On the basis of syntactic and morphological evidence from West Greenlandic (WG) antipassive (AP) constructions, I argue against the view that the AP affix is nominal. The fact that the transitivizing and the antipassive affixes in a number of verbs are in complementary distribution, leads me to conclude that they both realize a light verb, transitivizing v, one on the ERG-NOM pattern, the other on the NOM-ACC pattern. Nominalization facts of the two clause types indicate their syntactic structure, with possible implications for the semantic interpretation of the object and the position of the ergative subject.
While standard Norwegian is a V2 language, some Norwegian dialects exhibit V3 in certain types of wh-questions. In some previous work on the Tromsø dialect, V3 has been considered the ‘true’ dialect and speakers' acceptance of V2 simply a result of the influence from the standard language. Based on child and adult data from a study of the acquisition of word order in the Tromsø dialect, I will argue that both V2 and V3 orders are part of the dialect – used by adult speakers and acquired (more or less) simultaneously by children. It will further be argued that the choice between the two depends on the information structure of the sentence, more specifically, on the interpretation of the subject as given or new information.
One of the main topics on the study of the relationship between syntax and morphology is
(deverbal) nominalizations. In this area, several generalizations that tie the morphological
make-up with the syntactic structure have been made. Most relevantly, it has been argued that only overt nominalizations (those that include a nominalizer like -ation or -ment) are allowed to have internal arguments introduced in their structural representation. In this paper, we address some previously unexplained apparent counterexamples to this generalization, and we argue that they can be captured if particular restrictions on the spell out of the syntactic structure are taken into consideration.
In the present article we are offering a corpus-based analysis of nu-drop in Russian verbs, the process whereby certain verbs with the suffix -nu- omit this morpheme in past tense forms. We will explore phonological, morphological and syntactic/semantic factors and show that inflectional and derivational morphology are the most important for nu-drop. Our study of the inflectional and derivational morphological categories yields a polarized general picture; the categories display either close to 100% Ø-forms (i.e. forms without -nu-) or close to 0% such forms, while no categories are in the middle of the scale.
Moreover, a diachronic survey of the development between the 19th and 21st centuries indicates increasing polarization, insofar as increasing percentages of Ø-forms are attested among forms with high percentages of Ø-forms, whereas decrease is characteristic of forms with low percentages of Ø-forms.
We undertake a detailed analysis of the two closely related Russian aspectual prefixes vy- and iz. The meanings of these prefixes are analyzed in terms of networks of related subcategories, termed radial categories. This method facilitates precise comparison of submeanings and statistical analysis. Our analysis
sharpens the traditional insight that elements of Church Slavic origin like iz- have a more abstract meaning than historically East Slavic elements like vy-. Furthermore, the distribution of meanings attested gives support to the hypothesis that the meanings of base verbs and prefixes overlap in the formation of prefixed
aspectual partner verbs, contra the tradition of the so-called “empty prefix”.
Post, Margje(Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel, 2007)
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Abstract:
In Russian dialectology, most data are collected by means of traditional
methodology. Most dialectologists use questionnaires, mainly for
lexicographic purposes, which is a highly developed field of research in
Russian dialectology, as in Russian linguistics in general. In addition,
spontaneous monologues and dialogues are recorded. The language
consultants are elderly inhabitants of remote villages. The dialectological
data obtained through these methods do not allow direct comparative
studies of prosodic properties, which is the topic of my current research
project,1 such as syllable length, syllable strength and intonation.