published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the phenomenon of obligatory reflexivity in Afrikaans. Despite a considerable literature on this phenomenon as it is reflected in other languages, the Afrikaans data have not received any systematic attention. Hence, a first major aim is to address this empirical gap. Secondly, informed by the Afrikaans data, the study aims to develop an analysis that can provide a conceptually adequate account for the facts, and that is amenable to extension beyond Afrikaans. The proposed nominal shell analysis (of obligatory reflexivity) (NSA) is developed within, on the one hand, the general framework of Minimalist Syntax and, on the other hand, the specific framework of proposals about word order and linearisation phenomena in Germanic languages worked out in, amongst others, Holmberg (2000), Biberauer (2003), Biberauer & Richards (2006), Biberauer & Roberts (2006), and Biberauer et al. (2009, 2011). The basic idea underlying the NSA is that two expressions which enter into an obligatory coreferential relationship are initially merged into a nominal shell structure headed by an identity focus light noun n. It is argued that the identity focus n belongs to a natural class of identificational elements which also includes a contrastive focus n, a presentational focus n, a possessor focus n, and a quantity focus n. In terms of the NSA, the identity focus n takes a reflexive pronoun as its complement, with such a pronoun being analysed as a syntactic compound that is derived by merging a category-neutral lexical root √PRON with a D constituent containing unvalued φ-features. This means, then, that a reflexive pronoun is defined in syntactic terms and not in terms of special lexical features. The reflexive is subsequently raised to the identity focus n – which forms the locus of the suffix -self associated with morphologically complex reflexive pronouns – where it is spelled out as part of the compound n that is derived in this manner. The antecedent expression is next merged as the specifier of the compound light noun, resulting in a configuration where the antecedent can value the φ-features of the reflexive, with the n serving as mediator. In this configuration, the φ-valued pronoun is semantically interpreted as an anaphor and the nominal expression in the specifier position of the nP as its antecedent; that is, the pronoun is interpreted as obligatorily coreferential with this nominal expression. The details of the NSA and its empirical and conceptual consequences are worked out with reference to six constructions in which reflexive pronouns can occur: verbal object constructions, prepositional object constructions, double object constructions, infinitival constructions, small clause constructions, and possessive constructions. Brief attention is also given to the possibility of extending the ideas underlying the NSA to (i) languages of the Southern Bantu family, where the reflexive element surfaces as a verbal affix, and (ii) two further types of construction in Afrikaans which seem amenable to such a nominal shell approach, namely floating quantifier constructions and expletive daar (“there”) constructions. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie fokus op die verskynsel van verpligte refleksiwiteit in Afrikaans. Ten spyte van ’n aansienlike literatuur oor die realisering van hierdie verskynsel in ander tale, is daar nog geen sistematiese aandag gegee aan die Afrikaanse data nie. ’n Eerste hoofoogmerk van die studie is derhalwe om hierdie empiriese leemte te vul. ’n Tweede hoofoogmerk is om, in die lig van die Afrikaanse data, ’n analise te ontwikkel wat ’n konseptueel toereikende beskrywing en verklaring van die feite kan gee, en wat hopelik na ander tale uitgebrei kan word. Die voorgestelde nominale skulp-analise (van verpligte refleksiwiteit) (NSA) word ontwikkel binne, enersyds, die algemene raamwerk van Minimalistiese Sintaksis en, andersyds, die spesifieke raamwerk van voorstelle oor woordvolgorde en lineariseringsverskynsels in Germaanse tale soos uiteengesit in, onder meer, Holmberg (2000), Biberauer (2003), Biberauer & Richards (2006), Biberauer & Roberts (2006), and Biberauer et al. (2009, 2011). Die basiese idee onderliggend aan die NSA is dat twee uitdrukkings wat in ’n verhouding van verpligte koreferensie staan, inisieel saamgevoeg word in ’n nominale skulpstruktuur met ’n identiteitsfokus-ligte naamwoord n as hoof. Daar word geargumenteer dat hierdie n tot ’n natuurlike klas van identifikatoriese elemente behoort, waaronder ook ’n kontrasfokus-n, ’n presentasiefokus-n, ’n besittersfokus-n, en ’n kwantiteitsfokus-n. Volgens die NSA neem die identiteitsfokus-n ’n refleksiewe voornaam-woord as komplement, waar so ’n voornaamwoord ontleed word as ’n sintaktiese samestelling wat afgelei word deur die samevoeging van ’n kategorie-neutrale leksikale wortel √PRON met ’n D wat beskik oor ongewaardeerde φ-kenmerke. ’n Refleksiewe voornaamwoord word dus in sintaktiese terme gedefinieer en nie in terme van spesiale leksikale kenmerke nie. Die refleksief word vervolgens gehys na die identiteitsfokus-n – die lokus van die suffiks -self wat geassosieer word met morfologies komplekse relatiewe voornaamwoorde – waar dit uitgespel word as deel van die n-samestelling wat op dié manier afgelei word. Die uitdrukking wat as antesedent dien, word op sy beurt saamgevoeg as die spesifiseerder van die n-samestelling. Dit lei tot ’n konfigurasie waarin die antesedent waardes aan die φ-kenmerke van die refleksief kan toeken – via die n, wat dus as ’n tussenganger optree. In hierdie konfigurasie word die φ-gewaardeerde voornaamwoord semanties geïnterpreteer as ’n anafoor en die nominale uitdrukking in die spesifiseerderposisie van die nP as sy antesedent; met ander woorde, die voornaamwoord word geïnterpreteer as verplig koreferensieel met dié nominale uitdrukking. Die besonderhede van die NSA en die empiriese en konseptuele konsekwensies daarvan word uitgewerk aan die hand van ses konstruksies waarin refleksiewe voornaamwoorde kan voorkom: verbale-objekkonstruksies, preposisionele-objekkonstruksies, dubbelobjekkonstruksies, infinitiefkonstruksies, beknopte-sinkonstruksies, en besitskonstruksies. Daar word ook kortliks aandag gegee aan die moontlikheid om die idees onderliggend aan die NSA uit te brei na (i) tale van die Suidelike Bantoe-familie, waar die refleksiewe element voorkom as ’n verbale affiks, en (ii) twee verdere konstruksies in Afrikaans wat moontlik aan die hand van so ’n nominale skulp-benadering ontleed kan word, nl. swewende-kwantifiseerderkonstruksies en ekspletiewe-daar-konstruksies. / National Research Foundation (NRF)

This thesis shows the different features of Korean reflexives compared to Japanese reflexives. In Chapter 1, the differences of Japanese and Korean reflexives are discussed morphologically and syntactically. The general referential relationship of Japanese and Korean reflexives is discussed. In Chapter 2, empathy expressions of the Japanese reflexive zibun and Korean reflexive caki is discussed. In Chapter 3, the semantic interpretation of the plural form of Japanese and Korean reflexive, zibun-tati and caki-tul, is discussed. In Chapter 4, a brief conclusion is presented. Further work on Korean reflexives is necessary to account for Korean anaphora.

Thesis (M.A. (Translation and Linguistics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The aim of this study was to compare anaphors between Xitsonga and English. This study was to find out if there are any similarities and differences of anaphors between Xitsonga and English. The researcher also wanted to find the functions of anaphors in Xitsonga and English, the types of anaphors, as well as surface structures and deep structures of anaphors in Xitsonga and English. The researcher looked at the syntax of Xitsonga and English focusing on anaphors. The similarities and differences were discovered, the types of anaphors in Xitsonga and English, the functions of anaphors in Xitsonga and English, as well as the surface structure and the deep structure of anaphors in Xitsonga and English were compared. The interpretation and meaning of anaphors are the same but varies in syntax constructions. The findings of the study are that there are two types of anaphors in Xitsonga and in English, which are reflexives and reciprocals. In Xitsonga, prefixes of verbs form reflexivity, for example ‘tirhandza’ (loves herself). The prefix ti- from the verb tirhandza forms reflexivity. On the other hand, reciprocals are formed by suffixes, for example; ‘rhandzana’ (love each other). The suffix -ana from the verb rhandzana form reciprocity. This means anaphors in Xitsonga are formed by verbs. English uses pronouns like ‘himself’, ‘herself’ and ‘themselves’ to identify their anaphors. The study suggests that scholars must do further research on anaphors between Xitsonga and English. Academics, linguists among others, must be interviewed as they may have better interpretation of anaphors between Xitsonga and English.

This M.A. thesis investigates the L2 acquisition of binding properties of English reflexives by Turkish L2 learners to address the issue of UG availability in L2 grammar. 140 Turkish L2 learners of English (67 elementary, 73 upper) participated in this study. They were all students at the Department of Basic English, Middle East Technical University. In addition, in the control group, there were 8 native speakers of English. A grammaticality judgment task and a story-based truth-value judgment task were used to examine whether the L2 grammars of the Turkish learners of English are governed by the principles and parameters of UG in the context of reflexive binding. According to the Full Transfer Full Access Model (FTFA), L2 learners have direct access to innate principles and parameters of Universal Grammar (UG) from the initial state to the end-state in the process of L2 acquisition. In line with FTFA, the results of the two tests suggest that the L2 learners&rsquo / grammar is UG-constrained even though they do not fully converge on native English norms with respect to reflexive binding.

This thesis studies the problem of language learnability in relation to two different but related sets of structures in Spanish, both involving multifunctional clitic pronouns. The first of these is the reflexive clitic se which is used in impersonal and inchoative constructions. The second is the dative clitic le which appears in certain clitic doubling constructions. In both cases the structures exhibit subtle properties which cannot be readily inferred from the input. / In the first place, this study provides a syntactic analysis of the structures related to each of these clitics. Regarding the first of these, the reflexive se, it is suggested that it can be generated in at least two functional positions: as the head of AgrO in impersonal constructions, and as the head of Inner Aspect in the case of inchoatives. In the impersonal construction the theme argument NP moves to check case and &phis; features with se in AgrO, thus triggering agreement on the verb. In the case of the inchoative, the NP moves into the specifier of AgrS. Thus, the NP in the impersonal construction is an object with some subject-like properties, which derive from agreement with the verb. The NP in the inchoative construction is a subject. / Regarding the dative clitic le, it is generated as the head of Inner Aspect. The NP which is stranded after a preposition incorporates into the verb must move to Inner Aspect to check case and &phis; features with le. As a result, the NP is interpreted as affected. The process of incorporation in Spanish is subject to several constraints which fall out naturally from this account. / In the second place, the problem of learnability is investigated empirically in relation to second language acquisition (SLA) with two empirical studies which look at the grammar of speakers who appear to have reached an end state in their second language. The tasks used in these studies were designed to test the speakers' knowledge of the properties related to the two multifunctional clitics. The subjects included two groups of near-native Spanish speakers, that is, speakers who can pass or almost pass for native speakers, but who learned Spanish as a second language after puberty. One group was made up of English speakers, the other of French speakers. The reason for choosing near-natives is that data from learners who appear to have reached a very high level of proficiency are crucial in determining whether adult learners can in fact acquire a grammar which is indistinguishable from a native speaker grammar. It has been suggested [Bley-Vroman, 1990] that L2 learning is fundamentally different from L1 acquisition and that, as a result, the final state L2 grammar differs in important ways from native speaker grammars. This thesis argues against this position. Results show that L2 learners are able to acquire subtle properties not evident in the input. This suggests that L2 acquisition is constrained by Universal Grammar in the same way as L1 acquisition is.

No description available.

This dissertation investigates the relationship between verbs and reflexive markers within reflexive constructions, setting forth the hypothesis that the verb plays a determining role in anaphoric binding. The work builds upon Dalrymple’s (1993) argument that binding constraints are lexically specified by anaphoric elements and demonstrates that reflexive requirements can be lexically specified for distinct groups of verbs, an approach which offers another level of descriptive clarity to theories of anaphoric binding and introduces a means of predicting reflexive selection in domains where syntactic constraints do not readily apply. This is shown to be particularly pertinent in languages with more than one reflexive type that have overlapping syntactic binding domains. The hypothesis is substantiated by data from five typologically distinct languages: English, Dutch, French, Russian, and Fijian. Contributing to this data set, new empirical evidence in favour of previously unrecognized reflexive forms in the Fijian language is introduced in this work. Following Sells et al. (1987), it is demonstrated that reflexive constructions are definable over four different components of linguistic representation and a quadripartite linguistic analysis is, therefore, adopted that incorporates c-structure, f-structure, lexical structure, and semantic structure within a Lexical Functional Grammar theoretical framework. The level of semantic structure is found to be particularly interesting since the realization of a reflexive construction is shown to be influenced by differing semantic requirements between verbs and reflexives. On the basis of several semantic tests, verbs in reflexive constructions are shown to have two different predicate structure types, ‘transitive’ and ‘intransitive’, and reflexive markers are shown to have three different internal semantic structures, ‘strict’ (x,x), ‘close’ (x,f(x)), and ‘near’ (x,y). The syntactic, semantic, and lexical characteristics of the reflexives and verbs analyzed over the data set presented in this work result in the identification of eight different reflexive/verb types and the establishment of two implicational relationships: <ol><li>Reflexive markers in lexically intransitive reflexive constructions have no semantic content.</li><li>Verbs that take a reflexive argument with a strict (x,x) or close (x,f(x)) internal structure must be intransitive at the semantic component of linguistic structure.</li></ol> These results contribute to our understanding of anaphoric binding theory, directed verb categories, the syntax-semantics interface, and the licensing of multiple reflexive types within a given language.

No description available.

No description available.