W. Uegaki, Anne Mucha, Ella Hannon, James Engels, Fred Whibley
We present a cross-linguistic dataset of force-flavor combinations in modal elements, which currently contains information on modal semantics in 24 languages and is accessible at https://github.com/EdinburghMeaningSciences/modals_database. We discuss theoretical motivations for constructing the dataset, the data collection methodology, as well as the design and the format of the dataset. We also present four case studies using the data: (i) assessment of cross-linguistic generalizations on force/flavor variability; (ii) exploration of generalizations in the lexicalization of negative modality; (iii) investigation of the typology of the morphological encoding of modal strength; and (iv) examination of how future contributes to modality. These case studies illustrate that the dataset supports in-depth assessment of potential cross-linguistic generalizations as well as theory-informed investigations of cross-linguistic variations in modal semantics.
{"title":"Cross-linguistic dataset of force-flavor combinations in modal elements","authors":"W. Uegaki, Anne Mucha, Ella Hannon, James Engels, Fred Whibley","doi":"10.1075/lv.23057.ueg","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23057.ueg","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We present a cross-linguistic dataset of force-flavor combinations in modal elements, which currently contains\u0000 information on modal semantics in 24 languages and is accessible at https://github.com/EdinburghMeaningSciences/modals_database. We discuss theoretical motivations for constructing the\u0000 dataset, the data collection methodology, as well as the design and the format of the dataset. We also present four case studies\u0000 using the data: (i) assessment of cross-linguistic generalizations on force/flavor variability; (ii) exploration of\u0000 generalizations in the lexicalization of negative modality; (iii) investigation of the typology of the morphological encoding of\u0000 modal strength; and (iv) examination of how future contributes to modality. These case studies illustrate that the dataset\u0000 supports in-depth assessment of potential cross-linguistic generalizations as well as theory-informed investigations of\u0000 cross-linguistic variations in modal semantics.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141928680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last sixty years, starting with the method of introspection to judge the acceptability of linguistic data, research methods in linguistics have become more varied and more sophisticated. This also holds for studies on partitivity. In this paper various methods are presented that have recently been used in the literature to study variation in the linguistic expression and the use of partitive constructions and partitive elements in Romance, Germanic and some other languages, language varieties and dialects. It is argued that different types of research call for adapted methods. It is shown that the use of different methods may lead to different results, although this is not always the case. The overview presented in this paper reveals that in recent years much progress has been made in the study of variation in partitives.
{"title":"Methods for studying variation in partitives","authors":"Petra Sleeman","doi":"10.1075/lv.24018.sle","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.24018.sle","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the last sixty years, starting with the method of introspection to judge the acceptability of linguistic data, research methods in linguistics have become more varied and more sophisticated. This also holds for studies on partitivity. In this paper various methods are presented that have recently been used in the literature to study variation in the linguistic expression and the use of partitive constructions and partitive elements in Romance, Germanic and some other languages, language varieties and dialects. It is argued that different types of research call for adapted methods. It is shown that the use of different methods may lead to different results, although this is not always the case. The overview presented in this paper reveals that in recent years much progress has been made in the study of variation in partitives.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140964154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ewe (Kwa, Niger-Congo) has a construction known in the literature as the nyá-construction (Ameka 1991, 2005a; Collins 1993; Duthie 1996; Adjei 2014). The logical internal argument of the construction occurs in subject position and the logical external argument is either absent on the surface or represented in the construction as a for-PP. In this paper, I consider the syntax of the Ewe nyá-construction, exploring data from the Tongugbe dialect. I show that the nyá-construction shares properties with English middles. I demonstrate that the agent or experiencer for-PP that may occur in the nyá -construction is its external argument, projected in Spec vP. Further, I argue that even if the for-PP is not overtly realized, it is syntactically projected in Spec vP, contrary to theories like Bruening 2013. The analysis I put forward provides support for the Theta-Criterion, which forces all arguments to be syntactically projected.
{"title":"Deriving Ewe (Tongugbe) nyá-constructions","authors":"Selikem Gotah","doi":"10.1075/lv.23061.got","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23061.got","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Ewe (Kwa, Niger-Congo) has a construction known in the literature as the nyá-construction (Ameka 1991, 2005a; Collins 1993; Duthie 1996; Adjei 2014). The logical internal argument of the construction occurs in subject position and the logical external argument is either absent on the surface or represented in the construction as a for-PP. In this paper, I consider the syntax of the Ewe nyá-construction, exploring data from the Tongugbe dialect. I show that the nyá-construction shares properties with English middles. I demonstrate that the agent or experiencer for-PP that may occur in the nyá -construction is its external argument, projected in Spec vP. Further, I argue that even if the for-PP is not overtly realized, it is syntactically projected in Spec vP, contrary to theories like Bruening 2013. The analysis I put forward provides support for the Theta-Criterion, which forces all arguments to be syntactically projected.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140962694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper investigates the emergence of differential object marking (DOM) in the Asia Minor Greek dialect of Pharasa (PhG) under contact with Turkish. We show that DOM in Turkish and PhG are both instances of structural accusative case and DOM can be formally modeled as context sensitive dependent case. We propose that two factors caused the emergence of DOM in PhG, namely (i) case neutralization in indefinite contexts, and (ii) an increase in the number of V-NP idioms borrowed from Turkish where the NP is in bare form. These perturbations led to a significant change in the overall data created by the community resulting in mixed input for the younger generations. Once the amount of bare NPs passed a certain threshold, a divergent grammar became inevitable. We test our proposal using an abductive generalization learning algorithm based on the Tolerance Principle and running a number of simulations. Our simulation results confirm our hypothesis.
本文研究了小亚细亚希腊语方言 Pharasa（PhG）在与土耳其语接触时出现的差别宾语标记（DOM）。我们的研究表明，土耳其语和 PhG 中的 DOM 都是结构性语气助词的实例，而且 DOM 可以被正式建模为上下文敏感的从属情况。我们认为有两个因素导致了 DOM 在 PhG 中的出现：(i) 不定式语境中的大小写中和，(ii) 从土耳其语借用的 V-NP 习惯用语（其中 NP 为裸格）数量的增加。这些扰动导致社区创造的整体数据发生了重大变化，给年轻一代带来了混合输入。一旦裸 NP 的数量超过了一定的阈值，分歧语法就变得不可避免。我们使用基于容忍原则的归纳概括学习算法，并进行了大量模拟，以检验我们的建议。模拟结果证实了我们的假设。
{"title":"Emergence of differential object marking in Asia Minor Greek","authors":"Ümit Atlamaz, Metin Bagriacik","doi":"10.1075/lv.23019.atl","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23019.atl","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper investigates the emergence of differential object marking (DOM) in the Asia Minor Greek dialect of\u0000 Pharasa (PhG) under contact with Turkish. We show that DOM in Turkish and PhG are both instances of structural accusative case and\u0000 DOM can be formally modeled as context sensitive dependent case. We propose that two factors caused the emergence of DOM in PhG,\u0000 namely (i) case neutralization in indefinite contexts, and (ii) an increase in the number of V-NP idioms borrowed from Turkish\u0000 where the NP is in bare form. These perturbations led to a significant change in the overall data created by the community\u0000 resulting in mixed input for the younger generations. Once the amount of bare NPs passed a certain threshold, a divergent grammar\u0000 became inevitable. We test our proposal using an abductive generalization learning algorithm based on the Tolerance Principle and\u0000 running a number of simulations. Our simulation results confirm our hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140962708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper uses survey results to analyze patterns of judgments across different versions of the non-standard verbal use of the word rather, which can take participial morphology, as in rathered. Across numerous possible instantiations of the construction, there appear to be in fact a quite limited number of grammars, which are generated by an implicational hierarchy of functional heads, along with the availability of a silent verb have. The overall picture supports several broader conclusions. First, bare-infinitive–selecting verbs are nearly “closed class” because they have special syntactic properties that go beyond semantic or even syntactic selection: they must value the temporal verbal features of the embedded verb, or else provide a structural context for such valuation. Second, silent verbs can be licensed by head-moving to a modal head in the extended projection. This movement is freely available, but silence demands recoverability, which limits its application only to certain verbs, and certain uses/meanings of those verbs. Third, in addition to previously known configurations for building parasitic participle constructions, movement of a lower verb to a higher verb can extend the phase of the lower verb and lead to its silence. Fourth, the distribution of rather suggests that volitional meaning is not a primitive, but is constructed from smaller primitives. Finally, microvariation reveals a tight connection among logically distinct functional heads, suggesting that they are not acquired independently of each other, but interact in significant ways.
{"title":"Microvariation in verbal rather","authors":"Jim Wood","doi":"10.1075/lv.22026.woo","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.22026.woo","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper uses survey results to analyze patterns of judgments across different versions of the non-standard\u0000 verbal use of the word rather, which can take participial morphology, as in rathered. Across\u0000 numerous possible instantiations of the construction, there appear to be in fact a quite limited number of grammars, which are\u0000 generated by an implicational hierarchy of functional heads, along with the availability of a silent verb have. The\u0000 overall picture supports several broader conclusions. First, bare-infinitive–selecting verbs are nearly “closed class” because\u0000 they have special syntactic properties that go beyond semantic or even syntactic selection: they must value the temporal verbal\u0000 features of the embedded verb, or else provide a structural context for such valuation. Second, silent verbs can be licensed by\u0000 head-moving to a modal head in the extended projection. This movement is freely available, but silence demands recoverability,\u0000 which limits its application only to certain verbs, and certain uses/meanings of those verbs. Third, in addition to previously\u0000 known configurations for building parasitic participle constructions, movement of a lower verb to a higher verb can extend the\u0000 phase of the lower verb and lead to its silence. Fourth, the distribution of rather suggests that volitional\u0000 meaning is not a primitive, but is constructed from smaller primitives. Finally, microvariation reveals a tight connection among\u0000 logically distinct functional heads, suggesting that they are not acquired independently of each other, but interact in\u0000 significant ways.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140383510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This work examines the behavior of vibrant (presenting linguo-alveolar contact) tap/trill variation across generations of bilingual Afro-Caribbean speakers of Spanish and an English-Lexifier Creole, known here as Raizal Creole, in the Archipelago of San Andrés, Colombia. In these islands, a bilingual Spanish variety, known here as Raizal Spanish, coexists with a monolingual Spanish variety spoken by Colombian immigrants (Costeño Spanish). Data consists of over 3,300 tokens (867 trills and 2531 taps) compared across three generations of Raizal Spanish speakers with a sample of 528 segments (133 trills and 395 taps) produced in Costeño Spanish. Results show that although the frequency of use of vibrant taps and trills in younger generations increasingly resembles those presented in the monolingual variety, the behavior of rhotic variation is different in both Spanish varieties. In addition, non-vibrant or approximant variants are increasingly prevalent in the first and second generation informants with rates doubling those of the younger generation and monolingual Costeño Spanish. Results of the cross-variety comparison show that Raizal Spanish displays a generational continuity where a restructuring of the constraint ordering starts in the second generation and is completed with younger Raizales. On the contrary, Costeño Spanish behaves differently in terms of the systematic linguistic conditionings. The evidence suggests that rhotic variation has changed internally within both varieties.
{"title":"Tap/trill variation and change across generations of Spanish-Creole bilinguals in San Andrés, Colombia","authors":"Falcon Restrepo-Ramos","doi":"10.1075/lv.22021.res","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.22021.res","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This work examines the behavior of vibrant (presenting linguo-alveolar contact) tap/trill variation across\u0000 generations of bilingual Afro-Caribbean speakers of Spanish and an English-Lexifier Creole, known here as Raizal Creole, in the\u0000 Archipelago of San Andrés, Colombia. In these islands, a bilingual Spanish variety, known here as Raizal Spanish, coexists with a\u0000 monolingual Spanish variety spoken by Colombian immigrants (Costeño Spanish). Data consists of over 3,300 tokens (867 trills and\u0000 2531 taps) compared across three generations of Raizal Spanish speakers with a sample of 528 segments (133 trills and 395 taps)\u0000 produced in Costeño Spanish. Results show that although the frequency of use of vibrant taps and trills in younger generations\u0000 increasingly resembles those presented in the monolingual variety, the behavior of rhotic variation is different in both Spanish\u0000 varieties. In addition, non-vibrant or approximant variants are increasingly prevalent in the first and second generation\u0000 informants with rates doubling those of the younger generation and monolingual Costeño Spanish. Results of the cross-variety\u0000 comparison show that Raizal Spanish displays a generational continuity where a restructuring of the constraint ordering starts in\u0000 the second generation and is completed with younger Raizales. On the contrary, Costeño Spanish behaves differently in terms of the\u0000 systematic linguistic conditionings. The evidence suggests that rhotic variation has changed internally within both varieties.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140384396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper focuses on the variable use of partitive er in two types of constructions. First, er combined with cardinal numbers like drie ‘three’ and quantifiers like genoeg ‘enough’. Second, er combined with an elliptical noun referring to age and weight. Er should be present in the first case (Ik heb *(er) drie ‘I have three’) but absent in the second case (Hij is (*er) tachtig ‘He is eighty’), according to normative Dutch grammars. The spontaneous spoken speech of 67 speakers born and raised in Heerlen, in the southeast of the Netherlands was analyzed, investigating the use of er also according to social distribution: language background, education/occupation and age. The results show that er is used variably in the two types of constructions. It was found that younger speakers differ in some contexts from older speakers, suggesting that language change is going on, possibly under the influence of standard Dutch.
本文重点研究了偏正词 er 在两类结构中的不同用法。首先，er 与心数（如 drie "三"）和量词（如 genoeg "足够"）结合使用。第二，er 与指年龄和体重的省略名词结合。根据荷兰语规范语法，er 在第一种情况（Ik heb *(er) drie '我有三个'）中应该存在，但在第二种情况（Hij is (*er) tachtig '他八十岁了'）中则不存在。我们分析了在荷兰东南部海尔伦（Heerlen）出生和长大的 67 位说话者的自发口语，并根据社会分布（语言背景、教育/职业和年龄）调查了 er 的使用情况。结果表明，er 在两类结构中的使用情况各不相同。研究发现，在某些语境中，讲年轻语言的人与讲年长语言的人有所不同，这表明语言正在发生变化，可能是受到了标准荷兰语的影响。
{"title":"Variation in the use of the partitive pronoun ER in regional (Heerlen) standard Dutch","authors":"Leonie Cornips, P. Sleeman","doi":"10.1075/lv.23026.cor","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23026.cor","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper focuses on the variable use of partitive er in two types of constructions. First,\u0000 er combined with cardinal numbers like drie ‘three’ and quantifiers like\u0000 genoeg ‘enough’. Second, er combined with an elliptical noun referring to\u0000 age and weight. Er should be present in the first case (Ik heb *(er) drie\u0000 ‘I have three’) but absent in the second case (Hij is (*er) tachtig ‘He is eighty’), according to normative Dutch\u0000 grammars.\u0000 The spontaneous spoken speech of 67 speakers born and raised in Heerlen, in the southeast of the Netherlands was\u0000 analyzed, investigating the use of er also according to social distribution: language background,\u0000 education/occupation and age.\u0000 The results show that er is used variably in the two types of constructions. It was found that\u0000 younger speakers differ in some contexts from older speakers, suggesting that language change is going on, possibly under the\u0000 influence of standard Dutch.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140219303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study investigates various un(der)studied word-internal language mixing patterns among Turkish, Anatolian Arabic and Northern Kurdish, in the context of both verbal and nominal domains. The examination of these patterns reveals various theoretical implications. First, head-directionality may change as a result of language contact. Second, in some instances, certain functional categories are borrowed as semantically vacuous heads, and are identical to their bare counterparts (cf. Marantz 2013; Anagnostopoulou and Samioti 2014). Therefore, such semantically empty heads are ignored for meaning. Moreover, informed by the rarely-discussed trilingual language-mixing contexts, the study demonstrates that various formal approaches to code-switching which rely on either a distinction between functional vs lexical categories or phasehood as the defining constraint on code-switching are not tenable (e.g., Poplack 1981; Belazi et al. 1994; López et al. 2017). This study demonstrates language mixing is more permissive for the languages in question than would be predicted by these approaches, and proposes the No-Reversal Constraint, whose governing restriction is that code-switching does not allow a switch back to a language that has already been externalized earlier in the derivation.
{"title":"No-Reversal Constraint and beyond","authors":"Faruk Akkuş","doi":"10.1075/lv.22041.akk","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.22041.akk","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study investigates various un(der)studied word-internal language mixing patterns among Turkish, Anatolian\u0000 Arabic and Northern Kurdish, in the context of both verbal and nominal domains. The examination of these patterns reveals various\u0000 theoretical implications. First, head-directionality may change as a result of language contact. Second, in some instances,\u0000 certain functional categories are borrowed as semantically vacuous heads, and are identical to their bare counterparts (cf. Marantz 2013; Anagnostopoulou and Samioti\u0000 2014). Therefore, such semantically empty heads are ignored for meaning. Moreover, informed by the rarely-discussed\u0000 trilingual language-mixing contexts, the study demonstrates that various formal approaches to code-switching which rely on either\u0000 a distinction between functional vs lexical categories or phasehood as the defining constraint on code-switching are not tenable\u0000 (e.g., Poplack 1981; Belazi et al. 1994;\u0000 López et al. 2017). This study demonstrates language mixing is more permissive for\u0000 the languages in question than would be predicted by these approaches, and proposes the No-Reversal Constraint,\u0000 whose governing restriction is that code-switching does not allow a switch back to a language that has already been externalized\u0000 earlier in the derivation.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140249631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper aims to make a contribution to the study of the nature of syntactic categories by analysing a single element in a single language, namely the marker -lao in Yixing Chinese. Although this marker has previously been analysed as an adjectivaliser (Hu and Perry 2018), we show that it has a much broader range of uses. We suggest that the bulk of cases can be captured in a unified way by supposing that the marker in question displays a type of possessive semantics (which we label possession-as-attribute), which is defined by delineating a kind (in the sense of e.g. Carlson 1977; Chierchia 1998), with similar semantics being expressed by adjectival elements in languages such as English. It is observed, however, that this meaning can emerge in the absence of the marker -lao, and that -lao can, in a restricted set of cases, surface in the absence of this meaning, and we suggest that these facts are attributable to the diachronic development of the marker and can be captured synchronically by making use of late-insertion mechanisms for phonological and semantic features. We propose that the case of -lao provides a suggestive argument for a substance-free approach to syntactic features, whereby syntactic features are not inherently specified for interface interpretations. Other cross-linguistic implications of our analysis are noted, in particular for the representation of adjectives.
{"title":"Multifunctionality and contextual realization","authors":"Xuhui Hu, J. J. Perry","doi":"10.1075/lv.22013.per","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.22013.per","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper aims to make a contribution to the study of the nature of syntactic categories by analysing a single\u0000 element in a single language, namely the marker -lao in Yixing Chinese. Although this marker has previously been\u0000 analysed as an adjectivaliser (Hu and Perry 2018), we show that it has a much broader\u0000 range of uses. We suggest that the bulk of cases can be captured in a unified way by supposing that the marker in question\u0000 displays a type of possessive semantics (which we label possession-as-attribute), which is defined by delineating\u0000 a kind (in the sense of e.g. Carlson 1977; Chierchia 1998), with similar semantics being expressed by adjectival elements in languages such as\u0000 English. It is observed, however, that this meaning can emerge in the absence of the marker -lao, and that\u0000 -lao can, in a restricted set of cases, surface in the absence of this meaning, and we suggest that these\u0000 facts are attributable to the diachronic development of the marker and can be captured synchronically by making use of\u0000 late-insertion mechanisms for phonological and semantic features. We propose that the case of -lao provides a\u0000 suggestive argument for a substance-free approach to syntactic features, whereby syntactic features are not\u0000 inherently specified for interface interpretations. Other cross-linguistic implications of our analysis are noted, in particular\u0000 for the representation of adjectives.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140079835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article compares the distributional differences in the use of the partitive object cases in Estonian and Finnish via multifactorial modeling in contrastive research using the European Parliament parallel text corpus. Based on previous contrastive research on Finnic, we expected the principles of object case marking to be similar for Estonian and Finnish (confirmed), and the partitive objects to be more numerous in Estonian than in Finnish (not confirmed, as countable objects with scalar verbs proved less likely to be partitive in Estonian). We hypothesized that multifactorial modeling in contrastive research design could help identify the causes for variation and unfold subtle differences between related language systems. Since preferences related to grammatical voice and constituent order revealed subtle differences between the systems, this hypothesis was confirmed.
{"title":"Same yet different","authors":"I. Ivaska, Anne Tamm","doi":"10.1075/lv.23042.iva","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23042.iva","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article compares the distributional differences in the use of the partitive object cases in Estonian and\u0000 Finnish via multifactorial modeling in contrastive research using the European Parliament parallel text corpus. Based on previous\u0000 contrastive research on Finnic, we expected the principles of object case marking to be similar for Estonian and Finnish\u0000 (confirmed), and the partitive objects to be more numerous in Estonian than in Finnish (not confirmed, as countable objects with\u0000 scalar verbs proved less likely to be partitive in Estonian). We hypothesized that multifactorial modeling in contrastive research\u0000 design could help identify the causes for variation and unfold subtle differences between related language systems. Since\u0000 preferences related to grammatical voice and constituent order revealed subtle differences between the systems, this hypothesis\u0000 was confirmed.","PeriodicalId":53947,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Variation","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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