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Grammatical features in the comprehension of Italian relative clauses by children

Fabrizio Arosio, Flavia Adani, and Maria Teresa Guasti

in Merging Features: Computation, Interpretation, and Acquisition

This chapter addresses the question of how children exploit different grammatical devices in comprehending relative clauses. It shows that comprehension of relative clauses follows different ... More

This chapter addresses the question of how children exploit different grammatical devices in comprehending relative clauses. It shows that comprehension of relative clauses follows different developmental patterns defined by the kind of device that cue a subject or an object relative clause interpretation.Less

Merging from the Temporal Input: On Subject‐Object Asymmetries and an Ergative Language *

Itziar Laka

in Rich Languages From Poor Inputs

This chapter discusses how certain aspects of linguistic form specific to a language belonging to an understudied type of languages (ergative languages) yield processing results and acquisition ... More

This chapter discusses how certain aspects of linguistic form specific to a language belonging to an understudied type of languages (ergative languages) yield processing results and acquisition patterns that have hitherto rarely been reported from studies of a well-studied type of languages (nominative languages). Specifically, it discusses recent results from studies on relative-clause processing in Basque that are incompatible with the widely held assumption that subject-object language processing asymmetries are universal, and that they tap into deep aspects of linguistic structure involving the core grammatical functions ‘subject-of’ and ‘object-of’. It is argued that the processing results obtained in Basque do not entail that the structural location of subjects and objects in ergative and nominative languages is different; rather they entail that morphological differences and input-initial choices have nontrivial consequences for processing.Less

Argument alternations and cognates

Stephen Wechsler

in Word Meaning and Syntax: Approaches to the Interface

This chapter surveys the argument-taking properties of verbs and other predicators. It begins with argument selection (the question of which participants are expressed as subject, object, and other ... More

This chapter surveys the argument-taking properties of verbs and other predicators. It begins with argument selection (the question of which participants are expressed as subject, object, and other grammatical functions), including description and analysis of subject–object asymmetry and various types of object omission and demotion (object pro-drop, antipassive, and conative alternations). Next we survey causative, anti-causative, inchoative, and result state alternations, and other direct versus oblique alternations. A section on unaccusativity looks at properties of unaccusatives including auxiliary selection in European languages. The relation between unaccusativity and split ergativity is discussed. The typology of motion and manner lexicalization is reviewed, with discussion of the tendency toward manner–result complementarity. This is followed by a look at category conversions between verb and noun.Less

Setting the Stage: The Problem of Self-Consciousness

Kristina Musholt

in Thinking about Oneself: From Nonconceptual Content to the Concept of a Self

This chapter presents the traditional model of self-consciousness, according to which self-consciousness is a form of object cognition, and explains why this model is misguided. Based on this, it ... More

This chapter presents the traditional model of self-consciousness, according to which self-consciousness is a form of object cognition, and explains why this model is misguided. Based on this, it introduces the notion of prereflective self-consciousness and argues that it needs to be further analyzed. It then examines linguistic approaches to self-consciousness and shows that immunity to error through misidentification is an essential feature of paradigmatic forms of self-consciousness. Finally, it motivates the attempt to provide a theory of self-consciousness that appeals to the notion of nonconceptual content by demonstrating how linguistic approaches remain incomplete.Less

Hegel’s Speculative Identity Thesis

Karen Ng

in Hegel's Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, Logic

This chapter explores Hegel’s speculative identity thesis, defending the importance of Schelling for Hegel’s appropriation of Kant’s purposiveness theme. It provides an interpretation of Hegel’s ... More

This chapter explores Hegel’s speculative identity thesis, defending the importance of Schelling for Hegel’s appropriation of Kant’s purposiveness theme. It provides an interpretation of Hegel’s first published text, the Differenzschrift, and analyzes the relation between “subjective subject-objects” and “objective subject-objects” as an early presentation of Hegel’s philosophical method. In addition to defending the contribution of Schelling, this chapter provides an interpretation of Fichte’s contribution via his notion of the self-positing activity of the I. It then turns to a reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, demonstrating that the notion of “negativity” can be understood along the lines of speculative identity. The chapter argues that Hegel presents life as constitutive for self-consciousness by way of a three-dimensional argument: the employment of an analogy; a transcendental argument; and a refutation of idealism argument. It concludes by briefly outlining how the speculative identity thesis is carried forward in the Science of Logic.Less

The Left Periphery and Agrammatism: Wh-extractions in Danish

Anne Mette Nyvad, Ken Ramshøj Christensen, and Sten Vikner

in Locality

Data from a study on the comprehension of short and long extractions by four Danish agrammatic patients reveal an interesting asymmetry between subject and object extraction that cannot be explained ... More

Data from a study on the comprehension of short and long extractions by four Danish agrammatic patients reveal an interesting asymmetry between subject and object extraction that cannot be explained with canonicity or with trace deletion. It is argued that three crucial linguistic distinctions are required: namely, A-movement (impaired) vs. A-bar-movement (not impaired); main clause CP vs. embedded clause CP (impaired); and subject vs. object. In simple clauses, object extraction is most impaired, whereas in embedded clauses the pattern is reversed. Together these distinctions provide an account of the inverse asymmetries resembling the *that-trace pattern.Less

Functions of the noun phrase

Gerjan van Schaaik

in The Oxford Turkish Grammar

Roughly speaking, only four syntactic roles can be distinguished for a noun phrase: subject, object, adverbial phrase, and predicate in a verbal sentence the predicate is a verb, in a nominal ... More

Roughly speaking, only four syntactic roles can be distinguished for a noun phrase: subject, object, adverbial phrase, and predicate in a verbal sentence the predicate is a verb, in a nominal sentence it is a noun phrase, and in an existential sentence it is either var or yok. In a verbal sentence one or more objects may occur, depending on the type of verb, transitive or intransitive. Other sentence types do not allow for objects, but all types must have a subject, while one or more adverbial phrases are optional. All this forms the main topic of this top of that, it is explained how noun phrases are applied in genitive-possessive constructions.Less

The Theta System: an Introduction

Martin Everaert, Marijana Marelj, and Tal Siloni

in The Theta System: Argument Structure at the Interface

The goal of this introduction is threefold. Firstly, it overviews the core issues and challenges at the lexicon-syntax interface, thus setting the stage for the appearance of the Theta system of ... More

The goal of this introduction is threefold. Firstly, it overviews the core issues and challenges at the lexicon-syntax interface, thus setting the stage for the appearance of the Theta system of Reinhart (1991, 1996, 2000, 2002 et seq.) Secondly, in broad strokes, it demonstrates how the system deals (away) with the thematic roles as primitives, addresses the issue of verbal alternations and the gaps that exist in the paradigm, and, as illustrated by some of the most notorious instances of mapping puzzles, tackles the linking of the semantic categories to syntax. Last but not least, it provides summaries of the contributions to this volume. The contributions themselves examine the underpinnings, explore the advantages, and suggest further developments and improvements of the Theta system.Less

AfterwordRethinking Modern Taste

Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins

in A Taste for China: English Subjectivity and the Prehistory of Orientalism

Briefly considers the legacy of the eighteenth-century “taste for China” in modern theories of taste, particularly Bourdieu’s theory of bourgeois taste. Late eighteenth-century literature’s ... More

Briefly considers the legacy of the eighteenth-century “taste for China” in modern theories of taste, particularly Bourdieu’s theory of bourgeois taste. Late eighteenth-century literature’s reorganization of English selfhood according to epistemological distinctions between, on the one hand, subject and object, and, on the other, England and orient, generates the interiority of modern subjectivity. The estrangement the modern self feels from earlier traditions of selfhood generates the uncanny effects of the modern desire for things.Less

The When of Sociopolitical Transformation: The Moment of the Limit

Claudia Leeb

in Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism: Toward a New Theory of the Political Subject

“The When of Sociopolitical Transformation: The Moment of the Limit” introduces the idea of the moment of the limit to engage with the first tension inherent in the idea of the political subject—the ... More

“The When of Sociopolitical Transformation: The Moment of the Limit” introduces the idea of the moment of the limit to engage with the first tension inherent in the idea of the political subject—the tension between the idea of a free and autonomous subject that is not impacted by power, and the idea of a subject as completely subjected to power. It acknowledges the ways in which subjects are subjected to power in capitalism, but avoids postulating the idea of a subjected subject through theorizing the moment of the limit, which it accomplishes through a reading of the real (Lacan) and the non-identical (Adorno). The moment of the limit is the moment when power fails to completely subject or subordinate individuals, and at this moment the political subject with the capacity to not only resist but to transform the status quo can emerge.Less

The Earthworks Hermeneutically Considered

John E. Hancock

in Hopewell Settlement Patterns, Subsistence, and Symbolic Landscapes

The chapter gives rise to many points such as the fact that enlightenment-inspired science has given much promotion to subject–object dualism. This has also led to the promotion of the isolated ... More

The chapter gives rise to many points such as the fact that enlightenment-inspired science has given much promotion to subject–object dualism. This has also led to the promotion of the isolated scientist's views of evaluating the world of objects free from preexisting understandings. To understand the Hopewell earthworks we need to treat them as communicative media of Hopewell lifeworld. The chapter stresses the role of architecture and art as a communicative sign for articulating the totality of the lifeworld. Architectural aspects are considered to be the most outstanding modes of extrinsic communicative media.Less

Who Changes the World: The Political Subject-in-Outline

Claudia Leeb

in Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism: Toward a New Theory of the Political Subject

“Who Changes the World: The Political Subject-in-Outline” introduces the idea of the political subject-in-outline to creatively engage with the tension between the exclusionary character of the ... More

“Who Changes the World: The Political Subject-in-Outline” introduces the idea of the political subject-in-outline to creatively engage with the tension between the exclusionary character of the political subject and its necessity for agency. It explains why giving up on the subject altogether or theorizing it as a constantly shifting entity is implicated in the project of capitalism, and acknowledges the necessity of defining a political subject to critique and transform capitalism. Yet its outline reminds people that any definition of the political subject must remain permanently open for contestation to avoid its exclusionary character. This chapter also explains that the subject-in-outline aims to establish a mediated relation between the universal and particular, as well as mind and body. Furthermore, it shows that the idea of a political subject-in-outline can help people avoid alienation, instrumental relations, and the coldness of love in capitalism.Less

Things to Make and Do

Fleur Johns

in International Law's Objects

So often reactive and responsive in its own self-understanding, the discipline of international law appears in this book as agentive, creative, and pivotal. Scholars and practitioners of ... More

So often reactive and responsive in its own self-understanding, the discipline of international law appears in this book as agentive, creative, and pivotal. Scholars and practitioners of international law turn out, in its pages, to be makers and purveyors of objects that the discipline can, in varying ways and degrees, call its own. The world and its objects have been, and might yet otherwise be, of international law’s making. This chapter reflects on what kind of making this might entail and what it might mean, in this context, to write of an object juridically. It tackles these questions by exploring six modes of making and doing ongoing in the book, including modes of grappling with object loss (drawing from Freud), and how these variably elucidate the role of objects, and subject–object relations, in sustaining international law as a discipline.Less

Spatial Lyricism

John Kinsella

in Disclosed Poetics: Beyond Landscape and Lyricism

In this chapter, the author talks about spatial lyricism and linguistic disobedience. The lyric is the basis of all his poetry, but its signature is blurred and reconstituted. The difficulty for the ... More

In this chapter, the author talks about spatial lyricism and linguistic disobedience. The lyric is the basis of all his poetry, but its signature is blurred and reconstituted. The difficulty for the lyric in conveying ‘emotional’ content is that it cannot be effective if the material is not carefully controlled. The looser this control, the less we can accept the genuineness of the emotions. Regardless of time and place, at the core of the poem is the object–subject relation. The author's politics and ethics and poetry are inseparable: his vegan anarchist pacifist beliefs inform everything he writes, and he uses language to unsettle a world in which centralisation has denied rights. Is violent language violence? Is this where context comes into its own? The lyric intent softens the aggression. Rhythm is not unique to poetry – and a piece of writing with rhythm is not necessarily poetry or even poetic – but the consistent and regulated control and deployment of rhythm is accepted as one of the foundation blocks of the ‘poem’.Less

The Gesture of Searching

Vilém Flusser

in Gestures

The essay announces a crisis in the way we conceptualize knowledge, and so in the ways we go about expanding it. The gesture of “research” has long been modeled as a “digging” for causes, for deep ... More

The essay announces a crisis in the way we conceptualize knowledge, and so in the ways we go about expanding it. The gesture of “research” has long been modeled as a “digging” for causes, for deep understanding; it is now giving way to a broad reaching for possibilities.Less

The Complexity of the World and the Extent of Wisdom

Paul S. Fiddes

in Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-Modern Context

Taking up the perception of ancient Hebrew wisdom about the complexity of the world in its inexhaustible and ummeasurable extent, this chapter begins with late-modern scientific awareness of the ... More

Taking up the perception of ancient Hebrew wisdom about the complexity of the world in its inexhaustible and ummeasurable extent, this chapter begins with late-modern scientific awareness of the limits of human knowledge. Complexity in this perspective arises from initial conditions of chaos, uncertainty, interaction, and a range of possibilities. As in ancient wisdom, complexity is a situation in which talk of God comes alive, as long as God is envisaged as complex rather than simple being, or in other words as Trinity. The same conclusion may be reached from considering the world as a complex network of signs. God's creative activity in the world can then be understood as influencing a world which participates in a perichoretic event of three interweaving relationships, rather than as the work of three transcendent subjects, thus evoking a divine wisdom which overcomes the gap between subject and object, self and world.Less

Precious Objects: Laura Riding, Her Tiara, And the Petrarchan Muse

Becky Peterson

in Accessorizing the Body: Habits of Being I

American poet Laura Riding collapses the entire poetic subject-object structure by depicting herself as both subject and object, poet and muse. Her position on subject-object relations extends from a ... More

American poet Laura Riding collapses the entire poetic subject-object structure by depicting herself as both subject and object, poet and muse. Her position on subject-object relations extends from a revision of Petrarchan poetics toward a radical view of feminism and a highly individualized expression of her position as a woman artist. Throughout her career, Riding made significant use of literal and figurative “precious objects.” This chapter focuses on two types of precious objects: the elusive female muse (the inspiring, objectified figure in Western poetic tradition), and the presence of jewelry in Riding’s art and life, as represented in her poetry and in a gold tiara she owned and wore.Less

The Gesture of Making

Vilém Flusser

in Gestures

“Making” here becomes the movement of two hands coming together, approaching a sameness that they can never fully achieve. The two forces are metaphorically associated with “practice” and “theory”.