Notes on syntactic ambiguity and related issues Cover Image

Pastabos dėl sintaksinio dviprasmiškumo sąvokos ir kiti susiję dalykai
Notes on syntactic ambiguity and related issues

Author(s): Rolandas Mikulskas
Subject(s): Applied Linguistics, Syntax
Published by: Lietuvių Kalbos Institutas

Summary/Abstract: The article contains a polemic with Axel Holvoet’s analysis of Lithuanian sentences of the type Onutės žalios akys. The author disagrees with Holvoet’s claim that sentences of this type are syntactically ambiguous between predicative possessive (‘belonging’) constructions and copular constructions whose subjects are discontinuous as a result of fronting. In the author’s opinion syntactic ambiguity would entail semantic ambiguity, whereas the constructions under discussion have a well-defined meaning (they give a description of a person based on a characteristic attribute), entitling us to describe them as an autonomous construction. The sentence type under discussion originated, in the author’s view, by reinterpretation of a copular construction with a subject constituent made discontinuous by syntactic movement motivated by topicalisation. The author also polemi¬cises with Holvoet’s theory of thematic-rhematic structure, a variety of that advanced by Bogusławski.

  • Issue Year: 2006
  • Issue No: 55
  • Page Range: 01-53
  • Page Count: 53
  • Language: Lithuanian