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The noun phrase
... Assimilating the internal structures of the noun phrase and the clause, and treating the caseless possessor as the structural subject of the possessive noun phrase, we will call this position 'SpecIP' for concreteness. 7 For the dative possessor in (3b), it has been standard since Szabolcsi's seminal work (see Szabolcsi 1983Szabolcsi , 1994 to place it in SpecDP, as in (4b). We assume that Hungarian dative case is a postposition (see i.a. ...
... We have no account for this contrast. If it is systematic among a significant number of speakers, it seems to be the opposite of the one Szabolcsi (1994) Here the problem is perhaps less pressing because even with a DP-node erected over kit there still is no definite determiner present, unlike in the case of akit, whose a-we analysed as an exponent of D. But the whole point of the DP-hood approach to definiteness agreement is precisely that the mere presence in the structure of the object of a projection of D will trigger definite inflection -regardless of whether this D is overt or silent. So our hypothesis that [+WH] is in D as it stands runs into a conflict with the DP-hood approach. ...
... In light of this, we follow Szabolcsi (1994) in treating the definite article of a János kalapja as the exponent of the D-head of the entire possessive noun phrase. The proper name possessor itself is smaller than DP. ...
Universal Grammar places a restriction on self-embedding recursion structures created through External Merge: A phasal category of type α can be embedded in a phasal category of the same type where there is a c-command relation between the heads of the two instances of α only if the two instances of α are separated by a phase head. This restriction (the exact counterpart of the familiar c-command cum phasemate requirement that is imposed on identical copies of a single category under Internal Merge) explains a variety of hitherto poorly understood properties of the noun phrase. The set of elements that are eligible to serve as nondative possessors in Hungarian possessive DPs is shown to fall out from the recursion restriction: all and only those possessors that are not as large as DP can be placed in the caseless possessor position in the immediate c-command domain of the D head of the possessive noun phrase; dative possessors are in the specifier position of the possessive DP, not c-commanded by its D head and hence immune to the recursion restriction. The recursion restriction sheds new light on the syntax of the possessive noun phrase, the nature of possessor drop, and the structure and distribution of demonstratives. The analysis also presents an empirical case for labeling of XP–YP structures via ϕ-feature sharing.
... 17 NP is dominated by PossP. The Poss head hosts the possessive marker E@jAG@jAe (see Szabolcsi, 1994;Bartos, 1999Bartos, , 2000É. Kiss, 2002). ...
... The underlying structure of this example is given in (40). Laczkó (1992); Szabolcsi (1994) and Bartos (1999) take it to originate in a specier, É. Kiss (2000) and É. Kiss (2002) assume that it can be merged either as a complement or as a specier (see also Szabolcsi, 1992 for the complement view), while Den Dikken (1999) argues that it is merged below the possessum in a predication structure. I will adopt the complement analysis here, noting that nothing crucial in this paper hinges on this choice. ...
... The rst dierence between PPs and garden variety possessive phrases concerns the case of the possessor. Ordinary possessors in Hungarian may be either Dative marked or morphologically unmarked (Szabolcsi and Laczkó, 1992;Szabolcsi, 1994;Laczkó, 1995;Bartos, 2000É. Kiss, 2002. ...
This paper inquires into two issues of Hungarian PPs. Firstly, when Hungarian pronouns bear an oblique case, the case marker must be followed by possessive agreement. Secondly, this pronoun-case-agreement order contrasts with the order found in garden variety possessive structures: ordinary possessive DPs feature the order noun-agreement-case. The goal of this paper is to offer an account of these puzzling phenomena. I argue that a PP structure in which PPs are projected from a silent place noun and the Ground is merged as the possessor of place (Terzi 2005, 2008, 2010; Botwinik-Rotem 2008; Botwinik-Rotem and Terzi 2008; Pantcheva 2008; Cinque 2010a; Noonan 2010, and Nchare and Terzi 2014) allows an enlightening analysis of the appearance and position of the possessive agreement in PPs. I also discuss how certain surface differences between PPs and ordinary possessive constructions can be accounted for while maintaining the possessive analysis of PPs. By showing that a PP structure with a possessive core yields a natural account of the intricate Hungarian data, the paper strengthens the case for a possessive-based approach to PPs in Universal Grammar.
... 6 But, Szabolcsi (1994) suggested subordination property for both C and D heads. 7 Assuming yä as a reflex of P head is an equally attractive alternative. ...
... Amharic possessives might agree in number, gender and person with the head noun just like the verbs agree with their subjects in the clausal domain. In the same way to the Hungarian possessive phrases that Szabolcsi (1994) observed, the possessor agrees with the head noun in gender, number and person. One important fact that needs to be mentioned here, is that the possessives agree with the head noun, for reasons that I don't understand, only when they occur in a higher position than the modifiers 13 . ...
... couldn't possessives and relative clauses originate in prenominal position? Having all the evidence from different languages that relative clauses and possessives originate in the pre-nominal position, Szabolcsi (1994) and Cinque (2010) Therefore, to know if possessives and relative clause in Amharic are truly inverse predicates (not Predicate-Specifier constructions) one needs to put them to these tests. Of course, A-bar extraction of DP internal elements in Amharic DP is an independently motivated. ...
... Morphologically unmarked possessors follow the definite article (1), while Dative-marked possessors precede it (2). Only the latter type can be extracted from the DP (Szabolcsi, 1983(Szabolcsi, , 1992(Szabolcsi, , 1994Laczkó, 1995;den Dikken, 1999;Bartos, 1999, ch. 2.1 and 4.3.2;Bartos, ...
... This morpheme is the spellout of a contentful functional head in the nominal functional hierarchy (not an agreement morpheme). The literature refers to this head as Poss (Szabolcsi, 1994;Bartos, 1999Bartos, , 2000É. Kiss, 2002). ...
... The phrase that hosts the agreement features is standardly thought to be projected by the agreement features themselves, and this projection is labelled as AgrP (Szabolcsi, 1994;Bartos, 1999;É. Kiss, 2002). ...
Starting with the seminal work of Szabolcsi, morphologically unmarked and Dative-marked possessors in Hungarian have been the subject of rich investigation. Anaphoric possessive constructions, however, have remained poorly researched. In these possessives the possessor bears the mysterious -é suffix and the covert possessum is interpreted under identity with an antecedent. This paper presents new evidence in favour of Bartos’ (2001) analysis of anaphoric possessives, which holds that -é is the Genitive case. I further argue that anaphoric possessives in Hungarian involve a pro-form rather than deletion of a lexical noun, and this accounts for the restricted modification of the possessum.
... The noun phrase is marked in the figure above as DP, referring to the determiner phrase. DP is a projection of a functional head D (Hellan, 1986;Abney, 1987;Stowell, 1989;Szabolcsi, 1994). D is Merged with a noun phrase, which in the example involves only the head noun kirja, 'book.' ...
... Nevertheless, the possessor in the nominative case cannot trigger pied-piping; this is illustrated in example (b). According to Szabolcsi (1994), the Hungarian possessor has to occupy the edge of D in order to pied-pipe the DP. ...
... As will be discussed later in Section 10.5, the edge generalization does not necessarily hold for all discourse-related movement in Finnish. According to Szabolcsi (1994), the Hungarian possessor pied-piping that was examined in the previous section also involves an internal wh-movement of the dative possessor. ...
... Other accounts of possessor extraction also propose that the DP specifier acts as an "escape hatch" for further movement. Szabolcsi (1992) observes that in Hungarian possessor extraction, possessors cannot move directly from their base-generated positions, but must pass through SpecDP. ...
... [EPP-D] on the head D probes downward for the closest DP in its c-command domain and finds the possessor orang. This DP is attracted to the specifier of DP. Szabolcsi (1992), writing about possessor extraction in Hungarian, noted the similarity between C and D in terms of movement possibilities: "both are functional categories whose SPEC is a designated landing site for operators and serves as an escape hatch for movement" (1992:43). ...
This dissertation investigates the syntax and morphology of several functional morphemes that display surface optionality in Indonesian. Three case studies consider how syntactic environments constrain optional realization. Chapter 2 investigates the declarative complementizers bahwa and kalau, which are disallowed in case of A-bar movement; I show that bahwa is also disallowed in wh-in situ questions that do not involve movement. These facts are developed into an analysis of wh phrases and the structure of wh questions in Indonesian. I also propose that the morpheme yang, as well as the null form of the complementizer, constitute a pattern of morphological wh-agreement on C. Chapter 3 discusses the verbal prefixes meN- and ber-, which have received varied analyses in the literature. I argue that meN- and ber- participate in wh-agreement resulting from A-bar movement, and argue against previous analyses that assume that A-movement results in a similar deletion. In addition, I differentiate between deterministic properties that are relevant in the syntax, and non-deterministic properties of meN - and ber- that are extra-syntactic. This distinction accounts for a number of puzzling properties that have been observed for these prefixes. Chapter 4 discusses possessor sub-extraction in Indonesian, with additional data from similar constructions in Javanese and Madurese. I pursue a novel analysis of the nominal suffix -nya, which is optional is possessive DPs: in possessor extraction, this suffix is a pronunciation of the head D. The analysis of wh-agreement is extended to the DP domain, where -nya marks A-bar movement on phase heads; the consequence is that DP is a phase for syntactic movement. One language-specific finding in this dissertation is that morphological wh-agreement applies across three domains: complementizers, verbs and possessive nominals. This has cross-linguistic implications for the phasehood of DP and wh-agreement patterns. More broadly, the dissertation contributes a syntactic approach to the analysis of variable morphemes, revealing how multiple factors constrain surface optionality.
... The predicative nature of the object gap nominal and its "bareness" (i.e., its being an NP rather than a DP) are not contradictory; it is a natural incorporation of Higginbotham's (1985) idea to treat N' as a function whose index is saturated by the determiner in spec-NP, into the DP hypothesis (Abney 1987;Szabolcsi 1987Szabolcsi , 1994Stowell 1989Stowell , 1991Longobardi 1994, among others). Consequently, it is often assumed that while argumental nominals are DPs, the predicative ones are NPs. 4 However, if the object gap nominal is an event nominal, the question is what makes it predicative, rather than argumental, which is typical of event nominals (Grimshaw 1990). ...
... ' Object gap constructions although part of the formation of the object gap nominal, is probably not directly related to Externalization. It has been shown in the literature that event nominals can undergo arbitrary saturation (see Szabolcsi 1994;Siloni 1997 for the claim that the implicit external argument of event nominals has an arbitrary interpretation). ...
The embedded constituent of Hebrew object gap constructions (e.g., the Tough Construction) is nominal rather than verbal, introduced obligatorily by the prepositional element le-(" to "). I show that the gap in Hebrew is unlikely to be created by Op-movement. Rather, based on the properties of the nominal, I propose that the object gap nominal in Hebrew is formed by Externalization of the internal argument. Departing from the familiar analysis of the English Tough Construction, I argue that to of the English object gap constituent is not a T(ense) head, and that this constituent does not have a subject position. Consequently, I suggest that the English object gap constituent is a projection of to, whose specifier is the landing site for Op-movement.
... Weisser et al. 2012) that is considered here. 7 The idea that cyclic movement uses [spec,DP] (or [spec,NP] in former frameworks) as an "escape hatch" can already be found in Cinque (1980) and has been elaborated on, e.g., by Stowell (1989), Szabolcsi (1983Szabolcsi ( /1984Szabolcsi ( , 1994, Giorgi & Longobardi (1991), and Gavruseva (2000). For phase-based approaches concerning extractions from DP in Spanish and Italian, see Gutiérrez Bravo (2001) Returning to the subject of the workshop: ...
... Dans l'exemple (5), la même relative ne permet plus l'identification d'un chien particulier, mais apporte simplement des informations sur le chien dont il est question : « il me plaît ». La relative est donc explicative (Riegel, Pellat & Rioul, 1994 Dans le cas des constructions qui présentent un restricteur au génitif, c'est-à-dire des constructions possessives, la présence sous-jacente d'une relation de prédication unissant le nom principal, appelé « objet possédé », à sa dépendance, le « possesseur », illustrée ci-dessus sous (8-9), a été notée par Szabolcsi (1981Szabolcsi ( , 1992Szabolcsi ( , 1994, Kayne (1994), Zribi-Hertz (1998), ou encore Knittel (2009). ...
Le but de ce travail est d'examiner les propriétés sémantiques et morphosyntaxiques des noms abstraits apparentés à des prédicats verbaux ou adjectivaux. D'un point de vue sémantique, nous montrons que la notion d'aspect, généralement réservée au domaine verbal, est pertinente dans le domaine nominal et que les 'noms abstraits intensifs' (Van de Velde 1995 et Flaux & Van de Velde 2000) forment une classe aspectuelle homogène puisque tous partagent le trait [-DYNAMIQUE]. En nous fondant sur l'hypothèse que le caractère statif commun à ces noms permet une analyse unifiée, nous proposons une étude de leurs différents emplois et montrons notamment qu?outre une acception stative, ces noms peuvent avoir une seconde lecture et dénotent alors des occurrences. Dans la seconde partie, nous nous intéressons au comportement syntaxique des noms statifs, i.e. le nombre et la détermination, mais aussi la modification adjectivale. Ceci nous permet de dégager deux comportements morphosyntaxiques distincts, corrélés à la distinction entre les deux lectures mise en évidence dans la première partie. Dans leur lecture stative, ces noms ont un comportement proche de celui des noms massifs concrets et fonctionnent comme des noms relationnels : ils nécessitent un argument avec lequel ils entrent dans une relation syntaxique de prédication. Inversement, dans leur lecture d'occurrence, ces noms se comportent comme des noms comptables concrets et ne sont pas intrinsèquement relationnels. L'analyse des noms statifs que nous proposons tend à montrer que ceux-ci partagent leurs propriétés sémantiques avec certains types de prédicats verbaux et adjectivaux, et leurs propriétés syntaxiques avec diverses classes de noms concrets.
... A bare NP is crucially predicative; the projection of D renders it non-predicative (Higginbotham 1987, Rothstein 2001. Szabolcsi (1994) makes a more explicit comparison between C and D, holding that they both "enable a 'proposition' to act as an argument." If the observation that arguments are necessarily nonpredicative is correct, then C and D are similar in that they both are non-predicative heads. ...
... Recent studies in cartography and beyond argue for a similar organization of the left periphery in CPs and DPs (Aboh 2004, Aboh et al. 2010, Giusti 2006, Haegeman 2004, Szabolcsi 1994, Wiltschko 2014, that is, discourse features are associated with the highest (phase edge) functional head in both domains. We proceed along the lines in Giusti (2012), where the highest projection of a nominal phrase is K(ase)P, the functional equivalent of CP. ...
The key question in this paper is the following: why do Differential Object Marking (DOM) and Clitic Doubling (CD) interact in Modern Romanian, since that was not necessarily the case in Old Romanian? The hypothesis we defend relies on the presence of a topic feature at the left periphery of DOM-ed noun projections: the bleaching of this feature, reflected through the grammaticalization of the DOM particle pe, triggers changes in the implementation of feature checking; in particular, it resort to CD as a means of supplementing the checking function of pe. The corollary of this analysis is that the emergence of the CD/DOM interaction depends on a major parametric shift, whereby Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD) is generalized in the language to the detriment of topicalization; CD is a sub-case of CLLD. Empirical evidence comes from a corpus of original and translated texts from the 16th century.
... One may ask why the up-operator cannot shift kinds to properties in order to allow the definite determiner or demonstratives to combine with bare nouns in Yi: (i) *si-hni su = ι ( ∪∩ girls(x)) I would suggest that the derivation in (i) is not economical as it involves redundant computational steps. To illustrate, Ds or type-shifters are supposed to repair type mismatch and make the 'unsaturated' predicative nouns argumental (as in Higginbotham 1987;Szabolcsi 1994). Nevertheless, in (i) a type mismatch is 'created' on purpose just so it can feed the use of D in the syntax or type-shifting in the semantics. ...
This paper analyzes argument formation in Nuosu Yi, a language that is typologically unusual in having classifiers as well as a definite determiner. Also unusual is the fact that demonstratives do not combine directly with nouns in this language but require the mediation of classifiers. Properties such as these are shown to pose a challenge to current accounts of argument formation. The Neocarlsonian approach of Chierchia (Nat Lang Semant 6:339–405, 1998) explains the absence of definite articles in classifier languages as resulting from considerations of economy. If nouns in classifier languages are names of kinds, they can occur directly as arguments of verbs, thereby obviating the need for extra structure to host a determiner. The data from Nuosu Yi alters the empirical generalization and calls for a modification of the explanation. The specific account of Nuosu Yi that is presented bears on current discussions about the nature of argument formation. Must arguments necessarily occur with overt or covert determiners or is it possible for languages to differ in this respect? Must bare nominal arguments necessarily denote kinds or can they denote properties? In this sense, the discovery of a new type of classifier language contributes to a theory of language variation and argument formation in general.
... microparametric) instantiations of different functional heads, and the desire to provide a principled explanation within the limits of a maximally constrained theory of UG on the other. In particular, we shall demonstrate, following the tradition of such studies as Abney (1987), Szabolcsi (1994) and Bošković (2010), that there is a striking parallelism in the dimensions of microparametric variation found in the functional structural of the nominal and clausal domains. ...
This article explores parallels in the dimensions of microvariation characterizing the functional structure and organization of the Romance nominal and clausal groups. Within a parameter hierarchy approach it is argued that observed synchronic and diachronic variation across both domains can be readily captured in terms of a single set of higher- and above all lower-level parametric options. This parallelism constitutes a welcome finding in that it points to how the available parametric space can be constrained and defined in terms of a set of common transcategorial principles and options.
... ). 7See Longobardi 1994;Szabolcsi 1994; Cinque 2005, among others. 8 See, for references and discussion, the papers in Bosque (ed) 1996. ...
This paper examines some aspects of nominal inflection. It focuses in particular on noun classification with evidence drawn mainly from Spanish where noun classification surfaces as formal Gender. Under a minimalist lens, this feature is a puzzling grammatical element because it seems uncongenial to the idea of optimal design. I examine some syntactic evidence to assess the syntactic locus of Gender features in nominal structures, and conjecture that noun classification simply externalizes some basic properties of the linguistic system in the functional domain. I motivate my conclusions on the basis of empirical evidence and recent theoretical proposals that argue for the adoption of a much more abstract conception of syntactic constructs than those we have generally been considering.
... The rationale behind using the possessive construction in noun complementation is that the clause headed by the action nominal is an argument of the head noun. In a similar manner, possessive phrases are often understood as conveying a two place relation, in which possessors function as (subject) arguments to their heads (Kayne 1994;Szabolcsi 1994;Laczkό 1997;Partee 1997, among many others). ...
Tundra Nenets (Uralic) exhibits unambiguous relative clauses and sentential complements of nouns, but I show that it also has a previously unstudied but structurally distinct GNMCC. The GNMCC covers a diversity of functions although its usage is restricted in various ways. The paper suggests that it has a direct parallel in the non-sentential domain in terms of its syntactic behaviour , the morphosyntactic expression of the constructional ingredients and the basic semantics: it is modelled after the non-clausal compound-like structure employed for the very general purpose of modifying one noun by reference to another noun. Such modification-by-noun constructions served as a historical source of Tundra Nenets GNMCCs, which emerged when the modifying dever-bal noun was reanalysed as heading a clausal domain.
... (31) a. Italian: Caro amico, vieni a trovarmi (Longobardi 1994: 612) b. Basque: lagun maite, zatoz nire bila 'dear friend, come to meet me' Szabolcsi (1987Szabolcsi ( , 1992Szabolcsi ( , 1994) holds a somewhat different view: for her, D and Comp are similar in that they both may perform the functions of signalling the type of argument/ complement and of being subordinators: some languages distinguish the two functions (Korean, Hungarian) and others collapse the two of them (English). Szabolcsi suggests that vocatives are, or may be, of DP category: thus, the D part will be visible with vocatives in languages where regular complementizers show up in matrix clauses as simple subordinators (without being indicators of the type of subordination). ...
... However, special scientific study of the category of possessiveness in Turkic languages was developed later. Numerous studies (Barker C. 1995, Szabolcsi. A. 1994, Danilova N. 1991) and grammar of Turkic languages emerged extensively paying special attention to the category of possession; monographic studies on specific categories of owning in Turkic languages were widely published ...
This article investigates the system of possessive affixes in the Yakut language differentiated in persons and subject relations; the target feature is typical of all Turkic languages. Grammatical forms of the category of possessiveness are examined, the main phonetic changes in the use of possessive affixes are described, and its role in a word-form among other formal indicators and modifiers is described. More detailed research is dedicated to the main morphological method formed by the means of special forms, so-called affixes of possessiveness regarded as a form of inflection, as well as a word-formation.
DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s5p141
... In (17), the superlative adjective akbar-u "oldest" precedes the DP al-awlaad-i "the boys." On par with the nominative and accusative case assignment of the subject and the object by T and by little v, respectively, (Chomsky, 1995) and given the fact that genitive case assignment is structural, the genitive case is therefore assigned by a functional head, namely, possessive (POSS) (Delsing, 1993;Longobardi, 1995;Szabolcsi, 1994;Valois, 1991). Kremers (2003) assumed that the POSS head is a projection of the feature POSS that has the value [±POSS] and determines whether the head adjective in the construction has a DP dependent. ...
This article discusses the status of prenominal and postnominal adjectives in Arabic. It is argued that Kremers’s treatment of adjectives is non-economic as it generates two different syntactic representations for prenominal and postnominal adjectives. It also undermines endocentric properties of phrasal projections and fails to correctly predict the definiteness status of adjectival construct state heads. The article proposes an alternative analysis with a single underlying syntactic structure for both types of adjectives. The need to have nominal features of the specifier (Spec) of the agreement phrase head (Agr) checked and licensed within the determiner phrase (DP) triggers leftward noun phrase (NP) movement, thus forming postnominal adjectives. In prenominal adjectives, however, the strong Definiteness Feature (DEF) on the determiner (D) causes the adjective phrase to raise to the specifier of the DP.
... En este caso, la prioridad teórica estaba en hacer girar la explicación gramatical en torno a las relaciones rectivas (government and binding), de ahí que, subvirtiendo jerarquías y prioridades, se tomen los mecanismos expresivos de las relaciones como primitivos teóricos y se eleven a la categoría de núcleo de la estructura en la que se hallan y en la que, en realidad, son meros índices de una relación gobernada por otras unidades 3 . En relación con la función nuclear del determinante, en concreto, Szabolcsi (1994) considera que el carácter nuclear del artículo (en su caso, de ningún otro determinante) viene dado por ser el 'posibilitador de la frase nominal para actuar como un argumento', incidiendo una vez más en la confusión entre elemento activador de un cierto valor (o expresión de una relación) y valor nuclear. Entre nosotros, y fuera de la ortodoxia generativa, cabe destacar la defensa de posturas similares aunque con diferencias entre sí, en Eguren (1990) o Bosque-Moreno Cabrera (1990), de fechas similares a la aparición de la idea de la DP. ...
... In this I follow other literature where possessive constructions are treated in terms of phrase-internal predication, e.g. Szabolcsi (1994) and Laczkó (1997), who analyze the possessive NP/DP as a twoplace relation of which the possessor is the 'subject', or Partee and Borschev (2000), who suggested that the possessive construction essentially induces a type-shift in non-relational nouns, whose argument structure does not contain reference to another entity (the possessor), creating a relational predicate 'of Y'. The relation 'X of Y' is virtually unrestricted semantically and represents a rather general association between two entities established on pragmatic grounds. ...
... It is a well-known property of the Hungarian noun phrase that pronominal possessors agree with the possessum, and they can be pro-dropped under agreement with the noun head (see Szabolcsi 1994 andÉ. Kiss 2002 for general overviews, as well as Laczkó 1995 for a nonpro-drop analysis). ...
The paper describes the grammar of the Hungarian possessive adjective saját 'own' in comparison to its English counterpart own. Both items can function as possessive intensifiers, but saját 'own' in Hungarian also has a productive non-possessive use. In addition to the basic possessive adjective saját 'own', Hungarian has two further, slightly archaic but still productive possessive intensifiers: tulajdon 'own' and önnön 'own'. The paper draws up an inventory of the determining grammatical features of these items, and it argues that they instantiate slightly different strategies of marking emphatic possessive relations.
... A common assumption is that bare NPs refer to properties: pierre qui roule and cão que ladra or linguistalinguiste refer to the property of being a rolling stone or a barking dog or a linguist (see, e.g., Szabolcsi, 1994;Dobrovie-Sorin & Laca, 2003). Yet, these NPs or their heads are bare only in the sense of not being in the scope of a determiner, not in the sense of including no feature beyond their lexical meaning. ...
Two creole languages are compared in this paper with respect to the possible reference of fully bare nominals (FBNs) in them. One is a Portuguese-related Creole, Kriyol spoken in Guinea-Bissau and Casamance, the other is a French-related Creole, Haitian. Both languages are similar in allowing for FBNs, i.e. uninflected nouns not in the scope of a determiner or a quantifier, in all syntactic positions and grammatical functions. The main difference between them is that Haitian avails itself of a definite determiner in addition to a specific indefinite determiner, whereas Kriyol only has the latter. Given such empirical data, which are examined at length and in detail, the paper aims to show that the referential possibilities of FBNs in both languages can be analysed as emergent properties from the constructions the FBNs are inserted into, without recourse to functional categories.
... Dans l'exemple (5), la même relative ne permet plus l'identification d'un chien particulier, mais apporte simplement des informations sur le chien dont il est question : « il me plaît ». La relative est donc explicative (Riegel, Pellat & Rioul, 1994 Dans le cas des constructions qui présentent un restricteur au génitif, c'est-à-dire des constructions possessives, la présence sous-jacente d'une relation de prédication unissant le nom principal, appelé « objet possédé », à sa dépendance, le « possesseur », illustrée ci-dessus sous (8-9), a été notée par Szabolcsi (1981Szabolcsi ( , 1992Szabolcsi ( , 1994, Kayne (1994), Zribi-Hertz (1998), ou encore Knittel (2009). ...
The aim of this thesis is to examine the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of abstract nouns related to verbal and adjectival predicates. Since the nouns we examine are linked to verbal and adjectival predicates, the first part focuses on the question of aspectual properties in the nominal domain. We show that 'intensive abstract nouns' (Van de Velde 1995 and Flaux & Van de Velde 2000) constitute a unified aspectual class characterized by the feature [-DYNAMIC]. From the assumption that the stative feature common to these nouns allows a unified analysis, we propose a study relying on the idea that stative nouns are distinguished by their uses, and show that, in addition to a purely stative meaning, these nouns can also convey other information, in which they denote occurrences. The second part is dedicated to the syntactic behaviour of stative nouns, i.e. number and determination, but also adjectival modification. This enables us to identify two distinct morphosyntactic behaviours, that parallel the distinction between stative and occurrence understanding highlighted in the first part. On the one hand, in their property sense, these nouns have a behaviour similar to that of massive concrete nouns and qualify as relational nouns, i.e. they require an argument with which they enter into a predication relationship (at the syntactic level). On the other hand, in their occurrence sense, these nouns behave like concrete count nouns and are not inherently relational. To sum up, the analysis of stative nouns shows that they share semantic properties with certain types of verbal and adjectival predicates, as well as syntactic properties with various classes of concrete nouns.
... Parallelist approaches to syntax cover a wide-range of disparate views related to the supposed overlapping structure between the Determiner Phrase (DP) and the Complementizer Phrase (CP) (see : Abney 1987;Szabolcsi 1989Szabolcsi ,1991Siloni 1990;Cinque 1994, Hiraiwa 2005 At its most extreme, this approach advocates for a view that holds that CPs and DPs are not distinct in any way. Roughly speaking, under this view (see for example , Hiraiwa's (2005) Supercategorial Theory of the CP/DP Symmetry), the labels CP and DP are misleading. ...
... SeeAoun and Li (2003) for arguments that Chinese relatives have an adjunction structure.12 The possessor may start out from the NP and move subsequently to SpecDP (seeSzabolcsi 1994). agree agree ...
... The analogy between the internal structure of noun phrases and sentences is advocated by Stavrou (1985, 1987), Siloni (1997), and Szabolcsi (1983Szabolcsi ( , 1987Szabolcsi ( , 1994, on the basis of evidence from data in Greek, Hebrew, and Hungarian respectively. However, some of this evidence suggests that D o is analogous to C o rather than I o . ...
... The postulation of the demonstrative in a position relatively low in the structure is not entirely new. In a number of papers (Giusti 1993;Szabolcsi 1994;Campbell 1996;Hoekstra and Hyams 1996;Brugè 2002), the point has been made that there are good reasons for assuming that there is a projection, right above NP, which is related to the expression of the referential properties of the phrase as a whole. These researchers come to this conclusion for different reasons, some conceptual, some theoretical, some empirical (once again, for details, see Sybesma and Sio (to app.)). ...
This paper provides a descriptive overview of the nominal phrase in Northern Zhuang, including discussions on the following areas: (i) the properties of different nominal elements, such as classifiers, numerals, demonstratives and modifiers, (ii) the referential properties of the noun phrase with varying formal characteristics, and (iii) the ordering of nominal elements, from a comparative point of view.
... The postulate that the extended projection of the adjective features a functional head with the morphological shape of a definite article and with a syntax analogous to C raises immediate expectations with regard to the extended projection of the noun. On the one hand, there is the tradition that recognizes a CP-DP parallelism (Szabolcsi, 1994). On the other hand, the adjectival definite article (even if it weren't C-like) is obviously related to the immediately pre-nominal definite article in German, given that they are homophonous and in complementary surface distribution. ...
This paper highlights striking similarities of three well-known but hitherto disparately treated alternations in Germanic morphosyntax: (i) the positional alternation of the finite verb between a low and a left peripheral (V2) position; (ii) the morphological alternation in adnominal adjectives between so-called weak and strong agreement; and (iii) the contrast in definiteness marking between a free DP-initial definite article and a so-called suffixed article. The number and kinds of punctual similarities among these alternations suggest that we are dealing with a parallelism that is non-accidental (even if not always fully surface apparent).In an attempt to propose a principled account of this parallelism, I argue that the familiar syntactic CP/DP analogy must (A) be extended to include the extended adjectival projection (xAP), and (B) that it is more than an analogy. It is, I claim, a point-wise isomorphism. I identify a shared complementizer head C, which, I claim, extended projections of all colors converge on. In Germanic, C is either lexicalized/identified qua head, as d-, or it attracts the lexical category of its containing extended projection, indiscriminately of whether it is verbal, nominal, or adjectival. Movement of the lexical category to the left periphery results, in many cases, in its preceding material which it does not precede in the absence of such movement, notably inflectional material.If correct, the proposed isomorphism hypothesis has consequences for the analysis of the phenomena involved in that it allows us to transfer insights from one domain to another. In particular, it supports an analysis of the adjectival inflection alternation in terms of adjective movement; and an analysis of V2 as involving two merger steps.
... Argumenthood: syntactic reflex of the concept of referentiality It is the D position that turns a nominal expression into an argument; DPs can be arguments, NPs cannot. (Longobardi 1994: 620 and 628;also pointed out by Stowell 1989;first proposed in Szabolcsi 1983;Szabolcsi 1994 without not was-speaking to-them 'Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables, and he was not speaking to them without (using) a parable' ...
... If wâa is the morphological realization of the ∩ -operator for clauses, it is clear why wâa is necessary for CP to function as an argument: The bracketed proposition [WAAN-WILL-MOVE] represents a propositional individual which serves as the internal argument of the verb khít "think." This analysis can be seen as a semantic implementation of Szabolcsi (1994)'s claim that complementizers are the clausal correlate of D, as both C and D serve as subordinators that allow these categories to function as arguments. 18 To summarize, wâa serves two functions in this analysis: finiteness marking and argument formation. ...
The Thai particle thîi introduces relative clauses and noun-complement clauses but does not introduce clausal complements of verbs. This paper provides a unified analysis for these two noun phrase-internal clauses as modifiers, proposing that thîi is a complementizer that is interpreted as a lambda-operator that derives CP-sized properties. This analysis is extended to the use of thîi in factive complements of verbs, contrastive clefts, and infinitives. Arguments are presented against the analysis of thîi by den Dikken & Singhapreecha (2004) as a linker, a reflex of DP-internal predicate inversion.
抽象的
本文以澄海話的量名短語為研究對象，考察了澄海話量名短語的句法位置及其語義解讀之間的關係。調查發現，主語位置上的量名短語通常是有定的，賓語位置上的量名短語通常是無定的，但如果量名短語是控制句中的賓語控制語，或者量名短語是受損或受惠題元角色時，可以有無定、有定兩種解讀。我們認為，量名短語有定、無定兩種解讀情況的出現，是句法條件與語境因素共同作用的結果。句法上來說，量名短語都是中心語D為空的DP短語，無定量名短語的D由存在量詞為其賦值，而有定量名短語的空D由DisP中的先行詞為其賦值，量名短語的有定解讀應該看作是語用有定。
This paper contributes another round in the debate over how to analyze object agreement in Hungarian, a form of differential object marking that is found among other Uralic languages as well. I have previously argued that the choice of conjugation is determined not by the syntactic category of the object, but rather on the basis of semantic factors, primarily: on the Lexical Familiarity Hypothesis (LFH), selected lexical items are assigned a definiteness feature in virtue of a certain type of familiarity presupposition that they carry. Subsequent work has raised challenges for the LFH. This paper considers what would be necessary in order for these challenges to be met. I conclude that the LFH can be defended, if supplemented by a certain set of independently-motivated assumptions. In fact, this theory enjoys certain advantages over the most recent alternative.
Steedman (2020) proposes as a formal universal of natural language grammar that grammatical permutations of the kind that have given rise to transformational rules are limited to a class known to mathematicians and computer scientists as the “separable” permutations. This class of permutations is exactly the class that can be expressed in combinatory categorial grammars (CCGs). The excluded non-separable permutations do in fact seem to be absent in a number of studies of crosslinguistic variation in word order in nominal and verbal constructions.
The number of permutations that are separable grows in the number n of lexical elements in the construction as the Large Schröder Number S n–1 . Because that number grows much more slowly than the n! number of all permutations, this generalization is also of considerable practical interest for computational applications such as parsing and machine translation.
The present article examines the mathematical and computational origins of this restriction, and the reason it is exactly captured in CCG without the imposition of any further constraints.
This article explores the phenomenon of pied-piping within the context of two assumptions. The first assumption is that a realistic natural language parser must assign incoming words incrementally into the syntactic representation as it is built during the parsing process. The second assumption is that this process makes use of Merge, the core recursive operation in syntax. These assumptions lead us to consider an extension of the standard theory of Merge, in which phrase structure is derived from a linear string of words in a left-to-right/top-down fashion (e.g. Phillips, 1996, Phillips, 2003). We propose a generalization of the Phillips architecture that describes and correctly parses simple and complex pied-piping constructions in three languages: English, Italian and Finnish. We then show that the proposed hypothesis derives (without any additional assumptions) several well-known constraints to pied-piping and operator movement, such as Condition on Extraction Domains (CED), the Left Branch Condition, the extended projection principle (EPP), the complex properties of picture nouns and certain differences between relative and interrogative clauses. A computational implementation and full formalization of the hypothesis together with a test corpus is used to demonstrate the viability of the approach. We conclude that the top-down approach provides a useful tool for grammatical analysis.
The non-possessive uses of possessive morphology in Uralic languages have been a topic of intense debate (Fraurud 2001; Nikolaeva 2003; Gerland 2014; Janda 2015; É. Kiss and Tánczos to appear). In this paper, I focus on a special use of the poss.3sg suffix in Hungarian constructions such as a hülyéje (the stupid-poss.3sg): lit. ‘its stupid’, meaning ‘that total idiot’. My main claim is that this suffix is an affective demonstrative suffix (Lakoff 1974; Liberman 2008; Potts and Schwarz 2010), and that it has developed as a result of grammaticalization from a full-fledged possessive construction of the form a világ hülyéje (the world stupid-poss.3sg): lit. ‘the world’s stupid’, meaning: ‘the biggest idiot in the world’. I will show that this gradual process can be reconstructed fairly accurately using historical and contemporary corpora. I also claim that this grammaticalization pathway is very natural as it is based on a set-element relationship which is often expressed by possessive constructions cross-linguistically. I also identify two parameters which facilitate this grammaticalization process: the availability of (silent) pro possessors and the lack of gender agreement on the possessive suffix. Since Uralic languages in general have these parameters, I will argue that this grammaticalization pathway should at least be considered as one of the possible sources of the demonstrative (and definiteness marking) uses of poss.3sg suffixes in Uralic languages. Finally, my results are also an important contribution to the debate on whether demonstratives can be derived from other functional elements through grammaticalization (Plank 1979; Traugott 1982; Himmelmann 1997).
In this paper, I discuss the basic structure of the determiner phrase in Standard Arabic. I show that this phrase houses three different categories that can project distinct functional heads beside the noun. These categories include: DP, GenP, and NumP. I argue that the noun undergoes cyclic movement to the left of GenP and NumP in order to check its unvalued features. The long-distance probe-goal relation cannot be established in this context due to intervention effects raised by the functional heads. However, the definiteness feature on the DP is valued in-situ, without resorting to movement, hence the appearance of this marker is a prefix on the noun. Thus, a new analysis of the determiner phrase in SA is proposed in terms of cyclic movement and probe-goal relation, where both operations are triggered by unvalued features on the noun. The new analysis can successfully account for the different features on the noun as well as the split of morphological markers on the noun as prefixes and suffixes. I claim that structural nominative/accusative Case on the head noun in the Arabic DP is licensed by higher functional heads, i.e. v and T. However, I argue that the genitive construction in Standard Arabic is mediated by a Poss head that has unvalued features and can license Case. The genitive Case on the complement noun is assigned by the Poss head as a reflex of establishing a probe-goal relation. The proposed position for the Poss head accounts for the inexplicable absence of the definiteness marker on the head noun, as well as the Case morphology mismatch between the head noun and the genitive complement.
The aim of this paper is to reconsider some aspects of the so-called clause/noun-phrase (non-)parallelism (Abney 1987 and much subsequent work). The question that arises is to find out what is common and what is different between the clause as a Complementizer Phrase (CP)-structure and the noun as a Determiner Phrase (DP)-structure in terms of structure and derivation. An example of structural parallelism lies in the division of the clause and the noun phrase into three domains: (i) the Nachfeld (right periphery), which is the thematic domain; (ii) the Mittelfeld (midfield), which is the inflection, agreement, Case and modification domain and (iii) the Vorfeld (left periphery), which is the discourse- and operator-related domain. However, we will show following Giusti (2002, 2006), Payne (1993), Bruening (2009), Cinque (2011), Laenzlinger (2011, 2015) among others that the inner structure of the Vorfeld and of the Mittelfeld of the clause is not strictly parallel to that of the noun phrase. Although derivational parallelism also lies in the possible types of movement occurring in the CP and DP domains (short head/X-movement, simple XP-movement, remnant XP-movement and pied-piping XP-movement), we will see that there is non-parallelism in the application of these sorts of movement within the clause and the noun phrase. In addition, we will test the respective orders among adverbs/adjectives, DP/Prepositional Phrase (PP)-arguments and DP/PP-adjuncts in the Mittelfeld of the clause/noun phrase and show that Cinque’s (2013) left–right asymmetry holds crosslinguistically for the possible neutral order (without focus effects) in post-verbal/nominal positions with respect to the prenominal/preverbal base order and its impossible reverse order.
O uso de kel em caboverdiano causa, porvezes, controvérsia entre os estudiosos da língua no que diz respeito à funçãoque desempenha dentro do sintagma nominal. Alguns estudos sobre o sintagmanominal do caboverdiano apresentam kel e sua forma plural kescomo possíveis artigos definidos, ou afirmam que eles exercem, por vezes, opapel de artigos definidos na língua (Baptista (1997), (2002) e (2007),Alexandre (2004), entre outros). Os autores que se debruçaram sobre o tema,contudo, parecem não precisar o que licencia tal uso. Neste artigo,realizaremos uma análise dessa partícula dentro de uma perspectiva semântica afim de tentar esclarecer o comportamentode kel dentro do sintagma nominal da língua.
This volume grew out of our research agenda, seeking to understand the structure and interpretation of bare nouns in three typologically and genetically unrelated articleless languages: Lithuanian, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun. None of these languages has articles, and yet they are very different from one another with respect to the syntactic and semantic behaviour of their bare nouns (for Lithuanian, see Gillon and Armoskaite 2013, 2015; for Lithuanian and Innu-aimun, Gillon and Armoskaite 2012; for Inuktitut, Lithuanian and Innu-aimun, Gillon 2013, 2015). This variation forced us to question the universality of D, as well as the universality of the semantics of D.
Structurally, all nominals were originally conceived of as simply NPs. However, Abney (1987) argued that nominals are projections of D, rather than N. He based this on the parallelism between gerunds (derived from verbs) and nouns, as well as agreement patterns in languages such as Hungarian.
Semantically, determiners have long been argued to create arguments out of predicates (Higginbotham 1985; Szabolsci 1987, 1994; Stowell 1989; Longobardi 1994, among others). Thus, there seemed to be a tight relationship between D and argumenthood. Further, determiners are often assumed to be definite (e.g., Lyons 1999; see Matthewson 1998 and Gillon 2013 for arguments against this). Both of these ideas are questioned by authors in this volume.
Moreover, the nature of bare nouns is controversial: are they DPs (like other nominals), or are they different (in that they lack the DP layer)? There are three possible analyses: (i) bare nouns are DPs (just like all nominals) (Longobardi 1994), (ii) bare nouns are NPs (Chierchia 1998), or (iii) bare nouns can vacillate between NPs and DPs (Franks and Pereltsvaig 2004; Ajíbóyè 2006). It is also possible that bare nouns vary across languages: bare nouns in a language that has articles (like English) may still be DPs, whereas bare nouns in articleless languages may not be.
The most prominent analysis of this last type comes from Bošković (2005, 2007, 2008a,b, 2009, 2012) who claims that there is a dichotomy between so-called NP languages (languages that lack articles) and so-called DP languages (languages with overt articles). Many of the papers in this volume specifically address his proposal, but only one assumes that his analysis is correct; many of the authors in [End Page 251] this volume found the DP/NP dichotomy proposed by Bošković (2008) to be untenable for at least some articleless languages.
It is only natural to draw on Bošković’s work: the idea of a dichotomy is a plausible null hypothesis. Whether or not the proposed dichotomy holds—or if it does, to what extent—it still fuels linguistic inquiry. We hope the discussion in this volume will lead to a more clearly fleshed out and empirically motivated theory of nominal functional superstructure, as well as a theory about which languages and environments that superstructure will appear in.
Beyond the putative NP/DP divide, there are a few other recurring themes that can be found in the studies included in this volume. Many of them are familiar problems: problems that have yet to be resolved in languages that are more commonly researched, such as Germanic or Slavic. The fact that we also find these recurring themes in the otherwise underrepresented languages of this volume, such as West Greenlandic, Mauritian Creole, Tagalog, Tatar, and Vietnamese, shows how important these questions are.
We begin with the syntactic issues that arise. In languages without overt D, the relation of N to other functional heads must be sorted out, because other functional heads may behave like D (cf. the seminal article on the relation of classifiers to D by Cheng & Sybesma 1999, and Filip’s work on aspect 1995, 1999). Case is a plausible candidate for confusion. Does K (case) cross-linguistically flag the presence or absence of D? Or can a particular case be D (cf. Pesetsky 2013 on Nominative as D)? Or are these D and K heads completely independent of one another? Many languages lack any candidates for D, but in this volume, a few potential candidates were discussed. For example...
The book investigates adult second language (L2) acquisition of Greek by first language (L1) Russian speakers in the bi-dialectal setting of Cyprus. The participants all reside in Cyprus and came from former Soviet republics to Cyprus as young adults. The focus of the study is on the L2 acquisition of determiners, clitics and morphological agreement and relevant interpretable and uninterpretable features such as gender, person, number and case in both nominal and verbal domains. This explorative study of the real linguistic situation in Cyprus concerning adult second language/dialect acquisition tests theoretical hypotheses and provides insight into language development. © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2015. All rights reserved.
In this paper we discuss and analyze a set of correlations that we discovered using two of the large-scale Dutch dialect syntax databases available in the online tool MIMORE (the abbreviation of the MIcrocomparative MOrphosyntactic REsearch tool) (www.meertens.knaw.nl/mimore), i.e. DiDDD and DynaSAND. These correlations lead to the identification of several larger dialect groupings, basically to a typology of dialects. In particular, we investigate the following four empirical phenomena: subject doubling, demonstrative doubling, complementizer agreement and D-pronoun fronting in imperatives. We furthermore provide an analysis of these phenomena and for the typology, showing that the syntactic base structures are identical in the dialect groups and the derivations are highly similar. Parametrization arises at two points: lexical properties with respect to the spell out of ϕ(symbol) and the trigger of subject doubling.
Resumo: O uso de kel em caboverdiano causa, por vezes, controvérsia entre os estudiosos da língua no que diz respeito à função que desempenha dentro do sintagma nominal. Alguns estudos sobre o sintagma nominal do caboverdiano apresentam kel e sua forma plural kes como possíveis artigos definidos ou afirmam que eles exercem, por vezes, o papel de artigos definidos na língua (BAPTISTA, 1997, 2002, 2007; ALEXANDRE & SOARES 2004; entre outros). Os autores que se debruçaram sobre o tema, contudo, parecem não precisar o que licencia tal uso. Neste artigo, realizaremos uma análise dessa partícula dentro de uma perspectiva semântica, a fim de tentar esclarecer o comportamento de kel no do sintagma nominal da língua. Abstract: There are controversies in studies about the noun phrase in Cape Verdean specially concerning the particle kel. Some analyses present the particle kel and its plural counterpart kes as a definite article others claim this particle can assume the role of a definite article (BAPTISTA, 1997, 2002, 2007; ALEXANDRE, 2004 & SOARES; and others). Scholars who assumed kel as a definite article,
This work deals with the acquisition of possessive forms in Brazilian Portuguese by a child over a period ranging from 1 year, 8 months e 25 days to 1 year, 10 months and days. It focuses specifically on the occurrence of first and second person
forms (meu my and seu your e their gender and number variants) in two positions in the noun phrase, namely, before and after the head noun with which they associate; these
two positions are supposed to relate to two distinct phases of the acquisition process. The pre-nominal position of the possessive is interpreted as evidence of the presence of a functional category (Nu/Agr) in whose specifier it lands. The post-nominal position, on the other hand, may be taken as signaling the absence of such a category. By the same taken, the absence of a D(eterminer) phonetically realized may be taken either to evince the lack of that category in the child’s grammar or to merely indicate his/her lack of knowledge of the phonetic matrix of the item that may fill the D position present in his/her grammar all the while. Two acquisition hypotheses are considered: the truncation theory (Rizzi, 1994) and the full competence hypothesis (Kato, 1995 b) with reference to the presence or absence of the functional categories (D and Nu/Agr) in the child’s early production. Both theories give only a partial account of the data analyzed; however, theory internal reasons seem to favor the full competence hypothesis over the
truncation approach.
Bošković, in his paper Now I'm a phase, now I'm not a phase: On the variability of phases with extraction and ellipsis, puts forward two hypotheses about phasehood and ellipsis from a contextual perspective: a. Only phases and complements of phase heads can undergo ellipsis. b. The highest projection in a TNP (Traditional Noun Phrase) is a phase. This paper tentatively tests whether these two hypotheses can be used in the analysis of structures and ellipsis of Chinese NPs. After analysis, the paper discovers that Bošković's hypotheses can explain the structure and ellipsis of Chinese simple NPs but they cannot account for Chinese complex NPs well. Based on this, the paper modifiers Bošković's hypotheses slightly: a. Only phases and complements of phase heads can undergo ellipsis. b. Each functional projection over a NP in Chinese is a phase.
This article is concerned with the correspondence conditions that hold between certain semantic relations—including part-whole relations, possession, location, and the semantic features [± animate] or [± count]—and certain syntactic structures including genitives and relative clauses. The objective is to determine the extent to which these correspondence conditions derive from Universal Grammar or are "learned" by children in response to input from caretakers and others. Interface conditions imposed by Universal Grammar (UG) are expected to appear early in the course of language development despite the vagaries of the primary linguistic data. In this article, we show that children as young as 3 years old adhere to specific semantic distinctions and to specific constraints on the mapping of these distinctions onto syntactic structures. Moreover, the children show more stringent adherence to interface conditions than adult speakers of the same languages do, indicating that children's mapping relations between syntax and semantics are not based on their experience but rather are projected from UG.
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