ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
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Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8
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- All Subjects: Linguistics
- Creators: Peterson, Tyler
Description
This dissertation presents a minimalist account of null arguments in Maybrat. Different generative theories have been put forward for conditions that trigger the appearance of null subjects in a number of languages. There have been two general lines of position since Perlmutter's initial identification of null subjects in some European languages. The first posits that null subjects (pro) appear in languages with a rich agreement paradigm, known as the rich agreement hypothesis. The second argues that rich agreement is not attested in other languages. It suggests that discourse context triggers the appearance of null pronouns. This study was based on the descriptive analysis of 18 stories gathered from the fieldwork and corpus of Maybrat spoken texts. It claims that the two approaches may not fully explain the appearance of null arguments in Maybrat for three respects. First, the null subjects appear in the clauses that both have agreement and no agreement. Second, not all verbs with agreement markers are fully specified in person, number, or gender features (φ-features). Third, objects are also dropped freely in many contexts despite the lack of agreement. Building on the minimalist framework of Agree, the dissertation proposes the derivation of pro in two ways. First, the Tense (T) head is strong in φ-features and pro is a Determiner Phrase (DP). They participate in a local Agree relation. Second, pro is weak in definite feature (D-feature) and the functional head T is deficient for lacking φ-features. The Agree relation can operate if T inherits the features from the Complementizer (C) head. Thus, a long-distance Agree between C and pro is assumed. This dissertation concludes that the appearance of null arguments in Maybrat is licensed either by the agreement head, the discourse context, or a combination of the two conditions. However, among the three conditions, discourse context plays a significant role in promoting the null arguments since pro appears regardless of the verbal agreement inflections. For this reason, this dissertation also proposes that Maybrat may be classified as a radical pro-drop language.
ContributorsKocu, Servo Patrick (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to provide an in-depth examination of the syntactic rules and pragmatic structures that govern the construction of Thai nominal phrases. There is a current debate among linguistic researchers of the Thai language (and others within the Tai-Kadai family) contemplating whether the inherent syntactic structure of nominal phrases projects a Determiner Phrase [DP] or a Noun Phrase [NP] (Birmingham, 2020; Jenks, 2011; Piriyawiboon, 2010; and Singhapreecha, 2001). An examination of the grammatical and pragmatic features that dictate the formation of Thai nominals, as well as an investigation of the prevailing linguistic theories focused on nominal phrase construction supporting each structure, has been conducted and is presented within this thesis. This extensive research, performed to address the dilemma “Does the Thai language project a DP or an NP?”, has resulted in the conclusion that the Thai language, with its free word-order and its fascinating pragmatic structures, projects an underlying NP phrase structure that allows for an optional determiner, used to indicate specificity.
ContributorsBirmingham, Sabrina A (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Languages have long been studied through the rhythm class framework, which discriminates them into separate classes on the basis of shared rhythmic properties. Originally these differences were attributed to the isochronous timing of different prosodic units, such as stress intervals in “stress-timed” languages and syllables in “syllable-timed” languages. More recent work has turned to durational metrics as a means of evaluating rhythm class, by measuring the variability and proportion of segmental intervals in the speech stream. Both isochrony and durational metrics are no longer viewed as correlative with natural language rhythm, but durational metrics in particular have remained prevalent in the literature. So long as the conclusions of durational metrics are not overextended, their analysis can provide a useful mechanism for assessing the compatibility of a language with a given rhythm class by way of comparative analysis. This study therefore presents a durational-metric comparison of Scottish Gaelic, a language which has frequently been described as stress-timed but has never been empirically tested for rhythm class, with English, a prototypical and well-studied example of a stress-timed language. The Gaelic metric scores for %V (percentage of vocalic content), ΔV (standard deviation in vocalic interval length), and ΔC (standard deviation in consonantal interval length) (Ramus et al. 1999) are shown to be very similar to those measured for English, indicating that the language displays similar patterns of durational variability and segmental proportion typically ascribed to a rhythmically stress-timed language. This provides clear support for the classification of Scottish Gaelic as stress-timed.
ContributorsKellogg, Jackson (Author) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to identify the ways neurodivergent people engage with tone and intent, in spaces where the expression of such things is missing the audible and visual cues that exist in face-to-face communications. Interviews were conducted with four participants who self-identify as neurodivergent, with each of the interviews seeking to understand their experiences with the written expression of tone and intent. The interviews shed light on how direct, semi-direct, and indirect tone indicators are used as tools for understanding the intent and tone of a message, as well as which of the three types of tone indicators are the most helpful in practice. The interviews also touched on how social interactions in digital spaces are often viewed through a neurotypical lens, and thus make understanding the sociolinguistic rules of digitally-based interactions difficult for neurodivergent individuals who are expected to know said rules without being told. Through the course of the interviews, participants expressed a desire for people as whole to be clearer about their tone and intent when communicating in digital spaces, and that tone indicators are vital for communicating such things.
ContributorsHadden, Sydney (Author) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
In this thesis, I explore Cognate Object Constructions COCs (e.g. The clown "laughed" a creepy "laugh") through three research questions: (1) What verbs can accept Cognate Objects COs? (2) Why can these verbs accept COs and other verbs cannot? and (3) How are COCs derived? I demonstrate that Sorace's Hierarchy sheds light on which verbs can accept COs and which cannot by explaining the discrepancies in grammaticality judgments that exist in the literature. I then argue that Hale and Keyser's Conflation account of COCs is not minimalist because it relies on a phenomenon that can be reduced to Merge. After commenting and repairing their account, I provide an outline for a more minimalist framework, which I refer to as "Problems of Projection Extensions" PoP+, that focuses on MERGE, workspaces, labeling theory, phases, and determinacy. Inside this framework, I then develop my own account that depends on only Internal Merge and the constraint in English against stranded articles. With my account situated in this PoP+ framework, I am able to approach the research questions from a syntactic perspective, arguing that the Unergative Restriction on COCs is a result of a determinacy violation in the derivation of Unaccusative COCs. Finally, I point out that, being situated in the PoP+ framework, my account opens COCs up to further investigation not possible before.
ContributorsWillson, Jacob (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The Split Intransitivity Hierarchy (SIH) proposed by Sorace (2000) is an aspectually gradient classification of unaccusative and unergative verbs. This hierarchy has been attested in many Western European languages. However, little is known about typologically different languages. This dissertation provides an account of the gradience in aspectual and thematic specification of intransitives in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It seeks to confirm whether the SIH exists in Arabic and whether it applies to its syntactic characteristics of split intransitivity. Following Sorace’s classifications, Arabic intransitives are divided into seven categories: change of location, change of state, continuation of a pre-existing state, existence of state, uncontrolled process, controlled motional process, and controlled nonmotional process. To test the behavior of these verb classes, the researcher applies diagnostics of split intransitivity and carries out tests of telicity, stativity, and durativity. In addition, the researcher examines the contribution of the outer/grammatical aspect to the inner/lexical aspectual specification of the verb in MSA. Native speakers’ judgment is utilized to distinguish grammatical examples from ungrammatical ones.
The results confirm the existence of the SIH in Arabic. Arabic intransitives are subject to systematic variation in their lexical aspect as they show different degrees of telicity and durativity. Specifically, verbs of change of location show core unaccusative/telic behavior, while verbs of change of state oscillate in their telicity. Verbs in the middle of the hierarchy are the most indeterminate about their aspectual and thematic realization. The findings also reveal that Arabic verbs of continuation are durative, while verbs of existence are mostly stative. Moreover, durative classes in Arabic show variable degrees of durativity. In particular, the class of uncontrolled process displays the lowest degree of durativity. Verbs of controlled motional process are more unergative/durative than verbs of uncontrolled process and less categorical in their behavior than verbs of controlled nonmotional process. Finally, verbs that denote controlled nonmotional processes are core unergative/durative and the most unambiguous in their behavior. Overall, Arabic intransitives keep their original aspectual classification even when changing the outer aspect from perfective to imperfective.
ContributorsAlazmi, Mastourah (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Gebhardt, Lewis (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The study aims to explore negation in Mehri and provide a historical and theoretical account for the types of negation in Mehri. I begin with a diachronic analysis by adopting the grammaticalization theory and providing several examples illustrating how this process— grammaticalization —is taking place in Mehri. I also discuss the negative existential cycle suggested by Croft (1991) and I find Mehri language to be in Stage B > C. In addition, I propose an account of the negative copula in Mehri after I show examples for the reanalysis of a pronoun as a copula because of the grammaticalization process. I demonstrate how this pronoun ends in the head position of predicate phrase (PredP) and raises to attach to the negative l- /al and forms the negative copula. Regarding the theoretical account, I follow Laka (1994), Van Gelderen, (2011) and argue that a negative particle in bi-partite negative clauses was weakened and changed to Polarity Phrase (PolP). In other words, I assume that the preverbal negative (if any) is in the Tense Phrase (TP) layer, changed to a polarity phrase with a u-negative feature in need of checking by the new negative la, projected above TP. I also provide a morphological account by assuming that the preverbal negative particles are clitics that are picked by the subject or verb movement. This agrees with Chomsky (2001) and Boeckx and Stjepanović (2001) who find that head movement involves morphological components. To account for negation and negative polarity items (NPIs), I argue that NPIs such as nowah ‘never’ and ʃaagtaʕ ‘never’ merge with the negative element la to check the negative feature. Finally, I propose an account of negation associated with coordinates clauses, following van Gelderen (2006) who states “the speaker will only use —e.g., coordinates— for structures where a phrase is necessary” (P.6), similarly, Iassume that grammaticalization is not active in Mehri negative coordinates clauses because they are phrases. For this reason, I suggest a feature named W feature in the coordinate phrase that needs checking by the negative al-/l to form one unit with the following element.
ContributorsAlzahrani, Muneer Ali S (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The two Saudi Arabian dialects, Ghamdi and Zahrani Arabic (henceforth referred to as GA and ZA), have not received much attention linguistically. The current study provides a descriptive account of several aspects of the phonology of the aforementioned dialects. This study centers on three main topics. First, it describes stress assignment and shows regional variation of both dialects. It is shown that syllable weight, geminates as well as suffixation play significant roles in attracting stress in GA and ZA. Second, it deals with some deletion processes occurring in GA and ZA. Due to a language rule, it exhibits that word-final long vowels and geminates can be affected by final weight reduction. Also, it discusses and probes a phonological phenomenon of compensatory lengthening in the definite article of Arabic /ʔal-/ in ZA, which has never as yet been the subject of linguistic investigation before. It also analyzes cases of compensatory lengthening due to the deletion of the glottal stop /ʔ/ word-internally. And, as in many Arabic varieties, it also shows that /ʔ/ is deleted word-finally. Third, it sheds light on various cases of regressive and progressive assimilation. In particular, it investigates some assimilatory processes resulting from the interaction with some prefixes. It shows that root-initial consonants undergo assimilation with prefixes in GA and ZA. Finally, it shows that a prefixal vowel can also undergo vowel harmony when a prefix attaches to the root. The principal goals of this study are to enrich Arabic dialectology in general and Saudi Arabian Arabic dialectology in particular through examining data from two dialects spoken in a southwestern region in Saudi Arabia, Albaha region, and also to study and present phonological issues of GA and ZA that have not been under previous research or analysis in the literature.
ContributorsAlghamdi, Sami (Author) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Peterson, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024