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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Syntactic'
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1
Megyesi, Beata. "Data-driven syntactic analysis." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Speech Transmission and Music Acoustics, 2002. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-3433.
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Noonan, Máire B. "Case and syntactic geometry." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=39372.
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The first part of this thesis addresses the following questions: where in the syntactic tree, and at what representational level is an NP Case-checked. To this end, it presents converging data from French, Welsh and Irish, which suggest (i) that Case-checking may be accomplished under a variety of functional projections (subject to parametric variation); and (ii) that Case positions are--at least partially--independent of the A/A$ sp prime$-distinction. It furthermore presents evidence from Irish and Welsh--VSO languages in which NPs typically raise to their Case position only at LF--that NPs are, under certain conditions, Case-checked at S-structure.<br>Chapter 2 investigates word order and cliticisation in Standard French and Quebec French interrogatives and proposes a typology of interrogatives. Chapter 3 and 4 account for complementizer variation, pre-verbal particles and agreement patterns in Welsh and Irish under a Case-theoretic approach.<br>The second part of this thesis concerns the conditions on the availability of structural accusative Case. A theory of structural Case is proposed according to which accusativity is a configurational rather than a lexical property--i.e., resulting from syntactic geometry and not from lexical feature specifications on verbs. To this end, a comparison between the syntactic mapping of stative and perfective predicates in Irish and English is undertaken.
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Canning, Yvonne Margaret. "Syntactic simplification of text." Thesis, University of Sunderland, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.369911.
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Ko, Heejeong. "Syntactic edges and linearization." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33698.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2005.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-267).<br>In this thesis, I investigate the question of how the units of a linguistic expression are linearly ordered in syntax. In particular, I examine interactions between locality conditions on movement and the mapping between syntax and phonology. I show that Cyclic Linearization of syntactic structure and constraints on domain-internal movement of multiple specifiers predict unique ordering restrictions at the edges of syntactic domains. As a consequence of cyclic Spell-out and conditions on syntactic agreement, elements externally merged as a constituent at the edge of a Spell-out domain cannot be separated by a domain-internal element. This proposal provides a unified account of a variety of types of ordering restrictions in scrambling - in particular, floating quantifier and possessor constructions in Korean and Japanese. Evidence is drawn from interactions among various factors, which include: scrambling, the scope and syntactic position of adverbs, depictive and resultative predicates, possessor constructions, and varieties of floating quantifiers, among others. It is argued that the domain of cyclic Spell-out must include the edge as well as the complement of a Spell-out domain.<br>(cont.) This challenges the view that edges are designated escape hatches in syntax. Other results include arguments that scrambling is feature-driven movement, support for the view that syntactic agreement is feature sharing, as well as a particular repertoire of phases (including VP and well as vP).<br>by Heejeong Ko.<br>Ph.D.
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Rubio, Alcalá Carlos. "Syntactic constraints on topicalization phenomena." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/145399.
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Esta tesis es un estudio de las condiciones en las cuales la Clitic Left Dislocation, un tipo de topicalización, puede violar restricciones de isla del tipo fuerte en diferentes lenguas románicas.
En la caracterización clásica de Cinque (1990), los Tópicos están descritos como insensibles a las restricciones de localidad débiles (las islas-Q, por ejemplo) pero sensibles a las islas de tipo fuerte (islas de sujeto, de adjunto y de sintagma nominal complejo). Sin embargo, los hechos empíricos muestran cómo en las circunstancias apropiadas, tales islas también se pueden violar mediante la Clitic Left Dislocation:
(1) a. A Pedro, que le hayas hablado de ese tema, me molesta muchísimo.
Violación de isla de sujeto
b. A María, si le cuentas esa historia, Juan se enfadará.
Violación de isla de adjunto
c. A Pedro, el médico que lo vio, le dijo que volviera mañana.
Violación de sintagma nominal complejo
Esta tesis tiene como objetivo examinar bajo qué condiciones es posible este tipo de violación y ofrecer un análisis para dichos casos. Para ello, en primer lugar se realiza una caracterización de la Clitic Left Dislocation en términos de movimiento sintáctico. Los motivos proporcionados para ello incluyen: (i) la presencia de efectos de reconstrucción relacionados con las relaciones de ligamiento; (ii) la presencia de asignación de Caso, del cual se asume que es local; (iii) las diferencias sistemáticas con los Hanging Topics, de los cuales se puede asumir que se generan in situ en la periferia oracional; y (iv) la propia existencia de restricciones de localidad.
El resto de la tesis está dedicado al examen de cada tipo de violación de isla. Para las islas de sujeto, la observación crucial es que la Clitic Left Dislocation que tiene lugar desde un sujeto oracional puede ocurrir con verbos inacusativos, lo cual apunta al hecho de que dichos sujetos se deben haber generado en posición post-verbal. Dado que se acepta generalmente que las posiciones de objeto son más transparentes para la extracción que las de especificador, se propone que los Tópicos escapan de los sujetos clausales antes de que éstos se desplacen a una posición de especificador, conviertiéndose en islas en el proceso. Por lo tanto, el orden de las operaciones sintácticas resulta crucial para el análisis de este tipo de violación.
Las islas de adjunto y de sintagma nominal complejo no se pueden violar en general, y el único caso en el que esto parece posible sucede cuando hay un pronombre en una posición permitida que es co-referencial con el pronombre en la posición prohibida.
Una excepción notable la constituyen ciertos tipos de subordinadas adverbiales, con particular mención a las condicionales. Para las oraciones condicionales, la observación más importante es que permiten la topicalización desde su interior siempre que hayan sido topicalizadas a su vez.
La tesis acaba con una conclusión para cada capítulo y algunas propuestas para desarrollar algunas de las líneas de investigación sugeridas.<br>This dissertation is a study of the conditions under which Clitic Left Dislocation, a type of topicalization, can violate island constraints of the strong kind in different Romance languages.
Under the classical characterization by Cinque (1990), Topics are described as insensitive to locality constraints of the weak kind (Wh-islands, for instance) but sensitive to islands of the strong kind (Subject Islands, Adjunct Islands and Complex-NP Islands). Nevertheless, the empirical facts show how under the appropriate circumstances, such islands can also be violated by Clitic Left Dislocation:
(1) a. A Pedro, que le hayas hablado de ese tema, me molesta muchísimo.
To Pedro, that CL-him you have talked about that issue, CL-me bothers very much.
Subject Island Violation
b. A María, si le cuentas esa historia, Juan se enfadará.
To María, if CL-her you tell that story Juan will get angry.
Adjunct Island Violation
c. A Pedro, el médico que lo vio, le dijo que volviera mañana.
To Pedro, the doctor who CL-him saw, CL-him told to come back tomorrow.
Complex-NP Violation
The dissertation aims to examine under which conditions such violation is possible and to offer an analysis for such cases. In order to do so, in the first place a characterization of Clitic Left Dislocation as a process involving syntactic movement is carried out. The reasons provided for that include (i) the presence of reconstructions effects involving binding relations; (ii) the presence of Case assignment, which is assumed to be local; (iii) the systematic differences in behaviour with respect to Hanging Topics, which can be safely assumed to be generated in situ in the sentential periphery; and (iv) the very existence of locality constraints.
The rest of the dissertation is devoted to the examination of each case of island violation. For Subject Islands, the crucial observation is that Clitic Left Dislocation from a clausal subject can take place with unaccusative verbs, which points to the fact that their subjects must have been generated post-verbally. Since it is generally accepted that object positions are more transparent for extraction than specifier positions, it is proposed that Topics escape clausal subjects before they move to a specifier position, thus becoming islands. Therefore, the timing of syntactic operations is crucial for this type of violation.
Adjunct and Complex-NP islands are not generally violable, and the only case in which it seems to be possible happens when there is a pronoun in a permitted position which is co-referential with the pronoun in the banned position.
A noteworthy exception happens with certain kinds of adverbial subordinate clauses, conditionals most notably. For conditional clauses, the crucial observation is that they allow topicalization from within as long as they have been topicalized in turn.
The dissertation closes with a conclusion for each of the chapter and a few proposals to develop the research lines pursued.
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Kempson, Ruth, and Ronnie Cann. "Dialogue pressures and syntactic change." Universität Potsdam, 2006. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2006/1046/.
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On the basis of the Dynamic Syntax
framework, this paper argues that the
production pressures in dialogue determining
alignment effects and given versus
new informational effects also drive
the shift from case-rich free word order
systems without clitic pronouns into systems
with clitic pronouns with rigid relative
ordering. <br>The paper introduces assumptions
of Dynamic Syntax, in particular
the building up of interpretation
through structural underspecification and
update, sketches the attendant account
of production with close coordination of
parsing and production strategies, and
shows how what was at the Latin stage a
purely pragmatic, production-driven decision
about linear ordering becomes encoded
in the clitics in theMedieval Spanish
system which then through successive
steps of routinization yield the modern
systems with immediately pre-verbal
fixed clitic templates.
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Nastase, Viviana A. "Semantic relations across syntactic levels." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/29147.
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In order to make sense of a message conveyed to us via a spoken or written utterance, we understand what things are talked about, and how they are connected.
From this point of view, do these sentences convey different messages? (1) I will arrive at 11 am. and I will arrive when you arrive. (2) I will meet you in the office. and I will meet you where we met last time. (3) Sweets before dinner spoil your appetite. and (4) Eating sweets before dinner spoils your appetite.
I will arrive at a certain point in time: at 11 am., or when you arrive. I will meet you at a certain place: in the office, or where we met last time. We can talk about sweets and mean eating sweets.
Literature review suggests that the relations exemplified by these pairs of sentences are different, because they connect different types of syntactic units. The first relation in each pair connects a verb and one of its arguments, the second---two clauses.
Such distinctions are artificial. Semantic relations link concepts, and will surface on the syntactic level on which the concepts they connect surface.
We aim to give an account of semantic relations that does not depend on syntactic levels. We will justify a unified view of semantic relations across syntactic levels. Such a view has a positive effect on text analysis. It will allow us to gather evidence for a particular semantic relation from all levels at which it appears. Having such information that is not separated according to syntactic levels will allow a text analysis and knowledge acquisition system to use at each processing step, all the evidence previously gathered. We will show that this translates into faster learning and better results.
We can take semantic relation analysis onto another level. We can look for descriptions of concepts connected by a specific semantic relation to find what characteristics or features of the concepts connected make them interact in this way. (1) blue book, happy person, interesting study; (2) paper bag, wooden chair, iron gate; (3) oak tree, cumulus cloud, flounder fish.
Blue, happy, interesting are properties, and paper, wood, iron are materials. Oak is a specific type of tree, cumulus is a type of cloud, and flounder is a type of fish.
We will use ontologies to find similarities between concepts that explain or give us indications about the semantic relations in which they are involved.
All these aspects we explore serve to improve text analysis. We propose a uniform processing of texts that allows us to extracts pairs of concepts that interact, and to describe this interaction through semantic relations.
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Zhang, Ning. "Syntactic dependencies in Mandarin Chinese." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ27759.pdf.
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Baggaley, Valerie. "The syntactic category of pronouns." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ38521.pdf.
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Thompson, James J. "Syntactic nominalization in Halkomelem Salish." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42183.
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This dissertation is a detailed exploration of two constructions in Halkomelem Salish – Predicate Nominalization and Clausal Nominalization – which I group together as syntactic nominalization. I use these terms throughout to refer to the particular operations, and refer to the results of those operations as nominalized predicates and nominalized clauses, respectively.
The two constructions examined here share some nominal morphological features. Both possess an /s-/ nominalizer, identical in shape with the nominalizer used to create (theme) participant nominals. Possessive agreement morphology appears in both nominalized predicates and nominalized clauses, indexing the highest argument in each. Despite these surface similarities and a common source, I argue that these two operations are synchronically distinct, and, as a corollary, that they are formed with distinct, homophonous nominalizers.
In Chapter 3, I address predicate nominalization, which is used to create a predicate whose subject is interpreted as the theme of the non-nominalized predicate. I argue that predicate nominalization forms a reduced relative clause at the edge of the thematic domain, with the nominalizer functioning as a relative pronoun. I further argue that the nominalizer projects after remerge, thus creating a constituent with the internal structure of a relative clause and the external distribution of an NP.
In Chapter 4, I argue that clausal nominalization forms a defective CP, which is used as the default embedded clause and as the dependent clause(s) in a clause chain. I analyze nominalizer in clausal nominalization as a complementizer that cannot convey illocutionary force. My analysis captures the fact that nominalized clauses have the formal properties and distribution of clauses rather than DPs, along with their embedded and clause-chaining uses.
I take a cross-Salish perspective in Chapter 5, showing how attested variation within the family is compatible with my analyses.
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Bhat, Sooraj. "Syntactic foundations for machine learning." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/47700.
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Machine learning has risen in importance across science, engineering, and business in
recent years. Domain experts have begun to understand how their data analysis problems
can be solved in a principled and efficient manner using methods from machine learning,
with its simultaneous focus on statistical and computational concerns. Moreover, the data
in many of these application domains has exploded in availability and scale, further underscoring the need for algorithms which find patterns and trends quickly and correctly.
However, most people actually analyzing data today operate far from the expert level.
Available statistical libraries and even textbooks contain only a finite sample of the possibilities afforded by the underlying mathematical principles. Ideally, practitioners should
be able to do what machine learning experts can do--employ the fundamental principles to
experiment with the practically infinite number of possible customized statistical models as
well as alternative algorithms for solving them, including advanced techniques for handling
massive datasets. This would lead to more accurate models, the ability in some cases to
analyze data that was previously intractable, and, if the experimentation can be greatly
accelerated, huge gains in human productivity.
Fixing this state of affairs involves mechanizing and automating these statistical and
algorithmic principles. This task has received little attention because we lack a suitable
syntactic representation that is capable of specifying machine learning problems and solutions, so there is no way to encode the principles in question, which are themselves a
mapping between problem and solution. This work focuses on providing the foundational
layer for enabling this vision, with the thesis that such a representation is possible. We
demonstrate the thesis by defining a syntactic representation of machine learning that is
expressive, promotes correctness, and enables the mechanization of a wide variety of useful
solution principles.
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Siddharthan, Advaith. "Syntactic simplification and text cohesion." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.407014.
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Gompel, Rutger Petrus Gerardus van. "The architecture underlying syntactic processing." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.312672.
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Paisey, Lorraine. "Entailment : semantic and syntactic approaches." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.327882.
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This thesis gives an account of the nature of entailment through consideration of the role which semantics and syntax have to play in logical theory. This is done in two parts. The first part deals with a class of non-formal logical relations arising from the use of determinate predicates. The second deals with the core of relevance logic and with natural deduction systems of logic and their semantic counterparts. In this part, a philosophical analysis of the concept of normalisability is given, and the significance of transitivity for logic is discussed. The failure of the Lewis proof of B from A & -A is analysed, this analysis giving rise to the notion of suasive power as the key to our understanding of entailment. It is concluded that entailment is to be understood through proper appreciation of its role in clarifying commitments inherent in sets of statements and in particular in revealing contradictions where these occur. For a full account of entailment, both semantically based and syntactically based concepts are necessary.
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Bell, Daniel Melvin. "Syntactic change in Xining Mandarin." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/4067.
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This dissertation discusses the Xining Mandarin dialect (spoken in Qinghai province, northwest China), a variety in which head-final syntax has emerged on the model of local Mongolic languages and Tibetan. The underlying socio-historical scenario is explored in detail and analysed as a case of 'fort creolization' (Bickerton 1988). An overview is then provided of how head-final categories emerged in the dialect, namely through reanalysing Chinese form-meaning units to fulfil functions found in the substrate languages, with comparatively little reordering of grammatical devices inherent to Chinese or outright borrowing of substrate forms. The relevant changes are discussed in relation to Heine and Kuteva's (2005) model of contact-induced grammaticalization and findings from creole studies. Detailed discussion of the dialect's clausal syntax focuses on aspect marking, tense/mood marking, non-lexical functions of SAY and object scrambling. With regard to the aspectual system, an account is proposed of ZHE, which is typologically unusual in showing imperfective/perfective polysemy. Tense and modality is then considered with regard to the sentential particle lia, and its future marking function is seen to be conditioned by the aspectual class of the sentence, providing evidence of aspectually sensitive tenses (de Swart 1998) in Chinese. In terms of non-lexical functions of SAY, a range of clause-final uses are discussed, including as a complementizer and volitional mood marker, whilst discourse marking uses of SAY are interpreted in light of Traugott's (1995, 2010) notion of (inter)subjectification. Finally, object fronting in the dialect is shown to possess the properties of Japanese style scrambling, despite the absence of this type of movement across other Chinese dialects. Its existence in the Xining dialect, where phrase-structure change has occurred from head-initial to head-final, is argued to provide broad support for the correlation between head-final syntax and scrambling formalized by the Generalized Holmberg Constraint (Wallenberg 2009).
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Veysey, Christopher Lawrence. "Syntactic complexity and sentence processing." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708578.
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Walkden, George Lee. "Syntactic reconstruction and proto-Germanic." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610880.
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Zimmer, Elly Jane, and Elly Jane Zimmer. "Children's Awareness of Syntactic Ambiguity." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/620862.
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This dissertation probes children's metalinguistic awareness of syntactic ambiguity (as in the sentence The man is poking the monkey with a banana, where the PP with a banana can be understood in two ways, associated with either the monkey or the poking). Several studies suggest that children do not spontaneously detect syntactic ambiguity until the second grade (e.g., Wankoff, 1983; Cairns et al., 2004). However, syntactic ambiguity detection contributes to reading comprehension skills in second and third graders (e.g., Cairns et al., 2004; Yuill, 2009). This research suggests the hypothesis that syntactic ambiguity awareness should contribute to reading development. Specifically, the theoretical model known as the Simple View of Reading posits that the main components of reading are decoding and linguistic comprehension. Syntactic ambiguity detection could contribute to linguistic comprehension because it helps a listener to overcome comprehension difficulties caused by misinterpreting an ambiguous sentence. Thus, it is important to better understand the early development of syntactic ambiguity awareness. If its connection to reading begins younger than second grade, it might be incorporated into early reading curricula and intervention strategies, which are more effective when applied earlier. This dissertation includes three manuscripts that are or will be submitted for publication. The first manuscript reports on a study that laid the foundation for the following two by testing whether 3- to 5-year-olds access both interpretations of a syntactic ambiguity using a truth value judgment task. The results showed that children do entertain both interpretations, indicating that comprehension should not be an impediment to syntactic ambiguity detection. This study is currently in revisions at First Language (Zimmer, 2016a). The second manuscript reports on a study that tested whether 4- to 7-year-olds can detect ambiguous sentences using a task that differs from those used in previous studies. My study used a picture selection task that tested for conscious awareness by having children teach a puppet why multiple pictures could match one sentence. I developed a scoring system for children's explanations that allowed for more gradient measures of early ambiguity awareness than previous research. The results showed that a small proportion of 4- to 7-year-olds are aware of syntactic ambiguity, and many others are beginning to show indications of such awareness (e.g., they select both pictures but their explanations are not yet adult-like). This manuscript is submitted to The Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (Zimmer, 2016b).The third manuscript reports on a study that tested whether 6- to 7-year-olds can learn syntactic ambiguity detection and whether the learning correlates with improvement at reading readiness measures. Participants were divided into two groups: an ambiguity group that did four weeks of games to teach syntactic ambiguity detection, and a control group that did four weeks of math games. I found that children in the ambiguity group improved more at ambiguity detection and at reading readiness tests than those in the control group. This showed that syntactic ambiguity detection is a learnable skill for children as young as 6 and suggests that its connection to reading is in place that young as well. Thus, this skill could be a valuable addition to early reading curricula and intervention strategies. This manuscript will be submitted to Applied Psycholinguistics (Zimmer, 2016c).
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Brigadoi, Ivan. "Genre classification using syntactic features." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för lingvistik och filologi, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-454667.
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This thesis work adresses text classification in relation to genre identification using different feature sets, with a focus on syntactic based features. We built our models by means of traditional machine learning algorithms, i.e. Naive Bayes, K-nearest neighbour, Support Vector Machine and Random Forest in order to predict the literary genre of books. We trained our models using as feature sets bag-of-words (BOW), bigrams, syntactic-based bigrams and emotional features, as well as combinations of features. Results obtained using the best features, i.e. BOW combined with bigrams based on syntactic relations between words, on the test set showed an enhancement in performance by 2% in F1-score over the baseline using BOW features, which translates into a positive impact of using syntactic information in the task of text classification.
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Кобякова, Ірина Карпівна, Ирина Карповна Кобякова, Iryna Karpivna Kobiakova, Галина Валеріївна Чуланова, Галина Валериевна Чуланова, and Halyna Valeriivna Chulanova. "Expressiveness of Blurbs: Syntactic Level." Thesis, International Academy of Science and Higher Education (London), 2015. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/41870.
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The article deals with the expressiveness of blurbs. Closely considered are items of emotional syntax. The article singles out and analyzes the range of syntactical means of expressing emotions in blurbs. Herewith much attention is given to the peculiarities of dominant stylistic techniques used in this type of discourse.
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Phelps, James 1954. "Syntactic Structures in Functional Tonality." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1985. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500265/.
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Chapter I examines linguistic structures fundamental to most tasks of comprehension performed by humans. Chapter II proposes musical elements to be linguistic structures functioning within a musical symbol system (syntax). In this chapter, functional tonality is explored for systemic elements and relationships among these elements that facilitate tonal understanding. It is postulated that the listener's comprehension of these tonal elements is dependent on cognitive tasks performed by virtue of linguistic competence. Chapter III examines human information processing systems that are applicable both generally to human cognition and specifically to tonal comprehension. A pedagogy for listening skills that facilitate tonal comprehension is proposed in the fourth and final chapter and is based on information presented in preceding chapters.
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Rothstein, Susan Deborah. "The syntactic forms of predication." Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1985. http://books.google.com/books?id=pWRiAAAAMAAJ.
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Hughes, Michael. "Morphological faithfulness to syntactic representations /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3099922.
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Collins, James. "Syntactic Derivations of Samoan Predicates." Thesis, Department of Linguistics, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/10039.
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This thesis gives a formal syntactic account of Samoan verbal classes. Samoan verbs may be divided into classes based on their observable syntactic behaviour (for example, case assignment, incorporation) or on their semantic properties (event structure, theta role assignment). The analysis aims to characterise these differences in terms of simple, lexically specified parameters. My objectives here are primarily theoretical, as opposed to descriptive. I intend to test the validity of certain linguistic assumptions using Samoan examples. My argument is informed by research conducted with Samoan speakers living in both Australia and Samoa.
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Vaughan-Evans, Awel Hydref. "Syntactic co-activation in bilinguals." Thesis, Bangor University, 2015. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/syntactic-coactivation-in-bilinguals(a5dd59e2-99b6-4b98-9a2f-66787216d04a).html.
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Each human language possesses a distinctive set of syntactic rules, and early, balanced bilinguals must learn two syntactic systems. The organisation of these systems in the bilingual brain is not yet clear; do they remain autonomous, or do they interact? This thesis examines the extent to which bilinguals’ knowledge of syntactic rules are co-active during monolingual sentence processing. Thus, the primary objective is to assess (a) whether bilinguals co-activate idiosyncratic syntactic rules, (b) how syntactic co-activation occurs, and (c) when syntactic co-activation occurs, focusing on contextual constraints. To this end, I manipulated English sentences according to the Welsh rules of soft mutation (a morphosyntactic process that alters the initial consonant of words), such that English sentences included ‘mutated’ (e.g. prince brince) or ‘aberrant’ (e.g. prince grince) nonwords, presented either explicitly or implicitly. In Chapters 3 and 4, syntactic co-activation led to the modulation of the phonological mismatch negativity (PMN), but only in sentences that would elicit a mutation in Welsh. Crucially, processing of explicitly processed nonwords was not influenced by lexical overlap between languages, indicating that bilinguals co-activate abstract syntactic rules during sentence processing. In Chapter 5, eye-movements were measured to determine the extent to which syntactic co-activation occurs in natural sentence reading (in which manipulated target words were implicitly processed). Syntactic co-activation manifested on later processing measures, reflected in longer reading times. Interestingly, this effect was restricted to trials in which there was lexical overlap between languages, suggesting that co-activation is sensitive to a lexical boost effect. Based on these findings, I propose a model of syntactic co-activation that is constrained by contextual demands: syntactic co-activation can occur via abstraction of syntactic rules, but may also be reliant on cross language lexico-syntactic associations during certain contexts.
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Nataša, Milićević. "Syntactic strategies behind free relatives." Phd thesis, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Filozofski fakultet u Novom Sadu, 2016. https://www.cris.uns.ac.rs/record.jsf?recordId=100347&source=NDLTD&language=en.
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The topic of this thesis is the syntax of free relativeclauses and specificational pseudoclefts, with the focus onEnglish and Serbian. It offers a unifying analysis for therange of phenomena related to the syntax of free relativeclauses in English and Serbian, within a structure sharing,or multi-dominance approach. This approach assumes theexistence of a particular type of displacement in syntax,which is referred to as grafting, and argues for its validityon theoretical and empirical ground.It is argued in this thesis that grafting enables a moreparsimonious account of a range of phenomena related tothe properties of free relatives in both languages.As far as the Serbian data is concerned, it has been shownthat the common observation about a less constrained8distribution of FRs in langugages with null subjects iswrong, and the analysis of the relevant data is provided.This thesis also provides an account of specificationalpseudoclefts in Serbian – determining what counts as thistype of construction and to what degree it matches theproperties of English specificiational pseudoclefts. It hasbeen argued that their derivation involves predicateraising and not the question-plus-deletion analysis.Finally, this work provides an important insight into thenature of clausal predicates inside copular constructionsin English and Serbian the key properties that connectthem.<br>Tema ove teze je sintaksa dopunskih nominalnih klauza ineodređenih generalizirajućih zavisnih rečenica uengleskom i srpskom jeziku. Ovaj rad nudi zajedničkuanalizu niza fenomena koji su karakteristični za dopunskerelativne klauze u engleskom i srpskom, u duhu pristupazajedničkih struktura ili višestruke dominacije. Ovajpristup pretpostavlja postojanje posebne vrstesintaksickog spajanja konstituenata, koje se naziva ikalemljenjem, a ovaj rad dokazuje njegovu validnost iemprijisku zasnovanost.Glavna teza ovog rada je da kalemljenje omogućavajednostavnije objašnjenje niza fenomena vezanih zakarakterstike dopunskih nominalnih klauza u oba jezika.Što se tiče podataka iz srpskog jezika, ova teza pokazujeda je pogrešna uobičajena konstatacija o slobodnijojdistribuciji dopunskih nominalnih klauza u jezicima safonološki nerealizovanim subjektom, i nudi analizučinjenica koje su u tom pogledu relevantne.Ova teza takođe nudi analizu neodređenihgeneralizirajućih zavisnih klauza u srpskom jeziku takošto definiše tip konstrukicje koji se može smatrati ovomvrstom klauze, kao i meru u kojoj ona deli svojstva saovim tipom klauza u engleskom jeziku. Ovaj radobrazlaže zašto je pomeranje predikata adekvatnijaanaliza ovih konstrukcija od analize poznate kao pitanjeplus brisanje. Konačno, ovaj rad nudi zanimljivozapažanje u vezi sa prirodom klauza koje imaju funkcijupredikata u prostim rečenicama sa glagolom biti.
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Guimaraes, Miranda Maximiliano. "Derivation and representation of syntactic amalgams." College Park, Md. : University of Maryland, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/1815.
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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2004.<br>Thesis research directed by: Linguistics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Mori, Nobue. "A syntactic structure of lexical verbs." College Park, Md. : University of Maryland, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/3196.
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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.<br>Thesis research directed by: Linguistics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Son, Minjeong. "Causation and syntactic decomposition of events." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file 1.05 Mb., 255 p, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3205430.
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Nakazawa, Toshiaki. "Fully Syntactic Example-based Machine Translation." 京都大学 (Kyoto University), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/120373.
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Roberge, Yves. "The syntactic recoverability of null arguments." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27190.
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In most natural languages, a sentence may include a variety of missing elements the recoverability of which is made possible by different processes. This thesis investigates the type of syntactic recoverability found in null argument languages. It is supposed that the mechanisms responsible for this type of recoverability are deeply embedded in Universal Grammar and that this suggests that there is no need for a parameter designed to allow empty arguments per se.
The main goal pursued here is to present a systematic account of the similarities between recoverability through verbal agreement and recoverability through clitics. This results in the proposal that languages with subject clitics and/or object clitics are the same as languages with rich subject agreement and/or object agreement as far as the licensing of the empty pronominal pro is concerned.
We then examine the relationship between clitics and overt NPs in the so-called clitic doubling constructions. The hypothesis defended here is that subject clitics and object clitics are surface realizations of the same abstract element and that this can account for the symmetry existing between various types of clitic regarding the licensing of pro, the possibilities for doubling, and extractions out of doubling constructions at S-structure and at LF.<br>Arts, Faculty of<br>Linguistics, Department of<br>Graduate
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Wall, Matthew. "Games for syntactic control of interference." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.420500.
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Bagiokou, Maria. "The syntactic evolution of programming languages." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285679.
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Hiranuma, So. "The syntactic difficulty of Japanese sentences." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.268461.
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Boulier, Simon Pierre. "Extending type theory with syntactic models." Thesis, Ecole nationale supérieure Mines-Télécom Atlantique Bretagne Pays de la Loire, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018IMTA0110/document.
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Cette thèse s'intéresse à la métathéorie de la théorie des types intuitionniste. Les systèmes que nous considérons sont des variantes de la théorie des types de Martin-Löf ou du Calcul des Constructions, et nous nous intéressons à la cohérence de ces systèmes ou encore à l'indépendance d'axiomes par rapport à ces systèmes. Le fil rouge de cette thèse est la construction de modèles syntaxiques, qui sont des modèles qui réutilisent la théorie des types pour interpréter la théorie des types. Dans une première partie, nous introduisons la théorie des types à l'aide d'un système minimal et de plusieurs extensions potentielles. Dans une seconde partie, nous introduisons les modèles syntaxiques donnés par traduction de programme et donnons plusieurs exemples. Dans une troisième partie, nous présentons Template-Coq, un plugin de métaprogrammation pour Coq. Nous montrons comment l'utiliser pour implémenter directement certains modèles syntaxiques. Enfin, dans une dernière partie, nous nous intéressons aux théories des types à deux égalités : une égalité stricte et une égalité univalente. Nous proposons une relecture des travaux de Coquand et. al. et Orton et Pitts sur le modèle cubique en introduisant la notion de fibrance dégénérée<br>This thesis is about the metatheory of intuitionnistic type theory. The considered systems are variants of Martin-Löf type theory of Calculus of Constructions, and we are interested in the coherence of those systems and in the independence of axioms with respect to those systems. The common theme of this thesis is the construction of syntactic models, which are models reusing type theory to interpret type theory. In a first part, we introduce type theory by a minimal system and several possible extensions. In a second part, we introduce the syntactic models given by program translation and give several examples. In a third part, we present Template-Coq, a plugin for metaprogramming in Coq. We demonstrate how to use it to implement directly some syntactic models. Last, we consider type theories with two equalities: one strict and one univalent. We propose a re-reading of works of Coquand et.al. and of Orton and Pitts on the cubical model by introducing degenerate fibrancy
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Huang, Yan. "Automatic syntactic analysis of learner English." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285998.
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Automatic syntactic analysis is essential for extracting useful information from large-scale learner data for linguistic research and natural language processing (NLP). Currently, researchers use standard POS taggers and parsers developed on native language to analyze learner language. Investigation of how such systems perform on learner data is needed to develop strategies for minimizing the cross-domain effects. Furthermore, POS taggers and parsers are developed for generic NLP purposes and may not be useful for identifying specific syntactic constructs such as subcategorization frames (SCFs). SCFs have attracted much research attention as they provide unique insight into the interplay between lexical and structural information. An automatic SCF identification system adapted for learner language is needed to facilitate research on L2 SCFs. In this thesis, we first provide a comprehensive evaluation of standard POS taggers and parsers on learner and native English. We show that the common practice of constructing a gold standard by manually correcting the output of a system can introduce bias to the evaluation, and we suggest a method to control for the bias. We also quantitatively evaluate the impact of fine-grained learner errors on POS tagging and parsing, identifying the most influential learner errors. Furthermore, we show that the performance of probabilistic POS taggers and parsers on native English can predict their performance on learner English. Secondly, we develop an SCF identification system for learner English. We train a machine learning model on both native and learner English data. The system can label individual verb occurrences in learner data for a set of 49 distinct SCFs. Our evaluation shows that the system reaches an accuracy of 84\% F1 score. We then demonstrate that the level of accuracy is adequate for linguistic research. We design the first multidimensional SCF diversity metrics and investigate how SCF diversity changes with L2 proficiency on a large learner corpus. Our results show that as L2 proficiency develops, learners tend to use more diverse SCF types with greater taxonomic distance; more advanced learners also use different SCF types more evenly and locate the verb tokens of the same SCF type further away from each other. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed SCF diversity metrics contribute a unique perspective to the prediction of L2 proficiency beyond existing syntactic complexity metrics.
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Loreto, Daniel. "Exploiting syntactic relations for question answering." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41612.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-66).<br>Recently there has been a resurgent interest in syntax-based approaches to information access, as a means of overcoming the limitations of keyword-based approaches. So far attempts to use syntax have been ad hoc, choosing to use some syntactic information but still ignoring most of the tree structure. This thesis describes the design and implementation of SMARTQA, a proof-of-concept question answering system that compares syntactic trees in a principled manner. Specifically, SMARTQA uses a tree edit-distance algorithm to calculate the similarity between unordered, unrooted syntactic trees. The general case of this problem is NP-complete; in practice, SMARTQA demonstrates that an optimized implementation of the algorithm can be feasibly used for question answering applications.<br>by Daniel Loreto.<br>M.Eng.
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Yang, Charles D. "Minimal computation : derivation of syntactic structures." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42663.
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Kaplansky, Igor (Igor Borisovich) 1974. "Enhancing information retrieval using syntactic relations." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/86682.
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Frank, Stella Christina. "Bayesian models of syntactic category acquisition." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6693.
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Discovering a word’s part of speech is an essential step in acquiring the grammar of a language. In this thesis we examine a variety of computational Bayesian models that use linguistic input available to children, in the form of transcribed child directed speech, to learn part of speech categories. Part of speech categories are characterised by contextual (distributional/syntactic) and word-internal (morphological) similarity. In this thesis, we assume language learners will be aware of these types of cues, and investigate exactly how they can make use of them. Firstly, we enrich the context of a standard model (the Bayesian Hidden Markov Model) by adding sentence type to the wider distributional context.We show that children are exposed to a much more diverse set of sentence types than evident in standard corpora used for NLP tasks, and previous work suggests that they are aware of the differences between sentence type as signalled by prosody and pragmatics. Sentence type affects local context distributions, and as such can be informative when relying on local context for categorisation. Adding sentence types to the model improves performance, depending on how it is integrated into our models. We discuss how to incorporate novel features into the model structure we use in a flexible manner, and present a second model type that learns to use sentence type as a distinguishing cue only when it is informative. Secondly, we add a model of morphological segmentation to the part of speech categorisation model, in order to model joint learning of syntactic categories and morphology. These two tasks are closely linked: categorising words into syntactic categories is aided by morphological information, and finding morphological patterns in words is aided by knowing the syntactic categories of those words. In our joint model, we find improved performance vis-a-vis single-task baselines, but the nature of the improvement depends on the morphological typology of the language being modelled. This is the first token-based joint model of unsupervised morphology and part of speech category learning of which we are aware.
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Haddock, Nicholas John. "Incremental semantics and interactive syntactic processing." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/18928.
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Lucas, Simon Mark. "Connectionist architectures for syntactic pattern recognition." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1991. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/256263/.
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SOUSA, Reudismam Rolim de. "Learning syntactic program transformations from examples." Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, 2018. http://dspace.sti.ufcg.edu.br:8080/jspui/handle/riufcg/1712.
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Previous issue date: 2018-08-02<br>Capes<br>Ferramentas como ErrorProne, ReSharper e PMD ajudam os programadores a detectar e/ou remover automaticamente vários padrões de códigos suspeitos, possíveis bugs ou estilo de código incorreto. Essas regras podem ser expressas como quick fixes que detectam e reescrevem padrões de código indesejados. No entanto, estender seus catálogos de regras é complexo e demorado. Nesse contexto, os programadores podem querer executar uma edição repetitiva automaticamente para melhorar sua produtividade, mas as ferramentas disponíveis não a suportam. Além disso, os projetistas de ferramentas podem querer identificar regras úteis para automatizarem. Fenômeno semelhante ocorre em sistemas de tutoria inteligente, onde os instrutores escrevem transformações complicadas que descrevem "falhas comuns" para consertar submissões semelhantes de estudantes a tarefas de programação. Nesta tese, apresentamos duas técnicas. REFAZER, uma técnica para gerar automaticamente transformações de programa. Também propomos REVISAR, nossa técnica para aprender quick fixes em repositórios. Nós instanciamos e avaliamos REFAZER em dois domínios. Primeiro, dados exemplos de edições de código dos alunos para corrigir submissões de tarefas incorretas, aprendemos transformações para corrigir envios de outros alunos com falhas semelhantes. Em nossa avaliação em quatro tarefas de programação de setecentos e vinte alunos, nossa técnica
ajudou a corrigir submissões incorretas para 87% dos alunos. No segundo domínio, usamos edições de código repetitivas aplicadas por desenvolvedores ao mesmo projeto para sintetizar a transformação de programa que aplica essas edições a outros locais no código. Em nossa avaliação em 56 cenários de edições repetitivas de três grandes projetos de código aberto em C#, REFAZER aprendeu a transformação pretendida em 84% dos casos e usou apenas 2.9 exemplos em média. Para avaliar REVISAR, selecionamos 9 projetos e REVISAR aprendeu 920 transformações entre projetos. Atuamos como projetistas de ferramentas, inspecionamos as 381 transformações mais comuns e classificamos 32 como quick fixes. Para avaliar a qualidade das quick fixes, realizamos uma survey com 164 programadores de 124 projetos, com os 10 quick fixes que apareceram em mais projetos. Os programadores suportaram 9 (90%) quick fixes. Enviamos 20 pull requests aplicando quick fixes em 9 projetos e, no momento da escrita, os programadores apoiaram 17 (85%) e aceitaram 10 delas.<br>Tools such as ErrorProne, ReSharper, and PMD help programmers by automatically
detecting and/or removing several suspicious code patterns, potential bugs, or instances of
bad code style. These rules could be expressed as quick fixes that detect and rewrite unwanted code patterns. However, extending their catalogs of rules is complex and time-consuming. In this context, programmers may want to perform a repetitive edit into their code automatically to improve their productivity, but available tools do not support it. In addition, tool designers may want to identify rules helpful to be automated. A similar phenomenon appears in intelligent tutoring systems where instructors have to write cumbersome code transformations that describe “common faults” to fix similar student submissions to programming assignments. In this thesis, we present two techniques. REFAZER, a technique for automatically generating program transformations. We also propose REVISAR, our technique for learning quick fixes from code repositories. We instantiate and evaluate REFAZER in two domains. First, given examples of code edits used by students to fix incorrect programming assignment submissions, we learn program transformations that can fix other students’ submissions with similar faults. In our evaluation conducted on four programming tasks performed by seven hundred and
twenty students, our technique helped to fix incorrect submissions for 87% of the students. In the second domain, we use repetitive code edits applied by developers to the same project to synthesize a program transformation that applies these edits to other locations in the code. In our evaluation conducted on 56 scenarios of repetitive edits taken from three large C# open-source projects, REFAZER learns the intended program transformation in 84% of the cases and using only 2.9 examples on average. To evaluate REVISAR, we select 9 projects, and REVISAR learns 920 transformations across projects. We acted as tool designers, inspected the most common 381 transformations and classified 32 as quick fixes. To assess the quality of the quick fixes, we performed a survey with 164 programmers from 124 projects, showing the 10 quick fixes that appeared in most projects. Programmers supported 9 (90%) quick fixes. We submitted 20 pull requests applying our quick fixes to 9 projects and, at the time of the writing, programmers supported 17 (85%) and accepted 10 of them.
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Harris, Anthony R. "Electrophysiological indices of syntactic processing difficulty." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/47655.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 1998.<br>Includes bibliographical references (leaves [135]-[136]).<br>Two types of processing difficulty are examined by means of electrical recordings taken from the scalp. One type of difficulty seems to be related to syntactic structural anomalies and another is related with memory load due to syntactic complexity. An experiment dealing with structural difficulty reveals the sensitivity of the parser with the argument status of the elements being processed. Memory constraints come into play when processing complex but structurally sound text strings. A number of experiments in this thesis examine a purported metric of complexity, namely, a left anterior negativity. It is argued that the predictive aspects of the parser is responsible for the complexity metric.<br>by Anthony R. Harris.<br>Ph.D.
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Davis, Colin Pierce Bryon. "The linear limitations of syntactic derivations." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129122.
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Thesis: Ph. D. in Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, September, 2020<br>Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-370).<br>In this dissertation, I identify and analyze several new generalizations about how phrasal displacement and discontinuity are constrained in natural language. These patterns reveal, I argue, that many limitations of syntactic derivations are attributable to the way in which syntactic operations are cyclically interleaved with the component of the grammar that establishes word order. This finding has consequences for many phenomena, and for the architecture of grammar in general. Chapter 1 introduces the theory of cyclic linearization that serves as the foundation for this work, and several principles about the locality of movement that importantly interact with it. Chapter 2 shows that these concepts predict the crosslinguistic distribution of stranding in intermediate positions. Chapter 3 extends these considerations to an analysis of possessor extraction in colloquial English, a phenomenon subject to numerous intricate but systematic limitations. Chapter 4 provides further evidence for the theory advanced here from constraints on subextraction in Russian. Chapter 5 argues that certain facts about parasitic gaps in sentences with overlapping moved phrases reveal further evidence that linearization constrains syntactic derivations, with consequences for the nature of movement more generally. Chapter 6 argues that linear order constrains extraposition, and proposes an account of this phenomenon that addresses a number of puzzles about its distribution. Chapter 7 diverges from the theme of linearization to explore parasitic gaps in relative clauses, which connect to several results from chapter 5. Chapter 8 summarizes the findings of this dissertation, and discusses several more general implications of the framework advanced here.<br>by Colin Pierce Bryon Davis.<br>Ph. D. in Linguistics<br>Ph.D.inLinguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
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Tait, Mary Esther. "The syntactic projection of morphological categories." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/20236.
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In this thesis I set out to test three hypotheses about the organization of the Grammar; (1) That the grammar can be given a declarative interpretation, and thus no extrinsic ordering or rules is available, and that syntactic structures have a compositional semantics; (2) That all transparent concatenation results from operations of the rules of syntax; and (3) That all syntactic projections must be phonetically visible. Further, I have assumed that the relationship between the lexicon and syntactic representations is monotonic. In testing these hypotheses I develop an underspecified tree representation for lexical entries which allows lexical information to be organized in a manner which is immediately interpretable by the syntax. These lexical trees, through the formal processes of unification and tree adjunction and the operation of X-bar, yield D-structure. I propose a parametrization of case-assigning ability into the distribution of the features [+ /-NECESSARY] and [+ /-UNIQUE] and use this to derive the Extended Projection Principle (for English) and to account for agreement in Labrador Inuttus. This move forces me to arrive at a new treatment of passive in English, however, as verbs in English have the case-assigning matrix [-NECESSARY,UNIQUE] (i.e., are profligate case-assigners). The analysis of passive proposed subsumes passive to other focus rules such as topicalization, by assuming that the passive morpheme <i>-en</i> heads a syntactic projection and assigns the sentential theta-role TOPIC to its external argument position. Topicalization in general is also considered, and proposals made concerning the syntactic structure of topicalized sentences in both Topic Prominent and Subject Prominent Languages. In considering a theta-theoretical analysis of passive, I further propose that animacy effects are properly considered as syntactic, and are best considered as part of the information contained in theta-role assignment. Specifier positions are then considered, and the dichotomy between the characteristics of D-structure selected and un-selected specifiers is discussed. This consideration leads me to propose a revival of the Raising-to-Object Analysis, with the embedded subject raising to [SPEC, VP], from this, the parallel is drawn with passive, and the possibility of NP-movement to [SPEC,IP]. [SPEC,VP] is then considered as a similar position to [SPEC,IP] with respect to the possibility of NP-movement. Different types of relative clauses cross-linguistically are examined, and the PF-Licensing Principle is shown to make desirable predictions about the structure of the so-called headless relatives. Data from Piapoco is considered in some detail, and the PFLP is shown to derive certain attractive tree structure. Agreement in Piapoco is considered, and a feature percolation through SPEC-head coindexing is shown to give the effect of morpheme harmony on certain verbal incorporation structures. The prohibition against invisible syntactic projections and general considerations of the relationship between heads and their complements in the lexicon leads me to propose a redefinition of barrier, such that any head which selects in some way its complement L-marks that complement and thus voids its barrierhood. In this case, then barriers only arise relativized by position, i.e., specifier position and adjuncts (not sisters to lexical heads). If this definition of barrier is adopted, then Zero Subjacency holds and no counting of barriers is necessary. An extension to the X-bar schema is proposed which underlies equative or predicative constructions. Finally, the hypotheses of this thesis are tested in some detail in analyses of Labrador Inuttus and Lakhota. These analyses highlight the difference between agreement and pronominal incorporation, and the typological difference between languages with and without grammatical function changing rules and overt case marking.
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Or, King Ping Karen. "Cantonese syntactic construction involving patient fronting." HKBU Institutional Repository, 1995. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/96.
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Wang, Shu Pei. "Syntactic Attrition in L2 Mandarin Speakers." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2007. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2073.pdf.
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Webelhuth, Gert. "Principles and parameters of syntactic saturation /." New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb35598907m.
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Snider, Neal. "An exemplar model of syntactic priming /." May be available electronically:, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/login?COPT=REJTPTU1MTUmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=12498.
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