Yael Ziv

Left and Right Dislocations: Discourse functions and anaphora

This paper presents an account of the anaphoricity evident in Left and Right Dislocations in terms of discourse, rather than sentence anaphora. The constraints on the distribution of the various referring expressions are claimed to derive from the discourse functions of the constructions in question in conjunction with the differential capacity of the distinct referring expressions to access and activate the relevant discourse entities. The various discourse functions of Left and Right Dislocations as discourse organizers are discussed and the nature of their interaction with the retrievability potential of the different referring expressions in these constructions is presented. The correct distributional predictions with respect to the anaphoricity in question are made.

On the rationality of ‘relevance’ and the relevance of ‘rationality’

Abstract Sperber and Wilsons attempt to replace the Gricean CP and its maxims by a general Principle of Relevance from which all the other maxims follow is shown not to be entirely satisfactory without further modifications, since it makes the wrong predictions with respect to such instances as justification of speech acts, and counter-intuitive claims in cases of redundancy. An alternative offered by Kasher, whereby the various maxims of the CP follow from some major Rationality Principle, is shown to be required alongside and not in place of the Principle of Relevance. In addition, reference is shown to be required to such independently attested reasoning principles as establishing causal relations, presumably, as part of the heuristics for the retrieval of the relevant piece of stored knowledge in a particular instance involving comprehension.

Another look at definites in existentials

Existential sentences have usually been defined on the basis of their morpho-syntactic characteristics. In English, the term has been used to designate those sentences in which the unstressed, non-deictic there occurs. It has been further observed that most such sentences contain the verb be , an indefinite NP and a locative adverbial following there in that order. Despite this syntactic characterization, however, the term ‘existential sentence’ has been taken, erroneously, to refer to some semantic features of the sentence as well, and so it has been generally assumed that existential sentences always assert the existence of some entity. 1

Passives of obliques over direct objects

Abstract Passives of oblique objects were claimed to be ungrammatical in sentences containing direct objects. No explanation was provided for this structural restriction. In this paper an explanation is attempted in terms of a clash over the role of affected entity between the subject of the passive sentence and its direct object. This semantically-pragmatically based constraint has, apparently, become a fully grammaticized restriction for many speakers, but not for all. Instances where passives of obliques in sentences containing direct objects are marginally acceptable are discussed. It is claimed that the conflict between the two arguments of the predicate over the role of affected entity, which is responsible for thw ill-formedness of such construction in general, does not arise in these cases, since the direct object is perceived as an integral part of the verbal unit and not as an argument of the predicate. In this connection the non-discreteness of the argument-role of direct objects is considered and it is suggested that the identification of a given direct object as an argument depends on factors ranging from its degree of referentiality to the kind of verb with which it co-occurs in a particular context.

On so-called ‘existentials’: A typological problem

Abstract The paper examines the validity of classifying sentences in Colloquial Modern Hebrew which differ in syntactic, prosodic, and semantic-pragmatic properties under the common label ‘existentials’. A consideration of putatively universal generalizations as well as language specific distributional properties of entities is shown to result in potentially conflicting classificatory criteria, and problems of the delimitation of syntax, semantics and pragmatics are brought up in this context.

The Right Periphery in Colloquial Hebrew: Modality and Language Contact Driven Effects

The article discusses structural and functional properties of non-canonical constituents in the right periphery in Modern Hebrew, by comparison with their left periphery correlates. It is argued that the left periphery constructions are evident in both written and spoken modalities and that the right periphery constructions characterize the spoken modality. The discourse functions of both constructions are shown to follow from their respective modality constraints. It is suggested that the late emergence of the right periphery structures in Modern Hebrew might be due to their existence in the languages with which Hebrew was in contact.