Syntax/Semantics Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

There is a strand of work in the Austronesian literature claiming that the syntactic category distinctions familiar from Indo-European are lacking in certain languages belonging to this family. On the other hand, Baker (2005) claims that... more

There is a strand of work in the Austronesian literature claiming that the syntactic category distinctions familiar from Indo-European are lacking in certain languages belonging to this family. On the other hand, Baker (2005) claims that the categories noun, verb and adjective are represented in the grammars of all languages. This paper contributes to this debate, taking Fijian adjectives as a case study. In Fijian, putative adjectives can occur with person, number and tense morphology, making one suspect that they are in fact stative verbs, as various researchers have suggested for this and other members of the Oceanic branch. We show that despite appearances, ‘adjective’ is a member of Fijian’s inventory of syntactic categories. This finding suggests that the ability to combine with person, number and tense markers is not a good diagnostic for verb-hood. This in turn casts doubt on claims that a given language lacks adjectives that are based on this test, opening the possibility that the category ‘adjective’ may indeed be universal.

The placement of French adjectives has long been both controversial and misconstrued within the literature. In this Romance language, postnominal adjectives are considered to be the rule rather than the exception (Alexaidou, 2007). Within... more

The placement of French adjectives has long been both controversial and misconstrued within the literature. In this Romance language, postnominal adjectives are considered to be the rule rather than the exception (Alexaidou, 2007). Within this paper, the semantic and syntactic underpinnings of prenominal and postnominal adjectives will be discussed in relation to theoretical and descriptive data. Semantic structures attempt to classify adjective placement. However, data indicate greater flexibility and ambiguity in placement than what has been previously understood (Thuilier, 2013). Within Branching Direction Theory (Song, 2012), noun movement up the syntactic tree with pied-piping and snowballing movement will join with the mirror image adjective orderings developed within semantic theory (Cinque, 1994; Laenzlinger, 2005). While current theory attempts to describe these phenomena, many issues are yet to be resolved. Do to the recent growth in Optimality Theory (Song, 2012), there is hope that elegant, more fully explanatory theories can be developed. Overall, within Universal Grammar’s framework (Chomsky, 1986), the variation in adjective placement in French and within human language is the basis for the research developed within this paper.

Ambiguity happens in a sentence which contains more than one meaning. Ambiguity can be caused by the ambiguous lexicon in which a word has more than one meaning and it can also be caused by the syntactic structure. Context also determines... more

Ambiguity happens in a sentence which contains more than one meaning. Ambiguity can be caused by the ambiguous lexicon in which a word has more than one meaning and it can also be caused by the syntactic structure. Context also determines whether the sentence can be interpreted differently and become ambiguous. Ambiguity often causes confusion and it has become one of the phenomena in linguistic studies, particularly semantics. This study investigates ambiguity in creating humors in which the data were gathered from electronic sources in forms of newspaper headlines, jokes, riddles and anecdotes. The number of the data collection includes 25 cases of ambiguity. 12 sentences were lexically ambiguous, while the other 13 sentences were syntactically ambiguous. The results showed that lexical ambiguity and syntactic ambiguity were the language devices used to create puns in humor. The results also suggested that the ambiguity could be an effective source of humor when it particularly involves dual interpretations in which one interpretation gives a serious meaning and tone, whereas the other interpretation gives a humorous meaning which is not likely to occur in normal contexts.

The paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of Hittite clause structure. The picture that emerges is quite different from both the view of Hittite clause architecture as codified in (Hoffner, Melchert 2008) and as documented in... more

The paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of Hittite clause structure. The picture that emerges is quite different from both the view of Hittite clause architecture as codified in (Hoffner, Melchert 2008) and as documented in the parallel line of research (Luraghi 1990; 2012; forthcoming).
The paper focuses on two key features of Hittite clause architecture: (a) preverbal vs clause initial vs clause second positions; (b) verb’s positions in the clause, although in-depth study of these aspects involves examination of virtually every significant feature of Hittite syntax.
Preverbal position is constituted by wh-words, subordinators, negation markers, negative, indefinite and relative pronouns as well as some adverbs, only part of these constituents can alternatively be clause initial or second. Contrastive focus is normally preverbal, contrastive topic is clause initial. Two focus positions are distinguished in a Hittite clause – high (subjects and objects) and low (adverbs, adverbials). Wh-words, subordinators and relative / indefinite pronouns can also be optionally postverbal. It is significant that only lower focus can be postverbal, never high focus, even though in the canonical word order both high and low focus is preverbal. No information structure difference is detectible between the preverbal and postverbal positions.
It is shown that non-canonical positions of the verb can be described by two movements to the left from the canonical clause final position: (a) to the clause internal position which follows subject and object, both topical and focal, on the one hand, and precedes what is in the canonical word order the preverbal position5, on the other, producing V-wh/Neg/Rel, S-O-V- wh/Neg/Rel word orders; (b) to the clause leftmost position, producing V-S-O word order. *V- wh/Neg/Rel-S-O or *wh/Neg/Rel-V-S-O word orders are not attested in my ‘diplomatic’ corpus.
The last point raises an important question of sociolinguistics of the Hittite language, namely evidence for (idio)lects.

Syntax is the study of a set of grammatical rules for words or clauses in the formation of sentences. Etymologically, the term "syntax" means stringing words into phrases and phrases into sentences. This is a conception that lets people... more

Syntax is the study of a set of grammatical rules for words or clauses in the formation of sentences. Etymologically, the term "syntax" means stringing words into phrases and phrases into sentences. This is a conception that lets people know how to start a question with a question word. Rules to help readers and writers understand the text It is also an important tool that writers can use to write literature. By studying them, you can understand the complex messages, but the syntax does not guarantee that the sentences are meaningful. The syntax does not guarantee that the statement is meaningful. The syntax is responsible for how sentences are constructed to form more complex words, phrases, and expressions, which can be combined into a sentence. Writers need to understand how to use sentences, which are easy to understand among the four English sentence structures. Simple sentences consist of a single, Compound sentences consist of two or more independent clauses; complex sentences consist of an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses; and compound-complex sentences consist of several independent clauses as well as at least one dependent clause. The syntax is responsible for how sentences are built to form more complex words and phrases that can be combined into sentences. Writers need to understand how to use sentences, which are easy to understand in the four sentence structures in English. For example, in order to form grammatically correct sentences in English without learning the syntax, we as students find it difficult to arrange the words into word combinations into sentences when we study them to improve our writing skills.

We introduce a statistical model for analysing the morphology of natural languages based on their affixes. The model was inspired by the analysis of Amis, an Austronesian language with a rich morphology. As words contain a root and... more

We introduce a statistical model for analysing the morphology of natural languages based on their affixes. The model was inspired by the analysis of Amis, an Austronesian language with a rich morphology. As words contain a root and potential affixes, we associate three vectors with each word: one for the root, one for the prefixes, and one for the suffixes. The morphology captures semantic notions and we show how to approximately predict some of them, for example the type of simple sentences using prefixes and suffixes only. We then define a Sentence vector s associated with each sentence, built from the prefixes and suffixes of the sentence and show how to approximately predict a derivation tree in a grammar. * This research is financed by the "Typology and dynamics of linguistic systems" strand of the Labex EFL (Empirical Foundations of Linguistics)

The World Wide Web (WWW) allows the people to share the information (data) from the large database repositories globally. The amount of information grows billions of databases. We need to search the information will specialize tools known... more

The World Wide Web (WWW) allows the people to share the information (data) from the large database repositories globally. The amount of information grows billions of databases. We need to search the information will specialize tools known generically search engine. There are many of search engines available today, retrieving meaningful information is difficult. However to overcome this problem in search engines to retrieve meaningful information intelligently, semantic web technologies are playing a major role. In this paper we present survey on the search engine generations and the role of search engines in intelligent web and semantic search technologies.

L’idea che il verbo sia sempre e comunque il nucleo della frase ha una lunga storia, ma nel secolo scorso si è cominciato a dubitarne sistematicamente. Questo libro espone alcune ragioni di tale dubbio, con l’analisi di costruzioni... more

L’idea che il verbo sia sempre e comunque il nucleo della frase ha una lunga storia, ma nel secolo scorso si è cominciato a dubitarne sistematicamente. Questo libro espone alcune ragioni di tale dubbio, con l’analisi di costruzioni italiane e inglesi i cui caratteri morfosintattici e semantici dipendono chiaramente dal nome che, insieme con il verbo che l’accompagna, funge da predicato. Agli argomenti utili a tale determinazione già presenti nella letteratura, qui se ne aggiungono di nuovi, in riferimento tanto alle costruzioni copulative, quanto a quelle con verbo supporto o seriale. Ne deriva un quadro d'insieme che mostra la debolezza dell’idea verbocentrica e addita i modi del suo superamento.

This draft makes clear that the system of Welsh pronouns is very different from that of the SAE-languages and strongly linked to VSO-syntax, i.e. major pronoun categories in Welsh are determined by their syntactic use and should not be... more

This draft makes clear that the system of Welsh pronouns is very different from that of the SAE-languages and strongly linked to VSO-syntax, i.e. major pronoun categories in Welsh are determined by their syntactic use and should not be termed on the basis of Latin-orientated grammar terminology.

"Max a enfermé Tom dans la cave" does not specify whether Tom was in the cellar before being locked up or not. This article shows how this semantic indeterminacy, highlighted and called «Effet Hamlet» by Jean-Paul Boons in the late... more

"Max a enfermé Tom dans la cave" does not specify whether Tom was in the cellar before being locked up or not. This article shows how this semantic indeterminacy, highlighted and called «Effet Hamlet» by Jean-Paul Boons in the late seventies, should perhaps be considered a fall-out of syntactic transformational processes.

A partir d'une certaine intuition de la notion d'incidence, on parvient à expliquer naturellement les diverses distributions observées. Si le cadre méthodologique s'écarte du dogme transformationnaliste, l'examen... more

A partir d'une certaine intuition de la notion d'incidence, on parvient à expliquer
naturellement les diverses distributions observées. Si le cadre méthodologique
s'écarte du dogme transformationnaliste, l'examen systématique des propriétés sur un
large échantillon a permis de vérifier les affirmations et de réfuter quelques préjugés.
D'une part, on met en évidence quelques propriétés cohérentes intuitivement
naturelles et distributionnellement systématiquement vérifiées, d'autre part, on
montre que d'autres propriétés traditionnellement associées à l'incidence, et parfois
même considérées comme définitoires, n'y sont en fait liées qu'accidentellement.
On définit d'abord trois niveaux d'incidence de l'adverbe. Dans le cadre de ces
«incidences primordiales», on peut préciser des incidences "secondaires",
caractérisées au moyen de propriétés syntaxiques plus spécifiques. On n'obtient pas
toujours une partition, mais parfois seulement des propriété structurantes, du fait
qu'on s'est refusé à suivre aveuglément des critères. Cela fournit un panorama
représentatif des adverbes, dans des emplois auparavant laissés de côté, et permet de
consolider les frontières «primordiales». Enfin, on vérifie que ce découpage se
retrouve plus ou moins dans les propriétés syntaxiques autant que logico-
sémantiques.

Abstract: This thesis* explores some of the syntactic & semantic properties of Purposive Constructions in English. The term "purposive" is recognized as a semantic concept which finds regular expression in a small range of syntactic... more

Abstract: This thesis* explores some of the syntactic & semantic properties of Purposive Constructions in English. The term "purposive" is recognized as a semantic concept which finds regular expression in a small range of syntactic configurations. Purpose Clauses (PCs) and Rationale Clauses (Rat.Cs) are examined in some detail. Briefer reference is made to several other configurations, notably Because Clauses, So-That Clauses and Infinitival Relatives. In general Purposive Constructions comprise rather fuzzy semantic categories. Nevertheless, the main syntactic features are fairly clear. Interpretation of the constructions requires a systematic account of the control of empty slots (ellipted NPs) by thematic elements in the matrix clause. General conditions of Government and Binding appear adequate to predict the distribution of gaps in most Purposive Clauses. However, the relationship between propositions predicated of a common argument in these constructions is found to sometimes require matching conditions too subtle for syntax alone to predict. A concept of Thematic Coextensiveness is introduced to account for such matching.

Przedstawiane opracowanie jest realizacją projektu Właściwości składniowe czasowników jako baza ich zintegrowanego opisu leksykograficznego (w perspektywie konfrontacji polsko-bułgarsko-rosyjskiej) i powstało dzięki finansowaniu tej pracy... more

Przedstawiane opracowanie jest realizacją projektu Właściwości składniowe czasowników jako baza ich zintegrowanego opisu leksykograficznego (w perspektywie konfrontacji polsko-bułgarsko-rosyjskiej) i powstało dzięki finansowaniu tej pracy przez Narodowe Centrum Na-uki w latach 2014-2017 z afiliacją przy Instytucie Slawistyki PAN. Nad grantem pracował zespół w składzie: Małgorzata Korytkowska (kierownik projektu) – Instytut Slawistyki PAN, Aleksander Kiklewicz (główny wykonawca projektu) – Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie, Julia Mazurkiewicz-Sułkowska (wykonawca) oraz Agnieszka Zatorska (wykonaw-ca) – Uniwersytet Łódzki. Powstało opracowanie złożone z dwóch części: 1) baz danych dla trzech badanych języków słowiańskich o charakterze słowników semantyczno-syntak-tycznych, zawierających w sumie ponad 1600 haseł z dwóch klas semantycznych – klasy cza-sowników mentalnych (verba cogitandi) oraz klasy czasowników emotywnych (verba sen-tiendi) oraz 2) opracowania monograficznego zawierającego analizy badanego materiału.

Starting with the question of the variable adjective order in French this paper proposes a theorized description of categories and functions in nominal syntagm, in a structuralist, functionalist, operationalist and corpus-based framework.

В статье обсуждается особый вид языковой когниции, связанный с конструкциями как схемными формами, которые имеют схемное значение, представленное когнитивной структурой. Конструкции обеспечивают категоризацию и перекатегоризацию языковой... more

В статье обсуждается особый вид языковой когниции, связанный с конструкциями как схемными формами, которые имеют схемное значение, представленное когнитивной структурой. Конструкции обеспечивают категоризацию и перекатегоризацию языковой информации. Особенности этого вида когниции рассматриваются на примере англоязычной фразовой конструкции, имеющей синтаксическую форму NP2 of NP1, аналогом которой в славянских языках является именная фраза с генитивом. Объяснение того, как эта конструкция реализует свой категоризующий потенциал и как она используется в
перекатегоризации значений иных конструкций, дается с привлечением положений семантики лингвальных сетей .
Ключевые слова: категоризация, конструкция, когнитивная структура, перекатегоризация, семантика лингвальных сетей

This paper suggests that reference to phenomenal qualities is best understood as involving iconicity, that is, a passage from sign-vehicle to object that exploits a similarity between the two. This contrasts with a version of the... more

This paper suggests that reference to phenomenal qualities is best understood as involving iconicity, that is, a passage from sign-vehicle to object that exploits a similarity between the two. This contrasts with a version of the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ that takes indexicality to be central. However, since it is doubtful that phenomenal qualities are capable of causally interacting with anything, indexical reference seems inappropriate. While a theorist like David Papineau is independently coming to something akin to iconicity, I think some of the awkwardness that plagues his account would be remedied by transitioning to a more inclusive philosophy of signs.

U ovom radu cilj nam je da ispitamo aspekatske odlike neakuzativnih glagola u Engleskom jeziku, te da ih uporedimo sa neakuzativnim glagolima Bosanskog jezika. Bosanski neakuzativni glagoli (kao što su pasti, stići, uvenuti) uvijek su... more

14th International Conference on Web services & Semantic Technology (WeST 2022) will provide an excellent international forum for sharing knowledge and results in theory, methodology and applications of web & semantic technology. The... more

14th International Conference on Web services & Semantic Technology (WeST
2022) will provide an excellent international forum for sharing knowledge and results in
theory, methodology and applications of web & semantic technology. The growth of the
World-Wide Web today is simply phenomenal. It continues to grow rapidly and new
technologies, applications are being developed to support end users modern life. Semantic
Technologies are designed to extend the capabilities of information on the Web and
enterprise databases to be networked in meaningful ways.

In this paper we will analyze the conceptual and computational motivations of the property of displacement in natural languages from a revisited perspective. We will account for displacement phenomena proposing our own version of... more

In this paper we will analyze the conceptual and computational motivations of the property of displacement in natural languages from a revisited perspective. We will account for displacement phenomena proposing our own version of displacement-as-external token Merge, as opposed to the traditional displacement-as-literal movement or, more recently, displacement-as-copy and Merge (Chomsky, 1995; Kitahara, 1997; Nunes, 2004). Our focus, as far as empirical data is concerned, will be set on parasitic gaps and their derivation, comparing our proposal with previous accounts making particular stress on the idea that operations are not feature-driven but interface-driven.

Extant semantic analyses of proper names, including both standard the-predicativist and referen-tialist accounts, tend to focus on data from English, and are not readily extensible to broad variation in the behavior of names across the... more

Extant semantic analyses of proper names, including both standard the-predicativist and referen-tialist accounts, tend to focus on data from English, and are not readily extensible to broad variation in the behavior of names across the world's languages. We introduce a novel version of predica-tivism about proper names, called 'polymorphic predicativism', which attributes this observed cross-linguistic variation to a variety of article systems employed by different languages. The presence or absence of various articles create diverse appearances and interpretations of proper names occurring as the grammatical subjects and objects of sentences. To illustrate, we offer a situation-theoretic analysis of proper names and definite descriptions in English that posits not just one type of definite article (i.e., the) but two, whereas Japanese names, for example, take no article whatsoever. Our proposal explains why proper names and definite descriptions are quite different in English, but not so in Japanese. (146 words)

meaning? you want meanings? For what? Wanna stuff them and put them on the mantelpiece?
But aren’t some meanings yummier than others? like maybe the deeper ones? why? I bet they cost more. Wuyya think?
Feel like thinkin'?

Beier et al. (2011) presents a detailed description of the expression of reality status in Iquito [iqu], a highly-endangered Zaparoan language of Peruvian Amazonia. That paper claims that Iquito "marks a binary distinction between realis... more

Beier et al. (2011) presents a detailed description of the expression of reality status in Iquito [iqu], a highly-endangered Zaparoan language of Peruvian Amazonia. That paper claims that Iquito "marks a binary distinction between realis and irrealis clauses solely by means of a word order alternation." (Beier et al. 2011:65) Based on more recent fieldwork, in this talk we expand the description of this phenomenon and show that reality status in these types of clauses is in fact multiply exponed by a grammatical (constructional) tonal melody and a pronominal alternation in addition to the previously described word order alternation.

Two aspects of anaphora in Hittite are discussed in the paper. The first is syntactic means to mark immediate anaphora after first mention. Besides fronting a constituent hosting -a/ma and demonstrative phrases, it is shown that the... more

Two aspects of anaphora in Hittite are discussed in the paper. The first is syntactic means to mark immediate anaphora after first mention. Besides fronting a constituent hosting -a/ma and demonstrative phrases, it is shown that the specific type of anaphora is also marked by the seemingly redundant structure of enclitic pronoun + full NP in its canonical position. It is argued that the parallel syntactic behaviour of all three constructions provides evidence to distinguish some cases of enclitic pronoun + full NP from appositions and to consider them a taxonomically distinct category, clitic doubling.
The second part of the paper deals with non-standard anaphora in relative clauses. It explores the occasional associate anaphoric relation between the relative phrase and its correlate (bridging) in the cross-linguistic perspective. Building upon work of Huggard and Belyaev it is shown that this non-standard anaphora provides evidence that Hittite relative sentences are not standard relative sentences, they rather constitute a separate taxonomic category, correlatives pace Cinque . Along more general lines, the paper substantiates the language specific claim of Belyaev contra Cinque that correlatives are a syntactic category distinct from relative clauses.

TO READ IT, YOU NEED TO DOWNLOAD THE FILE! Due to some limitations, Academia-edu hasn't succeeded in allowing to read it directly from here. We are very sorry. // This short sketch is a version 7.1 description of Analytical Syntax of... more

TO READ IT, YOU NEED TO DOWNLOAD THE FILE! Due to some limitations, Academia-edu hasn't succeeded in allowing to read it directly from here. We are very sorry.
//
This short sketch is a version 7.1 description of Analytical Syntax of the Sanskrit language basing on both formal (syntactic and morphological) and logico-semantic criteria. The work is written in Russian. The source of the work is both bulk reading of Classical Sanskrit texts and elaborating the Paninian system, as well as some comparative work on Classical Tibetan, English, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Nahuatl. The work is aimed at building a system which would help to both automatically process (parse) Sanskrit texts and improve both reference and study-books on Classical Sanskrit.

Published in Studies in Language 36:928-937 (2012)

This paper develops a flexible methodology to analyze the effectiveness of different variables on various dependent variables which all are times series and especially shows how to use a time series regression on one of the most important... more

This paper develops a flexible methodology to analyze the effectiveness of different variables on various dependent variables which all are times series and especially shows how to use a time series regression on one of the most important and primary index (page views per visit) on Google analytic and in conjunction it shows how to use the most suitable data to gain a more accurate result. Search engine visitors have a variety of impact on page views which cannot be described by single regression. On one hand referral visitors are well-fitted on linear regression with low impact. On the other hand, direct visitors made a huge impact on page views. The higher connection speed does not simply imply higher impact on page views and the content of web page and the territory of visitors can help connection speed to describe user behavior. Returning visitors have some similarities with direct visitors.