This thesis surveys the interaction between non-verbal predication in matrix clauses and processes of head-movement. Focusing mainly on the syntax of Modern Irish nominal predicates, it is claimed that matrix non-verbal predication can occur without any verbal support. When this happens, non-verbal predicates bear inflectional features directly and behave just like verbs with respect to process...

Are complex predicates—in particular, negated (e.g., not expensive), conjunctive (e.g., expensive and time consuming) and disjunctive predicates (e.g., tall or bald)—associated with a graded structure, namely a mapping of entities to degrees? On the one hand, most up to date semantic theories of gradability and comparison in natural language disregard this question. On the other hand, contempor...

Topological predicates between spatial objects have for a long time been a focus of intensive research in a number of diverse disciplines. In the context of spatial databases and geographical information systems, they support the construction of suitable query languages for spatial data retrieval and analysis. Whereas to a large extent conceptual aspects of topological predicates have been emph...

This paper presents an LFG-based analysis of Wolof valency-changing suffixes found in applicative and causative constructions. The analysis addresses the particular issue of applicative-causative polysemy in this language. Similar to the work for Indonesian (Arka et al., 2009), I adopt an LFG-based predicate composition approach of complex predicate formation (Alsina, 1996; Butt, 1995), and ext...

Abeill e and Godard (1994) seek to show that the rightward branching analysis of French tense auxiliaries shown in (1b), that I argued for in Manning (1992) and which is widely adopted in general, is wrong, and that rather we should adopt a at analysis for this construction as shown in (1c), and they show how such an analysis can be realized within HPSG (Pollard and Sag 1994). (1) a. Je I vous ...

As the recent volume edited by Aikhenvald and Dixon (2006) indicates, interest in verb serialization or serial verb constructions (SVCs hereafter) persists. Indeed, the question of how serial verbs differ from other types of complex predicates such as converbal complex predicates and verb compounds, as well as other multi-verb constructions like coordination and subordination, remains one of th...

This paper reports on an exploratory investigation as to whether classes of Urdu N-V complex predicates can be identified on the basis syntactic patterns and lexical choices associated with the N-V complex predicates. Working with data from a POS annotated corpus, we show that choices with respect to the number of arguments, case marking on subjects and which light verbs are felicitous with whi...

Topological relationships like overlap, inside, meet, and disjoint uniquely characterize the relative position between objects in space. For a long time, they have been a focus of interdisciplinary research as in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, robotics, and spatial reasoning. Especially as predicates, they support the design of suitable query languages for spatial data...

In this thesis, I have investigated the properties of simple and complex verbs in Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru, two varieties of a typologically unusual Australian language. Its unusual characteristic is that two distinct lexical categories take over the functions that verbs have in most other languages. One of these is a closed class consisting of only 30 members or so. Since these roots take verb...