Optimal Typology of Determiner Phrases

在为期两年的项目中，研究小组将在12种遗传多样性语言的样本中对所有格和部分结构进行多种实证和理论研究。所有格和部分结构是重要的，但相对未检查的网站，考虑跨语言的变化，在形态句法，语义和语用，以及这些之间的相互作用。在进行描述性基础工作的过程中，该小组将为12种语言中的每一种语言构建可比较的在线语料库，并辅之以与母语者进行启发工作的结果。这些实证研究的结果将受到形式化的优选理论（OT）的框架内进行的分析。这些个别语言的优选论分析，然后将受到进一步的理论考虑，提供了一个良好的基础，一套跨语言的概括。从这个项目中得出的所有格和部分结构的类型学可以为语言类型学家提供一套假设，这些假设基于可靠的经验工作和严格的理论框架，可以通过对其他语言的分析来检验。最后，这个项目的结果将为语言学家提供大量的材料，帮助他们寻找小句层面和名词层面的形态句法、语义和语用现象之间的相似之处。研究小组的实证工作将产生（a）一套跨语言的多样化电子语料库，将提供给其他研究人员（有待适当的许可）和（B）一套关于各种语言中所有格和部分短语的结构、语义和语用特性的描述性陈述。该研究小组的理论工作，在学术论文，一本书和会议演示文稿中提供，将导致OT型通用约束及其在特定语言中的相对排名的详细说明。这些分析将推进有关这些结构的跨语言概括中重要的语言维度的知识，以及关于OT框架的类型学力量和预测。分析也将允许比较与跨语言的工作在该条款沿沿着一些方面。该项目将为培养波士顿大学和布兰代斯大学的语言学研究生提供能力建设，其经验产品-语料库-将在项目期间和项目结束后被高级人员用作教学材料。研究的语言样本包括广东话、捷克语、英语、芬兰语、德语、冰岛语、韩语、马拉雅拉姆语、北方波莫语、西班牙语、瑞典语和沃洛夫语。基本的描述性基础将包含与母语人士和语料库的例子启发的结果。优选论的理论分析将集中在（1）人/动物标记等级的影响（Silverstein 1976，Aissen 1999）在我们的样本中的各种语言内部和跨语言的所有格结构中;（2）限定词的语义及其对“部分限制”的贡献;（3）影响这些构式中格和相关现象分布的各种因素，以及它们与小句层次格模式的关系。

Over the two years of the project, the research team will carry out several kinds of empirical and theoretical studies of possessive and partitive constructions in a sample of twelve genetically diverse languages. Possessive and partitive constructions are important but relatively unexamined sites for the consideration of crosslinguistic variation in morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and interactions among these. In the process of carrying out the descriptive groundwork, the team will construct comparable on-line corpora for each of the twelve languages, supplemented by the results of elicitation work with native speakers. The results of these empirical studies will be subjected to formal analyses conducted within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). These OT analyses of individual languages will then be subjected to further theoretical consideration, providing a sound basis for a set of crosslinguistic generalizations. The typology of possessive and partitive constructions derived from this project can then provide linguistic typologists with a set of hypotheses, based on sound empirical work and a rigorous theoretical framework, that can be tested against analyses of other languages. Finally, the results of this project will provide substantial material for consideration by linguists concerned with finding parallels between clause-level and nominal-level morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic phenomena.The project outcomes will thus be of several types. The research team's empirical work will result in (a) a cross-linguistically diverse set of electronic corpora which will be made available to other researchers (pending appropriate permissions) and (b) a set of descriptive statements about the structural, semantic and pragmatic properties of possessive and partitive phrases in a diverse set of languages. The research team's theoretical work, made available in scholarly papers, a book and conference presentations, will result in detailed accounts of OT-type universal constraints and their relative rankings in specific languages. These analyses will advance knowledge both about the linguistic dimensions that are important in crosslinguistic generalizations concerning these structures, and about the typological power and predictions of the OT framework. The analyses will also allow comparisons with crosslinguistic work on the clause along a number of dimensions. The project will build capacity for the training of graduate students in linguistics at Boston University and Brandeis University, and the empirical products-the corpora-will be used as teaching materials by the senior personnel during and after the project.The sample of languages to be studied includes Cantonese, Czech, English, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Korean, Malayalam, Northern Pomo, Spanish, Swedish, and Wolof. Basic descriptive groundwork will contain results of elicitations with native speakers and examples from corpora. OT theoretical analyses will center on (1) effects of person/animacy markedness hierarchies (Silverstein 1976, Aissen 1999) in possessive constructions of various types within and across languages in our sample; (2) the semantics of determiners and their contribution to the "Partitive Constraint," and (3) the various factors contributing to the distribution of case and related phenomena within these constructions, and their relationship to clause-level case patterns.