Relational Grammar

"This paper compares various approaches to argument structure. We start out presenting the lexical proposal that we want to defend in this paper. We then introduce phrasal proposals that are common in Construction Grammar. A historical section describes the oscillation between early lexical proposals in Categorial Grammar, phrasal approaches in phrase structure grammar (early Transformational Grammar, GPSG) back to lexical approaches in HPSG and Minimalism. We argue that there were good reasons for returning to lexical models and that the respective issues are not addressed in phrasal approaches. We go on discussing approaches that assume that sematnically compatible verbs are inserted into phrasal constructions and point out that lexical specification of valence plays an important role in various levels of description and that phrasal models can not account for this. A similar criticism applies to so-called Neodavidsonian approaches, which are discussed in a separate section.

We will show that certain relations between constructions cannot be captured with inheritance or unification but require transformations or lexical rules, and hence in non-transformational syntax the lexical approach is the only option.

Three sections are devoted to arguments from language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and statistics. We show that contrary to frequent claims the respective experiments do not provide evidence for phrasal constructions.

We conclude that argument structure properties should be represented together with lexical items. "

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Un avviamento pratico all’argomentazione grammaticale: ecco cos’è questo libro. Lungo le sue pagine, compaiono relazioni grammaticali, diatesi, accordi, ausiliari e molti altri temi. Nella prima parte, protagonista è l’italiano. Nella seconda, si spazia in un’area di ricerca più aperta e varia e due classiche questioni di sintassi inglese chiamano in causa italiano, georgiano, tiwa meridionale e choctaw. Il volume è offerto a Ignazio Mauro Mirto per i suoi sessanta anni ed è proposto, per un uso didattico diretto o indiretto, a chi, come lui, impartisce un insegnamento in cui la grammatica ha parte importante. Testimonia caldi rapporti di amicizia e, con un invito a partecipare all’amichevole ragionamento, mira a estenderli a chi, per studio o curiosità, gli si avvicina.

This thesis is concerned with a peculiar extraction construction in German, called wh-copying. The peculiarity of this construction is that the fronted constituent seems to be repeated in all intermediate clause initial positions. This peculiarity is interesting from a theoretical point of view, as it raises a number of questions regarding the way extraction is implemented in the grammar.

After an inspection of mainly new data from German, the thesis argues first that the term wh-copying is a misnomer. The apparent copies of the fronted constituent are actually independent elements, which however often happen to be homophonous to the fronted constituent. Secondly, it is shown that these independent elements are nevertheless subject to a number of matching constraints requiring partial identity between this element and the fronted constituent.

The theoretical challenge posed by these two results is the tension between them. On the one hand, the repeated element is distinct from the fronted constituent; on the other hand, it has to share some properties with it. The thesis then argues that this tension can be easily resolved if the Arc Pair Grammar framework is adopted. In particular, the way extraction is handled, the treatment of pronouns, and the representation of grammatical relations as syntactic primitives paves the way for a simple analysis of wh-copying in German.

(english) Morpho-syntactic descriptions of reflexivisation processes in German are usually based on a grammatical approach that considers the individual elements in terms of categories, for example, as single words: substantives, verbs or adjectives, without contemplating the changeable paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations of interdependence which link the clause elements. However, in this article, we have adopted a functional approach in our analysis of reflexive structures, in order to make a in-depth study of the clauses as nexuses of grammatical relations. In this way, it is possible to provide a comprehensive description of the different constructions containing sich and attempt to provide systematic schemes of the complex sets of forms and functions.

Abstract (italian) Dietro le descrizioni morfosintattiche dei processi di riflessivizzazione in tedesco sta solitamente una prospettiva grammaticale che osserva i singoli elementi dal punto di vista categoriale (per es., come singole parole: sostantivi, verbi, aggettivi), non considerando invece i mutevoli rapporti di interdipendenza paradigmatica e sintagmatica che correlano gli elementi proposizionali. Nel lavoro presente, invece, si procede ad un'analisi delle strutture riflessive adottando un punto di vista funzionale sotto il quale si esaminano le proposizioni in un modo complessivo e cioè come nessi di relazioni grammaticali. In questo modo è possibile fornire una descrizione unitaria di tutte le costruzioni marcate dalla presenza di sich e tentare sistemazioni organiche degli insiemi complessi di forme e funzioni.

We begin this paper with a detailed study of Possessor Raising in Malagasy. Possessor Raising is shown to be exceptionally productive; moreover it largely conforms to the generalizations offered by Relational Grammar for Possessor Raising in general. But the incorporation it triggers is not of the same sort as studied in Baker (1996). Then we argue that Possessive Raising is a special case of a more general syntactic/semantic relation we call Raising from NP. This more general operation violates some tenets of Relational Grammar and appears to be a new type of derivational relation within generative grammar.

Une analyse syntaxique unitaire des constructions avec AVO en védique, grec ancien et latin fait l’objet de cet article. On les compare avec les constructions verbales correspondantes, actives et passives, pour déterminer les valeurs fonctionnelles qui y jouent un rôle. Une différence pertinente entre les deux types de constructions se fait jour. Une prédication projetée comme AVO entrave régulièrement la carrière du Sujet initial vers la fonction de Sujet final. La discontinuité entre les deux fonctions ne caractérise pas en revanche les constructions verbales, où le sort du Sujet initial relève de la diathèse. Ressemblances et dissemblances entre les deux types de construction, y compris le dit « datif d’agent », ne sont que des reflets de cette différence de base.

N. La Fauci centre son attention sur les différences d’« auxiliaires » c’è / il y a qui opposent le français et l’italien, et propose, dans le cade de la « grammaire relationnelle » fondée par Perlmutter, des principes réguliers qui permettent de les expliquer.

N. La Fauci centre son attention sur les différences d’« auxiliaires » c’è / il y a qui opposent le français et l’italien, et propose, dans le cade de la « grammaire relationnelle » fondée par Perlmutter, des principes réguliers qui permettent de les expliquer.

Une analyse syntaxique unitaire des constructions avec AVO en védique, grec ancien et latin fait l’objet de cet article. On les compare avec les constructions verbales correspondantes, actives et passives, pour déterminer les valeurs fonctionnelles qui y jouent un rôle. Une différence pertinente entre les deux types de constructions se fait jour. Une prédication projetée comme AVO entrave régulièrement la carrière du Sujet initial vers la fonction de Sujet final. La discontinuité entre les deux fonctions ne caractérise pas en revanche les constructions verbales, où le sort du Sujet initial relève de la diathèse. Ressemblances et dissemblances entre les deux types de construction, y compris le dit « datif d’agent », ne sont que des reflets de cette différence de base.

The metalinguistic term ‘causative’ is used in a variety of ways, and thus inconsistently, by different authors and in different frameworks. In line with the analysis in La Fauci & Mirto 2003 (Fare. Elementi di sintassi, ETS, Pisa), these pages discuss those occurrences of the Italian verb ‘strappare’ (literally ‘to tear’/'to snatch') which can be labeled as 'causative' on account of two core properties: (i) ‘strappare’ is a valency-increasing predicate licensing a new subject; (ii) in case the subject's features are either [+ Human] or [+ Animate], such values will not necessarily play a role. Therefore, the new subject's head can be an abstract noun such as ‘caduta’ ‘fall’. However, if the head is e.g. a proper noun such as ‘John’, this referent is not necessarily volitional.

Mirto, Ignazio M., Italian strappare: Unwilling vs struggling agents, in Kakoyianni-Doa F., (ed.) Penser le Lexique-Grammaire. Perspectives actuelles, Honoré Champion, Paris, 335-348, 2014.

We begin this paper with a detailed study of Possessor Raising in Malagasy. Possessor Raising is shown to be exceptionally productive; moreover it largely conforms to the generalizations offered by Relational Grammar for Possessor Raising in general. But the incorporation it triggers is not of the same sort as studied in Baker (1996). Then we argue that Possessive Raising is a special case of a more general syntactic/semantic relation we call Raising from NP. This more general operation violates some tenets of Relational Grammar and appears to be a new type of derivational relation within generative grammar.

We begin this paper with a detailed study of Possessor Raising in Malagasy. Possessor Raising is shown to be exceptionally productive; moreover it largely conforms to the generalizations offered by Relational Grammar for Possessor Raising in general. But the incorporation it triggers is not of the same sort as studied in Baker (1996). Then we argue that Possessive Raising is a special case of a more general syntactic/semantic relation we call Raising from NP. This more general operation violates some tenets of Relational Grammar and appears to be a new type of derivational relation within generative grammar.

This paper offers an argument for the superiority of a view on sentence structure based on grammatical relations compared to one based on phrase structure (PS) representation. The argument is based on the phenomenon of wh-copying in German. Wh-copying in German poses a problem for approaches based on PS representations because the construction is governed by two generalizations which a PS approach fails to capture. As soon as a relational perspective on syntactic structures is adopted, however, the generalizations can be captured. I will present an analysis for wh-copying in German within the Arc Pair Grammar framework, which does adopt such a relational view. It will be shown that the operation Replace in interaction with other principles of that framework successfully captures the two generalizations of wh-copying in German, and that it eventually even allows one to reduce the two generalizations to a single one.

This study analyses and describes the phenomenon of valency-raising in Belitong language through causativization strategy. This study is conducted under the qualitative descriptive study alongside Relational Grammar (RG) theory. The process of collecting data is done in the forms of elicitation technique, interview with the native speakers, and documentation of the previous studies as well as some additional works of literature. The data were analysed carefully by following six procedural steps of the technique of analysing qualitative data proposed by Creswell (2009). The results of this study showed that: (1) Belitong accounts for two types of causative construction: morphological and analytic causative; (2) morphological causatives are signalled out by certain markers like suffixes -an, -ek, -kan or zero marker -Ø; and (3) analytic causatives are indicated by the insertion of the productive causative additional verbs such as muat, isak, gara-gara, nyuro, base, melasa, karne, and ...

This study examines young children's number sense in subjects from Finland (n= 254), Hong Kong (n= 246), and Singapore (n= 130). Chinese, English and Finnish versions of the Early Numeracy Test (ENT; Van Luit et al., 1994) were used. Two highly correlated aspects of number sense were measured, one reflecting children's abilities to organize and compare quantities (ie relational skills), and the other pertaining to their ability to operate with number-word sequence (ie counting skills). The results showed significant age-related gain on the ...