Syntactic theories typically distinguish 2 types of word or phrase accompanying verbs: arguments are accompaniments that can be present if the verb permits them to be present (‘licences’ them). Some arguments of some verbs are mandatory but others are optional. adjuncts are optional accompaniments that can be present without needing permission from that particular verb.…… Continue reading Arguments and adjuncts
Tag: Object
Cognate, etymon, reflex
An important concept in historical linguistics is cognacy. Words are said to be cognates if they descend directly from the same word in an earlier stage of the same language or in an ancestral language. For example, the German word Feuer (‘fire’) and English fire are cognates. They both derive from the corresponding word *fōr in the Proto-Germanic language.…… Continue reading Cognate, etymon, reflex
Getting your hair cut in Portuguese
Portuguese contains a construction that does not exist in many other languages. The construction uses words: appearing to mean ‘John cut his hair’; but in fact meaning ‘John had his hair cut’.(‘cut’ here is a verb, not a noun.) This post considers: how this construction works similarities with the passive how this construction differs in…… Continue reading Getting your hair cut in Portuguese
The sins of Adam: more on the Italian verb ‘fare’
This post looks at how Italian uses the verb fare (‘do’, ‘make’) in making a verb causative. A short book Fare: Elementi di sintassi, by Nunzio La Fauci and Ignazio M Mirto (2003) analyses that construction in a chapter called Com’è che Eva fece peccare Adamo? (‘How is it that Eva made Adam sin?’) In…… Continue reading The sins of Adam: more on the Italian verb ‘fare’
Saying where things are in Japanese
Like English, Japanese often uses a basic locative construction to answer a question about where something or someone is. But Japanese uses different constructions for some questions of that kind, although English would use the basic locative construction in those cases too. Kita (2006) summarises 4 such cases. Basic locative construction Japanese often uses a…… Continue reading Saying where things are in Japanese
Greenberg’s list of universals
How much do languages differ and how similar are languages? An early attempt to consider these questions was a conference on language universals held in New York in 1961. Papers based on those prepared for the conference were published in 1963 in Universals of Language, edited by Joseph H Greenberg. (a 2nd, paperback, edition, appeared…… Continue reading Greenberg’s list of universals
Saxon Genitive
English has two common ways of expressing possession: the ‘Saxon genitive’ form adds -’s to the end of the last word in a noun phrase referring to the possessor:the king’s wifethe King of England’s wifethe man over there’s wifeFor more on the Saxon Genitive, please see Does English really have case? – Language Miscellany the…… Continue reading Saxon Genitive
How to need and how to have
The way languages express needing something is linked in a surprising way to how they express having something. In their paper Having “need” and needing “have” Stephanie Harves and Richard Kayne (Linguistic Inquiry, 2012) summarise the facts and suggest an explanation. How to have: H-languages English and some other languages use a transitive verb like…… Continue reading How to need and how to have
The Uralic Languages
According to Kiefer and Laakso (2014), there is a general consensus that there are 6 main branches of Uralic: Ugric: Hungarian (13 million speakers) and, in Western Siberia, the Ob-Ugric languages Khanty (almost 10,000 speakers) and Mansi (probably less than 10,000 speakers) Finnic: Finnish (5 million speakers); Estonian (1 million). Other Finnic languages have many…… Continue reading The Uralic Languages
When intonation affects word order
Can intonation constrain how syntax determines word order? Jackendoff (2002) suggests that it can. As examples, he cites sentences (1), (1a), (2) and (2a). Normally, English syntax insists that the direct object precedes a time adverb, as in (1). The reverse order, as in (1a) is unacceptable. (1) John bought a computer yesterday.(1a) *John bought…… Continue reading When intonation affects word order