Here I presuppose that the reader is familiar with Collins’s (1997) argument for local economy and against global economy on the basis of Locative Inversion (LI). I consider the following three questions concerning LI. (A) Are a sentence involving LI (LI sentence) and the corresponding sentence with an ordinary word order (non-LI sentence) based on the same Numeration (N)? (B) If the answer to ...

The present paper attempts to formalize the semantic interpretation of resultative phrases in Japanese in the framework of Generative Lexicon, with a focus on the semantic subject of resultative phrases, i.e. the entity which resultative phrases are predicated of. The semantic subject cannot always be identified with the direct object of transitive verbs or the subject of unaccusative verbs, as...

The paper investigates a complex word order phenomenon in German and the interaction of syntax and information structure it exemplifies: the occurrence of subjects as part of a fronted non-finite constituent and particularly the so-called definiteness effect excluding (many) definite subjects from this position. We explore the connection between focus projection and the partial fronting cases a...

The paper investigates a complex word order phenomenon in German and the interaction of syntax and information structure it exemplifies: the occurrence of subjects as part of a fronted non-finite constituent and particularly the so-called definiteness effect excluding (many) definite subjects from this position. We explore the connection between focus projection and the partial fronting cases a...

This paper reviews recent research on representation of events in human languages. We consider empirical evidence for event-structural analysis of language comprehension and production in spoken and signed languages, as well as possible biological bases for it. Finally, theoretical linguistic models, models of language processing, and cognitive architectures, which account for such event-struct...

This paper examines computational issues in the processing of SOV languages in the probe-goal framework, a theory in the Minimalist Program (MP). A generative theory that seeks to minimize search, such as the probe-goal model, provides a strong linguistic basis for the investigation of efficient parsing architecture. For parsing, two main design challenges present themselves: (1) how to limit s...

In this paper, we examine the behaviour of so-called passive and middle aorist forms in Greek reflected Genesis Septuagint. The Septuagint, Biblical more generally, displays a considerable aberration with respect to other varieties Ancient regarding relative frequency vis-à-vis forms. Here, explore feature Septuagint some detail, showing that there is or less consistent, binary system at stage,...

Outside LFG, the term ‘subjectless’ is found referring to a range of phenomena in which the expression of the predicate lacks an overt lexical item (a syntactic constituent) bearing the grammatical function of the subject. In some of these phenomena, for example in prodrop, the architecture of LFG allows us to find the subject at the a-structure and f-structure levels despite there being no cat...

Much work has demonstrated that speakers of verb-final languages are able to construct rich syntactic representations in advance of verb information. This may reflect general architectural properties of the language processor, or it may only reflect a language-specific adaptation to the demands of verb-finality. The present study addresses this issue by examining whether speakers of a verb-medi...

A previous study of passive constructions has suggested that these are much more frequent in Sesotho than in English spontaneous speech (Demuth, 1989). This has raised a number of questions regarding the possible effects of the input on the apparently earlier acquisition of passives in Sesotho. This paper explores the distribution of passives in Sesotho child-directed speech. It aims to provide...