Branigan & Pickering (B&P) argue successfully that structural priming provides valuable information for developing psychologically plausible syntactic and semantic theories. I discuss how their approach can be used to help determine... more
Branigan & Pickering (B&P) argue successfully that structural priming provides valuable information for developing psychologically plausible syntactic and semantic theories. I discuss how their approach can be used to help determine whether partially grammaticalized constructions that have undergone semantic change also have undergone syntactic reanalysis. I then consider cases in which evidence from priming cannot distinguish between competing syntactic analyses.
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Gibson and Fedorenko (2013, The need for quantitative methods in syntax and semantics research,
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abstractIn one type of Relative Clause Extraposition (RCE) in English, a subject-modifying relative clause occurs in a displaced position following the matrix VP, as in: Some options were considered that allow for more flexibility.... more
abstractIn one type of Relative Clause Extraposition (RCE) in English, a subject-modifying relative clause occurs in a displaced position following the matrix VP, as in: Some options were considered that allow for more flexibility. Although RCE incurs a discontinuous dependency and is relatively infrequent in discourse, previous corpus and acceptability judgment studies have shown that speakers prefer RCE over adjacent ordering when the RC is long in relation to the VP, the subject NP is indefinite, and the main verb is passive/presentative (Francis, 2010; Francis & Michaelis, 2014; Walker, 2013). The current study is the first to relate these conditional preferences to online measures of production. For a spoken production task that required speakers to construct sentences based on visual cues, results showed that the same factors that modulate choice of structure – VP length, RC length, and definiteness of the subject NP – also modulate voice initiation time. That is, when the sen...
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics, Discourse, Syntax, and 12 moreCorpus Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Semantics/Pragmatics interface, Construction Grammar, Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis, Word order, English language and linguistics, Relative Clauses, Experimental Pragmatics, Language and Cognition, English linguistics, and Syntax Semantics Interface
... Oink. E-mail this page. Dissertation Information. Title: Variation within Lexical Categories, Add Dissertation. Author: Elaine Francis, Update Dissertation. Email: click here to access email. Homepage:... more
... Oink. E-mail this page. Dissertation Information. Title: Variation within Lexical Categories, Add Dissertation. Author: Elaine Francis, Update Dissertation. Email: click here to access email. Homepage: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ejfranci/ejfrancis.htm. ...
In his book Language Form and Language Function, Frederick Newmeyer develops two main points: (1) that there is much to be gained by taking seriously the linguistic generalizations of both the generativist and the functionalist traditions... more
In his book Language Form and Language Function, Frederick Newmeyer develops two main points: (1) that there is much to be gained by taking seriously the linguistic generalizations of both the generativist and the functionalist traditions in linguistics; and (2) that the basic assumptions of generative grammar are compatible with functional explanation and with the kinds of data that have been used to argue against those assumptions. In this paper, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of LFLF with respect to two of the topics covered in the book: the autonomy of syntax, and prototype effects in syntactic categorization. I argue that with regard to both topics, Newmeyer is successful in supporting his main points, despite some weaknesses in his argumentation. In particular, I advocate his empirical arguments in favor of an autonomous syntax and in favor of a modular view of grammar, but I take issue with his rejection of prototypes and with his approach to iconicity in syntax. In conclusion, I recommend this book highly for its many insights about form and function in syntactic theory.
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Research Interests: Psychology and Language
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Page 1. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory (2006) 24:751801 © Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s11049-006-0005-3 ELAINE J. FRANCIS and STEPHEN MATTHEWS CATEGORIALITY AND OBJECT EXTRACTION IN CANTONESE SERIAL VERB CONSTRUCTIONS ⋆ ...
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Par opposition a la tradition generative qui traite separement la syntaxe et la semantique et invoque des principes purement formels pour expliquer les proprietes grammaticales de la possession, deux ouvrages proposent des explications... more
Par opposition a la tradition generative qui traite separement la syntaxe et la semantique et invoque des principes purement formels pour expliquer les proprietes grammaticales de la possession, deux ouvrages proposent des explications semantiques et fonctionnelles a la variation semantique et syntaxique des constructions possessives. Le premier, intitule Possessives in English : An exploration in cognitive grammar (J.R. Taylor, 1996) montre que les proprietes syntaxiques du morpheme de possession en anglais et les constructions dans lesquelles il apparait peuvent etre expliques par des facteurs semantiques et discursifs. Le deuxieme, intitule Possession : Cognitive sources, forces and grammaticalization (B. Heine, 1997) applique les principes de la theorie de la grammaticalisation a l'analyse historique et synchronique des constructions possessives dans les langues du monde. Dans cet article, l'A. explore la maniere dont les deux auteurs traitent la notion de topicalite et montre ainsi comment ces deux methodes illustrent deux conceptions differentes du fonctionnalisme
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EJ571961 - Some Semantic Reasons Why Iconicity Between Lexical Categories and Their Discourse Functions Isn.
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EJ571961 - Some Semantic Reasons Why Iconicity Between Lexical Categories and Their Discourse Functions Isn.
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Поиск в библиотеке, Расширенный поиск. ...
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Purpose The present study examines the impact of typical aging and Parkinson’s disease (PD) on the relationship among breath pausing, syntax, and punctuation. Method Thirty young adults, 25 typically aging older adults, and 15 individuals... more
Purpose The present study examines the impact of typical aging and Parkinson’s disease (PD) on the relationship among breath pausing, syntax, and punctuation. Method Thirty young adults, 25 typically aging older adults, and 15 individuals with PD participated. Fifteen participants were age- and sex-matched to the individuals with PD. Participants read a passage aloud 2 times. Utterance length, location of breath pauses relative to punctuation and syntax, and number of disfluencies and mazes were measured. Results Older adults produced shorter utterances, a smaller percentage of breaths at major boundaries, and a greater percentage of breaths at minor boundaries than did young adults, but there was no significant difference between older adults and individuals with PD on these measures. Individuals with PD took a greater percentage of breaths at locations unrelated to a syntactic boundary than did control participants. Individuals with PD produced more mazes than did control particip...
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This paper examines categorial mismatch phenomena discussed by McCawley (1987) and explores their implications for a prototype theory of syntactic categories. McCawley (1987) identifies nouns like snap, bitch and breeze as ‘adjectival... more
This paper examines categorial mismatch phenomena discussed by McCawley (1987) and explores their implications for a prototype theory of syntactic categories. McCawley (1987) identifies nouns like snap, bitch and breeze as ‘adjectival nouns’ due to their adjective-like semantic function (a). According to McCawley, these words involve syntactic mimicry: “surface configurations that admit nouns are used to simulate syntactic constructions typical of adjectives” (McCawley 1987: 459). (a) The problem was a snap / bitch / breeze to solve. Adjectival nouns present some puzzling patterns of grammaticality whereby sentences that appear to be both syntactically and semantically well-formed are nevertheless ungrammatical (McCawley 1987: 464-465): (b) *Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses are a bitch of books to read. (c) *John solved every bitch of a problem that they asked him to solve. McCawley argues that (2) and (3) are ungrammatical because of the explicitness with which these nouns violate the prototypical syntax-semantics mapping (i.e., by being modifiers rather heads). In (2), the violation is made obvious by the plural morphology (applying to books rather than bitch), and in (3) the violation is made explicit by the quantifier every (applying to problem rather than bitch). Extending McCawley’s analysis, Francis argues that such data crucially support a ‘prototype’ theory of syntactic categorization, whereby syntactic categories are prototypically linked to semantic categories. Contrary to Newmeyer (1998), Francis argues that prototypes are significant for grammatical competence because they constitute expectations that speakers and listeners use in sentence processing. While some violations of these expectations are permissible, as in (a), others are not, as in (b-c). Reasons for this, and further data and analysis, are discussed within a multi-modular, prototype theory of syntactic categories (see Francis 1999).
ABSTRACT It is the aim of the current book not only to describe specific cases of mismatch in different domains of grammar, but also to examine the question of which general theoretical mechanisms can most parsimoniously account for both... more
ABSTRACT It is the aim of the current book not only to describe specific cases of mismatch in different domains of grammar, but also to examine the question of which general theoretical mechanisms can most parsimoniously account for both normal and exceptional form-function mappings across a wide range of linguistic phenomena. In this introductory chapter, we present a brief classification of mismatch phenomena (Section 2), an overview of some of the theoretical issues involved in accounting for such phenomena (Section 3), and a synopsis of the chapters included in this book (Section 4).
The Cantonese ‘coverb’ construction, a serial verb construction in which the first verb (the ‘coverb’) has a preposition-like meaning and function, presents a challenge for theories of wh-dependencies and island constraints. Coverbs... more
The Cantonese ‘coverb’ construction, a serial verb construction in which the first verb (the ‘coverb’) has a preposition-like meaning and function, presents a challenge for theories of wh-dependencies and island constraints. Coverbs resist extraction of their objects by topicalization or relativization, a fact which has often been explained in terms of a preposition-stranding constraint in accounts of similar facts in Mandarin. However, Cantonese coverbs display the morphosyntactic properties of verbs, suggesting that they cannot be prepositions. In this paper, we propose that coverbs are verbs, and that the relevant extraction constraint is a kind of adjunct island constraint. This proposal is supported with experimental evidence from a sentence judgment task. Two key findings are as follows: (1) listeners judged extraction from a coverb phrase as significantly less acceptable than extraction from a simple clause; (2) listeners judged sentences both with and without aspectual marki...
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Verb-doubling, where a copy of the main verb occurs both before and after the direct object, is a structure commonly used in Chinese in sentences containing a frequency or duration phrase. In Cantonese, verb-doubling is highly optional... more
Verb-doubling, where a copy of the main verb occurs both before and after the direct object, is a structure commonly used in Chinese in sentences containing a frequency or duration phrase. In Cantonese, verb-doubling is highly optional and therefore problematic for existing syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic accounts of its distribution in Mandarin. The current study investigates the role of grammatical weight and syntactic priming in the choice of verb-doubling in Cantonese. Following (Hawkins in Efficiency and complexity in grammars, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004) theory of efficiency and complexity in grammars, we hypothesized that speakers would choose verb-doubling over the canonical structure more often when the object NP was heavy, in order to minimize processing domains. In addition, we expected an effect of syntactic priming whereby the choice of structure is influenced by a previously encountered structure. The results of two elicited production experiments reveale...
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This paper examines categorial mismatch phenomena discussed by McCawley (1987) and explores their implications for a prototype theory of syntactic categories. McCawley (1987) identifies nouns like snap, bitch and breeze as ‘adjectival... more
This paper examines categorial mismatch phenomena discussed by McCawley (1987) and explores their implications for a prototype theory of syntactic categories. McCawley (1987) identifies nouns like snap, bitch and breeze as ‘adjectival nouns’ due to their adjective-like semantic function (a). According to McCawley, these words involve syntactic mimicry: “surface configurations that admit nouns are used to simulate syntactic constructions typical of adjectives” (McCawley 1987: 459). (a) The problem was a snap / bitch / breeze to solve. Adjectival nouns present some puzzling patterns of grammaticality whereby sentences that appear to be both syntactically and semantically well-formed are nevertheless ungrammatical (McCawley 1987: 464-465): (b) *Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses are a bitch of books to read. (c) *John solved every bitch of a problem that they asked him to solve. McCawley argues that (2) and (3) are ungrammatical because of the explicitness with which these nouns violate the p...
Par opposition a la tradition generative qui traite separement la syntaxe et la semantique et invoque des principes purement formels pour expliquer les proprietes grammaticales de la possession, deux ouvrages proposent des explications... more
Par opposition a la tradition generative qui traite separement la syntaxe et la semantique et invoque des principes purement formels pour expliquer les proprietes grammaticales de la possession, deux ouvrages proposent des explications semantiques et fonctionnelles a la variation semantique et syntaxique des constructions possessives. Le premier, intitule Possessives in English : An exploration in cognitive grammar (J.R. Taylor, 1996) montre que les proprietes syntaxiques du morpheme de possession en anglais et les constructions dans lesquelles il apparait peuvent etre expliques par des facteurs semantiques et discursifs. Le deuxieme, intitule Possession : Cognitive sources, forces and grammaticalization (B. Heine, 1997) applique les principes de la theorie de la grammaticalisation a l'analyse historique et synchronique des constructions possessives dans les langues du monde. Dans cet article, l'A. explore la maniere dont les deux auteurs traitent la notion de topicalite et montre ainsi comment ces deux methodes illustrent deux conceptions differentes du fonctionnalisme
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Examining four constructions in three languages (English quantificational nouns, Japanese subordinating conjunctions, Cantonese coverbs, Japanese deverbal postpositions), this paper shows that semantic properties can change faster than... more
Examining four constructions in three languages (English quantificational nouns, Japanese subordinating conjunctions, Cantonese coverbs, Japanese deverbal postpositions), this paper shows that semantic properties can change faster than syntactic properties in gradual processes of grammaticalization. In each of these cases, the syntactic properties of one category become associated with the semantic properties of a different category when an item undergoes semantic change, leading to the appearance of mixed categorial properties. We propose that this sort of change is best captured using a multi-modular framework (Sadock 1991, Yuasa 2005), which allows changes to affect semantics independently of syntax, and which shows clearly that the relevant items and constructions still conform to the separate structural constraints of syntax and semantics, despite the unusual combination of properties. These findings are important for theories of grammaticalization because they suggest that the...