This dissertation centers around the question whether syntactic differences between languages can be detected automatically, and if so, how. With the enormous number of natural languages and... Show moreThis dissertation centers around the question whether syntactic differences between languages can be detected automatically, and if so, how. With the enormous number of natural languages and dialects, the very high level of variation they exhibit between one another, and the technically infinite number of possible sentences per language or dialect, systematic manual comparison is a hugely daunting task. The field would therefore significantly benefit from the (partial) automatization of the process, as it would increase the scale, speed, systematicity and reproducibility of research.Over the course of five chapters it is shown through case studies involving English, Dutch, German, Czech and Hungarian that correct hypotheses on syntactic differences between languages can be generated automatically from parallel corpora through the use of the minimum description length principle, counting mismatches between part-of-speech pattern occurrences, word alignment and mapping annotation from an annotated language onto another unannotated language. The tools developed for the purposes of this research work well and can aid a linguist significantly in their search for differences or similarities, but do not replace the human researcher. Show less
This dissertation presents a description of Mankanya, an Atlantic language spoken by about 65 000 speakers in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and the Gambia. It includes a sketch of the phonology and a... Show moreThis dissertation presents a description of Mankanya, an Atlantic language spoken by about 65 000 speakers in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and the Gambia. It includes a sketch of the phonology and a detailed description of the morphology and syntax of the language. Some aspects of discourse level structure are also discussed and two interlinearised sample texts are included.Mankanya has a rich morphology with both nominal and verbal inflection, and a range of derivative morphemes. Like many other Atlantic languages, nouns can be grouped into classes based on the agreement of the inflections between nouns and their modifiers. Verbs have prefixes that agree with the subject. Though some verbal affixes indicate different aspects, most distinctions of tense, aspect and mode are made by using verbal auxiliaries. Clause chaining is possible with reduced subject agreement if the subject is unchanged. Where the subject does change a different subject marker is often used.A Grammar of Mankanya will be of interest for those studying of Atlantic languages, as well a resource for wider typological comparison. Show less
This book is a synchronic description of the syntax of Sarikoli, an Eastern Iranian and Pamir language spoken exclusively in China. It is the first modern linguistic description of Sarikoli... Show moreThis book is a synchronic description of the syntax of Sarikoli, an Eastern Iranian and Pamir language spoken exclusively in China. It is the first modern linguistic description of Sarikoli syntax in English. The approach is theory-neutral, presenting and describing language data with commonly-accepted linguistic terminology. It includes copious linguistic examples transcribed in IPA accompanied by morpheme glosses and free translations. The entire corpus of texts and all linguistic research were gathered and conducted in the field by the researcher in cooperation with native speakers of Sarikoli. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the Sarikoli people and language in their geographical, historical, and cultural context. The typological profile, sociolinguistic situation, and previous research conducted on the language are discussed, along with short summaries on phonology, morphology, and verbs. The following chapters focus on different topics in the syntax of Sarikoli: noun phrase, pronouns and demonstratives, possession, comparison, adverbial modifiers, mood, clause structure, negation, clause combinations, modality, and evidentiality and new information. The concluding chapter introduces routine phrases and expressions. The appendices include transcripts of oral texts covering a wide range of genre and topics, as well as an orthography proposed by a native Sarikoli scholar. Show less
This dissertation is a descriptive study of a linguistic phenomenon known as phrasal alternation, focusing on the Pondok Tinggi (PT) dialect of Kerinci, spoken in Indonesia. In essence, almost... Show moreThis dissertation is a descriptive study of a linguistic phenomenon known as phrasal alternation, focusing on the Pondok Tinggi (PT) dialect of Kerinci, spoken in Indonesia. In essence, almost every Kerinci word displays two forms, labeled absolute and oblique. These forms differ in the shape of their final-syllable rime (i.e. kursai ABS, kursei OBL ‘chair’). Phrasal alternationoccurs on the level of the phrase. The absolute form denotes genericity and neutrality, whereas the oblique form is used with a restricting specification (i.e. a patient in active constructions, an agent in passive constructions, a possessor in noun phrases, etc.). This specification can be overt or covert. General rules determine the patterns of phrasal alternation, but a variety of details and exceptions across grammatical categories make this process less predictable. An additional mechanism is the so-called K/G-word alternation. G-words are defined as words containing a non-prenasalized voiced obstruent, whereas K-words do not. Like phrasal alternation, this mechanism also affects the vowel quality of the final rime. G-words trigger higher phonological realizations than K-words. Therefore, the shape of most of PT lexicon depends on two oppositions: absolute vs. oblique and K-word vs. G-word. This four-way distinction is at the core of Kerinci word formation. Show less
This thesis covers a wide range of topics from historical to computational and corpus linguistics as well as synchronic and diachronic syntax and information structure. The latest insights in each... Show moreThis thesis covers a wide range of topics from historical to computational and corpus linguistics as well as synchronic and diachronic syntax and information structure. The latest insights in each of these sub-fields of linguistics are necessary to address what has been a vexed problem in the study of Middle Welsh for a long time. Middle Welsh word order is particularly puzzling, because there is a wide range of verb-second patterns and the distribution of those is not at all clear. Secondly, these so-called 'Abnormal Orders' are only found in the Middle Welsh period; Old and Modern Welsh mainly exhibit verb-initial patterns. Verb-second orders are shown to have developed from earlier patterns with hanging topics and focussed cleft constructions by carefully reconstructing their syntactic history in Old Welsh and related Celtic languages. A detailed analysis of a syntactically and pragmatically annotated corpus, built especially for this thesis, reveals that a combination of these features explains which word-order pattern appears in which particular context. From a diachronic syntactic point of view, Middle Welsh shares some crucial developments in the rise of V2 with Early Romance, but it differs in others. Show less
The thesis discusses Object Shift, weak pronoun shift in the Scandinavian languages, from the intonational perspective, by presenting experimental data from all the Scandinavian languages. It is... Show moreThe thesis discusses Object Shift, weak pronoun shift in the Scandinavian languages, from the intonational perspective, by presenting experimental data from all the Scandinavian languages. It is shown that downstep typically occurs in the Object Shift construction but does not occur in the constructions where Object Shift cannot occur. A new hypothesis on Scandinavian Object Shift is presented: the object pronoun moves to cause downstep. Holmberg__s Generalization is accounted for as follows: When main verb movement takes place, the object pronoun moves and causes downstep to eliminate a focal effect on the sentential element(s) after the main verb. In the environments in which downstep must not occur, i.e. in the constructions where the final pitch peak occurs on the (in-situ) main verb, Object Shift does not occur either. A new generalization on Object Shift is also presented: the earlier the pitch gesture occurs, the more likely is Object Shift to occur; the more delayed the pitch gesture is, the more likely is Object Shift to be absent. Object Shift is thus not a dichotomous property, i.e. either present or absent, but a gradient phenomenon in the Scandinavian languages. Show less
This book presents a description of Konso, a Cushitic language spoken by about 250,000 speakers in South-West Ethiopia. It presents analyses of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language.... Show moreThis book presents a description of Konso, a Cushitic language spoken by about 250,000 speakers in South-West Ethiopia. It presents analyses of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language. Aspects of pragmatics including greetings and leave-taking expressions, interjections and ideophones as well as the link between naming of week days and how these relate to the distribution ofbig markets in the Konso area are discussed. A sample of two texts and a list of singular-plural pairs of nouns with their corresponding gender values is included.The data underlying the analyses are based on the author’s native speaker intuition and fieldwork in Konso area where other native speakers are consulted.Konso phonology is characterised by having a full set of labial, alveolar, palatal and uvular implosives but no ejectives which contrasts with what is observed in geographically and some genetically related languages. The language has a rich morphology as evidenced in its nominal and verbal inflection. The work accounts the intricate link between gender and number marking in nominals,it explicates variation in number- and person-marking in affirmative and negative verb paradigms and presents analyses of nominal and verbal derivation.Various clause-linking strategies and the way these relate to person markingof the subject are examined. Word order in simple as well as complex clausesis discussed.A Grammar of Konso is of interest to specialists in Cushitic and Afroasiatic languages for historical-comparative purposes. It will be a valuable source for typological comparison and for testing theoretical claims Show less
This dissertation provides an account of polar questions in Italian dialects from a typological, theoretical and empirical perspective. Both data from the existing literature and new data from the... Show moreThis dissertation provides an account of polar questions in Italian dialects from a typological, theoretical and empirical perspective. Both data from the existing literature and new data from the author’s fieldwork are included in this study. It is shown that Italian dialects display a relatively large number of typologically diverse yes/no question-marking strategies, as opposed to Standard Italian and Romance. The variation found in Italian dialects is surprising, given that they are closely related from a typological point of view. Furthermore, Several Tuscan, Central and Southern Italian dialects display a specific construction that poses a challenge for standard typological classifications of polar questions in the world’s languages. A theoretical analysis is proposed in order to account for the syntactic properties of this yes/no question-marking strategy. Although this construction includes two fully-inflected verbs, it is argued that it should be analyzed as a monoclausal utterance. A number of syntactic tests are developed to shed some light on its underlying structure. Further evidence for the proposed analysis comes from the results of empirical testing. A production experiment was carried out to investigate the phonetic realization of this construction. The results of the experiment show that this constructions patterns with specific phonetic cues, which unambiguously signal its monoclausal status. This study is of relevance to anyone interested in descriptive typology, theoretical syntax and experimental phonetics, as well as Italian dialectology. Show less
This work is the first comprehensive description of Makalero, a language spoken by approximately 6,500 speakers in the Iliomar subdistrict, in the south-east of the Republic of East Timor. Makalero... Show moreThis work is the first comprehensive description of Makalero, a language spoken by approximately 6,500 speakers in the Iliomar subdistrict, in the south-east of the Republic of East Timor. Makalero has been classified as belonging to the Trans-New Guinea family, making it one of the westernmost Papuan languages. While it retains scattered derivational and inflectional processes, it is largely isolating in structure. Underlying the organisation of discourse at a very basic level is the rigid structure of the Makalero clause, which allows for the expression of two verbal arguments at most. A characteristic feature of this clause structure is the presence of two distinct, mutually exclusive argument positions within the verb phrase, the first of which is reserved for undergoers, while the second may express either undergoers, or location and manner information. The description brought forward in this dissertation is not couched in a particular theoretical framework, although insights from several linguistic theories are adduced to support the analysis. The appendices provide transcripts of several Makalero texts as well as a Makalero-English and an English-Makalero word list. Show less
This thesis investigates the grammar of Sheko, an Omotic language spoken in southwest Ethiopia. The study presents an analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language, amply... Show moreThis thesis investigates the grammar of Sheko, an Omotic language spoken in southwest Ethiopia. The study presents an analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language, amply illustrated by examples. The supplements contain a sample of texts and an extensive word list. Among other things, the author discusses the interrelation between gender, definiteness and number in nominal morphology. Some nominal morphology also occurs on verbal forms. In the verb system, stem formation, aspectual and modal distinctions as well as stance marking are treated. The language has a rich array of complex verb constructions, such as medial clauses and serial verb constructions, next to different types of subordinate clauses. In relative clauses, a resumptive pronoun may occur before the antecedent. One of the divergent ways in which interrogatives are formed is by ‘subtractive morphology’, i.e. dropping off a grammatical element which is obligatorily present in declaratives. Furthermore, subject clitics attach to a variety of hosts in correlation to information structure and focus. These and a number of other issues make the work valuable for specialists of Omotic and Afroasiatic studies as well as for general linguists and anyone interested in the typology of language. Show less
