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Full-Text Articles in Semantics and Pragmatics
The Grammar Of Approximating Number Pairs (Anps) In Mandarin Chinese, Xuehuai He
The Grammar Of Approximating Number Pairs (Anps) In Mandarin Chinese, Xuehuai He
Pomona Senior Theses
"There are twenty or thirty people." What exactly does this mean? Is it exactly twenty or thirty, or is it an approximate range? What about "twenty or twenty-six people"?
Approximating number pairs (ANPs) are a kind of approximative expression that takes a number pair and expresses a quantity close to it. There are constraints on the structure and choice of numerals: many combinations would be ungrammatical or denote a precise disjunction rather than being approximative. Studies like Eriksson et al. (2010) statistically generalized the grammar of ANPs through corpus studies on select European languages. However, these surface-level generalizations fail to …
Between Verb And Preposition: Diachronic Stages Of Coverbs In Mandarin Chinese, Glynis Jones
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 …
The Head-Quarters Of Mandarin Arguments, Hsin-Lun Huang
The Head-Quarters Of Mandarin Arguments, Hsin-Lun Huang
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation looks at the syntactic distributions of various Mandarin arguments and develops an argument structure that takes into account the arguments’ semantic types. Theories of argument realization mostly build on a one-to-one correspondence between the syntactic positions of arguments and the thematic relations they bear to the verb in the underlying structure. And this correspondence is rooted in the assumption that the argument positions in the verb’s projection must be saturated before other semantic compositions can take place. This dissertation argues that the saturation requirement can be alleviated, depending on whether languages make a morphological distinction in their syntax. …
The Variable Expression Of Transitive Subject And Possesor In Wayuunaiki (Guajiro), Andres M. Sabogal
The Variable Expression Of Transitive Subject And Possesor In Wayuunaiki (Guajiro), Andres M. Sabogal
Linguistics ETDs
In Wayuunaiki, verbal affixes cross-reference clausal arguments in various ways. Most notably, there are two ways to express transitive subjects, and two ways to express possessors. Much like voice alternatives, the variable expression of subject and possessor impart different perspectives on a situation type, but unlike traditional voice categories, syntactic valence remains equal. This dissertation characterizes these constructions with a specific question in mind: what do these two cross-referencing alternations communicate and what influences their usage? To answer these questions, I consider the linguistic properties observed in the usage of these constructions in narratives (Jusayú 1986, 1994), and informal conversations. …
Amount Relatives Redux, Jon Ander Mendia
Amount Relatives Redux, Jon Ander Mendia
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation provides a novel analysis of Amount Relatives (Carlson 1977, Heim 1987, Grosu & Landman 1998, Herdan 2008, Meier 2015, a.o). Amount Relatives are a form of non-intersective relative clause that is usually associated with amount interpretations . For example, the sentence it will take us the rest of our lives to drink the champagne they spilled that evening is most naturally interpreted as referring to an amount of champagne, and not any particular champagne. Previous accounts of Amount Relatives have converged in appealing to degree semantics in order to extract an amount from the relative clause, suggesting that …
Fragments And Clausal Ellipsis, Andrew Weir
Fragments And Clausal Ellipsis, Andrew Weir
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates the syntactic and semantic properties of fragments -- utterances which consist of a constituent smaller than a clause. Examples include short answers, such as What did he eat? --- Chips, as well as cases which do not respond to any overt question; for example, saying The train station, please on entering a taxi. I defend Merchant 2004's proposal that, underlyingly, fragments contain clausal structure: the fragment answer chips is elliptical for he ate chips, with he ate being present in the syntax but unspoken. I argue that challenges to ellipsis-based accounts of fragments can be …