Sank's Glossary of Linguistics
P-Par |
P-MARKER
- (Syntax)
Level P of phrases
- Primes: morpheme sequences (words) and the symbols S, N,
V, A, P, NP, VP, AP, PP, etc.
- Rewriting rules in Chomsky-normal form defined over the
primes.
- A derivation at the level P is a sequence of applications of
these rules, which is represented by a P-marker.
Phrase Structure Derivation
S
NP VP
Det N VP
Det N V NP
Det N V Det N
the N V Det N
the man V Det N
the man saw Det N
the man saw the N
the man saw the dog
P-marker represents a derivation by the rules:
S → NP VP
VP → V NP
NP → Det N
Etc.
P-marker: Ordered set of strings, each derived from the immediately prior in the "stack" by rewriting.
(Chomsky 1955) | Robert May, 2023
- (Syntax) The structural description (SD) of a sentence may be represented as a series of diagrams each of which is called a P-marker. Briefly, a P-marker consists of a tree graph whose nodes are labeled by a hierarchy of grammatical constituents, with the top node labeled S, i.e., sentence. A P-marker, then, is one of a series of statements about the relations among the postulated constituents of a sentence.
Every SD contains one deep P-marker, Pd, one surface P-marker, Ps, and possibly other intermediate P-markers. We may express this in the
following formula:
SD = { Pd, P2, ... Ps }
Of these P-markers, Ps is a direct analysis of the sentence under description, in that its bottom nodes are labeled by a sequence of morphemes that corresponds exactly to the sequence of morphemes that constitutes that sentence.
Each P-marker Pn is derived from the P-marker Pn-1 which precedes
it in the series, by a transformation, which may delete, expand, permute, or substitute the constituents of Pn-1 to form Pn. In some cases, Pd, which is expanded from the constituent structure rules, is identical in form with Ps, and there are no other P-markers in the SD. In such SDs,
no transformations need to be used.
Such an interpretation of SD as a series of P-markers connected by transformations enables the analyst to formalize such crucial concepts as "discontinuous constituent," "ellipsis," etc., in his description of a sentence. | William S-Y. Wang, 1965
P-OMISSION
- (Syntax) Apparent violations to the P(reposition)-Stranding Generalization (Merchant 2001) appear in Spanish, a language that does not allow P-stranding in regular wh-questions. I will refer to these apparent violations to the P-stranding Generalization as cases of P(reposition)-omission, which I define as the omission of a preposition in an ellipsis fragment.
A language L will allow P-omission in sluicing iff L allows preposition stranding under regular wh-movement. (adapted from Merchant 2001)
| Laura Stigliano, 2022
- (Syntax) When the correlate of the wh-remnant in sluicing is a complement of a preposition (P), the remnant may appear with or without that P:
- John talked with someone but I don't know {who / with whom}.
Merchant (2001) examines sentences of this type across an impressive range of languages. In his sample only those that have P(reposition)-stranding allow for P-less remnants.
P-omission under sluicing necessarily involves P-stranding as a step in the derivation and is only expected to be licit in the P-stranding languages. For this reason, Merchant calls
P-omission P-stranding under sluicing. In this paper I will stick to a more theory-neutral P-omission (under sluicing). | Tatiana Philippova, 2014
See Also PREPOSITION STRANDING GENERALIZATION.
P-SET
(Pragmatics) One of Hawkins's (1978) insights into definiteness is the observation that the requirement of uniqueness is not absolute but rather holds within the limits of a pragmatically delimited set of entities (P-sets). The notion of P-set is further elaborated in his monograph of 1991. In Hawkins (1978), he carefully describes all the possible usages for the definite article in English and he shows how the uniqueness requirement holds if it is considered within the limits of a determined P-set. Therefore, for each usage of the definite article, one type of P-set is delimited. Speakers make use of different P-sets that are apparent to all conversational participants, and they refer to a unique definite NP within the limits of the delimited P-set. These P-sets are of several types:
- The previous discourse set.
- The immediate situation of utterance set.
- A larger or specific situation set.
- Associative relationships set.
- Establishing relatives or genitives set.
- The universe of discourse set.
| Maquela Brizuela, 1999
P-STRANDING GENERALIZATION
See PREPOSITION STRANDING GENERALIZATION.
PAIR-LIST ANSWER
- (Syntax) Questions with universal quantifiers in argument position may allow for at least two types of answers: a single answer (SA; 1a), and a pair-list answer, (PLA; 1b). Object questions with a subject quantifier, like (1), typically allow both. By contrast, the availability of a PLA for subject questions with an object quantifier, as in (2), is more controversial.
- Who did everyone kiss?
a. Everyone kissed John. (SA)
b. Mary kissed John, Jane kissed Nick and Sarah kissed Michael. (PLA)
- Who kissed everyone?
Beyond the syntactic position of the question and quantifier terms, a number of additional factors have been claimed to affect the availability of PLA: the lexical nature of the question-words, their presuppositional status and number (Agüero-Bautista 2001, Chierchia 2003), as well as the nature of the interacting quantifiers (Williams 1988, Beghelli 1997). To further complicate the picture, individual acceptability judgments reported in the literature are sometimes at odds with each other (Dayal 1996, Szabolcsi 1997, Agüero-Bautista 2001). | Asya Achimova, Viviane Deprez, and Julien Musolino, 2010
- (Syntax; Semantics) Or, pair-list response. Questions with plural definites (henceforth QPDs) have long been known to allow for pair-list responses (Groenendijk and Stokhof 1984, Pritchett 1990). For example, (1a) may elicit (1b).
- a. Who do the students like?
b. Ann likes Professor Jones and Ben likes Professor Smith.
My use of the term response here is intentional. It has been debated whether (1b) truly is an answer to (1a), in the sense that an answer is generated in the semantics, with a direct and predictable correspondence between its content and the semantics of the question that elicits it. The term response, on the other hand, I use atheoretically to describe anything said in reply to a question, whether or not there is a direct link to the question's content. This distinction in terminology foreshadows a question: do pair-list responses to QPDs have the status of
answers? | William Johnston, 2023
PAIR-LIST READING
(Semantics) The term pair-list reading will be applied to both types (1) and (2):
- Who did every dog bite?
'For every dog, who did it bite?'
- Who did six dogs bite?
'For six dogs of your choice, who did each bite?'
Type (1) will be referred to as a fixed domain reading and type (2) as a choice reading, when the distinction is necessary.
Pair-list readings arise when the interrogative contains a quantifier; the issue to be addressed is what role this quantifier plays. The standard view is that the quantifier here does not have the same kind of quantificational force as in other "normal" contexts; instead it contributes a restriction on the domain of the question. Furthermore, it is assumed that interrogatives on the pair-list reading are lifted, i.e., denote generalized quantifiers over individual questions. Abstracting away from certain differences between authors (Groenendijk and Stokhof 1984, Higginbotham 1991, Chierchia 1993), matrix as well as complement pair-list readings are assigned the following kind of interpretation:
λP ∃X | X a set determined by the quantifier & P (which x ∈ X bit whom)
where P is a variable ranging over properties like being a secret, being known by John or being wondered about by John. | Anna Szabolcsi, 1997
PALEOGRAPHY
- (Diachronic) Or, palaeography (UK). Ultimately from Greek: παλαιός, palaiós, 'old', and γράφειν, gráphein, 'to write'. The study of historic writing systems and the academic discipline of the analysis of historical writing systems, the historicity of manuscripts and texts, subsuming deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysis of historic penmanship, handwriting script, signification and printed media. It is primarily concerned with the forms, processes and relationships of writing and printing systems as evident in a text, document or manuscript; analysis of the substantive textual content of documents is a secondary function. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating manuscripts (OED), and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and printing of texts, manuscripts, books, codices and tomes, tracts and monographs, etc., were produced, and the history of scriptoria (Latin Paleography Network ?). This discipline is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating historic texts. However, in the absence of additional evidence, it cannot be used to pinpoint exact dates.
The discipline is one of the auxiliary sciences of history, and is considered to have been founded by Jean Mabillon (Catholic Encyclopedia 1913) with his work De re diplomatica (1681), which was the first textbook to address the subject. The term palaeography was coined by Bernard de Montfaucon with the publication of his work on Greek palaeography, the Palaeographia Graeca (1708). | Wikipedia, 2024
- (Diachronic) The branch of science which deals with ancient writing (παλαιὰ γραφή). As the Greek word for writing comprises a great deal more than the work of pen and ink, palæographical study would be imperfect if it did not take into consideration the ancient inscriptions upon stone and metal which are usually left to numismatists and other archæologists. | Bernard Quaritch, 1894
PARADIGM TRIMMING
- (Morphology) A device by which a series of paradigms disallows certain combinations of elements, thereby greatly reducing the total possible combinations. Cross-linguistically, the ways in which paradigms may be trimmed and the mechanisms used to express marking-overload combinations are extremely limited.
Because Basque, for example, is a triple agreement language, its system of agreement paradigms is extremely complicated. Based on evidence that Basque, a primarily ergative language, has some active / inactive characteristics, six classes of verbs are identified; the corresponding auxiliary paradigms yield a theoretical model of 336 forms possible for each tense.
Nevertheless, there are certain methods by which the system is greatly simplified. Paradigm identity reduces the number of paradigms necessary to produce all forms. Furthermore, the paradigms do not contain all logically possible forms. | Kristin Addis, 1993
- (Morphosyntax) In both Georgian and Basque, a verb can agree with both a direct object and an indirect object. In both languages, this is only possible if the direct object is 3rd person. This holds quite strictly in Basque, but there are variants of Georgian where it does not hold (cf. Vamling 1988). In variants of Georgian where the direct object is not 3rd person, the indirect object must be. Thus, both systems seem to share the feature that it is impossible for verbs to cross-reference two objects unless at least one of them is 3rd person (and presumably unmarked, 3rd person object agreement usually being the least marked, as it is in both Georgian and Basque). As such, it consitutes a restriction on the amount of marking a verb may take. This phenomenon is referred to in the literature as paradigm trimming (cf. Addis 1993).
This seems to be a universal. In languages with clitic pronouns, such as Spanish, the same restrictions seem to hold for the clitic system. Thus, it is impossible to express a third person dative argument and a non-third person argument by clitics (1a)–(1b). Neither is it possible to combine two clitics if neither is 3rd person (1c). The only possible combination of clitics is as in (1d), where the direct object is 3rd person, or as in (1e) where both objects are 3rd person.
a.
* Te
2SG.OBJ
le
3SG.DAT
dí.
gave-1SG
'I gave you to him.'
b.
* Le
3SG.OBJ
te
2SG.ACC
dí.
gave-1SG
'I gave you to him.'
c.
* Él
he
me
1SG.OBJ
te
2SG.OBJ
dió.
gave-3SG
'He gave me to you / you to me.'
d.
Él
he
me
1SG.OBJ
lo
3SG.ACC
dió.
gave-3SG
'He gave it to me.'
e.
Se
3SG.REFL.ACC
lo
3SG.ACC
dió.
gave-3SG
'He gave it to him.'
Thus, paradigm trimming does not seem to be valid evidence for genetic or historical contact, since it represents a universal. | Arthur Holmer, 2002
PARADIGMATIC GAP
(Grammar) In the most broad sense, the term paradigmatic gap has been used to refer to words or structures which may be considered "missing" from a cross-linguistic perspective, such as when one language has a word that has no direct semantic parallel in
another language.
A famous example comes from Russian color terms. Russian has two terms—синий sinij 'light blue' and голубой goluboj 'dark blue'—where English has a general term (blue) in addition to a variety of more specific ones. Notably,
Russian does not have a single term which encompasses both синий and голубой.
Assuming that two cultures have the same percepts, we might in some sense expect that both of their languages would, contrary to fact, have a word to express that concept. In this sense, a "gap" in the lexical inventory of Russian is identifiable by cross-linguistic
comparison.
Geckeler (1974) calls these interlingual gaps, and notes that they are the most easily identified type of "deficiency" due to their close relationship to thought and meaning. At the same time, they do not stem from or bear on the structure of language in particularly interesting ways. | Andrea D. Sims, 2006
PARAGOGE /pæɹəˈgəʊdʒi/
- (Morphology) The addition of a sound to the end of a word. Often, this is due to nativization, and a logical counterpart of epenthesis, particularly vocalic epenthesis. | Freebase
- (Morphology) Also called epithesis and ecstasis, as opposed to prosthesis and apocope. The addition of a letter or a syllable to the end of a word, as amidst for amid, generical for generic. | Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
PARALANGUAGE
(Phonology) A term used in suprasegmental phonology to refer to variations in tone of voice which seem to be less systematic than prosodic features (especially intonation and stress). Examples of paralinguistic features would include the controlled use of breathy or creaky voice, spasmodic features (such as giggling while speaking), and the use of secondary articulation (such as lip-rounding or nasalization) to produce a tone of voice signalling attitude, social role, or some other language-specific meaning. Some analysts broaden the definition of paralanguage to include kinesic features; some exclude paralinguistic features from linguistic analysis. | David Crystal, 2008
PARASITIC GAP
- (Syntax) Tentatively, we can define a parasitic gap as a gap that is dependent on the existence of another gap, which I will henceforth refer to as the real gap, in the same sentence. By a gap, I understand an empty node that is necessarily controlled by a lexical phrase somewhere in the sentence.
It follows from this definition that a parasitic gap will only occur if there is a filler-gap dependency elsewhere in the sentence and the parasitic gap is interpreted as controlled by that filler. The characterization of parasitic gaps rules out gaps that arise as the result of a pronoun deletion rule.
In languages like Japanese and Turkish, which have rules of optional pro drop, a gap may act just like a deictic pronoun and be interpreted as referring to something salient in the context. In languages like English and Swedish, optional pro drop does not occur and gaps are controlled sentence internally.
Here are some examples of sentences with parasitic gaps (indicated by __p):
- Which articles did John file __ without reading __p ?
- This is the kind of food you must cook __ before you eat
__p .
- Which girl did you send a picture of __ to __?
- Which boy did Mary's talking to __p bother __ most?
| Elisabet Engdahl, 1983
- (Syntax) A construction in which one gap appears to be dependent on another gap. Thus, the one gap can appear only by virtue of the appearance of the other gap, hence the former is said to be parasitic on the latter. For example, in the example sentence in (1) the first gap is represented by an underscore (___), and appears as a result of movement of the constituent which explanation to the beginning of the sentence. The second gap is represented by an underscore with a subscript p (___p); this is the parasitic gap.
- Which explanation did you reject ___ without first really considering ___p ?
While parasitic gaps are present in English and some related Germanic languages, e.g. Swedish (Engdahl 1983), their appearance is much more restricted in other, closely related languages, e.g. German and the Romance languages (Engdahl 1983). Japanese linguistic scholar Fumikazu Niinuma (2010) has attempted to differentiate between parasitic gaps and coordination in his research, as he believes the two are often confused.
An aspect of parasitic gaps that makes them particularly mysterious is the fact they usually appear inside islands to extraction. | Wikipedia, 2024
PARSABILITY HYPOTHESIS
See COMPLEXITY-BASED ORDERING.
PARSE TREE
(Computational; Syntax) Or, parsing tree (Chiswell and Hodges 2007), or, derivation tree, or, concrete syntax tree. An ordered, rooted tree that represents the syntactic structure of a string according to some context-free grammar. The term parse tree itself is used primarily in computational linguistics; in theoretical syntax, the term syntax tree is more common.
Concrete syntax trees reflect the syntax of the input language, making them distinct from the abstract syntax trees used in computer programming. Unlike Reed-Kellogg sentence diagrams used for teaching grammar, parse trees do not use distinct symbol shapes for different types of constituents.
Parse trees are usually constructed based on either the constituency relation of constituency grammars (phrase structure grammars) or the dependency relation of dependency grammars. Parse trees may be generated for sentences in natural languages, as well as during processing of computer languages, such as programming languages. | Wikipedia, 2024
PARSER
(Computational) An abstract machine designed to test the structural integrity of a linguistic unit. In contrast to a recognizer, a parser produces a structural description for all well-formed units.
The behavior of a parser is determined by the (parsing) algorithm and is based on certain linguistic information (grammar and lexicon in most cases). Most parsers have been developed for the syntactic analysis of sentences. But in general, a parser can be used to analyze the structure of any kind of linguistic unit: a single word, an arbitrary phrase or a complete text. (Naumann 2005, Sikkel 1997) | Glottopedia, 2007
PARTIAL NULL SUBJECT LANGUAGE
(Syntax) A set of languages falls under the general rubric of partial null-subject languages, that is languages which allow null subjects but under more restricted conditions than consistent null-subject languages. For the languages considered here, the conditions include:
- When the subject is a generic pronoun corresponding to English one, as exemplified by (1a), from Marathi.
- When the subject is controlled by an argument in a higher clause, as exemplified by (1b), also from Marathi.
a.
unahlyat
summer-in
lavkar
early
utthavla
wake
jato
go-PRS-3SM
'In summer one wakes up early'
b.
Ram
Ram
mhanala
say-PST-3SM
ki
that
ghar
house
ghetla
buy-PST-3SN
'Ram said that he bought a house'
| Anders Holmberg, Aarti Nayudu, and Michelle Sheehan, 2009
PARTICLE-STRANDING ELLIPSIS
(Syntax) PSE is illustrated by Speaker B's utterance in (1), which involves the ellipsis of the topic element—Tanaka-kun 'Tanaka'—but leaves the overt topic particle behind (Hattori 1960):
A:
Tanaka-kun-wa?
Tanaka-TITLE-TOP
'How about Tanaka?'
B:
wa-ne,
TOP-PRT
kaisya-o
company-ACC
yameta-yo.
quit-PRT
'He quit his company.'
| Yosuke Sato and Masako Maeda, 2019
PARTITIVE CASE
- (Grammar) An instance of inherent case. Partitive case is optionally assigned by unaccusative verbs, such as Italian arrivare, to a post-verbal subject, which is in fact the internal argument:
E'
is
arrivato
arrived
Gianni
Gianni
'Gianni arrived'
According to Belletti (1988), partitive case can be assigned if no case (Nominative or Accusative) is assigned otherwise. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
- (Grammar) The Finnish partitive is a particularly clear instance of an apparently hybrid category of semantically conditioned structural case.
In its aspectual function, partitive case is assigned to the objects of verbs which denote an unbounded event. In its NP-related function, partitive case is assigned to quantitatively indeterminate NPs (including indefinite bare plurals and mass nouns), even if the verb denotes a bounded event. Moreover, in Slavic, the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect has the very same two functions (among others).
Partitive case originated as a purely adverbial local case with the meaning 'from'. It developed first its NP-related functions, in several stages. The aspectual function was the last to emerge. | Paul Kiparsky, 2004
Page Last Modified November 1, 2024