bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu
Authors: Labelle Marie
Published: March 2014

Romance pronominal clitics and Bantu object markers vary in gender and number, replace arguments, and surface to the left of the verbal root in declarative clauses. Both types of morphemes are regularly analyzed as affixes on the verb. It is argued that both have syntactic properties that justify treating them differently from lexical affixes. The argument is first made for French unstressed pronominal objects like me, le, en, drawing from their distribution in contemporary French as well as from their historical behavior. It is shown that they are syntactic objects, and that their morphophonological affix-like properties should be treated independently of their syntactic behavior. Then evidence is presented pointing to the fact that Bantu object markers are also syntactic objects of some sort. The last section asks whether one can arrive at a unified treatment of both elements. The conclusion is that by focusing on the morphophonological properties of these pronominal elements, one runs the risk of overlooking their syntactic properties.
The fine structure of the Topic field
Authors: Frascarelli Mara
Published: March 2014

Based on interface evidence, this paper shows that the interpretation of discourse categories relies on syntactic conditions. Specifically, the existence of a systematic connection between formal properties and discourse functions shows that Topics are licensed in dedicated positions in the C-domain, which correspond to specific realizations at the PF-interface. Different types of Topics thus correspond to specific tonal events and show A’-properties which discard a movement approach. Finally, the interface properties of postverbal subjects are examined, showing that their position does not depend on the argument structure of the verb and is not necessarily different from the position of (referential) preverbal subjects. Though the present analysis is mainly concerned with Italian, a comparison with Bantu data is also proposed in order to show similarities, discuss (apparent) discrepancies and highlight implications for future research.
Parametric versus functional explanations of syntactic universals
Authors: Haspelmath Martin
Published: March 2014

This paper compares the generative principles and parameters approach to explaining syntactic universals to the functional-typological approach and also discusses the intermediate approach of Optimality Theory. It identifies some fundamental differences between generative parametric explanations and functional explanations. Most importantly, generative explanations assume that cross-linguistic generalizations are due to the innate Universal Grammar, whereas functional explanations assume that language structure can be influenced by regularities of language use through language change. Despite these differences, both approaches to cross-linguistic similarities and differences seem to be guided by a similar vision: that the superficial structural diversity of languages can be reduced to a few basic patterns once one digs below the surface (macroparameters or holistic types). Unfortunately, the evidence for such reductionist constructs has never been very good, so more recently both generativists and functionalists have shifted their interests away from these ambitious goals. However, I argue that there is one type of cross-linguistic generalization for which there is very good empirical evidence: intra-domain universals relating to prominence scales, most of which are straightforwardly explained functionally in terms of processing difficulty.
Three fundamental issues in parametric linguistics
Authors: Gianollo Chiara , Guardiano Cristina , Longobardi Giuseppe
Published: March 2014

In this paper we discuss three compelling questions, which impinge on parameter theory: (a) What are the actual parameters of UG? (b) What is the form of a possible parameter? (c) How are parameter values distributed in space and time? With respect to the first question, we present the guidelines of a heuristic methodology for discovering the parameters of UG, Modularized Global Parametrization, first proposed by Longobardi (2003). Building on the potential of such an approach, we pursue a minimalist critique of the general form of parameters and sketch the programmatic lines of a Principles & Schemata model of UG. To address the third problem, we begin to investigate the implications of a parametric approach to the study of phylogenetic relationships among languages and, more broadly, of cognitive approaches to the study of history.
The Case-F valuation parameter in Romance
Authors: Fernández-Salgueiro Gerardo
Published: March 2014

In this paper I propose that the operation of Agree (Chomsky 2000, 2001) is

parameterized with respect to the valuation of Case features. I build here on the

ideas put forward in Fernández-Salgueiro (2005), where I argued that Agree

has to be modified in certain respects in order to generate Further-Raising

constructions, i.e., A-Movement after Spec-Head agreement with ϕ-complete

Tense, which is possible in many Romance languages. If this is not done, Further

Raising constructions incur a violation of economy constraints on movement,

i.e., the principle of Last Resort. I also suggested that Case-F Valuation on subject

DPs can be delayed in most Romance languages, but not in other languages like

English. Here I develop the features of such a parametric approach in more detail,

and comment on acquisition issues and possible consequences for the general

theory of parametric variation as understood in the Minimalist Program.
Silent arguments without pro: The case of Basque
Authors: Duguine Maia
Published: March 2014

Basque is traditionally described as a three-way pro-drop language, a

paradigmatic instance of the positive setting of the pro-drop parameter. This

article investigates the phenomenon of silent arguments in Basque and proposes

a novel account of this phonological emptiness. It is argued that Basque silent

arguments are best analyzed as elided DPs. This account avoids the shortcomings

of the pro-drop analysis with respect to the licensing and interpretation effects

of silent arguments, and its interaction with information structure allows a

straightforward explanation of the distribution of overt and silent arguments.
Case morphology and radical pro-drop
Authors: Neeleman Ad , Szendröi Kriszta
Published: March 2014

This paper focuses on the so-called discourse pro-drop languages,

i.e., those permitting radical pro-drop, which affects not just subjects,

but other pronominal arguments too. Whereas previous attempts to

understand the properties of these languages have focused on verbal

agreement, the proposal here is that it is in fact the properties of the

pronominal paradigm that determine the availability or otherwise of

radical pro-drop. In particular, we propose that radical pro-drop will

only be possible in languages with “transparent” (i.e., non-fusional)

pronominal paradigms, since pro-drop falls out as the consequence

of the zero spell-out of regular pronouns. On the empirical front, we

show that investigation of a wide range of languages would seem to

confirm our prediction.
The macroparameter in a microparametric world
Authors: Baker Mark C.
Published: March 2014

This paper considers the role of macroparameters in parametric theory. It

is argued that a system in which all syntactic variation is ascribed solely to

microparametric differences in the make-up of functional heads, as assumed

under the so-called Borer-Chomsky Conjecture, cannot account for actually

attested patterns of variation. In the word-order domain, for example, the facts

seem to point to the kind of bimodal distribution expected on a macroparametric

view, with microparameters accounting for the observed “noise”. A similar

scenario is also argued to obtain in the domain of agreement, once two new

macroparameters, presented here, are taken into account.
Diachronic stability and feature interpretability
Authors: Panagiotidis E. Phoevos
Published: March 2014

This contribution examines diachronic change in the Greek nominal phrase.

It proposes an analysis to capture the diachronic stability of certain syntactic

structures in the nominal domain, suggesting that points of stability reflect

macroparametric rather than microparametric choices, which are more

vulnerable to change and loss. Macroparametric choices are assumed to involve

choices pertaining to the presence versus absence in a grammar of functional

categories, while microparametric choices relate to the presence versus absence

of uninterpretable features on otherwise identical functional categories. The

difference in diachronic stability is linked to the generally “defective” status of

uninterpretable features in the human language faculty.
Morphologically conditioned V-Ø alternation in Hebrew
Authors: Bat-El Outi
Published: March 2014

I argue in this paper that phonology plays a role in enhancing the distinction among the lexical categories. The argument is based on V alternation in the inflectional paradigms of CVCVC stems which varies in position and type of vowel depending on the lexical category. For example, adjectives exhibit a alternation in the penultimate syllable, while verbs in the final syllable. The Optimality Theoretic analysis reveals that the phonological difference among the lexical categories is minimal (one unique ranking of two constraints for each category), allowing a category distinction without a major increase in the complexity of the phonological system.
The special status of nif'al in Hebrew
Authors: Schwarzwald Ora R.
Published: March 2014

The paper examines the special morphological and semantic features of nifal and shows that its semantic complexity matches its morphology: its basic template is composed of two distinct syllabic structures; its tense distribution is different from all the other templates and its conjugations resemble either the typical passive templates or the active and inchoative templates, depending on the tenses. From the semantic point of view, nifal shows a variety of meanings: passive, active, inchoative, reflexive, reciprocal, and sometimes some of its verbs are ambiguous like verbs in active templates. It also demonstrates special resemblance to hitpael. The unique status of nifal initially began as an historical development, but eventually, morphology led to the semantic ambiguity of the template.
Morphological knowledge without morphological structure
Authors: Adam Galit , Bat-El Outi
Published: March 2014

During the one-word stage, Hebrew-speaking children have only one form for each verb paradigm, and this is usually the free stem. Crucially, the children tend not to produce verbs with inflectional suffixes, although their prosodic phonology allows them to do so. We argue that this phenomenon reflects the childrens capacity to distinguish between stems and suffixes (by identifying the stem) before they start producing the morphological paradigm. That is, some morphological knowledge appears before this knowledge has a direct surface manifestation in the childrens speech.
The interaction between question formation and verbal morphology in the acquisition of Hebrew
Authors: Armon-Lotem Sharon
Published: March 2014

Question formation in Hebrew involves wh-movement, but no verb or auxiliary movement. A longitudinal study of 4 Hebrew speaking children aged 1;63;0 shows that children go through four phases in their use of questions, which are differentiated by the use of verbs and verbal morphology. The same order is found in declaratives, but the use of verbal morphology in interrogatives lags behind its use in declaratives. The interaction between question formation and verbal morphology reflects a bottom-up construction of the adult tree, in which each new functional node initially serves as a phase, alternating between checking uninterpretable features and targeting A'-movement, until all uninterpretable features are checked for the particular head. At this point, the next functional node is projected, and the same process is repeated, until C is projected.
Resumptive pronouns as a last resort when movement is impaired
Authors: Friedmann Naama , Novogrodsky Rama , Szterman Ronit , Preminger Omer
Published: March 2014

This study tested 14 school-age orally-trained children with hearing impairment who have a deficit in A-bar movement, manifested in an impaired comprehension of object relatives and topicalization structures. When they produce a grammatical object relative clause, they typically produce it with a resumptive pronoun, unlike their age-matched controls, who tend to produce object relatives with a gap. They also produce resumptive pronouns where only a gap is licit, in the highest embedded subject position in subject relatives. We interpret these results as supporting the claim that resumptive pronouns are a last resort when movement is blocked, not only because of islands in intact syntax, but also due to impairment. The participants also doubled the relative head in both subject- and object-relatives, producing ungrammatical sentences. The bearing of these errors on the copy theory of movement is discussed.
Bare minimizers
Authors: Sharvit Yael
Published: March 2014

It is observed that Hebrew bare minimizers such as kelev (dog) differ from lexicalized minimizers such as pruta leforta (a red cent) in the following way. The former give rise to minimizing readings in negative environments but not in Yes/No questions, whereas the latter support such readings in both these environments. Thus, bare minimizers seem to have the same behavior as certain npis in other languages, which are licensed in some typical npi environments but not in others. The suggested explanation is this: While lexicalized minimizers have a covert even at LF, bare minimizers either do not have a covert even at all, or do not have a covert even with the right syntactic properties to induce wide scope alternatives.
3. Skating along the syntactic verge: Experimental pragmatics and understood elements of content
Authors: Garrett Merrill , Harnish Robert M.
Published: March 2014

This chapter discusses elements of communicative content that are not expressed by overt elements of a sentence. In the 1970s and 1980s, mostly inspired by the work of Grice, forms of ‘unexpressed elements of content’ not contemplated by linguistic theory of the time began to surface under a variety of labels, collectively called ‘impliciture’ here. It is argued in this chapter that recent experimental work suggests that certain forms of impliciture are tied to language via “standardization” which provides a pragmatic scenario that does not require access to potentially unbounded domains of general background information.
7. First language acquisition of coordination: The mud-puddle study and beyond
Authors: Lust Barbara , Flynn Suzanne , Chien Yuchin , Krawiec Barbara
Published: March 2014

In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of a history of studies of coordination. We then report the results of one experiment concerning the acquisition of coordination in English that has not before been reported, “The Mud-Puddle” study, and set it in the context of this history and our developing quest for understanding the nature of linguistic coordination and the fundamental competence that underlies its acquisition. This experiment was conducted by an honors student at Cornell at the time (Krawiec 1980); its data have been preserved and now reanalyzed. Its results, although preliminary, bear on the nature of the syntax-semantics interface that coordinate structures involve, integrate with certain current theoretical advances, and suggest future research possibilities.
9. Abstract linguistic representations and innateness: The development of determiners
Authors: Valian Virginia
Published: March 2014

This paper uses the syntactic category of determiner to address the issue of innateness in language acquisition. Reviewing data from infants and toddlers, I propose that categories are innate and that children show continuity in category acquisition. As development proceeds, children learn the individual words in each category in the target language and the specific syntactic properties of those words, but they do not construct the categories themselves.
10. One-level finite-state phonology
Authors: Hammond Michael
Published: March 2014

Finite state approaches to phonology usually make use of transducers to model the mapping of input to output forms. This applies to both rule-based approaches and more recent approaches inspired by Optimality Theory. Here, we develop an alternative approach based on automata where phonological generalizations and lexical regularities are encoded as regular expressions and these expressions are combined by intersection and concatenation. The system that results captures the full range of phonological systems, but does so with simpler automata, rather than transducers. In addition, the resulting system bears interesting similarities to Optimality Theory. We also compare the approach to other finite state approaches.
11. Biolinguistics today and Platonism yesterday
Authors: Bever Thomas G.
Published: March 2014

This contribution expounds on ideas put forth by a group of New York City generative grammarians that language possesses certain essential features that are uncaused and adhere to an abstract ideal form. An analogy of the situation with language is made with certain natural properties of numbers. It is also noted that this situation contrasts with that of the functional structure of human color vision. This idea is viewed alongside recent work in biolinguistics and is compared to the neoplatonist view of language, namely that language is discovered by the child learner and not triggered. The main consequences of this idea are discussed both within the historical context and with respect to current theories on language acquisition.
Experiencers with (un)willingness
Authors: Gergel Remus , Hartmann Jutta M.
Published: March 2014

The paper contributes to the raising vs. control debate with respect to modals through (A) novel data; (B) the investigation of a domain in which it has proven particularly problematic: volitional modality. We analyze oblique arguments of experiencer verbs embedded under German wollen ‘want’ and propose that they support both generalized raising and the abandonment of the classical version of the Theta Criterion. Byproducts of the analysis include a syntactic account involved in a class of datives in the language together with the initial characterization of a related modal in German which is expressed through the same item as volition and which we term weak.
Long-distance agreement without Probe-Goal relations
Authors: Preminger Omer
Published: March 2014

In this paper, I explore the possibility accounting for constructions that appear to instantiate Long-Distance Agreement without appealing to a formal operation of agreement-at-a-distance. The viability of such an account is particularly important in light of recent theoretical developments that suggest a move away from Probe-Goal oriented approaches to movement, and towards viewing movement as a response to formal needs of the moving element itself. Broadly speaking, I consider two possible approaches: (i) agreement is established in a purely local con.guration, followed by the agreeing head (and whatever material ends up intervening between this head and the target nounphrase) moving away, giving the impression of Long-Distance Agreement; and (ii) apparent Long-Distance Agreement is actually an instance of syntactic movement in which the phonological component chooses to pronounce the moved element in its lower position. It is shown that the latter approach fares better with respect to the scopal properties of several constructions, including English expletiveassociate constructions, and so-called Long-Distance Agreement in Hindi-Urdu and in Basque.
Syntactic identity in Survive-minimalism
Authors: Kobele Gregory M.
Published: March 2014

Over the years, a number of counter-examples to the hypothesis that ellipsis resolution is mediated via syntactic identity have been identified. However, in the same time evidence which seems to require comparison of syntactic structures in ellipsis resolution has also been unearthed. On top of this empirical puzzle, survive minimalism places an additional theoretical constraint: syntactic structures, once assembled, are opaque to further search or manipulation. In this paper, I show that a simple perspective shift allows us both to view the purported counter-examples as providing glimpses into the nature of the operations which build syntactic structure, and to satisfy the theoretical constraints imposed by survive minimalism’s derivational take on syntactic structure.
Argumenthood, pronouns, and nominal feature geometry
Authors: Cowper Elizabeth , Hall Daniel Currie
Published: March 2014

This article explores the syntactic and feature-geometric properties of English pronouns, and offers some novel solutions to questions identified by Déchaine & Wiltschko (2002) and Rullmann (2004). Building on work by Cowper & Hall (2003, 2005) and Cowper (2005), we propose denotations and geometrical organizations for features of #, ϕ, and D, and show how these representations and their various syntactic realizations can account for the behaviour of pronouns in English, Halkomelem, and Shuswap. Our analysis provides a consistent interpretation for ϕ, rather than the dual nature proposed by Déchaine & Wiltschko (2002), and eliminates the need for at least one instance of coercion.
Kinds of predicates and reference to kinds in Hebrew
Authors: Tonciulescu Keren
Published: March 2014

This article focuses on the optionality of the definite determiner and its effects on the range of interpretations available for singular noun phrases in Hebrew. Three factors contribute to the interpretation of singular nouns in this language: (i) predicate type: kind- and/or object-selecting; (ii) context: episodic or generic; and (iii) syntactic position. I argue that bare singulars in Hebrew can be both kind-referring and indefinites. As kind-referring, they are interpretable through a system of type-shifting operators (Chierchia 1998); as indefinites, they are interpretable via choice functions. The definite determiner is shown to introduce a massifying function or a singularity presupposition, depending on context.
The semantic core of determiners
Authors: Gillon Carrie
Published: March 2014

In this article, I argue that definiteness is not found in all languages, based on the different behaviour of determiners in English and Sḵwxwú7mesh (Salish). However, I also argue that, despite overt differences between the determiner systems of English and Sḵwxwú7mesh, determiners in both languages share one property in common: domain restriction. Further, I argue that the behaviour of English the can be explained in terms of its uniqueness requirement and domain restriction. Definiteness is thus a result of the interaction of domain restriction and uniqueness and is not itself a feature of any grammar. I also argue that the determiners in Sḵwxwú7mesh lack a uniqueness requirement, and this is the sole reason that they behave differently from English the.
On the presence versus absence of determiners in Malagasy
Authors: Paul Ileana
Published: March 2014

This article explores definiteness as expressed by the determiner system of Malagasy. In particular, noun phrases with and without an overt determiner are compared in terms of familiarity, uniqueness, and other semantic notions commonly associated with definiteness. It is shown that the determiner does not uniformly signal definiteness (as typically understood) and that bare noun phrases can be interpreted as either definite or indefinite. The determiner instead signals the familiarity of the discourse referent of the DP and the absence of a determiner signals a non-familiar DP. In certain syntactic positions, however, where the determiner is either required or banned, the interpretation of DPs is underdetermined.
Notes toward a new philology
Authors: Freeman Donald C.
Published: March 2014

The decline of academic literary study in the United States as it has moved in the direction of “multidisciplinarity” and “theory” is nowhere better illustrated than by “Sokal’s Hoax,” in which an American physicist, Alan Sokal, wrote a parody of “science studies” that was so effective that it fooled the editors of a “cultural studies” journal into publishing it as a straight article. The study of literature would be better served by open, explicit, arguable “real” theory such as cognitive metaphor, an analytical tool that is illustrated in a sample analysis of a famous passage from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Textual and extra-textual manipulations in the empirical study of literary response
Authors: Dixon Peter , Bortolussi Marisa
Published: March 2014

Experimental manipulation is the best approach to a deep causal insight into literary response, and without it, firm conclusions are difficult. Here, we discuss two broad classes of experimental techniques. Textual manipulation involves exposing readers to different versions of a text that have been systematically varied by the experimenter and is ideally suited to studying the effects of textual features. Extra-textual manipulation involves presenting adjunct or surrounding material to the reader without changing the text per se and can provide insight into the role of the reading context and textual features under some circumstances. Examples of recent research will be scrutinized in light of this analysis.
An automated text analysis: Willie Van Peer's academic contributions
Authors: Graesser Arthur C. , Morgan Brent
Published: March 2014

During the last 15 years there have been radical advances in computational linguistics that analyze language at the levels of words, sentences, paragraphs, rhetorical structure, world knowledge, pragmatics, and context. Among these advances is Coh-Metrix, a computer tool developed at the University of Memphis. Coh-Metrix (http://cohmetrix.memphis.edu) is a facility on the web that automatically analyzes texts on numerous dimensions of words, syntax, referential cohesion, coherence of the mental models, and genre in addition to standard readability measures. This chapter analyzes some texts of Willie van Peer’s academic contributions with Coh-Metrix, following his appeal early in his career that computers might play an important role in exploring the characteristics of literary and non-literary texts. We tracked characteristics of his writing over two decades to explore how his writing style has changed.
Consolidating empirical method in data-assisted stylistics: Towards a corpus-attested glossary of literary terms.
Authors: Louw Bill
Published: March 2014

Method (Gk. Meta + hodos) means an ‘after-path’. Radical revisions of methodology follow momentous paradigm-shifts within scientific theories. Hence linguistic-stylistics developed analogue collocation into its digital counterpart, especially through the discovery of semantic prosodies (Sinclair 2004b; Louw 1993). This led to the recognition (Louw 1991; 2000; 2007d) that all literary devices have a corpus-accessible feature in common: relexicalisation. Delexicalisation arose out of developments in lexicography. Sinclair refers to the two terms as forming a continuum (Sinclair 2004a: 198fn18). This continuum is marked (Enkvist 1973), unlike Hoey’s (2005) purported, but psychologist priming. He omits Firth’s (1957) pre-condition that collocation is abstracted from syntax and that collocative (relexicalising) power falls off within four words on either side of a node. This paper explores the consequences for science and glossaries of literary terms of collocation as instrumentation for meaning.
Proper names in the translation of The Lord of the Rings
Authors: Yepishev Vladimir
Published: March 2014

The Lord of the Rings is a multilingual trilogy which includes texts and lexical units of eight languages that are represented by means of the Roman alphabet and diacritics. This study scrutinizes the problem with translations of proper names. This includes an analysis of Tolkien’s languages and their phonetic system. The results obtained embrace sound value of graphemes as well as pronunciation rules and are used to compare proper names in the original with interpretations by Ukrainian and Russian translators, raising the question of phonetic correspondence in translation. The novel suffered much in translations because of various alternations and substitutions. Many proper names were misunderstood and therefore rendered incorrectly.
Afterword. A Matter of versifying: Tradition, innovation and the sonnet form in English
Authors: Nash Walter
Published: March 2014

“Tradition” is represented by “formalist” (“metrist”) verse; “Innovation” by “aformalist” (“free”) composition. This birthday tribute to Professor van Peer takes the formalist side, and discusses innovation and its possibilities in the context of the sonnet form. The form and its traditional variants are discussed, then ten original sonnets are presented in first draft, the opening section of a proposed sequence called Sonnets from the Wilderness. A commentary on the text, its intentions, innovations, and compositional problems, then follows.
Predicting Grammatical Classes from Phonological Cues
Authors: Durieux Gert , Gillis Steven
Published: March 2014

This paper investigates to what extent the grammatical class(es) of a word can be predicted on the basis of phonological and prosodic information only. We report on several experiments with an artificial learning system which has to assign English word forms to their appropriate grammatical class, using various types of phonological and prosodic information. First of all, we examine several phonological cues which were claimed by Kelly (1996) to be particularly good for distinguishing English nouns from verbs. Our results indicate that these cues are indeed partially predictive for the problem at hand and reveal that a combination of cues yields significantly better results than those obtained for each cue individually. We then show experimentally that ‘raw’ segmental information, augmented with word stress, allows the learning system to improve considerably upon those results . Secondly, we investigate several generalizations of the approach: basic segmental information also proves to be more predictive when the task is extended to encompass all open class words in English, and these findings can be replicated for a different (though related) language such as Dutch.
Definite and bare noun contrasts in child Catalan
Authors: Gavarró Anna , Pérez-Leroux Ana Teresa , Roeper Thomas
Published: March 2014

Thirty-three children aged 3–5 were tested for comprehension of definite and bare noun (BN) contrasts in Catalan, a language with bare nouns in direct object but not in subject position. Catalan objects have the same semantics as English subjects: BNs map to generic and definites into specific referents. Global semantic parameters cannot explain the contrast in this type of language. The test of Catalan sentences equivalent to She needs shoes/She needs the shoes showed no discrimination at 3 and sensitivity by 4 .We argue under an economy approach that BNs have a default generic reading that can be shifted into an ‘instance-of-a-kind’ interpretation. Acquisition is driven by a principle of semantic contrast that restricts the initial overextension of BNs to specific

readings.
Null arguments in monolingual children
Authors: Müller Natascha , Schmitz Katrin , Cantone Katja Francesca , Kupisch Tanja
Published: March 2014

Research on the development of pronouns in French and Italian has shown that object clitics are acquired with more effort than other syntactic categories: they are realized later in development than subject clitics and strong subject and object pronouns. Both the delay of object clitics and the subject-object asymmetry are robust. Unlike earlier studies, the present one compares the development in monolingual acquisition of French and Italian with regard to language-specific differences in the development of object clitics:We show that very young French children tend to repeat the object DP in obligatory contexts for clitics, while Italian children omit the object altogether. The difference between the groups becomes smaller in the course of the acquisition process.We explain this difference by proposing different licensing strategies for null objects: While French children use a pragmatic strategy like in adult Japanese, Italian children use a syntactic structure which is representative of Brazilian Portuguese, i.e. they license objects via AGR. In the vein of Zushi (2003), we investigate the role of agreement morphemes in the licensing of pro. With regard to the identification of null objects, we follow Shlonsky (1997) by associating different pro-types to these strategies: Italian children use FP-pro, French children NP-pro.
Prenominal elements in French-Germanic bilingual first language acquisition
Authors: Pannemann Maren
Published: March 2014

This article investigates interference in the determiner phrase in French-Germanic bilingual first language acquisition. Hulk and Müller (2000) propose that cross-linguistic interaction takes place at the syntax/pragmatics interface given a surface overlap between simultaneously acquired languages.We tested this prediction in two domains: (a) the presence of the determiner in adjective-noun combinations and (b) the position of the attributive adjective. Hulk and Müller’s model predicts no interference in either domain.With respect to (a), the results show a delay in the acquisition of the determiner, but it is questionable whether this is caused by interference. Regarding (b), there is actually evidence for interference, suggesting that not only the syntax/pragmatics interface but also narrow syntax can be affected by cross-linguistic interaction.
The acquisition of experiencers in Spanish L1 and the external argument requirement hypothesis
Authors: Torrens Vincent , Escobar Linda , Wexler Kenneth
Published: March 2014

We present evidence that children have difficulty with the Spanish psych verbs that do not project the subject as the external argument. Our findings support the External Argument Requirement Hypothesis (EARH), according to which children until 5 or more have trouble with base structures that don’t assign a subject/external argument. On the basis of our results, we argue that acquisition of the entire class of psych verbs depends on the acquisition of one linguistic property that allows the L1 grammar to generate structures with no external argument.
Early operators and late topic-drop/pro-drop
Authors: van Kampen Jacqueline
Published: March 2014

This paper compares two reduction principles in child language, Tense/Agreement Omission (Schütze 1997;Wexler 1998) and Root Peripheral Truncation (Rizzi 1994, 2001). The paper argues that the empirical content of these proposals as well as their partial overlap follows from an inherent hierarchy of acquisition steps of the kind predicted in Jakobson (1942). The empirical support for this reinterpretation follows from the construction of longitudinal graphs. The approach accommodates the lack of optional infinitives in Romance languages.
Beyond the syntax of the Null Subject Parameter
Authors: Montrul Silvina , Rodríguez Louro Celeste
Published: March 2014

This study investigates whether and how English-speaking L2 learners at various proficiency levels acquire the morphosyntactic and discourse-pragmatic properties of subject expression in Spanish. The crucial question is whether discourse-pragmatic properties are acquired together with syntactic features or later in the process of interlanguage development. According to the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis, transfer effects should be observed at earliest stages of development and full parameter resetting at later stages. An oral production task was administered to 15 intermediate, 15 advanced and 15 near-native learners and 20 native speakers. Results indicated that the near-native speakers performed like the native speakers with the morphosyntactic and the

discourse-pragmatic properties of the Null Subject Parameter, while in intermediate and advanced learners the acquisition of these two properties were dissociated: the learners were accurate with morphosyntax and inaccurate with discourse-pragmatics.
11. The (scarcity of) diminutives in Turkish child language
Authors: Ketrez F. Nihan , Aksu-Koç Ayhan
Published: March 2014

This study reports that diminutive morphology is not one of the early acquisitions in Turkish child speech (1;3–2;0), although the language has a number of productive diminutive morphemes. Similarly the use of hypocoristic forms of nouns is not a typical property of Turkish child speech. We attribute the scarcity of diminutives and hypocoristic forms in child speech to their infrequent use in the input speech and the complexity of the diminutive formation in the language which does not have properties that could facilitate word learning.
13. Diminutives provide multiple benefits for language acquisition
Authors: Kempe Vera , Brooks Patricia J. , Gillis Steven
Published: March 2014

This chapter explores the hypothesis that diminutive usage in child-directed speech may provide multiple benefits for language acquisition. We summarize a series of experiments that exposed naïve English-speaking adults to Dutch or Russian diminutives, and tested their ability to isolate words in fluent speech or acquire gender categories. Across studies, adults benefited from exposure to diminutives over their simplex counterparts, supporting the hypothesis that diminutives simplify word segmentation and morphology acquisition, by increasing word-ending invariance, regularizing stress patterns, and decreasing irregularity in morpho-syntactic categories. A similar diminutive advantage is observed in experimental studies of first language acquisition: Preschool children produce fewer gender agreement and case marking errors with diminutives than with simplex nouns across several languages (Russian, Serbian, Polish, Lithuanian).
Using eye movements as a developmental measure within psycholinguistics
Authors: Trueswell John C.
Published: March 2014

This chapter describes and evaluates the use of eyetracking methods to study the development of spoken language production and comprehension. The emphasis will be on understanding the chain of inferences, or linking assumptions, researchers commonly make when going from measurements of eye position to conclusions about attention, reference and sentence parsing. It is argued that these assumptions are valid, though care is needed when disentangling developmental changes in visual attention from developmental changes in language processing abilities.
Looking while listening
Authors: Fernald Anne E. , Zangl Renate , Portillo Ana Luz , Marchman Virginia A.
Published: March 2014

The “looking-while-listening” methodology uses real-time measures of the time course of young children’s gaze patterns in response to speech. This procedure is low in task demands and does not require automated eyetracking technology, similar to “preferential-looking” procedures. However, the looking-whilelistening methodology differs critically from preferential-looking procedures in the methods used for data reduction and analysis, yielding high-resolution measures of speech processing from moment to moment, rather than relying on summary measures of looking preference. Because children’s gaze patterns are time-locked to speech and coded frame-by-frame, each 5-min experiment response latencies can be coded with millisecond precision on multiple trials over multiple items, based on data from thousands of frames in each experiment. The meticulous procedures required in the collection, reduction, and multiple levels of analysis of such detailed data are demanding, but well worth the effort, revealing a dynamic and nuanced picture of young children’s developing skill in finding meaning in spoken language.
What lurks beneath: Syntactic priming during language comprehension in preschoolers (and adults)
Authors: Snedeker Jesse , Thothathiri Malathi
Published: March 2014

How do young children represent the structure of an utterance? Do they employ abstract syntactic categories? Or are their representations more concrete and lexically limited? Our recent work brings together the world-situated eye-gaze paradigm and syntactic priming to explore these questions. We begin by reviewing theories of syntactic development and describing previous studies of syntactic priming during children’s language production. Then we introduce our method for exploring priming during comprehension. Next we present a series of experiments on priming in adults, 4-year-olds and 3-year-olds. In each case the participants’ interpretation is influenced by the structure of prior utterances, even in the absence of lexical overlap. We conclude that young children (and adults) employ abstract syntactic representations during on-line sentence comprehension.
Language acquisition research. A peek at the past: A glimpse into the future
Authors: Cairns Helen
Published: March 2014

As the title suggests, this final chapter attempts to place the Workshop on On-Line Methods in Children’s Language Processing and the papers in this volume in a historical context. First, there is a brief review of the 40-year history of research in language acquisition, including the late arrival of on-line methodology. Then the chapter emphasizes the questions now being addressed in current on-line research. Finally, the conclusion suggests desiderata with respect to future progress in our understanding of the development of both linguistic competence and linguistic performance.
1. Left-dislocated subjects: A construction typical of young French-speaking children?
Authors: Parisse Christophe
Published: March 2014

Few constructions in children’s production can be considered originals and not mere copies (partial or complete) of adult input. These rare constructions are precious to child language studies because they may reveal a developmental process at work. One of them is children’s left-dislocated subjects. In French, when there is no lexical subject, the use of a subject pronoun is mandatory. When there is a lexical subject, two constructions are possible: one with the use of a personal pronoun and one without. Children tend to produce a lot of pronouns in the context of lexical subjects, which makes it a good candidate for being a specific feature of child language.

This study used two corpora of spontaneous language production, one with children aged three to four and one with children aged two to four. The data were analyzed using Tomasello’s framework (usage-based theory of language acquisition). In this theory, children’s language competence differs from the adults’ and develops with age. The first issue was to demonstrate the existence of this specific feature. Indeed, it appeared that children produced more leftdislocated subjects than adults and did not simply reproduce a feature of adults’ oral language. The presence of a developmental effect in the children’s production was also strongly suggested by the results.

The second issue was to try to better understand what could be the reason for the difference in production of left-dislocated subjects between children and adults. Several explanations of the children’s results were put forward, in keeping with the predictions of the usage-based theory. Lexical and usage-based explanations of children’s behaviour were shown to be unlikely. More plausible explanations were performance limitation or a consequence of the development of the use of personal pronouns, even when they are not obligatory.

It is proposed that children’s left-dislocated subjects should not be considered as a copy of adults’, but as a specific construction pattern that appears during the course of language development. This pattern could provide a path towards the development of more general linguistic abstractions, as proposed in the usage-based theory.
3. Verb movement and subject placement in the acquisition of word order: Pragmatics or structural economy?
Authors: Westergaard Marit
Published: March 2014

This chapter reports on a study investigating three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian (Tromsø). It is shown that, although verb-second (V2) word order is attested early in non-subject-initial declaratives and questions, the children produce non-target-consistent word order in these constructions at an early stage, failing to move pronominal subjects past negation or an adverb. This is analyzed within a split-CP model which also assumes the existence of two subject positions in the IP domain, a high one for informationally given subjects and a lower one for subjects conveying new information. A pragmatic account of the child data is considered, but rejected in favour of an economy-based analysis which includes factors such as input frequency and complexity.
5. The acquisition of universal quantifiers in Spanish
Authors: Escobar Linda , Torrens Vincent
Published: March 2014

This chapter deals with experimental research on Spanish children’s interpretation of universal quantifiers. A potentially difficult asymmetry is highlighted: quantifiers in preverbal or postverbal position in contexts of Clitic Left Dislocation. We show that five-year-olds easily obtain the wide scope interpretation of postverbal quantifier subjects, unless they are presented with biased matching pictures (with an impaired object or an impaired agent). We give support to the continuity assumption that children and adults share a common core of linguistic knowledge.

The distribution of the chapter is as follows. In section 1, we present an interesting asymmetry observed in the literature of universal quantifiers in adult Spanish. In section 2, some insightful background on acquisition of quantifiers is provided. Section 3 deals with the methodology of the experiment. The results are left for section 4. Section 5 is intended as the final discussion.
7. On the "vulnerability" of the left periphery in French/German balanced bilingual language acquisition
Authors: Bonnesen Matthias
Published: March 2014

In this chapter I investigate the question of whether there is evidence for crosslinguistic influence in German/French bilingual first language acquisition, using data from two children of the DuFDE-corpus (see Köppe 1994), Annika and Pierre. The theoretical framework on which my analysis is based is the Principles and Parameters approach as in Chomsky (1986).

Recently Platzack (2001) has proposed that, in contrast to the IP, the CP, i.e., the left periphery of the clause, is vulnerable. He states that the structure of the left periphery of one language might influence the structure of the other language. Since German and French differ clearly as far as the left periphery is concerned, a German/French bilingual L1 corpus offers an excellent opportunity to verify the “vulnerability of the left periphery” hypothesis.

German is analyzed as a verb-second (V2) language (den Besten 1977, Platzack 1983) which means that the finite verb always occupies the second position in main clauses via movement to C0, whereas in French, a fronted object or an adverb is adjoined to the IP and therefore results in a V3-structure.

I will show that the children nearly always use target-like V2-constructions in German and that the general I-to-C-movement rule of German is not transferred to French. Nevertheless, in Annika’s data, several V2-constructions are attested in French with the adverbs ‘là’ and ‘ici’ and the object pronoun ‘ça’ in the left periphery. But this kind of lexically–driven V2-structure in French does not support the “vulnerability of the left periphery” hypothesis. In contrast, I will argue that only some lexical items can trigger V2-constructions.