Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

Ce séminaire reçoit des conférenciers invités spécialisés dans différents domaines de la linguistique. Les membres du Département, les étudiants et les personnes externes intéressées sont tous cordialement invités.

Prochain séminaire Print

Titre On the Morphosyntax (and Semantics) of clausal embedding (based on work in collaboration with Katrin Axel-Tober)
Conférencier Ellen Brandner (University of Stuttgart)
Date mardi 09 avril 2024
Heure 12h15
Salle L208 (Bâtiment Candolle)
Description

Title: On the Morphosyntax  (and Semantics) of clausal embedding
(based on work in collaboration with Katrin Axel-Tober)

The first part of the talk is devoted to an empirical overview about languages that employ an equative particle as a complementizer; (partially) both for complement clauses and for relative clauses, like English as (< also), Scandinavian som, Alemannic and Pennsylvania Dutch ass (< also).  On the basis of this dataset, it will be argued that this particle (complementizer) is the lexicalization of an ident-relation that equates a nominal element in the matrix clause with the content of the embedded clause, as proposed in Elliott (2020).  In case of a relative clause, due to the presence of lexical content within the antecedent (the NP) and where thus ‘simple’ equation would lead to a lexical clash, it is the referential index of the antecedent and the (missing) argument within the relative clause that is equated (the cat sitting over there is hungry ≈the cat that is sitting over there is the same cat, that is hungry; with extensions to quantified phrases and kind-defining RCs). However, with clausal complements of verbs (think, say, wonder etc.) and also  so-called content nouns (rumor, fact, etc.), there is either no lexical content at all (i) pronouns that can even be dropped (I don’t believe (it), that…) or (ii) the noun is of the kind of light nouns that it requires a further specification. The last part of the talk will address the question how d-type complementizers (English that) can be integrated into the picture.

 

   
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