Browsing by Author "Dalmi, Gréte"

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    Ad hoc properties and locations in Maltese
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2015) Dalmi, Gréte
    This paper aims to show that the four-way BE-system of Maltese can best be accommodated in a theory of non-verbal predication that builds on alternative states, without making any reference to the Davidsonian spatio-temporal event variable. The existing theories of non-verbal predicates put the burden of explaining the difference between the ad hoc vs. habitual interpretations either solely on the non-verbal predicate, by postulating an event variable in their lexical layer (see Kratzer 1995; Adger and Ramchand 2003; Magri 2009; Roy 2013), or solely on the copular or non-copular primary predicate, which contains an aspectual operator or an incorporated abstract preposition, responsible for such interpretive differences (Schmitt 2005, Schmitt and Miller 2007, Gallego and Uriagereka 2009, 2011, Marín 2010, Camacho 2012). The present proposal combines Maienborn’s (2003, 2005a,b, 2011) discourse-semantic theory of copular sentences with Richardson’s (2001, 2007) analysis of non-verbal adjunct predicates in Russian, based on alternative states. Under this combined account, variation between the ad hoc vs. habitual interpretations of non-verbal predicates is derived from the presence or absence of a modal OPalt operator that can bind the temporal variable of non-verbal predicates in accessible worlds, in the sense of Kratzer (1991). In the absence of this operator, the temporal variable is bound by the T0 head in the standard way. The proposal extends to non-verbal predicates in copular sentences as well as to argument and adjunct non-verbal predicates in non-copular sentences.
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    Little pro’s, but how many of them? – On 3SG null pronominals in Hungarian
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2017) Dalmi, Gréte
    While Hungarian 3SG individual reference null pronominals are in free variation with their lexical counterparts, 3SG generic reference null pronominals do not show such variation. This follows from the fact that Hungarian 3SG generic null pronominals behave like bound variables, i.e. they always require a 3SG generic lexical antecedent in an adjacent clause. Both the 3SG generic lexical antecedent and the 3SG generic null pronominal must be in the scope of the GN operator, which is seated in SpeechActParticipantPhrase (SAPP), the leftmost functional projection of the left periphery in the sentence (see Alexiadou & D’Alessandro, 2003; Bianchi, 2006). GN binds all occurrences of the generic variable in accessible worlds (see Moltmann 2006 for English one/oneself). These properties distinguish Hungarian from the four major types of Null Subject Languages identified by Roberts & Holmberg (2010).