Non-canonical word order and temporal reference in Vietnamese
- The paper revisits Duffield's (2007) (Duffield, Nigel. 2007. Aspects of Vietnamese clausal structure: Separating tense from assertion. Linguistics 45(4). 765-814) analysis of the correlation between the position of a 'when'-phrase and the temporal reference of a bare sentence in Vietnamese. Bare sentences in Vietnamese, based on (Smith, Carlota S. & Mary S. Erbaugh. 2005. Temporal interpretation in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 43(4). 713-756), are argued to obtain their temporal interpretation from their aspectual composition, and the default temporal reference: bounded events are located in the past, unbounded events at present. It is shown that the correlation so observed in when-questions is superficial, and is tied to the syntax and semantics of temporal modification and the requirement that temporal adverbials denoting future time is base generated in sentence-initial position, and past time adverbials in sentence-final position. A 'when'-phrase, being temporally underspecified, obtains its temporal value from its base position.The paper revisits Duffield's (2007) (Duffield, Nigel. 2007. Aspects of Vietnamese clausal structure: Separating tense from assertion. Linguistics 45(4). 765-814) analysis of the correlation between the position of a 'when'-phrase and the temporal reference of a bare sentence in Vietnamese. Bare sentences in Vietnamese, based on (Smith, Carlota S. & Mary S. Erbaugh. 2005. Temporal interpretation in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 43(4). 713-756), are argued to obtain their temporal interpretation from their aspectual composition, and the default temporal reference: bounded events are located in the past, unbounded events at present. It is shown that the correlation so observed in when-questions is superficial, and is tied to the syntax and semantics of temporal modification and the requirement that temporal adverbials denoting future time is base generated in sentence-initial position, and past time adverbials in sentence-final position. A 'when'-phrase, being temporally underspecified, obtains its temporal value from its base position. However, the correlation between word order and temporal reference in argument wh-questions and declaratives is factual, depending on whether the predicate-argument configuration allows for a telic interpretation or not. To be specific, it is dependent on whether the application of Generic Modification (Snyder, William. 2012. Parameter theory and motion predicates. In Violeta Demonte & Louise McNally (eds.), Telicity, change, and state. Acrosscategorial view of event structure, 279-299. Oxford: Oxford University Press) or accomplishment composition is realized. Canonical declaratives, and argument wh-questions, with telicity inducing material, license GM or accomplishment composition, yielding bounded events, hence past; by contrast, their noncanonical counterparts block GM or accomplishment composition, giving rise to unbounded event descriptions, hence non-past.…
Verfasserangaben: | Thuan TranORCiD |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0256 |
ISSN: | 0024-3949 |
ISSN: | 1613-396X |
Titel des übergeordneten Werks (Englisch): | Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences |
Verlag: | De Gruyter Mouton |
Verlagsort: | Berlin |
Publikationstyp: | Wissenschaftlicher Artikel |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Datum der Erstveröffentlichung: | 05.01.2021 |
Erscheinungsjahr: | 2021 |
Datum der Freischaltung: | 16.03.2023 |
Freies Schlagwort / Tag: | Vietnamese; accomplishment composition; generic; modification; temporal modification; temporal reference |
Band: | 59 |
Ausgabe: | 1 |
Seitenanzahl: | 34 |
Erste Seite: | 1 |
Letzte Seite: | 34 |
Fördernde Institution: | Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)German Research Foundation (DFG) [1479/1-1] |
Organisationseinheiten: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
DDC-Klassifikation: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
Peer Review: | Referiert |
Publikationsweg: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
Lizenz (Deutsch): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |