Area C: Noun phrases and context 1 SFB 732 “Incremental Specification in Context” - Area C Area C: Noun Phrases and Context Research Results - Ongoing

Area C: Noun phrases and context 1

SFB 732 “Incremental Specification in Context” - Area C

Area C: Noun Phrases and Context

Research Results - Ongoing Research

C1 The Syntax of Nominal Modification and its Interaction with Nominal Structure

C2 Case and referential context



Area C: Noun Phrases and ContextGoals:

1. Focus on dependencies between properties of noun phrases2. Clarify the structure of noun phrases3. Identify different contextual parameter that constitute noun

phrase properties / investigate the interaction between the parameters

4. Compare theses parameters in different languages (cross-linguistic approach / variation)



Project C 1

“The Syntax of Nominal Modification and its Interaction”



Central Question:What can modification tell us about the structure of the

DP?

Main Areas of Investigation:Ambiguous adjectives in Romance and Greek

Ellipsis constructions in Romance

Adjectives in the Scandinavian Languages

Participles in Romance and Greek



Results:1. Romance and Scandinavian DPs provide evidence that there are three

different domains inside the DP:(i) the Determiner Level(ii) the Classifier Level(iii) the Quantity Level (cf. Borer 2005)

2. Languages differ as to how these different domains are realised.While the features in the DP are the same crosslinguistically, their realization differs from language to language.

3. Modifiers: In the area of modification, we were able to substantiate our hypothesis that ambiguity arises as a result of the availability of two distinct structures, e.g. Relative clause vs. Adjunction.

4. Participles: the structure of participles in Greek and Romance contains layers similar to those of the verbal passive, most notably Aspect, and Voice.



The Romance Languages

1. The distribution of modifiers in the Romance languages Structural differences and ambiguity in the placement of e.g. French

adjectives provide arguments for assuming different structural configurations for predicative vs. attributive modifiers (the “mixed approach”, cf. Alexiadou & Wilder 1998)

Adjectives occurring in pre- and postnominal position (without meaning change) can undergo Local Dislocation (a movement operation in the PF component) (Gengel 2007, 2008)

The Romanian (the cel-construction)

provides arguments for a relative clause source of predicative adjectives (cf. Kayne 1994; Marchis & Alexiadou 2008)patterns with adjectives occurring in Greek Determiner Spread (only predicative adjectives are licensed in these constructions)



The Romance Languages

2. NP Ellipsis in the Romance Languages

provides evidence for the assumption of a Classifier Phrase (CLP in Borer’s (2005) system), which licenses the NP Ellipsis construction (Alexiadou & Gengel 2008)

Example:

a. un problema grave - ‘a serious problem’

b. uno [e] grave - ‘a serious one’ (NP Ellipsis)

Structure:

[DP D un-o [NumP Num [FP Adj grave [ClassP –o/–a [NP NP]]]]]



1. Variation• Definiteness: Scandinavian languages and dialects vary with respect to the realization of modified definite DPs: Swedish, Norwegian, and Faroese display double definiteness (1a), whereas Danish (1b) and Icelandic (1b,c) make use of only one determiner.

(1) a. DEF Adj-W N-DEF b. DEF Adj-W N c. Adj-W N-DEF

• Adjectival inflection: depending on the choice of adjectival inflection, weak or strong, different readings can arise, i.e. inflection interacts with interpretation.

(2) Legg hvert unmoden-t/e eple i denne kass-en.put every/each unripe-S/W apple in this box-DEF

• Unified StructureThe semantics of the articles and the adjectival inflection can be captured as follows (Lohrmann 2008):

(3) [DP2 [disc] [#P [FP AP [F‘ [ident] [DP1 [sref] [ClassP [ind] [NP]]]]]]]

A Unified Structure for Scandinavian DPs



(3) [DP2 [disc] [#P [FP AP [F‘ [ident] [DP1 [sref] [ClassP [ind] [NP]]]]]]]

• Following Borer (2005), NP contains ClassP, individuation, and #P, quantity

• In the spirit of Rizzi (1997), DP is split into two layers, DP1, specific reference, and DP2, discourse reference (cf. Alexiadou, Haegeman & Stavrou 2007)

• Languages differ as to whether they make use of distinct realizations of the two layers or not:

- Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic (1c) have access to the full structure in (3)

- Danish and Icelandic (1b) lack the lower DP

(1) a. DEF Adj-W N-DEF b. DEF Adj-W N c. Adj-W N-DEF



Ongoing and Further Research:

Germanic/Romance parallels in partitive and appositive constructions (Germanic vs. Romance parameter?).

Investigation of semantic features in the licensing of NP Ellipsis (partitivity, specificity, reference)

Nominalized Adjectives Structure of mass nouns vs. count nouns also in

relationship to nominalization.



Project C 2

“Case and referential context”



Research Results of C2

Differential Object Marking (DOM)

1. Parameters (context)

2. Interaction between the parameters

3. Crosslinguist variation

4. Diachronic development



(1) Sen bitta muschuk*(-ni) urvor-ding-mi? Uzbek2Sg a cat-ACC run.over-Prf.2SG-Q‘Have you run over a cat?’

(2) Biz bu hikoya*(-ni) uqi-gan-miz. Uzbek1PL DEM stories-ACC read-Pres-1Pl‘We read these stories.’

(von Heusinger/Klein/Niyazmetowa 2008)


DP parameters: animacy, definiteness

1. Parameters of DOM (Differential Object Marking)



1. Parameters of DOM


DP parameters: animacy, definieteness

sentence-parameters: affectedness, information structure

Ya conocía (a) muchos estudiantes.already knew-1Sg (DOM) many students‘I already knew many students.’

*(A) muchos estudiantes, ya los conocía(DOM) many students, already them knew.1Sg‘Many students I already knew.’





DP parameters: animacy, definieteness

sentence parameters: affectedness, information structure

discource parameters: saliency, discourse persistence




[1] Neculai Florea, de 40 de ani, viceprimarul satului

Horodniceni, i -a pus po li ia pe cap dup ce l-a

împu cat cu un pistol cu gloan e de cauciuc pe un

tân r din lo calitate. [2] Incidentul s-a petrecut în

noaptea de 10 spre 11 februar ie, la discoteca ce

apar ine so iei viceprimarului Florea i a fost reclamat

la poli ie în cursul dup amiezii, la ora 15:40. [3] La

ora respectiv , Vasile M., de 24 de ani, din c omuna

Horodniceni, pro s-a adresat postului de p oli ie

reclamând c pro a fost împu cat în p icior de

viceprimarul Neculai Florea.

[1] The 40-year-old Nicolae Florea, the vice mayor of

the Horodniceni village, angered the police after he

shot a young man from the s ame village with a gun

with plastic bullets. [2] The incident took place in the

night from February 10 th to 1 1th in the discot heque

whose owner is FloreaÕs wife and was denoun ced to

the police in the course of the afternoon at 15:40. [3]

At that time, the 24-year-old Vasile M, from t he

Horodniceni village complained to the police that he

was shot in the leg by the vice-mayor Neculai Florea.

[4] A team of the IPJ Suceava went to Horodniceni to

elucidate the case.




2. Interaction of Parameters

Bold [Tuya-(g) yav-sn]-i daraa] yav-na

• Bold.Nom Tuya-(Acc) go-Pst-Gen after go-Fut

2. Bold will go after Tuya went

3. (cf. Klein, Udo & Dolgor Guntsetseg, Klaus von Heusinger 2008)











3. Crosslinguistic variation

4. Diachronic Development


1 Reyes 19, 1:A (14th) � e como mató todos los profetas a espada.B (16th) de como había muerto � cuchillo � todos los profetas.C (20th E) ... y de como había matado a espada a todos los profetas.D (20th A) ... y como había� matado a espada a todos los profetas.English ... how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.





3. Crosslinguisti variation

3. Diachronic Development


0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

A: 14th cent. B: 16th/17th cent. C: 20th cent.(Euro) D: 20th cent. (Am)

poner/tomar + def DO ver/hallar + def DO matar/herir + def DO

poner/tomar + indef DO ver/hallar + indef DO matar/herir + indef DO



1. Parameters of DOM• Transitivity

• lexical semantics of verbs

2. Interaction of Parameters• Partitive construction in Turkish

• “bare definite nouns” in Romanian

3. Diachronic Development• Spanish verb classes

• Development of two indefinite articles in Uzbek

4. Semantic Model• “referential context model”

• Comparison with OT

• Syntactic approaches

Ongoing Research of C2



Area C: Noun Phrases and ContextGoals:

1. Focus on dependencies between properties of noun phrases √2. Clarify the structure of noun phrases √3. Identify different contextual parameter that constitute noun

phrase properties / investigate the interaction between the parameters √

4. Compare theses parameters in different languages (cross-linguistic approach / variation) √



Area C: Noun Phrases and Context

Goals of the next phase1. Arguments of nominalizations vs. verbs

2. Case alternation of arguments

3. Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and ontological conditions for case marking

4. Discourse relation and realization of arguments

5. Crosslinguistic variation



Area C: Noun Phrases and ContextProjects of the next phase

C1 Argument realization and encoding in noun phrase

C2 Argument realization and referential context

C3 Interpretation and Discourse Structure



Area C

Discussion ?

Questions ?

Suggestions ?

Documents

Area C: Noun phrases and context 1 SFB 732 “Incremental Specification in Context” - Area C Area C: Noun Phrases and Context Research Results - Ongoing