The German noun phrase generally reflects a straightforward four-way case distinction (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), but this is most clearly realized on the determiner. Nouns show a depleted case system: genitive is only marked specifically on masculine/neuter nouns in the singular. There are several contexts which require genitive case: possessor NPs and objects of certain verbs ...

In this paper, we show how frames can be employed in the analysis 5 of genitive constructions. We model the main approaches in the discussion about 6 genitive constructions, i.e. the argument-only approach, the modifier-only approach 7 and the split approach. Of these three, the split approach is modeled most naturally 8 in frames. Thus, if frames are considered a cognitively adequate represent...

The aim of this article is to provide a formal analysis of non-local Genitive of Negation in Polish, a phenomenon occurring in so-called ‘clause union’ environments and consisting in the genitive case being assigned to an object of a lower verb when a higher verb is negated, instead of the expected accusative. In particular, I examine two aspects of such non-local Genitive of Negation, occasion...

In Study 1, English-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds heard a novel adjective used to label one of two objects and were asked for the referent of a different novel adjective. Children were more likely to select the unlabeled object if the two adjectives appeared prenominally (e.g., "a very DAXY dog") than as predicates (e.g., "a dog that is very DAXY"). Study 2 revealed that this response occurred on...

This paper discusses the partitive-genitive case alternation of Finnish adpositions. This case alternation is explained in terms of bidirectional alignment of markedness in form and meaning. Marked PP meanings are assigned partitive case, unmarked ones genitive case.

(1) a. Inflectional paradigms aspire to “avoid homophony”. The Russian nominative singular and genitive plural endings reflect a transderivational attempt to minimize homophony across inflectional endings. b. Inflectional paradigms require transderivational reference: one cannot compute the Russian genitive plural without knowing what the nominative singular ending is. c. Markedness-based neutr...

Three studies investigated how 24-month-olds and adults resolve temporary ambiguity in fluent speech when encountering prenominal adjectives potentially interpretable as nouns. Children were tested in a looking-while-listening procedure to monitor the time course of speech processing. In Experiment 1, the familiar and unfamiliar adjectives preceding familiar target nouns were accented or deacce...