the Principle of End Weight

LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts, 2012

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2020

Recent work has used artificial language experiments to argue that hierarchical representations drive learners’ expectations about word order in complex noun phrases like these two green cars (Culbertson & Adger 2014; Martin, Ratitamkul, et al. 2019). When trained on a novel language in which individual modifiers come after the Noun, English speakers overwhelmingly assume that multiple nominal modifiers should be ordered such that Adjectives come closest to the Noun, then Numerals, then Demonstratives (i.e., N-Adj-Num-Dem or some subset thereof). This order transparently reflects a constituent structure in which Adjectives combine with Nouns to the exclusion of Numerals and Demonstratives, and Numerals combine with Noun+Adjective units to the exclusion of Demonstratives. This structure has also been claimed to derive frequency asymmetries in complex noun phrase order across languages (e.g., Cinque 2005). However, we show that features of the methodology used in these experiments pot...

2001

The Dative Alternation involves the variation between the double object (DO) construction and the prepositional object (PO) construction: (1) a. DO construction: Ann gave Beth the car. NP 0 V NP 1 NP 2 b. PO construction: Ann gave the car to Beth. NP 0 V NP 2 to NP 1 What is the nature of this relationship? (Cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2001)): View 1: Monosemy-The verb in DO and PO means the same View 1a: DO and PO are related by syntactic transformations Cf. Larson (1988), Aoun & Li (1989): (2) a. Larson 1988: PO basic, DO derived like passive (promotion of Beth to embedded subject, demotion of the car to adjunct) [ V′ give 1 [ VP the car[ V′ t 1 [ PP to Beth]]]] ⇒ [ V give 1 [ VP Beth 2 [ V′ [ V′ t 1 t 2 ] the car]]]] b. Aoun & Li (1989): DO basic, PO derived [ VP give [ SC Beth [ VP e the car]]] ⇒ [ VP give [ SC the car 1 [ VP [ VP e t 1 ] to Beth]]] View 1b: DO and PO are possible argument ex pressions of the same verb meaning Cf. Butt, Dalrymple & Frank (1997). (3) θ-roles of verb: give (AGENT, THEME, GOAL) Possible realization of θ-roles: THEME: (SUBJ), OBJ, OBJ THEME ; GOAL: (SUBJ), OBJ, OBL GOAL Ranking of grammatical functions: (SUBJ) > OBJ > {OBJ θ , OBL θ } Grammatical functions in DO and PO constructions: send [Mary]OBJ [a letter]OBJ THEME , send [a letter]OBJ [to Mary]OBL GOAL Both constructions are ranked equal, as OBJ θ and OBL θ are ranked equal.

2016

The theoretical and experimental work presented in this thesis investigates the spray/load and dative alternations. The purpose is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the alternations in terms of their syntactic structures and to account for how contextual information drives differences in the linear order of their VP arguments. This analysis shows that the syntactic structures of the spray/load and dative alternations are identical; each variant in an alternation is characterised by one of two available structures proposed in Janke and Neeleman (2012). Each structure is shown to respect a novel thematic hierarchy that is based on the value of binary feature clusters (Reinhart, 2000) rather than by direct reference to semantic labels. The choice of a particular structure is demonstrated to be affected by the non-semantic context in which the spray/load or dative sentence is generated. This is a consequence of the limited processing capacity of Working Memory and the allocation of attentional resources to a stimulus. Experimental data from an as yet untested variable of the visual context - the egocentric perception of distance - is found to interact with word order preferences of the alternations. I conclude that non-semantic contextual information interacts with the encoding of an event which ultimately has consequences for syntactic choices.

2008

Journal of Memory and Language, 2004

Psycholinguistic investigations of reanalysis phenomena have typically focused on revisions of phrase structure. Here, we identify a further subcomponent of syntactic reanalysis, namely the revision of case marking. This aspect of reanalysis was isolated by examining German subject-object ambiguities that require a revision towards a dative-initial order. Since dative-initial orders are potentially unmarked, no phrase structure corrections are required, but the original, preference-based nominative assignment must be revised. Experiment 1, an ERP study, revealed an N400 component for reanalysis of case marking, which contrasted with a P600 component for phrase structure revisions. The Ôreanalysis N400Õ was replicated in Experiment 2, which also showed that direct lexical support for a dative-initial order leads to a reduction of the effect. Finally, in Experiment 3, direct time course measures provided by the speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) procedure supported the case reanalysis account by showing that conditions hypothesized to involve case reanalysis (dative-initial structures) require longer computation times than their nominative-initial counterparts. Lexeme-specific support for the dative-initial reading, however, does not lead to a faster computation of the target structure, but rather increases the likelihood that the correct interpretation will be computed. We interpret these findings as evidence for the general availability of an unmarked dative-nominative word order in German, the accessibility of which may be increased by lexical information. Moreover, the data show that syntactic reanalysis is not a homogeneous process, but may rather be subdivided along several dimensions that interact in determining overall garden path strength.

Proceedings of FAJL 7

2013

Among studies of verb transitivity, the study of ditransitive verbs can be found. These verbs are those which have two internal arguments, a fact which has raised a number of questions and challenges concerning their syntactic structure. One of these challenges is related to a variation in structure known as Dative Alternation. Such an alternation seems to be restricted only to some languages; it occurs in English, but apparently cannot be found in Romance languages of which Portuguese is an example. There is, however, a change in meaning caused by the alternation in the languages where it can be found; in English, for instance, the structure known as dative (V NP PP) is associated with a motion meaning, while its alternate, known as double-object variant, or DOC (V NP NP), is associated with a meaning of possession. This fact raises a question as to how languages which do not present Dative Alternation convey such meanings. In studying the structure of ditransitive verbs in Portuguese in search of an answer, it is possible to observe that there is an alternation in structure, even if it does not seem to follow the same pattern as Dative Alternation does in English, since the internal arguments in Portuguese may switch in order, but the recipient argument does not lose its preposition; in one dialect, though, there is the possibility of an order such as V NP NP occurring, but its meaning is not related to possession; it seems to cause only a change in focus between the theme and the recipient. The structures for ditransitive verbs both in Portuguese and in English call for a syntactic explanation, and two theories which might be used in order to provide this explanation are Chomsky's Government and Binding Theory (GB) and Pollard and Sag's Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The first is the most widely adopted and followed theory among those in the generative model, while the latter has been developed more recently, based on a bigger concept of lexicon, differing from simply a list of entries. Both theories, however, seem to fail in explaining ditransitive verbs and the semantic differences arising from the alternation of their syntactical structures. GB, following a binary branching approach, presents difficulties to justify how a verb can select two internal arguments. Suggesting that the accusative and dative arguments establish two different sorts of relation with the verb. HPSG, on the other hand, is not fastened to the number of arguments a verb may select, defending that both datives and accusatives are sisters in the argument structure.

2011

2010

English has two syntactically distinct constructions for expressing the possessor and possessum relationship: the morphological s-genitive (1a) and the syntactic of-genitive (1b). (1) a. the car's wheel b. the wheel of the car The s-genitive construction (1a) is a single noun phrase, where the possessor car occurs before the possessum wheel and is suffixed by the possessive morpheme -s. The of-genitive construction (1b) consists of two noun phrases, with the possessor car located in a prepositional phrase headed by of. The choice between the two English genitive constructions is not a free one. Rather, the choice to use one genitive construction over the other is conditioned by the interaction of many factors. The factors, which have been previously identified as having significant influence on genitive construction choice (Hinrichs and Szmrecsányi 2007; Kreyer 2003; Szmrecsányi and Hinrichs 2008; Tagliamonte and Jarmasz 2008), are listed in (2).

Brain and Language, 2002

Baayen, R. H., F. J. Tweedie, and R. Schreuder This is a methodological study addressing the appropriateness of standard by-subject and by-item averaging procedures for the analysis of repeated-measures designs. By means of a reanalysis of published data (Schreuder & Baayen, 1997), using random regression models, we present a proof of existence of systematic variability between participants that is ignored in the standard psycholinguistic analytical procedures. By applying linear mixed effects modeling (Pinheiro & Bates, 2000), we call attention to the potential lack of power of the by-subject and by-item analyses, which in this case study fail to reveal the coexistence of a facilitatory family size effect and an inhibitory family frequency effect in visual and auditory lexical processing.

Linguistic Research, 2012

Building up on Choi's (2011) research that identifies the features of the instrument-taking predicates that influence the presence of instrument with-PPs, the current study explores to analyze the BYU-BNC corpus data of instrument with-PPs with a linear regression model. By building a multiple linear regression model which can deal with identified predictor variables simultaneously, this paper tries to explain the frequencies of instrument with-PPs and their nature of argumenthood by combinations of predictor variables. This modeling analysis can be a useful step toward studying gradient argumenthood via a more complex evaluation of a variety of morphological, syntactic, and semantic factors. (Ewha Womans University) 14 Keywords with-PP, instrument, argument, adjunct, corpus, BYU-BNC, linear regression model * I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful comments, which helped clarify the discussions in the paper. I would also like to thank Sunghye Cho for assisting me with extracting the instrument data from the BYU-BNC corpus, and Peter Kipp, Karen Muckenhirn and Kelly Song for helping judging the instrument/subject alternatability of the data. Any errors in the coding or analysis of the data are of course mine. 1 A comitative or manner with-PP as shown in (i) below was not included in the data. These with-PPs do not pass the use-paraphrase test, which was used as the filtering test. (i) a. Chris went to the movies with Jon.

2002

We examined the production of relative clauses in sentences with a complex noun phrase containing two possible attachment sites for the relative clause (eg,“Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony.”). On the basis of two corpus analyses and two sentence continuation tasks, we conclude that much research about this specific syntactic ambiguity has used complex noun phrases that are quite uncommon.

Corpus-based examinations of the extent of modal marking (modal load) in if-conditionals in the written BNC have revealed that they have a significantly higher modal load (ML) than average, 1 as well as a higher ML than indirect interrogatives with if and whether, concessive conditionals with even if and whether, and non-conditional bi-partite constructions with when and whenever. Crucially, if-conditionals show a higher ML than conditionals with other subordinators (e.g. assuming). Also, the ML of ifconditional protases (i.e. their subordinate parts) is comparable to that of the baseline, despite their being already modally marked by if. 2 Explanations for the emerging ML patterns are sought in the tenets of two recent linguistic theories: Construction Grammar (CxG) (e.g. Fillmore 1998) and Lexical Grammar (LG) (e.g. Sinclair 1996). The juxtaposition was motivated by the significant overlap in their tenets. Both theories take into account meaning (semantic and pragmatic) as well as lexical and grammatical factors. Constructions are symbolic units with particular features pertaining to their form and meaning. The former specify morphological, phonological and syntactic properties; the latter specify semantic and pragmatic attributes (e.g. Croft and Cruse 2004: 257-258). In LG, the unit is the lexical item, comprising the core (a word/phrase) and its collocates, semantic preference, semantic prosody and colligations . The core difference between the two theories is that LG gives clear prominence to lexis over grammar (the component of colligation is optional), whereas CxG posits no distinction between them.