Constraint-Based Approaches to Germanic Syntax

LibrAirie Droz 11, rue Firmin Massot |1206 Genève-Ge|0041 (0)22 346 66 66 (t)|0041(0)22 347 23 91(f)| droz@droz.org -Abstract: This article starts from the claims of Simone-Lombardi Vallauri , and further develops them. The list of natural constrainst imposed to language by the structure of the world, the human body and communication situations is completed by proposing constraints imposed by the need for representation of reality and events, the ergonomics of any system devoted to the functions of meaning and referring, the structure and potentialities of the brain itself, conceived (crucially) as a set of general-purpose abilities. Such constraints are grouped into a smaller number of macro-constraints and analyzed in some detail, so leading to general conclusions about the desirable targets of further research.

1965

One of the central assumptions of Optimality Theory is the hypothesis of strict domination among constraints. A few studies have suggested that this hypothesis is too strong and should be abandoned in favor of a weaker cumulativity hypothesis. If this suggestion is correct, we should be able to find evidence for cumulativity in the comprehension of Gapping sentences, which lack explicit syntactic clues in the form of the presence of a finite verb. On the basis of a comparison between several computational models of constraint evaluation, we conclude that the comprehension of Gapping sentences does not yield compelling evidence against the strict domination hypothesis.

Acta Linguistica Academica, 2020

2021

This paper reconsiders some core issues on the morphosyntax and semantics of deponents, and what I contend are their counterparts in languages with no fullyfledged voice paradigms, namely pseudo-reflexives in Germanic and Romance. In particular, I show that non-active voice and reflexive marking in these constructions functions as a verbalizer, specifically on the roots of these verbs, which are nominal. Consequently, at least some roots seem to be categorial, and their category and other selectional features (such as non-causative semantics) relevant for Merge. Thus, the paper provides novel evidence for the view that roots have meaning, and in particular, for the existence of entity denoting roots.

STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE, 2003

Journal of Pragmatics, 1995

Functional and pragmatic approaches to grammar, and to language more broadly, are well known. All of these approaches, however, accept a core aspect of sentences, or utterances, as consisting of encodings of propositions. They proceed on their functional and pragmatic explorations with this much, at least, taken for granted. I wish to argue, to the contrary, that the functional characteristics of utterances penetrate even to the level of the structure -the grammar -of supposed propositional encodings. More specifically, I argue that the structure that is taken as a structure of propositional encodings is not that at all, but is instead a structure of functionally organized action. Constraints on such structures, in turn -constraints on grammars -emerge as intrinsic constraints on that functional organization. My point will of necessity be made programmatically, since to fill it out completely would be to complete a functional version of universal grammar.

Linguistics and Philosophy an International Journal Austin Tex, 1983

Bibliography I more generally, the concept "grammatical." Notice that in order to set the aims of grammar significantly it is sufficient to assume q partial knowledge of sentences and non-sentences. That is. we may assume for this discussion that certain sequences of phonemes are definitely sentences, and that certain &her sequences are definitely non-sentences. In many intermediate c --ecide, when JJie . . grammar is set up in the simplest wav -< the h r sentences and excludes the clear non-sentences. This is a familiar feature of exp1ication.l A certain number of clear cases, then, will provide us with a criterion of adeauacv for any particular grammar. For a single Ian? taken in isolation, this ~rovides only a weak test of adequacy, since many different gampars may hknane the clear cases .vro~erly. This can be generalized to a very strong condition, however, if we insist that the clear cases be handled properly for each language by grammars all of which are constructed by the hat is. each grammar is related to the corpus of sentences in the language it describes in a way fixed in advance for all grammars by a given linguistic 'theory. We then have' a very strong test of adequacy for a 1ingui.stic theory that attempts to give a general explanation for the notion "grammatical sentence" in terms of "observed sentence," and for the set of grammars constructed in ' accordance with such a theory. It is furthermore a reasonable requirement', since weare interested not only in particular languages, .. but also in the general nature of Language. There is a great deal more that can be said about this crucial topic, but this would take us too far afield. Cf. 5 6. On what basis do we actually go about separating grammatical sequences from ungrammatical sequences? I shall not attempt to Cf.,; for example, N. Goodman, The structure of appearance (Cambridge, 1951), pp: 5-6. ~o t i & that to meet the aims of grammar, given a linguistic theory,, it is sufficient to have a partial knowledge of the sentences (i.e., a corpus) of the language, since a linguistic theory will state the relation between the set of observed sentences and the set of grammatical sentences; i-e., it will define "grammatical sentence" in terms of "observed sentence," certain properties of the observed sentences, and certain properties of.grammars. . Quine's formulation, a linguistic theory will give a general .explanation for what 'could' be in language on the basis of "what is plus simplicity of the laws whereby we describe and extrapolate -what is". (W. V. Quine, From a logicalpoint of view [Cambridge, 19531,~. 54). Cf. $ 6.1. ' ' * See my "Semantic considerations in grammar," Monograph no. 8, pp. 141-53 (1955), for a more detailed investigation of (117;). a Note that we cannot argue that "bank" in "the river bank" and "bank" in "the savings bank" are two occurrences of the same word, since this is precisely the'question under investigation. To say that two utterance tokens are occurrences of the same word is to say that they are not phonemically distinct, and presumably this is what thesynonymity criterion (1 17i) is supposed to determine for us.