Reference to Kinds across Languages
نویسنده
چکیده
NPs occurring in canonical argumental positions) from a crosslinguistic point of view. It is proposed that languages may vary in what they let their NPs denote. In some languages (like Chinese), NPs are argumental (names of kinds) and can thus occur freely without determiner in argument position; in others they are predicates (Romance), and this prevents NPs from occurring as arguments, unless the category D(eterminer) is projected. Finally, there are languages (like Germanic or Slavic) which allow both predicative and argumental NPs; these languages, being the ‘union’ of the previous two types, are expected to behave like Romance for certain aspects of their nominal system (the singular count portion) and like Chinese for others (the mass and plural portions). This hypothesis (the ‘Nominal Mapping Parameter’) is investigated not just through typological considerations, but also through a detailed contrastive analysis of bare arguments in Germanic (English) vs. Romance (Italian). Some general consequences of this view, which posits a limited variation in the mapping from syntax into semantics, for current theories of Universal Grammar and acquisition are considered.
منابع مشابه
Spatial language and spatial representation: a cross-linguistic comparison.
We examined the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory by comparing native English, Japanese, and Korean speakers' naming of spatial locations and their spatial memory for the same set of locations. We focused on two kinds of spatial organization: axial structure of the reference object, and contact/support with respect to its surface. The results of two language (naming) task...
متن کاملQuantification Galore
Perhaps the most influential understanding of how reference to kinds varies across languages is that of Chierchia (1998). In this framework, determiners can in principle apply to kinds and NPs can in principle denote them. English, like other Germanic languages, is taken to realize the latter possibility. One might reasonably expect, then, that it would also realize the former—that is, that it ...
متن کاملTowards multilingual programming environments
Software projects consist of different kinds of artifacts: build files, configuration files, markup files, source code in different software languages, and so on. At the same time, however, most integrated development environments (IDEs) are focused on a single (programming) language. Even if a programming environment supports multiple languages (e.g., Eclipse), IDE features such as cross-refer...
متن کاملBare Singular Reference to Kinds
According to Chierchia 1998, languages where nouns are marked for number and definiteness are not expected to have bare singular nouns which denote kinds. Hebrew has such examples, so far unnoted, yet the present paper shows it can be accomodated within a semantic typology. I disagree with Schmitt and Munn 1999, who conclude on the basis of similar examples in Brazilian Portuguese that they ref...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
دوره شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1998