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To PPs in their proper place
The focus of this paper is the possessive relation arising in several configurations between the complement of a locative preposition ( u ‘at/by’ and k(o) ‘towards’ in Russian, bij ‘by’ in Dutch and la ‘to/at’ in Romanian, henceforth, u -preposition, heading a u- PP) and another NP in the same clause. I will show that u- PPs can introduce a number of distinct possessive relations in function of the syntactic context and that languages differ subtly in the matter of which such relations are available in which contexts. I will attribute this variation to the different semantic domains of these possessive PPs (locus-modifiers as opposed to event-modifiers) arising from the lexical specification of the possessive relators lexicalized by these prepositions.
P(reposition)-stranding is typologically rare. Nevertheless, many languages exhibit phenomena that look like P-stranding (Campos 1991; Poplack, Zentz, and Dion 2012) or involve P-stranding under common theorizing (see Philippova 2014 and references therein). These studies argue that these are not instances of P-complement movement and provide alternative analyses. This squib addresses Russian prepositions that can be postposed to and apparently stranded by their dependents. They are proposed to be PPs rather than P-heads, with dative dependents adjoined similarly to external possessors. The analysis captures all idiosyncrasies of their nominal dependents and alleviates the need to posit exceptional P-stranding in Russian.
In many Romance and Germanic languages, definite determiners can indicate possession for a subset of nouns that have often been called nouns of ‘inalienable’ possession. This paper addresses the question of why and how the definite determiner contributes to the interpretation of ‘inalienable possession’. Following Freeze (1992) and others, I argue that ‘inalienable possession’ cannot be properly characterized as inalienable and does not involve possession. Relevant ‘inalienably possessed’ nouns are not restricted to body parts, but include a broader set of nouns that are commonly expected to be located in or on the possessor: mental or physical faculties, facial expressions, as well as articles of clothing, protection, and adornment. I argue that the relevant cases are best captured in terms of an analysis that combines a syntactic configuration for locative prepositions (RP in den Dikken’s 2006 sense) with the semantics of weak definites for the ‘inalienable’ use of the definite determiner. All observed restrictions derive from the requirement that the semantic properties of weak definites and the syntactic configuration of the RP need to be compositionally respected. Finally, I propose some ideas about how this analysis can be extended to crosslinguistic variation in German and English.
In this paper we propose a syntactic analysis of dative DPs in ditransitive constructions in Russian, answering three questions: (I) what semantic roles the indirect object realizes; (II) how it is syntactically ordered with respect to the direct object realizing the theme argument, and (III) how the first two issues are related to the morphological encoding of the indirect object, as a PP or as a morphologically case-marked DP. Addressing first question (II), we show that two kinds of syntactic hierarchies between the two internal arguments of a ditransitive configuration coexist, and that there are two sorts of datives that are hierarchically higher than the theme: those that can reconstruct and those that cannot. We then establish an interpretative correlation between these two types of dative DP, showing that the former is locational and the latter is not, providing the answer to question (I) and elucidating what underlies the morphological similarity, question (III). The interpretative and syntactic differences between scrambled and base generated high datives lead us to claim that in Russian, dative ditransitives have two distinct underlying structures that are not derivationally related. A scalar approach to event structure enables us to pinpoint the interpretative correlate of each type of dative (locational vs. non-locational) and provides a conceptual argument in favour of a non-synonymy non-derivational approach we pursue here: a path scale encoding event schema cannot be transformed into a different scale based event schema due to movement of the dative DP. Finally, the scalar approach allows us to identify the lexical correlates of a possessive interpretation of the high dative vs. a more beneficiary-like interpretation. Extent scales allow the former whereas property and path scales facilitate the other.
The chapters of this volume scrutinize the interplay of different combinations of case, animacy and semantic roles, thus contributing to our understanding of these notions in a novel way. The focus of the chapters lies on showing how animacy affects argument marking. Unlike previous studies, these chapters primarily deal with lesser studied phenomena, such as animacy effects on spatial cases and the differences between cases and adpositions in the coding of spatial relations. In addition, theoretical and diachronic issues related to case and semantic roles are also discussed; for example, what is case, how do cases develop and what are the functional differences between cases and adpositions? The chapters deal with a variety of different languages including Uralic languages, Indo-European languages, Basque, Korean and Vaeakau-Taumako. The book is appealing to anyone interested in case, animacy and/or semantic roles.
The present paper deals with the semantics of locative expressions. Our approach is essentially model-theoretic, using basic geometrical properties of the spacetime continuum. We shall demonstrate that locatives consist of two layers: the first layer defines a location and the second a type of movement with respect to that location. The elements defining these layers, called localisers and modalisers, tend to form a unit, which is typically either an adposition or a case marker. It will be seen that this layering is not only semantically but in many languages also morphologically manifest. There are numerous languages in which the morphology is sufficiently transparent with respect to the layering. The consequences of this theory are manifold. For example, we shall show that it explains the contrast between English and Finnish concerning directionals, which is discussed in Fong (1997). In addition, we shall be concerned with the question of orientation of locatives, as discussed in Nam (1995). We propose that nondirectional locatives are oriented to the event, while directional locatives are oriented to certain arguments, called movers.
In Relators and Linkers, Marcel den Dikken presents a syntax of predication and the inversion of the predicate around its subject, emphasizing meaningless elements (elements with no semantic load) that play an essential role in the establishment and syntactic manipulation of predication relationships. One such element, the RELATOR, mediates the relationship between a predicate and its subject in the base representation of predication structures. A second, the LINKER, connects the predicate to its subject in Predicate Inversion constructions. Den Dikken argues that all subject-predicate relationships are syntactically mediated by a RELATOR and that predication relationships in syntax are configurationally asymmetrical and non-directional. Discussing the inversion of the predicate around its subject and the distribution of LINKER elements surfacing between the inverted predicate and the subject, den Dikken presents an in-depth analysis of Predicate Inversion from the perspective of the minimalist theory of locality.
Among the features by which Relators and Linkers distinguishes itself from past studies of predication is a detailed investigation of predication and Predicate Inversion inside the complex nominal phrase that makes a carefully documented case for the existence of two types of qualitative binominal noun phrases, one exploiting a predicate-specifier structure and the other employing a predicate-complement structure cum Predicate Inversion. Empirical data includes examples not only from English and Dutch but also from Hungarian, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and other languages. Den Dikken's analysis, cast in terms of the theory of generative grammar, fruitfully brings Chomskyan minimalist principles to bear on the discussion of predication and Predicate Inversion.
This contribution directly builds on the preceding one. On the basis of a detailed empirical investigation of the syntax of adpositional phrases in Dutch, the author refines in various ways the structure and derivation of the lexical and extended functional projections of stative and directional Ps and tries to draw a parallel with the lexical and functional structure of clauses and noun phrases. Among other things, the paper lays out in detail the base structure and syntactic derivation of locative (stative) and directional pre-, post- and circumpositional phrases, discusses the restrictions on movement within and out of the (extended) projections of PLoc and PDir, sheds new light on the relationship between P and case, and analyses the distribution of modifiers in adpositional phrases.
The notion of ditransitivity is explored at the lexical, syntactic and surface levels. By focusing on several types of ditransitive sentences in Spanish it is revealed that there is a triple dissociation between these levels. First, it is shown that the availability of a ditransitive structure (syntactic level) for a certain verb does not depend on the verb being ditransitive (lexical level). Second, causative structures with dative arguments are shown to be ditransitive at the surface level, but not to have an underlying ditransitive structure. Finally, cases of unaccusative sentences with dative arguments are analysed as instances of ditransitive structures without lexical or surface ditransitivity. The paper argues that ditransitivity is at best a pre-theoretical, descriptive notion, and that ditransitive verbs in fact belong to Levin's (Papers from The Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 35: 223-247, 1999) non-core transitives: ditransitives are just transitives compatible with taking a relation between two individuals as complement. This analysis accounts for the intralinguistic and crosslinguistic variation in the expression of the relation, both in terms of type (two DPs related by a transitive preposition or an applicative head) and number of objects realized or omitted. Although the idea that there is no syntactic ditransitivity - that is, that no single verbal head can take two complements - has been implicit in most generative work of the last two decades, it has not been directly explored. This investigation leads to the conclusion that a syntactic property, binary branching, is at the basis of the impossibility of syntactic and lexical ditransitivity. Thus, this result suggests that syntax restricts not only possible structures but possible lexical meanings as well.
Recent work by Bresnan and colleagues (Bresnan 2007, Bresnan et al. 2007, Bresnan and Nikitina 2007) has argued that double object and prepositional dative constructions are essentially identical, the choice between them being conditioned by various factors. I argue against this conclusion, showing that the grammar clearly distinguishes double object from prepositional dative constructions. Under certain circumstances, the first object of a double object construction can shift to the right, with the preposition to appearing, but the grammar still distinguishes this from a prepositional dative construction that looks identical on the surface. The phenomena that I investigate are scope interactions with quantifiers and locative inversion. In addition, the rightward reordering operations investigated here indicate that constraints on variable binding, including weak crossover, must be formulated in terms of linear order rather than hierarchy.
Current theories place very mild constraints on possible diachronic changes, something at odds with the trivial observation that actual, language change represents a tiny fraction of the variation made a priori available by Universal Grammar. Much recent work in diachronic syntax has actually been guided by the aim of describing changes (e.g., parameter resetting), rather than by concerns of genuine explanation. Here I suggest a radically different viewpoint (the Inertial, Theory of diachronic syntax), namely, that syntactic change not provably due to interference should not occur at all as a primitive-that is, unless forced by changes in the phonology, the semantics, or the lexicon, perhaps ultimately by interface or grammar-external pressures, in line with the minimalist enterprise in synchronic linguistics. I concentrate on a single case, the etymology of Modern French chez, showing howthe proposed approach attains a high degree of explanatory adequacy.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
– Dylan Thomas
Death is the mother of beauty.
– Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”
Introduction
These famous lines by Thomas and Stevens are examples of what classical theorists, at least since Aristotle, have referred to as metaphor: instances of novel poetic language in which words like “mother,” “go,” and “night” are not used in their normal everyday sense. In classical theories of language, metaphor was seen as a matter of language, not thought. Metaphorical expressions were assumed to be mutually exclusive with the realm of ordinary everday language: everyday language had no metaphor, and metaphor used mechanisms outside the realm of everyday conventional language.
The classical theory was taken so much for granted over the centuries that many people didn't realize that it was just a theory. The theory was not merely taken to be true, but came to be taken as definitional. The word “metaphor” was defined as a novel or poetic linguistic expression where one or more words for a concept are used outside of their normal conventional meaning to express a “similar” concept.
But such issues are not matters for definitions; they are empirical questions. As a cognitive scientist and a linguist, one asks: what are the generalizations governing the linguistic expressions referred to classically as “poetic metaphors?” When this question is answered rigorously, the classical theory turns out to be false.
Metaphor and Thought, first published in 1979, reflects the surge of interest in and research into the nature and function of metaphor in language and thought. In this revised and expanded second edition, the editor has invited the contributors to update their original essays to reflect any changes in their thinking. Reorganised to accommodate the shifts in central theoretical issues, the volume also includes six new chapters that present important and influential fresh ideas about metaphor that have appeared in such fields as the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, linguistics, cognitive and clinical psychology, education and artificial intelligence.
This paper examines split phrases in Colloquial Russian, including split noun phrases and split prepositional phrases. The aims of the paper are two-fold: (a) to identify the bounds of the word order freedom in Colloquial Russian, and (b) to develop a theory of splitting. It is argued that the splitting is derived not by moving one part of the split phrase away from another part, but by movement and copying of the whole split phrase and partial interpretation of the copies thus produced at the PF interface (that is, partial pronunciation of copies). The analysis developed in this paper crucially relies on the notion that Topic/Focus are interpretable features which need not trigger movement.
The paper argues that clausal possession is to be decomposed into three distinct, independently attested, syntactic configurations,
each associated with its own meaning. These include Location, represented as an ordinary small clause, the Part-Whole relation,
which always has a complement structure within DP as its source, and an applicative structure ApplP, the source of (in)alienable
possession, where humans are treated as special. The analysis we propose focuses on Palestinian Arabic and extends to English
clausal possession and its realizations across have and be. Palestinian Arabic overtly distinguishes a number of ingredients which in other languages enter into possession less transparently:
It marks Location and Part-Whole relations by distinct prepositions, it features a full-agreement/no-agreement distinction
associated with scope, and, lacking have, it keeps separate P° and be, the ingredients often assumed to enter into its composition. The picture which emerges is partly familiar and partly new.
We argue that the notion possession is never linguistically encoded as such, since none of the underlying representations
proposed is associated exclusively with possession. We also argue that the subject in possessive clauses is a derived subject
with both have and be. We attribute the differences between Palestinian Arabic and English to a difference in their agreement systems, which in
conjunction with Economy, forces P° to extract from its PP, and leads to the formation of have. If we are correct, the cross-linguistic distribution of have and be may further reduce to parametric differences in agreement systems.
KeywordsPossession-Location-Part-Whole-Applicatives-Domain extension-Agreement alternation-Locative Inversion-EPP-Economy-Palestinian Arabic-English
This paper argues for an analysis of experiencer have and presentational there constructions based on a small clausal structure of which the predicate — a dative PP in the former and the ‘expletive’ there in the latter — inverts with its subject. This subject can be a simple nominal phrase (as in simple possessive John has the car or there is no solution) or a proposition. This paper will concentrate on have and there constructions in which the subject of the small clause is propositional, analysing in detail more complex there constructions like there walked a strange man into my office and so-called experiencer have constructions like I had a strange man walk into my office, both of which feature the verbal proposition [a strange man walk into my office] as the subject of the there/dative small clause. The structure assigned to these constructions will be seen to correctly predict their extraction properties, in conjunction with a few independent hypotheses concerning the semantics of experiencer have constructions. The analysis brings forth a typology of there and have constructions which will be seen to be empirically attested. It lends support to an analysis of ‘expletive’ there as a small clause predicate, and to a decompositional (have = be + to) approach to have.
This paper introduces a compositional semantics of locativeprepositional phrases which is based on a vector space ontology.Model-theoretic properties of prepositions like monotonicity andconservativity are defined in this system in a straightforward way.These notions are shown to describe central inferences with spatialexpressions and to account for the grammaticality of prepositionmodification. Model-theoretic constraints on the set of possibleprepositions in natural language are specified, similar to the semanticuniversals of Generalized Quantifier Theory.
Thesis (Ph. D. in Linguistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2002. Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-135). Verbal arguments can be divided into two different types: those that are true arguments of the verb and those that are "additional" in the sense that there is evidence that they do not belong to the basic argument structure of the verb. Theories of argument structure are largely theories about how these additional arguments are introduced, but at present few such theories propose explicit mechanisms for deriving crosslinguistic variation in argument expression. This thesis develops a tightly constrained universal system of functional units and argues that crosslinguistic variation arises either from differences in the inventory of units that a language selects for or from the way a language groups the universal units into syntactic heads. The core system consists of three different types of causative heads, two different types of applicative heads and the external argument introducing head Voice (Kratzer 1994). The thesis shows that the properties of applicative constructions are such that they can only be predicted by a theory in which the external argument is also "additional", i.e. not a true argument of the verb. by Mariliina Pylkkänen. Ph.D.in Linguistics
Possession in the Russian Clause: Towards Dynamicity in Syntax, Doctoral dissertation
- Aysa Arylova
Arylova, Aysa. 2013. Possession in the Russian Clause: Towards
Dynamicity in Syntax, Doctoral dissertation, Universiteit Groningen.
Inside Events: The Non-possessive Meanings of Possessive Predicates and the Semantic Conceptualization of Events, Doctoral dissertation
- Robert Belvin
Belvin, Robert. 1996. Inside Events: The Non-possessive Meanings of
Possessive Predicates and the Semantic Conceptualization of Events,
Doctoral dissertation, USC.
The Syntax and Semantics of 'have' and its Complements, Doctoral dissertation
- Claudia Brugman
- Marlea
Brugman, Claudia Marlea. 1988. The Syntax and Semantics of 'have'
and its Complements, Doctoral dissertation, UC Berkeley.
Datives at Large, Doctoral dissertation, MIT
- Maria Cuervo
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Cuervo, Maria Cristina. 2003. Datives at Large, Doctoral dissertation,
MIT.
Non-core arguments in verbal and nominal predication: high and low applicatives and possessor raising
- Pavel Grashchenkov
- Vita G Markman
Grashchenkov, Pavel and Vita G. Markman. 2008. Non-core arguments
in verbal and nominal predication: high and low applicatives and
possessor raising. In Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference
on Formal Linguistics, ed. by Natasha Abner and Jason Bishop, pp.
185-193. Somerville, Massachusetts: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Possessive reflexives in Russian
- Anna Grashchenkova
- Pavel Grashchenkov
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*Glaza Maši golubye vs. Glaza u Maši golubye: Choosing between two Russian constructions in the domain of body parts
- Lidija Iordanskaja
- Igor Mel'čuk
Iordanskaja, Lidija and Igor Mel'čuk. 1995. *Glaza Maši golubye vs.
Glaza u Maši golubye: Choosing between two Russian constructions in
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конструкции с внешним посессором в русском языке
Компьютерная лингвистика и интеллектуальные технологии 5:
pp. 364-368.
Косвенное дополнение как субкатегоризованный и несубкатегоризованный актант (на материале русского языка), Doctoral dissertation
- Ekaterina A Pshekhotskaya
Pshekhotskaya, Ekaterina A. 2012. Косвенное дополнение как
субкатегоризованный и несубкатегоризованный актант (на
материале русского языка), Doctoral dissertation, Moscow State
University.
Possesseurs datifs devant syntagmes prépositionnels
- Egor Tsedryk
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Locatives and datives in Russian: to be AT or to be TO, and how high can they be? Paper presented at Workshop "Datives and beyond
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Tsedryk, Egor. 2017. Locatives and datives in Russian: to be AT or to be
TO, and how high can they be? Paper presented at Workshop "Datives
and beyond", UAB, January 26-27, 2017.
Обладать и быть рядом
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