Rightward Movement Phenomena in Linguistics

Rightward Movement Phenomena in Linguistics PDF

Author: Kohji Kamada

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1527527387

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This book demonstrates that some properties of rightward movement phenomena (a cover term referring to sentences in which an element appears to be “displaced” to the right) may be derived from syntactic principles and interface conditions within the framework of the generative grammar/minimalist program. It also argues that certain properties, which up to now have been dealt with purely in regards to syntax, can be better accounted for in terms of language processing; accordingly, the human parser should undertake explanations of part of the competence system’s output. The volume’s analysis of rightward movement phenomena leads to the conclusion that phrasal rightward movement rules in syntax fail to follow specific principles. At first glance, this conclusion seems identical with Kayne’s (1994) claim that no rightward movement rules exist. However, this work provides completely different grounds for the absence of rightward movement rules, meaning that it presents an original view of rightward movement phenomena.

Rightward Movement in a Comparative Perspective

Rightward Movement in a Comparative Perspective PDF

Author: Gert Webelhuth

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2013-07-16

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 9027290636

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This book represents the state of the art on rightward movement in one thematically coherent volume. It documents the growing importance of the combination of empirical and theoretical work in linguistic analysis. Several contributions argue that rightward movement is a means of reducing phonological or structural complexity. The inclusion of corpus data and psycholinguistic results confirms the Right Roof Constraint as a characteristic property of extraposition and argues for a reduced role of subsentential bounding nodes. The contributions also show that the phenomenon cannot be looked at from one module of grammar alone, but calls for an interaction of syntax, semantics, phonology, and discourse. The discussion of different languages such as English, German, Dutch, Italian, Italian Sign Language, Modern Greek, Uyghur, and Khalkha enhances our understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon. Finally, the analytic options of different frameworks are explored. The volume is of interest to students and researchers of syntax, semantics, psycholinguistics, and corpus linguistics.

Rightward Movement Phenomena in Human Language

Rightward Movement Phenomena in Human Language PDF

Author: Kohji Kamada

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13:

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The aim of my thesis is to show that some properties of rightward movement constructions (a cover term referring to sentences where an element appears to be "displaced" to the right) may be derived from syntactic principles and interface conditions within the framework of the minimalist program, and also to claim that properties which have up to now been dealt with purely in syntax receive a better account in terms of language processing. I develop a nonmovement approach to the Japanese Post-Verbal Construction (JPVC) by claiming that a postverbal phrase is adjoined to an element by External Merge, and that it is permitted as a syntactic object by a licensing condition which allows it to be construed as an argument or a modifier by interpretive rules at the interface level (SEM/LF). Many syntactic properties of the JPVC are accounted for in terms of independently motivated interface conditions and syntactic principles. I assume that the parser is a system that can make use of UG principles as well as language particular rules, and that the parser should be universal. The interaction of syntactic principles with parsing strategies makes it possible to cope with elusive problems concerning scope ambiguity as well as locality effects observed in the JPVC. This interaction may also account for the Right Roof Constraint effect displayed by the rightward movement constructions in English (i.e., Heavy "P Shift (H"PS), Extraposition from "P, and Right Dislocation). Furthermore, it predicts that languages fall into three types with respect to the possibility of the HNPS construction: (i) both subjects and objects can appear in postverbal position (e.g., Italian, Japanese, Turkish); (ii) subjects cannot do so (e.g., English); (iii) neither subjects nor objects can appear in postverbal position (e.g., Dutch, German). The claim that there is a parsing strategy relating to linear distance is supported by an experiment designed as a test for the effect of the length of intervening elements on acceptability of the JPVC, with the data obtained using Magnitude Estimation, a technique used in psychophysics to measure judgements of sensory stimuli.

Rightward Movement

Rightward Movement PDF

Author: Dorothee Beermann

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1997-12-11

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 902728234X

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Symmetries and asymmetries have always played an important role in linguistic theorizing. From the early works on potentially universal properties of transformational processes, differences between rightward and leftward movement processes were noted and constituted a challenge to theories of conditions on transformations. The upward boundedness of extraposition rules vs. the successive cyclic character of question word movement, for example, remains a vexing problem. An idea which has gained considerable prominence in the most recent syntactic work, in particular Noam Chomsky's 'Minimalist Program' and Richard Kayne's 'Antisymmetry' proposal, is that rightward movement simply does not exist. This means, in essence, that what looks like an element that has been moved rightward is either base-generated in its surface position, or it is actually moved leftward but all its surrounding materials have been moved leftward even further. Clearly, these radical proposals have generated a large number of new analyses of the relevant phenomena, and they have fostered considerable controversy about the viability and desirability of this type of approach. The present volume brings together a representative group of articles discussing a variety of aspects of (apparent) rightward movement processes, including considerations having to do with parsing, and representing the various opposing lines of thought on this matter. Empirically, they cover a wide array of constructions (extraposition, scrambling, quantifier-floating, etc.) and languages ( American Sign Language, Bengali, Dutch, French, Frisian, German, Hindi, Japanese, Marathi, etc.).

The Free Word Order Phenomenon

The Free Word Order Phenomenon PDF

Author: Joachim Sabel

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-08-22

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 311019726X

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This book deals with the syntax of the free word order phenomenon (scrambling) in a wide range of languages - in particular, German, Japanese, Kannada, Malayalam, Serbo-Croatian, Tagalog, Tongan, and Turkish - in some of which the phenomenon was previously unstudied. In the past, the syntax of free word order phenomena has been studied intensively with respect to its A- and A'-movement properties and in connection with its semantic (undoing) effects. The different articles in this volume offer new ways of analyzing free word order under (i) minimalist assumptions, (ii) concerning the typology of scrambling languages, (iii) with respect to the question of how it is acquired by children, (iv) in connection with its relatedness to information structural factors, and (v) with respect to its consequences for a highly elaborated sentence structure of the IP/VP domain. The articles that focus mainly on the emprical aspects of free word order phenomena deal with the properties and proper analysis of rightwards scrambling in Turkish, with the A-/A'-nature and triggers for VSO-VOS alternations in Tongan, as well as with left-branch extractions and NP-Split in Slavic and its consequences for a typology of scrambling languages. The articles that focus on theoretical aspects of scrambling deal with questions concerning the motivatation of a derivation with scrambling in a free word order language, such as whether scrambling has to be analyzed as topicalization or focus movement. Or assuming that scrambling is feature-driven, how the technical details of this analysis are implemented in the grammar to avoid unwarranted derivations, for example, derivations with string-vacuous scrambling. A further important question that is addressed is when scrambling is acquired in the development of the grammar, and what the consequences are for the timing of the acquisition of A- and A'-movement properties. This volume will be most relevant to researchers and advanced students interested in generative syntax, as well as typologists working on German, Japanese, Slavic, Turkish, Dravidian and Austronesian languages. We regret that due to a layout error the title of Miyagawa's article on "EPP and semantically vacuous scrambling" is misrepresented in the printed version of the book. You can download the article with the corrected title here.

A-bar Syntax

A-bar Syntax PDF

Author: Gereon Müller

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-10-25

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 3110814285

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The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

Current Directions in Turkish Sign Language Research

Current Directions in Turkish Sign Language Research PDF

Author: Engin Arik

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-07-18

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1443864293

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This book aims to contribute to our knowledge of Turkish Sign Language (TİD), and sign language linguistics in general. TİD is a relatively old signed language, and is, at present, believed to be historically unrelated to other signed languages. Linguistic studies on this language started in the early 2000s. There has been growing academic interest and an increasing body of work on TİD within the past decade, enhancing the need for this this book, which brings together chapters covering a variety of topics, such as the history of deaf education and TİD, issues regarding language documentation, a phonological study of fingerspelling, reciprocals, interrogatives, reported utterances, expressions of spatial relations including their acquisitions, and expressions of multiple entities. This book was supported in part by the TÜBİTAK Research Fund, Project No. 111K314. This edited volume serves as a useful resource for newcomers to the field, gives new momentum to future research on TİD, and offers unique perspectives in investigating sign languages in general. Finally, the intention is that the conversations within this volume will open up new discussions not only within sign linguistics, but also in other related fields such as cognitive science.

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax PDF

Author: Martin Everaert

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 3285

ISBN-13: 1405178418

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*** Pre-Order The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, second edition, publishing December 2017. Find out more at www.companiontosyntax.com *** This long-awaited reference work marks the culmination of numerous years of research and international collaboration by the world’s leading syntacticians. There exists no other comparable collection of research that documents the development of syntax in this way. Under the editorial direction of Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk, this 5 volume set comprises 70 case studies commissioned specifically for this volume. The 80 contributors are drawn from an international group of prestigious linguists, including Joe Emonds, Sandra Chung, Susan Rothstein, Adriana Belletti, Jim Huang, Howard Lasnik, and Marcel den Dikken, among many others. A unique collection of 70 newly-commissioned case studies, offering access to research completed over the last 40 years. Brings together the world’s leading syntacticians to provide a large and diverse number of case studies in the field. Explores a comprehensive range of syntax topics from an historical perspective. Investigates empirical domains which have been well-documented and which have played a prominent role in theoretical syntax at some stage in the development of generative grammar. Serves as a research tool for not only theoretical linguistics but also the various forms of applied linguistics. Contains an accessible alphabetical structure, with an index integral to each volume featuring keywords and key figures. Each multi-volume set is also accompanied by a CD Rom of the entire Companion. Like the prestigious Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics series, this multi-volume work, in the new The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Linguistics series, can be relied upon to deliver the quality and expertise with which Blackwell Publishing’s linguistics list is associated.

Preposition Stranding

Preposition Stranding PDF

Author: Ken-ichi Takami

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-12-04

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 3110870398

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The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

Parasitic Gaps

Parasitic Gaps PDF

Author: Peter W. Culicover

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001-01-29

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 9780262262095

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This book offers a comprehensive survey of research on parasitic gaps, an intriguing syntactic phenomenon. This book offers a comprehensive survey of research on parasitic gaps, an intriguing syntactic phenomenon. The first section of the book contains a history of work on the topic and three fundamental previously published papers. The remaining three sections present new perspectives on the theory of parasitic gaps based on data taken from diverse languages. Contributors Michael Calcagno, Peter W. Culicover, Elisabet Engdahl, Robert Hukari, Andreas Kathol, Christopher Kennedy, Katalin É. Kiss, Robert Levine, Alan Munn, Jamal Ouhalla, Paul M. Postal, Christine Tellier