Idiomatic verb phrases (e.g., kick the bucket, fig. 'to die') vary in their syntactic flexibility: they can undergo operations like, e.g., passivization (“The bucket was kicked”) to varying degrees. ...We (re-)consider potential sources of this variability. It has been proposed that compositionality influences syntactic flexibility of idioms. In the first part of the paper, we reassess this finding from a methodological perspective by replicating earlier experiments on German and English, in which we change the previously used – and potentially biased – methods of measuring compositionality. Our results for German are compatible with the view that higher compositionality makes some of the tested structures more acceptable (most consistently: scrambling, prefield fronting, and which-questions), while we do not find a connection between compositionality and flexibility for English. In the second part of the paper, we present an additional experiment following up on the German findings. We extend the empirical domain and explore factors which – in contrast to compositionality – have the potential of explaining the syntactic flexibility of both idioms and non-idioms. We find that definiteness influences the flexibility of idioms and non-idioms in similar ways, supporting the view that both types of expressions are subject to the same grammatical rules. We discuss referentiality as a potential underlying semantic source for the behavior of both idioms and non-idioms.
People perceive sentences more favourably after hearing or reading them many times. A prominent approach in linguistic theory argues that these types of exposure effects (satiation effects) show ...direct evidence of a generative approach to linguistic knowledge: only some sentences improve under repeated exposure, and which sentences do improve can be predicted by a model of linguistic competence that yields natural syntactic classes. However, replications of the original findings have been inconsistent, and it remains unclear whether satiation effects can be reliably induced in an experimental setting at all. Here we report four findings regarding satiation effects in wh-questions across German and English. First, the effects pertain to zone of well-formedness rather than syntactic class: all intermediate ratings, including calibrated fillers, increase at the beginning of the experimental session regardless of syntactic construction. Second, though there is satiation, ratings asymptote below maximum acceptability. Third, these effects are consistent across judgments of superiority effects in English and German. Fourth, wh-questions appear to show similar profiles in English and German, despite these languages being traditionally considered to differ strongly in whether they show effects on movement: violations of the superiority condition can be modulated to a similar degree in both languages by manipulating subject-object initiality and animacy congruency of the wh-phrase. We improve on classic satiation methods by distinguishing between two crucial tests, namely whether exposure selectively targets certain grammatical constructions or whether there is a general repeated exposure effect. We conclude that exposure effects can be reliably induced in rating experiments but exposure does not appear to selectively target certain grammatical constructions. Instead, they appear to be a phenomenon of intermediate gradient judgments.
In this paper, we address some controversially debated empirical questions concerning object fronting in German by a series of acceptability rating studies. We investigated three kinds of factors: ...(i) properties of the subject (given/new, pronoun/full DP), (ii) emphasis, (iii) register. The first factor is predicted to play a crucial role by models in which object fronting possibilities are limited by prosodic properties. Two experiments provide converging evidence for a systematic effect of this factor: we find that the relative acceptability of object fronting across subjects that require an accent (new DPs) is lower than across deaccentable subjects (pronouns and given DPs). Other models predict object fronting across full phrases (but not across pronouns) to be limited to an emphatic interpretation. This prediction is also borne out, suggesting that both types of models capture an empirically valid generalization and can be seen as complementing each other rather than competing with each other. Finally, we find support for the view that informal register facilitates object fronting. In sum, our experiments contribute to clarifying the empirical basis concerning a phenomenon influenced by a range of interacting factors. This, in turn, informs theoretical approaches to the prefield position and helps to identify factors that need to be carefully controlled in this field of research.
This paper combines experimental, theoretical and quantitative approaches to syntactic microvariation. The empirical goal is to clarify the situation with respect to wh-doubling (also: wh-copying) in ...varieties of German and Dutch. With a large-scale survey in the German and Dutch language areas we sought to establish which speakers allow wh-doubling, which speakers allow right-complexity, i.e., configurations in which the lower copy of the wh-dependency is more complex that the higher one, and which speakers allow left-complexity, i.e., the reverse, with a more complex higher copy. We also wanted to know whether there are associations between these properties, to identify groups of speakers and dialects. We found three types of grammars: (i) a grammar that allows both wh-doubling and right- and left-complexity, (ii) a grammar that allows wh-doubling and has a strong preference for right-complexity over left-complexity, and (iii) a grammar that does not allow any wh-doubling configuration. This shows that there is a clear limit to variation in this domain. Grammars with a preference for left-complexity do not exist. We then point out the consequences of these findings for the copy theory of movement, and for analyses that enrich this theory with the option of partial deletion.
This paper presents the results of a novel experimental approach to relative quantifier scope in German that elicits data in an indirect manner. Applying the covered-box method (Huang et al. 2013) to ...scope phenomena, we show that inverse scope is available to some extent in the free constituent order language German, thereby validating earlier findings on other syntactic configurations in German (Radó & Bott 2018) and empirical claims on other free constituent order languages (Japanese, Russian, Hindi), as well as recent corpus findings in Webelhuth (2020). Moreover, the results of the indirect covered-box experiment replicate findings from an earlier direct-query experiment with comparable target items, in which participants were asked directly about the availability of surface scope and inverse scope readings. The configuration of interest consisted of canonical transitive clauses with deaccented existential subject and universal object QPs, in which the restriction of the universal QP was controlled for by the context.
In this volume the subject of parametrization is addressed from various, though interrelated perspectives, ranging from learnability, the form and nature of parametrization, the role of the interface ...between morphology and syntax and the parameters of X-bar syntax, to the lexical parametrization hypothesis.
This article deals with the claim that the MAGNITUDE ESTIMATION (ME) method of gathering acceptability judgments produces data that are more informative for linguists than binary or n-point scale ...judgments. We performed three acceptability-rating experiments that directly compared ME data to binary and seven-point scale data. The results clearly falsify the hypothesis that data gathered by the ME method carry a larger amount of information about the acceptability of a given linguistic phenomenon. The three measures are largely equivalent with respect to informativity. Moreover, ME judgments are shown to be more liable to producing spurious variance under certain circumstances.
"The volume is a collection of 12 papers which focus on empirical and theoretical issues associated with syntactic phenomena falling under the rubric of Relativized Minimality (Rizzi 1990) or, in ...more recent terms, Minimal Link Condition (MLC, Chomsky 1995). The bulk of the papers are based on the ideas presented at the Workshop ""Minimal Link Effects in Minimalist and Optimality Theoretic Syntax"" which took place at the University of Potsdam on March 21-22, 2002. All contributors are prominent specialists in the topic of syntactic Minimality. The empirical phenomena brought to bear on Minimality/MLC in the present volume include, but not limited to: * Superiority effects in multiple wh-questions, including those with 'D-linked' wh-phrase(s) (Müller, Haida, Haider) * Stylistic Fronting in Germanic and Romance (Fisher, Poole) * Transitive sentences in Hindi-type ergative languages (Stepanov) * Word order 'freezing' effects in double-nominative constructions in Korean (Lee) * Double object constructions in Greek (Anagnostoupoulou) * Remnant constituent displacement in German and Japanese (Hale and Legendre) Nine of the proposed accounts are couched in the Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001), three in the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Thematically, the contributions divide into three groups addressing the following major questions: How can apparent violations of syntactic Minimality/MLC be accounted for? (Haida, Stepanov, Poole, Fisher, Anagnostopoulou) What is the status of MLC? Is it a primitive or a theorem in the grammar? (Müller, Fanselow, Lechner, Vogel, Lee, Haider) Can Minimality phenomena shed decisive evidence in favor of a derivational (Minimalist type) or a representational (Optimality theory like) framework? (Hale and Legendre, Haider)"
Language and Logos Thomas Hanneforth, Gisbert Fanselow / Thomas Hanneforth, Gisbert Fanselow
2012
eBook
This series publishes original contributions which describe and theoretically analyze structures of natural languages. The main focus is on principles and rules of grammatical and lexical knowledge ...both with respect to individual languages and from a comparative perspective. The volumes cover all levels of linguistic analysis, especially phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, including aspects of language acquisition, language use, language change, and phonetical and neuronal realization.
PDF
