservation theorem for differential nets

We prove the conservation theorem for differential nets – the graph-theoretical syntax of the differential extension of Linear Logic (Ehrhard and Regnier's DiLL). The conservation theorem states that the property of having infinite reductions (here infinite chains of cut elimination steps) is preserved by non-erasing steps. This turns the quest for strong normalisation (SN) into one for non-erasing weak normalisation (WN), and indeed we use this result to prove SN of simply typed DiLL (with promotion). Along the way to the theorem we achieve a number of additional results having their own interest, such as a standardisation theorem and a slightly modified system of nets, DiLL∂ϱ.