Search

The expression of reflexivity in Indonesian and related languages is based on various strategies, see Cole and Hermon (2005), Kartono (2013), and Schadler (2014) for discussion. This paper focuses on the expression of reflexivity based on the element diri and its cognates, not discussed in these papers. As a reflexive marker, bare diri is not specified for grammatical features such as number, gender, and person, so it imposes no restrictions on the value of the subject argument. It is only allowed with a subset of verbs, namely agent–theme verbs. Our goal is to determine its precise role. After applying a number of diagnostics for argumenthood (Dimitriadis and Everaert 2014), we show that diri is not an argument. We propose that the role of diri is that of an element marking detransitivization of the verb and reflecting an operation combining the latter's agent and theme roles into one complex agent–theme role ("a bundling operation" in the sense of Reinhart and Siloni 2005). This complex role is assigned to the remaining argument resulting in a reflexive interpretation. Further tests also show that agent and patient roles are indeed present in verbs with diri after the bundling operation.

This contribution offers an analysis of the structural constraints on the interpretation of the Russian anaphoric expressions sebja and svoj. It accounts for a number of intricate binding patterns, such as the ‘animacy effect’ in the case of non-local binding and apparent irregularities in subject orientation and complementarity in local and long-distance binding. We show that these patterns can be accounted for in a unified manner by Multiple Agree-based dependencies established separately for person and number features, assuming the presence of aφ-incomplete number-only probe low in the structure. As a result of the valuation procedure the reflexives end up only partially valued and thus remain distinct from pronominals.

This dissertation is about the syntax and semantics of non-local dependencies. It focuses on wh-displacement and operator scope and addresses the challenge they pose to theoretical linguistics: How are form and meaning related and to which extent do syntax and semantics operate in parallel? A common approach of formal grammar theories is to assume that displacement and scope construal go hand in hand, and consequently to impose a strict correspondence between syntax and semantics. This approach is challenged, however, by a considerable amount of cases where the syntactic position of an operator expression does not coincide with its semantic scope position. This dissertation therefore pursues the opposite approach. It argues that syntactic displacement and semantic scope-taking do not interact at all. The overall picture that is developed is that grammar consists of two parts: a core system for establishing local dependencies, with syntax and semantics operating in parallel, and extensions to this core system for establishing non-local dependencies, with syntax and semantics operating independently. In developing this picture, it is shown that a substantial amount of data (such as pronunciation in wh-clusters, order preservation with multiple displacement, remnant movement and freezing, as well as different scopal behavior) can indeed be accounted for with a syntax and semantics that are largely independent from one another

This dissertation is about the syntax and semantics of non-local dependencies. It focuses on wh-displacement and operator scope and addresses the challenge they pose to theoretical linguistics: How are form and meaning related and to which extent do syntax and semantics operate in parallel? A common approach of formal grammar theories is to assume that displacement and scope construal go hand in hand, and consequently to impose a strict correspondence between syntax and semantics. This approach is challenged, however, by a considerable amount of cases where the syntactic position of an operator expression does not coincide with its semantic scope position. This dissertation therefore pursues the opposite approach. It argues that syntactic displacement and semantic scope-taking do not interact at all. The overall picture that is developed is that grammar consists of two parts: a core system for establishing local dependencies, with syntax and semantics operating in parallel, and extensions to this core system for establishing non-local dependencies, with syntax and semantics operating independently. In developing this picture, it is shown that a substantial amount of data (such as pronunciation in wh-clusters, order preservation with multiple displacement, remnant movement and freezing, as well as different scopal behavior) can indeed be accounted for with a syntax and semantics that are largely independent from one another

Anaphoric elements (e.g. reflexives such as himself, and pronouns such as she and his) are among the most frequently encountered words in virtually all human languages. The most important feature of these linguistic elements is that they cannot be fully interpreted in isolation, but depend on other elements in the utterance or text instead. Hence, an important question for linguists and psycholinguists is: How does our language system construct anaphoric dependencies? A straightforward possibility is that when readers or listeners encounter an anaphoric element, this will trigger a resolution mechanism which searches the mental representation of a text and picks the most plausible referent for the anaphoric element. However, linguistic research has shown that such a single-mechanism account would be too simple: we should distinguish between syntactic dependencies (i.e. A-Chain formation between a reflexive and its antecedent), semantic dependencies (i.e. bound-variable pronouns) and discourse dependencies (i.e. coreferential pronouns). In this dissertation Arnout Koornneef discusses the findings of a series of eye-tracking and self-paced reading experiments, aimed at evaluating the linguistic ‘Primitives of Binding’ model (Reuland, 2001). In this account it is proposed that a general economy principle governs the division of labor between the different subcomponents of the anaphora resolution system: the syntactic process is thought to be more economic than the semantic process and, similarly, the semantic process is thought to be more economic than the discourse process. The results suggest that this economy hierarchy has ‘behavioral reality’ and, furthermore, that anaphora resolution occurs in a fixed sequential order, i.e. syntactic anaphoric dependencies emerge before semantic anaphoric dependencies and, likewise, semantic anaphoric dependencies emerge before discourse anaphoric dependencies. At a more general level of conception the reported behavioral results demonstrate that incorporating linguistic research into (neuro)cognitive approaches to language comprehension is often helpful – or even mandatory – since linguistic theories clearly define the object of interest (e.g. the nature of anaphoric dependencies) and, furthermore, they generate research questions that would not have emerged otherwise. The author combines insights from theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics and this dissertation should therefore be of interest to scholars in any of these domains.

Anaphoric elements (e.g. reflexives such as himself, and pronouns such as she and his) are among the most frequently encountered words in virtually all human languages. The most important feature of these linguistic elements is that they cannot be fully interpreted in isolation, but depend on other elements in the utterance or text instead. Hence, an important question for linguists and psycholinguists is: How does our language system construct anaphoric dependencies? A straightforward possibility is that when readers or listeners encounter an anaphoric element, this will trigger a resolution mechanism which searches the mental representation of a text and picks the most plausible referent for the anaphoric element. However, linguistic research has shown that such a single-mechanism account would be too simple: we should distinguish between syntactic dependencies (i.e. A-Chain formation between a reflexive and its antecedent), semantic dependencies (i.e. bound-variable pronouns) and discourse dependencies (i.e. coreferential pronouns). In this dissertation Arnout Koornneef discusses the findings of a series of eye-tracking and self-paced reading experiments, aimed at evaluating the linguistic ‘Primitives of Binding’ model (Reuland, 2001). In this account it is proposed that a general economy principle governs the division of labor between the different subcomponents of the anaphora resolution system: the syntactic process is thought to be more economic than the semantic process and, similarly, the semantic process is thought to be more economic than the discourse process. The results suggest that this economy hierarchy has ‘behavioral reality’ and, furthermore, that anaphora resolution occurs in a fixed sequential order, i.e. syntactic anaphoric dependencies emerge before semantic anaphoric dependencies and, likewise, semantic anaphoric dependencies emerge before discourse anaphoric dependencies. At a more general level of conception the reported behavioral results demonstrate that incorporating linguistic research into (neuro)cognitive approaches to language comprehension is often helpful – or even mandatory – since linguistic theories clearly define the object of interest (e.g. the nature of anaphoric dependencies) and, furthermore, they generate research questions that would not have emerged otherwise. The author combines insights from theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics and this dissertation should therefore be of interest to scholars in any of these domains.

This dissertation addresses the issue of the relation between deviant behavior in agrammatic Broca's aphasia and the theory of grammar. Agrammatic Broca's aphasics have particular difficulties comprehending semantically reversible sentences in which the canonical order of arguments have been inverted. The working hypothesis is that agrammatic comprehension deficits with movement derived sentences are reducible to special cases of syntactic islands and ultimately can be explained as a minimality (in the sense of Rizzi 1990, 2004b) effect generated by an underspecification of the morphosyntactic featural make-up normally associated with syntactic categories. This impoverishment is attributed to a syntactic specific processing deficit which allows for a partial recovery of the full feature array needed to distinguish between a moved element and any potential intervener. The underspecification hypothesis is extended to comprehension and production deficits and, on this basis, parallels between deficits with movement and binding are drawn. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of passives. Following Gehrke and Grillo's (2007, 2008) analysis of passivization as an operation on the event structure of the predicate, a novel approach to comprehension difficulties with passives in language acquisition and breakdown is discussed. Experimental data on production (originally discussed in Garraffa and Grillo 2008) of wh-questions in Italian is also discussed. This work is of interest to scholars working in the field of language breakdown, language acquisition as well as to linguists interested in the syntax of movement, locality and passivization.

This dissertation addresses the issue of the relation between deviant behavior in agrammatic Broca's aphasia and the theory of grammar. Agrammatic Broca's aphasics have particular difficulties comprehending semantically reversible sentences in which the canonical order of arguments have been inverted. The working hypothesis is that agrammatic comprehension deficits with movement derived sentences are reducible to special cases of syntactic islands and ultimately can be explained as a minimality (in the sense of Rizzi 1990, 2004b) effect generated by an underspecification of the morphosyntactic featural make-up normally associated with syntactic categories. This impoverishment is attributed to a syntactic specific processing deficit which allows for a partial recovery of the full feature array needed to distinguish between a moved element and any potential intervener. The underspecification hypothesis is extended to comprehension and production deficits and, on this basis, parallels between deficits with movement and binding are drawn. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of passives. Following Gehrke and Grillo's (2007, 2008) analysis of passivization as an operation on the event structure of the predicate, a novel approach to comprehension difficulties with passives in language acquisition and breakdown is discussed. Experimental data on production (originally discussed in Garraffa and Grillo 2008) of wh-questions in Italian is also discussed. This work is of interest to scholars working in the field of language breakdown, language acquisition as well as to linguists interested in the syntax of movement, locality and passivization.