Abstract This article develops the first explicit analysis of the syntax and semantics of the swarm alternation’s non-base alternant. It assumes a pluractional head and a standard VP and vP implementation in terms of causation, with a result state small clause or a predicative phrase, before the location subject gets merged in VoiceP. The observed holistic effect is ascribed to the preposition with . Moreover, our analysis is the first to identify not-at-issue content above the TP of the non-base alternant: scalar evaluation and mirativity. Furthermore, we are the first to identify a variable in the PP of the non-base alternant which is bound by the locative subject. We conclude with the hunch that not-at-issue content is more widespread in argument alternations than previously thought.
Abstract The dichotomy of confirmation-seeking (CS) polar questions versus information-seeking (IS) constituent questions – based on the semantics of singleton sets versus non-singleton sets of propositions – is instrumental in reassessing the typology of questions in several Sinitic languages (Mandarin, Xiang, Southern Min, and Cantonese) as well as in English and Paiwan (Austronesian), and in demonstrating that Xiang has no CS questions, while Paiwan, and perhaps also English, have only intonational CS questions. This study reexamines questions in Jin Chinese, the only non-Mandarin Sinitic language spoken in Northern China, and demonstrates that the CS versus IS dichotomy is more revealing than previous distinctions. Jin clearly exhibits the contrast between CS and IS questions, as well as a significant functional overlap between polar questions and disjunctive questions. We propose that CS questions can evolve from disjunctive IS questions, suggesting that IS questions are universal while CS questions are not. Consequently, a tentative implicational universal is proposed: languages that have CS questions also have IS questions, but not vice versa. The typology of questions is further enriched by the fact that, in addition to morphosyntactic marking for CS questions, languages also employ prosodic strategies. However, the Jin variety spoken in Jingle County (Jingle Jin) does not employ such prosodic strategies.
Abstract This article explores a Bayesian approach to collostructional analysis, a method that investigates the associations between lexical items and grammatical constructions. Traditional collostructional analysis has proved to be an effective tool for studying constructional semantics but has also faced several challenges, including a lack of cognitive plausibility and difficulties in selecting an association measure and in accounting for sampling variability. The proposed approach, based on a cognitively grounded Bayesian learning theory, implies measuring lexicogrammatical attraction by setting up a fully specified probabilistic model of construction–word relations. In a number of studies, both with fictional and real data, it is shown that the proposed method has several desirable properties. First, it frees the researcher from the necessity of choosing one among many available association measures or finding some ingenious way of combining them. Instead, association is interpreted simply and intuitively as the probability of observing a new instance of a lexical item in a certain construction. Second, as unobservable parameters are considered random variables in Bayesian modelling, my method efficiently solves two problems that have long plagued traditional collostructional analysis: sensitivity to sample size and difficulty in accounting for various levels of randomness in the data-generating process.
