SE in Spanish

This article provides an overview of Spanish SE, covering the main empirical facts, analyses and theoretical issues that it raises, and exploring the prospects to unify all uses –which are over a dozen in the literature– under one same object that keeps its surface properties invariable. We will show that it is almost inescapable to propose that SE is associated to two types of objects, defective arguments and defective verbal heads; both objects share the property of not introducing referentially independent DPs, which can be argued to be the result of the grammaticalisation of a reflexive element in contemporary Spanish. The chapter proposes that a treatment of SE as a projection introduced high in the clausal structure and acting as an agreement locus can be a fruitful way to unify all uses of SE.

Adviserend beter* : De pragmatiek en syntaxis van een modaal-subjectief bijwoord

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of a construction that has not been studied extensively yet, namely the Dutch beter-construction, as in Beter ga je bij Starbucks koffie halen, ‘You better get yourself a coffee at Starbucks’. The paper gives a detailed description of the syntactic structure and the pragmatics of the construction. We argue that the sentence-initial adverb beter in the beter-construction differs, in both meaning and distributional characteristics, from the comparative adverb beter. By conducting three tests based on Broekhuis & Corver (2016), we show that it functions as a clause adverb in contrast to comparative beter, which functions as a VP-adverb. Moreover, we show that the adverb beter in the beter-construction shares important properties with modal and subjective adverbs. Adopting the generative-linguistic approach to clausal structure, we further propose that modal beter is a phrase that undergoes movement from a sentence-internal modifier position to the clause-initial position.

Japanese subject-oriented adverbs in a scope-based theory of adverbs

While English exhibits a clausal-manner alternation that is sensitive to where adverbs occur in clausal structure (e.g., Rudely, John left vs. John left rudely), it has not been clear to what extent Japanese behaves the same way. The present study argues, in the spirit of a scope-based theory of adverb licensing, that there is evidence that the Japanese adverbial system is scope-based similarly to its English counterpart. Focusing on mental attitude adverbs, the paper argues that Ernst’s (2002) generalization holds for Japanese: that subject-oriented adverbs lose their otherwise available clausal readings when pure manner adverbs c-command them in the same clause. The paper also claims that clausal mental attitude adverbs must be clause-mates of Tense, which is not reduced to the scope-based theory.

Non-canonical word order and temporal reference in Vietnamese

The paper revisits Duffield’s (2007) (Duffield, Nigel. 2007. Aspects of Vietnamese clausal structure: Separating tense from assertion. Linguistics 45(4). 765–814) analysis of the correlation between the position of a ‘when’-phrase and the temporal reference of a bare sentence in Vietnamese. Bare sentences in Vietnamese, based on (Smith, Carlota S. & Mary S. Erbaugh. 2005. Temporal interpretation in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 43(4). 713–756), are argued to obtain their temporal interpretation from their aspectual composition, and the default temporal reference: bounded events are located in the past, unbounded events at present. It is shown that the correlation so observed in when-questions is superficial, and is tied to the syntax and semantics of temporal modification and the requirement that temporal adverbials denoting future time is base generated in sentence-initial position, and past time adverbials in sentence-final position. A ‘when’-phrase, being temporally underspecified, obtains its temporal value from its base position. However, the correlation between word order and temporal reference in argument wh-questions and declaratives is factual, depending on whether the predicate-argument configuration allows for a telic interpretation or not. To be specific, it is dependent on whether the application of Generic Modification (Snyder, William. 2012. Parameter theory and motion predicates. In Violeta Demonte & Louise McNally (eds.), Telicity, change, and state. Acrosscategorial view of event structure, 279–299. Oxford: Oxford University Press) or accomplishment composition is realized. Canonical declaratives, and argument wh-questions, with telicity inducing material, license GM or accomplishment composition, yielding bounded events, hence past; by contrast, their non-canonical counterparts block GM or accomplishment composition, giving rise to unbounded event descriptions, hence non-past.

The emergence of grammatical relations

The domain examined in Chapter 13 can be broadly described as the domain of relationships between the predicate and noun phrases. The Chapter addresses a narrow but an important issue, viz. the emergence of a binary distinction between the grammatical relations subject and object. Unlike various theoretical approaches, generative and functional alike that take the dichotomy of subject and object to be basic components of clausal structure, the study demonstrates that in some languages this dichotomy is a product of functional changes that start from an initial state with undifferentiated relations, in which there is no distinction between the subject and object. In other languages the distinction between the subject and object is a product of the reduction of a rich system of coding semantic relations between the predicate and noun phrases.

Additional bi-clausal types of Japanese right-dislocations

This article reexamines the syntax of Japanese Right Dislocation Constructions (RDCs) relative to their prosodic structures and explores their clausal nature. In the literature on Japanese RDCs, two major issues have been addressed: a mono-versus a bi-clausal structure and movement versus base-generation in terms of postverbal elements along with the identification of preverbal null elements. However, the prosodic structures of the constructions remain unexplored. The present article shows that the same surface string of an RDC may possibly have different prosodic structures and bear corresponding interpretations. This remarkable fact poses a challenge to a uniform analysis of the constructions. The article argues that Japanese RDCs are divided into mono- and bi-clausal types. While defending a mono-clausal analysis with movement for some RDCs, the present article proposes additional bi-clausal analyses besides the most prevailing analysis of other RDCs. The evidence suggests that Japanese RDCs make use of different linguistic strategies.

Structure and inference in Japanese right dislocation

This paper explores the syntactic nature of Japanese Right Dislocation Constructions (RDCs) by illuminating the ellipsis sites in the postverbal domains of the constructions via pragmatic inference. Although the most prevailing bi-clausal analysis of RDCs adopts the perspective that the repetition of the antecedent clause occurs in collocation, this paper shows that the same surface strings are potentially ambiguous since right dislocation is a heterogeneous phenomenon. It proposes additional types of a bi-clausal structure and discusses evidence that suggests that even when the surface strings are the same the recovery of the ellipsis site is possibly derived in multiple ways through the use of distinct linguistic strategies.

The origin and architecture of existential indeterminates in Okinawan

In a number of languages, an indeterminate is combined with various particles to yield different indefinite pronouns. This has been called an indeterminate system (Kuroda 1965, Cheng 1991, Haspelmath 1997, Jayaseelan 2001). As Haspelmath (1997) and Jayaseelan (2001) observe, existential indeterminates are often built with disjunction markers. On the other hand, a disjunction particle and a question particle are often morphologically identical cross-linguistically (see Hagstrom 1998, Jayaseelan 2001). Thus, a question that I ask here is whether the alleged homophony between a disjunction marker and a marker that forms an existential quantifier is principled (Jayaseelan 2001, Szabolcsi et al. 2014) or coincidental (Haspelmath 1997, Cable 2010). In this paper, I argue that the observation about homophony is misguided and hence support Haspelmath’s hypothesis, based on the data obtained from my fieldwork on Okinawan, an endangered Ryukyuan language. I propose an analysis where existential indeterminates in Okinawan have a clausal structure of an embedded question and are derived by deletion.

Analytical Causative Constructions in Batak Toba Language

This study aims to examine analytical causative constructions in Batak Toba Language (BTL). Every language has a way to construct the causative construction. This study is qualitative research and the researcher functioned as the key instrument and the data obtained and analyzed were qualitative. Data analyzed were obtained from the speakers of BTL as well as from written text, through observation, interview, and introspection. The interview included asking questions and elicitating the data by the researcher. The results showed that the analytical causative constructions in BTL are marked by the verbs mambahen, manuru, mandasdasi, manarea, mangarodi, mamompom, mangido, and manjalo. Empirical evidence revealed that the analytical causative construction in BTL tends to have S-V-V-O and S-V-O-V word order. Data analysis shows that the use of complex sentences with two clauses can be coupled in one sentence. The semantic meaning of causative verb in each sentence was different when the verb is attached to intentional feature sangajo. The study concludes that the analytical causative construction in BTL is formed by bi-clausal structure.