Kategorie: Syntax

We are happy to announce two talks by Samuel Atintono (Accra College of Education) and Samuel A. Issah (University of Education Winneba) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: July 10, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Titles: Weak pronoun placement and post verbal particles: A case of object shift in Mabia (Samuel Atintono)               Inaudible syntax in Mabia: The case of fragmentary answers in Dagbani and Gurenɛ (Samuel A. Issah)   Abstracts: Weak pronoun placement and post verbal particles: A case of object shift in Mabia (Samuel A. Atintono) In this presentation, we explore the distribution of the postverbal particles la/mi and la/mɛ for Dagbani and Gurenɛ, two Mabia languages spoken in Northern Ghana. We show that they are full DPs and weak pronouns behave different in the syntax regarding the distribution of these verbal particles. Thus, while the la particle of both Dagbani and Gurenɛ requires an overt DP or an...

We are happy to announce two talks by Liyang Ye (GU) and Abdul-Razak Sulemana (University of Ghana) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: July 03, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Titles: Topicality in Chinese (Liyang Ye) & The finite / non-finite distinction in Buli (Abdul-Razak Sulemana)...

We are happy to announce a talk by  Barbara Stiebels (Leipzig University) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talk will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: June 26, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: The role of „scope“ in affix order: verbal reflexives and affixal negation Abstract: stiebels-syntax-frankfurt-2023...

We are happy to announce a talk by  Johannes Mursell and Anke Himmelreich (GU) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talk will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: June 19, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: Imperfective marking in Sisaali and Gurene Abstract: In this talk we present patterns of imperfective marking in two Mabia languages: Gurene and Sisaali. In both languages, the morphology of the imperfective depends on its interaction with movement. The generalization is that the imperfective marker takes on a special form if material inside the VP (objects or adverbials) undergoes A-bar movement (wh-movement or focus movement) to the sentence-initial position. If there is no A-bar movement or if the subject undergoes A-bar movement, the default imperfective marker is chosen. Additionally, in the Tumulung dialect of Sisaali, the form depends on the linearly preceding element: A pronominal subject or a focus marker are followed by a special kind of imperfective marker, while non-pronominal subjects trigger the default marker. In...

We are happy to announce a talk by  Daniel Hole (Universität Stuttgart) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talk will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: June 12, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: Towards explaining clause structure Abstract: This talk sets out to explain the overall structure of clauses in natural language. In the syntactically lowest portion of clauses, the event is built up. On top of that follow aspectual and modal specifications, closed off by deictic tense. Then follow speaker/hearer-dependent categories. A hierarchy of indexical categories is determined according to the level in the syntactic structure from which on upwards an indexical category is available for interpretation. This hierarchy is then reduced to generalizations about actual language use in dialogue. In later portions of the article, anaphoric context dependence is integrated into the picture. It is a characteristic of the work reported on here to bring together strands of research from generative syntax and formal semantics that do not usually...