Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it Essay Example

Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it Essay In linguistics, a great deal of work revolves around phrase structure and comprehension of that phrase structure: decoding it, if you will. This is something that concerns many different linguistic specialists, from syntacticians to translators, and in order to examine the phrase structure (noun phrase {NP}, verb phrase {VP} etc.) it is vital to understand the elements that make up such a phrase structure and how they interact with one another. These elements are known as grammatical functions, and they refer to syntactic relationships between parts of speech, such as subject, object, adjunct and complement (as distinct from the semantic notions of agent and patient). Grammatical functions determine the semantic roles and pragmatic functions of the noun phrase, as well as governing sentence structure and dictating constraints. Grammatical functions are essentially labels of relations in a network, and many grammarians have suggested that they cannot operate simultaneously, but rather, in some sort of hierarchy. There are several types of network available, such as relational networks (on the left) and configurational networks (on the right): S SUBJ PRED OBJ NP VP We will write a custom essay sample on Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer V NP Grammatical functions are therefore defined by Avery Andrews, and others, as being any relationship that it might be useful to recognise which is definable over the sentence structures of a language, regardless of the extent to which it is important for the grammatical principles of that language.1 The notion of a grammatical function hierarchy (also referred to as the agreement hierarchy, and both names will be used in this paper) therefore deserves further exploration, along with any evidence that might motivate it. Andrews first attempts to define various types of grammatical function, using the terms core, oblique, and external. In his view, these constitute successive layers of clause structure and therefore provide the foundations for the grammatical function hierarchy. He classes the core and the oblique as internal, whereby the core is syntactic (consisting of A, the agent; S, the single argument; and O, the patient) and the oblique is semantic (consisting of the others that is, complements and adjuncts). The external, conversely, is pragmatic, and the pragmatic is further divided into two categories: that of the free and that of the bound, whereby the bound has a wider range of pragmatic effects, such as the indication of focus, presupposition or presentational articulation. The whole of the external category is considered independent of the system of internal grammatical relations, and thought of as being superposed onto it. Other texts refer to this as an overlay function.2 This explanation begins to give the interested reader an insight into how the grammatical function hierarchy may be structured, and in their article on noun-phrase accessibility, Keenan and Comrie expand even further on this concept. They identify the grammatical function hierarchy, or noun phrase accessibility, a syntax-free way of identifying relative clauses in an arbitrary language. The grammatical function hierarchy therefore shares with X-bar theory the quality of generalisation: both aim to consolidate a single simplification of human language structure. Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it Essay Example Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it Essay In linguistics, a great deal of work revolves around phrase structure and comprehension of that phrase structure: decoding it, if you will. This is something that concerns many different linguistic specialists, from syntacticians to translators, and in order to examine the phrase structure (noun phrase {NP}, verb phrase {VP} etc.) it is vital to understand the elements that make up such a phrase structure and how they interact with one another. These elements are known as grammatical functions, and they refer to syntactic relationships between parts of speech, such as subject, object, adjunct and complement (as distinct from the semantic notions of agent and patient). Grammatical functions determine the semantic roles and pragmatic functions of the noun phrase, as well as governing sentence structure and dictating constraints. Grammatical functions are essentially labels of relations in a network, and many grammarians have suggested that they cannot operate simultaneously, but rather, in some sort of hierarchy. There are several types of network available, such as relational networks (on the left) and configurational networks (on the right): Grammatical functions are therefore defined by Avery Andrews, and others, as being any relationship that it might be useful to recognise which is definable over the sentence structures of a language, regardless of the extent to which it is important for the grammatical principles of that language.1 The notion of a grammatical function hierarchy (also referred to as the agreement hierarchy, and both names will be used in this paper) therefore deserves further exploration, along with any evidence that might motivate it. We will write a custom essay sample on Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Define the grammatical function hierarchy, and discuss any evidence that motivates it specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Andrews first attempts to define various types of grammatical function, using the terms core, oblique, and external. In his view, these constitute successive layers of clause structure and therefore provide the foundations for the grammatical function hierarchy. He classes the core and the oblique as internal, whereby the core is syntactic (consisting of A, the agent; S, the single argument; and O, the patient) and the oblique is semantic (consisting of the others that is, complements and adjuncts). The external, conversely, is pragmatic, and the pragmatic is further divided into two categories: that of the free and that of the bound, whereby the bound has a wider range of pragmatic effects, such as the indication of focus, presupposition or presentational articulation. The whole of the external category is considered independent of the system of internal grammatical relations, and thought of as being superposed onto it. Other texts refer to this as an overlay function.2 This explanation begins to give the interested reader an insight into how the grammatical function hierarchy may be structured, and in their article on noun-phrase accessibility, Keenan and Comrie expand even further on this concept. They identify the grammatical function hierarchy, or noun phrase accessibility, a syntax-free way of identifying relative clauses in an arbitrary language. The grammatical function hierarchy therefore shares with X-bar theory the quality of generalisation: both aim to consolidate a single simplification of human language structure. The theory relies on a semantically based definition of relative clauses. Right from the outset, Keenan and Comrie state explicitly that they consider any syntactic object to be a relative clause if it specifies a set of objects (perhaps a one-member set) in two steps: a larger set is specified, called the domain of relativisation, and then restricted to some subset of which a certain sentence, the restricting sentence, is true.3 In this respect, then, noun phrase accessibility is almost certainly a theory of relativity of sorts, and it is this that Keenan and Comrie emphasise throughout their dossier. They theorise that the variation in the relativisability of noun-phrase positions is far from random, and that rather, this relativisability of certain positions is dependent upon that of others, and that furthermore, these dependencies are universal. The accessibility hierarchy, as given below, therefore allows for expression of relative accessibility to relativisation of the noun phr ase position in simplex main clauses: SUBJ DO IO OBL GEN OCOMP SubjectDirect ObjectIndirect ObjectOblativeGenitiveObject of Comparison The positions on the accessibility hierarchy are to be understood as specifying a set of possibly grammatical distinctions that a language may make. However, Keenan and Comrie also specify some hierarchy constraints, whereby a language must be able to relativise subjects, any relative clause-forming strategy must apply to a continuous segment of the agreement hierarchy, and strategies that apply at one point of the hierarchy may in principle cease and apply at any lower point.4 The second point, according to Keenan and Comrie, lies at the crux of justification of actual ordering of terms in the accessibility hierarchy. Ultimately, it appears that the aim of the grammatical function hierarchy is to determine the degree of accessibility to relative clause formation. It is only with the introduction of the Primary Relativisation Constraint, however, that this intuition is made explicit. According to this constraint, a language must have a primary relative clause-forming strategy. Additionally, if a primary strategy in a given language can apply to a low position on the hierarchy then it can also apply to all higher positions, and furthermore, a primary strategy may cut off at any point on the hierarchy. There are therefore several provisos attached to the formation and operation of the grammatical function hierarchy but what of any evidence that motivates it?

Free Essays on Airborne Express

Airborne Express The two main elements of Porter’s Five Forces Model that Airborne Express should be most concerned with are the level of competition within the industry and the power of the buyers. The competitiveness in the industry is very intense. It is lead by two giants, Federal Express and the United Parcel Service (UPS), which account for 35 and 24 percent of the market share respectively. Airborne Express holds only 9 percent of the market. Competing with these two industrial juggernauts is very difficult due to their large financial advantage and their overall size. Airborne Express also has to deal with the above average bargaining power of their high-volume corporate customers. They chose to focus on this segment of the market in the mid 1980s and, even though this strategy has greatly helped them to succeed, these buyers often have the power to demand substantial discounts that they often receive. There is one area of buying power that could be seen as an advantage for Airb orne Express. They control the only privately certified Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) in the U.S. In an FTZ merchandise is tax free and customs duties are only paid on items when they leave. This allows foreign companies to store inventories in the U.S. with Airborne Express without paying customs duties on them until the need arises, which is something they can’t do anywhere else and greatly limits their buying power in this respect. Airborne Express doesn’t have any significant issues of supplier power or availability of substitutes to worry about. Barriers to entry include the sheer size of both Federal Express and the United Parcel Service and a very mature industry. Airborne Express has many strengths. They are fairly technologically sound with their three main information systems: FOCUS, LIBRA II, and Customer Linkage. These programs significantly improve customer service and reduce costs. They are fortunate to have the only FT... Free Essays on Airborne Express Free Essays on Airborne Express Airborne Express The two main elements of Porter’s Five Forces Model that Airborne Express should be most concerned with are the level of competition within the industry and the power of the buyers. The competitiveness in the industry is very intense. It is lead by two giants, Federal Express and the United Parcel Service (UPS), which account for 35 and 24 percent of the market share respectively. Airborne Express holds only 9 percent of the market. Competing with these two industrial juggernauts is very difficult due to their large financial advantage and their overall size. Airborne Express also has to deal with the above average bargaining power of their high-volume corporate customers. They chose to focus on this segment of the market in the mid 1980s and, even though this strategy has greatly helped them to succeed, these buyers often have the power to demand substantial discounts that they often receive. There is one area of buying power that could be seen as an advantage for Air borne Express. They control the only privately certified Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) in the U.S. In an FTZ merchandise is tax free and customs duties are only paid on items when they leave. This allows foreign companies to store inventories in the U.S. with Airborne Express without paying customs duties on them until the need arises, which is something they can’t do anywhere else and greatly limits their buying power in this respect. Airborne Express doesn’t have any significant issues of supplier power or availability of substitutes to worry about. Barriers to entry include the sheer size of both Federal Express and the United Parcel Service and a very mature industry. Airborne Express has many strengths. They are fairly technologically sound with their three main information systems: FOCUS, LIBRA II, and Customer Linkage. These programs significantly improve customer service and reduce costs. They are fortunate to have the only FT...

Internship Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Internship Report - Essay Example But it was also a great opportunity for me to understand the other desks that I didn’t really know about, such as back office teams. I discovered that in this industry, though people focus more on the front office, the back office and middle office are actually quite important. They support the front office: impressive front offices wouldn’t exist without well-organized back and middle offices. About the buddy system, I didn’t have an exact buddy during this internship program. However, I had many chances to interact with junior members from different desks. This helped me to a great extent to understand more about Nomura. Jason from IT, Mark from US rates trading, Jerry from credit trading, Tan, Yuichiro and Bruce from research, and Dennis from JGB swap trading were all great sources of learning. I had some of my meals with these young members, interacted with them when they were at work, and these experiences have brought me very close to some of these talented members of the Nomura team. I could share my dilemmas with them, and they often gave me great advice when I encountered problems, or encouraged me when I was upset. Also, while interacting with them, I could picture myself working at Nomura as a junior, and it helped me imagine how I could contribute as a junior member. During the internship, I also had several opportunities of meeting key people in Nomura. I realized that Nomura has lots of all-star players in this industry. Especially, I was thoroughly impressed with our CEO. He was quite eloquent and persuasive during the interview meeting, and I was fascinated by the speed and intelligence of his reactions to my ideas and queries. I see why he is one of the most successful people in this industry and why Nomura is expanding right now. In addition, I really appreciate Mr.Osone who just let me come into his office whenever I