Linguistic complexity: interfaces and processing

2016

Traditional linguistics assumes that verbs are lexical categories that typically merge in the predicate domain of a sentence: VP. This study shows that, in Gungbe (Kwa), a significantly large class of items functioning as verbs heading a VP in a sentence may also serve as functional elements that merge within the functional skeleton of the clause. The discussion builds on the analysis of Inherent Complement Verbs (ICVs). In the Kwa literature, ICVs are defined as verbs which require a complement in their citation form (e.g., dó wèzùn lit. plant race; 'to run'). This paper argues that these verbs can first merge in two syntactic positions: little v and V. When merged in v, such verbs select for a VP-complement involving an abstract empty V which necessarily takes a bare NP as complement . When merged in V, however, these verbs pattern like other Gungbe lexical verbs in selecting a DP argument. The paper concludes that Gungbe, (and possibly Kwa languages in general) involve a class of verbal roots that can merge in the predicate head or in the functional domain. This finding supports recent antisymmetric approach to the lexicon.

How do we say WHEN it happens: Contributions to the …, 1998

An important tenet of LFG is the lexical integrity principle which says that the leaves of c{ structure trees are complete surface words. Given this principle, the morphological component is seen as distinct from the syntax. It can be modelled by sublexical rules as we will illustrate below but the principles that apply to these rules are di erent from those applying in the syntax (see for discussion). The way LFG is set up allows single words and phrases to contribute the same or similar information to an f{structure. For example a form like parla, pass e simple of parler, contributes information similar to that contributed by a parl e, the pass e compos e of the same verb. The framework allows a similar treatment for the two forms as well as the maintenance of lexical integrity and makes it possible to avoid word formation rules in the syntax without losing paradigmatic transparency (see for discussion). These possibilities, however, are not always exploited as well as they could be, and using them transparently is made less easy than it could be by another architectural feature of LFG. The distinction that the architecture of LFG makes between c{structure and f{structure was meant to embody the insight that word order and other constituent structure di erences are not necessarily indicative of profound syntactic di erences among languages. LFG follows here the distinction made e.g. in between coding properties and genuine syntactic characteristics. The f{structure allows us to abstract away from super cial word order di erences to bring out the more fundamental syntactic similarities (or di erences) among languages. This abstracting away from certain di erences is theoretically important but also practically, e.g. in the context of translation. It makes the f{structure into a structure that comes close to the underspeci ed representation used in the Core Language Engine (see , ), which can be argued to be, from a practical point of view, a good candidate for input and output of transfer rules (see ). But the traditional architecture gets us only half way: while it abstracts away from c{structure phenomena, it encodes all the morphological information in the f{structure. This information, however, is to a large extent as much encoding information as word order is. We would like to thank the following people for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article: John Maxwell, who proposed a similar architecture in conversations with the second author, Ron Kaplan, Miriam Butt, Fr ed erique Segond and Veronika Kn uppel. In particular we thank Joan Bresnan for extensive comments and suggestions. The issues she raised could not be discussed in su cient detail in this short contribution. Needless to say that the commentators do not necessarily share the perspective we are taking here. Special thanks go also to Marc Dymetman for judgements on French data. We alone are responsible for remaining errors.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023

This paper discusses the degree of remoteness in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language of the Niger-Congo language family spoken in Northern Ghana. The degree of remoteness has been discussed in Dagbani (Olawsky1999; Bodomo 2001; Botne 2012; Bodomo 2018). According to the scholars mentioned above, the verbal particles; sa, di and daa mark degree of remoteness in Dagbani. However, these scholars have not discussed all the possible means degree of remoteness can be expressed in the language. The time adverbials, the proximity markers, yɛ̂n and yólí, and others are not looked at. This paper, therefore, moves a step further to discuss the possible remoteness distinctions that are part of the ways tense is expressed in Dagbani. The paper uses Comrie's (1985) conceptualisation of tense in human language in the discussion. Comrie's explanation of the phenomenon shows that in some languages, the degree of remoteness is expressed using the time adverbials and other particles. Eliciting data from eight people in Tamale and Yendi, and existing literature, I support my intuition as a native speaker to demonstrate that the time adverbials and other particles either than only daa, sa and di express degree of remoteness in both past and future tenses in Dagbani.

2016

Isu, along with the other West Ring languages of the Grassfields Bantu group in Cameroon, presents a highly elaborate tense system which differentiates three degrees of synthetically marked pasts and two distinct futures, thus ranging in the upper field of morphological complexity cross-linguistically, as established by Dahl & Velupillai 2005 and de Haan 2013. Apart from the morphological proliferation of tense contrasts which are conceptually based on the daily cycle and the less specific division of immediacy vs. remoteness (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994: 98, de Haan 2013: 448f.), crucial complexities of the Isu tense system reside in the conflation of purely temporal notions with non-temporal notions such as aspectual focus, evidentiality and offensiveness, i.e. at least two reduced temporal subsystems – offensive pasts and past perfective focus – are superimposed to the basic tense system. Apart from the semantic interest, there is also a morphophonological, or rather morphoton...

Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 2015

Language, 2004

2016

The expression of temporality encompasses the concepts of tense and aspect, typically conveyed by lexical and inflectional morphemes that usually vary from language to language. This kind of cross-linguistic distinctions often affects L2 learning. In this paper I discuss the role of the Portuguese grammar in the acquisition of the English present perfect tense by eighteen Brazilian EFL learners. I compared patterns found in interlanguage data to L2 patterns, and, as expected, L1 phonology affected learners’ production of regular past tenses, especially in early interlanguage. As for form-function mappings, besides L2 patterns, learners created two major meaning categories of current relevance, based on persisting / non-persisting situations, which were systematically conveyed by forms that resembled their L1 grammar. Durative events and states (imperfective situations) persisting into the present were expressed by present tenses, while all aspectual categories of concluded (perfecti...

Issues of Cognitive Linguistics, 2019

This paper is an attempt to address morphological category of tense in English in the cognitive perspective by means of showing mechanisms of interaction between the conceptual and linguistic units. The authors demonstrate how semantic changes originate in the conceptual processes exploiting the morphological tense forms to objectivize and represent a broad spectrum of lexico-grammatical categorical senses in the process of communication. To provide a description and explanation of these processes a cognitively-based theory of morphological representation, worked out within the framework of cognitive linguistics, is foregrounded. The authors present a notion of morphological concept, model the process of morphological representation , single out mechanisms and factors influencing the formation of the new senses expressed by the tense forms in English. Finally, the research specially emphasizes the fact that the ability of tense forms to express a variety of meanings is caused by the conceptual processes, which underlie the morphological representation.