Martin Everaert

Toward a More Complete Typology of Anaphoric Expressions

Reinhart and Reuland (1993) propose the following typology of anaphoric expressions: SELF anaphors (+SELF, R), SE anaphors (SELF, R), and pronouns (SELF, +R). We argue that the Greek anaphor o eaftos tu the self his exemplifies a fourth type, predicted by Reinhart and Reulands typology but not instantiated in their system: an inalienable possession anaphor (+SELF, +R). Within Reinhart and Reulands framework such anaphors are allowed provided that (a) they do not enter into chain formation and (b) they satisfy the (reflexivity) binding conditions through abstract incorporation of the nominal head into the predicate they reflexivize. The proposed analysis makes valid predictions concerning the distribution of Greek anaphors as opposed to English/Dutch anaphors.

The theta system : argument structure at the interface

1. Introduction: The Theta System 2. The Linguistic Expression of Causation 3. The Content of Semantic Roles: Predicate-argument structure in language and cognition 4. Combine 5. In the Event of a Nominal 6. Lexicon Uniformity and the Causative Alternation 7. In Defense of the Non-causative Analysis of Anticausatives 8. Hidden Entries: A psycholinguistic study of derivational gaps 9. To Have the Empty Theta-role 10. Emission Verbs 11. Verbal Passives in English and Hebrew: A comparative study 12. An Event Semantics for the Theta System 13. Children Acquire Unaccusative and A-movement Very Early on

The use of databases in cross-linguistic studies

This book promotes the development of linguistic databases by describing a number of successful database projects, focusing especially on cross-linguistic and typological research. It has become increasingly clear that ready access to knowledge about cross-linguistic variation is of great value to many types of linguistic research. Such a systematic body of data is essential in order to gain a proper understanding of what is truly universal in language and what is determined by specific cultural settings. Moreover, it is increasingly needed as a tool to systematically evaluate contrasting theoretical claims. The book includes a chapter on general problems of using databases to handle language data and chapters on a number of individual projects.

Meaningful syntactic structure in songbird vocalizations

The faculty of language is thought to be uniquely human. Recently, it has been claimed that songbirds are able to associate meaning with sound, comparable to the way that humans do. In human language, the meaning of expressions (semantics) is dependent on a mind-internal hierarchical structure (syntax). Meaning is associated with structure through the principle of compositionality, whereby the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meaning of its constituent parts and the mode of composition. We argue that while recent experimental findings on songbird call sequences offer exciting novel insights into animal communication, despite claims to the contrary, they are quite unlike what we find in human language. There are indeed remarkable behavioral and neural parallels in auditory-vocal imitation learning between songbirds and human infants that are absent in our closest evolutionary relatives, the great apes. But so far, there is no convincing evidence of syntax-determined meaning in nonhuman animals.

The Case of the Theta System

Abstract Reinharts ‘The Theta System’ is part of a series of publications (Reinhart 1997, Reinhart 2000, Reinhart and Siloni to appear) dealing with the lexicon as the interface of the computational system and the conceptual-intentional interface. In this paper, Reinhart focuses on Theta Theory, i.e. a complex consisting of Theta roles as feature bundles; Arity manipulation rules; Mapping procedures. It is work in progress, which means that Reinhart changes her positions in these papers, but for argument sake, and for the sake of the reader, I will limit myself to positions taken by Reinhart in this volume. Reinhart sketches the general contours of the Theta System, necessarily succinct, and limits the empirical domain in this paper to experiencer constructions. In this respect too, I will take over the limitations set out by the paper.

What is Language and How Could it Have Evolved

Unraveling the evolution of human language is no small enterprise. One could start digging somewhere in the largely unobservable past, working forwards to the present, hoping to surface in the right spot. Alternatively, one could start with the currently observed and well-established properties of human language, the phenotype of language, and work backwards, with these ‘knowns’ guiding the search for otherwise speculative historical ‘unknowns’. In a recent issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Corballis [1] appears confident that only the first strategy will serve.

Towards a Linguist's Workbench Supporting eScience Methods

The domain of language resources is fragmented in many dimensions. Institutional fragmentation is currently being addressed by Grid projects, which will allow access to resources across institutional boundaries. While technical encoding and structural/format differences constitute significant challenges,, this paper focuses on the problem of the terminological differences encountered when researchers access resources from different projects and creators. We outline two projects that employ a bottom-up approach, and discuss potential extensions towards an eventual Service Oriented Architecture that will bring together all the different components required to overcome the various fragmentation boundaries and open the road to an eHumanities environment.

The slings and arrows of comparative linguistics

In this Formal Comment the authors respond to objections to their previous Essay, reiterating that comparative linguistics is not an easy undertaking.

Lexical Anaphors and Pronouns in Liangmai

Abstract This paper discusses some aspects of the behavior of anaphors and pronouns in Liangmai, belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family. W e show that Liangmai offers a unique combination of “reflexivization strategies”. Like other languages it exhibits the strategy of reflexivizing the predicate by reduplication of an anaphoric element, but it simultaneously marks the predicate with a self-element. Two more properties of anaphoric properties of Liangmai are interesting from a cross-linguistic perspective. It shows cases of “swapping” - reordering of differently case-marked elements within the complex anaphor - and long-distance binding - allowing an anaphoric element to refer to an element that is not a co-argument.

The typological database of the World Atlas of Language Structures

The World Atlas of Language Structures (often abbreviated as WALS) is primarily a book with 142 world maps showing the global distribution of structural features of language. It was put together by Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil and Bernard Comrie at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology between 1999 and 2004, and published by Oxford University Press in July 2005 (Haspelmath et al. 2005). Over forty authors contributed to it, each structural feature (and thus each map) being the responsibility of a single author or team of authors. A sample map is shown in Figure 1.