SE-LFG10 (23/02/2013, SOAS)

10th South of England LFG Meeting

We are planning the 10th South of England LFG meeting, a student-oriented meeting for presentations and discussion of various topics from an LFG perspective. It is planned for Saturday, 23 February 2013, at SOAS, London. Please feel free to attend if you are interested, or if you would like more information please get in touch with Louise Mycock or Kakia Chatsiou.

Meeting Agenda:

11.00-12.00: Narrative Infinitives in SBCG (Irina Nikolaeva, SOAS)

12.00-13.00: Definiteness in the Scandinavian noun-phrase: an OT-LFG account (John Payne & Kersti Börjars, Manchester)

In this paper, we present an analysis of definiteness in the Scandinavian noun phrase using the framework of OT-LFG. Within this analysis, the primary differences between Scandinavian languages result not from the lexicon, but from different rankings of constraints.

Following the development of the DP hypothesis, most work in generative syntax assumes that functional categories in the noun phrase are justified by any exponence of the corresponding functional feature. For example, the Danish definite article det, the Danish definite inflection -t and the Welsh definite clitic yr= represent different kinds of exponence of the feature [+def]. All these elements are then taken to justify a syntactic category D, which projects to DP. In LFG, syntactic representations are required to make formal distinctions between structural exponence, where a D node is postulated, and morphological exponence, where it is not. A functional feature [+def] may feed the functional/semantic level of representation regardless of structure. A definite noun phrase may in principle have one or more exponents of [+def], as long as the Principle of Functional Uniqueness is not violated.

In our analysis, the position, type and frequency of exponence is determined by constraint ranking. In particular, we make use of an alignment constraint that requires any exponent of definiteness to be aligned with the left edge of the noun phrase. A high ranking of the left edge constraint, in conjunction with a constraint barring displacement of the head noun, forces the use of a syntactic article when a definite noun is separated from the left edge by an adjective, e.g. Danish æblet (apple.def) ‘the apple’, det store æble (the big apple) ‘the big apple’, but *store æblet. Weak adjectives like store cannot represent a definite noun phrase in isolation, do not bear the [+def] feature and do not satisfy alignment. When no adjective is present, the noun itself is required to carry morphological marking of definiteness, and satisfies alignment.

Swedish (and Norwegian) noun phrases are also well-known to exhibit cases of “double definiteness” in which structural exponence of definiteness at the left edge is accompanied by morphological exponence on the head noun. In Swedish det stora äpplet (the big apple.def) ‘the big apple’, the requirement for multiple marking clearly outweighs the requirement that any exponent of definiteness should be aligned with the left edge. The differences between Swedish and Danish emerge straightforwardly from alternative rankings of the multiple-marking constraint.

1:00-2:30: Lunch break

2:30-3:30: English Possessive 's: Clitic and Affix (John Lowe, Oxford)

3:30-4:00: Information structure constraints on Swahili word-order (Peter Edelsten, SOAS) (handout)

4:00-4:30: Endangered Language collections at the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR), SOAS (Kakia Chatsiou, SOAS) (How to register guide)

This talk will provide an overview of the work of ELAR, and the range of resources available at the archive for users and researchers.

4:30-5:00: Discussion and planning for next time