Formal syntax

In this paper we will attempt to classify Lindenmayer systems based on properties of sets of rules and the kind of strings those rules generate. This classification will be referred to as a ‘parametrization’ of the L-space: the L-space is the phase space in which all possible L-developments are represented.

На примере сочинительных конструкций русского языка демонстрируются основные понятия и возможности анализа синтаксической структуры в терминах синтаксических групп по А. В. Гладкому. Показывается, что в рамках исходной редакции аппарата, успешно справляющейся со случаями сочинения функционально однородных членов, невозможно адекватно описать сочинительные конструкции с лексико-семантической однородностью. Для исправления этого недостатка предлагается внести ряд изменений в формальное определение системы синтаксических групп (ССГ) и в процедуру построения ССГ.

В дипломной работе предлагается ряд уточнений в формальный аппарат синтаксических групп, разработанный А. В. Гладким. Приведен ряд конструкций, для которых не удается провести адекватный анализ в рамках исходной версии аппарата. Формулируется уточненное понимание системы синтаксических групп.

L'articolo propone: 1) Un paragone tra linguistica computazionale e Natural Language Processing. Dovrebbero essere campi di ricerca diversi: lo sono ancora? 2) Gli esiti generati da un parser basato su un sistema a regole per una frase causativa con il verbo 'fare'. Tali esiti sono replicabili per qualsiasi altra frase con 'fare' causativo.

While matrix clauses pronouns are almost never dropped in matrix clauses in Russian, silent pronouns are licensed in almost all kinds of embedded clauses. Null pronouns in such positions share similarities with PRO, but they also differ from PRO in many respects. In this paper, I show that there are two kinds of environments in which such pronouns can appear. The first kind of environment includes complements of attitude verbs, where there is strong evidence for a syntactic relation between the null pronoun and its antecedent. In the second kind of environment, which includes sentential adjuncts and embedded wh-questions, the nature of this relation seems to be different. I propose that Russian possesses a minimally specified silent pronoun which is phonologically deficient and must cliticize onto a higher projection and thus can only be found in the presence of an overt complementizer. I adopt the proposed in Holmberg (2005) that a major feature of pro-drop phenomena is the valuation of the D feature of the null pronoun. I propose that in Russian the null pronoun is unable to value this feature inside the clause where it is merged and therefore needs to probe outside the clause to get the D feature valued. The difference between properties of silent pronouns in the two kinds of environments is derived from the exact mechanism by which the valuation takes place. In the case of complements of attitude verbs, the valuation takes place as a result of an agree relation, in other cases the valuation takes place via a topic-chain.

Este manual pretende dar uma visão diferente de língua e ensino nas aulas de português. Na primeira unidade, mostramos que essa perspectiva não aparece nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais para o ensino de português. Trata-se, portanto, de uma rota alternativa, mas que tem suporte em pesquisas já realizadas com falantes de diversas línguas, que indicam que há uma relação positiva entre o aluno construir hipóteses sobre a sua língua e ter um desempenho melhor na língua escrita, além de ter um efeito positivo no ensino de ciências e de matemática. A segunda unidade é composta por uma série de informações que permitem sabermos (note: não é acharmos, nem pensarmos, mas sabermos) que há uma faculdade da linguagem. A terceira unidade introduz o método científico para a análise das línguas. Ensinar ciência através da construção de gramáticas pode ser não apenas muito divertido, mas principalmente uma maneira de re-significar a língua falada, em especial na nossa cultura bacharelesca que vê a língua das gentes com tanto preconceito, afinal mostrar a sua gramática é desfazer preconceitos que usurpam o nosso direito à nossa língua. O português brasileiro é o tópico da quarta e última unidade. Professores de português no Brasil precisam saber como é essa língua, que língua é essa que nós falamos.
ISBN: 978-85-61482-61-9

1972. Weak and Strong Completeness in Sentential Logic, Logique et Analyse 59/60, 429–34.  MR0337476 (49 #2245)

This is another study illustrating the fruitfulness of thinking of “logics” as three-part systems composed of a language, a semantics [or model theory] and a deductive system [or proof theory]. For simplicity we take a fixed language for sentential logic [or propositional logics] with a fixed standard two-valued semantics, but we “vary” deductive systems. In the 1960s when this paper was written, it was still widely assumed that a “logic” was “determined” by its theorems, by what it could “prove”. The vague assumption was that once the theorems were fixed, it was somehow automatic which conclusions were derivable from given premises.
The purpose of this paper is to give a method which weakens deriving power of a sentential logic while leaving proving power unchanged. In particular if the method is applied to a strongly complete logic the resultant will not have strong completeness but it will retain weak completeness. Moreover, because of the nature of the method two added facts obtain.
First, weak completeness of the resultant is always an obvious corollary to weak completeness of the operand, so that no new completeness proof need be constructed. Second, failure of strong completeness in the resultant is always obvious, so no multi-valued matrices need be constructed. The method applies to all sentential logics formulated using only axiom schemes and schematically statable rules. These results reaffirm, generalize, and simplify a result of Hiz [Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24 (1959), pp. 193-202].

The constructional literature has encouraged us to see words as constructions (both constructions and words combine syntactic, phonological and pragmatic conventions) and constructions as words (constructions license phrasal signs that need special explanations for at least some of their properties—morpho-lexical, semantic, pragmatic, or distributional—beyond what can be known about their component parts). But these analogies obscure some fundamental differences: (a) many (if not most) idiomatic expressions are like sing a different tune, in having syntactically manipulable subparts (as in, e.g., Now a different tune is being sung because the administration’s spying […] has come to light), and are thus not realistically treated as ‘words with spaces’ (Kay et al. 2012); and (b) it strains credulity to assert that single signs (words and lexemes) are the same thing as combinations of signs (phrases). How can we strike a balance between ‘meaning by convention’ and ‘meaning by composition’ when we are analyzing complex expressions with idiomatic properties? In this talk, I will address this question by outlining a lexicalist implementation of the idiomaticity continuum, based on Sign-Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2012, Sag et al. 2012, Michaelis 2012).

This is a book in progress. First it is an attempt to refresh the foundational concepts and definitions of  classical physics. Building on this is attempts to clarify the syntax and semantics of classical physics. Finally it  attempts to distinguish between the speculative elements and careful evidence in modern cosmology.

Bantu languages, which are spoken throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, permit wh-questions to be constructed in multiple ways, including wh-in-situ, full wh-movement, and partial wh-movement. Shona, a Bantu language spoken by about 13 million people in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, allows all three of these types. In this dissertation, I conduct the first in-depth examination of Shona wh-questions, drawing on fifty hours of elicitation with a native speaker consultant to explore the derivational relationships among these strategies.

Wh-in-situ questions have received a wide variety of treatments in the syntactic literature, ranging from covert or disguised movement to postsyntactic binding of the wh-phrase by a silent question operator. In Bantu languages, wh-in-situ questions are often taken to be derived via a non-movement relation (e.g., Carstens 2005 for Kilega, Diercks 2010 for Lubukusu, Muriungi 2003 for Kîîtharaka, Sabel 2000 for Kikuyu and Duala, Sabel & Zeller 2006 for Zulu, Schneider-Zioga 2007 for Kinande), but alternatives have rarely been considered. I demonstrate how movement-based analyses that have been proposed for wh-in-situ in non-Bantu languages make the wrong predictions for Shona wh-in-situ, which lacks word order permutation, extraction marking, island effects, and intervention effects. These properties provide support for the traditional Bantuist view that the relation between the pronunciation site of an in-situ wh-phrase and its scopal position in the left periphery is not movement; I claim that in Shona it is unselective binding.

Many Bantu languages, including Shona, prohibit wh-phrases from appearing in the canonical preverbal subject position. Wasike (2007) demonstrates that this restriction applies to topicalized non-subjects as well as preverbal subjects. I replicate these results for Shona and argue that they cast doubt on Sabel & Zeller's (2006) attempt to characterize the ban with an appeal to improper movement. I argue instead that restrictions on the distribution of wh-in-situ in Bantu are tied to restrictions on the domain for focus licensing. This claim is further bolstered by an examination of crosslinguistic variation within Bantu with respect to whether the ban on in-situ preverbal wh-subjects applies in embedded clauses. I observe a previously unnoticed generalization: languages that universally ban in-situ preverbal wh-subjects (like Zulu) have immediately after the verb (IAV) focus effects; languages that do allow in-situ preverbal wh-subjects in embedded clauses (like Shona, Lubukusu, and Kîîtharaka) also lack IAV effects.

Full wh-movement in Shona gives rise to questions that bear a certain similarity to English wh-questions. However, using a range of diagnostics including extraction marking, island effects, reconstruction effects, and the distribution of temporal modifiers, I argue that what appears to be full wh-movement in Shona actually has a cleft structure: the wh-phrase moves to become the head of a relative clause, which is selected by a copula in the matrix clause. Just as in wh-in-situ, an ex-situ wh-phrase is pronounced lower than its scopal position, and the relation between these two positions is established via unselective binding. Additional evidence for this proposal comes from the sensitivity of partial wh-movement to island boundaries below but not above the pronunciation site of the wh-phrase, a pattern that has been predicted by previous analyses (e.g., Abels 2012, Sabel 2000, Sabel & Zeller 2006) but for which empirical support has been lacking until now. I therefore unify full and partial wh-movement under a single analysis for cleft-based wh-in-situ that involves a step of relativization (independently needed for relative clauses) and a step of unselective binding (independently needed for wh-in-situ).

Este material impresso foi elaborado para dar suporte didático à disciplina Sintaxe do Português, ministrada a distância. Ele está fortemente baseado na seguinte obra, que deverá estar disponível nos polos: MIOTO, Carlos; SILVA, Maria C. F.; LOPES, Ruth E. V. Novo Manual de Sintaxe. 3ª ed. Florianópolis: Insular, 2007.
ISBN 987-85-61482-50-3

In this talk I propose a terminological revision of the terms "cleft", "pseudo cleft" and “reversed pseudo cleft” traditionally used for Spanish cleft constructions in Hispanic linguistics. Departing form the traditional classification, I propose that Spanish has three different types of cleft sentences: que-clefts (or just clefts) wh-clefts, and pseudo-clefts, which are only those cleft constructions introduced by the locution lo-que. I then address in detail the syntactic and information structure properties of lo-que clefts that justify this specific classification of clefts in Spanish. The most important results that I present are two cases in which the cleft constituent (i.e. the pivot) of Spanish pseudoclefts is composed of given, unfocused information, which does not show any contrast relation; i.e. in which it is not a focus. This provides evidence for the analyses of clefts that claim that focusing of the cleft constituent (the pivot) is not an inherent property of clefts: instead, clefts specialize in providing different partitions of the information structure of a proposition.

This book explores relationships and maps out intersections between discussions on causation in three scientific disciplines: linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. The book is organized in five thematic parts, investigating connections between philosophical and linguistic studies of causation; presenting novel methodologies for studying the representation of causation; tackling central issues in syntactic and semantic representation of causal relations; and introducing recent advances in philosophical thinking on causation.

Beyond its thematic organization, readers will find several recurring topics throughout this book, such as the attempt to reduce causality to other non-causal terms; causal pluralism vs. one all-encompassing account for causation; causal relations pertaining to the mental as opposed to the physical realm, and more.
This collection also lays the foundation for questioning whether it is possible to evaluate available philosophical approaches to causation against the variety of linguistic phenomena ranging across diverse lexical and grammatical items, such as bound morphemes, prepositions, connectives, and verbs. Above all, it lays the groundwork for considering whether the fruits of the psychological-cognitive study of the perception of causal relations may contribute to linguistic and philosophical studies, and whether insights from linguistics can benefit the other two disciplines.

Cet article est une enquête sur la syntaxe et la variation paramétrique du verbe ‘avoir’, à partir du domaine empirique de la variation dialectale et diachronique du breton. Nous introduisons tout d’abord le système d’accord celtique caractérisable par l’effet de complémentarité, puis nous montrons en quoi le verbe ‘avoir’ breton est unique, tant au milieu des autres langues celtiques qu’à l’intérieur même du système breton. Nous proposons des tests syntaxiques permettant de révéler sa structure interne à travers différents stades d’évolution de la langue, allant d’une structure analytique de type mihi est à une structure pleinement lexicalisée de type avoir. Nous développons les prédictions de nos hypothèses et montrons comment, pour chaque dialecte du breton, le système d’accord, la morphologie de l’accord, le comportement des objets et les paradigmes de l’infinitifs découlent de la structure postulée.

صدر للدكتور طارق المالكي عن دار النابغة للنشر والتوزيع كتاب "أنطلوجيا حاسوبية للنحو العربي: نحو توصيف منطقي ولساني حديث للغة العربية" ، تندرج الدراسة ضمن مجال اللسانيات الحاسوبية وتسعى إلى تجديد الدرس النحوي القديم في صورة أنطلوجيا حاسوبية قابلة للمعالجة الآلية متوخيا جعل الحاسوب يفهم ما يطلب منه ويعالج المعطيات النحوية بمقدرة ذكية أشبه بتلك التي يتمتع بها العقل البشري..اقتضى من الباحث بناء هذه الأنطلوجيا النحوية المرور بمرحلتين :

- مرحلة إعادة بناء النحو العربي القديم من الناحية المنطقية على أساس نظرية المجموعات الرياضية رادا النحو العربي إلى عنصرين أوليين وهما : الفئة والعلاقة، أما من الناحية اللسانية فقد استند النموذج اللساني المعتمد إلى النحو الإعتمادي Dependency Grammar الذي أسسه لوسيان تينيير.

- مرحلة ترجمة حصيلة ما توصل إليه الباحث في مرحلة السابقة إلى لغة حاسوبية "يفهمها " الحاسوب ، لغة تستمد عناصرها من معايير ومواصفات الويب الدلالي Semantic Web .
بهذه الصياغة الحديثة دخل الباحث بالنحو إلى عصر الويب الدلالي من أوسع أبوابه ، ومن ثم يكون قد جدد الدرس النحوي من جانبين نظري وتطبيقي؛ في الجانب النظري أخرج النحو من نحو الأبواب (المنصوبات ،المرفوعات، الصرف..) إلى نحو العلاقات ، مجددا الصلة ،من جهة، بين النحو والمنطقيات الرياضية ، وبين اللسانيات والنحو من جهة ثانية، معتبرا أن اللسانيات الإعتمادية هي الإطار المناسب لدراسة نظرية العامل النحوية القديمة ،فاتحا أبوابا استشكالية غير مطروقة.

أما في الجانب التطبيقي فقد اقترح الكاتب على عموم المشتغلين بتكشيف النحو وفهرسته في الفضاء الشبكي مواصفة قياسية في مجال ضبط المصطلح النحوي في أفق مد الباحثين بأدوات تكشيفية حديثة

Barayin is an East Chadic language spoken by around 5000 people in the Guera region of the Republic of Chad. This dissertation examines a particular type of syntactic construction in the language, serial verb constructions, from the perspectives of typological (or comparative) syntax, descriptive grammar, and the formal syntactic theory of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). Typologically, serial verb constructions are problematic because they represent a heterogeneous set of multiverb constructions that have features that do not fit into traditional syntactic categories like subordination, conjunction and adjunction. Part A of this dissertation describes these problematic features in detail, providing a succinct overview of the literature which can serve as a resource for field linguists describing similar constructions. Part B of the dissertation gives a detailed description of the morphology, syntax and semantics of serial verb constructions in Barayin. These chapters contribute to our knowledge of the world’s languages by documenting a complex syntactic phenomenon in an area of the world where most of the languages are significantly understudied. The most common type of SVC in Barayin involves a deictic motion verb. The motion is normally (but not always) understood to take place prior to the activity or state predicated by the main verb. The formal analysis of Barayin SVCs in Lexical-Functional Grammar in Part C uses recent developments in the theory to show how argument sharing in SVCs can be represented in a connected s-structure that conforms to the standard mechanisms of LFG. The approach is compared to two previous analyses of complex motion predicates in other languages which appeal to a non-standard formal mechanism to model complex predicates.

This paper presents an analysis of sentences featuring superficial coordinations of unlike categories in English, such as John is a Republican and proud of it (NP and AP) and Pat is stupid and a liar (AP and NP). We argue that, despite the fact that examples like these have been grouped in the literature on coordination of unlikes, there are significant syntactic differences that justify distinguishing between them representationally and derivationally. We propose two categories of coordination of unlikes: anaphoric and intersective coordinations. In particular, we will focus on how to formulate a structural description that gets the right reference for it in a Republican and proud of it, a point unexplored in many current proposals.

К читателю: данную серию очерков может читать любой желающий, однако написана она, прежде всего, для тех, кто уже имеет некоторое представление о тибетском языке, а также для лингвистов. Поэтому, если Вы — новичок в тибетологии и тибетском языкознании, Вы можете прочитать (пролистать) всю серию очерков, сначала пропуская непонятные и кажущиеся "слишком абстрактными" места, с тем, чтобы возвратиться к ним лишь тогда, когда столкнетесь на практике с соответствующими явлениями (поскольку не каждый параграф очерка снабжен простейшими примерами).

В данной главе обсуждается проблема соотношения коммуникативно-нерасчлененных (thetic) и коммуникативно-расчлененных (categorical) предложений в рамках формальной модели синтаксиса и просодико-синтаксического интерфейса. Применяется аппарат теории Линейно-Акцентных преобразований и доказывается гипотеза о том, что все русские нерасчлененные предложения получаются из расчлененных на основе трансформационных правил.

Chapter 3 from Anton Zimmerling, Ekaterina Lyutikova (eds.). Clause Architecture in Parametric Models. Moscow: LRC, 2016. In this chapter, I discuss the derivation of Russian thetic and categorical sentences in a generative-transformational framework with movement operations. Information structure is analyzed in terms of c(ommunicative)-constituents. I argue that all Russian thetics are derived from categorical sentences and develop a version of the Linear-Accent analysis which is compatible with mildly context-sensitive grammars.


OUTLINE OF THE CHAPTER

1. Topic, focus and thetic sentences.
1.1. Thetic-A sentences and thetic-B sentences.
1.2. Formal markers of thetic-A and thetic-B sentences in Russian.
2. Linear-Accent transformations.
2.1. Word order and theticity in Russian.
2.2. A-scrambling and thetic sentences.
3. Linear-Accent grammars.
3.1. Tonal alphabet.
3.2. Basic c-structures.
3.3. Left Focus Movement and predictability of Intonation Construction 2.
3.4. Rheme Dislocation.
3.5. Verb Topicalization and Verb Focalization.
4. Topic-Focus Inversion and VS order in thetic sentences.
4.1. Active and remnant movement with bilateral Linear-Accent transformations.
4.2. Derivation of primary thetic sentences with VS order.
4.3. Thetic-A sentences and presentational constructions.
4.4. Default word order in Russian presentational constructions.
4.5. Communicative triggers and the direction of Linear-Accent transformations.
4.6. Right Focus Movement as source of primary VS thetics in Russian.
4.7. Inventory of Linear-Accent transformation.
5. Expletive elements in A-thetic sentences.
5.1. A-thetics and the Observer parameter.
5.2. Ontology of events and sub-events.
5.3. Typological perspectives: formal and functional analysis.
6. Conclusions.

In this paper, the researchers particularly investigated the subject verb
agreement in Sindhi and English languages. English and Sindhi are two entirely
different languages. There are differences in their phonology, morphology and syntax
also. In this paper, the researchers examined the difference between one of the aspects
of syntax, specially the difference between subject verb agreements in both the
languages. Syntactically English is a head initial SVO language and Sindhi is a head
Final SOV language. These two languages differ not only in phonology, morphology
and syntax but they have also got difference in their origin. First the study shows a
brief look at origin of Sindhi and English languages. Then subject verb agreement in
Sindhi and English is analysed individually, afterwards there is a analysis of
comparison between these two languages in subject verb agreement

Syntactic category seems to be the more reliable criterion, it classifies the lexical words into two groups major (content words usually used as heads and placed in the position of obligatory) and minor (function words usually used as modifiers and linkers and some of them placed in the position of optional).

In questo articolo presenteremo le linee generali della teoria del controllo elaborata da Noam Chomsky nell’ambito dei suoi studi di linguistica generativa, focalizzando l’attenzione su due casi che si propongono all’attenzione del linguista: quello dell’omissione del soggetto nelle lingue dotate del parametro prodrop e il funzionamento del soggetto virtuale PRO nelle strutture sintattiche a controllo del soggetto e dell’oggetto. Le lingue su cui si incentrerà l’analisi, anche contrastiva, saranno l’italiano, l’inglese, il francese, il greco moderno e il portoghese.



In this paper we will present the general features of the Control Theory, as it had been pointed out by Noam Chomsky in his Generative Linguistics' studies. We'll put our attention on two cases: the pro-drop phoenomenon in linguistic systems which aim at it, and the behaviour of virtual subject PRO in infinitive clauses. The languages that will be analized, comparing each other's features, are Italian, English, French, modern Greek and Portoguese.

This chapter provides an overview of theoretical issues and core empirical findings in cross-linguistic research on the acquisition of syntax. Section 1 identifies key issues in syntax acquisition research: (i) the respective contribution of learners' input and innate predispositions for language acquisition;(ii) the time course of syntactic development; (iii) the role of learners’ age and potential implications for monolingual, bilingual and second language (L2) acquisition. Section 2 introduces methods for investigating syntactic development. Section 3 discusses the relative role of learners’ input and innate predispositions for syntax acquisition. This section presents (i) generative, Optimality Theory and usage-based approaches to syntactic development and (ii) the empirical findings on learners’ input that form the background for the debate between proponents of the different approaches. Section 4 focuses on the emergence of syntax. The following sections discuss the acquisition of core syntactic phenomena: questions and embedded clauses (section 5), passives (section 6), co-reference (section 7), and quantification (section 8). Each of these sections gives an overview of theoretical accounts and empirical findings; with a focus on monolingual first language (L1) acquisition. Age effects and differences between monolingual and bilingual acquisition are the focus of section 9. Section 10 discusses the empirical findings and their theoretical implications and highlights current trends.

This paper examines the functional-head theory in syntax, i.e. the claim that grammatical meanings are represented as heads in syntax, in much the same way as contentive heads (verbs and nouns). It starts out from the presumption that the functional-head theory can be expected to predict typical head behaviour of grammatical elements, especially with respect to the core head properties: hyperonym status, distributional identity, obligatoriness, idioselection. These general predictions do not seem to be supported by the cross-linguistic evidence, so I go on to discuss additional motivations for the functional-head theory. In practice, the functional-head theory has not been justified in terms of typical head behaviour, but in rather different ways. I present some alternatives to the widely adopted functionalhead notation, and then I offer a general discussion of how one might justify general theories in syntax. My conclusion that the functional-head theory appears to be wrong is not very certain, but rather than assume its correctness, future research should formulate it in a clearly testable way and find robust empirical evidence to determine whether it is correct or not.

Classical Armenian displays a curious type of subordinate clause formation characterized by the addition of a cliticized anaphoric pronoun to the end of the first constituent within the subordinate clause. Meillet (1897-1898) first proposed that this process was an instance of Wackernagel's Law, which encompasses a range of syntactic secondposition phenomena in the world's languages. In this paper I survey the distribution of Wackernagel clauses in Armenian, and provide an account for their behavior within the framework of current syntactic theory. More specifically, I show that the constraints on what elements may serve as host for the clitic and where the finite verb and adverbs in the subordinate clause may surface follow naturally from independently motivated principles of recent generative syntactic theory.

NB: For a revised and condensed version of this overview, see the article Serial Verb Constructions in Annual Review of Linguistics 7 (2021).
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/ZK6GFQCYSQDNXK2WXI7B/full/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031920-115317

This paper was a draft of an extended overview of the literature on serial verb constructions prepared as part of the background reading for my PhD dissertation. Feel free to use this document to search for other references, but be aware that there may be some errors or misrepresentations that have not been corrected. Please do not cite or quote this document.

LAWS OF FORM CONFERENCE 2022

Submissions for papers, panel sessions, interactive presentations, workshops, performance sessions, and creative contributions inspired by George Spencer-Brown's work and life - and particularly his key work, Laws of Form (LoF) - are now open and welcomed from participants keen to contribute to LoF22 which will be held from Thursday 4 August to Saturday 6 August, 2022 at the University of Liverpool.

Invited Keynotes

Keynotes will be given by Dr. Francis Jeffrey, Barry Smith, and Stephen Wolfram.

https://lof50.com/

The dissertation deals with Russian morphosyntactic phenomena involving adpositions. It is mostly devoted to a study of the distribution of the so-called pripredložnye ‘adprepositional’ pronouns in Russian. Their seemingly chaotic distribution proved to be hard to account for. Especially puzzling was the fact that beyond the P-object environments these pronouns, ‘n-forms’, appear only in the genitive standard DP of the Russian phrasal comparative, in which no preposition appears.


I offer a uniform analysis of n-form distribution in Russian, which maintains the intuition that they are ‘adprepositional’ (occur in P-object positions). However, I refine the generalization stressing that n-forms are only licensed in the complement of P-heads, making a crucial distinction between a vaguely defined group of prepositions and lexemes that are syntactically P-heads. Only ‘prepositions’ that are P-heads license n-forms in their complement.

I examine a large group of prepositions in detail, arguing that only some are P-heads. The ‘comparative puzzle’ is solved by proposing that the phrasal comparative involves a null P-head, licensing the genitive n-form in the standard DP. Lexemes labelled prepositions in traditional grammars of Russian are shown to split into three classes. Class I lexemes are P-heads, the only ‘true’ prepositions in a sense. Class II lexemes are structurally ambiguous between N-heads or P-N combinations (the complement being an argument of the nominal head), and a lexicalized P-head composed of syntactically inactive N- and P-elements. Class III lexemes are never P-heads: they are P-N combinations, transitive adverbs (A-heads) or gerunds (V-heads).

This part of the dissertation has implications for the typology and morphosyntax of pronouns and case. It may inform studies aimed at classifying adpositions across languages. The classification of ‘prepositions’ developed here may prove relevant for understanding the non-homogeneous behavior of different prepositions in specific constructions.

The remaining part of this dissertation delves deeper into the syntax of the genitive standard of comparison in Russian phrasal comparatives. I show that the standard DP and the DP it is contrasted with belong in the same clause. This favors the simple, Direct Analysis of the standard DP, under which it does not involve any silent structure. I offer a new generalization, the Oblique Correlate Constraint, that imposes morphosyntactic restrictions on the standard DP. I show that the constraint quite straightforwardly falls out from a more complex, Reduced Clause Analysis, positing abstract structure behind the standard. Looking at other languages, I suggest that the presence of such a constraint in their phrasal comparative may signal that they should be analyzed as reduced clauses. This adds to the growing body of literature on the structure of phrasal comparatives across languages and contributes to the notorious debate on whether phrasal standards of comparison should be analyzed as simple DPs or as reduced clauses.

This paper aims at investigating the ditransitive constructions of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It argues that the two variants of ditransitive constructions in MSA, i.e. Double Object Construction (DOC) and Prepositional Object Construction (POC), are not derivationally related as has been assumed for English by Larson (1988) and Aoun & Li (1989), among others. Rather, the two variants in MSA have two different structures. The paper shed more light on the double object variant. Following (Marantz 1993, Georgala & Whitman 2009), it proposes an applicative analysis for the DOC in MSA. Though this construction in MSA manifests low applicative properties, the adopted single applicative analysis captures the fact of Pylkkänen‟s (2002/2008) two types of applicatives (i.e., High and Low). The paper adopts the recent syntactic licensing mechanism of Chomsky (2000, 2001 and subsequent works); namely, Agree, and assumes that indirect and direct objects are assigned structural accusative Case by little v and the applicative v, respectively.

What have traditionally been described as imperatives in Bangla need to be recharacterized as subjunctives in certain cases. The line of demarcation between the imperative and subjunctive values is not morphological but scopal. Imperatives take wide scope and, like interrogatives, exhibit left-right asymmetry in Bangla and use the quotative complementizer as an escape hatch.

This paper examines Minimal Search, an operation that is at the core of current Minimalist inquiry. We argue that, given Minimalist assumptions about structure building consisting of unordered set formation, there are serious difficulties in defining Minimal Search as a search algorithm. Furthermore, some problematic configurations for Minimal Search (namely, {XP, YP} and {X, Y}) are argued to be an artefact of these set-theoretic commitments. However, if unordered sets are given up as the format of structural descriptions in favour of directed graphs such that Merge(X, Y) creates an arc from X to Y, Minimal Search can be straightforwardly characterised as a sequential deterministic search algorithm: the total order required to define MS as a sequential search algorithm is provided by structure building.