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Head (linguistics)

About: Head (linguistics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2540 publications have been published within this topic receiving 29023 citations. The topic is also known as: nucleus.


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19 Nov 2009
TL;DR: In this article, a syntactic account of two types of adpositional preverb constructions in Hungarian is presented, which explains their special behavior, including their mixed argument/adjunct properties.
Abstract: This paper develops a syntactic account of two types of adpositional preverb constructions in Hungarian that explains their special behavior, including their mixed argument/adjunct properties. It is maintained that in neutral clauses both types of preverbs come to occupy a position left-adjacent to the verb by XP-movement of an adpositional phrase. Apart from yielding a regular overt movement chain, Chain Reduction (Nunes 1999, 2004), applying in the mapping to PF, may also reduce the copy of the PP left-adjacent to the verb to its adpositional head. Morphosyntactic reanalysis of the reduced copy makes it possible to realize the lower copy of the PP-chain overtly, either as a partial copy or as a full double, depending in part on the morphological status its head. Drawing on the assumption that Chain Reduction applies at the phase level, the paper accounts for the complex pattern of the (non-)availability of these spell out forms in various positions of the clause. This paper explores the syntax of two classes of preverbs in Hungarian, illustrated in (1) and (2) below.1 As is characteristic of verbal particles in Germanic and lexical verbal prefixes in Slavic, both classes systematically enable the verb to combine with a modifier phrase that appears to be an argument, whose morpho-syntactic form is restricted by the choice of the particle. Both types of preverbs apparently alter the argument structure of the verb: the modifier phrases display properties that render them similar to arguments. One way in which they consistently behave as adjuncts, however, is that their co-occurrence with the prefixed verb is invariably optional, see (1b), (2b). In what follows I will be referring to these elements agnostically as ‘quasi-arguments’ whenever their argument structural status is irrelevant to the discussion, or yet to be determined.

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that subject-orientation in English de-adjectival -ly adverbs is not a syntactic attribute, but a lexico-semantic feature, and examined constructions in which an adverb modifies an adjectival head and displays a (potential) orientation to a co-occurring noun.
Abstract: This paper challenges the view that subject-orientation in English de-adjectival -ly adverbs is a syntactic attribute, and favours the hypothesis that orientation is, rather, a lexico-semantic feature. An important part of the evidence supporting this hypothesis derives from the examination of constructions in which an -ly adverb modifies an adjectival head (as in his genially informal manner) and displays a (potential) orientation to a co-occurring noun. The discussion is based on examples from the LOB Corpus.

7 citations

Book
01 Jan 1979

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that head-movement is sensitive to categorial and other features of lexical items, contrary to the claims of Chomsky 2013. But this approach cannot generalize to account for why only V+v and not D of an external argument can raise to T in V-v-to-T languages, and also has major difficulties accounting for a well-known asymmetry: T raises to C only in English non-subject questions.
Abstract: Abstract Chomsky 2013 argues that D of an external argument in Spec TP is in principle as close to C as T is. Assuming that “inversion depends upon locality independent of category,” T and D should therefore compete with each other as candidates for raising to C in English questions, yet only T so raises. Chomsky takes this to indicate that the external argument is in its base position, Spec, vP, when C is merged. Our paper argues that this approach cannot generalize to account for why only V+v and not D of an external argument can raise to T in V-v-to-T languages. It also has major difficulties accounting for a well-known asymmetry: T raises to C only in English non-subject questions. We conclude that head-movement is sensitive to categorial and other features of lexical items, contra the claims of Chomsky 2013.

7 citations


Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20222
202168
202090
201986
201890
201790