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The oblique phrase and the order of the relative construction

  • Lewis C. Lawyer EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 22, 2015

Abstract

Using data from the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), the order of the oblique phrase with respect to the verb in a sentence is shown to be a good predictor of the order of the relative clause with respect to its head noun in a relative construction. It is a significantly better predictor of relative construction order than the more traditional indicator, the relative order of the verb and the direct object in a sentence. The difference between these two predictors is demonstrated quantitatively, and then discussed in the context of theories of syntactic head-position harmony.

Abbreviations

1

first person

2

second person

3

third person

~3

not third person (for Barasano)

acc

accusative case

af

actor focus (for Tsou)

art

article

bdt

Dryer’s Branching Direction Theory

det

determiner

dur

durative

eic

Hawkins’ principle of Early Immediate Constituents

fut

future tense

irreal

irrealis

immed.pst

immediate past

link

Tsou “attributive particle”

m

masculine

n

noun

o

direct object

pl

plural

pres

present tense

pret

preterite

ptcpl

participle

Rel

relative clause

rem.pst

remote past

sg

singular

tns

tense

tod.pst

today past

uf

undergoer focus (for Tsou)

v

verb

x

oblique phrase

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Appendix: Equations

Equation 1: Student’s T test for comparing two proportions

The test statistic T for comparing whether two propensities are equal is as follows:

T=p1p2p(1p)(1/n1)+(1/n2)

where p1 and p2 are the propensity values, and n1 and n2 are the total numbers of cases in p1 and p2 respectively. And: If p1=X/n1, and p2=Y/n2, then p=(X+Y) / (n1+n2). T is theoretically distributed as a Student’s t-distribution with n1+n2–2 degrees of freedom, when p1 and p2 are equal. In finding P-values based on T, I use a 1-tailed test. This is because in every instance the directionality of the expected difference is known.

Equation 2: Student’s T test for comparing a proportion against a constant value

The standardized test statistic T for a propensity value p compared against the baseline 0.24, as a constant value, is as follows:

T=(p0.24)÷0.24×(10.24)÷n

where p is the propensity value and n is the number of cases. T is theoretically distributed as a Student’s t-distribution with n – 1 degrees of freedom, when p is equal to 0.24.

All calculations of P-values in this paper were carried out using R (R Development Core Team 2009).

Published Online: 2015-10-22
Published in Print: 2015-11-1

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton

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