This thesis studies word order variations in Swiss-German sentences that contain infinitival complements. Such sentences exhibit interesting word order. Verbs can be in different orders and the objects selected by these verbs can be in different positions relative to them. The aim of this thesis is to give a general account of these word order facts based solely on structural properties of the complements in the underlying structure. In particular, it is claimed that Swiss-German verbs that take infinitival complements do not all select the same type of complements. Some verbs (like modals, perception verbs and causatives) select VPs, others (like raising verbs) select IPs and others (like control verbs) select IPs or CPs. Mechanisms such as extraposition, verb raising and proliticization then apply to different structures in order for the sentence to satisfy T-linking. Extraposition applies to IPs and CPs, verb raising to IPs and VPs and procliticization to verbs that are sister to VPs.

Lexicalists assume that words with derivational morphology and compound words are not formed by syntactic transformation (Selkirk, 1982). The Lexicalist Hypothesis implies that the principles of universal grammar are not operative to word formation. / This thesis argues that a word is composed of lexical constituents and post-lexical constituents, and that the post-lexical constituents can incorporate into a verb, to form the complex predicate. This formational process is subject to syntactic constraints and principles. Therefore, I claim that the principles of universal grammar are also operative to word formation. This hypothesis will throw a new light upon the area of language acquisition of complex predicates.

This thesis is concerned with the syntax of productive morphological causatives in the Finno-Ugric language North Sami, within the theoretical setting of the Chomskian Principles and Parameters/Minimalist framework. Providing rich and novel data, the thesis situates North Sami in the general typology of causative constructions, demonstrating that causatives in this language invariably are of the so-called Faire Par-variety. The issues treated in this thesis are directly concerned with the anatomy of the verb phrase and the fine-grained details of its syntactic decomposition. Specifically, it is argued that the syntactic head that introduces the external argument and which provides the locus of agentivity must be distinct from the head hosting the Cause component of an agentive verb. It is shown that the Faire Par causative selects as its complement a truncated verbal projection corresponding to this Cause component. This captures a long-standing observation that the Base Verb in a Faire Par construction is restricted to a class that can descriptively be characterized as agentive. We thus take issue with other proposals that seek to constrain the formation of Faire Par causatives on other grounds. Furthermore, it is shown that the Base Object in a Faire Par causative is an argument of the causative formative, and not of the Base Verb. This conclusion is based on a number of selectional asymmetries that depend on whether the verb has undergone Faire Par-causativization or not.

Resultative verb constructions RVCs (hereafter) are a special type of serial verb construction in Mandarin Chinese, in which the verbs hold an action-result relation. On the one hand, they behave like compounds, e.g., the verbs can be questioned as a single verb but cannot be separately modified, and no NP can possibly intervene. On the other hand, they also behave like phrases, i.e, for some types, the verbs can be split by an NP and can be separately modified. There has been controversy about the best way to analyze RVCs. There are two general positions: the pre-lexical syntactic approach and the pre-syntactic lexical approach. The former holds that resultative verb constructions are a syntactic phenomenon which can be derived by transformational rules. The latter, claims that RVCs are best considered a lexical phenomenon, i.e., verb compounds.This dissertation argues that neither approach sufficiently accounts for this phenomenon, in that both only shift the problem from one level of linguistic description to another. I propose a linguistic prototype analysis in which RVCs are seen as conventionalized serial verb constructions. I argue that the properties of the prototype and the conventionalized serial verb construction are subject to constraints in three areas: the semantic and syntactic dependency of the verbs, iconicity, and clause linkage. Through the analysis of the syntactic, semantic, and phonological behavior of various types of serial verb constructions, it is shown that serial verb constructions are on a structural continuum, i.e., from syntax to lexicon. RVCs are seen as close to the lexicalization end on the continuum.This dissertation shows the interplay of syntax, semantics, and phonology in the processes of syntactization and morphologization in Mandarin. It not only helps account for serial verb constructions but also has implications for other serial type phenomena on the word level, such as compounding and incorporation in Mandarin. / Department of English

Typescript (photocopy) / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1980. / Bibliography: leaves 150-154. / Microfiche. / vi, 154 leaves, bound 29 cm

This essay deals with the issue of readability, the term readability referring to what it is that makes a reader perceive a text as difficult or easy. Some factors are related to the reader but there are also those which depend on the text as such, one such factor being style which is the one that will be focused on in this essay. The investigation is based on the analysis and comparison of a complete version and an abridged version of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and the questions to be investigated are whether the author of the abridged version has succeeded in making it less complicated, and if he or she has done so by considering stylistic features said to be affecting readability. Further, this essay is divided into four chapters. The first chapter contains the background for the analysis and is divided into 4 parts dealing with the following aspects: the definition of readability, early research on readability, later research on readability, and difficult and easy language. Chapter two describes the limitations made and the method used for the analysis which involves looking at the noun phrase, the verb phrase, and the clause. Chapter three gives a detailed description of the corpus investigated. Moving on to chapter four, this is where the results of the investigation are presented. This is done by dividing it into four different subchapters, each of them dealing with issues related to the different areas described in the method. Each of the subchapters then begins with the presentation of the results for each edition which is then followed by a comparative discussion. The essay ends with a conclusion part where conclusions regarding the four areas presented in the analysis are made along with the answering of research questions.

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Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1984. / Bibliography: leaves 118-123. / Microfiche. / lMaster negative: Microfiche MS33169. / vii, 123 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 712-718. / by Luigi Burzio. / Ph.D.