Academic literature on the topic 'Linguistic structures (incl. phonology, morphology and syntax)'

The main aim of this article is to explore the different features of religious translation in an attempt to provide translators with an objective model to use in this domain. Following the linguistic approach to translation, I propose a model of translation, starting from simple structures into more sophisticated structures focusing on phonology, morphology, lexis, syntax, and semantics, in an attempt to circumvent the peculiarities of the source text and translated text.

This paper discusses the problem of linguistic reconstruction in the Indo-European languages with particular attention to syntax. While many scholars consider syntactic reconstruction as being in principle impossible, other scholars simply apply to syntax the same tenets of the Comparative Method and of Internal Reconstruction, which were originally used in Indo-European studies for reconstructing phonology and morphology. Accordingly, it is assumed that synchronically anomalous syntactic structures are more ancient than productive syntactic constructions; the former are considered as being residues of an early stage of Proto-Indo-European, where they were also more regular and took part in a consistent syntactic system. Various hypotheses of Proto-Indo-European as a syntactically consistent language, which in the last years have witnessed resurgence, are here discussed and criticized. We argue that syntactic consistency is nowhere attested in the Indo-European languages, which in their earliest records rather document an amazing structural variation. Accordingly, we reconstruct Proto-Indo-European as an inconsistent syntactic system in the domains of word order, agreement, configurationality, and alignment, and we consider inconsistency and structural variation to be an original condition of languages. Moreover, we make some proposals for the appropriate use of typology in linguistic reconstruction, with some examples of what can or cannot be reconstructed in syntax.

ABSTRACTFrench liaison has long been a favourite testing ground for phonological theories, a situation which can undoubtedly be attributed to the complexity of the phenomenon, involving in particular phonology/syntax, phonology/morphology, phonology/lexicon interfaces. Dealing with liaison requires stepping into all the components of the grammar, while at the same time tackling the quick sands of variation. The data on which a number of formal analyses are based have often been a source of concern since liaison, in part because of its intrinsic variable character, requires extensive and robust data. In the wake of the results from the study of other corpora, we present here extensive results based on the PFC database (Phonologie du français contemporain: usages, variétés et structures) and point to their implications for models of linguistic structure. While we do not believe that a motivated theoretical account can be mechanically extracted from the data, we conclude that future analyses will have to take explicitly into account the results of extensive corpus work as well as sociolinguistic surveys, acquisition studies, experimental phonetics and (neuro-)psycho-linguistic investigations, including the relationship between speech and writing. As stressed in Chevrot, Fayol and Laks (2005), these analyses will have to acknowledge that French liaison is not a homogeneous locus but a multi-faceted phenomenon requiring us to accept, without demur, the crossing of disciplinary boundaries.

This paper reviews the major parallel structural patterns common across all internal linguistic systems despite the fact that important differences exist between the different language systems besides similarities. However, the prevailing pedagogic approaches to treating these internal linguistic systems as mutually exclusive rather than complementary have highlighted the differences by bringing them to the fore and at the same time have obscured and ignored the essential similarities shared by them all. Drawing on Radford’s (2004) reflection that binarity is equally valid and applicable to the constituent structures of phonological and morphological systems and operations along with that of syntax, the present study extends certain other operations primarily discussed and analysed in terms of syntactic constituents to have been equal application and validity in other linguistic systems i.e., phonology, morphology, and lexicology. This study has concentrated on aspects of general structural patterns in three significant patterns such as ‘essential/non-essential dichotomy’, ‘ordering of elements in constituents at all levels, ‘subcategorization’ restrictions on elements of constituents at all levels. It has been concluded that all the features equally apply to all three internal linguistic systems.

ABSTRACTPicard faces challenges in its quest for recognition, in part due to its perceived similarity with French. While scholars recognize that Picard and French phonology, morphology and lexicon differ considerably, some scholars maintain that Picard syntax differs little from French. Suspecting that such assessments are based on superficial comparisons, we test their validity by performing comparative variationist analyses of Picard and French morphosyntactic structures. This article focuses on interrogatives. We compare older and contemporary written data, as well as contemporary oral data, and show that Picard and French use their shared structures differently and that the Picard Yes/No interrogative system is complex but constrained by two linguistic factors: polarity and person. We report very different distributions of SV, inversion and interrogative –ti based on polarity and show that negative markers point and mie constrain the choice of interrogative structure. For affirmative interrogatives, we show that the distribution of interrogative structures is strongly constrained by the subject person. A diachronic analysis of text from nine authors from three generations reveals overall stability over time, with some signs of convergence toward French in the middle generation but a reversal to the older patterns in the youngest generation.

Linguists are increasingly turning to approaches that say that language has no phonology per se, but one should speak about the phonology of speech production, speech perception and language acquisition. The same applies to morphology, syntax and smaller structures in the general architectonics of language/speech grammar. Nowadays, there is no descriptionof grammar/phonology that would illustrate this logic. In the most general way, these approaches can be designated as behavioristic. It is argued here that oblivion of the principles of classical linguistics results in contradictions, unsolvable theoretical problems and delusions. Appeal to phonetics in the narrow sense of the term is unavoidable in modeling speech production, when reproducing from the “meaning to text” transition. The meaning is obviously immaterial, but the same cannot be said about the text. Another transition that in recent years began to be dealt with in linguistic literature on a par with Lev Shcherba’s “aspects”, is “text to language system”. The point of departure here is not easy to define, especially in the case of a natural speech. Two solutions are possible, one based on Chomsky’s postulation of the innate character of language, the other admitting a kind of recursive mechanism capable of “self-expanding” as a result of an infinite number of iterations. As a solution, a combination of two levels may be proposed, prehonological and phonological (resp. semantic and presemantic) which will be resonsible for both transitions.

AbstractThis paper analyses the combinatorial restrictions that operate in clitic clusters in certain Eastern Iberian varieties (Aragonese, Spanish, and Catalan). In particular, I focus on the combination of third person clitics. As it is well known, in some Romance varieties the combination of a third person accusative clitic and a third person dative clitic is banned (the so-called ∗le lo restriction, Bonet, Eulàlia. 1991. Morphology after syntax: Pronominal clitics in Romance. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dissertation; Cuervo, María Cristina. 2013. Spanish clitic clusters: Three of a perfect pair. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 2. 191–220; Nevins, Andrew. 2007. The representation of third person and its consequences for person-case effects. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 25(2). 273–313; Ordóñez, Francisco. 2002. Some clitic combinations in the syntax of Romance. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 1. 201–224, Ordóñez, Francisco. 2012. Clitics in Spanish. In José I. Hualde, Antxon Olarrea & Erin O’Rouke (eds.), The handbook of Spanish Linguistics, 423–453. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell; Perlmutter, David. 1971. Deep and surface structure constraints in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston). In order to license this troublesome combination, languages resort to different ‘repair strategies’ modifying the structure of one of the merged clitics. In the literature on clitic combinations, there have been two main proposals of analysis: morphological and syntactical. In this paper, I put forward an analysis based on the Distinctness Condition (Hiraiwa, Ken. 2010. The syntactic OCP. In Yukio Otsu (ed.), The proceedings of the 11th Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, 35–56. Hituzi: Tokyo; Neeleman, Ad & Hans van de Koot. 2005. Syntactic haplology. In Martin Everaert & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, 685–710. Wiley-Blackwell; Perlmutter, David. 1971. Deep and surface structure constraints in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston; Richards, Norvin. 2010. Uttering trees, vol. 56. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Van Riemsdijk, Henk. 1998. Categorial feature magnetism: The endocentricity and distribution of projections. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 2(1). 1–48; Yip, Moira. 1998. Identity avoxidance in phonology and morphology. In Steven G. Lapointe, Diane K. Brentari & Patrick M. Farell (eds.), Mophology and its relation to phonology and syntax, 216–246. Stanford, CA: CSLI). Specifically, I argue that the restrictions that constraint clitic combinations are due to the impossibility to linearize two identical syntactic objects, such as <XP, XP> (Chomsky, Noam. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130. 33–49; Chomsky, Noam. 2015. Problems of projection. In Elisa Di Domenico, Cornelia Hamann & Simona Matteini (eds.), Structures, strategies and beyond: Studies in honour of Adriana Belletti, 1–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Moro, Andrea. 2000. Dynamic antisymmetry (No. 38). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Richards, Norvin. 2010. Uttering trees, vol. 56. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). From this perspective, cross-linguistic variation is the result of different ‘repair strategies’ languages deploy to make <XP, XP> objects linearizable (Richards, Norvin. 2010. Uttering trees, vol. 56. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

This paper explores the linguistic properties of a discourse variant of the temporal adverb ʔelħi:n, used in Haili Dialect of Najdi Arabic (HA). Maintaining the characteristic of co-occurring clause-initially, and examining lexical/discoursal articulated structures, ʔelħi:n has developed a conventionalized discourse use, turning its morphology into a discourse particle that expresses a degree of speaker’s attitude. ʔelħi:n has undergone a process of grammaticalisation, with morphosyntactic consequence: changing its phrasal status to a head one. Evidence supporting this direction derives from intervention effects (Rizzi, 2006)- ʔelħi:n inhabits movement of head-items in syntax. The immediate consequence of this morphosyntactic change has direct impact on the syntax of ʔelħi:n: occurring clause-initially and its phonology: being unable to bear high tone, unlike its temporal adverb counterpart. Implementing cartographic mechanisms, Rizzi’s (1997) Split CP System, and holding to observations that inherently focused material wh-phrase leɪʃ ‘why’ merges in a position c-commanded by ʔelħi:n, it is established that the discourse instance of ʔelħi:n first merges at a discourse head, instantiating a discourse projection, PrtP, whence it semantically wide-scopes the propositional-TP. Constituents preceding ʔelħi:n are then argued to move and remerge at some Spec of a discourse phrase, C-TopP (Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl, 2007). Mapping the CP-layer of HA, the PrtP headed by ʔelħi:n maintains a rigid order in syntax with respect to CP-items, which makes a possible, initial mapping to the left periphery of HA, calling for scrutiny of more structure.

AbstractThe contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable influence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed that the Western Torres language is, in fact, a genetically Papuan language, though with substantial Australian substrate or adstrate influence. Much has been made of phonological structures which have been viewed as unusual for Australian languages. In this paper we examine the evidence for contact claims in the region. We review aspects of the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait languages with an eye to identifying areal influence. This larger data pool shows that the case for intense contact has been vastly overstated. Beyond some phonological features and some loan words, there is no linguistic evidence for intense contact; moreover, the phonological features adduced to be evidence of contact are also found to be not specifically Papuan, but part of a wider set of features in Australian languages.