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Full-Text Articles in Semantics and Pragmatics

'You' Will Always Have 'Me': A Compositional Theory Of Person, Kaden T. Holladay Nov 2023

'You' Will Always Have 'Me': A Compositional Theory Of Person, Kaden T. Holladay

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the morpho-syntactic makeup of personful expressions
in natural language; special focus is given to referential uses of personal pronouns. The central thesis guiding the inquiry is that utterance contexts, which serve to fix the semantic values of person indexicals, are specifically a kind of centered situation. This treatment of contexts puts restrictions on what kinds of person features are definable, and the resulting inventory of such features (in conjunction with independently-motivated pragmatic constraints on the use of referential expressions) provides a novel explanation for the typology of person systems.


Between Verb And Preposition: Diachronic Stages Of Coverbs In Mandarin Chinese, Glynis Jones Apr 2023

Between Verb And Preposition: Diachronic Stages Of Coverbs In Mandarin Chinese, Glynis Jones

Masters Theses

Mandarin Chinese has long been known to possess a category of words known as ‘coverbs’ in the literature, which sit in the gray area between verb and preposition. Li and Thompson (1974) describe the historical origins of Mandarin coverbs to be full transitive verbs, despite their modern state being decidedly less verbal. They also note that coverbs are a non-homogenous class. This thesis works to establish categories of coverbs in Mandarin Chinese and their distance from true verbhood in order to understand the diachronic shift that coverbs are currently undergoing before our very eyes. I will draw on the work …


On The Temporal Interpretation Of Epistemic Modals: Evidence From Palestinian Arabic, Alaa M. Sharif Sep 2020

On The Temporal Interpretation Of Epistemic Modals: Evidence From Palestinian Arabic, Alaa M. Sharif

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of temporal interpretation of epistemic modals in Palestinian Arabic (PA), and develop a cross-linguistic analysis. The epistemic necessity modal akeed and the epistemic possibility modal yimkin in PA exhibit similar temporal configurations to English epistemic modals must and might, respectively. We argue for a unified underlying structure to account for the temporal configurations. The linearized combination of the epistemic modal, a silent present tense morpheme and an aspectual head morpheme derive either a present-oriented reading when the aspectual head is empty, or a future-oriented reading in presence of a silent prospective …


The Objectives Of Public Higher Education In New York City Through The Lens Of Language, John-Nicholas Parker Jun 2020

The Objectives Of Public Higher Education In New York City Through The Lens Of Language, John-Nicholas Parker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper displays the objectives of public higher education in New York City and their relation to changes in the city. Public higher education in New York City relies on the support of the public. This paper details adjustments to the lexicon of the school in response to changing demographics and historical events by examining statements provided by the school during different periods. Changes to the lexicon relating to class, gender, race, ethnicity, and military service are examined in relation to their historical context. Sources examined in this paper include commission reports, student newspapers, and mission statements. The paper finds …


“So, Literally,…Basically,...It’S Like…”: A Study Into The Generational And Sociological Impact Of American Language Culture, Richard Moreno May 2020

“So, Literally,…Basically,...It’S Like…”: A Study Into The Generational And Sociological Impact Of American Language Culture, Richard Moreno

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Language is unique to the human species. It serves to communicate thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. Within the context of this capstone I outline the theory that language is much more than this. Words can also serve to bond or reject, based on the level of acceptance within social groups towards the speaker. In seeking to discover what effects specific language utterances have on social interaction and the processes involved in developing cohesiveness collective identity in these groups, I found that they do have a definite impact and this is based mainly within generational parameters. Using a mixed method approach of …


Knowledge Of The Present Perfect By Albanian/English Bilinguals, Erjon Xholi Feb 2020

Knowledge Of The Present Perfect By Albanian/English Bilinguals, Erjon Xholi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper concerns the acquisition process of a specific part of English grammar by native speakers of Albanian. The focus is the English present perfect, and the similarities and differences that it bears to the Albanian Compound Perfective. The two constructions are made from similar parts, but they crucially differ in the aspectual nature of their participles. While the Albanian particle is perfective, the English is underspecified. We argue that the process of the acquisition of the PP by Albanian bilinguals is one where input, analogy, and direct grammar teaching do not suffice. We apply Generative Grammar logic to the …


Responding To Questions And Assertions: Embedded Polar Response Particles, Ellipsis, And Contrast, Jeremy Pasquereau Jul 2018

Responding To Questions And Assertions: Embedded Polar Response Particles, Ellipsis, And Contrast, Jeremy Pasquereau

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the distribution of Polar Response Particles (i.e. yes/no particles) in embedded contexts with a focus on European French.


Verbal -S Productions In The Structured Writing Samples Of Variable Aae-Speaking Fourth-Grade Students With And Without Language Impairment, Jacklyn High Felton Jul 2017

Verbal -S Productions In The Structured Writing Samples Of Variable Aae-Speaking Fourth-Grade Students With And Without Language Impairment, Jacklyn High Felton

Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers in speech-language pathology and ethnolinguistics have worked to gain knowledge about typical and atypical language patterns of African American children who are identified as African American English (AAE) dialect speakers. Much progress had been made, but limitations in this field of knowledge have persisted, especially for AA children who demonstrate variable use of AAE, presumably through the process of assimilation in the school setting. Therefore, more information is needed to provide diagnostic markers for deviations in typical language development for variable AAE-MAE speakers. Prior empirical research has found that third- and fourth-grade AAE-speaking children with typical language development overtly …


Cross-Linguistic Phonosemantics, Raleigh Anne Butler May 2017

Cross-Linguistic Phonosemantics, Raleigh Anne Butler

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.


Pronominal Complex Predicates In Colloquial Persian, Ghazaleh Kazeminejad Jan 2014

Pronominal Complex Predicates In Colloquial Persian, Ghazaleh Kazeminejad

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Pronominal complex predicates in colloquial Persian are periphrastic constructions with an idiosyncratic syntactic pattern. They show a peculiar behavior compared to the regular agreement system in Persian, and they are the only construction in Persian which requires the obligatory presence of a pronominal enclitic. This work is an attempt to analyze this construction in order to find its function. For this purpose, a lexical semantic classification of them was proposed, which helped in presenting a new analysis. It was found out that this construction is used to express a particular diathesis in which the topic of the sentence (determined according …