There might be only slight variations between forms of a language such as minor pronunciations of words or a slight changes of grammatical structure that do not inhibit intergroup. An event structure account of english resultatives. Althoughenglish resultatives naturally divide into transitive andintransitive resultatives in the sense of carrier and randall1992, and intransitive resultatives are systematically missingfrom japanese, it is not. Theorists who dont believe in the notion of semantic compositionality also have the view that the extent of the principle is compositionality all the way up and down. Constructional compositionality and the english resultative. English does not have a productive resultative construction. Journal of east asian linguistics 1997 6 1 49 washio ryuichi resultatives, compositionality, and language variation. Revisited from a microparametric approach to linguistic variation i.
Pragmatic features of aave u sounding, playing the dozens u rapping u signifying labov 1972 vl language variation and change prof. Before the 1960s, the general feeling in western linguistics was that some of the variation observed in language was free and unconstrained. Resultatives compositionality and language variation. Pathpp structure and parametrized path head movement. Washio 1997 argues that resultatives res are divided into strong and weak types. Covers both traditional topics and topics that have more recently come to prominence, notably concerning language use in context includes advances boxes, designed to give readers a sense of controversies, debates and further research pdf. This article develops the response that connectionist models can, and in fact sometimes do, employ compositionally structured representations without, thereby, simply implementing a classical language of thought.
The typology of motion expressions revisited1 cambridge core. Croft 2012, which refers to a change of state or location of a referent of an np caused by the action denoted by the main verb. There are quirky adjectival secondary predicates in japanese that appear with transitive activity verbs and describe the property of the object argument perceived by the subject argument, as shown in 1 the adjectives are boldfaced. The possibility of weak vdenpa constructions in chinese. Variability is everywhere in language, from the unique details in each production of a sound or sign to the auditory or visual processing of the linguistic signal. The rationale for adopting it, however, comes from an assumption on the architecture of language that is not universally shared. This typology of resultatives seems to capture a point of crosslinguistic variation in resultatives. When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes the first language of a social community, it is described as a creole. Strong res is present in germanic languages but missing in japanese and romance languages whereas weak res is found in all of them 1, 2. Between the speakers of any language there is variation in the way that they use their language. The main fulani of west africa are dark blue on the map. Althoughenglish resultatives naturally divide into transitive andintransitive resultatives in the sense of carrier and randall1992, and intransitive resultatives are systematically missingfrom japanese, it is. Language variation is a core concept in sociolinguistics. Word order in resultatives university of california.
But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in sentence word order or use novel sounds that are. Yong 1997 distinguishes between simple change resultatives, i. A creole develops as the first language of the children of pidgin speakers. The article discusses morphosyntactic and semantic properties of the constructions conveying resultative secondary predication in lithuanian and latvian. Sociolinguists investigate whether this linguistic variation can be attributed to differences in the social characteristics of the speakers using the language, but also investigate whether elements of the surrounding linguistic context promote or inhibit the usage of certain structures. Argument resultatives and adjunct resultatives in a lexical constructional account. If we just look at english, we find widespread variation in the way it is spoken in different countries such as australia, britain and the usa. Language variation 1 chapter 7 language and variation 7.
Languages vary from one place to another, from one social group to another, and from one situation to another, and these are the. The concept of language variation is central in sociolinguistics. Factors influencing on language variation by carlos corella. Language change inevitably leads to variation, and variation within a speech community often leads to social valuation of particular features as good or bad. Good variants are typically believed to be characterized by logical superiority or venerability, or both. According to this principle, it is assumed that the whole meaning of a phrase or sentence can be described according to the functional interdependency of the meaning of its parts. The present paper attempts to formalize the semantic interpretation of resultative phrases in japanese in the framework of generative lexicon, with a focus on the semantic subject of resultative. The locus of variation if structure is at the heart of language, then variation defines its soul.
How important is language variation towards language english. On interpretation of resultative phrases in japanese. Across languages there are two sorts of variation in the relative position of the direct object o the cutlet, the predicate m that describes the means of causation pound, and the predicate r that describes its result. Journal of east asian linguistics, volume 6, issue 1. This paper aims to investigate the typology of resultative constructions henceforth rc in korean, to provide their relevant constraints and finally to propose formal structures of rcs in a unified way. First, i briefly recall the main components and parameters within the phonomorphological domain, outlining their relevance to the present issue. A qualia account of mimetic resultatives in japanese ver.
Talmy introduces an influential twoway typology, proposing that languages adopt either verb or satelliteframed encoding of motion events. In particular, i deal with this typological variation in the light of a formal distinction between incorporation and conflation see haugen 2009. Thus, the same words can be combined differently to form sentences with a different meaning, as in the sentences the dog chased the cat and the cat chased the dog. According to washios 1997 strong and weak resultative analysis, chinese resultative vanp compounds allow both strong and weak resultative constructions while chinese vdenpa constructions allow only strong resultative constructions, i. Every language has a lot of variation, especially in the way it is spoken. Furthermore, our qualia account of mimetic resultatives may be extensible to socalled spurious resultatives, such as he spread the butter thicklythick. Available formats pdf please select a format to send.
Crosslinguistic resultative and pathp correlations. Factors influencing on language variation by carlos. The purpose of inquiry into language variation is probably best summarized by fishman 1969, 1972, who claims that it is to seek an answer to the question, who speaks or writes what language or what language variety to whom and to what end. Pathe movement washio 1997 argues that resultatives are divided into strong and weak types. The principle of compositionality can be seen as an abstract requirement on the grammar of a language and therefore, albeit indirectly, on the language itself. Japanese has weak but not strong resultatives, while english has both.
Connectionism has been attacked on the grounds that it does not employ compositionally structured representations e. Resultatives, compositionality and language variation, jeal 6. Talmys 1991, 2000 wellknown typological distinction between satelliteframed languages and verbframed languages can be shown to be relevant when arguing for two types of locative alternation. On the event structure of chinese resultative compounds in. A comparative analysis of english and japanese shows that theset of permissible resultatives in japanese is properly containedin the set of permissible resultatives in english. Regulations for manuscript contributors to language research 1. Speakers may vary pronunciation, word choice, or morphology and syntax sometimes called grammar. It has been observed that chinese resultative compounds display varied aspectual behaviors. Thus, unlike pidgins, creoles have large numbers of native speakers and are not restricted at all in their uses. Parameter theory and motion predicates request pdf. The english language varies on individual, regional, national and global levels. Language variation and change linguistic society of america. In this sense, a dialect is regarded as a geographical variety of a language, spoken in a certain area, and being different in some linguistic items from. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
These two parameters, along which variation occurs, are in principle independent of each other, although we shall see that there are ways in. Variation in a language use among speakers or groups of speakers is a notable criterion or change that may occur in pronounciation accent, word choice lexicon or even preference for particular grammatical patterns. Unfortunately, some people are unaware of various social and regional dialects, and different varieties of english in the world. How important is language variation towards language. S english 4th semester language variations and varieties of language what is variation. For example, red in lee painted the wall red, a result phrase. We can also find a range of varieties in different. Verbal resultatives this sort of resultative is a grammatical aspect construction that indicates the result state of the event denoted by the verb. Althoughenglish resultatives naturally divide into transitive andintransitive resultatives in the sense of carrier and randall1992, and intransitive resultatives are systematically missingfrom japanese, it is not exactly this distinction that demarcatesthe english set and the japanese set since japanese permits onlycertain types of transitive resultatives, rejecting other typesthat would be possible in english. Although english resultatives naturally divide into transitive and intransitive resulta. He wiped the table clean, is characterized by the presence of a result xp e. The language variation is considered important in language teaching because its contribution of cultural values regards to the different ways of using the language functions or other aspects of language like vocabulary, pronunciation and so far so forth.
Pdf resultative secondary predicates in the baltic. Washio ryuichi resultatives, compositionality, and language variation. This paper provides a new perspective on the options available to languages for encoding directed motion events. Strongresultative is present in germanic but missing in japanese and romance languages 1. A contrastive study of resultative constructions in english, japanese and chinese researching on resultative constructions has become a hot topic in linguistic field in recent years, because it plays an important role in illuminating the nature of lexical semantics and its relationship with syntax. Journal of east asian linguistics, volume 6, issue 1 springer. Linguistic variation across languages is often taken to arise due to a particular choice of parameter settings that determine language specific structural properties during acquisition. Japanese has weak but not strong resultatives, while. Natural phenomenon language is a form of social behavior and communities tend to split up into groups, each displaying differen. Lectures on interpreted languages and compositionality.
Handout of invited speech at the 2005 annual meeting of the chinese linguistic society of japan, university of tsukuba. Pathpp structure and parametrized path head movement keywords. The analysis of phrase and sentence meaning is based on the principle of compositionality that is usually ascribed to gottlob frege freges principle of meaning, fregean principle. Actual usage varies from people to people, and user to user, in terms of the pronunciation. The book first summarizes some of the problems of grammatical description encountered from saussure through the present and then outlines possibilities for new descriptions of language which take into account sociolinguistic factors. Postsyntactic wordformation in japanese kitagawa 1986 observes cases in japanese in which the morphemes ko, usu, and oowhich normally receive adjectival interpretation little, thin, and big respectively, are sometimes interpreted adverbially. A contrastive study of resultative constructions in. In general, the principle of compositionality is based on the assumption that the interpretation of sentence meaning includes aspects of lexical semantics as well as syntax. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise cambridge core to connect with your account. This variation is demonstrated by linguistic differences in terms of sound phonetics and structure grammar. It is known that i spurious resultative phrases depict the state of a created object and ii the presenceabsence of the suffix ly in them i.
This article is within the scope of wikiproject linguistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of linguistics on wikipedia. A contrastive study of resultative constructions in english. The resultative construction, a formmeaning pair e. This literature generally shows that a grammar comprised of constructions is the best model of capturing how a mind learns, processes and produces language. Resultatives, compositionality and language variation. There might be only slight variations between forms of a language such as minor pronunciations of words or a slight changes of grammatical structure that do not inhibit. The case of resultatives with adjectival result phrases. Rather, the parameter breaks down into subcases, as resultatives can be divided into three different types, strong, weak and spuriousresultatives e. Yet, other points of variation interact with tcp, such as whether the language has incremental ps gehrke 2008, and whether v is allowed to take a smallclause complement. A qualia account of mimetic resultatives in japanese.
Rcs refer to a formation that combines a simple sentence with a result phrase or an expression denoting the result of an action. Resultatives, compositionality and language variation a comparative analysis of english and japanese shows that the set of permissible resul tatives in japanese is properly contained in the set of permissible resultatives in english. Author guidelines title page title page doc title page. Written by a team of experts in diverse fields, english language.
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