This paper describes the possible predication strategies in MakhuwaEnahara and under what circumstances each occurs. Makhuwa-Enahara (Bantu P31E) has three main copular constructions: Predicative... Show moreThis paper describes the possible predication strategies in MakhuwaEnahara and under what circumstances each occurs. Makhuwa-Enahara (Bantu P31E) has three main copular constructions: Predicative Lowering, the invariant copulas ti (affirmative) and kahi (negative), and the verbal copulas ori and okhala. It was previously posited that the choice between predication strategies depended on the syntactic type of the predicate, but further analysis shows that deference is instead given to the semantic type of the predication. The underlying structures of Makhuwa-Enahara are identical for Equation, Predication, and Identification; Specification shows a different structure, and Locative predication yet another. Predicative Lowering and the invariant copula are argued to be different spell-outs of the Pred head, depending on its raised position within the syntactic tree and whether or not the initial element of the predicate is long enough to undergo Predicative Lowering. Show less
Lier, E. van; Backus, A.; Jong, N. de; Gijn, E. van; Konrad, R.; Smit, J.; ... ; Welie, C. 2023
This paper presents a novel syntactic analysis of the much-debated Dutch aanhet-construction, e.g. Pieter is aan het opruimen ‘lit. Peter is on the cleanup: Peter is cleaning up’. We show that the... Show moreThis paper presents a novel syntactic analysis of the much-debated Dutch aanhet-construction, e.g. Pieter is aan het opruimen ‘lit. Peter is on the cleanup: Peter is cleaning up’. We show that the construction’s syntactic behavior varies with the matrix verb: progressive zijn ‘be’ versus ingressive gaan ‘go’ and slaan ‘hit’. Based on this variation, we argue that there are two aanhet-projections occupying different synchronic positions on a functional-to-lexical cline. Show less
Kruijsdijk, I.; Vlugt, N. van der; Wal, G.J. van der 2022
This study sets out to investigate the insubordinated infinitive in the Bantu language Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, northern Mozambique), which is used with feeling predicates that have passive... Show moreThis study sets out to investigate the insubordinated infinitive in the Bantu language Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, northern Mozambique), which is used with feeling predicates that have passive experiencers. The expression of bodily feelings and emotions in Makhuwa serves as a foundation, highlighting the unique formal and interpretational properties of the insubordinated infinitive within the domain of feelings. Show less
Kurz, P.I.; Gonner C.; Bartnicka Monika, M.; De Mulder H.N.M. 2022
In French, the noun apple (la pomme) is grammatically feminine, in German (der Apfel) it is masculine. Does this entail that French speakers perceive apples to be feminine whereas German speakers... Show moreIn French, the noun apple (la pomme) is grammatically feminine, in German (der Apfel) it is masculine. Does this entail that French speakers perceive apples to be feminine whereas German speakers attribute masculine characteristics to them? Various studies suggest that grammatical gender does indeed influence object perception (Haertlé 2017; Boroditsky & Schmidt 2000), although findings are not always replicated (Bender et al. 2011). The current study investigates this phenomenon for Polish, an understudied language in this domain, and German, a language for which contradictory results have been obtained. We investigated whether Polish (N=21) and German (N=27) speakers follow the grammatical gender of an object when providing a first name for it (e.g. James or Maya). Results suggest that while Polish speakers provided names that were in accordance with the object’s grammatical gender, German speakers did not. Cross-linguistic differences between these two languages (regarding noun transparency) may explain these findings. Show less
AbstractConditional clauses in Dutch can occur in sentence-initial and sentence-final position. For sentence-initial conditionals, a number of syntactic integration patterns are available. This... Show moreAbstractConditional clauses in Dutch can occur in sentence-initial and sentence-final position. For sentence-initial conditionals, a number of syntactic integration patterns are available. This corpus study investigates to what extent clause order and syntactic integration are associated with mode (spoken, written) and register (formal, informal). Sentence-initial position of the conditional clause is shown to be most frequent in both modes and registers, although sentence-final position is more frequent than one would expect based on the literature, especially in written texts. The distribution of syntactic integration patterns shows a clear difference between modes, as full integration of the conditional clause into the main clause is most frequent in written texts, whereas the use of the resumptive element dan (‘then’) is most frequent in spoken texts. Show less
Massive automatic comparison of languages in parallel corpora will greatly speed up and enhance the development of a theoretical model of the syntactic properties all languages have in common and... Show moreMassive automatic comparison of languages in parallel corpora will greatly speed up and enhance the development of a theoretical model of the syntactic properties all languages have in common and the range and limits of syntactic variation. When extracting syntactic differences from parallel corpora it is essential only to compare sentence pairs that are sufficiently similar syntactically. We explore four measures to automatically filter out syntactically incomparable sentence pairs: the Damerau-Levenshtein distance between POS- tags, the sentence-length ratio, the graph-edit distance between dependency parses, and a combination of the three in a logistic regression model. For all approaches we experiment with ignoring specific functional material and other parameters. We evaluate the filters on three labelled datasets consisting of sentence pairs that are and that are not syntactically comparable. Results suggest that the dependency-parse filter is the most stable throughout language pairs, while the combination filter achieves the best results. Show less
One of the cues that children might use in learning words is the level of certainty that speakers demonstrate in their naming of a novel object. This study presented 52 4–5 year old Dutch children... Show moreOne of the cues that children might use in learning words is the level of certainty that speakers demonstrate in their naming of a novel object. This study presented 52 4–5 year old Dutch children with a word-learning task in which two puppets each used the same label for a different novel object. In three conditions, puppets expressed their level of speaker certainty lexically (e.g. ‘I know this is a mit’ vs. ‘I think this is a mit’), they used discourse means to convey certainty (e.g. ‘I play with this a lot. Yes, a mit’, vs. ‘I’ve never played with this. Well, a mit’) or they combined the two. In all conditions, children were more likely to pick the object referred to by the more certain puppet as the referent of the new word, demonstrating that speaker certainty is a relevant cue in the word learning process. Show less
