Silent Syntactic Structures in Malay: Copular Clauses

Topics in Linguistics, 2020

This research is conducted qualitatively and aimed at patterning and describing clause and sentence structure in Lampung language through the configuration of its constituents. Regarding the constituents, Lampung has two types of clause: minor and major clauses. A minor clause is indicated by only one constituent, which is commonly a subject, predicate or adjunct. Regarding its function, it can be classified as vocative, shown by exclamation (Wuy!, Huy!); a greeting, as shown by an expression (tabikpun ngalam pukha); and an Arabic greeting (assalamualaikum). On the other hand, a major clause minimally consists of a subject and predicate, and apart from these there can also be an object, complement and adverbial. Furthermore, this research finds various categories that can act as predicative constituents: they are a verb/verbal phrase, adjective/adjective phrase, and noun/nominal phrase. Additionally, a copular verb (iyulah) and existential marker (wat) can also be the predicate. Thi...

Lingua, 2008

Although the neutral clauses of standard Indonesian are SVO, the language also permits verb-initial word order, and belongs to a branch of the Austronesian language family that was probably originally verb-initial. An analysis of Indonesian clause structure is investigated which exploits these connections, inspired by Cole and Hermon's analysis of the closely related language Toba Batak. In this analysis, VP must raise to the specifier of T and the subject can then raise to a specifier outside the clause proper. Such an analysis is shown to be inferior to an analysis of standard Indonesian in which SVO clauses are derived by simply raising the subject to the specifier of T. Evidence is presented that in some varieties of standard Indonesian, but not others, verb-initial clauses are derived by raising VP to an even higher specifier. Overall, the investigation serves to highlight some of the empirical considerations that can be brought to bear on 'abstract' analyses of clause structure. #

2009

2021

This is a study of copular clauses in Guinea-Bissau Kriol (Guinean/Ginensi) and of related syntactic and semantic aspects. It aims to answer to the following questions: (i) Does the taxonomy of copular clauses apply to the case of Guinean? (ii) How does the semantics cope with the syntax? Do the semantic properties of the subject and complement of copular clauses affect the syntactic structure? (iii) Do substrate/adstrate languages have any influence on the syntactic behavior of copular clauses in GN?

1998

This paper deals with the voice system of Indonesian, and argues that certain of the constructions traditionally analysed as passives, should be given a different treatment, parallel to arguments by Kroeger (1993) for Tagalog. We examine the role of different conceptions of subject and their place in binding. We show that, unlike other Western Austronesian languages, the logical subjectl-subject for short (i.e., the semantically most prominent argument) plays little role in binding: being a logicalsubject alone does not make an argument a binder. Syntactic prominence is crucial, and in particular the data on binding in Indonesian presented here further confirms the notion of syntacticised argument structured (a-str) first proposed in Manning (1994, 1996b) and also adopted in Arka (1998) wherein a central role is given to the notion of a-subject. Like other Austronesian languages, the (surface) grammatical subject (i.e., the SUBJ in the f-structure or gr-subject for short) plays little role, especially in the binding of morphologically complex reflexives. The data from binding is supported by other syntactic tests such as topicalisation with pronominal copy.

This paper deals with the voice system of Indonesian, and argues that certain of the constructions traditionally analysed as passives, should be given a different treatment, parallel to arguments by for Tagalog. We examine the role of different conceptions of subject and their place in binding. We show that, unlike other Western Austronesian languages, the logical subject -l-subject for short (i.e., the semantically most prominent argument) plays little role in binding: being a logicalsubject alone does not make an argument a binder. Syntactic prominence is crucial, and in particular the data on binding in Indonesian presented here further confirms the notion of syntacticised argument structured (a-str) first proposed in Manning (1994 and also adopted in Arka (1998) wherein a central role is given to the notion of a-subject. Like other Austronesian languages, the (surface) grammatical subject (i.e., the SUBJ in the f-structure or gr-subject for short) plays little role, especially in the binding of morphologically complex reflexives. The data from binding is supported by other syntactic tests such as topicalisation with pronominal copy.

Open Linguistics, 2021

Clause chaining is a form of syntactic dependency holding between a series of clauses, typically expressing temporal or causal relations between events. Prosodic hierarchy theory proposes that syntactic constituents are systematically mapped to prosodic constituents, but most versions of the theory do not account for clause chain syntax. This article presents original data from Matukar Panau, a clause-chaining Oceanic (Austronesian) language of Papua New Guinea. The clause chain is a syntactic constituent in which final-clause TAM scopes over preceding clauses. There are also other types of multi-clausal structures, encompassing subordinate adverbial clauses, and verbless copula clauses, and we analyse all these as instances of the "syntactic sentence." The syntactic sentence maps to a distinct prosodic domain, marked by the scaling of L% boundary tones, and we equate this domain with the "utterance phrase" posited in some versions of prosodic hierarchy theory. The prosodic characteristics of the Matukar Panau utterance phrase are similar to those found in non-chaining languages, but while other languages use this prosody to mark pragmatically related groups of clauses, in Matukar Panau it most commonly maps to a syntactic sentence.

University of Victoria, 2019

In this dissertation I provide an account of the distribution of Korean clause-typing markers from the perspective of a formal typological model, the Universal Spine Hypothesis (Wiltschko, 2014, 2017). Although Korean clause-typing markers have both syntactic properties (expressing force/mood, Chomsky 2000, 2001) and pragmatic properties (expressing speech styles, Sohn 1999), my investigation focuses on the morphosyntactic properties of clause-typing markers in single-layered and double-layered CPs. I detail their ability to transmit clause type, their compatibility with TAM elements, and their incompatibility with subordinators and speech act elements. My central claim is that, through an association with the linking spine (i.e., CP in generative grammar), clause-typing markers, including ta and e, construct Korean language-specific categories. Clause-typing markers interact with a syntactic domain encoding the common ground of speech participants, the grounding spine. My dissertation has two major findings. First, the morphophonological realization of C is obligatory in both finite and non-finite clauses. I therefore propose a Clause Complementation Parameter (CCP)—all clauses must have a complementizer, and a C must have a correspondent PF realization. This accounts for the expletive-like dummy complementizers e and ci which can fill the head of the three basic clause types. Second, functional elements selecting clause-typing markers support the existence of syntactic projections above the traditional CP. For instance, iterative ko and hearsay y in reiterated and hearsay utterances, respectively, must be associated with the syntactic domain above CP. I argue that along with polite yo and intonation, they construct Korean language-specific categories through their association with the three universal categorizers k: linking, k: grounding, and k: responding. This is formulated as [RespP [GroundP [LinkingP [AnchoringP …-ssPAST] -taDECL] -yHEARSAY] (-yoPOLITE) -↑]. Investigations of the distributions of periphrastic irrealis clause-typing markers and multifunctional clause-typing markers contribute to our understanding of the multifaceted nature of category C: the periphrastic irrealis markers show that C with T can restrict the person feature on the subject. The interpretations of multifunctional markers in different morphosyntactic contexts show that their properties emerge in two ways: through interaction with local elements in the domain or by virtue of their association with hierarchically distinct domains. Assuming the Universal Spine Hypothesis, I have accounted for the morphosyntactic properties of Korean clause-typing markers by proposing language-specific categories considering the functional layers. This dissertation offers a more complete account of Korean grammar but also will provide an explanation for cross-linguistic differences in encoding of clause-typing—Units of Languages change how C appears.

Formal linguistics is a leading theoretical approach to analyze syntactic structures of languages in the western world for a long time. As far as they concern, all languages have predetermined universal structures. Sinhala is a living language which has two forms for written and colloquial usages. This paper critically investigates the syntactic structures of colloquial Sinhala and aims to find and understand whether we have predetermined syntactic structures as formal linguistic concerns. In this study, the major research problem has been confined to find solutions for the problem of ―do we have predetermined syntactic structures in colloquial Sinhala?‖ The main objective is to explore functional realizations of colloquial Sinhala in order to understand whether we have predetermined structures in colloquial usages of Sinhala language. The method of this research work is empirical data analyses in a theoretical manner. In analyzing gathered data two theoretical concerns were taken into account. Those are formal and functional approaches to analyze syntaxes of languages. The master piece of this research work is the results and discussions chapter where colloquial Sinhala syntaxes are analyzed by taking into account particularly functional linguistic (discoursive grammar) concerns. Here the researcher critically analyzes different types of syntactic realizations in colloquial Sinhala in a functional point of view. Summing up the findings; concluding remarks have found that we have no predetermined syntactic structures in colloquial Sinhala even though we find them in written Sinhala to a certain extent. And also findings of our research work prove that we cannot predict universal syntactic structures in colloquial Sinhala without understanding their contextual applications. It was realized that there are different syntactic structures in colloquial Sinhala such as SVO, SOV and OVS.

This paper is tries to contrast the Syntactic structures between Arabic and Malay. The paper starts with introduction about contrastive study, then descriptive study for some aspects related to syntax of Malay and Arabic, as word-order, noun phrase, passive voice, object, and sentence, then followed by syntax of Arabic as well. Arabic structures were studied, the subject of nominal sentence and verbal sentence are described as well as Malay. The study contrasts between both languages by comparing the subject in syntax, and found out some similarities in nominal sentences, conditional sentence and specified the differences in subject NP immediately dominated by the node S is the subject. Keywords Arabic syntax - Malay syntax – contrastive study- similarities differences – difficulties