Deletion phenomena in comparative constructions

Deletion phenomena in comparative constructions PDF Author: Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961100837
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book provides a new analysis for the syntax of comparatives, focusing on various deletion phenomena affecting the subclause. In particular, the proposed account shows that Comparative Deletion is merely a surface phenomenon that can be drawn back to the overtness of the comparative operator and the availability of lower copies of a movement chain, and it is thus subject to both language-internal and cross-linguistic variation. The main focus of the book is on English, yet other languages are also discussed for comparative purposes, with the aim of showing what the idiosyncratic properties of English comparatives are.

Deletion phenomena in comparative constructions

Deletion phenomena in comparative constructions PDF Author: Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961100837
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a new analysis for the syntax of comparatives, focusing on various deletion phenomena affecting the subclause. In particular, the proposed account shows that Comparative Deletion is merely a surface phenomenon that can be drawn back to the overtness of the comparative operator and the availability of lower copies of a movement chain, and it is thus subject to both language-internal and cross-linguistic variation. The main focus of the book is on English, yet other languages are also discussed for comparative purposes, with the aim of showing what the idiosyncratic properties of English comparatives are.

Deletion Phenomena in Comparative Constructions

Deletion Phenomena in Comparative Constructions PDF Author: Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Publisher: Saint Philip Street Press
ISBN: 9781013291319
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book provides a new analysis for the syntax of comparatives, focusing on various deletion phenomena affecting the subclause. In particular, the proposed account shows that Comparative Deletion is merely a surface phenomenon that can be drawn back to the overtness of the comparative operator and the availability of lower copies of a movement chain, and it is thus subject to both language-internal and cross-linguistic variation. The main focus of the book is on English, yet other languages are also discussed for comparative purposes, with the aim of showing what the idiosyncratic properties of English comparatives are. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The Syntax of Comparative Constructions

The Syntax of Comparative Constructions PDF Author: Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Potsdam
ISBN: 386956301X
Category : Comparison (Grammar)
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Adopting a minimalist framework, the dissertation provides an analysis for the syntactic structure of comparatives, with special attention paid to the derivation of the subclause. The proposed account explains how the comparative subclause is connected to the matrix clause, how the subclause is formed in the syntax and what additional processes contribute to its final structure. In addition, it casts light upon these problems in cross-linguistic terms and provides a model that allows for synchronic and diachronic differences. This also enables one to give a more adequate explanation for the phenomena found in English comparatives since the properties of English structures can then be linked to general settings of the language and hence need no longer be considered as idiosyncratic features of the grammar of English. First, the dissertation provides a unified analysis of degree expressions, relating the structure of comparatives to that of other degrees. It is shown that gradable adjectives are located within a degree phrase (DegP), which in turn projects a quantifier phrase (QP) and that these two functional layers are always present, irrespectively of whether there is a phonologically visible element in these layers. Second, the dissertation presents a novel analysis of Comparative Deletion by reducing it to an overtness constraint holding on operators: in this way, it is reduced to morphological differences and cross-linguistic variation is not conditioned by way of postulating an arbitrary parameter. Cross-linguistic differences are ultimately dependent on whether a language has overt operators equipped with the relevant – [+compr] and [+rel] – features. Third, the dissertation provides an adequate explanation for the phenomenon of Attributive Comparative Deletion, as attested in English, by way of relating it to the regular mechanism of Comparative Deletion. I assume that Attributive Comparative Deletion is not a universal phenomenon, and its presence in English can be conditioned by independent, more general rules, while the absence of such restrictions leads to its absence in other languages. Fourth, the dissertation accounts for certain phenomena related to diachronic changes, examining how the changes in the status of comparative operators led to changes in whether Comparative Deletion is attested in a given language: I argue that only operators without a lexical XP can be grammaticalised. The underlying mechanisms underlying are essentially general economy principles and hence the processes are not language-specific or exceptional. Fifth, the dissertation accounts for optional ellipsis processes that play a crucial role in the derivation of typical comparative subclauses. These processes are not directly related to the structure of degree expressions and hence the elimination of the quantified expression from the subclause; nevertheless, they are shown to be in interaction with the mechanisms underlying Comparative Deletion or the absence thereof.

Late Modern English

Late Modern English PDF Author: Merja Kytö
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027261431
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented surge of interest in the language of the Late Modern English period. Late Modern English: Novel Encounters covers a broad range of topics addressed by international experts in fields such as phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, spelling and pragmatics; this makes the collection attractive to any scholar or student interested in the history of English. Each of the four thematic sections in the book represents a core area of Late Modern English studies. This division makes it easy for specialists to access the chapters that are of immediate relevance to their own work. An introductory chapter establishes connections between chapters within as well as between the four sections. The volume highlights recent advances in research methodology such as spelling normalization and other areas of corpus linguistics; several contributions also shed light on the interplay of internal and external factors in language change.

Approaches to Hungarian

Approaches to Hungarian PDF Author: Veronika Hegedűs
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027261601
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This volume contains selected papers from the 13th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian (Budapest, 2017).The contributions address current issues in Hungarian linguistics, including comparisons with other languages (e.g., English, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish). Specifically, the phonetics and phonology papers present experimental and corpus studies of /h/ voicing, the acoustics of Hungarian word stress, and vowel harmony in harmonically mixed stems. The papers on syntax and semantics discuss object agreement and its locality restrictions, equative markers in German and Hungarian diachronically and synchronically, anaphoric possessor strategies and definite article distribution, and the semantics of various aspectual adverbs. Experimental studies of information structure examine the linear placement of textually given topical constituents post-verbally, exhaustivity inferences with focus partitioning in German, English and Hungarian, and contextual factors licensing Hungarian structural focus. The broad range of topics ensures that this volume will interest scholars of Hungarian and theoretical linguists more generally.

Grammatical gaps: definition, typology and theory

Grammatical gaps: definition, typology and theory PDF Author: Thomas Strobel
Publisher: Helmut Buske Verlag
ISBN: 3967692914
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Grammatiken sind (metaphorisch gesprochen) Anweisungen zum richtigen Gebrauch einer Sprache. Interessanterweise zeigen Grammatiken offenbar Lücken, die dadurch entstehen, dass für bestimmte Bereiche Regeln (bzw. Formen) ganz fehlen oder dass sich einzelne Regeln widersprechen und der daraus resultierende Konflikt deren Anwendung verhindert. Grammatische Lücken, auf deren Relevanz für eine 'realistische' Grammatiktheorie wohl zuerst Marga Reis hingewiesen hat, sind in den letzten Jahren schon vereinzelt in den Fokus der Forschung geraten. Das Sonderheft versammelt Arbeiten zu verschiedenen Arten von Lücken und zeigt damit, wie ertragreich und wichtig die Erforschung grammatischer Lücken sein kann. Grammars are (metaphorically speaking) instructions for the correct use of languages. One might expect that grammars are complete, i.e., that they provide an appropriate solution for each utterance context. Interestingly, however, grammars seem to show gaps, which are caused by the fact that rules (or forms) in certain domains are missing completely or that individual rules contradict each other and that the resulting conflict prevents their application. Grammatical gaps, whose relevance for a 'realistic' theory of grammar was probably first pointed out by Marga Reis, have come into the focus of research in recent years. The present special issue collects papers on different kinds of gaps and shows how fruitful and important the investigation of grammatical gaps can prove to be. Inhalt: Introduction – Ralf Vogel: Grammatical gaps, grammatical invention and grammatical theory – André Meinunger: Unexpected finite verb forms in German – cases of grammatical illusion? – Patrick Mächler, Anja Hasse: Gaps of definiteness. Marking of (in)definiteness in Swiss German, Norwegian, Faroese and Elfdalian – Elisabeth Scherr: Attraction of the void. The lack of aspect in German and its effect on language change – Oliver Schallert: Morphological gaps in verbal diminutive formation: Some observations on Alemannic – Julia Bacskai-Atkari: Syntactic paradigms, markedness and similative markers in comparative and relative clauses – Fenna Bergsma: A typology of case competition in headless relatives – Ewa Trutkowski: How sex and gender shape agreement in German relative clauses – Tabea Reiner: What counts as a gap? The case of typological hierarchies

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change PDF Author: Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192568744
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters address a central theoretical issue in diachronic syntax: whether syntactic variation can always be attributed to differences in the features of items in the lexicon, as the Borer-Chomsky conjecture proposes. In answering this question, all the chapters develop analyses of syntactic change couched within a formalist framework in which rich hierarchical structures and abstract features of various kinds play an important role. The first three parts of the volume explore the different domains of the clause, namely the C-domain, the T-domain and the ?P/VP-domain respectively, while chapters in the final part are concerned with establishing methodology in diachronic syntax and modelling linguistic correspondences. The contributors draw on extensive data from a large number of languages and dialects, including several that have received little attention in the literature on diachronic syntax, such as Romeyka, a Greek variety spoken in Turkey, and Middle Low German, previously spoken in northern Germany. Other languages are explored from a fresh theoretical perspective, including Hungarian, Icelandic, and Austronesian languages. The volume sheds light not only on specific syntactic changes from a cross-linguistic perspective but also on broader issues in language change and linguistic theory.

Of Trees and Birds

Of Trees and Birds PDF Author: Alexiadou, Artemis
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Potsdam
ISBN: 3869564571
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Gisbert Fanselow’s work has been invaluable and inspiring to many ­researchers working on syntax, morphology, and information ­structure, both from a ­theoretical and from an experimental perspective. This ­volume comprises a collection of articles dedicated to Gisbert on the occasion of his 60th birthday, covering a range of topics from these areas and beyond. The contributions have in ­common that in a broad sense they have to do with language structures (and thus trees), and that in a more specific sense they have to do with birds. They thus cover two of Gisbert’s major interests in- and outside of the linguistic world (and ­perhaps even at the interface).

The clausal syntax of German Sign Language

The clausal syntax of German Sign Language PDF Author: Fabian Bross
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 396110218X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This book presents a hypothesis-based description of the clausal structure of German Sign Language (DGS). The structure of the book is based on the three clausal layers CP, IP/TP, and VoiceP. The main hypothesis is that scopal height is expressed iconically in sign languages: the higher the scope of an operator, the higher the articulator used for its expression. The book was written with two audiences in mind: On the one hand it addresses linguists interested in sign languages and on the other hand it addresses cartographers.

Academic Writing

Academic Writing PDF Author: Dr Controllah Gabi
Publisher: Altralogue
ISBN: 1999303415
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Academic writing is a fresh, structured approach to an important aspect of higher education scholarly work. It extends the existing body of knowledge in the field by synthesising fundamental strands that have existed in a fragmented, loosely structured state. Beginning by examining the meaning, nature and importance of academic writing, this book also explains the role and types of evidence in the context of scholarly writing. To this end, criteria for assessing the credibility of sources in the present Information Age are discussed. Additionally, this text explores critical thinking, analysis and argumentation. There is also guidance on rigour and academic content creation. Complementing this, the book offers essential insights into structure and cohesion, particularly cohesive devices under the broad areas of grammatical and lexical cohesion. As a book designed for learning and teaching, whether self-directed or classroom-based, the book’s other unique features are predesigned modules, with ready-to-use schemes, assignments, assessment criteria and exercises. Another aspect readers of this book will find valuable are academic phrases for different aspects of academic writing. These distinguishing features will appeal to higher education students and teachers interested in academic writing, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and Academic English.