After a brief outline of the principal episodes in the external history, the chapter surveys the ... more After a brief outline of the principal episodes in the external history, the chapter surveys the principal aspects of phonology, orthography, morphology and syntax of Catalan and its principal dialects (spoken in Catalonia, France, Andorra, and Sardinia). Topics dealt with include: territory, geographical dialects, and demography; salient diachronic features; stressed and unstressed vowels; consonants (dialectal and allohponic variation, deletion, assimilation, voicing and devoicing), syllable structure and stress; writing systems and orthography; nominal morphology; verb inflection; articles; word formation; syntax of verbal clitics; subjects; objects.
The goal of this paper is to investigate the morphological and syntactic properties of the synthe... more The goal of this paper is to investigate the morphological and syntactic properties of the synthetic and analytic future in medieval Catalan. The main claim is that the two future forms are independent structures. Despite their shared historical origin, they are not synchronically derived from a common syntactic structure. Both forms are words and, while the synthetic future is a word form consisting of a stem and inflectional affixes, like other verb forms, the analytic future is a compound consisting of an infinitive, a clitic cluster, and a bound auxiliary. The presence of socalled clitics in the analytic future is consistent with the claim that the analytic future is a word, if we assume the affixal status of clitics in medieval Catalan, an assumption that is supported by abundant evidence. The analysis of the analytic future as a compound shows that compounding, though generally found in lexeme-formation, is a morphological device that can be used to derive word forms in an inf...
In the Romance language Catalan, some verbs and some argument-structure
configurations normally ... more In the Romance language Catalan, some verbs and some argument-structure
configurations normally require the reflexive clitic; however, in certain
constructions, the expected reflexive clitic is optionally missing; and, yet in
other constructions, the reflexive clitic is obligatorily left out. The main
theoretical claim is that so-called clitics in Romance, a special kind of affix,
are licensed by syntax-morphology (SM) mapping principles so that a clitic is
used if and only if it is required by an SM mapping principle. This approach
has important implications for the syntax-morphology interface: words are not
inserted in their inflected form in the syntax, contrary to standard LFG
assumptions, but are inserted as lexemes and their inflected forms are licensed
on the basis of the f-structure information.
... Linking by types in the hierarchical lexicon (Book). Autores: Alex Alsina; Localización: Jour... more ... Linking by types in the hierarchical lexicon (Book). Autores: Alex Alsina; Localización: Journal of linguistics, ISSN 0022-2267, Vol. 40, Nº 1, 2004 , págs. 170-172. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario. Contraseña. Entrar. ...
Morphologically derived causatives are composed of a causative morpheme and a base verb. It is ge... more Morphologically derived causatives are composed of a causative morpheme and a base verb. It is generally accepted that the causative morpheme is a two-place predicate expressing a relation between a causer and a caused event. This has suggested to some ...
This paper aims to present a theory of expletives1 in English within LFG in which the distributio... more This paper aims to present a theory of expletives1 in English within LFG in which the distribution of expletives follows from general principles and from the lexical entries of the relevant expletives. Consequently, expletives are not subcategorized for, i.e. verbs do not lexically specify whether they take an expletive or what expletive they take, unlike what is assumed in current LFG approaches to expletives. In addition, there are no alternative lexical entries for verbs depending on whether they cooccur with an expletive or not. The proposed analysis diverges from standard mapping theories in the assumption that argument-to-function linking takes place in the syntax, instead of in the lexicon. The current analysis assumes that there are two kinds of expletives: non-thematic expletives, which do not fill an argument position and are licensed by satisfying the Subject Condition, and argumental expletives, which do fill an argument position, but make no semantic contribution.
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first de... more Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan andRonald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described andmodeled by parallel structures representing different facets oflinguistic organization and information, related by means offunctional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I,Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntacticconcepts and representations. Part II, Grammatical Phenomena, reviewsLFG work on a range of grammatical phenomena or constructions. PartIII, Grammatical modules and interfaces, provides an overview of LFGwork on semantics, argument structure, prosody, information structure,and morphology. Part IV, Linguistic disciplines, reviews LFG work inthe disciplines of historical linguistics, learnability,psycholinguistics, and second language learning. Part V, Formal andcomputational issues and applications, provides an overview ofcomputation...
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first de... more Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan andRonald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described andmodeled by parallel structures representing different facets oflinguistic organization and information, related by means offunctional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I,Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntacticconcepts and representations. Part II, Grammatical Phenomena, reviewsLFG work on a range of grammatical phenomena or constructions. PartIII, Grammatical modules and interfaces, provides an overview of LFGwork on semantics, argument structure, prosody, information structure,and morphology. Part IV, Linguistic disciplines, reviews LFG work inthe disciplines of historical linguistics, learnability,psycholinguistics, and second language learning. Part V, Formal andcomputational issues and applications, provides an overview ofcomputational and formal properties of the theory, implementations,and computational work on parsing, translation, grammar induction, andtreebanks. Part VI, Language families and regions, reviews LFG workon languages spoken in particular geographical areas or in particularlanguage families. The final section, Comparing LFG with otherlinguistic theories, discusses LFG work in relation to othertheoretical approaches
The research presented in this paper is supported by research project Highest Argument Agreement ... more The research presented in this paper is supported by research project Highest Argument Agreement (HAA), FFI2014-56735-P (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness).
Evidence is reviewed that requires abandoning verb-preposition reanalysis in the derivation of pr... more Evidence is reviewed that requires abandoning verb-preposition reanalysis in the derivation of prepositional passives (P-passives). An alternative is proposed in which P-passives are a type of raising construction, where the object of the prepositional complement is structure-shared with the subject of the passive verb. This places the construction within the scope of the Theory of Structure-Sharing (Alsina 2008), which helps explain some of its properties. A proposal is made to account for the phrase-structure of Ppassives and for the crosslinguistic variation regarding the availability of P-passives and preposition stranding.
After a brief outline of the principal episodes in the external history, the chapter surveys the ... more After a brief outline of the principal episodes in the external history, the chapter surveys the principal aspects of phonology, orthography, morphology and syntax of Catalan and its principal dialects (spoken in Catalonia, France, Andorra, and Sardinia). Topics dealt with include: territory, geographical dialects, and demography; salient diachronic features; stressed and unstressed vowels; consonants (dialectal and allohponic variation, deletion, assimilation, voicing and devoicing), syllable structure and stress; writing systems and orthography; nominal morphology; verb inflection; articles; word formation; syntax of verbal clitics; subjects; objects.
The goal of this paper is to investigate the morphological and syntactic properties of the synthe... more The goal of this paper is to investigate the morphological and syntactic properties of the synthetic and analytic future in medieval Catalan. The main claim is that the two future forms are independent structures. Despite their shared historical origin, they are not synchronically derived from a common syntactic structure. Both forms are words and, while the synthetic future is a word form consisting of a stem and inflectional affixes, like other verb forms, the analytic future is a compound consisting of an infinitive, a clitic cluster, and a bound auxiliary. The presence of socalled clitics in the analytic future is consistent with the claim that the analytic future is a word, if we assume the affixal status of clitics in medieval Catalan, an assumption that is supported by abundant evidence. The analysis of the analytic future as a compound shows that compounding, though generally found in lexeme-formation, is a morphological device that can be used to derive word forms in an inf...
In the Romance language Catalan, some verbs and some argument-structure
configurations normally ... more In the Romance language Catalan, some verbs and some argument-structure
configurations normally require the reflexive clitic; however, in certain
constructions, the expected reflexive clitic is optionally missing; and, yet in
other constructions, the reflexive clitic is obligatorily left out. The main
theoretical claim is that so-called clitics in Romance, a special kind of affix,
are licensed by syntax-morphology (SM) mapping principles so that a clitic is
used if and only if it is required by an SM mapping principle. This approach
has important implications for the syntax-morphology interface: words are not
inserted in their inflected form in the syntax, contrary to standard LFG
assumptions, but are inserted as lexemes and their inflected forms are licensed
on the basis of the f-structure information.
... Linking by types in the hierarchical lexicon (Book). Autores: Alex Alsina; Localización: Jour... more ... Linking by types in the hierarchical lexicon (Book). Autores: Alex Alsina; Localización: Journal of linguistics, ISSN 0022-2267, Vol. 40, Nº 1, 2004 , págs. 170-172. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario. Contraseña. Entrar. ...
Morphologically derived causatives are composed of a causative morpheme and a base verb. It is ge... more Morphologically derived causatives are composed of a causative morpheme and a base verb. It is generally accepted that the causative morpheme is a two-place predicate expressing a relation between a causer and a caused event. This has suggested to some ...
This paper aims to present a theory of expletives1 in English within LFG in which the distributio... more This paper aims to present a theory of expletives1 in English within LFG in which the distribution of expletives follows from general principles and from the lexical entries of the relevant expletives. Consequently, expletives are not subcategorized for, i.e. verbs do not lexically specify whether they take an expletive or what expletive they take, unlike what is assumed in current LFG approaches to expletives. In addition, there are no alternative lexical entries for verbs depending on whether they cooccur with an expletive or not. The proposed analysis diverges from standard mapping theories in the assumption that argument-to-function linking takes place in the syntax, instead of in the lexicon. The current analysis assumes that there are two kinds of expletives: non-thematic expletives, which do not fill an argument position and are licensed by satisfying the Subject Condition, and argumental expletives, which do fill an argument position, but make no semantic contribution.
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first de... more Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan andRonald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described andmodeled by parallel structures representing different facets oflinguistic organization and information, related by means offunctional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I,Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntacticconcepts and representations. Part II, Grammatical Phenomena, reviewsLFG work on a range of grammatical phenomena or constructions. PartIII, Grammatical modules and interfaces, provides an overview of LFGwork on semantics, argument structure, prosody, information structure,and morphology. Part IV, Linguistic disciplines, reviews LFG work inthe disciplines of historical linguistics, learnability,psycholinguistics, and second language learning. Part V, Formal andcomputational issues and applications, provides an overview ofcomputation...
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first de... more Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory oflinguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan andRonald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described andmodeled by parallel structures representing different facets oflinguistic organization and information, related by means offunctional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I,Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntacticconcepts and representations. Part II, Grammatical Phenomena, reviewsLFG work on a range of grammatical phenomena or constructions. PartIII, Grammatical modules and interfaces, provides an overview of LFGwork on semantics, argument structure, prosody, information structure,and morphology. Part IV, Linguistic disciplines, reviews LFG work inthe disciplines of historical linguistics, learnability,psycholinguistics, and second language learning. Part V, Formal andcomputational issues and applications, provides an overview ofcomputational and formal properties of the theory, implementations,and computational work on parsing, translation, grammar induction, andtreebanks. Part VI, Language families and regions, reviews LFG workon languages spoken in particular geographical areas or in particularlanguage families. The final section, Comparing LFG with otherlinguistic theories, discusses LFG work in relation to othertheoretical approaches
The research presented in this paper is supported by research project Highest Argument Agreement ... more The research presented in this paper is supported by research project Highest Argument Agreement (HAA), FFI2014-56735-P (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness).
Evidence is reviewed that requires abandoning verb-preposition reanalysis in the derivation of pr... more Evidence is reviewed that requires abandoning verb-preposition reanalysis in the derivation of prepositional passives (P-passives). An alternative is proposed in which P-passives are a type of raising construction, where the object of the prepositional complement is structure-shared with the subject of the passive verb. This places the construction within the scope of the Theory of Structure-Sharing (Alsina 2008), which helps explain some of its properties. A proposal is made to account for the phrase-structure of Ppassives and for the crosslinguistic variation regarding the availability of P-passives and preposition stranding.
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Papers by Alex Alsina
configurations normally require the reflexive clitic; however, in certain
constructions, the expected reflexive clitic is optionally missing; and, yet in
other constructions, the reflexive clitic is obligatorily left out. The main
theoretical claim is that so-called clitics in Romance, a special kind of affix,
are licensed by syntax-morphology (SM) mapping principles so that a clitic is
used if and only if it is required by an SM mapping principle. This approach
has important implications for the syntax-morphology interface: words are not
inserted in their inflected form in the syntax, contrary to standard LFG
assumptions, but are inserted as lexemes and their inflected forms are licensed
on the basis of the f-structure information.
configurations normally require the reflexive clitic; however, in certain
constructions, the expected reflexive clitic is optionally missing; and, yet in
other constructions, the reflexive clitic is obligatorily left out. The main
theoretical claim is that so-called clitics in Romance, a special kind of affix,
are licensed by syntax-morphology (SM) mapping principles so that a clitic is
used if and only if it is required by an SM mapping principle. This approach
has important implications for the syntax-morphology interface: words are not
inserted in their inflected form in the syntax, contrary to standard LFG
assumptions, but are inserted as lexemes and their inflected forms are licensed
on the basis of the f-structure information.