Speaker: Shin Ishihara (SOL)

Title: The syntax-prosody interface and sentence processing in Japanese

Abstract:

In this talk, I will first review classical work on sentence processing in Japanese (especially in relation to word order optionality) and then present my recent work in progress on the syntax-prosody mapping in Japanese. Lastly, I am hoping to discuss the experiment design of a study in preparation.

Speaker: Donna Erickson (Haskins Laboratories)

Title:  Mandible movement patterns of Japanese and English: How to reset them

Abstract:

We all know that the phonetic cues of phonological categories are applied differently by speakers of different languages, and that these differences present challenges to teachers and learners of a second language. The purpose of this talk is to show that mandible movement patterns also are language-specific. First, I show how the mandible is the articulatory organizer of the syllable; for each syllable, the mandible opens and closes. Next, I show how the mandible lowers more for emphasis and prominence; then I show mandible lowering patterns for utterances in English and in Japanese. For English, the mandible lowering patterns coincide with the nuclear stress patterns (i.e., metrical organization of the utterance), while for Japanese the mandible lowering patterns show edge-strengthening effects, along the lines outlined by Jun (2014). I then show how language learners tend to carry over their first language mandible movement patterns when learning a new language, and I suggest how mandible training, i..e, “jaw dancing” (Wilson et al. 2020), might help language learners reset their mandible patterns to produce prominence patterns of the new language.

• Jun, S.-A. (2014).  Prosodic typology: By prominence type, word prosody, and macro-rhythm, In S.-A. Jun (ed.) Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing, pp. 520– 539, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Wilson, I., Erickson, D., T. Vance, T., and Moore, J. (2020). Jaw dancing American style: A way to teach English rhythm, Speech Prosody
   

Speaker: Victor Bogren Svensson (SOL)

Title: Resultatives in Takituduh Bunun

Abstract:

I will present some preliminary results for resultative constructions in Takituduh Bunun (Austronesian: Central Taiwan). Resultatives are a kind of complex predicate where the clause object undergoes some kind of change, encoded by a combination of a verb and a result phrase (e.g. ‘He hammered the iron flat’ and ‘She cut the paper into pieces’, where ‘hammer’ and ‘cut’ are the verbs and ‘flat’and ‘into pieces’’ are the result phrases, respectively). To mark resultatives, Takituduh Bunun combines independent verbs to form multi-verbal predicates. This is a very productive process that also exhibits a great degree of flexibility, both in terms on the ordering of the verbs and their combinations. In the talk, I will focus on how verbs are combined to form resultative constructions, and how this relates to argument structure and transitivity, word order, clause structure and restructuring.

Public thesis defence: Victor Bogren Svensson

https://www.sol.lu.se/institutionen/kalendarium/evenemang/public-thesis-defence-victor-bogren-svensson/

Speaker: Loren Billings (SOL)

Title: Marking transitivity overtly (but not pronominal case) and its consequences on mapping persons to roles

Abstract: 

Two types of transitive clause in the same Austronesian language exhibit seemingly unrelated patterns. We argue that the two phenomena are explained in the same way.

To begin, unlike every other language known to us, this language attests only a single paradigm of clitic pronouns. Moreover, in a finite clause if clitic pronouns encode both arguments, these pronouns' order relative to each other in the clitic cluster is invariant, with the first-person preceding the second-person form. If the clitic consists of just these two forms, then it encodes first person acting on second (hereafter 1>2), as in 'I pushed you'. However, the addressee can be the Actor, with the speaker serving as Undergoer (2>1), as in 'You pushed me'. If this happens, then the same order of the two clitic pronouns results as in 1>2 but an additional clitic precedes both pronouns in the clitic cluster to indicate this marked relation of persons and semantic roles. In this language, third-person clitic pronouns are inaudible. To encode a third-person Actor and with a first- or second-person Undergoer, as in 'They pushed {you/me}', then the same "additional clitic" precedes the lone SAP clitic pronoun (3>SAP). If SAP>3, as in 'I/You pushed them', then the SAP pronoun is alone in the clitic cluster. If 3>3, as in 'She pushed them', then the same "additional clitic" is now alone in the clitic cluster.

The other transitive-clause type is imperative. If the Undergoer (of the addressee) includes the speaker, then the verb is suffixed using one set of transitive markers, as in 'Push me!' On the other hand, if the Undergoer is not the speaker (or the addressee), as in 'Push them!', then the imperative verb takes one of a distinct set of transitive suffixes. (Whether that third-person Undergoer is encoded by a free pronoun, a nonpronominal expression, or unexpressed does not change the verb's suffix.)

Speaker: Sun-Ah Jun (UCLA)

Title: Prosodic Phrasing and word prominence in Yanbian Korean

Abstract:

It is well-known that prosodic phrasing can mark major syntactic groupings and prominence relationship among words (e.g., Shattuck-Hufnagel & Turk 1996; Beckman 1996; Jun 2005a, 2014a). In this talk, I will show how prosodic phrasing, defined by intonation, reflects the morpho-syntactic structure of an utterance and the prominence relationship among words in Yanbian Korean, a lexical pitch accent dialect of Hamgyung Korean spoken in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, located in Northeast China (Jun & Jiang 2019). I will then discuss how Yanbian Korean differs from Seoul Korean and other languages in ways to mark word prominence, based on the model of prosodic typology proposed in Jun (2005b, 2014b).

Speaker: Ben Macaulay

Title: A phonetic path to rightward stress shift in Austronesian

Abstract:

There is a split in the Austronesian languages of Taiwan between those with final stress and those with penultimate stress, as well as two documented cases of such languages that show both patterns. In these cases, final stress occurs on words with schwa in the penult. Recent scholarship has proposed that the presence of such an alternation is a conservative feature in Austronesian, rather than a pattern that has developed multiple times in parallel both within and outside of Taiwan, as well as that the alternation is the result of structural constraints in moraic and prosodic phonology. In this seminar, I reject both of these premises, and offer a simpler phonetically-based approach to rightward stress shift in Austronesian that accounts for the distribution of final vs. penultimate stress in Austronesian, and provides a reasonable pathway to the stress shift alternation as a parallel development in multiple Austronesian languages. This analysis is grounded in an Articulatory Phonology model of the gestural timing of pitch accents, based on novel fieldwork on the intonational phonologies of Austronesian languages in Taiwan.

Speaker: Makiko Hirawakawa  (Chuo University)

Title: Acquisition of Long-Distance Reflexive Binding in Japanese by Chinese Speakers

Abstract:

The Japanese reflexive zibun allows both local and long-distance (LD) binding interpretations. In a recent analysis, zibunis categorized into three types: zibun bound locally by a co-argument, zibun bound by an empathic LD antecedent, and zibun bound by a logophoric LD antecedent. An empathic antecedent is the participant in a sentence that the speaker most empathizes with, whereas, a logophoric antecedent is an individual “whose speech, thoughts, feelings, or general state of unconsciousness are reported”(Clements, 1975). Chinese also has a reflexive, ziji (self), that can be bound by an LD antecedent, like Japanese zibun. However, Chinese ziji is categorized into two (not three) types: locally bound ziji and zijibound by a logophoric LD antecedent (Huan, Li and Li, 2009). The goal of this talk is to determine whether Chinese-speaking learners are able to distinguish the two different types of LD antecedent for zibun in Japanese.

Umeda, M., Takeda, K., Hirakawa, M., Fukuda, M., Hirakawa, Y., Matthews, J., and Snape, N. (2017). Acquiring antecedents for reflexives when both L1 and L2 permit long-distance binding. Journal of the European Second Language Association, 1 (1): 38-48, doi: https://doi.org/10.22599/jesla.14.

Speaker: Benjamin Macaulay  (SOL)

Title: What is the syllable in East Asian languages?

Abstract:

The syllable occupies a unique place in phonology, in which it simultaneously represents a domain into which speakers (and signers) intuitively parse words, and a domain that is referenced by certain types of phonological rules that recur across languages. The running assumption in descriptive linguistics is that these two domains are the same, and therefore the comparatively easy method of asking speakers directly for judgments will reliably indicate a ‘syllable’ that is relevant across the language’s phonology.
 
This talk questions the reliability of direct speaker judgments on syllable structure, by identifying cases where speaker judgments and other types of phonological evidence point to two different domains. I argue that how speakers respond to direct elicitation tasks can be affected by education, language contact, orthography, and other factors. As an alternative, I propose the use of diagnostics from intonational phonology. This will be argued primarily through a case study of Budai Rukai, an Austronesian language of Taiwan, and Japanese, although the results will have implications for language documentation generally.

Speaker: Elin McCready (Aoyama Gakuin University)

Title: Honorifics, Gender and Inference in Japanese

Abstract:

This talk considers the honorific system of Japanese from the perspective of formal pragmatics. I describe a proposal for utterance and argument honorifics and then turn to role honorifics (such as `sensei') and (anti)honorific first and second person pronouns. The latter are argued to crucially involve inference from expressive predications in their semantics together with social facts and stereotypes about Japanese society, which allow analysis of some complex gender-related effects of the pronouns without recourse to explicit gender specifications.

Speaker: Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng (Leiden University)

Title: The “lightness” of verbs and verbalizers

Abstract:

In this talk, I address the question of whether the little v is the same as the verbalizers under Distributive Morphology. I use dǎ ‘hit’ in Mandarin Chinese as a case study. I examine its use as a light verb, as a verbalizer, and as a real verb. I also discuss the V+N combinations in Mandarin, and the lack of denominal verbs in Mandarin. I argue that the little v is not the same as the light verb, and I discuss whether or not roots are completely devoid of categorial status.

If you want to attend the talk via Zoom, please register in advance for this meeting:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u50tfu6orDMqE91z1sVJlPusljOQdBWN… 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Speaker: Arthur Holmer (SOL)

Title: Relativization in Kammu

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://lu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Asfu2vrDosG9BUW1icv40NHudVyfFZ9Prm 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Abstract:

The Austroasiatic language Kammu has several strategies for relativization, one of which is used for relativization in general, as well as for giving a restrictive reading to adjectives, whereas other strategies are used more specifically to relativize grammatical objects and locations. In the talk an overview of the various constructions will be given, and the functions of the constructions compared, also showing how these constructions interact with other phenomena in the Kammu clause.

Speaker: Miho Inaba (Cardiff University)

Title: Japanese pop culture and informal language learning activities

Abstract:

Informal language learning undertaken outside of the classroom has recently been the focus of increasing attention for research, because the development of ICT has significantly transformed the language learning environment. Learners of Japanese provide us with insightful examples, because the popularity of Japanese pop culture overseas in combination with ICT development has led to the availability of various authentic resources in Japanese, such as anime (Japanese cartoons), manga (Japanese comic books) and films.

In this talk, I will discuss the various informal language learning activities undertaken by learners of Japanese, what factors facilitate such activities, and how they undertake these activities, using the examples of university students in Australia and Sweden. Based on the discussion, I will also present the pedagogical implications for facilitating informal language learning outside of the classroom.

Speaker: Shin Ishihara (SOL)

Title: How to practice pronunciation (of Japanese) at home

Abstract:

This is a practical tutorial on how to practice pronunciation (of Japanese) using speech analysis software Praat (www.praat.org) and Online Japanese Accent Dictionary (OJAD, http://www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/). Although I will use Japanese resources to illustrate how to use Praat (record & play utterances, visualize recorded utterances, etc.), it can in principle be used for pronunciation training of any other language.

It is recommended to download the latest version of Praat from the Praat website (www.praat.org) before attending the tutorial.

Presentations of two BA theses from the subject of Japapnese (Part 2)

Speaker: Liv Danjoux (SOL)

Title: Disarray in the language: A sociolinguistic study of kotoba no midare

Abstract:

The following thesis investigates Japanese native speakers’ attitudes towards linguistic changes and the degree to which they associate it with social aspects and changes on a wider-encompassing spectrum. More specifically, the study looks at the phenomenon commonly known as kotoba no midare (“disarray in the language”), a notion that has long been part of the Japanese public discourse surrounding language change. Over the years, various researchers have attributed the concerns regarding kotoba no midare to worries about social problems on a wider scale. The objective of this thesis is to examine to what extent the aforementioned assertions hold water. Furthermore, it also aims to provide a more general overview of how native speakers of Japanese consider linguistic change. The results of the study indicate that the respondents associate language change with social change to a high degree, and that they also view midare as being interlinked with social aspects to a lesser extent.

Presentations of two BA theses from the subject of Japapnese (Part 1)

Speaker: Joachim Wahlquist (SOL)

Title: The Historical Kana Orthography: A Study of the Present-day Understanding of the Old Orthography

Abstract:

The Japanese writing system has gone through a variety of changes over the years, one of these being the abolishment of the historical kana orthographical system in 1946. This system of writing, which was based on the historical and ancient writing of the kana from many centuries before 1946, had evolved into a system that was very different from the spoken language and hereby the reforms quickly came to end much of the formal usage of the system. This study tries to ascertain the modern general knowledge among Japanese people of the old writing system. In addition to this, the study also attempts to answer a multitude of secondary questions that asks what factors affected the results, where Japanese people claim to have seen the system applied and what Japanese people think of the historical kana orthography. To this end the study conducted a survey of which the results of 76 different individuals were tallied up to answer the questions asked. The outcome showed that Japanese people on average got 51% of the questions which asked the participants to choose, out of multiple options, the right historical kana orthographical spelling of a modern word right and 21% almost correct. It was also concluded that the Japanese people on average got 90% of the self-written answers, which made the participants write a historical kana orthographic word into modern Japanese, right. There did not seem to exist any clear correlation between gender, age, reading habits, education and the results. In regards to where people had seen it employed, many claim to have seen it used in Japanese lessons and in books. In regards to Japanese people’s thoughts of the system most were apathetic to the historical kana orthography and with this the average claimed to not want to see the system used to a greater extent.

Speakers: Shin Ishihara & Nick Kalivoda (SOL)

Title: Match Theory: An Overview

Abstract:

In this talk, we introduce Match Theory, an Optimality-Theoretic approach to the syntax–phonology interface proposed by Selkirk (2011), using mostly Japanese data as examples. The theory states that a family of Match constraints favor syntax–prosody isomorphism, but that these can be outranked by constraints on prosodic wellformedness and/or information structure, resulting in certain principled mismatches. We compare Match Theory to previous OT approaches involving edge-alignment, and discuss several outstanding issues for Match Theory such as the proper treatment of asymmetries in syntax–prosody matching.

Speaker: Stephen Matthews (University of Hong Kong)

Title: Some unresolved problems in Cantonese grammar

Abstract:

Despite growing sophistication in studies of the grammar of Cantonese, some rather basic issues remain poorly understood. Two such problems are addressed in this talk.

One basic problem involves the description and analysis of 'bare classifier' Noun Phrases taking the form [Classifier Noun]. In Cantonese such phrases allow definite interpretations as in (1):

(1) 間 屋 太 貴
     gaan2 uk1 taai3 gwai3
    'The house is too expensive.'

At least three approaches are prominent: (i) Cantonese allows omission of a demonstrative, allowing the 'bare classifier' structure to be assimilated to a general or 'universal' Chinese grammar (Chao 1968); (ii) classifiers function as definite articles (Chao 1949) or as D (Cheng & Sybesma 1999, 2012); (iii) classifiers themselves may have referential properties as in Miao (Bisang 1993, 1999), a property which may have entered Cantonese through substrate influence (Matthews 2006). These proposals will be reviewed critically.

A second problem involves the status of complementizers. Two recurrent proposals are that (i) items such as Cantonese 話 waa6 are complementizers (Chui 1994, Yeung 2006); (ii) Sentence-final particles such as 喎 wo5 occupy the COMP position (Law 1990, Li  & Sybesma 2007). These proposals are in conflict inasmuch as they imply left-headed and right-headed CPs coexisting in the same language, and even in the same clause in cases such as (2):

(2) 佢 同 我 講  話 冇 錢 喎
     keoi5 tung4 ngo5 gong2 waa6 mou5 cin2 wo5
    'He told me had had no money'

From the perspective of grammaticalization, 話 waa6 has been treated as a semi-complementizer (Chappell 2008). How is such a semi-complementizer to be treated synchronically? Evidence mentioned by Chappell argues against the possibility that such elements form a CP with the following clause, calling for an alternative analysis.

Speaker: Arthur Holmer (SOL)

Title: Reflexive pronouns in Kammu and beyond

Abstract:

The reflexive pronouns in the Autro-Asiatic language Kammu, spoken in northern Laos, have several properties which distinguish them from reflexives in other languages often discussed in the literature. Kammu has long-distance reflexives (where the reflexive in a subordinate clause can refer back to the subject in the main clause), but they behave quite differently in Kammu from other languages with long-distance reflexives (such as Chinese, Japanese and Icelandic). The differences and similarities will be outlined, and other uses of the Kammu reflexive pronouns will be presented, including surprising parallels to both Spanish and Swedish, which may give clues to some underlying properties of reflexives which do not deal with coreference.

Speaker: Shin-Sook Kim and Peter Sells (University of York)

Title: The scope of negation in Korean and how it licenses negative polarity items

To attend the seminar, registrater at:

• https://lu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5MlfuCtpjgpHtQY-PYpZcCcLJ-YL_0vSSYZ

Abstract:

In this talk we will consider how to diagnose the scope of negation within the clause in Korean, with a view of using that to motivate the correct semantic analysis of a negative polarity item (NPI) such as amwu-to ‘anyone’, amwu kes-to‘anything’, which must appear in negative-marked clause, and of the “exceptive” pakkey, which must combine with negation and means ‘only’. Simple examples are given in (1-2); essentially parallel examples can be given for Japanese.

(1)   olhay-nun        amwu-to    samwusil-ey   ka-ci            anh-nun-ta
        this year-TOP  anyone      office-to          go-COMP   NEG-PROC-DECL
        ‘This year, no one goes to the office.’

(2)   na-nun     Mina-pakkey     manna-ci     anh-ass-ta
       I-TOP     Mina-“except”     meet-COMP    NEG-PAST-DECL 
       ‘I met only Mina.’ (‘I didn’t meet anyone but Mina.’)

Negation in Korean and Japanese is marked on or near the verb, around the end of clause (shown by neg in (1-2)); it may be quite flexible as to how much of the clause it scopes over semantically. The fundamental issue in the analysis of NPIs derives from the logical equivalence of  ¬∃ and ∀¬; for instance, for the amwu-to type, is it a narrow-scope existential within the scope of negation or is it a wide-scope universal which outscopes negation? There has been considerable discussion of this in the relevant literature on the syntax and semantics of Japanese and Korean, but no really strong evidence has emerged (e.g. Sells and Kim 2006, Shimoyama 2011).

By investigating the interaction of the amwu-to type and the pakkey type with each other, and with one type of focus phrase which must be in the scope of negation, we will argue that strong evidence can be found, which shows that amwu-to and pakkey are clearly NPIs which should scope over negation. Then we will consider further details of their semantic analysis.

References:

Sells, Peter, and Shin-Sook Kim. 2006. Korean NPIs scope over negation. Language Research 42, 275–297.

Shimoyama, Junko. 2011. Japanese indeterminate negative polarity items and their scope. Journal of Semantics 28, 1–40.

Speaker: Arthur Holmer (Lund University)

Title: Taiwans språkliga mångfald: från Hokkien till austronesiska

Link:

• https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/66726113551

Abstract:

I Taiwan är det statsbärande språket mandarin, samtidigt som majoritetsspråket är taiwanesisk hokkien, medan Taiwan också är urhemmet för den austronesiska språkfamiljen som sträcker sig genom Sydöstasiens övärld över Stilla Havet. Taiwans språkliga mångfald är en spegling av dess historia, och språken är också ledtrådar till förhistoriska migrationer till och genom Taiwan. I föredraget presenteras en generell skiss över språken i Taiwan idag, deras viktigaste egenskaper, och deras historiska kontakter i såväl nyare som äldre historia.

Speaker: Viktor Aller Helgesson (Lund)

Title: Dislocation, scrambling and information structure: Observations and speculation on speaker strategies in Japanese

To attend the seminar, registrater at:

• https://lu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5crf-GuqT8jHtKJeFaJc87aSuV2RjvI-r_q

Abstract:

Across many (if not all) languages, speakers have access to a range of strategies to get their point across. Different situations may call for emphasis to be put on different parts of an utterance in order to underline important or relevant information.
At first glance, there seems to be a universal tendency for this emphasis to fall at the very beginning of sentences with constituents moving leftwards to take up a position at the very front of utterances.

But is this truly universal? Or at least, is it the only available strategy?
Are there alternative strategies that can be used for similar effects? And do they all necessarily involve a leftwards movement?

In this talk, we will discuss some observations of such alternative strategies as well as speculate on their nature and pragmatic usages.

Speaker: Márton András Tóth (University of Gothenburg)

Title: The ‘Present Perfect’ crosslinguistically: the case of Swedish, Japanese and Hungarian

Abstract:

In my MA thesis, Tóth (2020), I investigated how two languages without a specific present perfect-form – namely Japanese and Hungarian – can express the same aspectual and temporal relations as the present perfect-form does in Swedish, and what these aspectual and temporal characteristics in Swedish are in the first place.

In this talk I wish to present the findings in Tóth (2020) and further discuss whether it is feasible to assume the crosslinguistic existence of a linguistic category such as the present perfect, or if it is more plausible to ”abandon any presupposition about universal linguistic categories […] and investigate the question of the crosslinguistic comparison of categories empirically” as it is suggested in Croft (2012). The purpose of this talk is therefore to explore the depths of the Present Perfect, while taking greater typological issues into consideration.

Speaker: Jens Karlsson (Stockholm University)

Title: Beskrivningsordens funktioner och markörer i kinesiska

Sammanfattning 

I och med den s.k. radikala konstruktionsgrammatiken (Radical Construction Grammar, RCG) har Croft argumenterat (2001) för att grammatiska kategorier och konstruktioner är språkspecifika. Denna uppfattning medför en utmaning för strävan inom språktypologin att förena de naturliga språkens mångfald i ett enhetligt teoretiskt system. Hur ska vi förstå innebörden i termer som substantiv, verb och adjektiv ur ett typologiskt perspektiv, om de kriterier som tillämpas för att definiera dessa kategorier ej är universellt giltiga, utan baseras på korrelationsmönster mellan lexikon och syntax som är unika för varje enskilt språk? Detta teoretiska problem har i olika formuleringar länge figurerat inom den moderna kinesiska lingvistiken, där ordklassfrågan p.g.a. språkets inflektionsfria grammatik utgjort ett centralt problem. I denna föreläsning närmar vi oss frågan om de grammatiska kategoriernas universella giltighet genom att undersöka beskrivningsordens funktioner och markörer i modern standardkinesiska. Den lösning på problemet som här prövas, innebär en återgång till uppfattningen av grammatiska kategorier som i grunden semantiska klasser, något som har stöd bl.a. i Hengeveld och van Lier (2010) och Haspelmath (2012).

Referenser

Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

Haspelmath, M. 2012. ”How to Compare Major Word Classes Among the World’s Languages”. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics, Theories of Everything. Vol. 17:16: 109-130.

Hengeveld, K.; van Lier, E. 2010. ”An Implicational Map of Parts of Speech”. Linguistic Discovery, Vol. 8:1. Dartmouth College Library.

Speaker: Kazuko Yatsushiro (ZAS, Berlin)

Title: Remind-me presupposition and speech-act decomposition

Abstract:

In this talk, we investigate questions like “What is your name again?” using the repetitive particle “again”, and their counterpart in Japanese, using sentence final particle, ‘-kke’. The use of these particles presupposes that the speaker used to know the answer to the question that they are asking, but they have forgotten the answer to them. Using data from Japanese, English, and German, we argue for syntactic decomposition of the question speech-act into an imperative part and a make-it-known part. The difference between Japanese, on the one hand, and German, on the other, argues that there is a syntactic movement involved in these structures, revealing how the question speech-act can be decomposed.

Speaker: Arthur Holmer (SOL, Lund University) and Lars Larm (University of Gothenburg)

Title: The curious case of the excessive construction in Japanese

Abstract:

The excessive morpheme in Japanese -sugi- ‘too much’ is intriguing in two ways. Firstly, while it is normally realized on the verb, it can refer to a variety of different elements in the clause, such as a manner adverb, an adverb of frequency, the action of the verb itself, the quantity of the object, a gradable property of the object, and in some cases even the quantity of the subject. For example, in (1) – (3) it targets, respectively, the quantity of the object (biiru‘beer’), the manner of the action (hayaku ‘fast’), and the property of the object (takai ‘expensive’):

(1)    biiru   o      nomi-sugi-ta
        beer ACC  drink-EXC-PST
        ‘(I) drank too much beer.’

(2)   hayaku    nomi-sugi-ta
       fast         drink-EXC-PST
       ‘(I) drank too fast.’

(3)   takai          kuruma   o        kai-sugi-ta
       expensive car          ACC buy-EXC-PST
       ‘(I) bought a too expensive car.’

Secondly, while its status as a verbal affix is fairly fixed, its placement among the other verb affixes is very variable, and the different positions are reflected by different meanings. For instance, it may precede or follow negation:

(4)   nomi-sugi-nai-de             kudasa-i
       drink-EXC-NEG-GER    give.me.HON-IMP
       ‘Don’t drink too much.’

(5)   tabe-nasa-sugi-ta.
       eat-NEG-EXC-PST
       ‘S/he ate too little.’
       (i.e. ‘S/he was excessive at non-eating.’)

The presentation shows how the variable interpretation of -sugi- to other elements in the clause is semantico-pragmatically determined, and that the semantic effect of affix ordering can be explained in terms of scope.

Speaker: Shin Ishihara (Lund)

Title: Testing MatchClause: The prosody of embedded clauses in Japanese

Abstract:  This study reports results of a phonetic production experiment which tests one of the implications of Match Theory (MT), namely, the categorically distinctive prosodic marking of syntactic phrase and clause boundaries.  MT assumes that a syntactic clause tends to be mapped onto prosody as an intonational phrase (ι) and a syntactic phrase as a phonological phrase (φ). These syntax–prosody correspondences are derived by OT constraints MatchClause and MatchPhrase, respectively. The experiment is designed to test whether sentence-medial embedded clauses are mapped to ι's. The results show no indication of distinctive difference between prosodic boundaries at phrase edges and those at clause edges. Based on the results, several implications to the understanding of Japanese intonation and the theory of syntax–prosody interface will be discussed.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, only one seminar was held during Spring Term 2020.

• 2013-11-29 - Jacob Eveson (Japanese Studies, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University) presented 'I am an eel' - On the Status of Japanese da as a Copula".

• 2013-10-04 - Calvin Kan (Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University) presented "Kinesiska: Ett skriftspråk, två system - attityder till förenklade och traditionella kinesiska tecken från 7 olika kinesisktalande grupper".

• 2013-06-10 - Erika Andersson (Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University) presented  "The Particle wo in Japanese: From Exclamative Particle to Case Marker".

• 2013-06-10 - Pictured above: Participants at the seminar.

• 2013-05-17 - Arthur Holmer (Lund University, General Linguistics) presented "The Typology of Formosan Languages".

• 2013-05-14 - Axel Svahn (Lund University, General Linguistics) presented "Japanese: A Diachronic Typological Overview Pt. II".

• 2013-05-13 - Axel Svahn (Lund University, General Linguistics) presented "Japanese: A Diachronic Typological Overview Pt. I".

• 2013-05-13 - Pictured above: Arthur Holmer (Lund University, General Linguistics) welcoming the audience at the first presentation of the Lund Circle of East Asian Linguistics.