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Sluicing
In syntax, sluicing is a type of ellipsis that occurs in both direct and indirect interrogative clauses. The ellipsis is introduced by a ''wh''-expression, whereby in most cases, everything except the ''wh''-expression is elided from the clause. Sluicing has been studied in detail in the early 21st century and it is therefore a relatively well-understood type of ellipsis. Sluicing occurs in many languages. Basic examples Sluicing is illustrated with the following examples. In each case, an embedded question is understood though only a question word or phrase is pronounced. (The intended interpretations of the question-denoting elliptical clause are given in parentheses; parts of these are anaphoric to the boldface material in the antecedent.) ::Phoebe ate something, but she doesn't know what. (=what she ate) ::Jon doesn't like the lentils, but he doesn't know why. (=why he doesn't like the lentils) ::Someone has eaten the soup. Unfortunately, I don't know who. (=who has eaten th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellipsis (linguistics)
In linguistics, ellipsis () or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic factors, the means by which the elided elements are recovered, and the status of the elided elements. Background Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a basis of linguistic theory that addresses basic questions of form–meaning correspondence: in particular, how the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form may be bypassed or supplanted via elliptical structures. In generative linguistics, the term ''ellipsis'' has been applied to a range of syntax in which a perceived interpretation is fuller than that which would be expected based solely on the presence of linguistic forms. One trait that many types and instances of ellipsis h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jason Merchant
Jason Merchant is the Lorna Puttkammer Straus Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and Vice Provost for Academic Appointments and Graduate Education at the University of Chicago, as well as Faculty Director of UChicagoGRAD. Education and career Merchant earned his PhD in linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1999, and his BA ''summa cum laude'' in linguistics at Yale University in 1991. He held postdoctoral fellowships at Northwestern University and the University of Groningen, prior to joining the University of Chicago in 2001. Merchant became Vice Provost in 2018, having previously served as chair of the linguistics department, chair of the department of Slavic languages and literatures, and as deputy dean of the humanities. As vice provost, he oversees all academic appointments at the University of Chicago, and is responsible for academic affairs. His work has included adjudicating claims of academic misconduct and fraud; he was instrumental ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preposition Stranding
Preposition stranding or p-stranding is the syntax, syntactic construction in which a so-called ''stranded'', ''hanging'', or ''dangling'' preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object (grammar), object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The term ''preposition stranding'' was coined in 1964, predated by stranded preposition in 1949. Linguists had previously identified such a construction as a sentence-terminal preposition or as a preposition at the end. Preposition stranding is found in English and other Germanic languages, as well as in Vata and Gbadi (languages in the Niger–Congo languages, Niger–Congo family), and certain dialects of French language, French spoken in North America. P-stranding occurs in various syntactic contexts, including passive voice, wh-movement, ''wh-''movement, and sluicing. ''Wh-''movement and P-stranding Wh-movement, ''Wh-''movement—which involves ''wh-''words like ''who'', ''what'', ''when'', ''where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). Diverse approaches, such as generative grammar and functional grammar, offer unique perspectives on syntax, reflecting its complexity and centrality to understanding human language. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from the ancient Greek word , meaning an orderly or systematic arrangement, which consists of (''syn-'', "together" or "alike"), and (''táxis'', "arrangement"). In Hellenistic Greek, this also specifically developed a use referring to the grammatical order of words, with a slightly altered spelling: . The English term, which first appeared in 1548, is partly borrowed from Latin () and Greek, though the L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catena (linguistics)
In linguistics, a catena (English pronunciation: , plural catenas or catenae; from Latin for "chain") is a unit of syntax and morphology (linguistics), morphology, closely associated with dependency grammars. It is a more flexible and inclusive unit than the constituent (linguistics), constituent and its proponents therefore consider it to be better suited than the constituent to serve as the fundamental unit of syntactic and morphosyntactic analysis. The catena has served as the basis for the analysis of a number of phenomena of syntax, such as idiom, idiosyncratic meaning, Ellipsis (linguistics), ellipsis mechanisms (e.g. gapping, stripping (linguistics), stripping, Verb phrase ellipsis, VP-ellipsis, pseudogapping, sluicing, answer ellipsis, comparative deletion), predicate (grammar), predicate-verb argument, argument structures, and Discontinuity (linguistics), discontinuities (topicalization, wh-fronting, Scrambling (linguistics), scrambling, extraposition, etc.). The catena co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Binding (linguistics)
In linguistics, binding is the phenomenon in which anaphoric elements such as pronouns are grammatically associated with their antecedents. For instance in the English sentence "Mary saw herself", the anaphor "herself" is bound by its antecedent "Mary". Binding can be licensed or blocked in certain contexts or syntactic configurations, e.g. the pronoun "her" cannot be bound by "Mary" in the English sentence "Mary saw her". While all languages have binding, restrictions on it vary even among closely related languages. Binding has been a major area of research in syntax and semantics since the 1970s and, as the name implies, is a core component of government and binding theory. Some basic examples and questions The following sentences illustrate some basic facts of binding. The words that bear the index i should be construed as referring to the same person or thing. ::a. Fredi is impressed with himselfi. – Indicated reading obligatory ::b. *Fredi is impressed with himi. – Ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Lasnik
Howard Lasnik (born July 3, 1945) is a distinguished university professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Maryland. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (B.S., 1967), Harvard University (M.A., 1969) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1972). He joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1972, and took up his present post at the University of Maryland in 2002. Lasnik has been a prominent contributor to the syntax literature within a Chomskyan framework, and is one of only a few linguists to have co-written articles with Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a .... He describes himself as a "conservative" who often finds himself "trying to resurrect old analyses or maintain current analyses that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Lobeck
Anne C. Lobeck is an American linguist who specializes in syntactic theory and applied linguistics, with focus on linguistics and education. She is currently Professor of Linguistics at Western Washington University. Career Lobeck obtained a B.A. in French from Whitman College in 1983 and an M.A. in linguistics from the University of Washington in 1979. She received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the same institution in 1986 with a dissertation entitled "Syntactic Constraints on VP Ellipsis". Her subsequent work on ellipsis in natural languages has contributed to the understanding of the phenomena in English, French, and German. In 2006, Lobeck and Kristin Denham were the recipients of an NSF grant for their project "The Western Washington University Teaching Partnership Project: Improving Teacher Education through Partner Teaching". This project led to the publication of "''Linguistics at School: Language Awareness in Primary and Secondary Education"'' (co-edited with Denham) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John R
John R. (born John Richbourg, August 20, 1910 – February 15, 1986) was an American radio disc jockey who attained fame in the 1950s and 1960s for playing rhythm and blues music on Nashville radio station WLAC. He was also a notable record producer and artist manager. Richbourg was arguably the most popular and charismatic of the four announcers at WLAC who showcased popular African-American music in nightly programs from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. (The other three were Gene Nobles, Herman Grizzard, and Bill "Hoss" Allen.) Later rock music disc jockeys, such as Alan Freed and Wolfman Jack, mimicked Richbourg's practice of using speech that simulated African-American street language of the mid-twentieth century. Richbourg's highly stylized approach to on-air presentation of both music and advertising earned him popularity, but it also created identity confusion. Because Richbourg and fellow disc jockey Allen used African-American speech patterns, many listeners thought t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wh-movement
In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object position of ''doing'' in "What are you doing?". Interrogative forms are sometimes known within English linguistics as '' wh-words'', such as ''what, when, where, who'', and ''why'', but also include other interrogative words, such as ''how''. This dependency has been used as a diagnostic tool in syntactic studies as it can be observed to interact with other grammatical constraints. In languages with wh- movement, sentences or clauses with a wh-word show a non-canonical word order that places the wh-word (or phrase containing the wh-word) at or near the front of the sentence or clause ("''Whom'' are you thinking about?") instead of the canonical position later in the sentence ("I am thinking about ''you''"). Leaving the wh-word in its canonical pos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraposition
Extraposition is a mechanism of syntax that alters word order in such a manner that a relatively "heavy" constituent appears to the right of its canonical position. Extraposing a constituent results in a discontinuity and in this regard, it is unlike shifting, which does not generate a discontinuity. The extraposed constituent is separated from its governor by one or more words that dominate its governor. Two types of extraposition are acknowledged in theoretical syntax: standard cases where extraposition is optional and ''it''-extraposition where extraposition is obligatory. Extraposition is motivated in part by a desire to reduce center embedding by increasing right- branching and thus easing processing, center-embedded structures being more difficult to process. Extraposition occurs frequently in English and related languages. Examples Standard cases of extraposition are optional, although at times the extraposed version of the sentence is strongly preferred. The following ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shifting (syntax)
In syntax, shifting occurs when two or more constituent (linguistics), constituents appearing on the same side of their common head (linguistics), head exchange positions in a sense to obtain non-canonical order. The most widely acknowledged type of shifting is heavy NP shift, but shifting involving a heavy NP is just one manifestation of the shifting mechanism. Shifting occurs in most if not all European languages, and it may in fact be possible in all natural languages including sign language, sign languages. Shifting is not inversion (linguistics), inversion, and inversion is not shifting, but the two mechanisms are similar insofar as they are both present in languages like English that have relatively strict word order. The theoretical analysis of shifting varies in part depending on the theory of sentence structure that one adopts. If one assumes relatively flat structures, shifting does not result in a discontinuity (linguistics), discontinuity. Shifting is often motivated by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
