Partitivity and case marking in Turkish and related languages

Direct object resumption in Hebrew: How modality of presentation and relative clause position affect acceptability

668 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 3 (1998) direct object, both ofwhich N eventually rejects The analysis culminates in Ch. 7, 'Ergativity in Inuktitut' (191-236), in which she concludes that, from the point of view ofargument structure and grammatical relations, Inuktitut must be seen as sui generis, falling outside of all previous treatments ofergativity, since a transitive sentence has two subjects and no object. N's analysis often appears to rely on its own set of unquestioned assumptions such as that a stable relationship should be found between case marking and thematic role or between case marking and subjecthood ; her declaration that only ergative subjects are agents needs more argumentation than she gives it. Why should the ergative noun be agentive in arnaup quimmiq takuvanga 'the woman sees the dog', but the absolutive noun be nonagentive in arnaq qimmimik takujuq 'the woman sees the/a dog'? Similarly , her claim that neither the ergative nor the absolutive 'subject' qualifies as the sole 'subject' (214-30) seems to focus on these case categories without looking at the relationships between them as carefully as might be hoped: N states that incorporation always acts on the absolutive without mentioning the well-known stranding of instrumental casemarked modifiers, and claims that anaphoric coreference gives evidence for the subjecthood only of the ergative NP, which is highly questionable. Likewise, she chooses instrumental case-marked NP in antipassive sentences as the only true direct object, since it 'fulfills an important criterion for direct objects, that of being the obligatory nominal supplement to the predicate' (235). However, she omits mentioning that the absolutive NP in an ergative-absolutive transitive sentence is obligatory for purposes of interpretation, although it can be phonologically null, thanks to verbal cross-referencing. In the final chapter, 'Transforming the images' (237-77), N presents her conclusions and gives a brief grammatical sketch of Inuktitut more in accordance with her theoretical notions. The ramifications ofN's radical theoretical claims are left largely open, hopefully to be pursued in future research. In general, the book is well-written and clear although there is some variation in orthography and citation forms, i.e. kuni- 'kiss' (259) vs. kunik- 'kiss' (273), which may cause some confusion to the non-Eskimologist reader. An unfortunate glitch has caused all footnotes after fn. 1 38 to be numbered incorrectly: the reader must thereafter add 87 to the footnote reference. [David Parkinson, Microsoft Corporation.] Minimalism, scope and VP structure. By Thomas Stroik. Thousand Oaks, London, & New Delhi: Sage Publications , 1996. Pp. vii, 173. $37.00. The main aim ofthis book is to argue for a particular view of the structure and ordering of constituents within the extended VP projection. Stroik is arguing here against various versions of this ordering proposed in the past and using evidence from four main areas (scope, superiority effects, bare NP adverbials, and psych-verbs) to support his claim that the goal argument is generated structurally higher than the theme, that temporal and locative adverbs are sisters to the verb, and that whereas manner adverbs are VPadjoined , reason adverbs are AgrSP-adjoined. The book is well-organized and clear although the data are notoriously tricky, and some readers may find it difficult to agree with certain grammaticality judgments regarding sentences involving multiple WH-insitu phrases or scope effects between multiple quantified phrases. Ch. 1, 'Introduction to syntactic representation' (1-31), serves as a useful introduction to current issues in government and binding/minimalist syntactic theory and allows S to discuss some of the assumptions he will rely on throughout the book. S presents the debate between conditions on economy ofderivation vs. conditions on representation by arguing in favor of a representational approach to the empty category principle (ECP) and the distribution of PRO, as opposed to a more orthodox minimalist derivational approach. Using Aoun & Li's minimal binding requirement as a means for gauging the representational conditions which must hold at LF, S examines four main sources of evidence for the proposed VP structure. Ch. 2, 'Scope and the VP shell hypothesis' (32-72), focuses on the interactions between multiple quantified phrases and WH-words in sentences such as Why did Jill read no one anything (65), using the alternation between...

This paper investigates the syntactic structure of so-called genitive-possessive DPs in Uyghur, a Turkic language. Uyghur genitive-possessives bear suffixes on both the “possessing” entity (comparable
\nto the Saxon genitive ’s in English) and the “possessed” one. The suffix on the “possessor”,
\n-ning, is considered a genitive case marker; the suffix on the “possessed” has multiple allomorphs
\nand is considered an agreement marker that agrees in person and number with the “possessor”.
\nBased on the multiplicity of semantic roles that the “possessing” object may bear, and the observation
\nthat it may be dropped from the DP, an analogy is made between genitive-possessive DPs and
\nfinite TPs. It is proposed that “possessors” behave in a manner parallel to that of subjects of TPs:
\nthey are introduced by a quasi-functional head n or within a gerund, and raise to [Spec,DP] to receive
\ngenitive case from D. The agreement suffix, on the other hand, is treated as the phonological
\nrealization of an Agr head that is introduced with unvalued phi-features, features which are valued
\nwhen the “possessing” entity passes through the specifier of AgrP. Adopting this structure can explain
\ndata on the realization of definiteness in genitive and non-genitive DPs, and the distribution
\nof adverbials within gerunds.

This paper examines the phenomenon of the genitive of negation (GenNeg) in the Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian. It is shown that there is areal variation in case marking of an object of a negated verb. West Aukštaitian dialetcs (the Kaunas region) allow innovative accusative marking of an object of a negated verb much more often (although not as often as is claimed in the dialect descriptions) than South and East (the Vilnius region) Aukštaitian dialects where the genitive marking is very consistent. Even though South Aukštaitian has more examples of accusative marking than East Aukštaitian, the percentage is still very small. Different types of negated contexts (local vs distant) are not so relevant for the choice of case marking in South-East Aukštaitian, but play a moderately significant role in West Aukštaitian: the accusative marking is more common in distant negated contexts. In East Aukštaitian, direct objects of infinitives embedded under negated verbs can also be marked by the nominative, i.e. verbal negation does not affect the case marking of the so called nominative objects.

The relative structure is the one in which the relative clause is backgrounded and the head noun is foregrounded to be promoted to the matrix sentence. Therefore, the relative structure in which the relative clause includes the subject - old information, and the head noun is relativised object - new information is the unmarked information structure of the Chinese sentence. On the other hand, the relative structure in which the relative clause includes the object - new information, and the head noun is relativised subject - old information is the marked information structure. This explains why the frequency of emergence of relative structures with relativised objects is much higher than that of relative structures with relativised subjects. The relative structure is rarely used as the subject of a transitive verb, and is mainly used as the object of a transitive verb or the subject of an intransitive verb. This can be explained in that the object of the transitive verb and the subject of the intransitive verb are generally new information, and the subject of the transitive verb is mainly old information. While old information is mainly expressed by pronouns, new information is introduced by lexical nouns, so the relative structure that adds lexical information about head nouns is suitable for delivering new information. Therefore, it appears mainly in locations that require new information, such as the object of a transitive verb or the subject of the intransitive verb, and is rarely used as the subject of the transitive verb.

Transitive NEED Does Not Imply Transitive HAVE: Response to Harves and Kayne 2012

The present study raises the problem of Accusative case marking for masculine inanimate nouns in contemporary Ukrainian. Constructions of the type napysaty lyst-Ř and napysaty lyst-a ‘to write a letter’, with the unmarked zero ending in the former and the marked -a ending in the latter, constitute the focus of the investigation. The assumption, common in Ukrainian scholarship that the two variants exist in the language as ‘optional’, ‘synonymous’, parallel, or as ‘stylistic variants’ is challenged. The major objective is to provide a systematic synchronic description and analysis of each case marking under investigation and to demonstrate that each construction is not a sole variant of another, and has its own domain of function and usage, as well as to show that the existence and functioning of these constructions depends on internal language mechanisms. The analysis considers Transitivity, pragmatic and discourse variables and their ties with case marking in Ukrainian. A multi dimensional model, the Prototypical Discourse Situation Model, is proposed. This model is based on the premises of Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity Hypothesis (1980), Yokoyama’s Transactional Discourse Model (1986), and Zaitseva’s Theory of Utterance (1994, 1995). The model proves to be crucial in providing answers to questions as to the choice and function of the constructions under investigation. The Transitivity domain of the model strongly supports the power of Hopper and Thompson’s (1980) Transitivity Hypothesis, extending the hypothesis beyond the direct object properties with respect to the overt morphosyntactic manifestation of the level of utterance Transitivity. The components of Transitivity relevant for the accusative marking are: object Individuation and affectedness, punctuality, volitionality, and the number of arguments. Pragmatic and discourse domains are brought into the analysis in order to resolve such questions as why two paired case markings are not interchangeable in the same context, what precludes their free variation, and how the choice of a particular construction codes a particular message conveyed by the speaker in a given discourse situation. The pragmatic domain of the model incorporates the notions of the Prototypical Discourse Situation, the speaker’s conceptualization of an event with respect to the hearer’s knowledge, and the status of the speaker’s and the hearer’s shared knowledge. The discourse dimension encompasses the study of text/discourse structure, and notions of discourse topic and discourse saliency. The proposed model proves to be essential not only in explaining choices, but also in portraying patterns in which specifi c case marking occurs. The study argues that to capture the generalizations underlying the ‘doublet’ phenomena, the grammar of Ukrainian must recognize that not every set of variants in the language may be referred to as a grammatical or stylistic doublet.

Several studies found cross‐linguistic structural priming with various language combinations. Here, we investigated the role of two important domains of language variation: case marking and word order, for transitive and ditransitive structures. We varied these features in an artificial language learning paradigm, using three different artificial language versions in a between‐subjects design. Priming was assessed between Dutch (no overt case marking, SVO word order) and a) an SVO order version, b) a case marking version, and c) an SOV order version. Similar within‐language and cross‐linguistic priming was found in all versions for transitives, indicating that cross‐linguistic structural priming was not hindered. In contrast, for ditransitives we found similar within‐language priming for all versions, but no cross‐linguistic priming. The finding that cross‐linguistic priming is possible between languages that vary in morphological marking or word order, is compatible with studies showing cross‐linguistic priming between natural languages that differ on these dimensions.

In order to understand how children cope with the enormous variation in structures worldwide, developmental paths need to be studied in a sufficiently varied sample of languages. Because each study requires very large and expensive longitudinal corpora (about one million words, five to seven years of development), the relevant sample must be chosen strategically. We propose to base the choice on the results of a clustering algorithm (fuzzy clustering) applied to typological databases. The algorithm establishes a sample that maximizes the typological differences between languages. As a case study, we apply the algorithm to a dozen typological variables known to have an impact on acquisition, concerning such issues as the presence and nature of agreement and case marking, word order, degrees of synthesis, polyexponence and inflectional compactness of categories, syncretism, the existence of inflectional classes etc. The results allow deriving small samples that are maximally diverse. As a side result, we also note that while the clustering algorithm allows maximization of diversity for sampling purposes, the resulting clusters themselves are far from being discrete and therefore do not reflect a natural partition into basic language types.

ABSTRACTThird-person direct object (DO) clitic pronoun production is examined through an elicited production method in pre-school– and primary school–aged groups of Italian children with specific language impairment (SLI) to establish whether there is an improvement from age 5 years to age 7 years and whether there are qualitative differences in the two groups’ responses. It was found that 5- and 7-year-old Italian children with SLI produce fewer third-person DO clitics than same-age peers. The kind of responses they provide changes: at 5 years, children with SLI tend to omit clitics, while at 7 years, they use a full noun. Production of third-person DO clitics is a persistent challenge for children with SLI and is confirmed to be a good clinical marker both at 5 and 7 years of age.

This paper discusses the loss of the Old French two-case system within the theory of Preferred Argument Structure (Du Bois 2003, 1987). It will be shown that the chronology of this process followed a hierarchy of relative frequency, which in turn was driven by discourse preferences. Apart from strictly historical facts, this explanation also accounts for some basic typological properties of case-marking systems. In particular, it will be argued that no correlation exists between morphological case marking on the one hand and word-order flexibility on the other. Moreover, the theory of Preferred Argument Structure allows for a coherent assessment of the long-standing observation that in many cases, morphological case on full nouns is not necessary for distinguishing subjects from non-subjects.

A situation-theoretic approach to case marking semantics in Turkish

The paper takes into account the syntax of infinitives in subject function in Latin, arguing that it represents a plausible instance of a semantically-oriented coding strategy. A great number of occurrences demonstrates that Latin infinitives can only appear in subject function if the finite verb of the clause belongs to a restricted set of intransitive predicates (namely stative predicates, achievements and activity predicates in the passive voice), all taking non-agentive subjects. Conversely, infinitives cannot appear as subjects of unergative predicates and accomplishments. Therefore, the Aktionsart of the finite predicate happens to play a relevant role in their distribution as subjects. Some features of Latin infinitives (lack of case marking, neuter gender, availability as direct objects) are also discussed as further evidence for their status of non-canonical subjects. The analysis allows to conclude that infinitives are non-agentive verbal nouns functioning as non-canonical subjects within some specific constructions, thus instantiating a semantically-oriented pattern of alignment.

Ditransitive constructions in Caucasian Urum–The effect of givenness on the linearization of objects

Romanian pronominal plural clitics differ from their singular clitic counterparts in that they exhibit dative-accusative case syncretism. This contrast correlates with an asymmetry in the combinatorial possibilities of plural vs singular clitics: namely, plural clitics in direct object position in Romanian affect the acceptability of clitic clusters, as confirmed in quantitative acceptability judgements with multiple informants. Rather than invoking a new ‘Number Case Constraint’ governing the distribution of clitics, we link the Romanian data to familiar facts from Leísta dialects of Spanish, which manifest case syncretism between dative and animate accusative 3rd person clitics. We implement the fact that 1st and 2nd person plural clitics in Romanian are case-syncretic by implicationally marking them as inherently [+animate] in the syntax. The severe degradation in acceptability of clusters with direct object plural clitics is accounted for by following aspects of Adger & Harbour’s (2007) proposal for the connection between syncretism and the Person Case Constraint.