In Cantonese, there are mainly two types of gratitude expressions, mh-goi and do-jeh, that are frequently used in everyday conversation. Although the importance of these gratitude expressions in social interaction is obvious, clear definitions of these words and in-depth explanations on how to use them correctly and idiomatically are lacking in Cantonese textbooks. It is also a hard task for native Cantonese speakers to gener-alize simple rules of use of mh-goi and do-jeh. Moreover, there seems to be no lin-guistic studies on the grammatical and semantic properties of these expressions so far. The present thesis investigates the usages of mh-goi and do-jeh in various utter-ance situations, and subsequently analyzes their similarities and differences on the syntactic, lexical semantic and sentence semantic levels, using the approach of Inte-grational Linguistics (IL). The phenomena related to the use of mh-goi and do-jeh are first discussed informally as a theoretical background, followed by formal syntactic and semantic analyses. The purpose of this thesis is, therefore, two-fold: first, to achieve a fairly comprehensive linguistic analysis of mh-goi and do-jeh in Cantonese, and second, to give both Cantonese teachers and learners of Cantonese a clearer idea of the rules of use of mh-goi and do-jeh based on their syntactic and semantic fea-tures. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

abstract / Linguistics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Chinese is noted for its rich inventory of particles that help to form sentences. However, a precise definition of particle is hard to achieve due to its wide range of forms and functions. Most words that are hard to categorize are dumped into this class. Naturally, there are two consequences that come out of this: 1) the difference is huge among groups and subgroups; 2) there seems to be no interconnectedness between groups. In these circumstances, this study mainly aims to address two issues: a) to establish particle as a theoretical construct that is distinguishable from other well-established constructs, and b) to present a unified analysis of the syntax of particles in Chinese. Through a close examination on particles in the cross-linguistic literature, it is found that particles in Mandarin Chinese are characterized by syntactic deficiency, i.e. inability to project. This study thus defines a Chinese particle as a ‘non-projecting word which is adjoined to X^(0,). A systematic account of particles in Chinese has remained as a conundrum due to their diversity. This study concerns two groups of particles in Mandarin Chinese, namely the structural particles and the verbal particles. The former has long been discussed in Chinese literature, while the latter is evolved out of this study. It is adequately shown that the so-called ‘verb-complement compounds’ in traditional Chinese literature are indeed ‘verb-particle combinations’. Accordingly, three types of verbal particles are specified in this study: aspectual, resultative, and directional. The syntactic behaviours of the structural particles and the verbal particles are intensively explored in this study. A unified analysis of these particles is achieved under the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. It turns out that all of them share the same representation at c-structure. As a non-projecting category, the particle is head-adjoined to X and thus the formation of a syntactic construct. In other words, the particle is syntactically combined rather than lexically combined, represented by two nodes in a tree diagram. Their grammatical functions can be captured at f-structure with two possibilities: a co-head or an XCOMP. The same analysis is generalized to the syntax of the particle ge and the verbal particles in Cantonese. It is proved that particles in Cantonese also feature syntactic deficiency (i.e. inability to project). This dissertation is among the first of its kind to provide a unified analysis of the syntax of particles in Chinese. It is observed that certain particles are quite distinguishable from other word classes by their phrase structural realization. Different from previous studies that have tried to classify particles mainly according to their meanings and functions, this study explores another possibility: particles in Chinese can be captured structurally as a coherent group. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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SENĆOŦEN has a set of second-position clitics (2PCs) (‘little’, unstressed elements, such as the first person subject SEN), following the initial prosodic word (full word) of the clause. This thesis, which studies the distribution of the 2PCs, is divided into two parts: a linguistic analysis and a co-authored teaching appendix. In the linguistic analysis, I propose that 2PCs occur following the initial prosodic word as a result of constraints governing the mapping between syntactic and prosodic structure. In the syntax, I propose that SENĆOŦEN 2PCs occupy positions above the prosodic word that ultimately precedes them. However, a preference for ‘strong’ left edges of prosodic constituents (intonational units) results in the violation of the constraint governing linearization of the syntactic structure, allowing the clitics to follow the initial prosodic word. The teaching appendix, developed collaboratively with STOLȻEȽ Elliott, employs concepts from the linguistic analysis in a way that is useful for language learners and teachers. / Graduate / 0290 / mhuijs@telus.net

This dissertation investigates the peculiar behavior of negative polarity items in questions and argues that a unified account of their distribution across declarative and interrogative constructions is feasible. These items are acceptable in questions, despite the fact that questions do not prima facie share anything in common with the other environments in which NPIs surface. Specifically, given current analyses of questions there is no way to argue that questions give rise to downward-entailing inferences, which is what otherwise unifies all other NPI licensing environments. In Chapter 2 I argue for a new semantics of questions wherein strength of exhaustivity is encoded not in different answer-hood operators (cf. Heim 1994), but rather in terms of the presence/absence of a null only that adjoins at the level of the question nucleus, building on an observation by Guerzoni and Sharvit (2007) that question strength appears to be the determining factor in whether or not a question allows NPIs. Chapter 3 focuses specifically on the distribution of NPIs in constituent questions and shows how the analysis put forward in Chapter 2 can account for an array of facts, namely their distribution both in the question nucleus, and in the restrictor of the wh-phrase. Further predictions related to NPIs that had not been discussed before are examined, such as how their scope relative to adjunct wh-phrases affects their acceptability, as well as the distributional differences between weak and strong NPIs. In Chapters 4 and 5 we turn to non-wh questions, namely alternate and polar questions. In Chapter 4 I argue that alternate questions can and should be given an analysis akin to that of wh-questions based on both old and new empirical evidence that the distribution of NPIs is sensitive to the same set of restrictions. In Chapter 5 I argue, contrary to previous analyses, that the acceptability of NPIs is not a function of strength, but rather of how polar questions are interpreted, namely as speech act conditionals. Lastly, Chapter 6 focuses on complex questions and puts forward an analysis of these questions that sets the stage for an arguably unified semantics of all types of questions. / Linguistics

An important problem in lexical semantics is the explanation of how verbal meaning interacts with the syntactic realization of arguments. Levin (1993) recognizes the relation between syntax and semantics in her classification of English verbs, in which similar syntactic behavior among verbs is assumed to reflect shared meaning components. However, her classes do not accurately predict the verbs’ semantic and syntactic properties. Other researchers (Taylor 1996, Boas 2008) argue for the inclusion of detailed encyclopedic meaning in explanations of syntactic behavior. Frame Semantics provides the necessary tools for fine-grained analyses of the syntax-semantics interface because it offers a rigorous method for the description of meaning and documents syntactic information about argument realization from corpus data. This report uses concepts from Frame Semantics and data from its practical application, FrameNet (http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu), to assess the importance of fine-grained verbal meaning for argument realization by comparing the verbs embezzle, pilfer, shoplift, snatch and steal. Each verb construes the general semantics of the Theft frame differently, emphasizing or specifying individual participants in the event (frame elements). They also exhibit subtle differences in whether and how these frame elements are syntactically realized. In linking their syntax to their semantics, I show that the verbs’ syntactic distribution may be influenced by aspects of meaning such as their degree of descriptivity, the detailed specification of certain frame elements, and their occurrence as LUs in different frames. / text

The goal of this dissertation is to argue on the basis of the minimalist framework that the topichood of sentence topics and contrastive focus result from derivational and structural differences in the left periphery and to provide acquisition data from child language to support this claim, showing data from Korean, a free word-order and pro-drop language in which topics and contrastive foci are realized morphologically. In Korean, topic phrases merge in the left periphery and contrastive focus phrases undergo scrambling, one of the shared properties of free word-order languages. It is consistent in fixed word-order languages such as Italian and Hungarian and a free word-order language like Korean that topics merge and contrastive foci move to the left. Topics precede contrastive foci: topics merge in TopP, a higher functional projection than FocP, to which focus phrases move. In the process of language acquisition, the derivational and structural differences between topic phrases and contrastive focus phrases may have influences on the developmental order of grammar acquisition. In acquisition data from two-year-old Korean children, topics emerge earlier than contrastive foci, indicating that topic and contrastive focus are also acquisitionally different. This study is the first attempt to examine the structural differences and the influence on language acquisition of morphologically derived topic phrases and contrastive focus phrases in acquisition data from a free word-order and pro-drop language. This study shows the structural consistency of topic and contrastive focus between a free word-order language and fixed word-order languages. The syntactic and acquisitional distinction of topic merge and contrastive focus movement is compatible with the semantic and pragmatic approaches to topic and focus. This study provides evidence of the syntactic differences between topic and contrastive focus without dependence on phonetic features; therefore, this study is a base for drawing a map of the left periphery of human languages. / text

This dissertation consists of a description of the grammar of Tila Chol. Chol is one of the 30 Mayan languages spoken in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. This language is used by nearly 200,000 speakers, distributed in two main dialects: Tila Chol and Tumbalá Chol. The data for this thesis are mostly from Tila Chol. This dissertation includes aspects of phonology, morphology, and syntax from a contrastive and typological perspective. The grammar begins with general information about the speakers and the language (chapter one). Chapter two is a description of phonology, which includes the inventory of sounds, stress, syllabic patterns and phonological processes. Chapter three presents the properties of root/word classes, as well as affixes and particles. Chapter four is about the person and number markers. Chapter five provides the main features of word classes, such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, positionals, affect words, adverbs, minor classes and clitics. The next chapter (chapter six) deals with the elements that verbs can take, including incorporation of modifiers and noun incorporation. Chapter seven provides the main features of non-verbal predicates. In chapter eight, the structures of noun phrases, such as possessors, determiners and modifiers are presented. Chapter nine describes the structure of simple sentences in both verbal and non-verbal predicates. Chapter ten is devoted to the operations that changevalence, including passive, antipassive, reflexive/reciprocal, causative and applicative. Chapter eleven deals with information structure in the discourse, specifically topicalization and focus. Chapter twelve is a brief description of passive constructions as operations triggered by paradigmatic gaps related to obviation as documented in Algonquian languages. Chapter thirteen deals with complex predicate structures. Finally, in Chapter fourteen, the complex sentences are described, including complement clauses, relative clauses, adverbial clauses, conditional clauses and coordination. This grammar will provide useful information for current Chol projects related to strengthening and revitalization efforts, such as in the construction of pedagogical materials and will also be useful for the field of linguistics or other related areas. / text

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts