Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Syntax'
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1
Blaszczak, Joanna, Stefanie Dipper, Gisbert Fanselow, Shinishiro Ishihara, Svetlana Petrova, Stavros Skopeteas, Thomas Weskott, and Malte Zimmermann. "Syntax." Universität Potsdam, 2007. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2008/2225/.
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The guidelines for syntactic annotation contain the layers that are especially relevant for queries related to the interaction of information structure with syntax. The layers of this level are constituent structure, grammatical functions, and semantic roles.
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Davies, Herbert John. "Kobon syntax." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.329116.
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Taylor, Nicholas. "Gamo syntax." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.388500.
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Tugwell, David. "Dynamic syntax." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22703.
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This thesis presents a model of natural language syntax as a dynamic system, defining possible transitions between a set of states. The model is inherently left-to-right in nature, with the states representing the growing interpretation of a sentence, and syntactic rules specifying the way the interpretation can be incremented given the next word in the string. In the first part of the thesis, I address the question of the use of models in linguistics. Accepting the standard arguments for the modularity of the process of language comprehension, I argue nevertheless that a model of syntactic competence is only open to objective evaluation if it is embedded in an overall model of performance. I argue that a dynamic formulation of the competence grammar ensures a transparent relation to what is known about language comprehension, in particular its incremental nature. I show that this obviates the need for a level of independent syntactic structure (either constituent or dependency-based), and is thus maximally parsimonious. In the proposed model, syntactic rules do not form an autonomous system, but make direct reference to the growing interpretation, thus distinguishing the model from other incremental approaches. In the second part, I go on to examine a wide-range of syntactic constructions, predominantly in English, and discuss how they may be modelled in the dynamic system. This includes a range of unbounded dependency constructions, problems of complement control, coordination and syntactic constraints on the binding of anaphora. In the final part, I look at the issues involved in embedding the dynamic model of syntactic competence in a model of language comprehension, seen both as a practical tool and as a model of the human sentence processor. I discuss how a probabilistic language model may be created by training the model of syntax on pre-analyzed data. Finally, I consider the consequences of possible processing strategies and how to model limitations on the human processor.
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Rouleau, Vincent L. "Towards an Understanding of Girard's Transcendental Syntax: Syntax by Testing." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/23680.
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Through his work in ludics and Geometry of Interaction, Jean-Yves Girard invites us to a change of paradigm in the study of logic: the quest for a transcendental syntax, some kind of idealized language that emerges from the rules of logic. Amongst these rules, "testing" plays a leading role in defining a duality for the interpretation of negation.
The present work focuses on a notion of polarity which is a central technique used throughout Girard's work to express linear negation. We describe some properties and illustrate them with examples with the purpose of getting acquainted with the technique. We also highlight how the classical connectives (conjunction and disjunction) arise from an interpretation based on testing. In a sense, this work is intended to provide an alternative introduction to Girard's ideas and we hope it can have some pedagogical value.
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Hofstede, Antje Ida. "Syntax of Jibbali." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.496292.
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Zsidó, Julianna. "Typed abstract syntax." Nice, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010NICE4103.
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Afin de spécifier le comportement des langages de programmation, de préciser leurs propriétés et de certifier leurs implémentations, on étudie des modèles formels des langages de programmation. L'étude se divise en l'étude de la syntaxe et en celle de la sémantique. La deuxième est basée sur des modèles formels de la syntaxe. Cette thèse de doctorat se situe dans l'étude de la syntaxe et est consacrée principalement à deux approches à la syntaxe abstraite typée avec liaison de variables. Ces deux approches utilisent le langage de la théorie des catégories. La première approche est dans l'esprit de l'approche catégorique aux théories algébriques. La deuxième est basée sur la notion de monade et introduit la notion d'un module sur une monade qui remplace les foncteurs et leurs algèbres. En outre la deuxième approche est adaptée pour une classe plus large de syntaxes typées où les types dépendent des termesIn order to specify the behaviour of programming languages, to investigate their properties and to allow certification of their implementations, one studies formal models of existing programming languages. This study splits into the study of syntax and semantics, where the latter is based on appropriate formal models for the syntax. This PhD thesis is located in the syntactic part and is mainly concerned with two approaches to abstract syntax with variable binding. Both make use of the language of category theory. The first one is in the spirit of the category theoretic approach to algebraic theories. The second one is based on the notion of monads and introduces modules on monads instead of working with functors and their algebras. Furthermore the latter approach is adapted to a larger class of typed syntax with types depending on terms
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Cao, H. "The syntax and syntax-external interface of quantification in Mandarin Chinese." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2013. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1412867/.
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The thesis investigates the phenomena of quantification in Mandarin Chinese. I provide an account of the word order of quantification in Mandarin Chinese by studying its syntax and syntax-external interface. I argue that the unique word order of Chinese quantification results from the obligatory requirement of two lexical items—dou ‘all’ (from mei ‘every’) and you ‘have’ (from the indefinites). I show that the syntax and semantics of the two items bring about flexibility of preverbal word order of universals and indefinites, which further leads to the absence of quantifier raising in Mandarin. On dou, I argue it is an associated adverb rather than a head of functional projection. Semantically, it is seen as a D operator and universal quantifier. It allows ‘intermediate distributivity’ and guarantees the maximality of the domain of the associated DP. Mei ‘every’ is argued to be a distributive dependant and set the value for Cover, a variable brought by dou. I show that you and indefinite is a parallel pair of mei…dou. I argue the licenser of preverbal indefinites you is a functional head occupying the Infl position and I argue against the verbal analysis. I also account for the adjacency between you and indefinite. I argue that the quantification mechanism in Mandarin provides important evidence for Huang’s argument that Chinese is more analytic than English and many other languages on the syntactic-analytic parameter (2005). I discover a new type of distributivity other than that marked by dou. It is formed with the plural subject under focus. I claim that it is a discourse-oriented distributivity and explore the intricate relation between the grouping of focus-introduced alternatives and the selection of the distributive reading under the Economy Principle.
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Bruening, Benjamin. "Syntax at the edge: cross-clausal phenomena and the syntax of passamaquoddy." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8198.
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O'Bryan, Erin L. "Syntax in performance: minimalist derivation in the late assignment of syntax theory." University of Arizona Linguistics Circle, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/126646.
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This paper presents an account of how Minimalist derivation (Chomsky 1995) can be embedded in a comprehension model, the Late Assignment of Syntax Theory (LAST) (Townsend & Bever, 2001). The issues addressed concern the interface between the first step of the model, in which heuristic strategies apply to the utterance, and the second step, Minimalist derivation. Two questions about the interface are addressed: 1) How are features in the numeration needed to begin a Minimalist derivation chosen? 2) What dictates which units Merge in the derivation? Chomsky (1995:226-227) claims that we do not need to ask either question. I review his reasons and argue that we can and should answer these questions in a workable comprehension model. In response to the first question, I demonstrate that heuristic strategies applied to the utterance determine which features enter the numeration. In response to the second question, I discuss how heuristic strategies combined with lexical information determine which items Merge.
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Martí, Girbau Núria. "The syntax of partitives." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/32090.
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This dissertation is a study of the syntax of partitives. The main goal is to characterise
this type of nominal and provide an analysis that accounts for its particular properties but at
the same time reflects the similarities with other indefinite non-partitive nominals (i.e.
quantitatives). The exhaustive comparison between partitives and quantitatives is very useful
for determining the properties of the former, and it becomes clear from this comparison that
these two types of nominals have more in common than it seems at first sight or has been
considered in the literature.
In Chapter 1 the properties of partitives are described and discussed in light of
previous analyses and data (mainly from Catalan but also from other languages, especially
Romance and Germanic languages) and a line of explanation is suggested.
In Chapter 2 two constructions that have been considered as partitives in the literature
are thoroughly studied, given that they look very similar, and it is solidly argued that they are
in fact quantitatives. These are nominals in which the quantifier is followed by a noun as in
dos llibres d’aquells (‘two books of those’) and indefinite nominals that express partition
through the preposition entre (‘among’), such as una novel·la d’entre els llibres que em vas
deixar (‘a novel among the books you lent me’). The conclusions in this chapter are very
relevant for the analysis defended here: partitives have a single-noun structure and only the
preposition de (and not entre) forms partitives.
In Chapter 3 a unitary analysis for partitives and quantitatives is presented and
defended according to which quantifiers are lexical elements that select a noun (projected into
a DP in partitives or NP in quantitatives) and that are generated in a low position in the
nominal structure. The preposition de has the same status and role in partitives and in
quantitatives (una mica de pa ‘a bit of bread’, molts de dies ‘many days’): it is a functional
category that licenses the noun. The quantifier moves to the left in parallel with other cases of
inversion in nominals (i.e. qualitative predicate inversion as in l’idiota d’en Joan ‘the idiot of
Joan’). The advantage of this analysis is that the same basic structure accounts as well for
predicational uses of quantifiers in the clausal domain—as predicates in copular sentences (My
students are many) and as secondary predicates (Els colons arribaven a milers ‘Colonists
arrived by the thousand’)—or even within nominals such as we two or the three books. The
differences among all these constructions derive mainly from the lexical features quantifiers
have and from the type of nominal projection they select (NP or DP).Aquesta tesi és un estudi de la sintaxi dels partitius. L’objectiu principal és caracteritzar aquest tipus de nominals i aportar una anàlisi que n’expliqui les propietats específiques però que alhora reflecteixi les semblances amb altres nominals indefinits que no són partitius (i.e. quantitatius). La comparació exhaustiva entre partitius i quantitatius resulta de gran utilitat a l’hora de determinar les propietats dels primers, i se’n desprèn que aquests dos tipus de nominals tenen més en comú que no sembla a primer cop d’ull o del que s’ha considerat en la bibliografia. En el primer capítol es fa una caracterització de les propietats dels partitius a partir de dades principalment del català (però també d’altres llengües, sobretot romàniques i germàniques), s’hi revisen anàlisis prèvies i ja es comencen a apuntar vies d’explicació. En el segon capítol s’estudien a fons dues construccions que en la bibliografia s’han considerat partitives per tal com aparentment hi tenen una gran semblança i es demostra amb arguments sòlids que es tracta en realitat de nominals quantitatius. Són nominals en què el quantificador va seguit d’un nom com ara dos llibres d’aquells i nominals indefinits que expressen partició a través de la preposició entre com ara una novel·la d’entre els llibres que em vas deixar. Les conclusions d’aquest capítol són molt rellevants per a l’anàlisi que es defensa en aquesta tesi: els partitius tenen una estructura que conté un sol nom i només es formen amb la preposició de (i no pas entre). En el tercer capítol es presenta i defensa una anàlisi unitària per a partitius i quantitatius segons la qual els quantificadors són elements lèxics que seleccionen un nom (projectat en un SD en partitius o en un SN en quantitatius) i que es generen en una posició baixa de l’estructura nominal. La preposició de fa la mateixa funció en partitius que en quantitatius (p. ex. una mica de pa, molts de dies): és una categoria funcional que legitima el nom d’aquests nominals. El quantificador es trasllada cap a l’esquerra paral·lelament a altres casos d’inversió dins de nominals (inversió de predicats qualitatius com ara l’idiota d’en Joan). L’avantatge d’aquesta anàlisi és que la mateixa estructura bàsica permet explicar també els usos predicacionals dels quantificadors en l’àmbit de la frase—com a atribut (Els meus estudiants són molts) i com a predicat secundari (Els colons arribaven a milers)—i fins i tot dins de nominals com ara nosaltres dos o els tres llibres. Les diferències entre totes aquestes construccions es deriven principalment dels trets lèxics dels quantificadors i del tipus de projecció nominal que seleccionen (SN o SD).
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Henadeerage, Kumara, and kumara henadeerage@anu edu au. "Topics in Sinhala Syntax." The Australian National University. Faculty of Arts, 2002. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20060426.142352.
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This study is a detailed investigation of a number of issues in colloquial
Sinhala morphosyntax. These issues primarily concern grammatical relations,
argument structure, phrase structure and focus constructions. The
theoretical framework of this study is Lexical Functional Grammar.¶Chapter
1 introduces the issues to be discussed, followed by a brief introduction
of some essential aspects of colloquial Sinhala as background for the
discussion in the following chapters. In Chapter 2 we present basic
concepts of the theoretical framework of Lexical Functional Grammar.¶ The
next three chapters mainly concern grammatical relations, argument
structure and clause structure in colloquial Sinhala. Chapter 3 examines
grammatical relations. The main focus lies in establishing the subject
grammatical relation in terms of various subjecthood diagnostics. We show
that only a very small number of diagnostics are reliable, and that the
evidence for subject is weaker than assumed previously. All the subjecthood
diagnostics that were examined select the most prominent argument in the
argument structure as the subject, i.e. 'logical subject'. However, there
appear to be no processes in the language that are sensitive to the subject
in the grammatical relations structure, i.e. 'gr-subject'. Further, there
is no evidence for other grammatical relations like objects. In Chapter 4
we discuss the agentless construction and related valency alternation
phenomena. It was previously assumed that the agentless construction,
valency alternation phenomena and the involitive construction are all
related. We argue that the agentless construction should be treated as a
different construction from the involitive construction. We also show that
the agentless construction and the involitive construction have contrasting
characteristics, and that treatment of them as separate constructions can
account for some phenomena which did not receive an explanation previously.
The valency alternation phenomena are related to the agentless
construction, therefore there is no valency alternation in involitive
constructions. It will be shown that verbs undergoing the valency
alternation can be distinguished from the other verbs in terms of the
lexical semantic properties of individual verbs. Chapter 5 examines the
structure of non-verbal sentences in terms of a number of morphosyntactic
phenomena. It was previously argued that verbal sentences and non-verbal
sentences in colloquial Sinhala differ in terms of clause structure.
However, the present study shows evidence to the contrary.¶ The next two
chapters deal with modelling contrastive focus and the phrase structure of
the language. Chapter 6 is a detailed analysis of the contrastive focus
(cleft) construction in various clause types in the language, and proposes
a unified syntactic treatment of contrastive focus. Contrastive focus is in
some constructions morphologically encoded, while in others it involves
both morphological and configurational assignment of focus. The complex
interaction between focus markers and verb morphology in various focus
constructions is accounted for by general well-formedness conditions
applying to the f-structure, and the principles of Functional Uncertainty
and Morphological Blocking. In Chapter 7, we discuss the phrase structure
of the language, in particular such issues as its non-configurational
nature and the lack of evidence for VP. We propose non-configurational S
and some functional projections to account for word order freedom under S
and to explain certain morphosyntactic phenomena, such as configurational
focus assignment. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the conclusions made in
previous chapters.
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Hooper, Robin. "Studies in Tokelauan syntax." Thesis, University of Auckland, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/2292/2292.
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This thesis is composed of separate studies of aspects of Tokelauan syntax. They are united by an emphasis on the relation between linguistic forms and communicative functions, and in particular on the semantics and pragmatics of grammatical categories. Chapter 1, 'Outline of the main structures of Tokelauan' forms a background for the more intensive studies of later chapters. After short sections on phonology, morphology and word classes, I describe the composition of noun phrases and verb phrases, the pronoun system, and the internal structure and semantics of nominalisations. The final two sections cover a number of aspects of the structure of the simple sentence, including predicate types, verb classes, and clause types, and review the main types of complex sentence. Chapter 2, ’Tense and aspect', presents a discourse-based analysis of this area of syntax. Section 1 outlines the theoretical basis of the analysis of Tokelauan tense-aspect categories which is presented in the following two sections. I then extend the analysis to a particular discourse type, oral Tokelauan narrative. The final section takes a typological approach, considering whether the particle kua can be regarded as a member of a cross-linguistic category of Perfect. Chapter 3, ‘The discourse functions of focus constructions’, looks at a number of Tokelauan constructions involving clause-initial noun phrases which clearly have the pragmatic force of focusing, but in some of which the distribution of given and new information is not of the expected kind. Since clause-initial noun phrases are used for other discourse functions which can be grouped under the heading of topicalisation, the chapter concludes with some comments on this matter in section 2. Chapter 4, ‘The syntax of complementation’, attempts in the first three sections a comprehensive description of Tokelauan complement types and of the semantic classes of complement-taking predicates. Section 4 is concerned with the syntax and semantics of complementizers, and sections 5 with reduced complements of the kind which have been associated with the terms equi-deletion and raising. The final section assesses the overall nature of the Tokelauan complementation system.
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Te, Velde John R. "Coordination and German syntax /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9935.
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Möller, Armin. "Syntax der filipinischen Sprache." Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden, 2010. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-37909.
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Umfassende und konsistente Darstellung der Syntax des Filipino (Tagalog) mit mehr als 1000 Sätzen und Phrasen, die authentisch Umgangs- und Schriftsprache des modernen Filipino widerspiegeln. Unter maßgeblicher Beteiligung vieler Muttersprachler "vor Ort" wurde die sprachliche Wirklichkeit erfasst, und darauf basierend konnte die grammatische Analyse erarbeitet werden, ohne sich an von anderen Sprachen übernommene syntaktische Modelle anzulehnen. Als wesentliche Eigenschaft der Sprache wird gesehen, dass durch vorangestellte Bestimmungswörter die syntaktische Funktion der Satzglieder (Phrasen) festgelegt wird. Die filipinische Sprache besitzt sechs dieser Funktionsphrasen, zwei davon sind Prädikat und Subjekt. Die inhaltliche Aussage der Phrasen wird durch Inhaltswörter realisiert, deren Klassen den Wortarten wie Verb oder Nomen vergleichbar sind. Entscheidend wird die Syntax durch die häufig verwendeten enklitischen Konstruktionen beeinflusst. Die Analyse zusammengesetzter Sätze wird dadurch geprägt, dass der syntaktische Aufbau der unterschiedlichen Teilsätze (wie Haupt- und Nebensatz) nahezu gleich ist. Zusätzlich zur Syntax werden die zum Verständnis notwendigen Elemente von Phonologie und Morphologie dargestellt. Ausführlich und kritisch wird die hier vorgestellte grammatische Analyse mit Arbeiten der verschiedenen linguistischen Schulen über Filipino (Tagalog) verglichenComprehensive and consistent presentation of the syntax of the Filipino (Tagalog) language supported by more than 1000 sentences and phrases authentically reflecting up-to-date written and colloquial Filipino. With decisive participation of many native speakers "on the spot", the true language reality was captured and became the foundation of the grammatical analysis avoiding the need to rely on syntactical models appropriate to other languages. In Filipino, the syntactical function of the phrases of the sentence is marked by a class of determiners. This is considered as essential feature of the language. There are six of those function phrases, two of them predicate and subject. The semantic message of the phrases is realized by content words which can be categorized into classes comparable to conventional parts of speech (e.g. verb or noun). Decisively, the syntax is influenced by the frequent use of enclitic constructions. Crucial for the build-up of compound sentences is the fact that, in principle, all kinds of clauses have the same syntactical structure. Additionally, some basic elements of Filipino phonoloyg and morphology are presented. Comprehensively, works of the different linguistic schools about Filipino (Tagalog) are critically reviewed
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Edelstein, Elspeth Claire. "Syntax of adverb distribution." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/7919.
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The distribution of adverbs is particularly difficult to account for, given the amount of variation it encompasses. Not only are adverbs typically optional, but any adverb may also appear in several different positions relative to other constituents, with placement differing according to adverb type and language. As a result, although adverbs are not essential clausal mainstays, the way they are incorporated into the syntax has crucial implications for an overall understanding of clause structure. Some recent accounts of adverb distribution, most notably Cinque (1999), require a highly articulated clausal cartography, where each adverb fits into a specific syntactic position. The placement of adverbs is determined by their semantic properties inasmuch as their specified positions correspond to semantic classes. The ordering of these positions is syntactically predetermined, supposedly with no little or no semantic input. More semantics-based accounts of adverb distribution, as exemplified by Ernst (2002), do not restrict adverbs to specific positions. Rather, any adverb may adjoin to any projection, as long as its individual semantic requirements are satisfied. Such theories of distribution thus depend on adverbs’ semantic interactions with each other and other constituents. The differences between these ‘syntactic’ and ‘semantic’ approaches have led to questions about the nature of verb movement, functional projections, and adjunction. The debate over adverb distribution also raises the issue of what contribution semantics makes to the syntax, and what is syntactically primitive. The aim of this dissertation is to develop an account of adverb distribution that neither requires the introduction of new functional projections, nor attempts to shoehorn an external semantic hierarchy onto a pre-existing syntactic one. It will focus on the position of adverbs in relation to other constituents rather than their order with respect to each other. In this thesis I will review previous theories of adverb distribution, giving special attention to Cinque’s (1999) ‘functional specifier’ approach and Ernst’s (2002) ‘semantic adjunction’ approach, as well as some alternatives, especially the VP-remnant analysis proposed in Nilsen (2003). I will then look at the little-discussed phenomenon of ‘Adverb Climbing’ (AC), in which an adverb precedes a verb that takes an infinitival complement, but is interpreted as modifying the embedded rather than the matrix verb. Taking the varying availability of AC with Control and Raising verbs as a starting point, I will develop a theory of adverb licensing that determines where an adverb may adjoin according to its location in relation to a particular projection. Specifically, I will propose that an adverb must c-command the projection it modifies, and must have access to that projection either in the same phase or at the edge of a lower phase. Based on this analysis I will argue that AC is in fact an indicator of restructuring, and that control and raising verbs take different sizes of infinitival complement. I will also examine the distribution of ‘verb-modifying’ adverbs. Drawing on previous ‘split VP’ proposals (e.g. Ramchand 2008; Travis (2010)), I will contend that the varying distribution of agentive, subject-oriented, and manner adverbs indicates that each is distributed in relation to a different projection within the vP, and that some postverbal adverbs are complements of VP. This proposal will require the introduction of crosslinguistically parameterised restrictions on the order in which adverbs and feature-checking elements may be merged to a single projection. Moreover, I will argue that the array of positions available to agentive adverbs indicates that English has head movement within the vP which bypasses a head, violating Travis’s (1984) Head Movement Constraint (HMC). I will then posit a new analysis of head movement which allows for this violation while still precluding the instances of ungrammaticality that the HMC was meant to rule out. I will finally discuss the distribution of adverbs and negation in the IP range, giving special attention to Pollock’s (1989) classic data from English and French. I will develop an analysis of negation which will allow me to explain the distribution of both sentential adverbs and negation without splitting the IP. Further refinement of the ordering restrictions on multiple merge will also provide an explanation for the ungrammaticality of an adverb between a subject and the highest verb in French, and between do and not in English. This dissertation will serve to situate the study of adverb distributionwithin Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist framework while providing fresh insight into the extent to which adverb distribution may be used as an indicator of clause structure and movement of other constituents.
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Gregoromichelaki, Eleni. "Conditionals in dynamic syntax." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2006. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/conditionals-in-dynamic-syntax(2dcbcd8a-5d07-4962-9520-4a57230215a4).html.
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Collins, Christopher Thad. "Topics in Ewe syntax." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/12496.
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Haïk, Isabelle. "The syntax of operators." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/14972.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1986.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES
Bibliography: leaves 411-422.
by Isabelle Haïk.
Ph.D.
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Kučerová, Ivona Ph D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The Syntax of givenness." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39580.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-208).
The goal of this thesis is to account for distributional patterns of given and new items in Czech, especially their word order. The system proposed here has four basic components: (i) syntax, (ii) economy, (iii) interpretation, and (iv) reference set computation. The approach belongs to the family of interface driven approaches. The syntactic part of the thesis introduces a free syntactic movement (G-movement). The movement causes very local reordering of given elements with respect to new elements in the structure. G-movement is licensed only if it creates a syntactic structure which leads to a semantic interpretation that would not otherwise be available. The economy condition interacts with the way givenness is interpreted. I introduce a recursive operator that adds a presupposition to given elements. The distribution of the operator is regulated by the Maximize presupposition maxim of Heim (1991). The reference set for purposes of this evaluation is defined as the set of derivations that have the same numeration and the same assertion. Finally, I argue that the licensing semantic conditions on givenness in Czech are not identical to the licensing conditions on deaccenting in English. The givenness licensing conditions are stronger in that they require that for an element to be given it must not only have a salient antecedent but also satisfy an existential presupposition.
by Ivona Kučerová.
Ph.D.
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Watkinson, Stephen. "Learning natural language syntax." Thesis, University of York, 2002. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9849/.
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Roussou, Anna. "The syntax of Complementisers." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1994. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317941/.
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The aim of this thesis is to provide a detailed analysis of certain syntactic properties of Complementisers (C), formulated within the Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1993, Brody 1993). In particular, I discuss three types of syntactic phenomena where the C position is crucially involved. In chapter 1 I provide a brief discussion of the theoretical framework and an overview of the data. In chapter 2 I discuss that-t phenomena. In languages like English subject extraction from a position adjacent to C yields ungrammaticality (the that-t effect). This is due to a violation of the Empty Category Principle (ECP). I argue that an analysis distinguishing between proper and non-proper head governors (cf. Rizzi 1990) cannot hold within the minimalist framework. Assuming that that can be an expletive (Lasnik and Saito 1984, Law 1991a&b), there are two possible chains to be formed: one by moving I-to-C (C is realised as zero) and the other by coindexing C and I (C is realised as that). In long subject extraction, I must move to C so that it c-commands the subject trace. In subject relatives, on the other hand, there is subject short movement. Thus I and C can only form a chain under coindexation. If I moves to C, then a configuration is created where both the Operator and its variable end up in the same minimal domain. Thus the Operator cannot be 'ordered' with respect to its trace and the result is ungrammatical. I call this the Ordering effect. In chapter 3 I discuss factive complements. In particular, I consider factivity as a property of the complement clause, specifically of its C. I argue that C in factives bears some feature specification which: (a) derives the semantics of factive complements and (b) blocks adjunct extraction. I argue that the different locality properties of factive complements in Modern Greek (MG) and English can be captured on the basis of different features on the C head. In particular, MG possesses a special C for factives (pu vs. the nonfactive oti) which, I argue, is characterised as [+definite]. The strong islandhood of MG factives is then attributed to definiteness in the same way that definite NP's are opaque to any kind of extraction. As for English, I assume, following Hegarty (1992b), that C is specified for a F(amiliarity) feature. The operator status of a [+F] C is enough to block adjunct extraction only. Finally, in chapter 4 I discuss the subjunctive. With respect to MG I argue that the empty C triggers movement of the na+V complex (an instance of I-to-C movement) according to the principle of Full Interpretation. I assume, following Manzini (1994b), that the subjunctive I is licensed by a sentential operator and forms a dependency of the (Op,... ,I) type. Epistemic predicates license the subjunctive because they can be implicitly modal (Veloudis 1985). Moreover, I argue that the presence of an expletive T with epistemic modality allows for independent time reference in the na-clause. With respect to the phenomenon of disjoint reference in Romance, I argue that this is due to the presence of an expletive C, while in the Balkan subjunctives coreference is possible due to the availability of I-to-C movement.
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Arborgh, John. "Error Syntax : Tre bilduppgifter." Thesis, Konstfack, IBIS - Institutionen för bild- och slöjdpedagogik, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:konstfack:diva-5602.
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Syftet med mitt arbete är att undersöka hur jag som bildlärare kan skapa förutsättningar för lärandet av programmering i bildämnet. Detta undersöker jag genom att designa tre bilduppgifter som har med programmering att göra. Min frågeställning är: Hur kan jag som bildlärare skapa förutsättningar för lärandet av programmering i bildämnet? För att undersöka denna fråga kommer jag att fokusera på dessa underfrågor: Vilka är mina intentioner kring förutsättningar för lärandet av programmering i bildämnet? Hur kan jag iscensätta mina intentioner? Hur upplevs mina iscensättningar?Min designprocess består av tre steg. Först identifierar jag problem inom lärandet av programmering i skolan. Detta gör jag med hjälp av tidigare forskning i form av två avhandlingar. Ett problem som beskrivs är att många lärare anser att inte alla elever kan uppnå godkänt betyg och att en förändring i pedagogiken inte hjälper.2 I våra skolor är det även vanligt med ett fokus på lärandet av syntax samtidigt som lärandet av problemlösning hamnar i baksätet.3 Att kunna programmera handlar allt för ofta om att bara kunna skriva kod. De problem som jag vill lyfta fram i mitt arbete är: 1. Ordet programmering betyder olika saker för olika personer. 2. När vi lär oss programmering ligger fokus på syntax istället för problemlösning. För att undersöka dessa problem så vill jag: 1. Synliggöra vad programmering betyder för mig.2. Lägga fokus på problemlösning och ett undersökande av programmering.1Bild 1. 2Rolandsson, Lennart (2015), Programmed or not, Stockholm: KTH, s. 57 ff. 3Winslow, Leon E (1996), Programming pedagogy – A psychological Overview, New York: ACM, s. 21.3I nästa steg designar jag tre bilduppgifter. De är inspirerade av lärare, konstnärer och min egen konstnärliga utbildning. De programmeringsverktyg som bilduppgifterna låter oss undersöka är: Instruering, slinga och selektion. I sista steget av min designprocess så testar jag bilduppgifterna med tre elever. Tillsammans undersöker vi hur uppgifterna fungerar och kommer på förslag på förbättringar eller vidareutvecklingar. Vi diskuterar vad programmering är och vad dessa bilduppgifter berättar om programmering. Samtidigt som jag har utfört denna undersökning så har jag arbetat med en gestaltning som har med programmering att göra. Jag har programmerat en robotarm som ritar en slumpmässig linje vid ett tryck på en knapp. I denna gestaltning så är problemlösning i fokus och jag har programmerat armen utan kunskap om programspråkets syntax. Jag har undersökt samma programmeringsverktyg som bilduppgifterna handlar om. Error Syntax är titeln på detta arbete och min gestaltning. Det är en ordlek där jag vänder på felmeddelandet syntax error. Jag vill flytta felet från människan till syntaxen. Med detta perspektiv vill jag påstå att det vi behöver för att kunna programmera är bara lite nyfikenhet och kreativitet.
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Kathol, Andreas. "Linearization-Based German Syntax /." The Ohio State University, 1995. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487867541733891.
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Shaul, David Leedom. "Topics in Nevome syntax /." Berkeley ; Los Angeles ; London : University of California press, 1986. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb34958197x.
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Khan, Geoffrey. "Studies in Semitic syntax /." Oxford : Oxford university press, 1988. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb355253518.
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Ungerer, Friedrich. "Syntax der englischen Adverbialien /." Tübingen : M. Niemeyer, 1988. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb354970516.
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Phan, Trang. "Syntax of Vietnamese aspect." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2013. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4701/.
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The aim of this thesis is two-fold: to develop an articulated Vietnamese clause structure in two syntactic domains: VP-external and VP-internal in the spirit of generative grammar, and to see how this functional architecture is supported empirically from the perspective of second language acquisition. To address theoretical issues, on the one hand, it brings together interesting semantic and syntactic contrasts of aspectual morphemes in Vietnamese, i.e., the distributional and interpretative independence of Vietnamese tense and aspect as well as the way they interact with other syntactic phenomenon such as negation, quantification and definiteness. On the other hand, it reveals to what extent the mechanisms that Vietnamese recruits to encode aspect are different from those employed in Indo- European languages and other areally-related languages, especially including Chinese. Based on a detailed semantic-syntactic investigation of Vietnamese aspect, the thesis sets out the properties that need to be acquired by Chinese learners. It distinguishes between those properties which are acquirable without difficulties and those that are ‘problematic’ in order to verify the proposed Vietnamese functional clause. It also sets out to validate some recent hypotheses in the realm of second language acquisition. The thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 1 sets out the theoretical approach of the thesis. Chapter 2 systematically reviews a set of semantic and syntactic studies on aspect that are relevant to the discussion. Chapter 3 lays out previous research on Vietnamese tense and aspect as points of departure for my proposals. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to an analysis of how tense and aspect are realized in Vietnamese both pre- and post-verbally. Chapter 6 provides a brief comparison between Vietnamese and Chinese aspectual systems, focusing on the particular properties investigated in the following chapter. Chapter 7 presents a set of experiments examining Chinese learners’ acquisition of Vietnamese aspect-related constructions, these shed light on current generativist hypotheses about second language acquisition. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis.
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Taguchi, Shigeki. "The Syntax of MEAN." University of Arizona Linguistics Circle, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/253427.
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In this paper, I examine the hitherto unnoticed issue of what syntactic categories mean may take as complements, analyzing the syntactic structure of sentences like What do you mean that I’m a liar? from the minimalist perspective. On the basis of the intuition that what starts out as the object of mean, I consider the mechanism of Case-licensing of wh-arguments. Noticing that under the current minimalist framework, object shift to SpecvP and vP-adjunction result in exactly the same configuration with respect to chain length, I consider how Case-licensing of wh-arguments in the complement clause of mean circumvent improper movement characterized in terms of the traditional A/A-distinction. I also discuss the Doubly Filled COMP Filter and the Superiority Condition in relation to the syntax of mean, both of which are shown to be consistent with the proposed analysis.
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Reddy, Goli Venkata Sivakumar. "Syntax-mediated semantic parsing." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29521.
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Querying a database to retrieve an answer, telling a robot to perform an action, or teaching a computer to play a game are tasks requiring communication with machines in a language interpretable by them. Semantic parsing is the task of converting human language to a machine interpretable language. While human languages are sequential in nature with latent structures, machine interpretable languages are formal with explicit structures. The computational linguistics community have created several treebanks to understand the formal syntactic structures of human languages. In this thesis, we use these to obtain formal meaning representations of languages, and learn computational models to convert these meaning representations to the target machine representation. Our goal is to evaluate if existing treebank syntactic representations are useful for semantic parsing. Existing semantic parsing methods mainly learn domain-specific grammars which can parse human languages to machine representation directly. We deviate from this trend and make use of general-purpose syntactic grammar to help in semantic parsing. We use two syntactic representations: Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) and dependency syntax. CCG has a well established theory on deriving meaning representations from its syntactic derivations. But there are no CCG treebanks for many languages since these are difficult to annotate. In contrast, dependencies are easy to annotate and have many treebanks. However, dependencies do not have a well established theory for deriving meaning representations. In this thesis, we propose novel theories for deriving meaning representations from dependencies. Our evaluation task is question answering on a knowledge base. Given a question, our goal is to answer it on the knowledge base by converting the question to an executable query. We use Freebase, the knowledge source behind Google’s search engine, as our knowledge base. Freebase contains millions of real world facts represented in a graphical format. Inspired from the Freebase structure, we formulate semantic parsing as a graph matching problem, i.e., given a natural language sentence, we convert it into a graph structure from the meaning representation obtained from syntax, and find the subgraph of Freebase that best matches the natural language graph. Our experiments on Free917, WebQuestions and GraphQuestions semantic parsing datasets conclude that general-purpose syntax is more useful for semantic parsing than induced task-specific syntax and syntax-agnostic representations.
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Villalba, Xavier 1969. "The syntax of sentence periphery." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/4838.
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Kato, Kumiko. "Japanese gapping in minimalist syntax /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/8434.
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Kentner, Gerrit. "Rhythmus-Syntax-Interaktion beim Lesen." Universität Potsdam, 2011. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2011/5423/.
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Baskaran, Lohanayahi. "Aspects of Malaysian English syntax." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1987. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317756/.
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The thesis is a description of some of the basic elements in the syntax of meso-lectal Malaysian English (M.E.), that are different from that of Standard British English (S.B.E. or B.E.). What used to be considered as errors or learner's strategies are not necessarily so and a detailed examination of such elements shows that there is a systematic and rigid patterning in the syntax as such. After a description of the general sociolinguistic setting and the emergence of the concept of institutionalized varieties of English, vis-a-vis the non-native varieties, the first chapter briefly sumarises sane phonological as well as lexical features of M.E. The second chapter then discusses sane of the Noun Phrase elements such as the pluralisation of mass nouns (Individuation), article ellipsis and pronominal concord. The third chapter goes into the Verb Phrase features such as temporal distance (Remoteness Distinctions in Tense), the simplified modal system and the use of stative verbs in the progressive (Stativity and Progressivity). Clause structure elements are discussed in Chapter four, where it will be seen that the interrogative clauses (the wh-interrogative, yes-no interrogative and the alternative interrogative) have their differences in terms of word-order (no subject-operator inversion) and different tag elements. Similar to interrogative clausal features is one type of declarative clausal element where for the initially negated and the adverbially fronted declaratives, there is no subject-operator inversion in ME. The last element described in this chapter is copula ellipsis, followed by a summary of someof the other syntactic features in M.E. that need to be further researched on (such as adverbial positioning, ellipsis of the expletives it/there, substitution of such expletives with got and grammatical particles such as lah, man, what and one). The concluding fifth chapter summarises the main points of the core chapters (2,3,4) and also addresses sane of the relevant applied linguistic and socio-linguistic concerns.
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Speas, Margaret Jean. "Adjunctions and projections in syntax." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/15108.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1986.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES.
Bibliography: leaves 325-333.
by Margaret Jean Speas.
Ph.D.
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Csirmaz, Aniko. "Semantics and phonology in syntax." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33695.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-248).
In this thesis I argue that morphology should be allowed to interpret not only the information provided by the syntactic component, but also compositional semantic properties. This conception of grammar requires morphology to interact LF and the semantic component in addition to syntax. Applying this hypothesis, I account for the alternation between partitive and non-partitive structural case in Finnish, which is affected by the semantic property of divisibility. I argue that the property of divisibility, which is relevant for case alternation, is determined within Spell-out domains, which are interpreted immediately following Spell-out. Building on these domains as affecting case marking, I derive the differences between divisibility affecting case morphology and the property of divisibility as determined in the final semantic interpretation. I also discuss the properties of negated event predicates in detail, and argue for a specific view of the semantic import of negation on aspect. I show that in spite of the apparent semantic similarities, the effects of negation on Finnish case marking cannot be assimilated to the instances of case alternation determined by divisibility.
(cont.) I extend this conclusion and discuss the nature of divisibility licensed by negation crosslinguistically in more detail. Finally, I consider further areas where the interaction between semantics and morphology or the phonological form can be detected. I argue that while some of these interactions can be treated by assuming that the latter components are sensitive to semantic properties, not all interactions can be described this way. In general, however, permitting the interaction between semantics and morphology or phonology is desirable and leads to a more economical system, where the number of non-convergent derivations is minimized.
by Aniko Csirmaz.
Ph.D.
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Koizumi, Masatoshi. "Phrase structure in minimalist syntax." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/11348.
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Velegrakis, N. "The syntax of Greek polydefinites." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2011. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1302548/.
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The thesis is concerned with the phenomenon of polydefiniteness in Greek. The term polydefinite refers to instances of adjectival modification in which the same definite determiner is multiply realized (to pseftiko to chrisso to roloi 'the fake golden watch'). Polydefinites present free word order variation. It is argued that the construction should be syntactically analyzed on a par with close appositive DPs. Both close appositives and polydefinites are associated with a structure of mutual adjunction, in which the top node inherits non-conflicting properties of both its daughters. The word-order freedom of the construction follows naturally from this proposal, without having recourse to unmotivated syntactic movement. A new interpretive mechanism is proposed, under the name R(eferential)-index mechanism, to capture the semantic effects of the construction (such as the obligatory restrictive reading). I compare my syntactic analysis to LCA-based competitors and argue that my account is superior in a number of respects. Turning to the interpretation of polydefinites, it is argued that the structure assigned to the construction reflects the empirical fact that polydefinites present weak markedness effects. I also discuss the interpretive properties of the R-index mechanism. This proposal allows a natural characterization of the distinction between internal and external modification. This dichotomy is then shown to be instrumental in capturing syntactic and interpretive constraints on determiner spreading. Furthermore, I investigate what happens in Greek indefinites (ena pseftiko chrisso roloi 'a fake golden watch'), which present the same word order variation as polydefinites, but without indefinite determiner spreading. It is shown that analyzing Greek indefinites on a par with Romance indefinites (e.g. French, Spanish) is unwise, because of differences in ordering possibilities and the obligatory restrictiveness associated with Greek post-nominal adjectives. I suggest instead that Greek indefinites with post-nominal adjectives should be analyzed similarly to Greek polydefinites. Following a suggestion in the literature, I argue that the indefinite ena is in fact a quantifier and that the Greek indefinite determiner is phonologically null. On this view, Greek indefinites may exhibit hidden determiner spreading. A tempting correlation that has been suggested in literature is between the Greek polydefinite and the Modern Persian Ezafe constructions. It is explained that these constructions cannot be analyzed similarly to each other due to major syntactic, semantic and configurational differences. They do not constitute therefore, the two sides of the same coin, since their nature is rather different.
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Bailey, Laura Rudall. "The syntax of question particles." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/1915.
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Cross-linguistically, languages are largely head initial or head final. Most permit some disharmony, but Holmberg (2000) and Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts (2012), among others, have argued that the structure shown in (1) is ruled out, where YP is X’s complement and ZP is Y’s complement: (1) *[XP [YP Y ZP] X] In structures such as (1), a head-final phrase immediately dominates a head-initial phrase, violating the so-called ‘Final-Over-Final Constraint’ (FOFC). Descriptively however, final question particles are readily found in languages with VO order, resulting in a structure that appears to violate FOFC. (2) illustrates this violation in Tetun (an Austronesian language of East/West Timor), and (3) shows the structure, with a final question particle ka immediately dominating a head-initial TP: (2) ó la bá sekola ká? 2S not go school or (Said to child playing:) ‘Didn't you go to school?’ (Van Klinken 1999: 212) (3) iii If ka constitutes the C head of CP, as is standardly assumed, the structure in (3) violates FOFC. I show, following Aldridge (2011), that these particles are best analysed as disjunctive elements, heading an elided clause: (4) [ConjP CP [Conj CP]] The particle is the head of the phrase, with the second CP as its complement and the first (pronounced) CP in Spec,ConjP. This solves the FOFC problem because the ‘particle’ is not final, and therefore the derivation does not include a head-final phrase dominating a head-initial phrase. Instead, the particle precedes its complement (which is not pronounced), and the clause that it follows (which is pronounced) is its specifier. I provide evidence for this position through typological investigation and theoretical analysis. In addition, the various proposals that have been put forward in the literature to avoid this FOFC-violation are considered, but are shown to be problematic in different respects. I discuss the idea that particles are not heads (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2012). However, they cannot be specifiers and an adjunction analysis fails to explain their properties, so it is unclear what they could be if not heads. Julien (2001), Lee (2005, 2008) and Simpson & Wu (2002) argue that final particles are derived by TP-movement to a Topic or Focus position. This is a promising explanation, but fails to derive the difference between final particles and other types. If the particle is syncategorematic (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2012), the fact that they appear in fixed positions is mysterious. Processing explanations of the data (Hawkins 2004, Philip 2012) go some way towards deriving the FOFC facts but do not, among other things, explain the high number of final particles in VO languages. The syntax of question particles is discussed in detail, and it is proposed that polar questions consist of two functional heads in combination: Force, giving a (main clause) question illocutionary force, and Polarity, giving a (neutral) iv question open polarity. A true polar question particle is therefore related to one or both of these heads: (5) With this background, the argument is defended in subsequent chapters that some particles cannot be true question elements in this sense and are instead instantiations of the disjunction. Cross-linguistic data demonstrate that final particles in VO languages differ from other types of question particle (initial particles, or final particles in OV languages) in very rarely marking embedded questions: they do so in only one language in the corpus. Homophony between the question particle and disjunction in many languages, combined with attested grammaticalisation paths, adds support to this claim. Furthermore, this analysis explains a number of properties of such particles in addition to their propensity to violate FOFC, including their frequent absence from negative questions, alternative questions and wh-questions. All of these are straightforward consequences of the particle being a disjunction. Finally, the analysis is applied to a particular language, Thai, as a case study, and it is compared with languages of the other types. It is shown that the disjunctive analysis is best able to explain the data and offer an elegant explanation of the FOFC facts.
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Kennedy, Lynda. "Broca’s aphasia : syntax and beyond." Thesis, Ulster University, 2017. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.730245.
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The current project provides a novel perspective on sentence comprehension in Broca’s aphasia by expanding the empirical domain both within and beyond narrow syntax. Further, we take a comparative approach to this investigation by comparing the performance of a group of individuals with Broca’s aphasia with a group of typical adults on the one hand and a group of typically developing children on the other. In particular, we focus on three key linguistic phenomena that arguably involve different language domains, get passive constructions (narrow syntax), ambiguous sentences involving the nominal quantifier every and negation (syntax-semantics interface) and finally pragmatic inferences, namely, scalar implicatures, presuppositions and multiplicity inferences (semantic-pragmatic interface). Traditionally, Broca’s aphasia has been defined as a disorder mainly affecting syntax however recent evidence for non-linguistic deficits in this population poses the question as to whether it should be defined more generally. The current study adds to this debate by providing a broader view of language processing in Broca’s aphasia. Further, this project shows the value of the comparative approach in helping to constrain and refine theories of language acquisition and linguistic theories. The findings of this project support the hypothesis that individuals with Broca’s aphasia suffer from a specific impairment affecting processing of narrow syntax and the relative sparing of non-syntactic phenomena. Additionally, the findings indicate that despite superficial similarities, individuals with Broca’s aphasia and typically developing children show clear differences in how they engage with core linguistic phenomena.
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Rouzer, John Harvey. "Ontological metaphor in Chinese syntax /." The Ohio State University, 1997. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487945320758437.
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Cooper, Kathrin E. "Topics in Zurich German syntax." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/21159.
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The primary aim of this thesis is to present a range of hitherto undiscussed data illustrating syntactic phenomena of Zurich German, with a view to establishing the structure of the Zurich German clause. Zurich German is an Alemannic dialect of German spoken in Switzerland. Like other Swiss dialects of German, it is almost exclusively a spoken language and has no written standard. Its syntax is therefore not subject to normative rules and provides a valuable object of study against the background of standardised German, Dutch, English and other Germanic languages. The syntactic theory underlying this investigation is Government and Binding Theory. Chapter one presents a brief introduction to the language and previous literature, as well as a discussion of methodological and theoretical aspects. The focus of chapter two is on the word order freedom in the middle field (Mittelfeld) and on the question of an obligatory subject position. It is argued that there is no strong evidence for functional heads other than COMP and that the middle field is best described in terms of a verb projection only. Chapter three discusses the distribution of clitic pronouns and concludes that subject clitics are lexical clitics, while object clitics are phonological clitics. Cases of apparent referential null subjects are analysed in terms of silent clitics, i.e. clitics with an unexpressed phonetic form. Chapter four looks at the properties of the clause-initial position (SpecCP) and the second position (COMP) in root and embedded contexts. It is argued that COMP is the locus of finiteness and that verb-second clauses are derived by verb movement to COMP.
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Bidese, Ermenegildo. "Die diachronische Syntax des Zimbrischen." Tübingen Narr, 2007. http://d-nb.info/986851426/04.
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Teunissen, Lisanne Maria. "Semantic syntax : evaluation by implementation /." Utrecht (Pays-Bas) : LOT, 2002. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39075632j.
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Ulutaş, İsmail. "Relative clauses in Gagauz syntax /." Istanbul : Isis, 2004. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39992905q.
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Underriner, Janne Lynne. "Intonation and syntax in Klamath /." view abstract or download file of text, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3055718.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 268-280). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Pettiward, Anna Margaret. "Movement and optionality in syntax." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1997. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28508/.
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This thesis concerns itself with the core syntactic phenomenon traditionally thought of within Principles and Parameters approaches in terms of movement. The point of departure is the observation that in two important respects, the characterization of this phenomenon in the recent Minimalist model of grammar (Chomsky 1993, 1995) (in terms of the operation Move) seems to fall short of that in the earlier GB model (Chomsky 1981, 1986) (in terms of the rule Move-a): first, the notion that movement operations apply freely seems impossible to maintain - a theoretical inadequacy; second, there is no obvious way of dealing with "optionality" phenomena - an empirical inadequacy. This thesis argues, however, that these apparent serious inadequacies of the Minimalist framework are in fact principledly soluble, and crucially without reverting to a GB-type model. The thesis falls into two parts, corresponding to the theoretical and empirical problems noted above. The central proposal of Part I is the Copy Hypothesis (Chapter 2): "all copies in a chain are active in the computational system". The relevance of this proposal is that, due ultimately to very fundamental properties of the standard Minimalist model, it actually appears impossible to maintain the notion that movement operations apply to any element - contrary to the Copy Hypothesis. However, I show how general conditions on movement are in fact sufficient to properly regulate the activity of traces, and give detailed arguments against Chomsky's (1995) proposal that "trace is immobile". Further to this, I show that the Copy Hypothesis has empirical applications involving the behaviour of wh-objects and associates of there in English, as well as computational complexity implications (Chapters 3 and 4). The Copy Hypothesis of Chapter 2 goes on to play an important role in Part II, in which I takes up the topic of optionality. The economy principles assumed to constrain derivations (in particular Last Resort) seem to exclude the possibility of optionality within the computational system. Since there is a certain amount of data which do appear to involve such optionality, the Minimalist framework evidently faces a major empirical problem, again seeming to lose out earlier models in which optionality data could be characterized simply in terms of optional application of Move-a. In Chapters 5 and 6, I show that there is in fact scope for some syntactic optionality within the derivational economy system. A system is developed whereby economy conditions in conjunction with feature properties of lexical items can derive variation in the timing of movement relative to Spell-Out. In this way, I account for optionality data (plus associated non-optionality effects) from French (optionality of participle agreement), English and Swedish (optional partial associate-movement with non-Case/agreement-checking expletives there and det 'it'), Icelandic, German and Dutch (optional overt Object Shift).
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Alkhozaimi, Luord Abdulsalam. "The syntax of Syriac Proverbs." OpenSIUC, 2015. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1673.
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AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF LUORD A. SAMAAN ALKHOZAIMI, for the Master of Arts degree in APPLIED LINGUISTICS, presented on 04/06/15, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE SYNTAX OF SYRIAC PROVERBS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Jeffrey Punske Proverbs are an important part of a language. To my knowledge, there is no research that investigates the syntax of Syriac proverbs. So, this study aims to shed light on the syntax of Syriac proverbs to add further information to our understanding of Syriac. For this purpose, I ask questions like: i) Can Syriac proverbs be negated? ii) Can they be passivized? iii) Can they be topicalized? iv) Can they allow question? v) Can the subject be raised? vi) Can their tense and aspect be altered? The data were chosen randomly from Zomaia (2007). The proverbs were examined based on native speaker judgments. The analysis implied identifying the components of each proverb then applying the rule of each aspect on each proverb was performed. Results from the study showed that some of the Syriac proverbs, from the randomly chosen sample, were modifiable syntactically. A number of factors that appeared to influence the applicability of some aspects rules were identified as: like the availability of subject, verb, and object. The reason for some proverbs were non-modifiable was because of the absence of the main components for the transformation process. The results of the study contribute to an understanding of the restricted nature of Syriac proverbs semantically and idiomatically. Recommendations for further research were also identified in the field of syntax concerning Syriac.
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Baron, Bertille Melaine Marie. "The Syntax of Nafara DP." OpenSIUC, 2016. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1946.
Full textAbstract:
This study provides a syntactic analysis of the Senufo Nafara Determiner Phrase. It aims at investigating two major questions that are the status of definite markers, and the underlying structure and derivations leading to the surface word order [N AP Def Dem Num] observed in the language. I argue that the (indefinite) markers occurring in DPs are clitics attaching to the rightmost AP element, and spelling out the fused heads of several functional categories (gender, number, definiteness, and possibly others). In a cartographic approach to DP structure, I argue in favor of multiple Functional Projections occurring above NP. More particularly, I consider AP, DemP, and NumP as their own FPs in which adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals are all functional heads. While A and Dem show overt agreement in definiteness, gender, and number, cardinals do not. I argue that the surfacing word order is the result of roll-up movement with pied-piping, motivated and limited by agreement. Phrasal movement only occurs when required for agreement purposes, and more particularly in order to check uPhi features (and therefore EPP features). For that reason, numerals do not participate in movement, and surface in phrase-final position.
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Piau, Julie Anne. "The verbal syntax of Kuman." Thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/132712.
Full textAbstract:
Kuman is a Non-Austronesian or Papuan language of the
Central Family of the East New Guinea Highlands Stock (Wurm
1978). There are over 66,000 speakers of Kuman, who live mainly
in the northern part of Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea.
Languages which belong to this family include Mid-Wahgi, Chuave,
Salt-Yui, Sinasina and Golin. Previous work on Kuman has been
carried out to my knowledge by Capell (1948-1949), Bergmann
(1953), Nilles (1969), Trefry (1967, 1969) Lynch (in press) and
Piau (1981). The aim of this subthesis is to describe the predicate and
the constructions it enters into. In chapter one, I attempt to
describe the morphophonemic processes, and formulate some
general rules for the verbs. The more specific rules, that is,
where only one phoneme of a particular morpheme is affected is
given in the respective morpheme is discussed. The rules
discussed here should not be considered as conclusive, as
further research may show exceptions, or better rules may be
written. The rules presented in this chapter only affect verbal
morphology. In chapter two, I will describe briefly nominals
and adjectives. The main focus of the chapter , however is a
description of the final verb suffixes. In chapter three I will
discuss the non-final or dependent verbs, which includes a
discussion on serial verb constructions, the notion of
controlled and uncontrolled events and the semantic relations that are encoded in these verbs. In chapter four, I will
discuss clause linkage using Olson's (1981) and Foley and Van
Valins' (1984) theory of interclausal relations. This involves
a discussion on how clauses can be linked at different levels,
and how Kuman does this.
This discussion, of course, does not cover all the
different suffixes that occur on the verb. Only the suffixes
that are relevant to the subthesis are discussed here.
Similarly, further research may show different methods of
separating the different layers and the syntactic relationships
between clauses.