The past century has brought with it many changes to the English language. One of these is the drastic increase in complex nominal phrases, particularly premodifiers. This implies difficulties for translators, whose target languages may not have evolved in the same way, and who must then find other solutions. The aim of this essay is to investigate which kind of premodifier is most frequent in an academic text in English, and how the different kinds of premodifiers are translated into Swedish. Since the language pairs share many similarities, it was expected that many of the shorter premodifiers will keep their structure when translated. However, since Swedish cannot recreate the longer and more complex noun phrases, nor add multiple noun premodifiers in succession, it is also expected that several of the English premodifiers will be restructured into other constructions.The results show that the majority of the adjective/participial premodifiers kept their structure when translated into Swedish, and the tendency to restructure them into postmodifiers was low. Noun premodifiers were more likely to be restructured into postmodifiers, especially when they were more complex, though most of the noun premodifiers were restructured into compound nouns. The hyphenated premodifiers were the most likely to be restructured into different constructions, especially postmodifiers.In conclusion, since Swedish and English are similar in structure, many of the premodifiers were quite straightforward in translation, but several, especially longer and more complex noun phrases, can pose problems for a translator.

No description available.

This study examines phrase and larger formal structures in the first movement of Leo Brouwer’s Elegio de la Danza (1964), a work that draws on tonal and post-tonal traditions. By adapting key features of the tonal motive, as described by Douglass Green, and the tonal period, as proposed by Green and William Caplin, the model seeks to provide a tool for the discussion of phrases and larger forms in Brouwer’s work. An analysis of primary parameters, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm, provides the means to discuss how the composer articulates beginnings and endings of statements and responses, which are then grouped into antecedent and consequent phrases. These periods articulate large-scale sections, which outline a ternary formal design. Secondary parameters (dynamics, tempo markings, instrumental markings) further contribute to the identification of formal structures in Brouwer’s work.

In the literature on prepositions, a simple binary distinction between ``lexical\'\' and ``functional\'\' uses is commonly assumed. In this thesis I investigate the nature of the lexical vs. functional distinction for prepositions, and I argue that these two uses correspond to cardinal points of a spectrum of prepositional uses. This spectrum can be modelled descriptively as the interaction of two properties: form-fixedness and perceived meaningfulness. At the functional corner of the spectrum, prepositions are characterized by low meaningfulness and high fixedness, while at the lexical corner, prepositions have high meaningfulness and low fixedness. There are also, however, prepositions that are perceived to be both meaningful and fixed, and these present a problem for the notion of a simple binary lexical vs. functional dichotomy. <br />A number of empirical tests have been proposed for inducing a binary classification of prepositional uses---for example, formation of the pseudopassive and wh-questions, and specifier attachment. While these are all interesting phenomena individually, they do not converge on a single classification collectively, and I conclude that there are no broad generalizations to be captured by postulating a primitive lexical vs. functional distinction theoretically.<br />My own analysis, formalized in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, includes two binary distinctions between contentful vs. empty prepositions, and between prepositions with syntactically selected form vs. those without. The interaction of these distinctions results in an idealized representation of the three-cornered descriptive spectrum of meaningfulness and fixedness. I discuss various ways in which my more or less discrete formal representations can give rise to gradient behavior on a descriptive level.

This study examines phrase and larger formal structures in the first movement of Leo Brouwer’s Elegio de la Danza (1964), a work that draws on tonal and post-tonal traditions. By adapting key features of the tonal motive, as described by Douglass Green, and the tonal period, as proposed by Green and William Caplin, the model seeks to provide a tool for the discussion of phrases and larger forms in Brouwer’s work. An analysis of primary parameters, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm, provides the means to discuss how the composer articulates beginnings and endings of statements and responses, which are then grouped into antecedent and consequent phrases. These periods articulate large-scale sections, which outline a ternary formal design. Secondary parameters (dynamics, tempo markings, instrumental markings) further contribute to the identification of formal structures in Brouwer’s work.

No description available.

Background: Grammars of Old English held at least until the 1960s that word orderin Anglo-Saxon texts was essentially “free”, that is, determined entirely or primarily by stylistic choice rather than syntactic rules.  Although prose word order has been shown to be regular in several models, the same cannot be said of poetry.  This study uses Nils-Lennart Johannesson’s Old English syntax model, operating within the Government and Binding framework, to establish whether the phrase structure of The Wanderer can fit into this model as it stands, and if not, whether a reasonably small number of additional parameters can be established in order to establish whether “free” word order is in evidence, or whether the word order of Old English poetry is regular in the same way as prose. Results: A full clause analysis showed that the majority of the clauses fit Johannesson’s model.  For those which did not, two modifications are recommended: non-compulsory movement of main verbs in main clauses from I to C; and the splitting and rightwards extraposition of the second part of coordinated NPs in which the first coordinated element is “light” and the second “heavy”.  This leaves a small number of clauses featuring constructions which do not occur frequently enough in the text to allow rules to be induced to explain them.  These must therefore be deemed irregular.  Conclusions:  While much of The Wanderer has been shown to be syntactically regular, some constructions could not be fitted into the existing model without the introduction of special parameters to excuse them.  This paper is intended as a pilot study for a larger project which will incorporate the other poems in the heroic tradition with the hope of inducing a complete syntax for them.  One part of that investigation will be to include these infrequent constructions in The Wanderer, to find comparable constructions in other poems and categorise them within the corpus.

This study examines phrase and larger formal structures in the first movement of Leo Brouwer’s Elegio de la Danza (1964), a work that draws on tonal and post-tonal traditions. By adapting key features of the tonal motive, as described by Douglass Green, and the tonal period, as proposed by Green and William Caplin, the model seeks to provide a tool for the discussion of phrases and larger forms in Brouwer’s work. An analysis of primary parameters, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm, provides the means to discuss how the composer articulates beginnings and endings of statements and responses, which are then grouped into antecedent and consequent phrases. These periods articulate large-scale sections, which outline a ternary formal design. Secondary parameters (dynamics, tempo markings, instrumental markings) further contribute to the identification of formal structures in Brouwer’s work.

Cette thèse se centre sur les discordances dans l’ellipse périphérique (RNR) et propose une analyse basée sur l’identité de lexème entre le matériel manquant et le matériel périphérique. Les analyses précédentes accordent de l’importance au syncrétisme, ou identité phonologique (Pullum & Zwicky (1986)). Dans cette thèse, nous contestons cette hypothèse. Nous avons analysé 5 types de discordance dans l’ellipse périphérique: discordances de polarité, de possessifs, de prépositions, de voix et de formes verbales. Nos études de corpus sur Internet, sur Frtenten 2012 (1.6 milliard de mots) (Baroni et al. (2009)) et sur le English Web 2013 (19 milliard mots) montrent l’existence des discordances dans l’ellipse périphérique en français et en anglais. Les discordances sont assez nombreuses même dans des écrits soignés. Dans tous les cas, les discordances sont résolues par la forme qui correspond au second conjoint. Les résultats des expériences de jugements d’acceptabilité et de mouvements oculaires permettent d’intégrer les discordances dans la grammaire. Les résultats sont compatibles avec les analyses qui postulent l’identité sémantique entre le matériel manquant et l’antécédent pour l’ellipse. Nous proposons une analyse formelle en HPSG.Nous comparons les résultats obtenus avec les cas de coordination lexicale. Nous montrons que l’accord de proximité s’applique (Villavicencio et al. (2005)) et nous proposons une analyse HPSG pour la coordination de verbes et de prépositions. / This thesis focuses on mismatches in peripheral ellipsis (RNR) and proposes an analysis based on lexeme identity between the missing material and the peripheral material. Previous analyses put emphasis on syncretism, or phonological identity (Pullum & Zwicky (1986)). In this thesis, we challenge this hypothesis. We analyzed 5 types of mismatches in peripheral ellipsis: polarity mismatch, possessive mismatch, voice mismatch and verbal form mismatch. Our corpus studies on the Internet, on Frtenten 2012 (1.6 billion words) (Baroni et al. (2009)) and on English Web 2013 (19 billion words) shows the existence of mismatches in peripheral ellipsis in French and English. Mismatches are quite numerous even in careful writings. In all cases, the mismatches are resolved by the form that corresponds to the second conjunct. The results of acceptability judgment tests and eye tracking experiments allow the integration of these mismatches into the grammar. The results are compatible with analyses postulating semantic identity between the missing material and the antecedent for ellipsis. We formalize peripheral ellipsis with mismatch within HPSG.We finally compare our results with lexical coordination. We show that it obeys closest conjunct agreement (Villavicencio et al (2005)) and propose a HPSG analysis for coordination of verbs and prepositions.

This study is a detailed investigation of a number of issues in colloquial Sinhala morphosyntax. These issues primarily concern grammatical relations, argument structure, phrase structure and focus constructions. The theoretical framework of this study is Lexical Functional Grammar.¶Chapter 1 introduces the issues to be discussed, followed by a brief introduction of some essential aspects of colloquial Sinhala as background for the discussion in the following chapters. In Chapter 2 we present basic concepts of the theoretical framework of Lexical Functional Grammar.¶ The next three chapters mainly concern grammatical relations, argument structure and clause structure in colloquial Sinhala. Chapter 3 examines grammatical relations. The main focus lies in establishing the subject grammatical relation in terms of various subjecthood diagnostics. We show that only a very small number of diagnostics are reliable, and that the evidence for subject is weaker than assumed previously. All the subjecthood diagnostics that were examined select the most prominent argument in the argument structure as the subject, i.e. 'logical subject'. However, there appear to be no processes in the language that are sensitive to the subject in the grammatical relations structure, i.e. 'gr-subject'. Further, there is no evidence for other grammatical relations like objects. In Chapter 4 we discuss the agentless construction and related valency alternation phenomena. It was previously assumed that the agentless construction, valency alternation phenomena and the involitive construction are all related. We argue that the agentless construction should be treated as a different construction from the involitive construction. We also show that the agentless construction and the involitive construction have contrasting characteristics, and that treatment of them as separate constructions can account for some phenomena which did not receive an explanation previously. The valency alternation phenomena are related to the agentless construction, therefore there is no valency alternation in involitive constructions. It will be shown that verbs undergoing the valency alternation can be distinguished from the other verbs in terms of the lexical semantic properties of individual verbs. Chapter 5 examines the structure of non-verbal sentences in terms of a number of morphosyntactic phenomena. It was previously argued that verbal sentences and non-verbal sentences in colloquial Sinhala differ in terms of clause structure. However, the present study shows evidence to the contrary.¶ The next two chapters deal with modelling contrastive focus and the phrase structure of the language. Chapter 6 is a detailed analysis of the contrastive focus (cleft) construction in various clause types in the language, and proposes a unified syntactic treatment of contrastive focus. Contrastive focus is in some constructions morphologically encoded, while in others it involves both morphological and configurational assignment of focus. The complex interaction between focus markers and verb morphology in various focus constructions is accounted for by general well-formedness conditions applying to the f-structure, and the principles of Functional Uncertainty and Morphological Blocking. In Chapter 7, we discuss the phrase structure of the language, in particular such issues as its non-configurational nature and the lack of evidence for VP. We propose non-configurational S and some functional projections to account for word order freedom under S and to explain certain morphosyntactic phenomena, such as configurational focus assignment. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the conclusions made in previous chapters.