Communicative and formal-grammatical structure of sentences-utterances with quantity predicates

The article characterizes the communicative and formal-grammatical structure of sentences with quantity predicates of the type ЇХ БУЛО СІМ. Ukrainian linguists divide such sentences into genitive subject and numeral predicate, taking into account the semantic and positional criteria (left-handed subject, quantitative predicate). The author of the study differentiates aspects of sentence organization by criteria: intonation-positional means (communicative aspect), syntactic connections (formal-grammatical aspect). Communicative analysis shows that such sentences are one of the options of sentence implementation in speech. In the communicative paradigm of a sentence they relate to an articulated and contextually dependent type of utterance (complex theme – genitive noun and verb – denote given, rheme – numeral – denotes new). Numerous examples of sentences with the same morphological set of words (independent numeral, dependent noun, verb) show the relations between members of the communicative paradigm of the sentence; the question of specificity of semantics of noun and verb components is considered. Formal-grammatical analysis reflects the structure of a two-member sentence that combines a complex subject (an integral connection of the main nominative-numeral and the dependent genitive-noun) and a simple verb predicate (conditional-grammatical agreement with the subject). The communicative structure of the sentence is derived, because it was formed as a result of rupture of the complex subject and transfer of the genitive noun to the initial position of the sentence-utterance. Conclusions about the asymmetric nature of relations between different levels of articulation of this type of sentence-utterance were made.

Insights on the Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin generalization: Quantitative typological data on classifiers and plural markers

This paper offers quantitative typological data to investigate a revised version of the Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin generalization (GSSG), which states that (a) a language is unlikely to have both sortal classifiers and morphosyntactic plural markers, and (b) if a language does have both, then their use is in complementary distribution. Morphosyntactic plurals engage in grammatical agreement outside the noun phrase, while morphosemantic plurals that relate to collective and associative marking do not. A database of 400 phylogenetically and geographically weighted languages was created to test this generalization. The statistical test of conditional inference trees was applied to investigate the effect of areal, phylogenetic, and linguistic factors on the distribution of classifiers and morphosyntactic plural markers. The results show that the presence of classifiers is affected by areal factors as most classifier languages are concentrated in Asia. Yet, the low ratio of languages with both features simultaneously is still statistically significant. Part (a) of the GSSG can thus be seen as a statistical universal. We then look into the few languages that do have both features and tentatively conclude that part (b) also seems to hold but further investigation into some of these languages is needed.

Humans, Animals, Things and Animacy

Animacy influences the patterns of subject-verb agreement marking in many languages, including Persian and Inari Saami. In Persian, animate plural subjects trigger plural agreement on the verb, whereas inanimate subjects may or may not trigger agreement. The variation is governed by factors such as personification, agency and distributivity. In Inari Saami, verbs fully agree with human subjects and verbs partially agree with inanimate subjects. Verbs may or may not agree with subjects referring to animals. We argue that the intricate interaction between biological animacy and grammatical agreement in these two languages warrants careful consideration of the tripartite distinction between biological animacy in the world, our conceptualization of animacy and formal animacy features in the grammar.

Towards a typology of prominent internal possessors

It is generally assumed that properties of the phrasal head determine the properties of a syntactic phrase as a whole. This chapter shows that some possessive constructions present a challenge to these assumptions, since in such constructions internal possessors, standardly analysed as dependents of possessed head nouns, exhibit a number of head-like properties. These properties determine the behaviour of the whole phrase in the larger syntactic domain. Such possessors are referred to as ‘prominent internal possessors’ (PIPs). The chapter provides a typological overview of PIPs based on a survey of approximately sixty languages from different parts of the world. It discusses the role of PIPs in two syntactic processes, namely, indexing on the verb via grammatical agreement or pronominal incorporation and switch-reference, as well as accompanying functional effects. It also addresses the question of how the phenomenon of PIPs can be accounted for in theoretical terms.

Effect of Topic-prominent Features of Mandarin Chinese on English Writing

Mandarin Chinese features a subject-verb-object word order and lacks grammatical agreement of any sort. It is basically a head-last language with the modifiers preceding the head word. Other prominent grammatical features include serial verb construction, resultative complement and the double nominative constructions. My paper focuses on the role of topic and subject in Mandarin, drawing on three views on Chinese syntactic structures, namely, SVO approach, topic-comment approach, and topic-prominence approach. A comparison is made among the different views and a conclusion is drawn that topic-prominent approach may better capture the complexities of Chinese syntax, which definitely contributes to English writing.