Showing papers on "Head (linguistics) published in 2005"

Head direction cells and the neural mechanisms of spatial orientation

Abstract: Head direction cells -- neurons that fire only when an animal orients its head in a certain direction -- are found in several different brain areas, with different neurons selective for different head orientations; they are influenced by landmarks as well as motor and vestibular information concerning how the head moves through space. These properties suggest that head direction cells play an important role in determining orientation in space and in navigation. Moreover, the prominence, strength, and clarity of head direction signals indicate their importance over the course of evolution and suggest that they can serve as a vital key for understanding brain function. This book presents the latest findings on head direction cells in a comprehensive treatment that will be a valuable reference for students and researchers in the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, computational science, and robotics. The book begins by presenting head direction cell properties and an anatomical framework of the head direction system. It then looks at the types of sensory and motor information that control head direction cell firing, covering topics including the integration of diverse signals; the relationship between head direction cell activity and an animal's spatial behavior; and spatial and directional orientation in nonhuman primates and humans. The book concludes with a tutorial demonstrating the implementation of the continuous attractor network, a computational model of head direction cells, and an application of this approach for a navigational system for mobile robots.

Zur Analyse der scheinbar mehrfachen Vorfeldbesetzung

Abstract: In this article I discuss examples of multiple constituents before the finite verb in German. I provide an analysis that uses an empty verbal head that takes the elements before the finite verb as arguments or adjuncts. The empty verbal head that is used for the analysis of multiple frontings is identical to the empty verbal head that is used to account for the analysis of verb first sentences (verb movement). The analysis uses techniques that were developed independently for the analysis of Incomplete Category Fronting.

Evidential, raised possessor, and the historical source of the ergative construction in Indo‐Iranian

Abstract: This paper argues (i) that the source of the ergative construction of the transitive verb in Indic and Iranian languages was anticausative but not passive as has widely been assumed, (ii) that it functioned as a modally marked evidential which indicated that the event in question was inferred or reported rather than directly witnessed, and (iii) that the agent was by origin a genitive-marked adnominal possessor raised out of its noun phrase and later reanalysed as the syntactic subject, its uniform instrumental-marking in Sanskrit being an innovation. In view of the fact that the possessive modifier precedes its head this analysis can account naturally for the position of the transitive agent at the beginning of the clause, preceding the object. It is, finally, suggested that the construction originated with non-agentive intransitive verbs and that it spread to transitives through the intermediary of ergative (ambitransitive) verbs which can have both intransitive-spontaneous and transitive-causative forms, a hypothesis which creates a diachronic link between lexical and structural ergativity.

Some notes on coordination in head-final languages

Abstract: In a structuralist tradition going back to at least De Groot (1949:112), and recently revived by Kayne (1994:12), coordinated constituents are taken to be headed by the conjunction, which takes the second coordinand as its complement. This makes it possible to classify conjunctions as initial (A [& B]) or final (A [B &]), and to consider the question whether the use of initial/final conjunctions correlates with headedness (the typological distinction between head-initial and head-final languages). This question is addressed by Stassen (2003: 775), who finds that final conjunctions occur in verb-final languages only. This statement, however, glosses over the fact that final conjunction is rare even in head-final languages. This article presents a survey of the phenomena of noun phrase coordination in head-final languages, from which it will emerge that head-final languages display a remarkable preference for initial conjunctions. If De Groot and Kayne are right about the structure of the coordination constituent, one is forced to conclude that almost all head-final languages show some head-initial structure. The survey presented here is based on a sample of 162 languages constructed for studying morphosyntactic variation (see the Appendix). Head-final languages are defined as those in which the verb (V) and adposition (P)Cor one of the two in case the position of the other is unclearCfollow their complements in the unmarked surface word order. Noun phrase coordination is defined as in (1):

Running Head: VERBAL PROBABILITIES INTERPRETED OPTIMISTICALLY How probable is probably? It depends on whom you're talking about

Abstract: Two studies tested whether people interpreted verbal chance terms in a self-serving manner. Participants read statements describing the likelihood of events in their own future and in the future of a randomly chosen other. They interpreted the chance terms numerically. Chance terms were interpreted as denoting a higher probability when they were used to describe the likelihood of pleasant events in one's own future than when they were used to describe the likelihood of pleasant events in someone else's future (Study 1). Similarly, chance terms were interpreted as denoting a lower probability when they were used to describe the likelihood of unpleasant events in one's own future than when they were used to describe the likelihood of unpleasant events in someone else's future (Studies 1 and 2). These differences occurred primarily when the risk statements were threatening. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intonation of polar questions and the location of nuclear stress in Greek

Abstract: The experimental findings presented in this paper suggest that morphology influences the location of sentence stress in Greek. The findings reveal a difference in the position of prosodic nucleus between plain polar questions and polar questions that start with the question particle mipos; the former align the main sentence stress with the verb, while in the latter the main sentence stress aligns with the right-edge prosodic boundary. Plain polar questions are string identical with declarative sentences. I argue that the lack of any other way of marking the plain polar question in the grammar of Greek forces the nucleus to appear on the verb: interrogativity is signaled by means of intonation alone and the verb, as the head of its prosodic phrase, carries the intonational morphological marker in polar questions. Moreover, the experimental data show that in Greek there is a requirement to align the nucleus with the right prosodic edge. In polar questions, where the nucleus has to align with the verb which is not phrase final, this requirement is satisfied through de-accenting. Words occurring after the nucleus-verb get de-accented even when they are discourse-new. The data show that, for Greek, the requirement to accent information-new words ranks lower than the morphological and the edgealignment constraints and it is sacrificed to satisfy them.

The Movie in Your Head

Abstract: Is consciousness a seamless experience or a string of fleeting images, like frames of a movie? The emerging answer will determine whether the way we perceive the world is illusory

Binding in Picture Noun Phrases: Implications for Binding Theory

Abstract: This paper investigates the binding of pronouns and reflexives in “picture” noun phrases, and focuses on data showing that reflexives and pronouns are not in complementary distribution in picture NPs with possessors. In particular, we discuss data showing that whereas reflexives can take either the possessor or the subject of the sentence as antecedent, pronouns are restricted to an antecedent other than the possessor phrase. We suggest that this asymmetry can be straightforwardly explained if we assume that (1) the possessor of a picture NP is not part of the head noun’s argument structure and (2) Binding Theory is stated over “dependents” structure, the representation encompassing both a head’s argument structure and other phrases dependent on it in various ways. If the possessor of a picture NP (PNP) is not part of the head’s argument structure, it follows that reflexives in PNPs with possessors will be “exempt” from Binding Theory, which paves the way for an analysis of the reflexive data. Furthermore, we also show that if BT is regarded as defined over dependents structure, it follows that a pronoun in a picture NP with a possessor must be disjoint from that possessor phrase.

Phrase Linguistic Classification and Generalization for Improving Statistical Machine Translation

Abstract: In this paper a method to incorporate linguistic information regarding single-word and compound verbs is proposed, as a first step towards an SMT model based on linguistically-classified phrases. By substituting these verb structures by the base form of the head verb, we achieve a better statistical word alignment performance, and are able to better estimate the translation model and generalize to unseen verb forms during translation. Preliminary experiments for the English - Spanish language pair are performed, and future research lines are detailed.

Topic-Worthiness in German and English

Abstract: Translations from English into German show that about every second sentence does not begin like the original, although discourse conditions are similar and analogous beginnings are seldom excluded for linguistic reasons. In many cases, the differences concern word order (as well as perspective and structural explicitness), in particular the preposing/topicalizing of arguments or adjuncts. To explain these findings, the strategy of discourse linking by the order given before new (for simple, binary information structures) is complemented by a strategy of balanced information distribution (for complex information structures with more than two values). Successful implementation of either strategy will be shown to be subject to different conditions in a language with a head final verb phrase and more or less free word order as opposed to a language with a head initial verb phrase and rigid word order.

Exhaustivity as Agreement: The Case of Korean Man ‘only’

Abstract: The focus particle man‘only’ in Korean shows different scopal behavior depending upon its syntactic environment. This non-uniform scope pattern cannot be accounted for if the particle is a scope-bearing element. This paper argues that the particle man is not a scope-bearing element, but an agreement morpheme that indicates the presence of a null head ONLY. Under this proposal, the particle man does not carry the exhaustive meaning of only; the null head does. Therefore, it is the position of the ONLY head, not that of the particle, that determines the scopal relation with respect to other quantificational elements. This paper also claims that there is a strong correlation between syntax and morphology (Baker’s Mirror Principle). Thus the relative order among the particle, case marker, and postposition reflects the hierarchy of corresponding functional heads. This helps detect the position of the ONLY head. The proposed analysis accounts for the scope patterns without making special stipulations about man-phrases.

Double comparatives and the comparative criterion

Abstract: In this paper, I (re)consider a number of facets of adjectival comparative (and related) constructions as discussed in Corver (1997a,b). Rather than taking comparative words like more and less to be functional heads that head some Degree Projection, I claim that they are phrases (i.e. XPs) that undergo displacement within the adjective phrase to a Spec-position of a functional head that encodes ‘comparison’. In the spirit of Rizzi (1991), this Spec position is characterized as a criterial position. The empirical basis for my proposal is the phenomenon of Comparative Doubling, i.e. the co-occurrence of the bound comparative morpheme (-er) and the comparative word more in expressions like more safer.

Morphological word structure in English and Swedish: the evidence from prosody

Abstract: Trubetzkoy's recognition of a delimitative function of phonology, serving to signal boundaries between morphological units, is expressed in terms of alignment constraints in Optimality Theory, where the relevant constraints require specific morphological boundaries to coincide with phonological structure (Trubetzkoy 1936, 1939, McCarthy & Prince 1993). The approach pursued in the present article is to investigate the distribution of phonological boundary signals to gain insight into the criteria underlying morphological analysis. The evidence from English and Swedish suggests that necessary and sufficient conditions for word-internal morphological analysis concern the recognizability of head constituents, which include the rightmost members of compounds and head affixes. The claim is that the stability of word-internal boundary effects in historical perspective cannot in general be sufficiently explained in terms of memorization and imitation of phonological word form. Rather, these effects indicate a morphological parsing mechanism based on the recognition of word-internal head constituents. Head affixes can be shown to contrast systematically with modifying affixes with respect to syntactic function, semantic content, and prosodic properties. That is, head affixes, which cannot be omitted, often lack inherent meaning and have relatively unmarked boundaries, which can be obscured entirely under specific phonological conditions. By contrast, modifying affixes, which can be omitted, consistently have inherent meaning and have stronger boundaries, which resist prosodic fusion in all phonological contexts. While these correlations are hardly specific to English and Swedish it remains to be investigated to which extent they hold cross-linguistically. The observation that some of the constituents identified on the basis of prosodic evidence lack inherent meaning raises the issue of compositionality. I will argue that certain systematic aspects of word meaning cannot be captured with reference to the syntagmatic level, but require reference to the paradigmatic level instead. The assumption is then that there are two dimensions of morphological analysis: syntagmatic analysis, which centers on the criteria for decomposing words in terms of labelled constituents, and paradigmatic analysis, which centers on the criteria for establishing relations among (whole) words in the mental lexicon. While meaning is intrinsically connected with paradigmatic analysis (e.g. base relations, oppositeness) it is not essential to syntagmatic analysis.

Phrasal noun incorporation in tongan

Abstract: This paper examines the noun incorporation construction in Tongan Like other Polynesian languages, noun incorporation in Tongan can involve modifiers of the incorporated noun However, analyses using NP-compounding,VP-remnant movement,or head movementare shown to be inadequate for analyzing this construction An alternative is proposed whereby the verb and the incorporated noun form a single word, but one that has some of the verb’s dependency potential as well as the noun’s dependency potential, thus licensing the modifiers

Machine translation apparatus and machine translation program

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce the generation of unknown words or non-sentences in translating an original into another language and to improve translation accuracy and operation efficiency by correcting words including lost characters or misinputted characters when an input original to be translated is acquired from an original on the basis of the characteristics of an acquiring source of the input original text. SOLUTION: A translation original estimation apparatus is provided with: a morpheme analysis part 14 for determining whether the head character of a head word out of a plurality of words obtained by dividing character strings acquired from a web page in each word unit is a capital letter or a small letter, and when the head character is a capital letter, generating a plurality of head word substituting words by adding a capital letter of alphabet to the head of a head word; a syntax analysis part 15 for performing the syntax analysis of one or more sentences in each of which a head word substitution candidate existing in a dictionary part 10 which is selected on the basis of dictionary data in the dictionary part 10 is substituted for the head word of an original on the basis of the dictionary data of the dictionary part 10 about the plurality of generated head word substituting words; and a syntax analysis control part 16 for selecting a grammatically correct original candidate from the candidates and outputting the selected candidate to a translation part 18. COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

A Statistical Model Based on the Three Head Words for Detecting Article Errors

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a statistical model for detecting article errors, which Japanese learners of English often make in English writing. It is based on the three head words --- the verb head, the preposition, and the noun head. To overcome the data sparseness problem, we apply the backed-off estimate to it. Experiments show that its performance (F-measure=0.70) is better than that of other methods. Apart from the performance, it has two advantages: (i) Rules for detecting article errors are automatically generated as conditional probabilities once a corpus is given; (ii) Its recall and precision rates are adjustable.

A head-driven treatment of asymmetric coordination and apposition

Abstract: In Pollard and Sag (1994) and Ginzburg and Sag (2000) phrases are either headed or non-headed, and if they are headed, there is a relation of selection between the daughters: either the head daughter selects its non-head sister(s), as in the phrases of type head-complements, or the non-head daughter selects its head sister, as in the phrases of type head-adjunct. In the non-headed phrases, by contrast, there is no selection; in a coordinate structure, for instance, there is no relation of selection, neither between the conjuncts nor between the conjunction and the conjuncts. The central claim of this paper is that there are also phrases which are headed but in which neither daughter selects the other. To model such phrases I propose a new type, called head-independent. Its properties are spelled out and its range of application is illustrated with various examples, including asymmetric coordination and apposition.

V2, Discourse Functions and Split-CP

Abstract: There have been various suggestions as regards the syntactic structure of V2 clauses in German and the other Germanic languages (for some suggestions see section 2). To my knowledge, however, none of the structures proposed has really considered discourse functions. To be more precise, Frey (2000) for example, suggested that the V2 requirement could be satisfied in three ways, namely (a) merger of an expletive, (b) stylistic fronting and (c) semantically/pragmatically triggered fronting of an XP, so that discourse functions do come into play. These discourse functions, however, are simply encoded by different features, such as [fok] or [link], which appear on one and the same head (C°). The aim of this paper, on the other hand, is to incorporate discourse functions into the syntactic structure of V2 clauses.

Reconstruction in German relative clauses In favor of the Matching Analysis

Abstract: In this paper I argue in favor of a Matching Analysis for German relative clauses. The Head Raising Analysis is shown to fail to account for parts of the reconstruction pattern in German, especially cases where only the external head is interpreted and the absence of Principle C effects. I propose a Matching Analysis with Vehicle Change and make consistent assumptions about possible deletion operations in relatives so that the entire pattern can be captured by one analysis which therefore proves superior to previous ones. 1

Low tone raising in Bole

Abstract: Bole has a tonal process, referred to as Low Tone Raising (LTR) in this paper, first described by Lukas (1969) with additional information added by Gimba (1998), whereby a high tone spreads from the final syllable of a word and replaces a low tone on the initial syllable of a following word. LTR is blocked if the L-bearing syllable begins in voiced obstruent. LTR is licensed only in certain syntactic environments, notably N + N genitives, V + nominal direct object, and clitic + host. It is blocked from applying in certain other environments, including Noun plus any post-nominal modifier. In addition to these syntactic conditions on LTR, certain word classes never undergo and/or never condition LTR, even where the phonological and syntactic conditions are met. Most notable among these word classes are proper names. The paper proposes that the syntactic requirement for LTR is that it apply only between items that, together, form the head of a phrase, and it proposes an intermediate level of structure (called "little xp") that forms a phrasal head. In some cases, syntactic structure must be adjusted to allow for LTR, esp. in the case of mono-moraic clitics plus their hosts. It is suggested that proper names, which neither undergo nor condition LTR, are tonal "islands".

Data edit apparatus and data edit method

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a data edit apparatus for switching video data in matching with the characteristic by providing the characteristic of music data to be combined with video data in advance SOLUTION: A timing generating section 240 generates a start timing of a head phrase and an end timing of each phrase on the basis of phrase data stored in a phrase storage section 340 A video control section 270 sequentially reads and outputs video data stored in a video database 310 according to the reproduction sequence stored in a reproduction sequence list storage section 350 A synchronization processing section 250 outputs music data stored in the music data storage section 330 synchronously with the start timing of the head phrase supplied from the timing generating section 240 COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI