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In this paper I investigate the anaphoric interpretation of null and overt pronominal subjects in temporal adjuncts in child Romanian. The results show that 5-year old Romanian children make no distinction between null and overt pronominal subjects (personal pronouns and demonstratives) with respect to antecedent choice. I tentatively interpret the results as indicating that 5-year olds cannot fully integrate knowledge of the syntax of subjects with discourse information.
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Very little is known about the effect of syntactic complexity on written language production. This study investigated the effect of syntactic complexity on the accuracy of gender marking in written L1 and L2 French. We conducted two experiments in which L1 learners (n = 28) and L2 learners (n = 26) of French were asked to complete a fill-in-the-gap task. The test items were controlled for three types of gender agreement configurations with different syntactic complexity. The results show that the syntactic complexity of the agreement configuration has an effect on the accuracy of both L1 and L2 written gender marking. We conclude that, similarly to spoken L1 production, the accuracy of gender marking is influenced by syntactic complexity. Furthermore, we conclude that the observed effect of syntactic complexity does not only hold for L2 learners at the beginners level, but is still present in advanced L2 learners of French.
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In this paper, I examine uses of the construction go for in Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier creole (AEC) to gain insight on the verb/preposition distinction in contact languages, as exemplified in the construction Motion Verb + for (hereafter MV for). The MV for construction is employed when speakers wish to profile the purpose substructure of the construction’s composite semantic value. If speakers were to use the verb get instead of for, the acquisition substructure would be profiled. In most cases, however, speakers choose the morpheme for, which adds prominence to the purpose value. The morpheme for also adds aspectual content to the overall constructional meaning, and that aspectual reading is performed on the fly. It is argued here that MV for is processed simultaneously in relation to the other constituents that co-occur with it, not only syntactically, but also in terms of the semantic roles that those units convey.
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I discuss various theories of sentence topics against the background of attested examples of topicalization in Romanian. I argue that non-referential topical phrases constitute a problem for the concept of aboutness topic proposed by Reinhart (1981) and can better be accounted for in a theory where topicalized constituents are indicators of the discourse topic (cf. von Fintel 1994). I examine various types of topicalized constituents, classified according to the relation they entertain with the previous sentences and the discourse topic. Furthermore, I discuss another function of sentence topics, which can be characterized independently of discourse relations: that of anchoring the new information in the common ground. I suggest a way in which this function can be subsumed under the general function of indicating discourse-topic dynamics.
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The paper identifies and analyzes major types of binominal qualitative constructions in Old Romanian. The corpus presented in the paper registers three types of double-definite binominals and two types of single-definite binominals. This paper has a two-fold aim: one is to provide clarifications on these constructions at a descriptive level; the other one is to provide support in favor of the “Double-DP / Single-DP hypothesis” (see Tănase-Dogaru 2012a, b, 2013a).
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This paper analyses the acquisition of Romanian gender agreement in a Romanian-Hungarian bilingual setting, based on two longitudinal corpora and a corpus of narratives, with a view to identifying the causes that lead to the vulnerability of the gender feature in this particular language combination. The fact that Hungarian is a genderless language causes some delay in the acquisition of Romanian gender with bilinguals. While phonological and semantic transparency do not seem to have had much influence, it has been found that agreement at a distance represents an obstacle, probably due to processing difficulties inherent to bilingual language acquisition. The two main facilitating factors have been found to be adjacency to the noun and the presence of the definite and indefinite articles.
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Restricted relatives in Acadian French display the following peculiarities: generalization of que ‘that’ as the relative complementizer; deletion of que ‘that’; orphaned prepositions; failure of subject-verb agreement between the relative noun and the embedded verb. This paper argues that such peculiarities arise from the tendency of Acadian French to use a matching rather than a raising pattern of derivation in restrictive relatives, which further involves non-quantificational chains. This parametric setting contrasts with the systematically raising pattern in the restrictive relative of Standard French.
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The present study conducts an analysis on the treatment of the syntactic function of "attribute" in several English grammar books, written by native and non-native writers. The syntactic role of 'attribute' within grammars of the English language is a topic of ongoing interest and scholarly discourse. Attributes, being a basic component of syntactic structure, play an important role in modifying nouns, determining and shaping the intricate patterns of English sentences. By analysing the perspectives presented in various grammars, this study aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of the syntactic landscape of "attribute" in English. It is, nevertheless, imperative to recognize a significant distinction that arises in the treatment of "attribute" in English grammars. Some grammarians do include, among the mentioned syntactic functions, the one specific to "attribute". However, the vast majority of studies, while examining the syntactic links and semantic contributions of adjectives and nouns inside sentences, concentrate mainly on their attributive responsibilities. They thus do not specifically deal with the general syntactic function known as "attribute" but only mention of "attributive roles" of adjectives, nouns, and other essential clause elements.
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Teaching verbal groups in terms of their complementation types can be a fairly difficult process since they often trigger confusion among students. Therefore, teachers need to be aware of the most common errors that their students make in order to find the right strategies that help them understand those aspects better. After providing 60 students in a group with all significant information on verb complementation types, we organised an online progress test held via Google Classroom and Google Meet. The assignment covered 12 simple sentences which had to be analysed syntactically by identifying types of verbal groups and functions of their obligatory and/or optional adjuncts. The students had one hour to complete the task and turn in their papers. Following the correction of the papers, we drew up a list of the most frequent errors and processed the data statistically. The students’ results in the test paper revealed that most of them found it hard to identify intensive, complex transitive, and prepositional verbal groups and, implicitly, to analyse their complements by pointing out the right syntactic functions. We consider that the findings offered us a valuable insight into the aspects that most students find difficult and made us think of improving our teaching strategies so that students can be provided with a clearer approach in order to achieve better results.
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The article explores some reflexive factitive constructions of the se faire + inf. type with causative-passive and passive values, which are one of the ways to express the passive voice in the French language. The analysis attempts to present the examined factitive constructions focusing on their formal grammatical organization and functional-semantic relations established between the subject and object actants participating in their structures. The article also discusses the reasons that determine the productivity of the reflexive factitive constructions with causative-passive and passive value.
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In this paper, we have tried to outline the status of the preposition ZA from the aspect of grammaticalization, to which it is subjected to a considerable extent in the Prizren-Timok and Kosovo-Resava dialects, and its polyfunctionality is confirmed by numerous examples from these Serbian vernaculars. However, it must be borne in mind that, in contrast to the preposition OD, they were subjected to the process of the so-called areal grammaticalization, and other Serbian dialects – even the Serbian colloquial and literary language – came within the scope of this morphosyntactic segment of balkanization. The prepositional-case connection ZA + A / CG expresses a large number of relationships – those that in the Serbian standard language are represented by some other free cases or prepositional-case connections, or else these connections do not have a particularly large share in their presentation. Summarizing what is presented in the corpus here, we can differentiate three directions of expansion of the prepositional-case connection ZA + A / CG: 1) penetration into the field of genitive ZBOG, accusatives U, PO and NA, and locative O; 2) replacement of genitive, dative and instrumental in supplementary predicates (instead of genitive, dative and instrumental non-prepositional constructions); 3) in the service of addition to certain adjectives and predicative adverbs of state. A significant specificity in relation to the grammaticalized prepositions NA and OD is that the ZA-connection in certain categories of examples from our material has the property of a condenser, i.e., it is in the role of transform of the predicate-argument structure, which can be formalized as (a) causal, (b) final, (c) declarative sentence.
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The present paper discusses the word order alternatives attested with OIce double object constructions of the type gefa einhverjum frelsi ‘give someone freedom’ found in the ONP (https://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php) within a largely Minimalist syntactic framework (Chomsky (1995) and beyond). Specifically, this study draws on theoretical assumptions borrowed from sources in the area of the movement approach to modified word order types in the early Germanic languages (e.g. Eythórsson (1995); Haugan (2001)). The paper starts off with an analysis of base-generated post-VP indirect object (Dat) – frelsi (Acc) order and proceeds to an account of modified orders derived by VP-internal Scrambling, short-distance Scrambling, and Topicalization, wherein the direct object frelsi is claimed to have moved leftwards from its base position. The author of the paper argues that leftward dislocation takes frelsi to various target positions, i.e. an adjunction position in the left periphery of VP (resulting from VP-internal Scrambling), an adjunction position in the left periphery of vP (as a result of shortdistance Scrambling), the specifier position of CP (consequent upon Topicalization). The objective of the paper is to analyse the conditions, under which the above displacement operations apply, the structural configurations, derived by leftward movement and the properties of the ex-situ positions, targeted by frelsi.
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Oxymoron as a linguistic phenomenon is characteristic primarily of artistic speech. There are different interpretations of this concept in the linguistic literature. Oxymoron is interpreted as a stylistic figure, a rhetorical form, a means of artistic expression (trope). The purpose of the article is to analyze the oxymoron as a cognitive-pragmatic phenomenon in the artistic discourse of Olga Kobylyanska. The relevance of the article is determined by the need of further in-depth study of Olga Kobylyanskaya idiostyle in order to form a cognitive-pragmatic conception of the writer's artistic discourse. The novelty of scientific research is due to the fact that the oxymoron as a cognitive-pragmatic phenomenon in the artistic discourse of Olga Kobylyanska has not yet been the subject of thorough research. Research methods. In the article as the main general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis are used, as well as linguistic – descriptive, structural and comparative and historical methods. Conclusions. So, an oxymoron as a cognitive phenomenon consists in the implementation of opposite, mutually exclusive relations of linguistic units due to the so-called cognitive dissonance, which determines its pragmatic value for the reader. In the artistic discourse of O. Kobylyanska oxymoronic units of different nature function; oxymoronic relations function at the level of a word combination, a sentence structure on a linguistic unit (composite).
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The purpose of the article is to analyze the maxims regulating family and domestic relations in the artistic discourse of the prominent Bukovinian writer in terms of syntactic organization, verbal content and semantic diversity. The relevance of the scientific article is determined by the need to study individual verbal manifestations in the artistic discourse of the Bukovіnian writer for the formation of a coherent cognitive-pragmatic concept of her artistic discourse. Research methods. In the article as the main general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis are used, as well as linguistic – descriptive, structural methods and method of component analysis. The novelty of scientific research lies in deepening the study of the artistic discourse of O. Kobylyanska. In addition, the analysis of the maxims in O. Kobylyanska's texts has not yet been the subject of linguistic analysis. Conclusions. Maxims are autosemantic, relatively independent statements based on popular common sense, the writer's intellectual level and precedent phenomena. The class of maxims consists of paremias, which include author's modifications of paremias, sayings based on folk mythologems and author's maxims. Maxims function in the text as a separate statement or as part of the context. Folk paremias function as precedent phenomena in the form of a simple sentence. Author's maxims can take the form of identification sentences. Often, maxims are included in the constructions of vocations, taking the form of direct speech. We fix the author's maxims in the form of a rhetorical question and an exclamatory sentence. In the artistic discourse of O. Kobylyanska, a considerable group of maxims regulates family and household relations. Among them, certain thematic groupings can be distinguished: maxims of an instructive nature, maxims about love, gender characteristics, about women, about married life etc.
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Goal. In the segment of the study of the literary reception of the poetics of S. Vorobkevich's poetic works, analyze the literary and critical materials of O. Makovey (“Literary heritage according to Izidor Vorobkevich”, “Izidor Vorobkevich”, “General notes on the poetry of Izidor Vorobkevich”), published in the first few decades after the writer's death. Research methods are predetermined by the purpose and tasks of the work, the object of research and are complex. The hermeneutic method and the method of slow reading (the method of receptive poetics) were practiced, aimed to reveal S. Vorobkevych artistic means, interpret his works. Comparative and comparative historical methods are used to reveal the influence of other authors on the poetics of Bukovynian writer. Biographical method makes it possible to find out the dependence of S. Vorobkevych’s views on poetics on the life basis. Scientific novelty. The peculiarities of the development of poetics of poetry of S. Vorobkevych on the basis of certain its elements (generic, metaology, poetic syntax, phonics, versification) in the diachronic aspect were determined for the first time in Ukrainian literary studies in the given thesis. For this purpose, the scientific literature related to the study of elements of poetics of poetry works by S. Vorobkevych has been analyzed. The author’s approach on the form of poetic text is studied. The role of extraneous influences on poetry of S. Vorobkevych in the aspect of poetics is determined. Conclusions. The study of publications related to the topic of the study showed that the most valuable of them are the materials of O. Makovey, V. Lesyn and O. Romanets, P. Nykonenko, M. Bondar, P. Nykonenko. The results obtained are an important material for expressing our knowledge of the poetics of S. Vorobkevych's poetic works; they are the material for comparison with the similar material on the artistic nature of Y. Fedkovych’s poetic works. On the basis of revealing common features, taking into account the data of other Ukrainian poets of the region of this period it becomes possible to get a general picture of the poetics of domestic poetry works in Bukovyna in the second half of the nineteenth century.
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Since grammar and lexicon are in a continuum, this paper examines the multi-component units that create continuum. Namely, multi-component units such as idiom, collocations, multi-part onymes, multi-part terms, periphrastic constructions, complex subjunctives and complex prepositions are united by one syntactic role, and often there is no clear line of demarcation that could be drawn between them. This clearly shows how the enumerated class of constructions also reflects the continuum in which grammar and lexicon exist. The boundaries between them are permeable, but each of the mentioned categories is characterized by at least one (categorical) peculiarity – by which they can be classified as prototypical. According to the theory of prototypes – each category has a centralized member, according to which boundaries are drawn and prototypical characteristics are transmitted to other members of the given category. This means that they are organized radially and that, moving towards the periphery, we should expect a larger number of units that also take on the characteristics of other categories. In this paper, using the example of the relationship between the mentioned multi-component units, we try to show what can be considered their central feature and which features they share with each other. One should remain aware of the fact that the question of the finality of defining the differences between the mentioned lexical connections cannot be exhausted by one such work. Therefore, this paper only tries to touch on the given topic in order to open further discussions about “solid” lexical links and their relationship in Bosnian.
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The pronoun en is usually described in the literature as an adverbial pronoun, although the adverbial value is only one of several functions in which it can appear. It is a pronoun whose use is very diverse and complex, which is best seen based on numerous syntactic functions that we will present first in this paper. Then we will emphasize the analysis of examples of its use in the corpus, which includes student works divided into three stages (PI / INT / AH). Our goal is to determine to what extent this pronoun is represented in the mentioned corpus and in which syntactic functions it appears most often, i.e., to what extent students master its use. The analysis will also include those examples in which the use of this pronoun was absent as well as those in which its use is unacceptable.
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The objective of this work is to compare the position of clitic pronouns in the Lisbon and Sevillian editions of the History of the Most Noble Vespasian, a narrative text published in both Portuguese and Spanish at the end of the 15th century. The selected topic, the position of the clitics, has received much attention in the literature specialized in both synchrony and diachrony. According to the results outlined to date, the evolution of the rules that determine the position of such unstressed elements, apparently common to Portuguese and Spanish in the medieval period, subsequently follows divergent lines in the two languages, mainly due to the distancing of the second of the essentially common structural starting point. The comparative analysis of the two aforementioned editions of the aforementioned work proposed here wishes to take advantage of the fact that the versions present almost complete parallelism in both content and structure, which facilitates the examination of truly parallel constructions and structures in the two languages. This analysis can help to understand the stage in which the evolution of this component of the syntax was in each of the languages at the time of the publication of these versions.
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