bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Post-Velar Consonants on Vowels in Nuu-chah-nulth: Auditory, Acoustic, and Articulatory Evidence
Authors: Wilson Ian
Published: February 2018

Previous phonetic documentation of Nuu-chah-nulth consonant-vowel interactions has either solely relied on transcriptions or has been incomplete in some other respect. Using auditory, acoustic, and articulatory evidence, this article documents the effects of all post-velar consonants on all vowels. Results show that /i/ and /i:/ almost always have a schwa offglide before the uvular and pharyngeal stops, but not always before the fricatives. When these vowels follow uvulars and pharyngeals (with the exception of the labialized uvular), they are usually lowered and do not have a schwa offglide. Ultrasound data confirm that the tongue root is active in articulating uvular and pharyngeal consonants and that the schwa off-glide occurs because the tongue is moving through a schwa-like configuration on its way from the high front vowel to the retracted consonant. The vowels /u/ and /u:/ are lowered and/or diphthongized following (but not preceding) pharyngeals, and they are unaffected by uvulars.
Ditidaht Vowel Alternations and Prosody
Authors: Werle Adam
Published: February 2018

Among the Southern Wakashan languages, Ditidaht has patterns of short vowel epenthesis and deletion that are unusually complex. It is shown that the surface presence or absence of short vowels is determined not by their underlying presence or absence, but by how segments are parsed by prosodic constituents. An optimality theoretic analysis is developed, according to which vowel alternations result from the low ranking of faithfulness constraints (Max/V and Dep/V) relative to constraints on the forms of syllables, feet, and prosodic words. Vowel presence creates ideal iambic feet, makes prosodic words minimally disyllabic, and ensures that adducted consonants (those that involve adducting the vocal folds for glottalization or voicing) are vowel-adjacent. Vowel absence ensures that prosodic words end in consonants, and eliminates unfooted syllables. An additional finding is that all adducted consonants must be postvocalic.
Possessor Raising in Nuu-chah-nulth
Authors: Ravinski Christine
Published: February 2018

Nuu-chah-nulth possessor raising is semantically unrestricted and affects only subjects: subject agreement matches the person and number of the possessor (rather than the possessed subject), and the possessive-marking clitic attaches to the head of the clause (rather than to the possessum). Nuu-chah-nulth possessor raising is analyzed as a syntactic dependency between the possessive clitic in the main clause and the base-generated possessor position within DP. A Possessive Phrase can appear in either the DP or the clausal domain, and the possessive clitic may be generated in either position. When the possessive clitic is generated in the main clause, a possessor may raise out of subject position via feature-driven movement; the Minimal Link Condition prevents such movement from occurring out of object position.
Introduction: Interface Asymmetries
Authors: Di Sciullo Anna Maria
Published: February 2018

The articles assembled in this issue of the Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique contribute to our understanding of the role of asymmetric relations at the interfaces. Asymmetric relations have privileged status in the syntactic, phonological, and morphological derivation of linguistic expressions (see for example the articles in Di Sciullo 2003).

Interfaces are representations that must meet legibility conditions imposed by external systems. According to the Strong Minimalist Thesis (Chomsky 2001), language is an optimal solution to interface conditions, in that language is an optimal way to link sound and meaning. Questions arise regarding the properties of the interface representations that make them optimally legible by external systems. These properties could very well be abstract, and remote from the perceptual systems, and could bear on the form of interface representations, rather than on the interpretation of their parts. A strong hypothesis in this regard is that asymmetric relations are core properties of the relations derived by the grammar (Chomsky 1981, 1995, 2001; Kayne 1994; Moro 2000; Di Sciullo 2005; Zwart 2006). From this perspective, asymmetry is a pervasive property of derivations and interface representations; it is thus expected to be a property of different structural relations, such as the relation between a displaced constituent and its copy, the relation between an anaphor and its antecedent, the relation between a head and its dependent, and more generally, the relation between the constituents of a configuration.
On Some Special Adverbs, Word Order, and CP: Variation vs. Micro-Variation
Authors: Ambar Manuela
Published: February 2018

For some adverbs, European and Brazilian Portuguese sharply differ, with consequences for the syntax of tense, quantification, word order, quantifier floating, wh-extraction, and clause structure. Evidence is provided for the architecture of the left, for remnant IP movement, and for the claim that “micro-” lexical differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese reduce to syntactic “macro-” variation: absence vs. presence of V-movement.
A Derivational Approach to Scope Interaction between Wh-phrases and Quantifiers
Authors: Miyamoto Yoichi
Published: February 2018

I examine scope interaction between a wh-phrase and a quantified phrase (QP). Sloan-type sentences in Japanese are also discussed, based on Motomura’s analysis on zibun ‘self’. I show that Sloan’s original proposal is empirically inadequate, and propose an analysis based on the Hornstein/Kayne-type analysis of bound pronouns. One consequence is that scope determination must be understood to occur derivationally, based on the asymmetrical relationship between a wh-phrase and a QP at one point in the derivation. Also, only QPs collocated with an unchecked Case feature can be a probe for Q-absorption.
Desymmetrization: Parametric Variation at the PF-Interface
Authors: Richards Marc D.
Published: February 2018

I advance the thesis that the narrow syntactic component of CHLis purely symmetrical, with all apparent asymmetries reducing to interface conditions. Properties of Germanic object shift and scrambling, in particular the VO order-preservation (Holmberg’s Generalization), derive from symmetry-breaking strategies which dispose of superfluous (symmetric) syntactic information and ensure the PF-legibility (linearization). These interface desymmetrization strategies provide a Minimalist analysis of non-lexical (macro-)parameters, such as the head-directionality parameter.

The Linear Correspondence Axiom is reconciled with the VO/OV head parameter such that linear “shape” is preserved across the derivation. This allows object shift and scrambling to emerge as two sides of a single parametric coin. The implications of this system for the A/A-bar movement typology are explored, and a Minimalist reconceptualization is offered.
An Exemplar Dynamic Approach to Language Shift
Authors: Bird Sonya
Published: February 2018

This squib presents an exploration of how Exemplar Dynamics (Hintzman 1986; Goldinger 1996; Pierrehumbert 2001) can be used to model the increased phonetic variability observed in language shift situations. It is based on a study of laryngealized resonants, as pronounced by three fluent speakers of St’át’imcets, a Northern Interior Salish language of British Columbia.
À propos de la fermeture des voyelles moyennes devant [r] dans le français du Québec
Authors: Morin Yves Charles
Published: February 2018

Ce travail examine la thèse de Malcah Yaeger-Dror sur l’évolution des voyelles moyennes du français voulant qu’elle soit régie par des principes généraux sur les changements en chaîne. En français, les voyelles toniques longues non hautes auraient tendance à se fermer vers les positions extrêmes [e:], [ø:] et [o:], puis, arrivées à cette étape, à renverser leur trajectoire et à s’ouvrir en direction de [a:] et de [a:]. Cette deuxième étape est retardée dans une classe de mots pour lesquels Yaeger-Dror pense que seules seraient pertinentes leurs connotations sociales, sans tenir compte de l’étymologie, de l’environnement phonétique et de la fréquence. Le présent article reprend la problématique générale de l’évolution des voyelles moyennes du français et propose une nouvelle analyse de la formation de voyelles longues et de leur évolution en français.
Specification, equation, and agreement in copular sentences
Authors: Heycock Caroline
Published: February 2018

This article presents new data from a number of Germanic languages concerning the agreement patterns found in copular clauses that contain two nominais; in both clauses with specificational readings (such asThe problem is your parents) and those with what are here termed readings of assumed identity (such asIf I were youorIn my dream I was you).It is argued that the specificational sentences involve asymmetric equative structures where one nominal is interpreted as in a concealed question, and that the cross-linguistic differences in agreement patterns found in the languages considered follow from the copula lexicalizing either Tense or a lower head.
Chaînes pronominales et positions non-argumentales
Authors: Barbaud Philippe
Published: February 2018

Les données présentées en (1) illustrent le cas des phrases dites “infinitives de narration”. De nombreux exemples sont attestés dans Sandfeld (1965), Le Bidois (1952), Grevisse (1961), Nyrop (1930), etc.
La proposition infinitive, la quantification et la théorie-thêta
Authors: Dubé Lison
Published: February 2018

Cet article porte sur des constructions françaises d’un type particulier. Ces constructions sont illustrées par les exemples suivants:

i)

Jean a le plaisir de vivre à la campagne

ii)

Jean a un plaisir vif à vivre à la campagne

iii)

Jean a du plaisir à vivre à la campagne.

Ces constructions ne diffèrent qu’au niveau de l’élément prépositionnel introduisant la proposition infinitive et qu’au niveau du spécifieur, ou détermineur, du substantif.
Preference Laws and Gradient Change: Selected Developments in Romance
Authors: Murray Robert W.
Published: February 2018

This paper has two purposes. The first is to focus attention on the gradient nature of sound change. This characteristic of sound change, although an important one, is often overlooked. King (1969: 122), for example, states: “Phonological changes tend to affect natural classes of sounds (p, t, k, high vowels, voiced stops) because rules that affect natural classes are simpler than rules that apply only to single segments.” This perspective obscures the generalization pattern of phonological processes, for a particular process typically affects a subsection of a natural class and then may (or may not) generalize to other members of the particular class or even to other classes. The second purpose of this paper is to account for selected cases of gradient phonological change in Italian and other Romance languages on the basis of a partial theory of syllable structure preferences.
On the General Properties of Consonant Epenthesis
Authors: Picard Marc
Published: February 2018

In his study of consonant epenthesis, Wetzels (1985:285-286) recognizes the existence of two distinct types: “one type involves the appearance of an epenthetic consonant inside liquid-final clusters; the second type concerns intrusive stops which originate inside sequences of consonants which do not have liquids as their second member.” Following are some characteristic examples:
Voyelles/consonnes: Hiérarchie phonématique
Authors: Léon Pierre
Published: February 2018

La plupart des études typologiques entreprises par les linguistes s’en tiennent généralement aux trois étapes citées par Bernard Pottier (1968:300): inventaire des traits typologiques; caractérisation d’une langue par ses traits; classement des langues du monde d’après certains de ces traits. Après un survol méthodique, mais bref, de tous les traits envisageables dans une telle investigation, Pottier conclut: “Les recherches actuelles s’efforcent d’introduire la notion de hiérarchie dans le fonctionnement de la langue” (1968:318).

C’est ce dernier point que j’aimerais envisager pour le français en comparant le rôle des voyelles par rapport à celui des consonnes dans le système de la langue.
The Structure of Aspect
Authors: Voorst Jan Van
Published: February 2018

This article gives a formalized description of aspect within the context of Reichenbach’s (1947) model of tense structures. Reichenbach’s primitive for the event, E, is further analyzed as consisting of a beginning, an end or both. This configuration is called Aspectual Structure. Its interaction with Tense Structure is used to verify this structure independently. Aspectual Structure distinguishes clearly between perfective and imperfective constructions on the one hand and progressive and stative constructions on the other. The former exhibit aspectual structure; the latter do not. My analysis presents independent evidence for or against various insights present in purely descriptive approaches to aspect that can be found in many places in the literature.
L’opposition /γ/ : /w/ en créole haïtien: un paradoxe résolu
Authors: Cadely Jean-Robert Joseph
Published: February 2018

Les travaux descriptifs traitant du statut phonologique et de la distribution du segment [Ɣ] en créole haïtien achoppent presque toujours sur un paradoxe. Il s’agit du comportement de ce dernier dans l’environnement phonique d’un segment [+arrondi]. Les études les plus pertinentes, d’Ans (1968:72), Tinelli (1970:64), Valdman (1978:56) et Dejean (1980:97) pour ne citer que celles-là, s’accordent à reconnaître dans ce contexte l’existence d’un changement dans les réalisations de surface du phonème /Ɣ/ et à mettre en relief le caractère lacunaire de sa distribution. Dejean attribue ce changement à la transformation des mots français à séquence r + [+arrondi] en [w]. Tinelli voit plutôt un processus de labialisation de /Ɣ/ dans ce même contexte. Mais, dans un cas comme dans l’autre, la caractérisation formelle du phénomène est présentée comme une propriété particulière du créole haïtien et non comme le résultat d’un processus phonologique universel. Lowenstamm (1981), citant Karl Popper, définit le contenu informatif d’une théorie comme la classe des possibilités qu’elle exclut. En d’autres termes, une théorie nous permet de cerner de plus près l’objet de notre étude si elle a pour résultat de réduire le nombre des analyses possibles pour un ensemble de faits. C’est dans cette optique que nous désirons discuter de l’opposition /Ɣ/ : /w/ en créole haïtien à travers les développements récents de la théorie phonologique.
Le discours mixte arabe/français: emprunts ou alternances de langue?
Authors: M’barek Mohamed Nait , Sankoff David
Published: February 2018

Nous présentons les résultats d’une étude empirique du discours mixte arabe marocain/français dont le but est de situer ce discours par rapport aux théories de l’emprunt et de l’alternance. Nous nous basons en grande partie sur l’analyse quantitative de la distribution des contextes syntaxiques où se juxtaposent des éléments des deux langues.
Word Order Universals: Refinements and Clarifications
Authors: Campbell Lyle , Bubenik Vit , Saxon Leslie
Published: February 2018

Studies of word-order universals have had great impact in modern linguistics, thanks to Greenberg’s (1963) work and to Hawkins’s (1983) refinements. Greenberg’s conclusions were based on a sample of 30 languages “for more detailed information” and 142 languages “for certain limited cooccurrences of basic word order” (Hawkins 1983:xi; cf. Greenberg 1963:74–75). Hawkins expanded the 142 “to some 350 languages”, and for “between one-third and one-half of these supplementary data have been collected of the type that Greenberg listed in his 30-language sample” (Hawkins 1983:xi-xii). Hawkins proposed extensive revisions in Greenberg’s universals based on this expanded sample.
Universal Grammar in Language Acquisition
Authors: Felix Sascha W.
Published: February 2018

Progress in linguistic theory during the past 20 years has made it increasingly clear that language acquisition must be viewed as an essentially deductive process in which the child analyzes the input data s/he is exposed to on the basis of an innately specified set of restrictive principles — technically known as Universal Grammar — which narrowly constrain the kinds of hypotheses a child will consider vis-à-vis a given set of data (cf. Chomsky 1980, 1981, 1986; Hornstein and Lightfoot 1981; White 1982; Felix 1987). As a consequence, there is a growing interest in the question of how exactly principles of Universal Grammar interact with the child’s linguistic experience during the course of language acquisition (see e.g., Pinker 1984; Hyams 1986; Lust 1986b; Roeper and Williams 1987 among others for some more recent proposals). It appears that there are currently at least two competing views about the nature of this interaction. One of these views which I shall call “perceptionism” holds that the task of Universal Grammar (UG) is essentially restricted to constraining the types of intermediate grammars that the child will construct, while the developmental process itself is essentially data-driven, i.e., driven by the child’s (changing) perception of the external evidence. The other view which may be termed “maturationism” claims that UG is both responsible for the types of (intermediate) grammars that in principle may emerge and at the same time for the specific nature of the developmental process. Under the maturationist view language acquisition is therefore seen as a process that is driven primarily by internal, i.e., biologically determined maturational mechanisms.
Prédicats théoriques et données externes: syntaxe diachronique
Authors: Morin Jean-Yves
Published: February 2018

L’application d’une théorie linguistique, essentiellement élaborée à partir de données internes, à des données externes (diachronie, acquisition, performance, pathologie, traitement informatique, etc.) et sa vérification à partir de ces dernières pose de nombreux problèmes. Le premier de ces problèmes est celui de l’exportationdes prédicats de la théorie dans un domaine autre (et généralement plus englobant) que celui pour lequel ils ont été définis.
Disorders Affecting Comprehension of Syntactic Form: Preliminary Results and their Implications for Theories of Syntax and Parsing
Authors: Caplan David , Hildebrandt Nancy
Published: February 2018

Linguistic analyses of aphasic patients’ performances have developed to the point where interesting, non-trivial descriptions and explanations of pathological performances are available in linguistic and processing terms. The purpose of this paper is to present a short synopsis for linguists of several recent analyses of aphasic patients’ disturbances in the sphere of comprehension of syntactic form. This presentation is designed to illustrate some of the logical and methodological issues regarding the analysis of aphasic data, as well as to present specific results of our investigations. On the basis of our case studies, we also suggest several aspects of syntactic structure and parsing.
Haitian Creole Morphology: French Phonetic Matrices in a West African Mold
Authors: Lefebvre Claire , Brousseau Anne-Marie , Filipovich Sandra
Published: February 2018

This paper summarizes the findings of an extensive study of Haitian Creole morphology as compared with that of contributing languages: French, the lexifier language, and Fon, the West African language selected as the substratum language. The proposal we want to argue for in this paper is that, although the phonetic matrices of Haitian Creole lexical items are recognizable as being from French, at a more abstract level the productive affixes of Haitian Creole pattern in a significant way with the model of contributing West African languages, in this case Fon. This being the case, the widespread assumption in the creole literature that creole languages have undergone morphological simplification is not borne out by the Haitian data (cf. several discussions on this topic in Hymes 1971).
Relexification in Canada: The Case of Métif (French-Cree)
Authors: Bakker Peter
Published: February 2018

Métif is a language spoken in the Canadian prairie provinces and the American prairie states bordering Canada. There are probably between 3000 and 5000 people who speak Métif as their first language, most of them of advanced age. They are living mostly in scattered Métis settlements. The Métis are a nation of mixed Amerindian and European descent. From the 17th century on French Canadian fur traders and voyageurs travelled west-wards from French Canada. Many of them married Amerindian women, who were often Cree speaking. Around 1860 the Métis were the largest population group of the Canadian West, many of them multilinguals. From the first decades of the 19th century the Métis started to consider themselves as a separate ethnic group, neither European nor Amerindian (see e.g., Peterson and Brown 1985). The Métis are still a distinct people. The Métis nowadays often speak Cree, Ojibwa, Métif, French and English or a combination of these. They often speak particular varieties of these languages. Not only is the French spoken by the Métis markedly different from other North American French dialects the language called Métif is uniquely spoken among the Métis people. For more information on Métif and Métis languages, see the publications listed in Bakker (1989).
De la sémantique duoraffectif et des coordinations elliptiques
Authors: Authier J.-Marc
Published: February 2018

Parmi les analyses récentes dont le but est de rendre compte de la distribution des lexèmes à polarité négative (LPN) en anglais, comme par exemple les faits contrastifs concernantanyen (1a) vs (1b), deux traitements radicalement opposés retiennent l’attention du linguiste.

(1)

a.

Paul didn’t catchanyfish today.

b.

*Paul caughtanyfish today.
L’effet V1: le verbe initial en moyen français
Authors: Junker Marie-Odile
Published: February 2018

Le moyen français (MF) est une langue à sujet nul qui permet les sujets postverbaux et dont le verbe occupe généralement la seconde position. N’importe quel constituant peut occuper la première position de la phrase, y compris le sujet. Le sujet nul et le sujet postverbal sont habituellement le fait des langues romanes. L’effet du verbe second, “l’effet V2”, est caractéristique des langues germaniques. Une question longuement débattue par la tradition philologique (Foulet 1928; Herman 1954; Hilty 1968; Kuen 1957) est celle de l’influence des langues germaniques sur l’évolution du francais. Fidèles en ce sens à cette tradition, mais dans le cadre de la grammaire générative, Benincà (1984) puis Adams (1987) et Vance (1987) ont appliqué l’analyse proposée par Thiersch (1978) pour l’allemand à l’ancien français (AF) en assumant deux règles de mouvement: antéposition du verbe tensé et topicalisation de n’importe quel adverbe ou NP en position initiale. Le caractère obligatoire de la règle de topicalisation V2 est mis en doute par l’existence de phrases déclaratives à verbe initial en ancien et en moyen français. En effet, on en trouve dela Chanson de Roland(XIIe siècle) jusqu’à Rabelais et Montaigne (XVIe siècle) tant en phrases matrices qu’en phrases subordonnées.
More About Axiological Fields
Authors: Peeters Bert
Published: February 2018

Because of a too liberal, often inadequate and/or arbitrary use of the termfield, especially in semantics, modern semantic theory needs more than ever before a new field notion and a new field terminology. An attempt will be made to define a field notion based on what others have said about fields in semantics. With regard to terminology, I shall use the termaxiological field, which appears in several of my earlier writings as well. “Axiology” is to be defined as a functional and structural approach to meaning which stands to semantics as phonology stands to phonetics. It is about values (“axiology”, a term coined by André Martinet, literally means ‘science of values’) as opposed to meanings, with values being to meanings what phonemes are to uttered sounds.
Introduction: The Emergence of Constraints in Generative Phonology and a Comparison of Three Current Constraint-Based Models
Authors: Lacharité Darlene , Paradis Carole
Published: February 2018

Constraints, which go also by the names “conditions”, “filters”, and less transparently, “principles” and “parameters” are currently opposed to (contextual and non-contextual) arbitrary rules, and are argued to be more explanatory in the scientific sense that they can: 1) reduce the number of sources and/or causes of a given phenomenon; 2) link apparently unrelated facts; and 3) make more predictions, if formulated adequately and related to universal grammar (UG). Although the notion of phonological constraints was not born with generative phonology (see, e.g., Hockett 1958:282), it is within that framework that they have begun to receive more formal treatment (Paradis and Nikiema 1993:45).
Licensed Segments and Safe Paths
Authors: Itô Junko , Mester R. Armin
Published: February 2018

The following pages sketch a system of constraints intended to sharpen and organize a number of current assumptions surrounding the concept of “prosodic licensing”, as proposed in Itô (1988) and further developed in later work (Bagemihl 1991; Charette 1990; Goldsmith 1990; Inkelas 1991; Itô and Mester 1991; Kaye 1990; Lombardi 1991; Piggott 1991; Zec 1988; and others). The proposal to be developed below draws on Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993); one of the goals is to explicate the notion of the coda as a “secondary licenser” (Goldsmith 1990) and to clarify the privileged status of geminate and partial geminate clusters (Prince 1984) with respect to syllabification. After laying out some background assumptions (Section 1), we present the definitions and constraints that form the core of our theory of licensing (Section 2). We illustrate the approach with an analysis of the syllable structure of Japanese (Section 3) and conclude the paper with a discussion of remaining issues and problems relating to the general typology of syllabification systems (Section 4).
Ill-Formedness in the Dictionary: A Source of Constraint Violation
Authors: Paradis Carole
Published: February 2018

It is increasingly accepted in generative phonology that phonological alternations can be caused, directly or indirectly, by phonological constraints. The Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies (TCRS) proposed by Paradis (1988a, 1988b, 1990, 1992, 1993) claims that when a constraint is violated, a repair strategy must apply which, in repairing the violation, produces a phonological alternation.
La nominalisation d’un participe passé: la suppléance mettre/mise en composition lexicale
Authors: Barbaud Philippe
Published: February 2018

The nominalization of several French idioms constructed with the verb mettre contrasts with that of derived nominais such as la destruction de Rome par les barbares. This contrast is mainly due to the quasi mandatory shift of the internal arguments of NPs such as la mise en oeuvre de X ‘the implementation of X’ which corresponds to mettre X en oeuvre ‘to implement X’. A standard morphological treatment of the nominalization of mettre cannot account for the “parasitic gap” associated with this shift. A treatment in terms of “derivational syntax” appears to be more adequate, in that it attributes to the verbal suppletion the preservation of the categorial identity and the semantic unity of the lexical entry shared by the NP and the VP. A major theoretical consequence of this analysis is that it challenges the generally agreed upon claims that X-bar structures are necessarily endocentric and that lexical entries always constitute atomic categories.
Concurrence structurale, conditions d’appréhensibilité et changement syntaxique: la chute de la structure V2 en français
Authors: Côté Marie-Hélène
Published: February 2018

This article proposes a solution to two unresolved issues regarding the V2 structure in the history of French: to which type of V2 languages — symmetrical or asymmetrical—does Old French belong, and why did V2 later disappear? It appears that Old French is not homogeneous with respect to V2: it is symmetric up to the 12th century and then goes through a period of grammatical competition between the two types of V2 structure. This indicates a syntactic change in progress, from a symmetrical to an asymmetrical structure. But French never completed this transition and lost V2 after the period of competition, contrary to Continental Scandinavian which underwent the same change. This contrast follows from the fact that Old French failed to meet the learnability conditions of the asymmetrical V2 structure. This analysis thus raises the issue of the relation between syntactic change and learnability.
Aspect Licensing in Serbo-Croatian
Authors: Milovanovic Snezana
Published: February 2018

In this article, it is argued that perfective aspect in Serbo-Croatian is licensed in the syntax. Licensing of Aspect requires the presence of a hierarchically higher category. In compound tenses, perfective aspect is licensed by a governing auxiliary in Infl while, in the present tense forms, it may only be licensed by an overt complementizer in Comp. A Comp-Aspect Agreement mechanism is proposed based on the requirement for licensing in the present tense forms. This agreement also obtains between a covert complementizer and perfective aspect in imperative constructions (perfective imperatives move to an empty Comp position to satisfy the Aspect licensing requirement) and between an overt complementizer and the auxiliaries in compound tenses (auxiliaries move to an empty Comp to satisfy the Tense licensing requirement). Although Tense may be licensed by any governor in root sentences, the presence of an overt complementizer, which is a hierarchically higher category, takes precedence for licensing in embedded sentences.
The Conjunct Order in Algonquian
Authors: Campana Mark
Published: February 2018

This article examines the conjunct order found in Algonquian languages and attempts to characterize the difference between the conjunct and the independent orders in formal terms. Most of the examples are drawn from Passamaquoddy-Maliseet and Montagnais. Specific morphological properties of the two orders are considered: the ability to take person prefixes, the richness of agreement features, and the phonological conditioning of stem-initial vowels. A weak word order effect is observed in Montagnais, and the overall distribution of the two verb paradigms is examined. All of these facts are related to the hypothesis that verbs bearing conjunct morphology move to Comp, while independent verbs remain in Infl. This operation is motivated by the dependence of a conjunct clause on a higher verb or noun, as in subordination or relativization. In some cases, the dependency may derive from the adjunct status of the conjunct clause itself. The overall picture is one of a configurational language type, with superficial differences reducible to parametric variation.
Two Types of Non-Verbal Predication in Modern Irish
Authors: Carnie Andrew
Published: February 2018

The number of copular constructions found with non-verbal predicates in Universal Grammar has recently been a matter of some controversy. Traditional theories have claimed that there are two constructions: an equative—with two argument NPs—and predicative—with a single argument and a non-verbal predicate. Recently this bifurcation has been challenged by authors who claim that equative constructions show asymmetries similar to those found in predicatives, and that these asymmetries are due to a simple subject/predicate distinction. They claim that there is a single predicative copular construction in natural language. In this article, syntactic evidence for the traditional semantic division between equatives and predicatives is provided. It is shown that in Modern Irish, there are two word orders corresponding to the equative/predicative split and these two have distinct syntactic and semantic properties. Further, it is also shown that the asymmetries used to argue for a single copular construction are due to simple structural conditions rather than a subject/predicate split.
Functional Architecture and Wh-Movement: Irish as a Case in Point
Authors: Noonan Máire B.
Published: February 2018

This article sketches a novel approach to the phenomenon traditionally referred to as complementizer variation in Irish, and provides an alternative analysis to the standard one proposed by McCloskey (1990). It is argued that the two variants of the particle surfacing in Ā-constructions are not in fact complementizersper se,but the head of a Focus projection (FP), whose specifier provides an escape hatch forwh-phrases. FP interacts with C in two different ways, and depending on which of the options apply, F surfaces in two variants: (i) F incorporates to C, or (ii) FP raises to [Spec, CP]. The particle traditionally analysed as a resumptive strategy complementizer constitutes a case of (i), and the one traditionally analysed as a movement strategy complementizer is a case of (ii). It is shown how this approach avoids some serious empirical problems posed by the previous analysis of the phenomenon. It is furthermore argued that the process underlying successive cyclicwh-movement in fact involves covert successive pied-piping of CPs, where covert pied-piping is understood as overt pied-piping of the features of CP.
The Syntax of Direct Object Mutation in Welsh
Authors: Roberts Ian
Published: February 2018

The central hypothesis of this article is that Welsh direct object mutation—the only instance of mutation in the Celtic languages not triggered by a specific lexical item—is the PF-realisation of AgrO’s accusative Case as the floating lenition-triggering phonological feature L (cf. Lieber 1983 and Zwicky 1984). The analysis proposed in this article is an empirically adquate analysis of initial consonant mutation in Welsh, which fully integrates direct object mutation with other cases of mutation, relates mutation to phonosyntactic processes found in other languages, notably Southern Italian /u/-propagation (Rizzi and Savoia 1991) and French liaison (Manzini 1983), and fits naturally into a non-checking-theoreticconception of Parametric Variation of the sort outlined in Roberts and Roussou (1997a).
Grammaire et pouvoir global de computation: deux sources de difficultés possibles dans la production des relatives chez les enfants francophones
Authors: Fragman Cathy
Published: February 2018

The present study compares relative clause production in French learners and in mature speakers. Previous studies on French postulate deficiencies in children’s grammar of relatives in order to explain their defective production (Labelle 1990; Guasti and Shlonsky 1995). However, these studies do not strictly compare child and adult data. A new production task was administered to 25 French learners ages 4 to 7, and to 25 adults. Three types of stimuli were presented in order to elicit subject, direct object and indirect object relatives. Results show that children’s performance varies according to the type of stimuli presented, and that the performance of adults is qualitatively similar. These patterns undermine the notion that a given component of UG is either inoperative or unspecified in the developing grammar. Such unsteady lacunae point more naturally to peripheral processing limitations in learners rather than core deficiencies within their grammar proper (cf. Goodluck and Tavakolian 1982).
Un effet du principe C chez l’enfant francophone
Authors: Goodluck Helen , Solan Lawrence
Published: February 2018

We report a study that tests children’s knowledge of an effect of Principle C of the binding theory: In the adult grammar of English and French, coreference between a main clause object pronoun and a non-pronominal subject of a sentence-final temporal clause is permitted, whereas coreference between a subject pronoun and the subject of a temporal clause is blocked. In an act-out task, both French-speaking adults and children aged 3–7 were found to be sensitive to the position of a main clause pronoun (subject vs object) in selecting a referent for the subject of a temporal clause, permitting coreference more frequently when the pronoun was in object position. This result replicates earlier work done on English. A sentence judgement task produced clear results only for adults. Results from the act-out suggest that children are relatively inept at integrating non-mentioned participants into their interpretation of sentences. We suggest that children’s knowledge of the principle C effect we tested constitutes a “poverty of the stimulus” argument for innateness.
L’acquisition des pronoms clitiques français par un enfant bilingue français-néerlandais
Authors: Hulk Aafke
Published: February 2018

In this article, the acquisition of French subject and object pronouns by Anouk, a French-Dutch bilingual girl is studied and compared with the acquisition by monolingual French children. At first sight there are no major differences between Anouk and the children discussed in the literature. There are however some indications that the status of the pronouns in Anouk’s data is not the same as that in the monolingual data. In Anouk’s data, there are no utterances where a quantified nominal subject is doubled by a subject clitic. Consequently, it is impossible to argue that her subject pronouns have the status of agreement markers which they are claimed to have in the case of monolingual children. Moreover, Anouk acquires both subject and object pronouns at roughly the same moment—to what is found for the monolinguals. Finally, Anouk makes position errors with object pronouns which are similar to those found in French L2 acquisition data. It is proposed that this may be due to the (indirect) influence of Dutch, her other language.
The Unaccusative Hypothesis and the Impersonal Construction in French
Authors: Cummins Sarah
Published: February 2018

This article argues that the Impersonal Contruction (IC) of French, which displays unaccusative syntax but allows unergative verbs, refutes the Unaccusative Hypothesis (UH) and the principles of lexically driven mapping. It is demonstrated that three types of argument intended to explain unaccusative mismatches are untenable while maintaining the UH. An account of the verbs appearing in the IC is proposed, based on the principles of free linking of arguments and postsyntactic compositional interpretation, taking into account meaning contributed by diverse sources, including lexical, syntactic, constructional, and morphological meaning, which must be compatible. It is argued that the shape of IC sentences requires that a state of affairs be predicated of a locative; various consequences for verb and argument selection and tense arise from this requirement. By removing certain semantico-syntactic functions from the lexicon, economy is achieved in both the lexicon and the syntactic component.
L’accent focal et l’accent d’emphase dans la description de l’intonation du français
Authors: Poiré François
Published: February 2018

Many questions about the expressive or distinctive character of focal accent and emphatic prominence remain unanswered in studies concerning natural language prosody. Recent works show that fundamental frequency variation underlies a categorial perception that permits a differenciation in the representation of these two types of prominence. Using data from French, the contribution of each type of prominence to the intonation contour is analyzed. This study reconciles the difference in expressive character and phonological description associated with each prominence type through the use of association rules linking tones and text in different prosodic domains. An instrumental study of 280 utterances documents the phonetic particularities in the production of both prominences, and in neutral utterances.
The Role of Perception in Differential Substitution
Authors: Brannen Kathleen
Published: February 2018

This article examines differential substitution of the L2 English voiceless interdental fricative, [θ]. The L1s investigated in this study—European French, Québec French, and Japanese—have been reported to substitute [s], [t], and [s] respectively in production. Two main hypotheses are explored: 1) Transfer is perceptually based; 2) Substitution involves an assessment of non-contrastive in addition to contrastive features. Results of an AXB task show that advanced learners are unable to perceive certain non-contrastive distinctions; however, unlike Japanese listeners, French listeners do perceive Strident and Mellow, features which are non-contrastive in their L1. Results indicate a clear perceptual basis for the Japanese substitute. The difference between Québec and European French is less clear; however, there is a trend which suggests a perceptual basis for the European French substitute. Another finding is that confusion of [f] and [θ] is greater for French than it is for Japanese listeners. It is proposed that the composition of the L1 phonetic inventory influences which features listeners attend to during perception.
Dominance vs. Precedence in the Double Object Construction: New Facts from Fongbe
Authors: Lefebvre Claire
Published: February 2018

Since the paper by Barss and Lasnik (1986), the fact that the double object construction exhibits Theme/Goal asymmetries has been the object of an important debate in the literature. The central question of this discussion is whether these asymmetries should be accounted for in terms of dominance (e.g., Larson 1988, 1990; Aoun and Li 1989; den Dikken 1991) or precedence (e.g., Barss and Lasnik 1986; Jackendoff 1990; Tremblay 1991). On the dominance account, the Goal must asymmetrically c-command the Theme (e.g., Larson 1988, 1990). On Barss and Lasnik’s account, the Goal and the Theme of the construction may symmetrically c-command each other but the Goal must precede the Theme. This proposal is captured in their definition of domain of (1986:352).
Contrastive Focus, French N-words and Variation
Authors: Vinet Marie-Thérèse
Published: February 2018

The aim of this article is to argue that the similarities and differences in the interpretation ofn-words (personne, rien, etc.) in two closely related dialects of French can be explained by considerations linked to lexical properties as well as to properties of contrastive stress in Universal Grammar. The minor lexical differences in the two systems are related to the fact that only in Standard French is a single negation reading ruled out when an adverbial negative marker bearing [+neg, −T, −Asp] features, i.e.,pas, appears in the scope of an unstressedn-word. A general principle is proposed to account for the fact that a contrastively focusedn-word always blocks the local relation which seems necessary for a negative concord reading. It is observed that the presence of an intervening quantifier between the negative quantifier and then-word always induces a Double Negation reading.
Expletive NPs in Object-Position
Authors: Stroik Thomas
Published: February 2018

Chomsky (1981, 1986b) formulates the Theta Criterion so that it prohibits non-argument NPs such as the expletives it and there from occurring in theta-marked positions. One consequence of this formulation is that raising-to-object analyses for (1) are disallowed because they would permit an expletive to occupy an object position, a position which is theta-marked by the verb:

(1)

John believes there to be a woman outside.
Locative Inversion in Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Qu Yanfeng
Published: February 2018

Locative inversion is a common linguistic phenomenon that has been studied by linguists of various theoretical backgrounds (see, among others, Bresnan 1990, Demuth 1990, Hoekstra and Mulder 1990, and Rochemont and Culicover 1990). This paper is an attempt to analyse such a phenomenon in Mandarin Chinese within the framework of Government and Binding (GB) Theory. Its purpose is twofold: to investigate the syntactic properties of this particular construction, and to illustrate the relevance of Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS) to syntactic analyses within the GB paradigm.
Word Blends as Sublexical Substitutions
Authors: Laubstein Ann Stuart
Published: February 2018

The standard structural approach to word blends, such asnoise1/sound2→nound, has been to assume they involve a splicing together of the two words, where part of word2is used to complete part of word1. The splice position has then been used as the source of mental lexicon generalizations. On the basis of 166 naturally occurring word blends, this article argues for a different approach—a “substitution” approach. The approach allows a comparison of the properties that word blends share with sublexical exchanges, anticipations, perseverations and substitutions; in addition, it accounts for the convergence of these properties. The substitution analysis allows a principled distinction between target and intruder; it predicts metrical structure output, and possible and impossible errors; moreover, the substitution analysis simplifies and constrains language production models.
Le concept de réseau social dans une communauté acadienne rurale
Authors: Beaulieu Louise , Cichocki Wladyslaw
Published: February 2018

Cet article réexamine le concept de réseau social utilisé en sociolinguistique variationniste en analysant le rôle que jouent divers domaines d’affiliation liés aux liens forts et aux liens faibles à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de la communauté dans la variation morphosyntaxique dans les expressions en tête des propositions adverbiales du français acadien du nord-est du Nouveau-Brunswick (Canada). D’après les résultats d’analyses de type règle variable, le facteur réseau social est en mesure de prédire l’emploi des formes traditionnellescomme que, quand queetsi quede manière plus stable que tout autre facteur extralinguistique, incluant la classe sociale. L’analyse des correspondances est utilisée pour opérationnaliser le facteur réseau social à partir des affiliations des sujets dans les domaines d’affiliation. Cette étude suggère que, dans l’explication de la variation sociolinguistique, les liens faibles méritent un examen plus approfondi et que les statistiques multivariées sont un outil des plus appropriés pour ce genre d’étude.
Sulawesi Relatives, V-Raising, and the CP-Complement Hypothesis
Authors: Finer Daniel L.
Published: February 2018

DPs in several Austronesian languages from southwestern Sulawesi show the D head as an enclitic on an element within the DP. Where N is unmodified, D cliticizes to N, and where D is modified, D cliticizes to the modifier. A structure in which NP and the modifying phrase are treated as arguments of D is proposed, and the cliticization pattern is analyzed as resulting from head movement. Depending on the valency of the DP, NP will either be specifier or complement of D. This analysis extends easily to account for some otherwise puzzling patterns shown in relative clauses where D cliticizes to the right periphery of the verb of the modifying CP. Under the minimalist hypotheses that overt movement is a function of feature strength and that the strength of the relevant features can vary from language to language, certain patterns of head-adjunction involving V, I, C, and D are expected and the predictions are discussed.
Diachronic Aspects of Micronesian Clause Structure
Authors: Hale Mark
Published: February 2018

A number of interesting syntactic processes in a variety of Micronesian languages arose in response to a restructuring of Proto-Micronesian verbal morphology, the restructuring itself triggered by purely phonological changes. This article provides an account of these changes, revealing at the same time aspects of Proto-Micronesian clause structure which have not previously been noted.