published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

by Siu Kwai-peng. / Includes bibliographical references / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1986

by Cheung Yam Leung. / Thesis submitted in: August, 1997. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-137). / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.iv / ROMANIZATION SCHEME --- p.vi / COPYRIGHT --- p.vi / ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS --- p.vii / ABSTRACT --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF DISLOCATION IN LINGUISTIC STUDY --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- COMPARISON OF RD IN CANTONESE AND ENGLISH --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Structure of RD in Cantonese and English --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Types of Right Dislocation --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Dislocated String and Co-referential Linking --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Approaches to RD --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Functional Approaches --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Syntactic Approaches --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3 --- Summary --- p.19 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- SYNTAX OF CANTONESE RIGHT DISLOCATION --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1 --- Dislocation Types --- p.22 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Dislocation Type I: XP in Preclausal Position --- p.22 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Dislocation Type II: Subj. + Predrear (+SP) + Predfront --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Dislocation Type III: Sentence Fragment --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2 --- Sentence Particles --- p.34 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Function of SPs in Dislocation --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Prohibition of Dual SPs in Dislocation --- p.36 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Co-occurrence Restriction between SP and Other Elements --- p.38 / Chapter 3.3 --- Why a Single Syntactic Unit? --- p.42 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Afterthought is not a Panacea --- p.43 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Syntactic Dependency in RD --- p.45 / Chapter 3.4 --- Why Leftward Movement? --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Base-generation Approach --- p.56 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Rightward Movement Approach --- p.57 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Leftward Movement Approach --- p.60 / Chapter 3.4.4 --- Dislocation vs. Topicalization --- p.62 / Chapter 3.5 --- Sru's (1992) Proposal --- p.67 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Phrasal Constituent Preposing --- p.67 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- Substitution vs. Adjunction --- p.70 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- Maximal Attachment Level --- p.71 / Chapter 3.5.4 --- Subjacency --- p.72 / Chapter 3.6 --- Syntactic Representation of Dislocation Structure --- p.73 / Chapter 3.7 --- Summary --- p.83 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- CONSTRAINTS ON DISLOCATION STRUCTURE --- p.84 / Chapter 4.1 --- Coordinate Structure Constraint --- p.84 / Chapter 4.2 --- DislocatiON-Adjacency Constraint --- p.86 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Prohibition of Non-D-Adjacent Components in Dislocation --- p.86 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- "Dislocation Structure, Topicalization and the Syntax of SP" --- p.91 / Chapter 4.3 --- Focus --- p.94 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Question-Answer Test --- p.96 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Wh-Phrase --- p.100 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- "Focus Adverb´ؤZing hai "" Only""" --- p.104 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Focus Sentence Particles --- p.106 / Chapter 4.4 --- Negation --- p.108 / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- DISLOCATION STRUCTURE AND MINIMALIST ASSUMPTIONS --- p.114 / Chapter 5.1 --- Review of Reconstruction --- p.114 / Chapter 5.2 --- Reconstruction in Dislocation Structure --- p.115 / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- CONCLUSION. --- p.122 / ENDNOTE --- p.131 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.139

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 443-488. / by Lauri Henrik Carlson. / Ph.D.

Wang Lidi. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-244). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

This study exammes different approaches to analysing the syntactic derivation of nouns from verbs within the theoretical framework of Principles and Parameters (PP phrases by presenting a contrastive study of English and Greek derived nominal expressions. The thesis discusses the well-known distinction between result nominals and process nominals, and it demonstrates that, in contrast to result nominals, process nominals license argument structure obligatorily and can be modified by aspectual adverbials. It is shown that the role of functional categories is crucial for an explanation of the differences between these two noun classes of derived nominals. In particular, it is suggested, following a proposal by Alexiadou (2001), that the verbal functional categories vP and AspectP are projected with process nominals, but not with result nominals. This analysis also accounts for the derivation of Greek nouns from ergative/unaccusative verbs, but it also explains the projection of the patient/theme as the internal argument of a result nominal and the aspectual modification of passive nominals. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This thesis is concerned with the connection between syntax and semantics regarding the construction of special meaning in English. To investigate this construction I have taken a selection of English idioms, modified them in structured ways and then presented them to a group of English mother tongue speakers to test whether, although modified, these idioms retain their idiomaticity. These modifications took the form of two specific operations, those of mobility and transferability (the latter operation was created for the purpose of this thesis). An idiom’s parts are considered mobile if its parts can undergo movement and retain an idiomatic reading. In this thesis, the movement operation that I was concerned with was passivisation. An idiom’s parts are considered transferable if one of its parts can be replaced (e.g. the verb with another verb or the object determiner phrase with another determiner phrase) and idiomaticity is retained. I hypothesise that whether an idiom’s parts are transferable and mobile is dependent on whether the idiom is compositional or not. I will discuss the above hypothesis against previous work of both Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Program and Jackendoff’s (1997) representational modularity. The results gained in this study show that idioms cannot be categorised neatly as compositional or non-compositional, but rather exist on a continuum of idiomaticity. On the one end of the continuum exist idioms that are completely inflexible and the rate of flexibility increases the further the continuum extends. Therefore on the one side of the scale is an idiom such as “trip the light fantastic” which is inflexible and on the other side is an idiom such as “I lift my hat to you” which is flexible but in restrained ways. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

This thesis has analyzed 50 English compositions written by Japanese college students in order to determine some of the reasons for semantic errors which occur in the student themes. Five major categories of semantic errors were identified: (A) Semantically Wrong Choice of Lexical Items, (B) Omission of Words or Phrases Semantically Necessary, (C) Errors with the Structure of Phrases and Clauses, (D) Words Used in the Wrong Form Class, (E) Errors in Idiomatic Usage. From this analysis, it has been determined that the major cause of error was semantically wrong choice of lexical items, the choice of verbs, determiners, and P-words being particularly troublesome.This analysis also revealed that some of the causes for semantic errors were native language interference, differences in meaning distinctions and scopes of meaning in one language or the other, incomplete knowledge of grammatical and lexical restrictions of words, interference within English itself, and cultural interference. It was also evident that semantic errors related to the teaching methods used in most Japanese secondary schools. Reliance on the grammar-translation method in the junior high and senior high schools did not provide students with enough competence for them to write free compositions at the university level.Finally, this thesis offers brief suggestions on ways a teacher of EFL to Japanese students might teach some of these problem areas and improve the English writing ability of Japanese college level students.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Bibliography: leaves 256-259. / by Marcia Christine Linebarger. / Ph.D.