Lingforum Lunch Talks

November 9 2016: Dan McColm

Location: Blandijn, 090.036

Time: 11.45-12.15

TitleMultiple source constructions in language change: a case study.

Abstract:

The possibility of multiple source constructions in language change has been underexplored in prior literature (Van De Velde, De Smet & Ghesquière, 2013: 473), despite examples of multiple source constructions abounding in phonology, lexical semantics, and syntax (Van De Velde, De Smet & Ghesquière, 2013). This paper examines the role of multiple sources in the host-class expansion of post-verbal arguments in the way-construction. Data from a number of corpora (OED, CLMETEV, COHA and COCA) were used in this investigation. The data were coded for a number of features including verb type, choice of post-verbal argument and choice of subject. The present study supports Traugott & Trousdale’s (2013) conclusion that the way-construction originated from multiple sources that were distinct in their argument structure: a transitive construction involving way as the head of the direct object NP, and an unergative construction. This paper also builds on Traugott & Trousdale’s (2013) findings, showing that the changes affecting the way-construction today are also the product of multiple source constructions. Novel sentences such as He drank his way to death arise as a result of a blend of way-construction and semantically similar fake reflexive resultative construction (He drank himself to death). This finding builds on Traugott & Trousdale (2013), who focused primarily on the inception of the way-construction and its diachronic precursors. This paper shows that multiple source constructions are a salient phenomenon in language change, and provide a convincing account of the development of the way-construction from its inception to the present day.

Keywords: multiple sources, way-construction

References

Traugott, E., & Trousdale, G. (2013). Constructionalization and constructional changes.

Van de Velde, F., De Smet, H., & Ghesquière, L. (2013). On multiple source constructions in language change. Studies in Language, 37(3), 473-489. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sl.37.3.01int

March 1 2016: Álvaro Hugo Salgado Rodriguez

Location: big meeting room English Linguistics (130.007)

Title: ‘Enfrente de mí’ or ‘enfrente mío’: Eliciting Locative Adverbial Constructions and Their Variation in Peninsular Spanish

Abstract: 

Peninsular Spanish presents variation in the pronominal complement of locative adverbs. Some speakers combine them with the preposition de and a stressed personal pronoun, as in (1); others complement them with a possessive pronoun, as in (2), which can bear either the masculine or the feminine suffix, i.e. -o or -a.

(1)        [...] uno de ellos vive enfrente de nosotros (MAL, Andalusia)

            ‘one of them lives in front of us

(2)        [...] de repente, se puso un camión enfrente nuestro (CAS, Valencia)

            ‘[...] suddenly, a truck appeared in front of us

Although few studies exist on the factors that trigger this alternation in the spoken language and the morphosyntactic characteristics of the second construction (e.g. Salgado & Bouzouita in press [2016]), the scarcity of examples available in oral corpora calls for the gathering of additional first-hand data.

In this talk, as preparation for an upcoming fieldwork campaign in Spain to document this alternation, I present i) some of the proposed stimuli for eliciting locative adverbial constructions with pronominal referents and ii) my research design. Feedback is welcome.

References

CAS. Blas, J. & B. Navarro, (2009) Corpus sociolingüístico de Castellón de la Plana y su área metropolitana, Castelló de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I
MAL. Lasarte, M., J. M Sánchez Sáez, A. M. Ávila Muñoz & J. A.Villena Ponsoda (eds.) (2009) El español hablado en Málaga III: corpus oral para su estudio sociolingüístico, nivel de estudios superior, Málaga: Sarriá
Salgado, H. & M. Bouzouita (in press [2016]) ‘El uso de las construcciones de adverbio locativo con pronombre posesivo en el español peninsular: un primer acercamiento diatópico.’ Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 132 (3)

March 15 2016: Cynthia Johnson

Location: big meeting room English Linguistics (130.007)

Title:An overly functional approach to weird agreement phenomena 

Abstract: 

Agreement is broadly defined as the systematic covariance between the properties of one element and those of another (definition adapted from Steele 1978: 610, via Corbett 2006: 4). Essentially, the feature values (e.g. number, gender, and person) of an agreement target (e.g. verb, adjective, pronoun) vary according to the feature values of its syntactic controller (usually, a noun/nominalization).  Central to this talk is the observation that the controller’s features need not be purely morphosyntactic in nature (as syntactic agreement); agreement can also proceed according to the semantic properties of the controller (as semantic agreement). This distinction is illustrated by the variation between American English The band has arrived and British English The band have arrived: the singular verb in American English reflects the morphosyntactic number feature, but in British English the plural verb reflects the semantic conceptualization of band as a collective (i.e. plural) noun. In this talk, in accordance with an “overly functional” approach to agreement phenomena that are not necessarily well suited to the categories of “syntactic” or “semantic” agreement, I propose an even broader definition of agreement as a linguistic process (or product) that primarily serves to mark dependencies between elements within (or even across) sentences. Data for this talk are drawn primarily from the ancient Indo-European languages, but conclusions are also drawn from more contemporary research on the boundary between “attraction” and “agreement” in psycholinguistic studies.

March 29 2016: Sigríður Sæunn Sigurðardóttir

Location: big meeting room English Linguistics (130.007)

Title: Weather Verbs in Icelandic

Abstract: 

Weather verbs in Icelandic have generally been considered to be “no-argument predicates” (Sigurðsson 1989:215ff., Thráinsson 2007:267, Nygaard 1905:6–7). However, a diachronic study reveals that both in Old and Modern Icelandic weather verbs can have an overt NP (1), although they are much more common in Modern Icelandic without a visible argument (2).

(1) a. Veðrið kólnar                            b. Vindinn hvessir
     the-weather.nom gets-cold             the-wind.acc sharpens
     ‘The weather gets cold’                  ‘The wind gets strong’

(2) a. Bráðum kólnar                          b. Á morgun hvessir
     soon gets-cold                              to-morrow sharpens
     ‘It soon gets cold’                         ‘Tomorrow it will get windy’

In this talk I discuss the use of NPs with Icelandic weather verbs. I explore the emergence of these verbs and propose an account of the different case marking of the NPs. In accordance with an analysis of weather expressions by Eriksen et al. (2010, 2012), I show that the bulk of weather verbs in Icelandic without an overt argument (2a-b) have developed from verbs with an overt NP (1a-b).

References:

Eriksen, Pål, Seppo Kittilä and Leena Kolehmainen. 2010. The linguistics of weather: cross-linguistic patterns of meteorological expressions. Studies in Language 34(3):565-610
Eriksen, Pål . 2012. Weather and Language. Language and Linguistic compass 66(6):384-402
Nygaard, Marius. 1905. Norrøn syntax. H. Aschehoug, Oslo [Christiania]
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 1989. Verbal Syntax and Case in Icelandic. In a Comparative GB Approach. Doktorsritgerð, Lundarháskóla, Lundi. [Reprint 1993 Málvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands, Reykjavík.]
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The Syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

April 12 2016: Elisabeth Witzenhausen

Location: room 160.015 (sixth floor)

Title: From Negative Marker to Complementizer? The Functional Change of "ne" in Middle Low German

Abstract: 

While the grammaticalization of the adverbial niht in the course of Jespersen’s cycle in West Germanic languages has been comprehensively studied, there are still a lot of questions regarding the development of the preverbal negative marker ne after the standard expression of negation in those languages had become bipartite or single postverbal. The former marker of sentential negation continues to exist on its own in certain constructions, especially exceptive clauses. In these contexts, ne does not express sentential negation anymore, but marks an adverbial clause expressing a positive exception to a situation or stipulation in the main clause (Breitbarth 2015). In my talk, I will present data from a corpus study I conducted for Middle Low German (1250-1600) and raise questions regarding the syntactic status of ne in that period. The exceptive structure in Middle Low German is mainly monoclausal (1), while Old Saxon exceptives are biclausal (2).

 

(1)     dhe   scal  ome  sin  wulle        loen   gheuen he ne      hebbe         it  uerboret    mit   bosheit

         who shall him   his demanded wage    give     he  neg    have. Subjn it  forfeited   with   mischief

          ‘… who shall give him his demanded wage, unless he have forfeited it with mischief.’                                                                                                                 (Westphalian 1492)

 

(2)     That thu giuuald obar mik hebbian ni mohtis ne uuari that it thi helag god selbo fargaui

         that you power   over me  have    neg may neg were that it you holy God self   granted

         ‘That you cannot have power over me, unless the holy God himself had granted it to you’                                                                                                           (Heliand 5350-5351)

 

The puzzle I want to address is how the biclausal structure merged and became monoclausal. I propose that there has been an upwards reanalysis (Roberts and Roussou 2003) of ne as an exceptive operator in C0.

 

References:

Bhatt, R. & R. Pacheva. 2006. Conditionals. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Syntax I, 638-687. Oxford/New York.
Breitbarth, A. 2015. Exceptive negation in MLG. In Ellen Brandner, Anna Czypionka, Constantin Freitag & Andreas Trotzke (eds.), Charting the Landscape of Linguistics: On the Scope of Josef Bayer’s Work, 11-15. http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/WebschriftBayer/2015/contents.html
Haegeman, L. 2010. The movement derivation of conditional clauses. Linguistic Inquiry 41: 595–621.
Roberts, I. and A. Roussou. 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


April 26 2016: Hilde De Vaere

Location: room 120.025 (second floor)

Title: The alternation between the Indirect Object Construction and the Prepositional Object Construction in present-day German. A corpus-based analysis

Abstract:

The alternation between the Indirect Object Construction (IOC) and the Prepositional Object Construction (POC) with ditransitive verbs in German has not been systematically studied like the dative alternation in English or Dutch. The use of the POC has long been considered as an error or as a result of interference from other languages. However, the recent e-version of the Valenzwörterbuch deutscher Verben states that “occasionally a prepositional phrase with an + accusative is used instead of the dative”. This may indicate that the alternation is a relatively recent phenomenon. Preliminary corpus investigations reveal that it is observed in naturally occurring sentences with simplex transfer verbs like geben, schicken, senden, leihen, and complex transfer verbs such as prefix verbs abgeben, ausschicken, particle verbs vergeben, verleihen and compound verbs zurückgeben, preisgeben.

Typical for the IOC (1) is that Recipient and Theme are coded differently: the Theme gets an accusative and the Recipient a dative, hence the traditional term “dative construction”. The POC consists of a Theme in the accusative and a Recipient which typically has the form of the preposition an in combination with the accusative, as in (2).

(1)   Luise G. schickte  [ihm] RECIPIENT [eine E Mail]THEME  
Luise G.        sent        him                 an e-mail

(2) Ich schicke [ganz viele Grüße]THEME [an meine Freundin und ihre Eltern]RECIPIENT
      I    send      a lot of greetings           to my friend and her parents


In this talk I will present data from my corpus study and discuss the factors which I am currently annotating in my datasets and which correlate with the IOC/POC alternation. I will explore aspects of information structure and lexical semantics as well as morphosyntactic characteristics of several variables. 

References:

Adler, J. (2011). Dative alternations in German. The argument realization options of transfer verbs.

Philosophy, 271. Jerusalem: Hebrew University.

Coseriu, E. (1962/1975). Sprachtheorie und allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. München: Fink.

Haspelmath, M. (2013). Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'. In: Dryer, Matthew S. &

Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck

Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (URL http://wals.info/chapter/105, Accessed on 2016-03-

15).

Schumacher, H. & J. Kubczak, R. Schmidt, V. de Ruiter (2004). VALBU - Valenzwörterbuch deutscher

Verben. Studien zur Deutschen Sprache 31. Tübingen: Narr.

Willems, K. & A. Coene (2006). Satzmuster und die Konstruktionalität der Verbbedeutung.

Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Konstruktionsgrammatik und Valenztheorie. Sprachwissenschaft,

Volume 31, Issue 3, 2006, 237-272.

May 10 2016: Niek Van Wettere

Location: room 120.025 (second floor)

Title: Exploring the boundaries of the subject complement: subject complements, indirect objects and adverbial complements

Abstract: 

My PhD project revolves around the phenomenon of Dutch and French change-of-state semi-copulas (i.e. verbs that signify ‘become’), more specifically those originating from verbs which typically express physical motion (e.g. (ge)raken, komen, tomber, venir, tourner, virer, passer…). For example :

-          tomber (‘to fall’) : Il tombe amoureux. (‘He falls in love.’)

-          (ge)raken (‘to attain’) : Ze (ge)raakte zwanger. (lit. ‘She attained/reached pregnant.’)

Semi-copulas are verbs which share only part of the properties of semantically empty, full-fledged copular verbs, such as to be

In this presentation, I address how in addition to the more prototypical (adjectival) subject complements listed above (cf. amoureux ‘in love’, zwanger ‘pregnant’), one also finds other, less clear-cut cases on the fringe of the semi-copular domain, some of which include :

1. indirect (‘prepositional’) objects

Cela tourne à l’obsession. (lit. ‘It turns to obsession.’)

(to be distinguished from a prepositional subject complement, for example in paniek raken (lit. ‘to   reach/attain in panic’))

2. metaphorical locative complements

Ze raakte in de put. (lit. ‘She reached/attained in the pit.’)

3. resultative complements

Zijn ogen vielen dicht. (lit. ‘His eyes fell closed.’)

4. particles (< particle verbs)

De emoties komen los. (lit. ‘The emotions come loose.’)

5. non-locative adverbial complements

Alles ging mis. (‘Everything went wrong.’)

6. impersonal construction :

[…] qu'il est fantastique de pouvoir voyager et visiter d'autres pays. (‘[…] that it is fantastic to be able to travel and visit other countries.’)

7. experiencer construction :

Het viel hem zwaar. (lit. ‘It falls him heavy.’)

In light of these less clear-cut cases, it is necessary to deal with the fuzziness that typically characterizes the boundaries of linguistic categories (in the present case, the subject complement), in order to delimit the object of study in a coherent and meaningful manner.

In this talk, I will tackle some methodological issues concerning the selection procedure (i.e. a decision tree procedure of “linguistic tests”, involving grammaticality judgements) that was adopted to decide whether a particular case should be included in the study or not. The main focus will be on analysing different types of prepositional structures, cf. 1 & 2 above.

References:

Booij, G. 2010. Construction Morphology. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Bybee, J. & Eddington, D. 2006. “A Usage-Based Approach to Spanish Verbs of ‘Becoming’.” Language 82(2): 323–55.

Danlos, L. 1980. “Représentation d’informations linguistiques : les constructions N être Prép X.” Thèse de 3e cycle, Paris : LADL, Université Paris 7.

Lamiroy, B. & Melis, L. 2005. “Les copules ressemblent-elles aux auxiliaires ?” In Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa, edited by Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot and Nicole Le Querler, 145–70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Lauwers, P. 2009. “La prédication ‘attributive’. Portée, structuration interne et statut théorique.” In Prédicats, prédication et structures prédicatives, edited by A.H. Ibrahim, 178–202. Paris: CRL.

Lauwers, P. & Tobback, E. 2010. “Les verbes attributifs : inventaire(s) et statut(s).” Langages 179-180(3): 79-113.

Van Eynde, F. et al. 2014. “Het verrassende resultaat van een copulativiteitspeiling.” In Patroon en argument: een dubbelfeestbundel bij het emeritaat van William Van Belle en Joop van der Horst, edited by Freek Van de Velde, Hans Smessaert, Frank Van Eynde and Sara Verbrugge, 47–62. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.

June 7 2016: Joanna Tokaj

Location: big meeting room English Linguistics (130.007)

Title: Converbal chains and absolute constructions in early Rajasthani

Abstract: 

In NIA two similar construcions can be found, i.e. the converbal chain (having converb as its center) and the absolute construction (based on the participle). Subbarao (2012) states that a functional explanation as to why a language such as Hindi- Urdu or Punjabi has two different constructions which can alternate in some contexts, but not in others is that the converb is subject-oriented while PRO of the perfective participle can be coindexed both with the subject and the object of a matrix clause.

The goal of the present paper is to find an functional explanation for coexistence of two similar constructions, i.e. converbal chains and perfective participles/absolute constructions in early Rajasthani (ER).

Preliminary research is based on the corpus of early Rajasthani prose texts from the 15th to 17th centuries (Bhānāvat and Kamal 1997-1998).

Subject of the converbal chain is PRO i.e. a null element. When there are two arguments (subject and object) in the matrix clause, most often it is the subject which can be coindexed with PRO of the CC (converbal chain) clause (exceptions can be found in Kashmiri). However the perfective adverbial participle (PAP) may be coindexed with either the matrix subject or the object (Subbarao 2012: 264).  

PRO of PAP may be indicated by the position of PAP in the sentence. In Hindi, PAP’s position to the left of the matrix clause makes PRO more likely to coindex with subject. PAP to the right of DO or matrix VP- PRO is ambiguous, can be both, subject and object. 

Subject Identity Constraint of a converb may be violated in few cases:

•           Animacy plays an important role, when embedded sentence denotes a non-volitional action and a subject of embedded clause is –animate, violation of Subject Identity Constraint is permitted; when subject is +human, violation is not permitted (Subbarao 2012)

•           “Lexical subjects occur only in such CP clauses which express cause and effect relation, temporal clauses and clauses with opposite verbs” (Lalitha Murthy 1994)

Both perfective and imperfective adverbial participles in Hindi can be used in absolute constructions. When the participle has a subject of its own, different from the subject (and the object) of the main verb in the sentence, then the participle is rightly called ‘absolute participle’. (Pořizka 2000: 68). As Haspelmath noticed:  In the term absolute construction, absolute is generally taken to mean ‘not sharing an argument with the main clause’ […]. (Haspelmath 1995: 45-46).

Absolute constructions in ER are built on the basis of:

1.         Imperfective adverbial participle:

(1) taṭhai               nāḻi                  -goḻā                calāvatā͂                                         eka

     there                canoon.INS      –ball.GEN.PL     shoot.CAUS.ADV.PRS.PTCP             1         

     nāḻi                              phāṭi                        pāchī   paḍī.

     canon.SG.INSTR          explode.CVB            then     break.PPP.fem.SG

     There [while] shooting cannonball from cannon, one cannon having exploded broke. (R.G. 42)

2.         Perfective adverbial participle:

(3) teṇi                  pātisāhi                       āyā̃                                          sā̃tari                        kuṇa    sahaï.

     this.INS/LOC     king.INS/LOC               come.ADV.PRF.PTCP                  burden.F.SG              who     bear.PRES.3SG

     When the king came, who bears the burden? (R.G. 29; AD 1428 )

Imperfective adverbial participles (1) indicate that both events of the dependent and independent clause take place at the same time and that the dependent clause seem to supply further information about an event of the independent clause. Perfective adverbial participles (2) show sequence of events. Action described in the dependent clause precedes an action of an independent clause.

Converbs can be a part of absolute constructions as well. It is possible for the controlled PRO (dropped argument) not to be coreferential with the subject of the main clause – because of semantic and pragmatic factors, e.g. cause and effect relation:

or

And when Hemu came to Panipat, the camps were established.

 

Preliminary research has shown that in early Rajasthani converbal chains most often take subject as a PRO, there are only a few occurrences of different type, while absolute constructions have different subjects. Adverbial participles take specified form of plural Genitive and thus similarly to converbs they are not inflectional. Among the main syntactic functions of converbs and participles, some similarities may be pointed out – coordinating function, adverbial function and cause and effect relation. Absolute constructions based on the imperfective participle show several similarities with converbal chain constructions as regards scope of clause level operators – IF and T scope can be conjunct whereas absolute constructions based on the perfective participles have clearly local scope of both T and IF operators (for Hindi see e.g. Davison 1981 and for more recent typological framing cf. Bickel 2010). 

References:

Bickel, Balthasar, 2010. Capturing particulars and universals in clause linkage: a multivariate analysis. In Isabelle Bril (ed.), Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy: Syntax and Pragmatics, number 121 in Studies in Language Companion Series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pages 51 – 102.

Davison, Alice. 1981. Syntactic and semantic indeterminacy resolved: a mostly pragmatic analysis for the Hindi conjunctive participle. In: Cole Peter (ed), 1981. Radical pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, 101–128.

Haspelmath, Martin 1995. The converb as a cross-linguistically valid category. In Converbs in Cross-Linguistic Perspective Structure and Meaning of Adverbial Verb Forms–Adverbial Participles, Gerunds. Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 13

Murthy, Lalitha. B. 1994. Participial constructions: A cross-linguistic study. Unpublished PhD dissertation, New Delhi: University of Delhi

Pořizka, Vincenc. 2000. Studies in the Bhagavadgita and New Indo-Aryan languages. Prague: Oriental Institute Academy of Sciences of The Czech Republic

Subbarao, Karumuri. V. 2012. South Asian Languages: A Syntactic Typology. New York: Cambridge University Press

June 14 2016: Metin Bagriacik

Location: room 120.025

Title: The Pragmatic Field in Pharasiot Greek

Abstract: 

Data: In Pharasiot Greek, a certain particle (μόριο, Andriotis 1948:53) borrowed from Turkish—ki—is employed in a number of prima facie unrelated constructions. First, it can optionally follow verbs (and other clause-mate materials of the verb if there are any), when these verbs introduce quotes (1). Second, it can follow assertive predicates (and other clause-mate materials) that select complement clauses (2). Third, certain sentential adverbs can be followed by the ki immediately (3) and when they are, they receive an exclusively speaker-oriented reading (given in (3a)) and lose the impersonal/punctual reading (given in (3b)). Finally, it occurs in clause-final position where it acts as an emphatic particle (4).  

Analysis: Close scrutiny reveals that in each of (1)–(4), the ki particle is employed as a device geared to influencing the interlocutor’s epistemic vigilance, the capacity of the communicator to display his/her competence, benevolence and trustworthiness to the hearer (Wilson 2011:16–18). Based on the Cartographic Approach which defends the syntactization of the interpretive domains, I propose that the unique semantics of the ki is encoded in the clause structure. Following recent arguments for the existence of a pragmatic field—Speech Act Phrase (SAP) in particular—above the CP-layer (Speas and Tenny 2003, Hill 2007, Haegeman and Hill 2011), where discourse/pragmatic roles are mapped onto syntax, I propose, by evidence from the adverb+ki constructions, that the ki is a clitic merged as the head of the SAP. This analysis carries over to the other construction types in (1)–(2) and (4). Then, the apparent structural differences between (1)–(4) reduce to the attraction of certain sentential adverbs merged in Mod(ifier)P to Spec,SAP (in (3)), or the clausal movement (of ForceP) to Spec,SAP in the lack of sentential adverbs, in (1)–(2) and (4). Within this approach, quotative-constructions (1), predicate-complement-constructions (2) and emphatic clauses (4) turn out to be the same construction, the only difference among them being whether there is a quote/complement clause linked to the superordinate clause or not. The similar status of the quotes and the complement clauses in the environment of the ki is verified by the unavailability of Wh-Movement out of the complement clause and the lack of negative polarity item licensing within the complement clause by the matrix negation.

 

 (1)          O           Xadʒefendís       le            ta        (ki)   ‘si                títi   dáraksis                ta      aútsa?’  

                the.nom Haciefendi.nom  say.3sg   3obj     ki     you.nom    why meddle.past.2sg  3obj  such

                ‘Haciefendi says, ‘why did you meddle it this way?’’                                         

                (quotative-construction)

 

(2)           émasan             da   penendáu tun    (ki) [čo a           ftásun            sa                   tǘæ               tun].

                vow.past.3pl   3obj among    them  ki   not fut.def reach.pnp.3pl   to.the.acc   feathers.acc their  

                ‘they vowed among themselves that they will not harm a hair on one another’s head.’

               (predicate-complement-construction)

(3)           tamán           (ki) atós       en        én     to           axɯllús.

                undoubtedly  ki he.nom  be.3sg most the.nom smart.nom

                (a) ‘undoubtedly, he is the smartest (one).’

                (b) ‘it is without doubt that he is the smartest (one)’   

               (adverb+ki construction)

 

(4)           piésin                aúča a vreší (ki).

                catch.past.3sg such a rain.nom ki

                ‘Such a heavy rain started.’    

               (emphatic clause)

References:

Andriotis, N. P. 1948. To glossiko idhioma ton Pharason. Athens: Ikaros. 
Haegeman, L. and Virginia H.. 2011. The syntacticization of discourse. In Syntax and its limits, ed. by R. Folli, C. Sevdali and R. Truswell, 370–390. Oxford: OUP.£
Hill, V.. 2007. Romanian adverb and the pragmatic field. The Ling. Rev. 24:61–86. 
Speas, M. and C. Tenny. 2003. Configurational properties of point of view roles. In Asymmetry in Grammar, ed. by A. M. Di Sciullo 315–343. Amsterdam: J.Benjamins. 
Wilson, D. 2011. The conceptual–procedural distinction: Past, present and future. In Procedural meaning: Problems and perspectives, ed. by V. Escandell-Vidal, M. Leonetti and A. Ahern, 3–31. Bingley, UK: Emerald Groups.