On the Integration of Dative Adjuncts into Event Structures in Yapa Languages

Warlpiri and Warlmanpa (Ngumpin-Yapa languages of Australia) exhibit a complex predicate construction in which a class of preverbs introduces a single argument that is not shared by the argument structure of the inflecting verb, nor is there necessarily any shared event structure. This is problematic for many theories of linking structures of complex predicates, since no arguments or events are shared between the predicative elements of the complex predicate. The same grammatical relation is instantiated by a beneficiary adjunct. In light of new research in event and argument structure, I propose a lexical rule which introduces an applicative argument to account for the beneficiary construction; and that the preverbs take another predicate as one of their arguments to account for the complex predicates. The applicative rule and the preverbs both introduce an argument of the same grammatical relation, leading to interesting interactions, given that two grammatical relations of the same type are not expected to co-occur within a single clause.

Varia: Attribution, predication, apposition – Part second

The paper is part of a series of publications that set out to examine various aspects in the analysis of appositive constructions. The purpose of this particular study is to reveal the multidimensional, diverse, and complex interaction between three types of syntactic relations – attributive, predicative, and appositive. The study offers a critical review of various theories on the status of the grammatical relation between the components of non-detached (close) appositive constructions. The main argument of this paper is that determining this status, on the one hand, is a function of the morphological and semantic characteristics of the components of the construction, while, on the other hand, it determines their syntactic status.

Varia: Attribution, predication, apposition (Part one)

The paper is part of a series of publications that aim to examine various aspects in the analysis of appositive constructions. The purpose of this particular study is to reveal the multidimensional, diverse, and complex interaction between three types of syntactic relations – attributive, predicative, and appositive. The study offers a critical review of various theories on the status of the grammatical relation between the components of non-detached (close) appositive constructions. The main argument of this paper is that determining this status, on the one hand, is a function of the morphological and semantic characteristics of the components of the construction; and on the other hand, it determines their syntactic status.

Wandala

Wandala (Central Chadic) is spoken by about 45,000 people in Cameroon and northern Nigeria. The language has grammaticalized phonological means marking types of connections between the elements of the utterance, indicating an expected follow-up, a less expected follow-up, and the absence of a follow-up. The coding of some grammatical relations, such as subject and object, is distributed over a wide range of morphemes. Wandala has two tones. While in nouns both tones can be part of the underlying structure, the tones are not part of the underlying structure of verbs and carry only grammatical function. The language has a rich verbal morphology coding syntactic and semantic relations within the clause. Subject suffixes to the verb mark aspectual and modal functions different from those marked by subject pronouns preceding the verb. Inflectional markers on the verb indicate the grammatical relation of the noun phrase following the verb.

The geometry of predication: a configurational derivation of the defining property of clause structure

Predication is the fundamental grammatical relation defining clausal structures in all (and only) human languages. This notion is by definition compositional, since it consists of a link between a subject and a predicate. The central question addressed here is whether this traditional notion, which has never been dismissed ever since the canonical models of Ancient Greek linguistics, can be derived at a formal level from more abstract compositional algorithms. Capitalizing on predication in copular sentences, which allow factoring out non-essential aspects of this phenomenon, such as the morphological asymmetry between verbs and nouns, I propose a configurational approach to predication. This new approach is based on the notion of symmetry as derived by purely compositional mechanisms. Finally, I address some theoretical and empirical consequences of this generalization including those pertaining to neurolinguistics. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards mechanistic models of meaning composition’.

Vertical Grammar of Biblical Hebrew Parallelism: The AXX’B Pattern in Tetracolons

In Hebrew poetry, a vertical grammatical relation between two parallel lines can be noted in bicolons such as Ps 18:42. One can also recognize the vertical grammar between the first and the last lines of a tetracolon, in such passages as Amos 1:5, Job 12:24-25, 2 Sam 3:33b-34c, Ps 89:36-37, and 2 Sam 7:22. In this pattern, the AXX’B pattern, the middle two lines are a bicolon (XX’) inserted into another bicolon (AB). In this article I focus on the vertical grammatical relationship between line A and line B, which constitute either a simple sentence or a complex sentence in the Hebrew text.

Theories of the Grammatical Relation within Appositional Consruction (2. part)

This article critically reviews the ways in which the grammatical relation between the units of appositional constructions have been interpreted and conceptualized in Russian linguistics. The paper considers four distinct perspectives, each of which represents a principal claim: 1) Theories based on the traditional view of the grammatical relation; i.e., the appositive and the head are in a hypotactic relationship. 2) Theories proposing that the grammatical relation is coordination. 3) Theories stating that the grammatical relation is neither coordination nor subordination. 4) Theories advancing the view that the grammatical relation has a hybrid nature; i.e., it is a symbiosis of distinctive features both of coordination and subordination. The second part of the paper explores the third and the fourth group of theories.

UPDATING THE STUDENTS’ MASTERY ON DISCOURSE MARKERS TO IMPROVE THEIR READING SKILLS

The current study aimed at justifying that updating or upgrading the mastery on discourse markers (DMs) could improve the students’ reading skills. It is arguably true that DMs do facilitate readers to comprehend texts in terms of the logical and grammatical relation. Therefore, an action research involving 21 students randomly selected as the subjects of the study were conducted in Reading Classes. Pre-test, Post-test 1 and Post-test 2 were administered to generate the data consisting of the progress of their reading skills. Theoretical insights on DMs (function and uses) were also highlighted including the teaching procedures to support the findings of the classroom action research. It turns out that despite the fact that there are 4 types of DMs, only three of them were mostly used in the reading texts, namely contrastive, elaborative and inferential markers. Updating or upgrading DMs proves effective to improve the students’ reading skills as there were increases in scores to indicate improvements. Key words: discourse markers, action research, reading skills

External possession of body-part nouns in Dinka

In Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, body-part nouns may be externally possessed. External possession is possible and the default option if the body-part noun is semantically part of a transitive object, an unaccusative subject, or a copula subject. With transitive and ditransitive verbs, the external possessor is object, and with intransitive and copulative verbs, it is subject. Externally possessed body-part nouns have no grammatical relation to the verb, and they are restricted to occurring in dedicated syntactic slots of the clause, adjacent to a slot used by the main verb when the finite verb is an auxiliary. In transitive clauses, the body-part noun occurs immediately after that slot. In intransitive and copulative clauses, it occurs immediately before the same slot, and here a phonologically determined subset of the body-part nouns are morphologically marked by tone shift as being externally possessed. These facts suggest that the possessum forms some kind of unit with the verb that is reminiscent of noun incorporation. In Dinka, the referent of virtually any noun can be conceived of a having a body part, and therefore virtually anything can be an external possessor: pronouns, animate nouns, and inanimate nouns, including abstract nouns.