Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2007. / "A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, MARCS Auditory Laboratories in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1994. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 263-288).

Thesis--Gothenburg. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-221).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-187).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Utrecht, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [329]-343) and index.

abstract: This dissertation draws upon modern Chomskyan theory to address issues surrounding the development of a unified, minimalist account of language as a mental and biological object, both in terms of its generation and historic change. Towards that end, I investigate, apply, and advance the labeling approach to generative syntax. Labeling is a hypothetical process, operating within the confines of phase theory, which is thought to prepare constructed syntactic objects for interpretation at relevant mental interfaces. I argue a number of points applicable to both synchronic and diachronic linguistics: 1) Labeling failures happen as a matter of course during a derivation, forcing re-evaluation of labeled syntactic structures which ultimately leads to a successful derivation. 2) Labeling and its errors do not happen in real-time, but are bounded by phases. This has consequences for how researchers ought to look at notions and limitations of phasal memory. 3) Labeling not only drives an individual’s mature syntax, but has an effect on how children acquire their syntax, causing them in some cases to alter structures and create new categories. This is responsible for many cases of language change, and I support this argument by investigating data from the history of Chinese and Macedonian that are sensitive to labeling-based phenomena. 4) Research into labeling can help us speculate about the evolution of language generally. Although recursion is sometimes thought to be a defining feature of Universal Grammar, labeling in fact is a much more likely candidate in this regard. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2016

Orientador: Charlotte Marie Chambelland Galves / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T23:39:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gravina_AlinePeixoto_M.pdf: 8253084 bytes, checksum: 93932758395b4e5d7bebca2e7edd6970 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Nesse trabalho serão apresentados os resultados e as análises da distribuição do número de sujeitos nulos e sujeitos realizados (pronominais e/ou lexicais anafóricos) em textos diacrônicos do Português Brasileiro (doravante PB). O corpus montado para a pesquisa foi composto por jornais que circularam em Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, em três períodos distintos: "O Recreador Mineiro" (1845 - 1848); "O Jornal Mineiro" (1897 - 1900) e "Tribuna de Ouro Preto" (1945 - 1948). A partir dos contextos de sujeito nulo apresentados por Maria Cristina Figueiredo Silva (1996), Marcelo Barra (2000) e Cilene Rodrigues (2004), em análises sincrônicas, foi feito um paralelo entre a sintaxe dos jornais nesse período histórico e a mudança no estatuto do sujeito nulo observada por esses autores para o PB atual. As análises dos dados levaram à conclusão de que o PB seria uma língua de sujeito nulo com contextos específicos de realização, assim nos ambientes em que há restrição ao sujeito nulo, a tendência é ser usada alguma estratégia de preenchimento (pronominal ou lexical anafórica). Essa análise foi reforçada pelos resultados quantitativos, que revelaram uma inversão de preferência nos dados históricos do PB: na primeira metade do século 19 um uso preponderante de sujeitos nulos; na primeira metade do século 20, a preferência é o preenchimento do sujeito, principalmente com o uso do sujeito lexical anafórico. Para embasar nossas hipóteses e explicações a respeito da mudança das propriedades do uso do sujeito nulo ao longo do tempo, nos pautamos na teoria da Gramática Gerativa. / Abstract: In this work, we present the results and analysis of distribution in the number of null subjects and overt subjects (both pronominal and/or anaphoric lexical ones), present in diachronic texts in Brazilian Portuguese (from now on: BP). Our corpus consists of newspapers which were published in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, in three different times: "O Recreador Mineiro" (1845 - 1848); "O Jornal Mineiro" (1897 - 1900) and "Tribuna de Ouro Preto" (1945 - 1948). From the null subject contexts, presented by Maria Cristina Figueiredo Silva (1996), Marcelo Barra (2000) and Cilene Rodrigues (2004), in diachronic analysis, we built a parallel between the syntax of the newspapers in this historical period and the change in use of null subject, prescribed by these same authors for current BP. The data analysis led us to the conclusion that BP could be a null subject language only in specific contexts of realization. Thus, in environments in which there is a null subject constraint, there is also the tendency to use any fulfilling strategy (either pronominal or anaphoric lexical one). Such analysis could be confirmed by the quantitative results, from which we could observe that BP in historical data has undergone an inversion in preference: whereas a prevailing use of null subjects happened in the first half of 19th century, in the first half of 20th century the most common situation is the fulfilling of subjects, principally by the usage of anaphoric lexical subjects. We grounded our hypothesis and explanations for the properties of null subject change in PB on the Generative Grammar Theory. / Mestrado / Linguistica / Mestre em Linguística

Orientadores: Juanito Ornelas de Avelar, Sonia Maria Lazzarini Cyrino / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T07:18:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moreno_BrunaSanchez_M.pdf: 919712 bytes, checksum: 45b4197097b0b00f8a5763f725c6dbbd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: À luz do Programa Minimalista (Chomsky 1995, 2001, 2004, 2008), o presente trabalho se propõe a examinar orações infinitivas preposicionadas em construções com predicados de natureza adjetival do tipo "difícil/ fácil", denominadas tough-construtions na literatura gerativista. Parte-se da observação de Galves (1987) acerca da ambiguidade que tais sentenças desencadeiam no Português Brasileiro (PB), mas não no Português Europeu (PE), com a finalidade de responder por qual motivo o PB admite a interpretação em que o sujeito nulo da oração encaixada pode ser correferente ao DP na posição de sujeito da oração matriz. A hipótese que orienta este trabalho considera a proposta de Ouali (2008) a respeito de retenção, doação ou compartilhamento de traços-? na relação entre os núcleos C(omplementizador) e T(empo) para apontar que, no PB, a preposição "de" introdutora da oração infinitiva é um C que pode reter ou compartilhar traços-? com T. Esse núcleo funciona, nesse sentido, como uma fonte provedora de Caso, licenciando um pronome nulo pro como argumento externo da oração encaixada, o qual pode ser correferente ao sujeito da oração matriz. O mesmo não se aplica ao PE, cuja única categoria permitida como sujeito da oração infinitiva é um PRO arbitrário, tendo em vista que, nessa gramática, o núcleo C introdutor da oração infinitiva em tough-constructions não é uma fonte provedora de Caso / Abstract: In light of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001, 2004, 2008), this study aims to examine infinitive sentences introduced by a preposition in constructions centered in a "hard / easy" predicate, so-called tough-constructions in the generative literature. This dissertation assumes Galves¿ observation (1987) about the ambiguity triggered by such sentences in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), but not in European Portuguese (EP), in order to account for the reasons why BP admits the interpretation in which the null subject of the embedded non-finite sentence can be correferent to the DP in subject position in the matrix sentence. The present hypothesis that guides this work considers Ouali (2008) in regard to to keeping, donating or sharing the ?-features between C(omplementizer) and T(ense) to point out that, in BP, the preposition "de", which introduces the infinitive sentence, is a C that can keep or share its features with T. In this sense, this C provides Case to a null pronoun pro, licensed as external argument in the embedded sentence and correferent to the subject in the matrix sentence. The same does not apply to EP, which just allows an arbitrary PRO as the subject of the non-finite sentence, given that, in this grammar, the introducer C of the infinitive sentence in tough-constructions does not assign Case to any element in Spec-T / Mestrado / Linguistica / Mestra em Linguística

This thesis describes an implementation of a model of natural language grammar based on current theories of transformational grammar, collectively referred to as Government and Binding (GB) theory. A description is presented of the principles of GB, including X-bar syntax and the theories of Case, Theta, Binding, Bounding, and Government The principles, in effect, constitute an embodiment of "universal grammar" (UG), i.e. the abstract characterization of the innately endowed human language faculty. Associated with the principles is a set of parameters that alter the effect of the principles. The "core grammar" of a specific language is an instantiation of UG with the parameters set in a particular way. To demonstrate the cross-linguistic nature of the theory, a subset of the "core grammars" of Spanish and English is implemented, including their parametric values and certain language-specific transformations required to characterize grammatical sentences. Sentences in one language are read in and converted through a series of reverse transformations to a base representation in the target language. To this representation, transformations are applied that produce a set of output sentences. The well-formedness of these sentences is verified by the general principles of UG as controlled by the parameters. Any that fail to meet the conditions are rejected so that only grammatical sentences are displayed. The model is written in the Prolog programming language. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

This study analyzes the syntactic structure of motion predicates in Mandarin, with a specific focus on how the language expresses paths of motion and telicity. It adopts a generative-constructionist model called the Exo-Skeletal Model. Data were gathered from three native speakers of Mandarin living in Taiwan, using video prompts depicting various types of motion events. Upon seeing a prompt, the speakers produced a sentence or sentences describing the event in the prompt. Based on the data, this study points out a number of syntactic patterns unique to Mandarin, and it proposes an explanatory account of these patterns.