This paper investigates the behavior of aspect markers in controlled complements in Mandarin Chinese. I argue that such markers are instantiations of matrix aspect, despite surface appearances. The facts are shown to follow from the independently motivated proposal that Mandarin controlled complements are vPs, together with a phase-bound approach to the syntax of (affixal) aspect placement. The...

Research on complementizer selection has shown that the presence of a negative particle in subordinate complement clause influences choice, leading to relatively higher proportion finite complementation patterns by increasing complexity syntactic environment. Studies have also different types negation, namely not - and no -negation, increase tendency towards more explicit options (Rohdenburg 20...

This study aims to present an accessible model of some frequent nonfinite adverbial types occurring in English prose fiction. As its main syntactic argument, it recognizes that these adverbials are mostly elliptical in that there are some dependent-clause markers one can assume to be implicit when supplying those elements back into the clause complex. Some comments are provided at the end on th...

We discuss remarkable constructions in Icelandic that have the distributive pronoun hvor ‘each’ common: reciprocal construction annar ‘each other’, and sinn their’, which also comes a ‘their each’ version. provide first detailed description of these constructions, particular their case word order properties, raise recalcitrant puzzles, then we what they say about syntax nonfinite verbs. Specifi...

English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) are known to have particular difficulty with the acquisition of grammatical morphemes that carry tense and agreement features, such as the past tense -ed and third-person singular present -s. In this study, an Extended Optional Infinitive (EOI) account of SLI is evaluated. In this account, -ed, -s, BE, and DO are regarded as fini...

In a majority of languages, the time of an event is expressed by marking tense on the verb. There is substantial evidence that the production of verb tense in sentences is more severely impaired than other functional categories in persons with agrammatic aphasia. The underlying source of this verb tense impairment is less clear, particularly in terms of the relative contribution of conceptual-s...

As the recent volume edited by Aikhenvald and Dixon (2006) indicates, interest in verb serialization or serial verb constructions (SVCs hereafter) persists. Indeed, the question of how serial verbs differ from other types of complex predicates such as converbal complex predicates and verb compounds, as well as other multi-verb constructions like coordination and subordination, remains one of th...

In recent years, the term ‘obviation’ has been applied to phenomena in a variety of languages on the basis of perceived similarity to the phenomenon in Algonquian languages to which, I assume, the term was originally applied. An example of a descriptive use of the term occurs in Dayley (1989: 136), who applies the terms ‘obviative’ and ‘proximate’ to two categories of demonstratives in Tümpisa ...