<p> This dissertation is an investigation into compound verbal structures in Hiaki in which a verb of motion is modified by an adjoined lexical verb or verb phrase. It provides the first in-depth documentation and analysis of this structure in Hiaki, an endangered language indigenous to North America, and it explores the extent to which complex predicates of motion may be said to form a discrete class crosslinguistically, either in structural or semantic terms, by comparing Hiaki with genetically and typologically distinct languages such as Korean and Warlpiri. </p><p> The study asks the following questions: 1) What is the underlying structure of a Hiaki compound verb? In particular, what is the structure when the head verb is intransitive and thus cannot take the second verb or verb phrase as its complement? 2) To what extent can complex motion predicates in different languages be said to map to identical underlying syntactic structures? That is, if we compare these constructions in Hiaki with those in languages with different surface morphosyntactic realizations, how do the allowable surface forms constrain the possible underlying structures? 3) Is there evidence to suggest a cline or typology of complex motion predicate constructions? </p><p> The overall goals of the dissertation project are the detailed documentation, description and theoretical analysis of complex motion constructions in Hiaki, the crosslinguistic comparison of these constructions, and the expansion of an existing database of transcribed and interlinearized Hiaki texts.</p>

<p>There is significant variation in the literature on how demonstratives are characterized semantically, leading to divergent syntactic analyses of demonstratives. A major source of this disagreement regards how distance specifications relate to the demonstrative: whether [+/&minus; speaker] is an integral property of the demonstrative or not. I argue that distance-marking divides the class of demonstratives into strong and weak, along the lines of what Cardinaletti and Starke (1999) propose for pronouns. Strong demonstratives possess a [+/&minus; speaker] feature, while weak demonstratives have a neutral [speaker] feature, corresponding to a distance-neutral interpretation, and the pragmatic notion of immediate accessibility of the referent (Lyons 1999). </p><p> The diachronic component of this work serves as a lens through which to view the demonstrative&rsquo;s synchronic behavior. I argue that the process of grammaticalization (Meillet 1912) allows us to &lsquo;see&rsquo; certain aspects of a demonstrative&rsquo;s meaning (and, I argue, corresponding internal syntactic structure) getting peeled away as the demonstrative evolves. Latin <i> ille</i> and spoken Finnish <i>se</i> provide evidence that demonstratives pass through a distance-neutral phase before being analyzed as definite articles, suggesting that strong and weak demonstratives should receive distinct analyses in the synchronic domain. I argue that strong and weak demonstratives can be viewed as synchronic imprints of a diachronic process. </p><p> In addition to teasing apart different semantic types of demonstratives, this dissertation seeks to identify differences between demonstratives and definite articles. I propose that the demonstrative is specified for (i) [(+/&minus;) speaker], (ii) [+contrastive] (encoding contrast), and (iii) [+identifiability], and that these features are encoded on functional heads in the extended projection of the demonstrative. The complex demonstrative is merged in a dedicated functional projection ([Spec, TrackerAdjP) within the DP. The definite article, in contrast, expresses only [+identifiability], and is merged directly in the DP projection. I argue that the common core of [+identifiability] helps explain the synchronic and diachronic dependency between the demonstrative and the DP projection, and sheds light on our discussion on the phenomenon of apparent &lsquo;double definiteness.&rsquo; </p>

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 31-09, Section: A, page: 4747. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1970.

A substantial body of evidence suggests that sexual bias in the college composition classroom compounds the confusion about what constitutes good writing. Here little is understood or acknowledged concerning the sometimes marked differences in abilities and interests of the two sexes. The effects of such ignorance are particularly devastating to female freshmen because society has not prepared or supported them for the college experience as it has for males. The result seems to be that females in subtle ways continue, at the college level, to feel less interesting, intelligent, and qualified than males. Masculine prose style continues to be held up as the ideal, and syllabi often demand writing assignments that are difficult for females--for example, the argumentative paper. Most shocking is the fact that widely adopted freshman composition texts still stereotype females or ignore them altogether. There appears to be a real need for instructors, and students as well, to understand both the genetic and culturally shaped sexual differences that produce different writing styles, together with a need to teach androgynous, rather than masculine, style as the ideal. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4435. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

A validation study was undertaken to determine whether or not the Branch Count, as restricted by Peter Menzel, is a valid measure of syntactic length and complexity in written language. In answer to the demand for quantitative measures of oral and written language acquisition, Menzel worked out a set of guidelines for drawing tree diagrams over the surface structure of syntactic units and then counting branches to determine both length and complexity of the units. / The Branch Count was validated by correlating its results with those of two established means of studying written language--Kellogg Hunt's words per T-unit count and John Bormuth's cloze measures--when these instruments were used to analyze thirty-two written passages. Moreover, the Branch Count results were also compared with a lesser known scale used by Walter Loban to study elaboration in communication units. / The analyses and the statistical treatment carried out to compare the Branch Count with the other measures of syntactic length and complexity indicate the following: (1) There is a high degree of correlation (.991) between the mean branch count per T-unit and the mean word count per T-unit in the passages used. Regression equations based on the results of analyzing these samples make it possible to convert word per T-unit counts to branch counts per T-unit and vice versa. (2) A high degree of correlation (.970) also exists between the mean branch count per T-unit and the mean number of elaboration index points per T-unit for the passages. Again regression equations allow for conversion of one count to the other. (3) The branch count per T-unit, analyzed as a function of both word count per T-unit and elaboration index points per T-unit, shows a positive correlation of .992 with these other measures in multiple correlation. When the mean branch count per T-unit is treated as a function of the sum of the other two counts, the coefficient of simple correlation is .989. (4) The Branch Count comparison with Bormuth's various cloze measures shows that: (a) The branch count per T-unit has a negative correlation of .852 with cloze means established by administering cloze tests on the thirty-two passages. A negative correlation is to be expected since the more syntactically complex the structure, the lower the expected cloze mean whereas the branch count is expected to rise with increased complexity. Regression equations again allow for converting one measure into an estimate of the other. (b) The correlation coefficient for the relationship between the branch counts per T-unit and the formula estimated cloze means is -.831. Regressions are given for this relationship, too. (c) The branch count per sentence treated as a function of both letters per sentence and / letters per word has a high multiple correlation with these measures. The coefficient of multiple correlation is a positive .988. Regression equations make it possible to convert a branch count per sentence into an estimate of letters per sentence and letters per word so that a researcher can use these estimates with Bormuth's table based on cloze means to estimate reading levels for passages. / These results lead to the conclusions that Menzel's Branch count is a valid instrument for measuring syntactic development and that it does measure both length and complexity of syntactic units. However, the Branch Count is judged to more effective for measuring syntactic maturity in composing written language rather than in reading written language. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0230. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

A logical study of formal language identification. The main goal of the dissertation is to develop a new question-answer model of formal language identification which is offered as an alternative to the Chomsky-Gold paradigm of language identification. The new model is an instance of Jaako Hintikka's 'interrogative model of information seeking'. In this model a learner is assumed to learn the axioms of an unknown formal language by putting questions to an information source called 'Oracle'. The basic problem is this: what are the weakest possible questions needed to identify an unknown language, or all languages of a given language class. / A simple first-order language L$\sb{\rm G0}$ is designed, such that this language can be used to speak about any formal language. For the sake of clarity, the languages we want to talk about are called 'target languages'. L$\sb{\rm G0}$ can be used to describe the properties of any first-order language, too. As an interesting special case, L$\sb{\rm G0}$ can be chosen as a target language (of itself). / An algorithm is designed which translates any context-free grammar on a given vocabulary into a set of first-order axioms. / A proof-theoretical analysis of grammaticalness is presented, and it is proved that for any context-free grammar there exists a set of axioms in L$\sb{\rm G0}$ (in a suitable normal form), such that the language of the grammar is exactly the set of strings which can be proved to belong to set specified by the axioms, assuming that the axioms result as an output of the translation algorithm. A study of the quantificational complexity of the axiomatizations of context-free languages is presented, followed by a sematical (model-theoretical) analysis of grammaticalness. / This logical analysis of formal language theory serves the proof of the main theorem which claims that any context-free language can be identified in an interrogative model of formal language identification. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-07, Section: A, page: 1789. / Major Professor: Jaakko Hintikka. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-06, Section: A, page: 3594. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-04, Section: A, page: 2089. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 36-02, Section: A, page: 0864. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1975.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 39-06, Section: A, page: 3557. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1978.