Using Tagalog as a case study, this paper provides an analysis of a cross-linguistically well attested phenomenon, namely, cases in which a bare NP’s syntactic position is linked to its interpretation as definite or indefinite. Previous approaches to this phenomenon, including analyses of Tagalog, appeal to specialized interpretational rules like Diesing’s Mapping Hypothesis. I argue that such ...

Ancient Greek (Gk) middle verbs of fear (e.g. fobeisthai ‘to be afraid’), as Indo-European (IE) deponents in general, seem not to undergo Burzio’s Generalization [3] in its strong version, according to which verbs that lack an agentive external argument should block accusative assigning on their complement. On the contrary, Gk middle verbs of fear take accusative objects (ex. 1, structure A). I...

In this paper, we investigate the interaction between semantic parameters and morphological constraints in determining the distribution of the accusative case marker-(y)I in Turkish. This marker is often discussed as an instance of differentiated object marking (DOM). The account of accusative marking based on a functional interpretation of DOM assumes that the case suffix marks a direct object...

In recent work we have come to challenge assumptions that we shared (Borschev and Partee 1998a) with Babby (1980) concerning the role of Theme-Rheme structure in accounting for the nominative-genitive alternation in negated existential sentences (the NES construction, in the terms of Babby (1980), the classic work which we are building on). The challenge is exemplified most clearly in our “kefi...

The order of ‘noun and adposition’ is the important parameter of word ordering rules in the world’s languages. The seven parameters, ‘adverb and verb’ and others, have a strong dependence on the ‘noun and adposition’. Japanese as well as Korean, Tamil and several other languages seem to have a stable structure of word ordering rules, as well as Thai and other languages which have the opposite w...