This dissertation investigates A’-dependencies where the dislocated constituent is not transformationally related to the position where it is interpreted. The analysis is carried out within the... Show moreThis dissertation investigates A’-dependencies where the dislocated constituent is not transformationally related to the position where it is interpreted. The analysis is carried out within the Principles & Parameters framework. The first two chapters address relative clauses. Based on a detailed examination of reconstruction, it is argued that German restrictive relatives should be given a Matching Analysis. Chapter three analyzes an alternative to long-distance relativization in German and Dutch where the relative pronoun is governed by the preposition von/van ‘of’ and a resumptive appears instead of a gap in the complement clause. The construction has the hallmarks of an indirect A’-dependency: The external head is interpreted inside the complement clause but cannot be transformationally related to that position. The paradox is resolved by postulating short A’-movement in the matrix clause, operator movement in the complement clause and an ellipsis operation that links the chains. Chapter four analyzes relative clauses in Zurich German. While local relativization is shown to be largely parallel to Standard German, long-distance relativization is reanalyzed in terms of Resumptive Prolepsis. This study is of interest to anyone interested in the syntax of relative clauses, reconstruction, resumption or in the syntax of Standard German, Zurich German and Dutch. Show less
The main topic of the book is the nature of inner aspect of the Verb Phrase, and the relation between the decompositional and the quantificational approaches to this problem. Decompositional... Show moreThe main topic of the book is the nature of inner aspect of the Verb Phrase, and the relation between the decompositional and the quantificational approaches to this problem. Decompositional approaches analyze eventualities into simpler components, organized by some kind of structure. In this view, an eventuality is telic if, in decomposition, it can be shown to involve a result component (also referred to as the culmination or termination component, or as the telos). Quantificational approaches see telicity as a property of the predicate of an eventuality, usually described as boundedness, lack of the subinterval property, or a specified quantity. The major advantage of the decompositional approaches is that they directly match the syntax-semantics interface of the VP with the conceptual image of an eventuality. Quantificational approaches blur the picture in this respect, because they involve effects like distributive readings, which are not a typical interpretational component of the VP domain. On the other hand, the major advantage of the quantificational approaches is that they assign similar or identical properties to (the predicates of) eventualities and nominal expressions. This enables them to capture the phenomenon of incremental themes (participants that appear to measure out the eventuality in which they take part), by relating the predicates of eventualities and those of their arguments. The dissertation presents a new approach, which not only combines the two approaches above, but also shows how they are directly mutually related, and how some quantificational properties can be derived from the domain of decomposition. Show less
Modification and reference in the Chinese nominal investigates the encoding of referential properties in the Chinese nominal. This study argues that even though Chinese does not have articles, the... Show moreModification and reference in the Chinese nominal investigates the encoding of referential properties in the Chinese nominal. This study argues that even though Chinese does not have articles, the encoding of referential properties can still be detected by looking at modified noun phrases. This study proposes a theory for the encoding of specificity and definiteness in the Chinese nominal based on Cantonese, Mandarin and Wenzhou data. By manipulating the positions of modifiers, it is shown that in Chinese, some structure to the left of the Numeral Phrase is responsible for the encoding of specificity, an observation that is obscured in unmodified noun phrases. This motivates the existence of a projection called the Specificity Phrase in Chinese. The Specificity Phrase is present in all specific noun phrases but absent in non-specific ones. The tie between specificity and definiteness is captured by an AGREE relation between the Specificity Phrase and the Classifier Phrase. The latter is where definiteness is encoded. The interplay between the two projections determines the overall referential properties of a noun phrase. Modifiers in Chinese come in two types. They appear either bare or with a modification marker element. The two types of modifiers interact differently with the referential property of the noun phrase and deserve different structural status. This study argues that bare modifiers are specifiers and marker modifiers are adjuncts, motivated by their distinct distributions and licensing requirements. The theory proposed here has been extended to non-Chinese languages like Miao and Zhuang. This thesis is of relevance to anyone interested in the study of the referential properties of noun phrases, nominal modification, or in the study of different languages in China. Show less
This book investigates the effects of brain lesions in the left hemisphere (Broca’s area) on the production and perception of vowels, word tones and the linguistic use of sentence melody. We aimed... Show moreThis book investigates the effects of brain lesions in the left hemisphere (Broca’s area) on the production and perception of vowels, word tones and the linguistic use of sentence melody. We aimed to test how and to what extent Beijing aphasic patients process Chinese word tones and sentence melody relative to healthy Beijing speakers and relative to learners of Beijing dialect with and without a tone language as their mother tongue. The main question is whether in the architecture of the brain word tones are closer to the segmental structure of the words – given that both segments and word tones are lexical properties – or to the sentence melody – on the strength of the argument that word tones and sentence melody share a tonal representation. A subsidiary question is to what extent the mental representation of the word tones in a tone language in the brain of Broca’s aphasic patients is comparable to that of speakers of Beijing dialect as a second language. The results indicate that word tones are represented separately from the segmental structure and from sentence melody. Moreover, the mental representation in the patients is defective in a way that resembles the deficit of a second-language speaker. Show less
This study describes the effects of prominence and boundary on the temporal and melodic structures of two Indonesian languages, viz. Toba Batak, a stress language and Betawi Malay, a non-stress... Show moreThis study describes the effects of prominence and boundary on the temporal and melodic structures of two Indonesian languages, viz. Toba Batak, a stress language and Betawi Malay, a non-stress language. Experimental evidence shows that lengthening effects were more than twice as strong in the non-stress Betawi Malay as in Toba Batak. Durational prominence effects in Toba Batak are comparable to those found in western stress language at the word level, but not at the lower levels: stress syllables, especially consonants are hardly affected. Arguably, the use of duration as a stress correlate is restricted by the phonemic consonant contrast in the language. To compensate for this, prominence-related pitch movements, which are connected to the stressed syllable, occur in non-prominent as well as prominent words in Toba Batak. In Betawi Malay, prominence-related pitch movements are larger but vary considerably in shape and position; they serve to cue accents and boundaries, but not stress position. To determine the audible consequences of the native language for the production of Dutch stress, three perception experiments were run. The native language clearly affects the prosody of second-language speech. Toba Batak speakers of Dutch sound more acceptable to Dutch listeners than Betawi Malay speakers do. Show less
