376 research outputs found
vikner-stgt1.pdf
No full text(The beginning or end of hand-outs will not necessarily coincide with the beginning or end of particular sessions) There is no required reading for this course, except for the hand-outs. Nevertheless, here are three background papers and four (SynCom) overview papers, which can be downloaded from the course web page, www.hum.au.dk/engelsk/engsv/papers/stuttgart/. Credit: If you want to take the course for credit, you will have to attend regularly and also submit a short paper (5-6 pages) on a topic related to the course. Vikner: Germanic SOV/SVO, part I, p. 2 Abstract This hand-out will give an introduction to the overall clause structure of the Germanic languages and introduce the necessary concepts, including Verb second (V2), V°-to-I°movement and the difference between SVO-languages and SOV-languages (may often also be referred to simply as VO-languages and OV-languages)
An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis of Scandinavian Object Shift and Remnant VP-Topicalisation
No full textHolmberg (1997, 1999) assumes that Holmberg's generalisation (HG) is derivational, prohibiting Object Shift (OS) across an intervening non-adverbial element at any point in the derivation. Counterexamples to this hypothesis are given in Fox & Pesetsky (2005) which show that remnant VP-topicalisations are possible in Scandinavian as long as the VP-internal order relations are maintained. Extending the empirical basis concerning remnant VP-topicalisations, we argue that HG and the restrictions on object stranding result from the same, more general condition on order preservation. Considering this condition to be violable and to interact with various constraints on movement in an Optimality-theoretic fashion, we suggest an account for various asymmetries in the interaction between remnant VP-topicalisations and both OS and other movement operations (especially subject raising) as to their order preserving characteristics and stranding abilities.The definitive version of this paper is published in Linguistics in Potsdam 25 (2006).Engels, E., Vikner, S. (2006). An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis of Scandinavian Object Shift and Remnant VP-Topicalisation. In H. Broekhuis & R. Vogel (Eds), Linguistics in Potsdam 25. Optimality Theory and Minimalism: A possible Convergence? Potsdam : Universitätsverlag PotsdamISBN: 9783939469544 (published book
The Sign of the V: Papers in Honour of Sten Vikner
Get PDF‘The Sign of the V’ is a festschrift in honour of Sten Vikner, written by friends, colleagues, and collaborators, present and past, to celebrate both his 60th birthday and his contribution to the field of linguistics. The papers cover a wide range of topics in theoretical and empirical linguistic research, from phonetics and phonology, through morphology, semantics, and syntax, to pragmatics, as well as language acquisition, second-language learning, language processing, language teaching, language contact, historical linguistics, and language variation and change. Many different languages are featured, including the Scandinavian languages (i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish), Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, West Flemish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Scots, and Yiddish. The scope and depth of the chapters in this anthology is a clear indication of the scope and depth of Sten Vikner’s own comparative research well as his impact on the field of linguistics.‘The Sign of the V’ is a festschrift in honour of Sten Vikner, written by friends, colleagues, and collaborators, present and past, to celebrate both his 60th birthday and his contribution to the field of linguistics. The papers cover a wide range of topics in theoretical and empirical linguistic research, from phonetics and phonology, through morphology, semantics, and syntax, to pragmatics, as well as language acquisition, second-language learning, language processing, language teaching, language contact, historical linguistics, and language variation and change. Many different languages are featured, including the Scandinavian languages (i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish), Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, West Flemish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Scots, and Yiddish. The scope and depth of the chapters in this anthology is a clear indication of the scope and depth of Sten Vikner’s own comparative research well as his impact on the field of linguistics
Preliminary notes on the Merge position of deictic, anaphoric, distal and proximal demonstratives
Get PDFIn many languages the same demonstrative forms can be used either deictically (to point to some entity present in the speech act situation) or anaphorically (to refer back to some entity already mentioned in the previous discourse). In other languages deictic and anaphoric demonstratives are expressed by different forms, and in a subset of the latter group of languages the deictic and anaphoric demonstratives can co-occur, in a certain order. The two thus appear to be merged in different positions of the nominal extended projection, with deictic demonstratives arguably merged higher than anaphoric demonstratives, as is more clearly evident in certain languages. I submit that this is true of all languages even if most do not provide any overt indication of a different Merge positions. Some languages also appear to provide evidence that distal and proximal demonstratives are merged in distinct positions of the nominal extended projection
Rethinking remerge: Merge, movement and music
No full textIn an influential paper, Katz & Pesetsky (2011) present the identity thesis for language and music, stating that “[a]ll formal differences between language and music are a consequence of differences in their fundamental building blocks (arbitrary pairings of sound and meaning in the case of language; pitch classes and pitch-class combinations in the case of music). In all other respects, language and music are identical.” Katz & Pesetsky argue that, just like syntactic structures, musical structures are generated by (binary) Merge, for which they provide a number of arguments: for instance, musical structures are endocentric (each instance of Merge in music, just like in language, has a labelling head). They also argue that movement phenomena (i.e., the application of Internal Merge) can be attested in both language and music. While fully endorsing the view that musical structures are the result of multiple applications of External (binary) Merge, this paper argues that the arguments in favour of the presence of Internal Merge in music are at best inconclusive and arguably incorrect. This is, however, not taken as an argument against the identity thesis for language and music; rather, I take it to follow from it: the identity thesis for language and music reduces all differences between language and music to its basic building blocks. If the application of Internal Merge in natural language is driven by uninterpretable features (cf. Chomsky 1995; 2001; Bošković 2007; Zeijlstra 2012) that are language-specific and not applicable to music (the reason being that only building blocks that are pairings of sound and meaning can be made up of interpretable and uninterpretable features), the direct consequence is that Internal Merge cannot be triggered in music either
CP-recursion and the derivation of verb second in Germanic main and embedded clauses
No full textThis paper will give an overview of the verb second (V2) phenomenon, as found in both main and embedded clauses in Germanic, and it will also explore a particular derivation of (embedded) V2, in terms of a cP/CP-distinction.All the Germanic languages except modern English (but including e. g. Old English) are V2, i. e. in all declarative main clauses and in all wh-questions, the finite verb is in the second position, regardless of whether the first position is occupied by the subject or by some other constituent. This can be extended to yes/no-questions, provided it is assumed that the first position in such questions is empty (and such an assumption is supported by the fact that it allows an account for Greenberg’s 1963: 83 “Universal 11”, cf. Vikner 2007).No particular type of embedded clause in Germanic ever requires V2, and although V2 is optionally possible in many embedded clauses, this is normally not the case for all types of embedded clauses, as e. g. embedded questions (almost) never allow V2 (Julien 2007, Vikner 2001, though see McCloskey 2006 and Biberauer 2015).As in Nyvad et al. (2016), I will explore a particular derivation of (embedded) V2, in terms of a cP/ CP-distinction, which may be seen as a version of the CP-recursion analysis (deHaan & Weerman 1986, Vikner 1995 and many others). The idea is that because embedded V2 clauses do not allow extraction, whereas other types of CP-recursion clauses do (Christensen et al. 2013a; Christensen et al. 2013b; Christensen & Nyvad 2014), CP-recursion in embedded V2 is assumed to be fundamentally different from other kinds of CP-recursion, in that main clause V2 and embedded V2 involve a CP (“big CP”), whereas other clausal projections above IP are instances of cP (“little cP”).publishe
wood-vikner-ho-Essex-2014-02-27
No full textSuch is Abstract We investigate the etymologically related words: so and such (English); så and sådan (Danish); and so and solch (German). Similarities and differences that have to be accounted for cross-linguistically are i) position (pre-or post-indefinite article), ii) semantics (degree or referential readings) and iii) agreement morphology (in Danish and German). English such may have either a degree reading or an identifying (referential) reading and may only precede the indefinite article. Danish and German allow inflected sådan/solch to follow the article. English and Danish so/så only have a degree reading, while German so may be identifying. We discuss two possible syntactic derivations, predicate raising and XP movement from an attributive adjective position within the nominal. The analysis accounts for the morphological agreement of predicate and attributive adjectives in Danish and German
From macro to nano: A parametric hierarchy approach to the diatopic and diachronic variation of Italian ben
No full textIn this squib we discuss the morpho-syntactic requirements affecting the distribution of the Italian discourse particle ben (lit. ‘well’) as employed in a selection of regional varieties of the language, we present a preliminary comparison with its attestations in earlier stages of the language and we show how the attested diatopic and diachronic variation may be modelled in terms of a parameter hierarchy of the type developed by the ReCoS team
<em>Sin</em>, <em>hendes</em> og KorpusDK
No full textWe will briefly present our analysis of the four reflexive/non-reflexive types of pronouns in Danish (jf. Vikner 1985 and Ehlers & Vikner 2017), which each have to comply with two conditions: One type of condition on elements with/without selv (i.e. sig/hende vs. sig selv/ hende selv), and another type of condition on elements with/without sig (i.e. sig/sig selv vs. hende/hende selv). We will then show how the difference between the reflexive possessive and the non-reflexive possessives (sin vs. hendes) fits into this system, and we will examine how compatible our predictions are with data from the Danish national corpus, KorpusDK. We assume that sin corresponds to both sig and sig selv, and we argue against the view that there is a difference between sin and sin egen which corresponds to the difference between sig and sig selv. Finally we will discuss the language change that seems to be taking place at the moment, from a situation where sin may only have a singular antecedent to the new situation where sin may also have a plural antecedent.</jats:p
An from Old to Middle English
Get PDFA pilot study investigating the use of a(n) in Middle English texts, to determine whether the stage of development where a(n) acts as an overt existential operator, attested in Old english, continues into Middle English, and whether we can see the beginning of the later stage, where it is reduced to an expletive
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