Syntax Commons^™

A Linguistic Analysis Of Rukiga Personal Names, Allen Asiimwe

Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa

The goal of the paper is to provide a linguistic description of the structure of personal names in a lesser studied Bantu language of Uganda, Rukiga (JE14). Data show that Rukiga personal names are presented as lexical entities but with underlying elaborate grammatical structures derived from the syntax, morphology, phonology and the lexicon of the language. Personal names in Rukiga form a special category of nouns derived from nouns, adjectives, verbs, phrases, clauses and full sentences. This study establishes that truncation, affixal derivation, lexicalization of phrases, clauses and sentences are employed in name-formation. The study further reveals that the socio-cultural …

The Structure Of The Iraqw Noun Phrase, Chrispina Alphonce

Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa

The structure of the noun phrase (NP) is demonstrated to differ among languages. Albeit studies that paid attention on Southern Cushitic languages in general and Iraqw in particular, their contribution is selective to the general grammar of the language while the structure of the NP is scarcely described. This study contributes to the description of the language through an empirical explanation of the elements and the morphosyntactic properties of the NP in the language. It describes the orders of the elements, their co-occurrence, and constraints to illuminate the structure of the NP of the language. It draws on the data …

Pragmatic Inferences Of Locative Enclitics In Luganda, Moureen Nanteza

Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa

This paper examines the non-locative functions of locative enclitics in Luganda (JE 15). Locative enclitics are words which cannot stand alone but attach on a verb to make meaning. Their status is ambiguous between free word and affix, hence motivating their analysis as enclitics. The enclitics are attached on the post final position of their hosts. Although the locative enclitics occur regularly in some Bantu languages (Luganda, Runyankore-Rukiga, Runyoro- Rutooro, Lunda, Ikizu, Fwe, Chichewa, Kinyarwanda among others), they have not been widely studied in the literature. The paper looks at verbal locative enclitics only but the locative enclitics also appear …

Clitic Doubling: The Case Of Nariño Andean Spanish, Jessica Paola Jurado Eraso

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis examines the behavior of clitic doubling in Nariñense, a little-studied Andean Spanish variety spoken in the southwest of Colombia, and compares it to well-studied varieties such as standard Peninsular, Rioplatense, and other Andean Spanish varieties. Its aim is to present novel data about clitic doubling in order to shed more light into the extensive literature about this phenomenon in Spanish. Through spontaneous speech recordings obtained from thirty native speakers of Nariñense, 133 sentences involving clitic doubling were analyzed. Features such as agreement matching between the clitic and the doubled NP, use of the preposition a to introduce the …

Latin American Identities And The American Demonym, Maia S. Schofield

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Current literature addresses the question of Latin American identity largely in terms of assimilation, language proficiency, generation of immigrant, and political participation, while the American demonym remains an understudied topic. ‘America’ has been popularized in its usage to refer only to the United States and ‘American’ to its nationals. Although Latin Americans are natives of the Americas, they are rarely considered ‘American’. This study examines factors that influence the identity of Latin Americans living in the United States and focuses primarily on the connection between identity and the understanding of ‘America’. To examine this relationship, a questionnaire, offered in Spanish …

Try Come Look At This Construction!, Kento Tanaka

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

The try get construction, used by some speakers of Hawai‘i English, consists of the bare form of the verb try immediately followed by the bare form of another verb, as in We’ll try get some coffee tomorrow. In this paper, I first describe the usage of this construction, showing that it behaves essentially identically to the widespread go get construction described most notably by Zwicky (1969) and Pullum (1990). I then analyze the syntax of the try get construction adopting Bjorkman’s (2016) proposal for the go get construction.

The Syntactic And Semantic Atoms Of The Spray/Load Alternation, Michael A. Wilson

Doctoral Dissertations

What is the relationship between the word spray in the sentence John sprayed the paint onto the wall and its identically pronounced counterpart in John sprayed the wall with the paint? At some level, we recognize these two uses of spray as the same word. But the fact that they combine with their arguments in different ways means they cannot be identical. The relationship between these two uses of spray—called the spray/load alternation—is productive in a way that a descriptively adequate grammar of English should capture. Other verbs show the same pattern, adults and children extend …

Anymore Once More: Geographical And Syntactic Distribution, Laurence R. Horn

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

Occurrences of non-polarity anymore (NPAM) or so-called “positive anymore” with the approximate meaning of ‘nowadays’ have long been collected by North American dialectologists. The name of the construction is misleading, however, since mainstream anymore, as a garden-variety negative polarity item, is acceptable (like ever or anyone) in a range of grammatically “positive” but downward entailing environments. After touching on the semantic characterization of mainstream and non-polarity anymore and the “stigma enigma” presented by the variable social diagnosis of the construction by those familiar and unfamiliar with it, we present the results a study of the grammatical and …

Variations On Defining A Dialect Region, Sasha Lioutikova

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

This paper explores various methods of defining a dialect region, using syntactic constructions characteristic of the American South. We consider three important characteristics of such a method: place, feature, and measure. ”Place” details how data points should be grouped, ”feature” details which data points should be used, and ”measure” details how the data should be analyzed. While we may not claim one method as superior to any other, this research can provide insight into how different techniques of characterizing geographic variation may affect the resulting dialect regions.

Get My Syntax On, Heidi Lei

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In this paper, I describe and analyze an instance of micro-syntactic variation in American English, a construction I refer to as get my X on. There is considerable flexibility in the construction, involving the types of determiners allowed, the phrasal verbs used, and most notably, the structure of the DP my X. In Standard American English, the X following a possessive pronoun is generally restricted to nouns. However, in this construction, X can be a lexical verb like sing, teach, or even celebrate. Some speakers of African American English accept only the bare verb, rejecting …

How Humans Produce And Interpret Sentences Using Syntax, Jun Tamura

English Language Institute

Humans are able to use languages freely and understand the meaning of languages. This universal linguistic ability of humans can be accounted for by “syntax” in our brains, for which I will provide three pieces of supportive evidence.

Language As The Medium: A Literature Review. Harnessing The Prolific Power Of Dramatic Language As A Therapeutic Tool In Drama Therapy, Edward Freeman

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Language in and of the theatre, with its palate of variegated writing styles and playwrights from throughout time, has the potential to be harnessed, focused, and systematized for use as a therapeutic tool within drama therapy – the field’s artistic medium. Drama therapy could benefit from having a specific medium germane to its artform which has the potential to provide practitioners with a common resource and means of communication, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning, as well as align the field with other creative arts therapies. Language encompasses all forms of human communication – speaking, writing, signing, gesturing, expressing facially – …

A Lexical And Syntactic Study Of Research Article Titles In Library Science And Scientometrics, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

Title of a research article is an abstract of the abstract. Titles play a decisive role in convincing readers at first sight whether articles are worth reading or not. Not only do research article titles show how carefully words are chosen by authors, but also reflect disciplinary differences in terms of title words and structure between hard sciences and soft sciences. This study examined the lexical density and syntactic structure of 690 research article titles chosen from five Library Science and Scientometrics journals, aiming to reveal disciplinary differences. The result suggested both Library Science and Scientometrics have almost the same …

The Acquisition Of English Phrasal Verbs By Native Spanish Speakers, Ryanne Mikunda

Ramaley Celebration

The Acquisition of English Phrasal Verbs by Native Spanish Speakers

Ryanne Mikunda

Covadonga Sanchez Alvarado

This project investigates native Spanish speakers' acquisition of English phrasal verbs (PVs). A PV consists of a verb and preposition that function as a verb, e.g., pick up, think about, and go on. Prior research shows that because PVs are polysemous and idiomatic, they are difficult for learners of English as a second language to acquire (Moore Hanna, 2012; Garnier & Schmitt, 2016; Rovira Diaz, 2017). Additionally, the English concept of a PV does not exist in Spanish. To better understand how …

Brown's Stages Of Morphosyntactic Development Applied To The Typical Development Of Italian, Marie Laiche

LSU Master's Theses

Background: In A First Language (1973), Roger Brown called for an increase in crosslinguistic data and analysis of morphosyntax across languages as more research in this field is crucial for working out the overarching determinants of language acquisition order and for the ability to accurately compare child language acquisition across different languages. An increase in this research would benefit linguistic researchers and speech-language-pathologists offering services to or evaluating children speaking a different language or more than one language. The current study seeks to add to the field of crosslinguistic research by adapting Brown’s guidelines of English language acquisition to the …

Talking About Her(Self): Ambiguity Avoidance And Principle B. A Theoretical And Psycholinguistic Investigation Of Romanian Pronouns, Rudmila-Rodica Ivan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation answers a deceivingly simple question: why can her in Hermione talked about her refer to the sentence subject in Romanian, but not in English? The Romanian facts, which are surprising for both classic and competition-based accounts of the Binding Theory over the last 40 odd years, bring us to the following overarching question: what are the constraints on pronominal reference? To address these main questions, I carry out a psycholinguistic investigation of Romanian pronouns and argue that the distribution and interpretation of pronominal forms is jointly determined by pragmatic and morphosyntactic constraints. I discuss evidence from four experiments, …

Person-Based Prominence In Ojibwe, Christopher Hammerly

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation develops a formal and psycholinguistic theory of person-based prominence effects, the finding that certain categories of person such as "first" and "second" (the "local" persons) are privileged by the grammar. The thesis takes on three questions: (i) What are the possible categories related to person? (ii) What are the possible prominence relationships between these categories? And (iii) how is prominence information used to parse and interpret linguistic input in real time? The empirical through-line is understanding obviation — a “spotlighting” system, found most prominently in the Algonquian family of languages, that splits the (ani- mate) third persons into …

Language Learning From The Developmental And Neurocognitive Perspective: An Examination Of The Impact Of Music On Second Language Acquisition, Shelby Grimm

Honors College Theses

This literature review aims to analyze the influence of music as a learning tool throughout the process of second language acquisition. Through the compilation and analysis of recent research conducted on the academic, cultural, and linguistic impacts of music on the four modes of language, which include reading, speaking, writing, and listening, this thesis will demonstrate the effects of incorporating music into the second language learning curriculum. Definitions of both music and language, as well as a description of the components of both areas will be included. An examination of the neurocognitive relationship between music and language, as well as …

Notes On Extended Benefactives, Jim Wood, Shayley Martin

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

Wood and Zanuttini (2018) have discussed data suggesting that low Appl(icative) phrases can occur as the complement of a preposition in some varieties of English. However, their claim was based on a limited data set that is potentially open to alternative analyses. This paper reports on judgment data collected by the second author of the present paper in January 2018 which go well beyond the examples discussed by Wood and Zanuttini (2018), and support their claim that a beneficiary and a DP can form a constituent inside a PP that excludes the PP and any verb it may be associated …

A Lexical Frequency Analysis Of Irish Sign Language, Robert G Smith, Markus Hofmann

Other Resources

Word frequency has a significant impact on language acquisition and fluency. It is often a point of reference for the teaching and assessing of a language and indeed, as a control for psycholinguistic studies. This paper presents the results of the first objective frequency analysis of lexical tokens from the Signs of Ireland corpus. We investigate the frequency of fully lexical, partly lexical and non-lexical signs in Irish Sign Language as they are presented in the corpus. We confirm the accuracy of the lexical gloss frequency data with a supplementary corpus subset that is tagged for grammatical class and additional …

The Grammatical Systems Of Attentionworthiness: Positional Signals And Invariant Meanings In Spanish Word Order, Eduardo Ho-Fernández

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents a Columbia School analysis of word order phenomena in Spanish. The data was sourced from a corpus of manually collected utterances extracted from six volumes of Latin American short stories written in the twentieth century. The study employs various qualitative and quantitative techniques in order to test the various hypotheses offered as explanations of the distributional problems selected for the study. The observations roughly correspond to word orders that the grammatical tradition describes as having to do with either verbs with one argument (SV, VS, OV, VO) or verbs with two arguments (SVO, OVS, VSO, VOS, SOV, …

A Comparative Analysis Of Classifiers Within The Dp System, Xuan Hu, Paula Rodriguez Monroy

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Comparative Deletion And Constraints On Transformations, Joan W. Bresnan

University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics

No abstract provided.

Who Wants In On This Linguistic Analysis?, Lane Fischer

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

This paper brings together previous research on the Midland English dialect region construction want + [intransitive preposition] heretofore referred to as the wants in phenomenon. I will build on past research of wants in and present its construction, background, sociolinguistic relevance and will then present further questions I have about the construction, my hypotheses on these questions, and results from my own intuitions as a speaker of the Midland dialect and a linguistic survey. With reference to a similar Midland construction, need + [past participle], I ultimately propose that although these two constructions share many of the same syntactic restrictions, …

Doxastic Feel Like (That), Aarohi Srivastava

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

Doxastic feel like is used to convey a belief or opinion, similar to think:

(1) I feel like your drawing is better than mine.

Doxastic feel like is an intriguing topic of study due to the potential for microsyntactic variation, along with the thick web of linguistic prejudice surrounding this construction. Doxastic feel like is primarily associated with stereotypes regarding age, gender, and intelligence. A survey was conduced to measure participants of diverse demographic backgrounds in their acceptability of feel like in different contexts. Overall, respondents were found to have high acceptability of this construction. In addition, respondents were …

Lulling Waters: A Poetry Reading For Real-Time Music Generation Through Emotion Mapping, Ashley Muniz, Toshihisa Tsuruoka

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

Through a poetic narrative, “Lulling Waters” tells the story of a whale overcoming the loss of his mother, who passed away from ingesting plastic, as he attempts to escape from the polluted oceanic world. The live performance of this poem utilizes a software system called Soundwriter, which was developed with the goal of enriching the oral storytelling experience through music. This video demonstrates how Soundwriter’s real-time hybrid system was able to analyze “Lulling Waters” through its lexical and auditory features. Emotionally salient words were given ratings based on arousal, valence, and dominance while the emotionally charged prosodic features of the …

Mapbook Of Syntactic Variation In American English: Survey Results, 2015–2019, Jim Wood, Kaija Gahm, Ian Neidel, Sasha Lioutikova, Luke S. Lindemann, Lydia Lee, Josephine Holubkov

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

This work presents the results of a series of acceptability judgment surveys conducted by the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project (YGDP) between 2015 and 2019. It contains over 200 maps of some 194 sentences, covering a wide range of syntactic constructions, including dative presentatives, personal datives, extended benefactives, the have yet to construction, the done my homework construction, wicked, hella, the so don’t I construction, the alls construction, the come with construction, fixin’ to, the needs washed construction, non-polarity anymore (aka “positive anymore”), and many others. For each sentence, we also provide some basic demographic information, such …

Doing Away With Defaults: Motivation For A Gradient Parameter Space, Katherine Howitt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, I propose a reconceptualization of the traditional syntactic parameter space of the principles and parameters framework (Chomsky, 1981). In lieu of binary parameter settings, parameter values exist on a gradient plane where a learner’s knowledge of their language is encoded in their confidence that a particular parametric target value, and thus grammatical construction of an encountered sentence, is likely to be licensed by their target grammar. First, I discuss other learnability models in the classic parameter space which lack either psychological plausibility, theoretical consistency, or some combination of the two. Then, I argue for the Gradient Parameter …

A Generative Approach To Oscan Syntax: Towards An Analysis Of The Conditional Construction, Jennifer Mclish

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

This thesis presents an analysis of some aspects of the syntax of Oscan, a dead language from the Italic family, with a focus on the conditional construction. Drawing on modern approaches to the syntax of the related language Latin, I show that deviation from the default SOV word order of Oscan can be described in terms of discourse-marking focus and topic movement. Due to the frequent appearance of imperatives in conditional constructions, I address the syntax of imperatives in some detail. Applying current generative theories of the imperative to the Oscan consequent clause, I conclude that the Oscan imperative is …

Optimal Linearization: Prosodic Displacement In Khoekhoegowab And Beyond, Leland Kusmer

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding the relationship between syntactic structures and linear strings is a challenge for modern syntactic theories. The most complete and widely accepted models — namely, the Headedness Parameter and the Linear Correspondence Axiom (Kayne, 1994) — each capture aspects of this relationship, but are either too permissive or two restrictive: A Headedness Parameter relativized to individual categories permits nearly any linear order which keeps phrases contiguous, even those that violate the Final-Over-Final Constraint (Sheehan et al. 2017); by contrast, the Linear Correspondence Axiom is well-known for ruling out head-final configurations generally. Subsequent models of linearization have typically been modifications of …