Third Factors in Language Variation and Change

In this pioneering study, a world-renowned generative syntactician explores the impact of phenomena known as 'third factors' on syntactic change. Generative syntax has in recent times incorporated third factors – factors not specific to the language faculty – into its framework, including minimal search, labelling, determinacy and economy. Van Gelderen's study applies these principles to language change, arguing that change is a cyclical process, and that third factor principles must combine with linguistic information to fully account for the cyclical development of 'optimal' language structures. Third Factor Principles also account for language variation around that-trace phenomena, CP-deletion, and the presence of expletives and Verb-second. By linking insights from recent theoretical advances in generative syntax to phenomena from language variation and change, this book provides a unique perspective, making it essential reading for academic researchers and students in syntactic theory and historical linguistics.

Expressive Meaning Across Linguistic Levels and Frameworks

The study of the language-emotion interface has so far mainly concentrated on the conceptual dimension of emotions as expressed via language. This volume is the first to exclusively focus on the exploration of the formal linguistic expressions of emotions at different linguistic complexity levels—and it does so by integrating work from different linguistic frameworks: generative syntax, functional and usage-based linguistics, formal semantics/pragmatics, and experimental phonology. This collection is both a timely and an original contribution to the growing field of research on the interaction between linguistic expressions and the so-called ‘expressive dimension’ of language. The contributions to this volume are thus of interest to researchers and graduate students who would like to learn more about state-of-the-art approaches to the language-emotion interface.

Mid-level generalizations of generative linguistics: Experimental robustness, cognitive underpinnings and the interdisciplinarity paradox

This work examines the nature of the so-called “mid-level generalizations of generative linguistics” (MLGs). In 2015, Generative Syntax in the 21st Century: The Road Ahead was organized. One of the consensus points that emerged related to the need for establishing a canon, the absence of which was argued to be a major challenge for the field, raising issues of interdisciplinarity and interaction. Addressing this challenge, one of the outcomes of this conference was a list of MLGs. These refer to results that are well established and uncontroversially accepted. The aim of the present work is to embed some MLGs into a broader perspective. I take the Cinque hierarchies for adverbs and adjectives and the Final-over-Final Constraint as case studies in order to determine their experimental robustness. It is showed that at least some MLGs face problems of inadequacy when tapped into through rigorous testing, because they rule out data that are actually attested. I then discuss the nature of some MLGs and show that in their watered-down versions, they do hold and can be derived from general cognitive/computational biases. This voids the need to cast them as language-specific principles, in line with the Chomskyan urge to approach Universal Grammar from below.

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.

Tunnekausatiivilauseen argumenttirakenne I

Tunnekausatiivilauseet luokitellaan usein omaksi lausetyypikseen, johon kuuluu tunnetta tai tuntemusta ilmaiseva verbi (tunnekausatiivi), partitiivisijainen kokija ja nominatiivimuotoinen aiheuttaja. Tunnekausatiivilauseen aiheuttaja- ja kokija-argumenttien asemaa syntaktisessa rakenteessa on pidetty avoimena kysymyksenä ja rakenteen on arvioitu jopa olevan muutoksessa. Tässä artikkelissa käydään generatiivisen kieliopin kehyksessä läpi argumentti-rakenteeseen liittyviä kieliopillisia testejä, jotka koskevat esimerkiksi kongruenssia, anaforien sidontaa ja sanajärjestystä. Testien perusteella voidaan havaita, että kun tunnekausatiivilauseen aiheuttaja on NP, se sijaitsee tyypillisesti argumenttirakenteessa ylempänä kuin partitiivimuotoinen kokija. Tätä tulosta verrataan Suomi24-korpusaineistosta tehtyihin havaintoihin, joiden perusteella kokija esiintyy useammin verbin edellä kuin aiheuttaja. Tunnekausatiivilauseen sanajärjestyksen vaihtelun katsotaan olevan sidoksissa puhetilanteeseen ja argumenttien ominaisuuksiin. Tämä artikkeli on osa kahden artikkelin sarjaa. Sarjan toisessa osassa tarkastellaan lausemaisten aiheuttajien asemaa tunnekausatiivilauseen argumenttirakenteessa. The argument structure of the Finnish experiencer construction I: An NP causer This article investigates the Finnish experiencer construction, which involves a psychological predicate and two optional arguments: the nominative causer and the partitive experiencer. The argument structure of the Finnish experiencer construction has ­remained an open question in syntactic theories. In this paper, several grammatical tests concerning congruence, binding and word order are applied in the framework of generative syntax. They suggest that when the nominative causer is an NP, it typically occupies a higher position in the argument structure than the partitive experiencer. This result is evaluated against data from the Suomi24 corpus, which reveals that the partitive experiencer occurs preverbally more frequently than the nominative causer. The article asserts that the word order of the Finnish experiencer construction reflects contextual factors and discourse features of the arguments. This article is the first in a series of two. The second article investigates experiencer constructions with an embedded clause as a causer argument.

Introduction: New perspectives on diachronic syntax in North Germanic

This special issue of Nordic Journal of Linguistics is dedicated to diachronic generative syntax in the North Germanic languages. With the introduction of generative grammar in the late 1950s the historical perspective became less prominent within linguistics. Instead, contemporary language, normally represented by the researcher’s own intuitions, became the unmarked empirical basis within the generative field, although there were some early pioneering studies in generative historical syntax (e.g. Traugott 1972). It was not until the introduction of the Principles and Parameters theory in the 1990s that diachronic syntax emerged as an important domain of inquiry for generative linguists. Since then, the study of syntactic change has added a temporal dimension to the overall enterprise to better understand the nature of variation in human language.

KALIMAT TANYA DALAM BAHASA MANDAILING: TEORI X-BAR

Interrogative Sentence in Mandailing Language: X-bar Theory. This study aims to analyze grammatical and lexical structure in interrogative sentence in Mandailing language. The study of this interrogative sentence structure applies X-bar theory as one of the generative syntax subtheories. This type of research includes qualitative research using distributional method. The data were collected through interview and observation. The result of the study showed that the wh-question in Mandailing language had grammatical function as spesifier and komplement, while the total question sentence had a function as a komplement. Interrogative sentence in Mandailing language formed by spesifiers, komplements, and adverb.

KALIMAT TANYA DALAM BAHASA MELAYU DIALEK TAMIANG

Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif yang membahas struktur kalimat tanya dalam bahasa Melayu dialek Tamiang. Penelitian struktur kalimat tanya ini menggunakan teori x-bar sebagai kajian sintaksis generatif. Data penelitian ini berupa kalimat tanya mae ‘apa’, hapo ‘siapa’, kalo ‘kapan’, kek mano ‘dimana’, keno mae ‘kenapa’, dan gano ‘bagaimana’. Data ini diperoleh dari hasil wawancara penutur asli bahasa Melayu dialek Tamiang dan data tersebut dianalisis dengan menggunakan metode agih. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa jenis kalimat tanya total dalam bahasa Melayu dialek Tamiang memerlukan jawaban “ya” atau “tidak”, sedangkan jenis kalimat tanya parsial dalam bahasa Melayu dialek Tamiang memerlukan jawaban penjelasan atau keterangan. Kata kunci: struktur kalimat, teori x-bar, bahasa Melayu dialek Tamiang INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES IN THE TAMIANG DIALECT OF MALAYAbstract This is a qualitative study discussing the structures of interrogative sentences in the Tamiang dialect of Malay. The study on the structures of interrogative sentences uses the x-bar theory as a study of generative syntax. The data were in the form of sentences asking mae ‘what’, hapo ‘who’, kalo ‘when’, kek mano ‘where’, keno mae ‘why’, and gano ‘how’. The data were collected through interviews with native speakers of the Tamiang dialect of Malaythe data were analyzed using the distributionalmethod. The results indicate that yes-no questions require a “yes” or “no” answer, while wh-questions require explanation or information. Keywords: sentence structures, x-bar theory, dialect Tamiang of Malay