scholarly journals Participial Perception Verb Complements in Old English

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Brian Lowrey
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Perception Verbs ◽  
Present Participle

Abstract In this paper, I shall examine the complements of perception verbs in Old English involving a noun phrase and a present participle. What kind of perception is described by these structures? Do they evoke the perception of an event, or that of an entity? It will be shown here that there are good reasons to believe that an NP + present participle sequence could function as the equivalent of the traditional “AcI” construction when used with perception verbs. I shall also attempt to determine to what extent the syntax of this construction matches the semantics: is the internal argument of the perception verb the NP alone, or some kind of combination of the NP and the participle? This question is particularly interesting in the light of Declerck’s (1982) remarks on participle perception verb complements in modern English. Finally, I shall take a look at morphological parametres: sometimes the participle inflects to agree with the NP, whereas on other occasions it does not. What might the implications of this kind of variation be?

Reducing ‘case’ to denotational primitives

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Rita Manzini ◽  
Leonardo M. Savoia
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
Late Insertion

The nominal inflection system of Albanian includes specifications of case, definiteness, number and nominal class (gender). Our analysis recognizes three types of properties as theoretically relevant, namely N(ominal class), Q(quantification), D(efiniteness). Q inflections are responsible for the so-called oblique case - effectively a dyadic operator yielding a ‘zonal inclusion’ (possession) relation between the element to which it attaches and the internal argument of the verb (dative) or the head of a noun phrase (genitive). Q inflections are further responsible for plurality, while N inflections satisfy argument-of contexts (accusative)and D characterizes EPP contexts(nominative). Syncretisms (e.g. of dative and genitive, nominative and accusative) are not the result of morphological rules requiring Late Insertion of exponents (Distributed Morphology). Rather they are instances of ambiguity, resolved in the syntax (different embeddings) or at the interpretive interface. As such they are compatible with projection of the morphosyntax from lexical entries. Keywords: Case, nominative, accusative, oblique, syncretism, nominal class, plural, definiteness, possessor, locative.

scholarly journals The lemmatization of Old English Verbs from the second weak class on a lexical database

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Marta Tío Sáenz
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Second Person ◽  
The Past ◽  
Present Participle ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Weak Verbs

This article compiles a list of lemmas of the second class weak verbs of Old English by using the latest version of the lexical database Nerthus, which incorporates the texts of the Dictionary of Old English Corpus. Out of all the inflecional endings, the most distinctive have been selected for lemmatization: the infinitive, the inflected infinitive, the present participle, the past participle, the second person present indicative singular, the present indicative plural, the present subjunctive singular, the first and third person of preterite indicative singular, the second person of the preterite indicative singular, the preterite indicative plural and the preterite subjunctive plural. When it is necessary to regularize, normalization is restricted to correspondences based on dialectal and diachronic variation. The analysis turns out a total of 1,064 lemmas of weak verbs from the second class.

scholarly journals Expanded tenses in the old English orosius a syntactic strengthening*

Linguistica ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-46
Author(s):  
Frančiška Trobevšek Drobnak
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Verbal Aspect ◽  
Present Participle ◽  
Expanded Form

The present chapter reports the investigation into certain aspects of the periphrastic construction to be +present participle (e.g. NE: "he is teaching"; OE. "he is laerende") viewed as an example of a syntactic strengthening. The construc­ tion is usually referred to as "continuous tenses/form" or "progressive tenses/form", whereas Nickel (1966) uses "expanded form". Coming closest to this latter term, the "expanded tenses" employed here seems a convenient label for two reasons: a)  the use of expanded tenses is not restricted to the expression of verbal aspect (Aspekt) or mode of verbal action (Aktionsart), which is implied by the use of either the term "continuous  tenses/form" or the term "progressive tenses/form"; b)  the expanded tenses are integrated into the English tense system, in the sense that they can be substituted  with the respective non-expanded tenses without any change in the syntax of the clause, e.g.

scholarly journals Conceptualization in the english gerund and its spanish equivalents: a contrastive cognitive study

2012 ◽  
pp. 249
Author(s):  
Mª Ángeles Gómez Castejón
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Perception Verbs ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Different Levels

The English gerund and its Spanish equivalents show different levels of conceptualization when carrying out a contrastive study. In particular, we will focus on the conceptualization of the Spanish equivalents which correspond to the English construction [physical perception verb + Noun Phrase + -ing form]. There are certain difficulties in relation to our study. Firstly, the traditional characterization of the English gerund, based on tense and aspect criteria, proves to be inadequate to establish its meaning. Secondly, the -ing form with physical perception verbs has been interpreted as a participle. In this paper, we will propose that the -ing form with physical perception verbs can also have a gerundial reading. In addition, we will argue that the cognitive approach provides a valid characterization of the English gerund which constitutes, in turn, the base for the contrastive cognitive study. Regarding the contrastive study, the Spanish equivalents exploit, in general, the eventive reading of the English gerund.El gerundio inglés y sus equivalentes españoles muestran diferentes niveles de conceptualización al llevar a cabo un estudio contrastivo. En particular, nos centramos en la conceptualización de los equivalentes españoles que corresponden a la construcción inglesa [verbos de percepción física + frase nominal+ forma en -ing]. Hay ciertas dificultades relacionadas con nuestro estudio. En primer lugar, la caracterización tradicional del gerundio inglés, basada en criterios temporales y aspectuales, no resulta adecuada para establecer su significado. En segundo lugar, la forma en -ing con verbos de percepción física se ha interpretado como participio. En este artículo, proponemos que la forma en -ing con verbos de percepción física puede tener también una lectura gerundiva. Además, sostenemos que el enfoque cognitivo proporciona una caracterización válida del gerundio inglés que constituye, a su vez, la base para el estudio contrastivo cognitivo. En cuanto al estudio contrastivo, los equivalentes españoles explotan, en general, la lectura eventiva del gerundio inglés.

scholarly journals Reflexives and Reciprocals in English and Modern Standard Arabic: An Investigation and a Comparison

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 955-968
Author(s):  
Shaimaa Darwish
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Modern Standard Arabic ◽  
Morphological Marker ◽  
Standard Arabic ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Literary Arabic ◽  
Modern Standard

The aim of this paper is to investigate the typology of reflexives and reciprocals in English and MSA, which is a variety of standardized, literary Arabic used throughout Arab countries. It has shown that MSA morphologically encoded reflexives and reciprocals are in fact syntactically and semantically asymmetrical. It will be argued that morphologically encoded reflexives do not project an anaphor (an internal argument) syntactically and their morphological marker semantically serves as a reflexivizer, whereas morphologically encoded reciprocals do project an anaphor syntactically, realized either overtly or covertly. Concerning the distribution of such anaphor, the paper elucidates the admissible and in admissible environments. It is argued that MSA does not allow possessive reflexives, but allow possessive reciprocals such as the construct-state, whether it be a noun phrase or a locative prepositional phrase. This variation is accounted for by assuming that reciprocals occupy Spec of DP and therefore can be bound by an NP from a higher phase, whereas reflexives occupy a position lower than the D head and thus must be bound within their DP phase. Finally yet importantly, MSA override reflexives and reciprocals unlike their English counterparts, are always subject to the Principle A of the Binding Theory.

scholarly journals The Present and Past Participles in the Medieval English Translations of St. John’s Gospel from Latin

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Lidija Štrmelj ◽  
Milenko Lončar
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Present Participle ◽  
John's Gospel ◽  
Finite Verb

The present participle and past participle, together with the infinitive, have a long history in English; this is quite contrary to finite verb forms, which mostly developed during the Middle English period. Participles were already in use in the earliest stages of the language and performed functions similar to those of the present active participle and perfect passive participle in Latin. Therefore, one may assume that Latin participles are rendered into Old English and Middle English mostly by means of their English equivalents. It appears, however, that this was not the case. The data provided in our research lead us to the conclusion that the implementation of participles in English was rather difficult and slow, at least when it comes to the Gospel translations. This paper shows what was used instead – for example, various types of clauses; it also shows the reasons for this (such as ambiguity hidden sometimes in participles).

English in the ‘transition period’: the sources of contact-induced change

Contact ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert McColl Millar
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
The North ◽  
Celtic Languages ◽  
Germanic Languages

Perhaps the central chapter of Contact, we focus here on the rapid and radical changes English passed through in relation to inflectional morphology (in particular but not exclusively in the noun phrase) in the later Old English and early Middle English periods. Comparison is made to other Germanic languages; the concept of drift is introduced. Theories for why these changes occurred and why the changes took place where, when and how they did are considered, with particular focus on earlier contact explanations. Recent proposals that bilingualism with Celtic languages was the primary impetus for the changes are critiqued. It is suggested that, while Celtic influence should not be dismissed, it is contact between Old English and Old Norse in the North of England which acted as catalyst. This contact is seen as a koine whose origin is markedly similar to that postulated for modern new dialects.

The noun phrase and the ‘Viking Hypothesis’

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Crisma ◽  
Susan Pintzuk
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Direct Descendant ◽  
Traditional Account ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
English Noun

ABSTRACTIn this article we use the syntax of the noun phrase to evaluate two competing hypotheses: the traditional account, that Middle English is a West Germanic language with Old English as its immediate ancestor, and Emonds and Faarlund's (2014) proposal, that Middle English is a North Germanic language, the direct descendant of Old Norse. The development of nominal syntax shows that the Middle English noun phrase can be derived only from Old English, not from Old Norse. We examine six nominal characteristics; in each case, we find in Middle English exactly the construction that one would expect given the nominal syntax of previous Old English stages. The evidence from Old Norse shows that, although some of the same constructions did develop in the same way in the attested Norse varieties, the development occurred only at a later stage, too late to have affected the syntax of Middle English.

scholarly journals Constructions Waxing and Waning: A Brief History of the Zero-Secondary Predicate Construction

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Frauke D’hoedt ◽  
Hendrik De Smet ◽  
Hubert Cuyckens
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Semantic Classification ◽  
English Prose ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Shed Light

In the English Secondary Predicate Construction (SPC), a predicative relation between a noun phrase (NP) and a “secondary predicate” (XP) is established by a main verb ( He finds Verb her NP attractive XP). While the syntactic nature of this construction has received ample attention from a synchronic perspective, this study aims to shed light on the diachronic developments of the SPC. First, using data from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) and the Penn corpora, a classification is proposed of the verbs occurring in the SPC. Based on this semantic classification, the development of the SPC is then traced from Old English to Late Modern English in terms of frequency and productivity. It is argued that, while the various classes of SPC-taking verbs often show opposite developments, these lower-level incongruities are resolved at a higher schematic level, as the SPC as a whole underwent a process of internalization. These findings underscore the importance of lower-level developments in the diachronic behavior of schematic constructions and consequently contribute to the literature on constructional change.

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