Differential Object Marking in Kazakh: The Dynamic Syntax Approach

This paper presents a novel, Dynamic Syntax-based approach to the phenomenon of differential object marking in Kazakh, which can be extended at least to other Turkic languages displaying this phenomenon. It is demonstrated that the difference in the pragmatics associated with marked and unmarked direct objects, as well as the syntactic restrictions on the positioning of unmarked direct objects, can be elegantly and succinctly explicated through the application of the notions of fixed and unfixed nodes, without the need for proposing special syntactic positions or additional pragmatics for the accusative case.

Die Nominalisierung von Nebensätzen im Tschechischen

Summary The present article ties in with an earlier study by Chomsky (1970) on nominalizations in English, which was then refined primarily in the influential work of Jane Grimshaw (1990) and is dealt with in detail in Borer (2013) and in Kosta (2020). In contrast to the English gerundives, which do not lose verbal behavior due to the derivation in the syntax and maintain all grammatical categories and characteristics of verbs, which is why one can speak of a real conversion while preserving the verbal semantics, the situation is somewhat different in Czech. In the deverbal, deadjective and other derivations, the Czech apparently made the transition to the noun with its critical properties, which is shown by certain restrictions in the aspectuality marking of deverbal noun phrases on -ní-, -tí-, which, e. g., do not pass the progression durativity test (Vendler 1967). In passive constructions, as is well known, a valence point in the position of the external argument is reduced compared to the corresponding active sentences, while the external argument position in anti-causatives is also not available in the deep structure. In addition to the syntactic restrictions that are evident in nominalizations in the context of simple sentences of different sentence types (causative, anti-causative, passive) and demonstrate the nominal character of certain types of deverbal noun phrases in the first part of this article, the second part of the essay deals with more complex structures and extends its analytical and theoretical part to the phenomenon of nominalizing subordinate clauses. The aim of the central part of this contribution is therefore to test the nominal properties of embedded conjunctional sentences and of embedded headless relative sentences on the basis of empirical data and thus contribute to the knowledge of whether certain types of relative sentences can (or must) be nominalized.

Relative clauses in Agul from a corpus-based perspective

This paper gives an account of participial clauses in Agul (Lezgic, Nakh-Daghestanian), based on a sample of 858 headed noun-modifying clauses taken from two text corpora, one spoken and one written. Noun-modifying clauses in Agul do not show syntactic restrictions on what can be relativized, and hence they instantiate the type known as GNMCCs, or general noun-modifying clause constructions. As the text counts show, intransitive verbs are more frequent than transitives and experiencer verbs in participial clauses, and among intransitive verbs, locative statives with the roots ‘be’ and ‘stay, remain’ account for half of all the uses. The asymmetry between the different relativization targets is also significant. Among the core arguments, the intransitive subject (S) is the most frequent target, patient (P) occupies second place, and agent (A) is comparatively rare. The preference of S and, in general, of S and P over A also holds true for most other Nakh-Daghestanian languages for which comparable counts are available. At the same time, Agul stands apart from the other languages by its high ratio of non-core relativization which accounts for 42% of all participial clauses. Addressee, arguments and adjuncts encoded with a locative case, as well as more general place and time relativizations show especially high frequency, outnumbering such arguments as experiencers, recipients, and predicative and adnominal possessors. Possible reasons for the high ratio of non-argument relativization are discussed in the paper.

The Morphosyntax of Arabic Exceptives: A minimalist approach

Arabic exceptive constructions involve an intricate interaction among word order, negation, and case assignment resulting from syntactic restrictions imposed on the argumental, appositional, and adjunctive functions of exceptive phrases. The morphosyntactic complexities in Arabic exceptives cast doubt on the adequacy of previous analyses that exceptive particles are prepositions, focal adverbs, or coordinating conjunctions, and they also lead the paper to argue for more principled accounts in which exceptive particles are analyzed as functional heads that project into an ExP ‘exceptive phrase’ which exists in two distinct configurations. The first includes an exceptive marker carrying [Acc-Case] ‘accusative case’ and [DS] ‘domain subtraction’ features when the ExP is an adjunct introduced by late Merge. The second includes a negative determiner which selects and c-commands the exceptive particle and deactivates/ suspends its [Acc-Case], consequently, the case feature of the ExP-complement is valued by percolation from D which combines with the exceptive marker to form a discontinuous focus particle with a [DR] ‘domain restriction’ feature.

Congruence from the operator’s point of view

A basic sanity property of a process semantics is that it constitutes a congruence with respect to standard process operators. This issue has been traditionally addressed by developing, for a specific process semantics, a syntactic format for operational semantics specifications. We suggest a novel, orthogonal approach, which focuses on a specific process operator and determines a class of congruence relations for this operator. To this end, we impose syntactic restrictions on Hennessy–Milner logic, so that a process semantics whose modal characterization satisfies those criteria is guaranteed to be a congruence with respect to the operator in question. We investigate alternative composition, action prefix, projection, encapsulation, renaming, and parallel composition with communication, in the context of both concrete and weak process semantics.

Refining current insights into the wh-in-situ interrogative construction in French: the case of Contemporary Hexagonal French

This paper addresses the debate on the existence of specifically syntactic restrictions on one of a larger set of structures available in Modern French for information-requesting questions with a non-subject wh-phrase: the so-called wh-in-situ interrogative construction, in which the wh-phrase occurs in post-verbal position. From a comprehensive investigation of the applicability of such restrictions that is based on a large number of instances of the wh-in-situ interrogative construction from a specially designed large-scale corpus instantiating the present-day French of Metropolitan France, the paper essentially establishes that, in this variety, a fair number of these restrictions do not hold. Additionally, the paper explores the existence of morphological as well as syntactic restrictions not yet thoroughly explored in the literature and, fundamentally, uncovers that, in the variety looked into, various issues pertaining to the verb (tense, mood, passive voice, verb class, non-finite clausal complements) do not bear on the felicity of the wh-in-situ interrogative construction, while a restriction possibly holds that relates to the specificity of the subject.

Translating English Existential 'there' Sentences into Arabic: A Text-based Analysis

English existential 'there' lacks equivalent in many languages, yet it has attracted the attention of linguists working within contrastive linguistics and translation studies. The aim of the present paper is to investigate how translators deal with English 'there' sentences in two translated Arabic texts. The method adopted in the study is a descriptive-analytic one. In Arabic the words 'hunaaka' and 'tammata' are usually used to render English 'there' ; however, the data of the study show that in many cases translators avoid using these two words. The flexibility of word order in Arabic , in addition to the use of full lexical verbs , more frequently than English does in 'there' sentences , help to translate these sentences adequately into Arabic. It is also found that syntactic restrictions are not the only reason for the fact that many 'there' sentences are not translated using 'hunaaka' and ' tammata'; the discourse and stylistic levels, play a role in the translator's decision to use other means. In some cases, the use of 'hunaaka /tammata' is shown to be optional and in other cases to be obligatory, unless an alternative construction is produced. Major translational changes affecting the information structure of the texts, are not found in the target language.

Semantics for first-order superposition logic

We investigate how the sentence choice semantics (SCS) for propositional superposition logic (PLS) developed in Tzouvaras (2018, Logic Journal of the IGPL, 26, 149–190) could be extended so as to successfully apply to first-order superposition logic (FOLS). There are two options for such an extension. The apparently more natural one is the formula choice semantics (FCS) based on choice functions for pairs of arbitrary formulas of the basis language. It is proved however that the universal instantiation scheme of first-order logic, $(\forall v)\varphi (v)\rightarrow \varphi (t)$, is false, as a scheme of tautologies, with respect to FCS. This causes the total failure of FCS as a candidate semantics. Then we turn to the other option, which is a variant of SCS, since it uses again choice functions for pairs of sentences only. This semantics however presupposes that the applicability of the connective | is restricted to quantifier-free sentences, and thus the class of well-formed formulas and sentences of the language is restricted too. Granted these syntactic restrictions, the usual axiomatizations of FOLS turn out to be sound and conditionally complete with respect to this second semantics, just like the corresponding systems of PLS.

The inflectional system

This chapter provides a survey of the inflection of nouns, adjectives, and verbs in Dutch. Productive nominal inflection is restricted to making plural forms of nouns. In addition, there are remnants of case marking that function as markers of specific constructions. Adjectives are only inflected in pre-nominal position, in which gender also plays a role. Verbs are inflected according to two systems: weak verbs by means of suffixation, strong verbs by means of stem change (mainly vowel alternations or Ablaut). Some tense forms are periphrastic in nature. This chapter introduces the distinction between inherent and contextual inflection, and shows that inherent inflection may feed word formation. Thus use of inflectional forms is subject to syntactic restrictions, and its use is also pragmatically determined.

PPIs under negation: A case study of Italian già

This paper investigates the Italian element già ‘already’ under negation in various contexts, including questions. The occurrence of già under negation in questions is unexpected because già cannot be licensed in declarative sentences with sentential negation (It. *Non ho già fatto colazione. literally ‘I did not have breakfast already.’). The empirical contribution of this paper is to provide a corpus analysis and to describe the contexts in which già can appear under negation. The main research questions of this paper are as follows: (i) how do we account for the distribution and the licensing conditions of già under negation? and (ii) how is the meaning of già related to its distribution? This paper shows that some syntactic restrictions are responsible for the distribution of già under negation, and that in contexts where già appears under negation in questions or conditionals, it is not interpreted under the direct scope of negation.