Edge-based Clausal Syntax

Edge-based Clausal Syntax PDF Author: Paul Martin Postal
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262014815
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
An argument that there are three kinds of English grammatical objects, each with different syntactic properties. In Edge-Based Clausal Syntax, Paul Postal rejects the notion that an English phrase of the form [V + DP] invariably involves a grammatical relation properly characterized as a direct object. He argues instead that at least three distinct relations occur in such a structure. The different syntactic properties of these three kinds of objects are shown by how they behave in passives, middles, -able forms, tough movement, wh-movement, Heavy NP Shift, Ride Node Raising, re-prefixation, and many other tests. This proposal renders Postal's position sharply different from that of Chomsky, who defined a direct object structurally as [NP, VP], and with the traditional linguistics text's definition of the direct object as the DP sister of V. According to Postal's framework, sentence structures are complex graph structures built on nodes (vertices) and edges (arcs). The node that heads a particular edge represents a constituent that bears the grammatical relation named by the edge label to its tail node. This approach allows two DPs that have very different grammatical properties to occupy what looks like identical structural positions. The contrasting behaviors of direct objects, which at first seem anomalous--even grammatically chaotic--emerge in Postal's account as nonanomalous, as symptoms of hitherto ungrasped structural regularity.

Edge-based Clausal Syntax

Edge-based Clausal Syntax PDF Author: Paul Martin Postal
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262014815
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Get Book Here

Book Description
An argument that there are three kinds of English grammatical objects, each with different syntactic properties. In Edge-Based Clausal Syntax, Paul Postal rejects the notion that an English phrase of the form [V + DP] invariably involves a grammatical relation properly characterized as a direct object. He argues instead that at least three distinct relations occur in such a structure. The different syntactic properties of these three kinds of objects are shown by how they behave in passives, middles, -able forms, tough movement, wh-movement, Heavy NP Shift, Ride Node Raising, re-prefixation, and many other tests. This proposal renders Postal's position sharply different from that of Chomsky, who defined a direct object structurally as [NP, VP], and with the traditional linguistics text's definition of the direct object as the DP sister of V. According to Postal's framework, sentence structures are complex graph structures built on nodes (vertices) and edges (arcs). The node that heads a particular edge represents a constituent that bears the grammatical relation named by the edge label to its tail node. This approach allows two DPs that have very different grammatical properties to occupy what looks like identical structural positions. The contrasting behaviors of direct objects, which at first seem anomalous--even grammatically chaotic--emerge in Postal's account as nonanomalous, as symptoms of hitherto ungrasped structural regularity.

Edge-Based Clausal Syntax

Edge-Based Clausal Syntax PDF Author: Paul M. Postal
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262295059
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
An argument that there are three kinds of English grammatical objects, each with different syntactic properties. In Edge-Based Clausal Syntax, Paul Postal rejects the notion that an English phrase of the form [V + DP] invariably involves a grammatical relation properly characterized as a direct object. He argues instead that at least three distinct relations occur in such a structure. The different syntactic properties of these three kinds of objects are shown by how they behave in passives, middles, -able forms, tough movement, wh-movement, Heavy NP Shift, Ride Node Raising, re-prefixation, and many other tests. This proposal renders Postal's position sharply different from that of Chomsky, who defined a direct object structurally as [NP, VP], and with the traditional linguistics text's definition of the direct object as the DP sister of V. According to Postal's framework, sentence structures are complex graph structures built on nodes (vertices) and edges (arcs). The node that heads a particular edge represents a constituent that bears the grammatical relation named by the edge label to its tail node. This approach allows two DPs that have very different grammatical properties to occupy what looks like identical structural positions. The contrasting behaviors of direct objects, which at first seem anomalous—even grammatically chaotic—emerge in Postal's account as nonanomalous, as symptoms of hitherto ungrasped structural regularity.

Syntax on the Edge

Syntax on the Edge PDF Author: Diego Gabriel Krivochen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004542310
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
What is the most descriptively and explanatorily adequate format for syntactic structures and how are they constrained? Different theories of syntax have provided various answers: sets, feature structures, tree diagrams... Building on formal and empirical insights from a wide variety of approaches spanning more than 70 years (including Transformational Grammar, Relational Grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar, and Tree Adjoining Grammar), this monograph develops a new, mathematically grounded, framework in which objects known as graphs, and the constraints that follow from them, are argued to provide the best characterisation of the system of expressions and relations that make up natural language grammars. This new approach is motivated and exemplified via detailed and formally explicit analyses of major syntactic phenomena in English and Spanish.

Edge-based Clausal Syntax

Edge-based Clausal Syntax PDF Author: David Couzens Hoy
Publisher: Mit Press
ISBN: 9780262512756
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An argument that there are three kinds of English grammatical objects, each with different syntactic properties.

Clause Structure

Clause Structure PDF Author: Elly van Gelderen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107017742
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Clause structure is the most widely-studied phenomenon within syntactic theory. This accessible book synthesizes the most important research findings, examines a range of examples taken from data acquisition, typology and language change, and includes discussion questions, helpful suggestions for further reading and a useful glossary.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, 8 Volume Set

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, 8 Volume Set PDF Author: Martin Everaert
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118358724
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 5254

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Book Description
An invaluable reference tool for students and researchers in theoretical linguistics, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition has been updated to incorporate the last 10 years of syntactic research and expanded to include a wider array of important case studies in the syntax of a broad array of languages. A revised and expanded edition of this invaluable reference tool for students and researchers in linguistics, now incorporating the last 10 years of syntactic research Contains over 120 chapters that explain, analyze, and contextualize important empirical studies within syntax over the last 50 years Charts the development and historiography of syntactic theory with coverage of the most important subdomains of syntax Brings together cutting-edge contributions from a global group of linguists under the editorship of two esteemed syntacticians Provides an essential and unparalleled collection of research within the field of syntax, available both online and across 8 print volumes This work is also available as an online resource at www.companiontosyntax.com

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar PDF Author: Stefan Müller
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961102554
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1632

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Book Description
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) is a constraint-based or declarative approach to linguistic knowledge, which analyses all descriptive levels (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) with feature value pairs, structure sharing, and relational constraints. In syntax it assumes that expressions have a single relatively simple constituent structure. This volume provides a state-of-the-art introduction to the framework. Various chapters discuss basic assumptions and formal foundations, describe the evolution of the framework, and go into the details of the main syntactic phenomena. Further chapters are devoted to non-syntactic levels of description. The book also considers related fields and research areas (gesture, sign languages, computational linguistics) and includes chapters comparing HPSG with other frameworks (Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Construction Grammar, Dependency Grammar, and Minimalism).

Dependency Linguistics

Dependency Linguistics PDF Author: Kim Gerdes
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027270163
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
This volume offers the reader a unique possibility to obtain a concise introduction to dependency linguistics and to learn about the current state of the art in the field. It unites the revised and extended versions of the linguistically-oriented papers to the First International Conference on Dependency Linguistics held in Barcelona. The contributions range from the discussion of definitional challenges of dependency at different levels of the linguistic model, its role beyond the classical grammatical description, and its annotation in dependency treebanks to concrete analyses of various cross-linguistic phenomena of syntax in its interplay with phonetics, morphology, and semantics, including phenomena for which classical simple phrase-structure based models have proven to be unsatisfactory. The volume will be thus of interest to both experts and newcomers to the field of dependency linguistics and its computational applications.

Modular Design of Grammar

Modular Design of Grammar PDF Author: I Wayan Arka
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192659294
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
This volume presents the latest research in linguistic modules and interfaces in Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). LFG has a highly modular design that models the linguistic system as a set of discreet submodules that include, among others, constituent structure, functional structure, argument structure, semantic structure, and prosodic structure; each module has its own coherent properties and is related to other modules by correspondence functions. Following a detailed introduction, Part I examines the nature of linguistic structures, interfaces, and representations in LFG's architecture and ontology. Parts II and III are concerned with problems, analyses, and generalizations associated with linguistic phenomena of long-standing theoretical significance, including agreement, reciprocals, possessives, reflexives, raising, subjecthood, and relativization, demonstrating how these phenomena can be naturally accounted for within LFG's modular architecture. Part IV explores issues of the synchronic and diachronic dynamics of syntactic categories in grammar, such as unlike category coordination, fuzzy categorial edges, and consequences of decategorialization, providing explicit LFG solutions to such problems, including those resulting from language change in progress. The final part re-examines and refines the precise representations and interfaces of syntax with morphology, semantics, and pragmatics to account for challenging facts such as suspended affixation, prosody in multiple question word interrogatives and information structure, anaphoric dependencies, and idioms. The volume draws on data from a range of typologically diverse languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Icelandic, Kelabit, Polish, and Urdu, and will be of interest not only to those working in LFG and related frameworks, but to all those working on linguistic interfaces from a variety of theoretical standpoints.

Principles of Argument Structure

Principles of Argument Structure PDF Author: Chris Collins
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262379120
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
A new theory of argument structure, based on the syntactic operation Merge and presented through an in-depth analysis of properties of the English passive construction. In Principles of Argument Structure, Chris Collins investigates principles of argument structure in minimalist syntax through an in-depth analysis of properties of the English passive construction. He formulates a new theory of argument structure based on the only structure-building operation in minimalist syntax, Merge, which puts together two syntactic objects to form a larger one. This new theory should give rise to detailed cross-linguistic work on the syntactic and semantic properties of implicit arguments. Collins presents an update and defense of his influential 2005 theory of the passive, including a completely original theory of implicit arguments. He makes a direct empirical argument for the Theta-Criterion against various claims that it should be eliminated. He also discusses the conception of voice in syntactic theory, arguing that VoiceP does not introduce external arguments, a position otherwise widely accepted in the field. He shows how the ”smuggling” approach to the passive extends naturally to the dative alternation accounting for a number of striking c-command asymmetries. He compares syntactic and semantic approaches to argument structure, outlining conceptual problems with adopting formal semantics as the basis for a theory of argument structure. The book will be of interest not only to syntacticians and semanticists, but also to typologists investigating the cross-linguistic properties of the passive, psycholinguists and computer scientists working on natural language understanding, and philosophers thinking about the issue of “implicit content.” It includes an appendix that provides common-sense guidelines for doing syntactic research using internet data.