Head Marking

"This dissertation is about the elements that build verbs, the elements that introduce arguments, and how these elements interact to determine the interpretation of arguments and events. A theory of argument structure is a theory how arguments are introduced syntactically, interpreted semantically, and marked morphologically, and how this information is linked to predicates and their morphological shape. Through a detailed empirical study of Icelandic verbal alternations, this dissertation contributes to a line of research in which much of the work of argument structure is handled by the syntax, the component of language responsible for combining elements into larger structures, rather than a pre-syntactic lexicon.

The major theoretical contribution of this thesis is a syntactic theory of argument structure which is much more syntactically autonomous than its closest relatives. The system proposed shares with construction-based approaches to argument structure the assumption that structures generate meanings independent of the lexical roots embedded in them. That is, lexical roots play a secondary role in effecting argument structures. However, it differs from most syntactic approaches in that the syntax is far less deterministic of semantics, much as late insertion theories of morphology take syntax to underdetermine morphophonology.

In the present theory, syntactic structure may underdetermine interpretation in three ways. First, a functional head may be compatible with multiple ‘allosemes’, or denotations, which are decided post-syntactically on the basis of surrounding material. The categorial v head, for example, may have the interpretation of an activity or a cause (among other possible interpretations), depending on the interpretation of its complement. Second, a DP may be interpreted as an entity, or may be type-shifted to be interpreted as a (stative) eventuality. Third, a lexical root is associated with a web of possible semantic contributions, but the selection from among them is made on the basis of surrounding structure, after such structure has been built."

This article deals with the ways in which non-lexical core arguments can be expressed in various languages. It tries to devise a typological hierarchy for the different types and endeavours to place Romance within this hierarchy. An analysis of Basque verbal markers as cross-reference morphemes introduces the subject with a language radically different from central IE. Using Nichols’ (1986 & 1992) typological differentiation between head-marking and dependent-marking languages as its basis, a typological sub-parameter of “clausal head-marking vs. clausal dependent-marking” is suggested which is shown to correspond to two radically different types of clausal co-reference: (1) agreement (concord) and (2) cross-reference. This terminology is then used to describe and explain an ongoing syntactic change in which Spanish object clitics have evolved into obligatory verbal markers closely resembling those of Basque. Their conventional analysis as “agreement markers” is questioned and Spanish is shown to be moving towards a clausal head-marking language in which all core-arguments of the sentence have to be expressed by verbal affixes, while nominal and pronominal argument realisations become mere appositions outside the sentence core. The traditional concept of an emerging new paradigm of “object conjugation” is rejected.
In: Detges, Ulrich and Richard Waltereit (eds.), The Paradox of Grammatical Change: Perspectives from Romance . 2008. vi, 252 pp. (pp. 181–214)

The aim of this paper is to provide a more accurate typological classification of Modern Greek. The verb in MG shows many polysynthetic traits, such as noun and adverb incorporation into the verbal complex, a large inventory of bound morphemes, pronominal marking of objects, many potential slots before the verbal head, nonconfigurational syntax, etc. On the basis of these traits, MG has similarities with polysynthetic languages such as Abkhaz, Cayuga, Chukchi, Mohawk, Nahuatl, a.o. I will show that the abundance of similar patterns between MG and polysynthesis point to the evolution of a new system away from the traditional dependent-marking strategy and simple synthesis towards head-marking and polysynthesis. Finally, I will point to the risk of undertaking a direct comparison of different language systems by discussing the pronominal head-marking strategies in MG and the North American languages.

Takzvaná idáfová konstrukce (idáfa) je základní prostředek arabštiny pro zachycení atributivní relace mezi dvěma jmennými frázemi. Její sémantika není přesně specifikována, ale obecně odpovídá typickému mezijazykovému konceptu posesivity. V této práci je předložena analýza způsobu značení této konstrukce, za použití základního rozlišení mezi dependent-markingovými a head-markingovými rysy, které představila Nichols (1986). Ukazuje se, že tradiční pojetí idáfy jako genitivní konstrukce může být zavádějící, neboť morfosyntaktická úloha genitivní koncovky je spíše pochybná a přítomnost atributivní relace je signalizována spíše head-markingovými rysy. Tyto rysy jsou ale poněkud méně zřejmé, jelikož nespočívají v připojení afixu k hlavě konstrukce, ale v určitých omezeních, která jsou na hlavu kladena (hlava musí být holou jmennou frází a nesmí být specifikována co do neurčitosti). Protože je analýza zaměřena na mluvenou podobu moderní spisovné arabštiny, v této práci je brána v úvahu i ...

Na osnovu primera iz savremenog srpskog/hrvatskog i vlaškog jezika istočne Srbije analiziraju se  osnovni modeli determinacije kvalitativnosti u ovim jezicima. U središtu interesovanja je adnominalna kvalitativnost u vlaškom i njeni mogući srpski/hrvatski ekvivalenti. U okviru semantičke kategorije kvalitativnosti izdvojene su uže kategorije, obuhvaćeni su prvenstveno padežni modeli i njihove funkcije unutar sintagme, ali rad se bavi i pridevima kao prototipičnim sredstvom za izražavanje osobine. Tipološka analiza konstrukcija takođe zauzima bitno mesto u radu. Naime, date konstrukcije ispituju se iz ugla morfosintaksičke markiranosti determinatora i determinisanog dela sintagme (eng. head marking vs. dependent marking).

In the area of the Modern Greek verb, phenomena which consistently appear are head-marking, many potential slots before and/or after the verb root, noun and ad- verb incorporation, addition of adverbial elements by means of affixes, a large in- ventory of bound morphemes, verbal words as minimal sentences, etc. These fea- tures relate Modern Greek to polysynthesis. The main bulk of this paper is dedicated to the comparison of affixal and incorporation patterns between Modern Greek and the polysynthetic languages Abkhaz, Cayuga, Chukchi, Mohawk, and Nahuatl. Ul- timately, a typological outlook for Modern Greek is proposed.

abstractRecent proposals hold that the cognitive systems underlying language production exhibit computational properties that facilitate communicative efficiency, i.e., an efficient trade-off between production ease and robust information transmission. We contribute to the cross-linguistic evaluation of the communicative efficiency hypothesis by investigating speakers’ preferences in the production of a typologically rare head-marking alternation that occurs in relative clause constructions in Yucatec Maya. In a sentence recall study, we find that speakers of Yucatec Maya prefer to use reduced forms of relative clause verbs when the relative clause is more contextually expected. This result is consistent with communicative efficiency and thus supports its typological generalizability. We compare two types of cue to the presence of a relative clause, pragmatic cues previously investigated in other languages and a highly predictive morphosyntactic cue specific to Yucatec. We find that...