Search results for "Locative case"
showing 8 items of 8 documents
Play it by ear? An ERP study of Chinese polysemous verb yǒu
2021
Abstract Mandarin Chinese yŏu is a polysemous verb. It can be interpreted as meaning either ‘have’ or ‘there be/exist’ in sentences of the form ‘NP1 yŏu NP2’, which can correspondingly be analyzed as either a Have-Possessive construction (‘NP1 has NP2’) or an existential/locative construction (‘(At/in) NP1 there is NP2’), or both. This study used event-related brain potentials to investigate whether and how the interpretation of yŏu in a given ‘NP1 yŏu NP2’ construction is determined by the semantics of the nouns involved and their relationship. Twenty-seven participants read sentences of this construction. The results showed that there were different patterns of brain activity that can be …
The Development of Spatial Location in Finnish
1991
Abstract The purpose of this research was to study the shift from mono- to bi-referential spatial location in the language of Finnish children. Monoreferential location is based on the intrinsic properties of a referent object and the proximity relationship, and bireferential location requires coordinated spatial relationships involving referent objects and a projective relationship. Locative expressions which are monoreferential include: in/on/under and intrinsic front/back, and those which are bireferential include deictic front/back and between. A pictorial representation of locative relationships with a sentence-picture matching task was used to present the mono- vs bi-referential contr…
Transitivity prominence within and across modalities
2020
The idea of transitivity as a scalar phenomenon is well known (e.g., Hopper & Thompson 1980; Tsunoda 1985; Haspelmath 2015). However, as with most areas of linguistic study, it has been almost exclusively studied with a focus on spoken languages. A rare exception to this is Kimmelman (2016), who investigates transitivity in Russian Sign Language (RSL) on the basis of corpus data. Kimmelman attempts to establish a transitivity prominence hierarchy of RSL verbs, and compares this ranking to the verb meanings found in the ValPal database (Hartmann, Haspelmath & Bradley 2013). He arrives at the conclusion that using the frequency of overt objects in corpus data is a successful measure o…
Progressive and habitual aspects in Central Mande
2004
This paper examines the marking of progressive and habitual aspects in a cluster of closely related languages (Central Mande) and in a number of dialects in one of these languages (Manding) within the framework of grammaticalization theory. It is shown that the habitual forms go back to a generalization of the progressive aspect and that the progressive forms do derive from locative periphrastic constructions. Furthermore, evidence is provided for the fact that the evolution of progressives in Central Mande occurs in morphological cycles and that the various synchronic progressive constructions can be classified into different layers of grammaticalization. Finally, the consequences of the d…
The zoom-on-possessee construction in Kam (Dong): the anatomy of a new construction type
2005
Kam, a Kadai language spoken in Guizhou province (People's Republic of China), has a family of intransitive possessive constructions with the word order ‘Possessor–Verb–Possessee’. (The basic word order in Kam is SV and AVO.) While two recent papers have featured this unique construction type for an array of other Southeast Asian languages, they fail to acknowledge its distinct semantic value in contrast to the related construction type ‘Possessee–Possessor–Verb’. The former construction type displays a so-called ‘zoom-effect’: the possessor is predicated IN, AT or THROUGH his/her/its possessee; the predication zooms from the possessor on his/her/its possessee. The latter construction, in c…
The translation of Italian verb-particle constructions into French. The case of "Caos Calmo"
2020
Italian verb-particle constructions (VPCs) are generally formed of a verb base (V) and a locative particle (P). In French VPCs are less productive than in Italian, since their constituents are subject to strict combinatorial restrictions. In this paper, the morphosyntactic structures that are most often used to translate Italian VPCs into French will be determined. In order to do so, an Italian-French parallel corpus consisting of the novel Caos calmo (Veronesi, 2005) and its translation will be analysed. Firstly, an inventory of the VPCs that were found within the corpus will be offered. Secondly, these constructions will be analysed under a quantitative and qualitative point of view. Thir…
A Conceptual Restructuring of Spatial Motion Expressions in Chinese L2
2018
This paper focuses on the patterns in the encoding of spatial motion events that play a major role in the acquisition of these type of expressions. The goal is to single out the semantic contribution of the linguistic items which surface in Chinese locative constructions. In this way, we intend to provide learners with an account of the spatial representation encoded in the Chinese language. In fact, Chinese grammar is often perceived as idiosyncratic, thus generating a frustration that turns into learned helplessness (Maier and Seligman, 1976). We will analyze Talmy (2000a,b) framework under the light of investigations such as Landau and Jackendoff (1993), Svenonius (2004, 2006, 2007), and…
Subject case alternation in negated existential, locative, and possessive clauses in Latvian
2018
[full article and abstract in English]
 The goal of this article is to analyse the alternation between the genitive and nominative cases in Latvian. As the alternation between genitive and nominative cases is possible in all clauses in which the verb būt ‘to be’ is used as an independent verb, this article examines existential, locative, and also possessive clauses, while also demonstrating that distinguishing these clause types is problematic for Latvian utilising the criteria given in the linguistic literature. Clauses containing the negative form of būt ‘to be’, i.e. nebūt, form the foundation of those selected for this study, as only in these sentences the genitive/nominative alter…