This paper argues for a nano syntactic approach to the structure of Mandarin spatial preposition zai. It is assumed in this paper that the morpheme zai possesses a fine-grained internal structure ...with different semantic features on the terminal nodes. This complex syntactic structure provides insight into the omission of zai in Chinese which is in essence due to the feature movement.
Previous research has documented the usefulness of Lidar data to derive a variety of topographic products (e.g., DEM, DTM, canopy and forest structure, and urban infrastructure). Lidar has been used ...to map coastal environments and geomorphology; however, there is no comprehensive model to derive coastal geomorphology. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to build on existing research and develop an automated modeling approach to classify coastal geomorphology across barrier islands. The model was developed and tested at four sites in North Carolina including two undeveloped and two developed islands. Barrier island geomorphology is shaped by natural coastal processes, such as storms and longshore sediment transport, as well as human influences, such as beach nourishment and urban development. The model was developed to classify ten geomorphic features over four time-steps from 1998 to 2014. Model results were compared to compute change through time and derived the rate and direction of feature movement. Tropical storms and hurricanes had the most influence in geomorphic change and movement. On the developed islands, there was less influence of storms due to the inability of features to move because of coastal infrastructure. From 2005 to 2010, beach nourishment was the dominant influence on developed beaches because this activity ameliorated the natural tendency for an island to erode. Understanding how natural and anthropogenic processes influence barrier island geomorphology is critical to predicting an island’s future response to changing environmental factors such as sea-level rise. The development of an automated model enables it to be replicated in other locations where policy makers and coastal managers may use this information to make development and conservation decisions.
Facial muscle micro movements for eight emotions were induced via visual and auditory stimuli and were verified according to sex. Thirty-one main facial features were chosen from the Kinect API out ...of 121 initially obtained facial features; the average change of pixel value was measured after image alignment. The proposed method is advantageous as it allows for comparisons. Facial micro-expressions are analyzed in real time using 31 facial feature points. The amount of micro-expressions for the various emotion stimuli was comparatively analyzed for differences according to sex. Men's facial movements were similar for each emotion, whereas women's facial movements were different for each emotion. The six feature positions were significantly different according to sex; in particular, the inner eyebrow of the right eye had a confidence level of p < 0.01. Consequently, discriminative power showed that men's ability to separate one emotion from the others was lower compared to women's ability in terms of facial expression, despite men's average movements being higher compared to women's. Additionally, the asymmetric phenomena around the left eye region of women appeared more strongly in cases of positive emotions.
The exploration on wh-intervention effects generally suffers from distributional variations both across and within languages. In this study, a specific, clear divide with respect to wh-intervention ...effects in Mandarin Chinese is investigated, which in turn sheds light on the puzzling variations in general. I show that the variations of intervention effects cannot be handled in a uniform way. They can be at best captured if we categorize them into two types of syntactic effects, i.e., minimality effect and competition effect, each of which is triggered by independent factors. Meanwhile, to cover the intervention effects crosslinguistically, it is essential to take into account the typological difference of in-situ wh-construals. The various distributions of intervention effects are, then, a natural result of the interplay between the different types of intervention effects and wh-construals.
The Traditional Arab Grammarians (TAGs) (Sībawayhi 8th century) assigned somewhat similar terminology for the inflectional states of Standard Arabic (SA) verbs and nouns. Verbs could be either marfūʕ ...'Indicative', manṣūb 'Subjunctive', majzūm 'Jussive', or mabnī 'uninflected for mood', making reference to so-called 'mood' endings. Likewise, nouns could be either marfūʕ 'Nominative', manṣūb 'Accusative', majrūr 'Genitive', or mabnī 'uninflected for case', making reference to case endings. Thus, TAGs named Ind-marked verbs and Nom-marked nouns marfūʕ, and Sub-marked verbs and Acc-marked nouns manṣūb, in reference to the morphological similarity between the relevant nominal and verbal suffixes. Nonetheless, this similarity is observed between 10 out of the 14 sets of verbal and nominal suffixes in the Ind-Nom paradigm, and between only 4 out of the 14 sets of verbal and nominal suffixes in the Sub-Acc paradigm. In other words, the presumed morphological similarity in terms of suffixes is not perfect. Therefore, this paper aims to show that, at some stage in word formation, the two sets of verbal suffixes, indicative and subjunctive, are identical to the two sets of nominal suffixes, Nom and Acc, respectively, for the verbs and nouns that encode the same number and gender features. After that stage, verbal forms undergo certain word formation operations (feature movement and feature deletion) that affect their structure, resulting in the known surface forms. This account is based on a novel analysis of the SA imperfective paradigm. Both accounts will be presented in purely descriptive terms, without making reference to any available morphological framework.
The two central theses are (a) the category moved by stylistic fronting (SF) functions as a pure expletive in its derived position, which is Spec, IP; (b) what is moved under SF is only the ...phonological feature matrix of a category. The theory accounts for most of the properties of SF: why it applies only when there is a subject gap; why it affects almost any category, head or phrase; the locality conditions; and the crosslinguistic variation. SF belongs to Narrow Syntax, not the phonological component. Although the features moved by SF are invisible at LF, the specifier position created by SF is visible and is used by other categories that are visible at LF but invisible at PF.
This paper investigates the sluicing construction in English. It has been assumed by Merchant (2008) among others that remnant wh-phrases in sluicing undergo wh-movement, just as in non-elided cases. ...By demonstrating that remnant wh-phrases in sluicing show the same behaviors as wh-phrases in situ, on the other hand, I argue that remnant wh-phrases can be in situ at least in certain cases, introducing the movement theory by Agbayani (2000,2006) and Agbayani and Ochi (2006), which is consistent with the wh-in-situ analysis of sluicing. The wh-in-situ analysis proposed in this paper gives a new perspective to the language parameter regarding wh-movement in that wh-in-situ strategy can operate in English single wh-questions.
We propose a syntactic approach to apparent blocking effects in the realization of definiteness marking in the Scandinavian languages. The claim is that the differences in definiteness marking can be ...attributed to a requirement that a definiteness feature (DEF, a property of N) must be located at the left edge of the DP phase in order to be PIC-accessible for probes outside of the DP. As a result, DEF can be spelled out on N if N is the only element within DP and DEF is therefore part of DP’s edge domain (giving rise to suffixal marking). In contrast, the presence of an (overt) adjectival modifier (at the left edge of DP) requires feature movement of DEF to D, which is then realized as a prenominal article (with additional spell-out of the lower copy of DEF in Swedish). The paper also addresses the (slightly different) behavior of definiteness marking in the context of relative clauses and certain issues pertaining to the interpretation of the different strategies.
In this paper, I explore the possibility of understanding locality restrictions on the distribution of Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) as a consequence of covert movement. The present proposal ...restates Linebarger's Immediate Scope Constraint in terms of morphology-driven checking requirements. These requirements cannot be met if a blocking element intervenes between the NPI feature and its morphosemantic licenser at Logical Form (LF). The empirical generalization is that the class of NPI 'blocking expressions' (a.k.a. 'interveners') overlaps to a large extent with interveners identified in wh-questions. Therefore, the same grammatical checking mechanisms operating in that domain, rather than the presence of an implicature, are here shown to be responsible both for apparent violations to Linebarger's constraint (contra Linebarger) and for intervention effects (contra Krifka, 1995, and Chierchia, 2004). This approach is argued to be superior on empirical grounds as it predicts facts that are left unaccounted for in a theory like Linebarger's, where pragmatics rescues otherwise ill-formed structures. In addition, the proposal allows us to view the locality constraints operating in the domain of NPI-licensing as an instance of more general (though yet to be fully understood) principles of the grammar whose effects are attested in other domains, such as wh-questions in German, Discourse-linked (D-linked) wh-questions in English, and Negative Concord (NC) configurations (e.g. in Italian and French).
On WH-Movement: Moving On edited by Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng and Norbert Corver, MIT Press, 2006 is a collection of 11 separate papers dealing with wh-movement operations within the minimalist framework. ...It contains a foreword contributed by Chomsky, which explains how dislocation properties of human language should be understood, and an introductory chapter by the editors in which is summarized Chomsky's paper titled "On Wh-Movement" (OWM), published in 1977, which gives a uniform analysis to various constructions based on wh-movement. Affirming the value of previous studies on movement phenomena along the lines of OWM, this volume aims to contribute to further development of linguistic theory, discussing a variety of issues concerning wh-movement, such as cyclicity, locality, pied-piping, interpretation of interrogatives, the copy theory, and the existence or nonexistence of feature movement or covert phrasal movement. The editors also explain in the introductory chapter in what sense OWM is regarded as an important starting point for later studies. Three points are emphasized: First, OWM offered a basis for a successful shift from a construction-oriented approach to one based on a more general principle; second, OWM showed that developing a general theory can lead to deeper understanding of a particular language, and is a good illustration of harmonious study of general principles and particular phenomena; third, OWM gave us a useful diagnostic tool, a syntactic test for determining whether wh-movement is involved in some constructions. In this review, a summary of Chomsky's views about displacement properties of human language is provided. Then the organization of the book is introduced and the topics of discussion are set out. Lastly, the discussion of several papers is presented in terms of the topics set by the basic view from the books foreword. Adapted from the source document
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