Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學最新文献

{"title":"The interface of semantics & etymology, morpho-syntax, and pragmatics in Chinese","authors":"","doi":"10.1075/lali.20.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.20.2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126034970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scalarity, degree reading and maximality in a Mandarin numeral construction","authors":"Dawei Jin, Jun Chen","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00032.JIN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00032.JIN","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper investigates the semantics of an understudied Mandarin numeral construction type, here dubbed\u0000 da-NumPs (i.e. number word < da ‘big’ < noun). Drawing primarily upon evidence from\u0000 online Mandarin corpora, we argue for a taxonomy of this construction that comprises two distinct interpretations, based on the\u0000 scalarity of the morpheme da and its composition with the other constituents within the construction.\u0000 Specifically, one reading of da-NumPs is a degree superlative reading, in which da relates a\u0000 domain of comparison, denoted by the nominal argument, to a plural group of entities ranked along the upper bound of a\u0000 contextually determined scale. Second, da-NumPs have a definite description reading, in which da\u0000 behaves on a par with a maximality-denoting iota operator, such that the construction refers to the maximal group individual that\u0000 satisfies the property denoted by the nominal argument. We further show that at the discourse level, both readings encode the way\u0000 the speaker subjectively construes the situation being described, indicating the speaker’s evaluative attitude towards the\u0000 significance of said situation. This pragmatic condition distinguishes the use of da-NumPs against that of\u0000 alternative, truth-conditionally identical numeral construction types. We further propose that in cases where the nominal\u0000 component includes a degree argument, a process of degree intensification enables the definite description reading to verify the\u0000 same situation as is licensed under a superlative semantics. We show that this process provides a way to make sense of the\u0000 systematic ambiguity available to da-NumPs, and allows us to capture its polysemy.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130735108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From caused-motion to spatial configuration","authors":"Meichun Liu, Jui-ching Chang","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00034.LIU","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00034.LIU","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study re-examines Mandarin Placement verbs from a lexical-constructional perspective and redefines the class\u0000 with semantic-to-syntactic properties pertaining to lexicalization patterns in Mandarin. It aims to show that Placement verbs\u0000 lexicalize a cognitively salient causal chain that extends from an agentive motion to locational change and to resultant spatial\u0000 configuration. The event chain serves as the conceptual basis for linking motion-triggered events and states that are\u0000 syntactically distinct in profiling the three contingent stages: caused to move → caused to be → spatially grounded. Although\u0000 English Placement verbs (put, hang, etc.) are typically taken to be exemplars of the caused-motion construction, this study shows\u0000 that Placement verbs may be distinguished syntactically and semantically from pure Caused-Motion verbs and posture-based Spatial\u0000 Configuration verbs. While the three classes of verbs may be viewed as demonstrating respectively the individuated stages of the\u0000 proposed event chain, Placement verbs are the only class that encompasses all three event types in their meanings and are\u0000 associated with a wide range of semantically compatible constructions. The three stages are discussed with graphical\u0000 representations and collocational distinctions. Further sub-classifications of the Mandarin Placement verbs are provided with\u0000 different semantic profiles for each subclass. Crucial to the analysis is the fact that location-profiled uses of Placement verbs\u0000 outnumber path-profiled uses in Mandarin, indicating a categorical shift from motional to locational predication. By teasing out\u0000 the language-specific and class-specific lexicalization patterns that are collo-constructionally definable, the study demonstrates\u0000 the usefulness of a lexical-constructional approach in fine-tuning verbal semantic distinctions for cross-linguistic and\u0000 cross-categorial comparisons.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130080784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of morphological structure on semantic transparency ratings","authors":"Shichang Wang, Chu-Ren Huang, Yao Yao, A. Chan","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00035.WAN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00035.WAN","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Semantic transparency deals with the interface between lexical semantics and morphology. It is an important\u0000 linguistic phenomenon in Chinese in the context of prediction of meanings of compounds from their constituents. Given prominence\u0000 of compounding in Chinese morpho-lexical processes, to date there is no semantic transparency dataset available to support\u0000 verifiable and replicable quantitative analysis of semantic transparency in Mandarin Chinese. In addition, the relation between\u0000 semantic transparency and morphological structure has not been systematically examined. This paper reports a crowdsourcing-based\u0000 experiment designed for the construction of a large semantic transparency dataset of Chinese compounds which includes semantic\u0000 transparency ratings of both the compound and each constituent root of the compound. We also present an analysis of the effects of\u0000 morphological structure on semantic transparency using the constructed dataset. Our study found that in a transparent\u0000 modifier-head compound, the head tends to get greater semantic transparency rating than the modifier. Interestingly, no such\u0000 effect is observed in coordinative compounds. This result suggests that compounds of different morphological structures are\u0000 processed differently and that the concept of head plays an important role in the word-formation process of compounding. We\u0000 advocate that crowdsourcing can be a highly instrumental method to collect linguistic judgments and to construct language\u0000 resources in Chinese language studies. In addition, the proposed methodology of comparing constituent transparency and word\u0000 transparency sheds light on the relation between morpho-lexical structure and cognitive processing of lexical meanings.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115796706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"韓漢同源說的問題與韓漢語言關係","authors":"Ik-sang Eom","doi":"10.1075/lali.00036.eom","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00036.eom","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 有些韓語固有詞與對應的上古漢語詞類似。譬如，\u0000 表示「風」的韓語固有詞param和「風」字的漢語上古音*prəm類似。一些學者認爲這些韓漢類似詞一定是從同一詞源發展而來，提出韓漢同源說，主張韓語和漢語屬於同一語系。本文將從微觀和宏觀的視角探討該學說是否妥當，並指出韓漢同源說存在的一些問題。本文還將根據陳保亞(1996)的理論，考察了韓漢類似詞在Swadesh\u0000 (1952; 1955)的100核心詞（第一階詞）和200核心詞減除100核心詞（第二階詞）裏出現的數量。發現第一階核心詞目錄裏主要有「吾、汝、人、男、葉、眼、牙、街、白」等9個韓漢類似詞，第二階核心詞目錄裏也有「日（天）、其、腿、老、江、聞、轉、洗、風」等9個類似詞。韓漢類似詞的數量在第一階詞目錄和第二階詞目錄裏幾乎完全相同，分佈曲線趨向平直。陳保亞認為少數類似詞分佈曲線不上不下，走向平直就表明兩種語言為接觸關係。因此本文將論證韓語和漢語不是親屬關係而是接觸關係。","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122124364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Degree intensifiers as expressives in Mandarin Chinese","authors":"Zhiguo Xie, Qiongpeng Luo","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00033.XIE","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00033.XIE","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, we provide an empirical description and a theoretical analysis of the adverbial use of\u0000 hǎo ‘(lit.) good’, lǎo ‘(lit.) old’, and guài ‘(lit.) strange’ in Mandarin\u0000 Chinese. The three adverbs represent a small yet theoretically interesting class of lexical items. Because they manifest certain\u0000 similarities to canonical degree adverbs such as hěn ‘very’ and fēicháng ‘extremely’, they have\u0000 been usually treated as pure degree adverbs in the descriptive linguistics literature. Empirical evidence, however, shows that\u0000 these adverbs actually fuse together both degree intensification and expressive meanings. For instance, they convey strong emotion\u0000 on the part of the speaker and cannot appear in non-veridical contexts such as negation, modals, information-seeking questions,\u0000 and antecedents of conditionals. We argue that hǎo, lǎo, and guài are mixed-content lexical\u0000 items. Based on their empirical behaviors, we follow recent advances in multidimensional semantics to propose a hybrid formal\u0000 analysis of hǎo, lǎo, and guài by incorporating degree semantics into a multidimensional logic\u0000 for conventional implicature.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124760600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interactions between prosody and morphosyntax in Fuzhou VO phrases","authors":"Aishu Chen","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00029.CHE","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00029.CHE","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines how tone sandhi domains (TSDs) are determined in Fuzhou. The data include: (i) regular verb-object phrases\u0000 (VOs) where the verb takes a direct bare noun object; and (ii) non-canonical VOs where the verb takes an adverbial expression as a\u0000 surface object.\u0000 Several observations are made. First, a three-way sandhi exists within every TSD. All antepenultimate syllables neutralize to low\u0000 tones. A penultimate syllable’s sandhi tone is dependent on the final syllable’s citation tone, which remains unchanged. Second,\u0000 in regular VOs, a monosyllabic verb consistently forms a single TSD with its direct bare noun object, but a disyllabic verb and\u0000 its object are separated into two TSDs. Third, in non-canonical VOs, a monosyllabic verb never forms a single TSD with its\u0000 adverbial object. Three questions are raised. First, what is the nature of each TSD? Second, why does the number of syllables in a\u0000 verb determine the distinct TSDs formed in regular VOs? Third, how can we account for the different patterns of TSD formation in\u0000 two types of VOs?\u0000 We propose that each TSD equals to a prosodic word (PrWd). OT analyses are provided to show how PrWds are derived. The analysis of\u0000 regular VOs relies on the ranking of a prosodic markedness constraint ft bin above the word-level interface\u0000 correspondence constraints. The contrast between two types of VOs is explained by applying the model of Multiple Spell-Out and a\u0000 cyclic interaction of morphosyntax and prosody. This approach is new in explaining the TSDs that are constrained by\u0000 morphosyntax.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133770869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fricative vowels as an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization","authors":"Fang Hu, Feng Ling","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00027.HU","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00027.HU","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Diphthongization and apicalization are two commonly detected phonetic and/or phonological processes for the development of high\u0000 vowels, with the process of apicalization being of particular importance to the phonology of Chinese dialects. This paper\u0000 describes acoustics and articulation of fricative vowels in the Suzhou dialect of Wu Chinese. Acquiring frication initiates the\u0000 sound change. The production of fricative vowels in Suzhou is characterized by visible turbulent frication from the spectrograms,\u0000 and a significant lower Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio vis-à-vis the plain counterparts. The acoustic study suggests that spectral\u0000 characteristics of fricative vowels play a more important role in defining the vowel contrasts. The fricative high front vowels\u0000 have comparatively greater F1 and smaller F2 and F3 values than their plain counterparts, and in the acoustic F1/F2 plane, the\u0000 fricative vowels are located in an intermediate position between their plain and apical counterparts. The articulatory study\u0000 revealed that that not only tongue dorsum but also tongue blade are involved in the production of fricative high front vowels in\u0000 Suzhou. Phonologically, plain high front vowels, fricative high front vowels, and apical vowels distinguish in active place of\u0000 articulation, namely being anterodorsal, laminal, and apical respectively; and frication becomes a concomitant and redundant\u0000 feature in the production of fricative or apical vowels. It is concluded that the fine-grained phonetic details suggest that the\u0000 fricative high front vowels in Suzhou is at an intermediate stage of vowel apicalization in terms of both acoustics and\u0000 articulation.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132807590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Semantic constraint on preposition incorporation of postverbal locative PPs in Mandarin Chinese","authors":"Jeeyoung Peck, Jingxia Lin","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00030.PEC","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00030.PEC","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Other than subcategorized argument locative PPs (e.g. 放在桌子上 fàng zài zhuōzi-shàng ‘put on the table’), the\u0000 postverbal position in Modern Mandarin Chinese can only be filled by limited types of adjunct locative prepositional phrases (e.g.\u0000 跳在桌子上 tiào zài zhuōzi-shàng ‘jump onto the table’). Among these postverbal adjunct locative PPs, only a small set\u0000 of PPs permits the incorporation of the preposition into the preceding verb to form a V-P compound (“preposition incorporation”),\u0000 yielding their previous prepositional object to surface as the object of the compound verb V-P. Previous studies claim that\u0000 adjunct phrases which quantize an event, such as event delimiters, may behave like arguments (“the delimiter hypothesis”). Yet,\u0000 our observations find that adjunct locative PPs that are not event delimiters (e.g. directional 向\u0000 xiàng/往 wǎng ‘toward’ PPs or non-directional 在 zài ‘at’ PPs) can also allow\u0000 their prepositional object to appear as the verbal object. This thus calls for a modification of the widely-accepted delimiter\u0000 hypothesis. We argue that the semantic characterization of the postverbal locative PPs permitting PI can be generalized as being\u0000 associated with the denotation of a scalar result. Specifically, we understand result from the perspective of scale\u0000 structure proposed in recent studies and argue that in addition to delimiting an event (that is, introducing a closed\u0000 scale to the event from the scalar perspective), such PPs can also either add directional information (an open scale) to the event\u0000 that they modify, or further specify scalar information for the event denoted by the VP. This work not only provides a unified\u0000 analysis of most types of preposition incorporation that involve the postverbal locative PPs in Mandarin Chinese, but is also the\u0000 first study that provides a comprehensive analysis of the scalar properties and functions of Chinese locative PPs. Our findings\u0000 from the Chinese data will also contribute to the cross-linguistic semantic generalization of internal adjuncts and the domain of\u0000 extended direct case assignment.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115142787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The phonological status of Low tones in Shanghai tone sandhi","authors":"Yasunori Takahashi","doi":"10.1075/LALI.00028.TAK","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00028.TAK","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In Shanghai tone sandhi, with the exception of T5 (yangru) sandhi, a pitch-fall occurs at the second or third\u0000 syllable of a phonological word (or a sandhi domain). Previous analyses argue that this is invoked by the insertion of a default\u0000 Low tone to satisfy the Well-formedness Condition of the autosegmental theory. However, in the framework of the present\u0000 autosegmental theory, that condition is no longer necessarily satisfied, and an alternative interpretation, adopting a boundary\u0000 Low tone, has been suggested. To evaluate the appropriateness of the default and boundary interpretations, we compared pitch\u0000 contours among di- to tetrasyllabic words in greater detail. The results show that, in T1 to T4 sandhi, disyllabic words tend to\u0000 have lower pitch contours than tri- and tetrasyllabic words at the first and second syllables, and that, in tetrasyllables,\u0000 minimum pitch values were constantly attested at the third syllable. These results indicate that in Shanghai tone sandhi, a\u0000 boundary Low tone is assigned at the right edge of a phonological word, and it is further associated with the third syllable in\u0000 tetrasyllables. This boundary interpretation further gives an appropriate explanation of the difference of the pitch-fall between\u0000 Middle and New Shanghai.","PeriodicalId":117772,"journal":{"name":"Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學","volume":"87 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114418410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}