bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rule exceptions, functionalism, and language change
Authors: Laferriere Martha
Published: February 2018

In certain cases the difference between consecutive stages of a language may be explained as a change in the system of rules of the grammar of that language (Chomsky & Halle 1968, 249-252; King 1969; Kiparsky 1968). Between consecutive stages a rule may be added, lost, structurally simplified, or reordered relative to the earlier order. Such changes among phonological rules, when phonetically conditioned, represent an increase in grammatical simplicity in a measurable sense (King 1969, 39-63, 65; Kiparsky 1968; Halle 1962).

It has also been recognized that grammatical categories can condition phonological rules. The function of such conditioning appears to be the preservation of surface structure organization defined by grammatical categories, or what Kiparsky has termed “paradigm coherence” (1972, 208). Yet grammatical (non-phonetic) conditioning of phonological rules has been regarded as decreasing, rather than increasing, simplicity (King 1969, 134-139). In this paper I shall be concerned with the historical development of grammatical conditioning on phonological rules, and the role which paradigm coherence, or paradigmatic regularization, plays in grammatical simplification.
On the putative rule of sentence-lifting
Authors: James Deborah M. , Binnick Robert I.
Published: February 2018

Sentences like the following are basically the same in meaning (although not absolutely the same).

(1)

I believe Ralph came

(2)

Ralph came, I believe

These have been described by Green and Morgan (1972) and Hooper and Thompson (1973) as related by a transformational rule of Sentence-Lifting or Complement Preposing (to be abbreviated here as “Slifting”). By this hypothesized rule, an underlying embedded sentence, here “Ralph came,” is raised so that it precedes its higher subject and verb. Bolinger (1968) describes sentences such as (1) and (2) as related by a rule of Main Phrase Postposing, by which the material at the beginning of the sentence is moved to the end. None of these writers give any arguments for setting up the rule as they do.
Generative phonology and contrastive studies
Authors: Fisiak Jacek
Published: February 2018

The development of contrastive studies (CS) in recent years, judging by the proliferation of projects and published materials, has been accompanied since the late sixties by vigorous discussions and controversies concerning the theoretical status of CS, their form and their place in both general and applied linguistics.

Many linguists and language teachers have gone so far as to reject the validity and usefulness of CS (cf. Alatis, 1968). It seems that this attitude results from a number of misunderstandings created by such factors as the peculiar methodological status of CS, the lack of a clear-cut distinction between theoretical and applied CS (Stockwell, 1968:25; Fisiak, 1971:88ff), and the lack of any precise formulation of the different aims of theoretical CS and applied CS, as well as the confusion of the relationship between CS, psycholinguistic theories of interference and errors, and the theory of second language learning (Zabrocki, 1976). Some confusion also stems from the misunderstanding of the relationship between CS and linguistic theory.
General phonological rules and phonetic processes: Russian palatalization assimilation
Authors: Holden Kyril T.
Published: February 2018

The kinds of rules found in the phonological components of generative grammars have been traditionally grouped into three types: (1) LEXICAL REDUNDANCY or MORPHEME STRUCTURE rules, which fill in redundant features of systematic phonemes within morphemes; (2) PHONOLOGICAL rules, which operate both within morphemes as well as across morpheme boundaries, and can either add or change features; (3) PHONETIC rules, which supply n-ary values to the binary distinctive feature specifications which are the output of the earlier phonological rules. It has furthermore been assumed that these three subcomponents are strictly ordered with respect to one another. Recent studies, however, have revealed a number of rules which do not conveniently fall into these categories, and still others have been found which contradict the assumed ordering relationship (Vennemann, 1972; Anderson, 1975; Daniels, 1973; Labov, 1972). Many of these rules exhibit articulatory phonetic regularities which are obscured at the level of binary distinctive features. Instead they apply at a level when scalar values have already been assigned to the individual features.
Global information and intrinsic ordering
Authors: Goyvaerts D. L.
Published: February 2018

Many native speakers of American English show in their speech a phenomenon that could be called ‘consonant cluster simplification.’ This may be illustrated by examples such as:

Rule R1 below would account for the simplification of these CCC-cluster:
Sibilant-stop clusters in Montagnais
Authors: Cowan William
Published: February 2018

Montagnais, an Algonquian language spoken in Quebec, exists in a number of different dialects. The main divisions are on a geographic basis, with western, eastern, and southern Montagnais, and within each of these varieties sub-dialects centered on specific communities like Pointe Bleu, Betsiamites, or Natashquan. In addition, within each community there may be other dialectal distinctions based on age, socio-economic factors, or elements as specialized as the location of traditional family hunting grounds, grounds in which one need no longer hunt to still have them considered family territory. One such community is the reserve town of Betsiamites, also known as Bersimis. The most notable dialectal division there is one based on age : there is a dialect of people over 60; one of people between 40 and 60; and one of those under 40. In addition, there seems to be a conservative/innovative split that cuts across the age-based dialect split, which itself is based on innovations in the speech of younger speakers, and which does not seem to be correlated with any social or political distinction, but only with phonological change and retention in relation to earlier forms of Montagnais and Proto-Algonquian itself. In the innovative dialect, sibilant-stop clusters consist uniformly of [š] plus a stop; or, in the case of young innovative speakers, a development therefrom. In the conservative dialect, sibilant-stop clusters are found in complementary neutralization: before [t] there occurs only [s]; before [p] and [k] there occurs only [š], no matter what was the source of the first or second element of the cluster in Proto-Algonquian (PA).
Le possible et le réel dans le langage
Authors: Valin Roch
Published: February 2018

Une des difficultés majeures qu’est appelée à rencontrer sur sa route une linguistique visant à expliquer le langage en tant que phénomène est d’apprendre à opérer partout, dans ses analyses, la répartition exacte du possible et du réel. C’est, du reste, à leur impuissance à vaincre cette difficulté, qu’il faut imputer les insuccès répétés, à date ancienne, de la grammaire générale, et, à date plus récente, de la linguistique curieusement appelée ‘structurale.’ Comme si toute connaissance scientifique d’un phénomène quelconque—ce phénomène fût-il le langage humain—ne devait pas être, par nécessité, structurale! A-t-on jamais éprouvé le besoin, du côté des sciences de la nature ou de leur indispensable instrument d’investigation que sont les mathématiques, de parler d’une ‘physique structurale,’ d’une ‘chimie structurale,’ d’une ‘biologie structurale,’ ou encore d’une ‘mathématique structurale’? Tant il est évident aux yeux des praticiens de l’un ou l’autre de ces savoirs établis que l’adjonction à leur désignation de l’épithète en cause constituerait plus qu’une simple redondance: une véritable tautologie.
Word Stress, Sentence Stress and Syllable Prominence in Nova Scotia Acadian French
Authors: Wrenn Phyllis
Published: February 2018

The prosody of Acadian French has received relatively little attention in formal analyses of the dialect, though few who are acquainted with this variety of French, whether linguist or not, would hesitate to give an impressionistic judgement when asked to describe it. The delivery (débit) is characteristically slow, the melody “chantante” (‘singsong’). V. Lucci (1972:121) attributes this impression to the large number of accents, represented by repeated short, rapid rises in pitch. At the same time, he notes a feature that has been referred to in other descriptions of Canadian varieties of French (cf.J.-D. Gendron 1966:142–146; M. Boudreault 1968:87–99) that results in rhythmic patterns not encountered, in theory, in standard French. This dialectal feature is pretonic syllable lengthening, which, according to Lucci, although it appears to be an accent, is in reality a preaccent, the articulatory strengthening of the syllable preceding the accented syllable, which, of course, is the final one. This feature, whether in Acadian or in other varieties of French (cf. F. Carton 1980:85), is in fact generally ascribed to the durational characteristics of the vowel; whether or not the resulting syllable prominence should be interpreted as accent (displacement of the tonic accent, pretonic stress) has been a matter of dispute. Both Boudreault and Gendron, it is true, in describing the phenomenon, refrain for the most part from referring either to syllable prominence (perceptual judgement or physical measurement) or to accent. The former, however, does attribute one group of examples to the presence of an accent d’insistance; these examples are, in fact, stressable monosyllables, pretonic in the word group. The remainder, according to him, are a residue of intrinsic, etymologically motivated vowel length, the explanation preferred by Gendron. According to Gendron, the tonic accent still falls on the final syllable, although it is weak (in relation to a stronger pretonic syllable), and he criticizes J.-P. Vinay (1955:75), who speaks of displacement of the tonic accent.
Une application particulière de l’opérateur de négation
Authors: Lessard Gregory
Published: February 2018

En général, les modèles courants de l’antonymie lexicale ramènent le phénomène à l’action d’un opérateur de négation qui agit sur un ou plusieurs traits sémantiques d’une unité lexicale. En même temps, ces modèles prennent pour acquis qu’entre deux contraires, il ne peut exister ni une relation d’identité ni une relation d’inclusion logique. Ainsi, partir n’est nullement identique à rester, et en même temps, partir n’implique pas rester (et vice-versa). Or, il existe en français contemporain une classe de constructions, qui se caractérisent sur le plan formel par la présence d’une base nominale et de l’un ou l’autre des préfixes A-, ANTI-, CONTRE- ou NON-, qui semblent manifester et une occurrence de l’opérateur de négation et une relation d’inclusion logique entre la construction préfixée et la base nominale seule (dans le sens que, étant donné une base nominale y et un préfixe x, on peut affirmer de la construction x + y qu’elle représente un type particulier de y).
dein Mandarin
Authors: Cheng Lisa Lai Shen
Published: February 2018

In Mandarin, there is an elementdewhich has for years been the subject of analysis. Li and Thompson (1981) and Ross (1983 and 1984) have tried, with little success, to provide a unified treatment of this element. Li and Thompson (1981) claim that there are severalde’s in Mandarin: a possessive marker, an adjectival marker and a nominalization marker. But the structural properties of thesede’s and the similarities among them are ignored.

Using the Government and Binding framework (Chomsky 1981), I will provide an analysis which accounts for the structural and functional similarities and differences among the variousde’s in Mandarin. First, I will state the theoretical assumptions relevant to the discussion ofde. Second, I will present the non-controversial evidence showing thatdeis a head-final complementizer in relative clauses. Third, I will present further data exemplifying a head-finaldein other constructions. Fourth, I will demonstrate the impossibility of having a head-finaldecomplementizer in resultative clauses. Finally, I will propose that there are twodecomplementizers in Mandarin, one head-final, the other head-initial.
The Acquisition of Preposition Stranding
Authors: Hildebrand Joyce
Published: February 2018

This study examines the acquisition of a familiar and widely studied syntactic phenomenon, preposition stranding, within the framework of transformational generative grammar. According to Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar (UG), children begin the acquisition task with an innate knowledge of universal principles of grammar. Many of these principles have open parameters with marked and unmarked options which must be set by children on the basis of their linguistic input. The marked setting entails the unmarked setting in that if a language allows the marked structures it will also allow the relevant unmarked structures, but the reverse is not necessarily true.
Morphological Features and Markedness in the Old French Noun Declension
Authors: Walker Douglas C.
Published: February 2018

In the evolution of morphological studies, morphological features and markedness have come to play increasingly important rôles. Feature notation in morphology allows the development of the notion of natural morphological class, renders explicit much of the internal structure of paradigms and permits the exploitation, suitably adapted, of many of the results obtained in phonology. Markedness considerations, particularly when linked to general theories of morphology, again highlight morphological structure, constrain the variety of permitted analyses, and indicate, at least in part, the expected direction of historical change. In the sections to follow, I will present an analysis of Old French nominal and adjectival inflection which makes key use of morphological features and the differences between the marked and unmarked values of these features. This study will be particularly concerned with constraining the morphological analysis of Old French and conversely, with using Old French data to investigate more general properties of morphological systems.
The Morphology and Phonology of Katajjait (Inuit Throat Games)
Authors: Bagemihl Bruce
Published: February 2018

A linguistic theory can be considered to have explanatory force if it may be extended to a body of facts considerably beyond the domain for which it was originally conceived. In general, the further the new domain is from the original, the greater the support that accrues to that theory. In this paper, a number of developments within current morphological and phonological theory will be utilized in the analysis of an extraordinary form of vocal behaviour, thekatajjait(sg.katajjaq)or throat games of the Canadian Inuit. The result will be a revealing account of the structures of these katajjait, as well as a remarkable confirmation of principles of linguistic theory from a domain which has been hitherto unreported in the linguistic literature.
/h/ en franco-ontarien
Authors: Thomas Alain
Published: February 2018

Il suffit d’écouter attentivement plusieurs locuteurs franco-ontariens pour se rendre compte que /h/ est encore bien vivant dans cette province. Mais il est réalisé de manière si irrégulière qu’on peut se demander s’il n’est pas menacé de disparition. La chose ne serait pas surprenante, puisqu’on a déjà noté son amuïssement en latin, avant la période classique, et surtout en français moderne, quelque 20 siècles plus tard. Assisterait-on au même phénomène d’économie phonétique en franco-ontarien?

La question a déjà été abordée, dans des pré-publications, par Cichocki et Lepetit (1981) et Thomas (1982), mais l’absence de dimension diachronique dans ces deux études en a considérablement réduit la portée. Les données, en effet, étaient basées sur deux corpus d’adolescents francoontariens, provenant respectivement de Welland et de Sudbury, et ce n’est que par recoupements et déductions successives en synchronie dynamique que les auteurs arrivaient à postuler une évolution probable du /h/.
How to Live with External Evidence in Phonology: A Note on the Challenge of Interference
Authors: Singh Rajendra
Published: February 2018

As far as phonology and morphology are concerned, the available evidence indicates that the role of L1 in shaping interlanguage is confined to those of its rules that are needed to account for its global alternations, alternations that are independent of its morphology (cf. Cearly 1974, Dressler 1985, Kilbury 1981, Singh and Ford 1982, 1987, Singh and Martohardjono 1989, Wode 1978, and Wurzel 1977, among others). The rules needed to account for the local, morphologically dependent alternations of L1 or the ones needed to account for its word-formation processes do not play such a role. Interference, in other words, can be caused only by across-the-board phonological rules of L1. So-called morphophonemic rules of L1 do not cause it, and morphological interference from L1 seems not to exist as word-formation errors in intermorphology are the results of illegal extensions of L2 word-formation rules (cf. Singh 1989 and Singh and Martohardjono 1989). The purpose of this note is to critically examine the accounts contemporary theories of phonology provide of this state of affairs and to argue that the account provided by the sort of theory proposed in Ford and Singh (1983, 1985a, 1985b) and Singh and Ford (1982, 1987) is the most satisfactory one.
Des petites propositions à valeur aspectuelle
Authors: Vinet Marie-Thérèse
Published: February 2018

1. Cette étude a pour but d’analyser le statut catégoriel et la structure interne de petites propositions adjointes que la grammaire traditionnelle désigne couramment sous le terme de “constructions participiales absolues”. Nous sommes d’avis, toutefois, que cette appellation est inappropriée puisqu’ elle ne permet pas d’effectuer une généralisation légitime avec des constructions identiques qui ne présentent pas de forme participiale ou même de valeur absolue. Dans le cadre de la théorie du gouvernement et du liage qui est le nôtre, nous identifions plutôt celles-ci comme des “petites propositions à valeur aspectuelle”. Il s’agit de structures copulatives sans la présence du verbe copule en surface, elles sont introduites par un adverbe aspectuel et la position prédicat peut être remplie par différents syntagmes tels que AP, PP, NP ou un VP participial:

(1)

a.

[Une fois présentable], elle a ouvert la porte

b.

[Aussitôt dans le couloir], il s’est mis à hurler

c.

[Une fois médecin], elle a été heureuse

d.

[Sitôt les ballons crevés], la musique a commencé

Le marqueur aspectuel (une fois, aussitôt, etc.) permet d’identifier le temps interne de l’événement, il marque l’accompli et est lié à l’aspect perfectif.
Les langues Créoles et la théorie linguistique
Authors: Lefebvre Claire , Lumsden John S.
Published: February 2018

L’étude de la genèse des langues créoles fait partie de la problématique plus générale d’une théorie de la variation et du changement linguistique dans les langues naturelles. Même si la genèse des langues créoles se démarque de la genèse des autres langues, tant par les circonstances historiques dans lesquelles elles se développent, que par les dérivations linguistiques qui les caractérisent, l’origine des langues créoles doit être expliquée à l’intérieur du même cadre que les autres langues. Cependent, étant donné les propriétés uniques de leur origine, l’étude des langues créoles offre une contrainte de plus sur la forme de la théorie linguistique en générale. Ce qui est unique et extraordinaire à propos des langues créoles c’est surtout le partage systématique de leurs propriétés par rapport aux propriétés de leurs langues sources. Il existe une théorie de la genèse des langues qui permet d’expliquer la systématicité de ce partage: la relexification Nous montrerons que cette théorie fournit les bases d’une explication du processus de formation des langues créoles. Cet article a pour objectif de construire une théorie de la genèse du créole haïtien qui soit explicative des faits linguistiques et qui soit compatible avec les faits historiques qui prévalaient lors de sa formation. Nous constatons qu’une telle théorie doit être révélatrice de la nature de la grammaire universelle qui définit la forme des langues naturelles.
De “nù-fló” à “po-bouch”: hypothèsss sur l’origine des composés en haïtien
Authors: Brousseau Anne-Marie
Published: February 2018

Les composés du créole haïtien fournissent à première vue une confirmation directe de l’hypothèse de relexification telle que définie par Lefebvre et Lumsden (1989). D’une part, ils partagent des propriétés phonétiques de la langue du superstrat, le français. On trouve done des composés dans ces deux langues constitués de séquences phonétiques pratiquement identiques:
The Halle-Vergnaud Sonorant Constituent: Error Elicitation Evidence
Authors: Laubstein Ann Stuart
Published: February 2018

The experiment reported on here investigating the syllabic attachment of post-vocalic nasals and l grew out of an earlier experiment which compared the post-vocalic liquids r and l (Laubstein 1989). Using the error elicitation technique described in Motley et al (1983), induced errors involving Vr and Vl sequences were compared. The two sequences behaved quite differently, suggesting different syllabic attachments for the two liquids. Vowel-r sequences consistently interacted with single vowels or vowel glide sequences and such sequences never split up, supporting the hypothesis (based on naturally occurring errors) that vowel-r sequences belong to a uni-positional peak constituent and supporting Kahn’s argument that English r, like w and y, is a glide (Kahn 1976). Vowel-l sequences, on the other hand, did split apart; errors involved the l alone or the vowel alone, significantly more often than they involved the r or V alone from Vr sequences (Wilcoxon p <.0001). This supported the hypothesis that the r and l belonged to different constituents. The relative frequency of errors is commonly assumed to reflect constituency. See, for instance, Stemberger and Treiman’s (1986) arguments regarding different positions in the onset. Nevertheless, such sequences also acted as single units, and in this respect behaved like vowel-r sequences. In addition, when such sequences were involved as a unit they interacted with single vowels or vowel glide sequences, suggesting that at some level of analysis they belonged to the same constituents as vowels. Speech errors which involve interactions between two items, or the substitution of one item for another, are in general structure-preserving. They involve units of the same constituent type at some level of analysis; for instance, noun phrase with noun phrase, preposition with preposition, verb with verb, and at the sub-lexical level, syllabic constituent type a with syllabic constituent type a (Laubstein 1987).
Genitive Clitics and Nominal Infl
Authors: Mallén Enrique
Published: February 2018

This paper offers an account of the different behaviour of prenorninal constituents such ashisandsuin the examples in (1) which are associated with one of the thematic roles assigned by the nounspictureandfotorespectively. I argue that the prenominal elementsuis base-generated as a clitic adjoined to a nominal head in Spanish, whereashisin English attains its prenominal position via NP-movement to a nominal specifier.
A Principle-Based System for Syntactic Analysis
Authors: Crocker Matthew W.
Published: February 2018

Traditional approaches to natural language processing (NLP) can be considered construction-based. That is to say, they employ surface oriented, language specific rules, whether in the form of an Augmented Transition Network (ATN), logic grammar or some other grammar/parsing formalism. The problems of such approaches have always been apparent; they involve large sets of rules, often ad hoc, and their adequacy with respect to the grammar of the language is difficult to ensure.
WH-Words, WH-Questions and Relative Clauses in Prince Edward Island Acadian French
Authors: King Ruth
Published: February 2018

This article is concerned with WH-words and WH-constructions in Prince Edward Island Acadian French (PEIAF). The principal data come from the French variety spoken in the small community of Abram-Village in the Evangeline region located in the northwest of the island. French is a minority language in Prince Edward Island, spoken as a first language by less than 6% of the population according to the 1986 census. The number of French speakers has declined sharply over the last several decades but in the Evangeline region the francophone population is stable and French enjoys both institutional support and considerable language loyalty. The majority of Abram-Village residents, educated in French-medium schools, are fluently bilingual in French and English.
The Pragmatic Function of wa in Japanese
Authors: Currah Satomi , Prideaux Gary D.
Published: February 2018

The Japanese postpositional particle wa has probably received more attention within the linguistic literature dealing with that language than any other single element of Japanese grammar. The present paper is a further contribution to the long and honorable series of attempts to come to grips with the function of this highly frequent, but still poorly understood, linchpin of Japanese grammar.

The particle wa may occur with subject nouns, as in (1), with other parts of speech, and may even be attached to entire sentences. Because of the variability of the elements with which wa can be associated, the element to which wa is attached is referred to throughout the present paper simply as X.
The Semantics of the Bengali Verbfεla
Authors: Ghomeshi Jila
Published: February 2018

Any theory of semantics must account for the role of inference in the interpretation of a sentence, however, it is not clear at which level of the grammar this inferencing capability must be represented. In Sperber and Wilson (1986) for example, inference plays an important role in the interpretation of an utterance in discourse, yet their theory does not integrate lexical representations with discourse and inferencing. Jackendoff (1987, 1990) on the other hand, while giving explicit representations for sentences and lexical items, does not address the question of discourse and inference. In this paper I will argue that it is essential to take account of discourse-level factors when analyzing sentence meaning, and indeed word meaning. In particular I will show that the meaning of the auxiliary verbfεla. in Bengali can be properly represented only if such discourse-level factors are included.
On the Need for Negative Constraints and Repair: Consonant Mutation in Setswana
Authors: Lacharité Darlene
Published: February 2018

I argue here for the necessity of negative constraints, specifically the claim in (1). This position contrasts with that taken by Declarative Phonology (Scobbie 1992; this volume) and with the view that positive and negative constraints are equivalent (Itô 1988:32).
De la nécessité des positions vides dans les représentations syllabiques du gen
Authors: Nikiema Emmanuel
Published: February 2018

The introduction of empty nuclear positions in syllable structure goes back to the early 80s. Since then, empty nuclei have been proposed in phonological analyses to account for vocalic epenthesis (vowel/Ø alternation). The analysis of Gen put forth in this article argues for empty nuclei although no vowel/Ø alternation can be observed in the language. Nevertheless, on the basis of the tonal patterns of Gen, it is shown that empty positions must be part of the underlying representation of syllables in the language. Another aspect of the study deals with consonant clusters. Thus far, all analyses supporting empty positions within a cluster have also referred to the absence of cooccurrence restrictions among the consonants surrounding the empty vowel. This paper provides new insights since, in Gen, the consonant clusters in which empty nuclei are proposed are typical of those observed in branching onset languages (like French, Italian and English) or in languages having light diphthongs. We argue that all attested consonant clusters in Gen are heterosyllabic.
Verbes de volonté et absence d’obviation en français ancien
Authors: Martineau France
Published: February 2018

This article examines the absence of obviation with volition verbs in Older French (e.g., je veux que je soye batu). It is shown that the analyses which propose that obviation depends on the anaphoric character of Tense or on the presence of a lexical complementizer cannot explain the absence of obviation in Older French. The analysis proposed in this article relies on the semantic selection of verbs. It is argued that in Older French, volition verbs (i.e., non-factive emotive verbs) select a [definite event], realized on the head of MP, which licenses an operator in Comp; as a result, the binding domain of the embedded subject is closed and the subjects can be coreferent. The presence of this operator, which can be reanalyzed as the head of CP, also accounts for the fact that both moods, indicative and subjunctive, can be found in the complements of volition verbs. It is also proposed that the changes which affect the complements of volition verbs in Classical French (presence of obviation and absence of indicative mood) are triggered by the fact that volition verbs ceased to select the category [definite event].
Implications of Consonant Nasalization for a Theory of Harmony
Authors: Piggott G.L.
Published: February 2018

Nasalization in several Bantu languages skips vowels and, in some cases, also skips consonants. This process does not appear to apply in a local fashion. A solution to the locality problem has not been found so far in the conventional approaches to harmony. This article offers a novel analysis which maintains the general principle that elements related by rules or constraints are adjacent. It departs from the conventional description of harmony as a purely segmental relation and derives the effects of long distance consonant nasalization from the reconfiguration of harmony as a relation between suprasegmental units. One pattern found in Lamba is described as agreement between adjacent syllables, while another pattern found in Kikongo instantiates agreement between adjacent feet. This article recognizes a new functional foot-type, the Harmony Foot.
Loanword Adaptation in Lama: Testing the TCRS Model
Authors: Ulrich Charles H.
Published: February 2018

When words are borrowed from one language into another, they are often adapted to conform with the phonological constraints of the borrowing language. This article looks at the adaptation of six hundred loanwords from French and English into Lama in light of the predictions of the Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies. The Lama data support the Minimality Principle, which predicts that ill-formed structures will be repaired as economically as possible, and the Preservation Principle, which predicts that epenthesis will be favoured over deletion. They also support the claim that the form in which loanwords are stored in the borrowing language is equivalent to the output of the phonology of the source language, even when that includes segments which are ill-formed in the borrowing language. However, the Lama data do not support the Threshold Principle, which predicts deletion when adaptation would be too costly.
A Structural Account of Root Node Deletion in Loanword Phonology
Authors: Rose Yvan
Published: February 2018

Paradis and LaCharité (1996, 1997) have proposed a model of loanword adaptation, couched within theTheory of Constraints and Repair Strategies(Paradis 1988a,b). One of the mechanisms used in their model, called the Threshold Principle, first advanced by Paradis, Lebel, and LaCharité (1993), poses problems. This principle, whose implementation implies arithmetic counting, goes counter to standard views of generative phonology against counting. In this article, an analysis of deletion contexts found in loanwords which accounts for the data observed on structural grounds only is developed without any appeal to arithmetic counting. Based on the adaptation of French rising diphthongs and nasal vowels in two languages, Fula and Kinyarwanda, it is argued that an analysis based solely on the segmental representations of the foreign forms to adapt and the segmental and syllabic constraints of the borrowing language is sufficient to make correct predictions regarding the adaptation patterns found in these languages.
Brazilian Portuguese vowel nasalization: secondary aspects
Authors: Lipski John M.
Published: February 2018

The process of vowel nasalization in Portuguese has been a fascinating topic for investigation since the earliest days of Romance philology, and much energy has been expended to determine the origin, development, and contemporary manifestations of the Portuguese nasal vowels. Despite the large amount of scholarly activity devoted to the nasal vowels, however, surprisingly little attention had traditionally been paid to the manner in which they are recognized and produced by native speakers, other than a few traditional phonemic analyses. More recently, aspects of the Portuguese nasal vowel system have been investigated within the framework of generative phonology, with a view toward motivating a series of highly abstract structures underlying the forms of modern Portuguese; as a consequence, more attention was paid to the various details of the vowel nasalization process. The present paper is offered as an addition to the synchronic studies of Portuguese vowel nasalization, since the nasalization process presents several unique peculiarities which warrant a more detailed investigation. The object of this report is to bring up for discussion several aspects of vowel nasalization in Portuguese which have either been neglected in the literature, or which have received incomplete or conflicting descriptions. Other than an introduction to the general problem OI the Portuguese nasal vowels, no attempt will be made at reanalyzing areas which have been adequately covered in other studies, even when the opinions of the present writer differ radically from those of other investigators.
Transfer of L1 Parameter Settings: Some Empirical Evidence from Polish Metrics
Authors: Archibald John
Published: February 2018

This paper describes an empirical investigation as to the utility of a principles and parameters model of grammar in describing the interlanguage grammars of second language learners. I argue that the framework of parameterized universal grammar is useful in accounting for second language learner knowledge and behaviour. The vast majority of their errors can be accounted for by the transfer of their first language (L1) parameter setting into the second language (L2).
Les formes nominales [CɨCC] et [CCɨC] en arabe marocain ou la persistance des schèmes
Authors: Amimi Abdeljebbar , Bohas Georges
Published: February 2018

This article deals with a vexing problem in the phonology of Moroccan Arabic, the alternation between [CɨCC] and [CCɨC] nouns. It is shown that this alternation cannot be predicted in all instances from the phonetic nature of the consonants, contrary to what has been claimed in previous analyses, and that it is necessary to have recourse to an analysis based on the notion of templates. It is claimed that the difference between the two forms [CɨCC] and [CCɨC] reflects an underlying difference between the three templates /CVCC/, CVCVC/, and /(ɂa)CCVC/, which are shared by both Classical Arabic and Moroccan Arabic. The influence of sonority is secondary and only accounts for the appearance of [CCɨC] forms in nouns derived from the template /CVCC/ whose last consonant is a nasal ([jbɨn] ‘cheese), a liquid ([bħɨr] ‘sea’), or a /ʕ/ ([zrɨʕ] ‘wheat’).
On Verb Fronting, Inflection Movement, and Aux Support
Authors: Battistella Edwin , Lobeck Anne
Published: February 2018

Recent analyses of word order and clause structure suggest that natural language syntax employs competing processes of Verb Fronting (VF) and Inflection Movement (IM) for the realization of Tense and Agreement (TNS and AGR) features on verb stems. As the names suggest, Verb Fronting is a process that raises a verb from the head of VP to INFL and INFL Movement is a rule that lowers the contents of INFL to the head of VP. Both rules are assumed to involve Chomsky-adjunction of the moved node to the target node and both are assumed to leave a trace.
Markedness in Right-edge Syllabification: Parallels across Populations
Authors: Goad Heather
Published: February 2018

The position that languages require both coda and onset options for the syllabification of word-final consonants is adopted. The latter option is further divided into languages where final consonants are onsets of empty-headed syllables and those where final consonants are syllabified through onset-nuclear (ON) sharing. ON sharing is reserved for languages where final consonants display fortition (overt release): the nucleus hosts the release of the consonant. Empirical evidence from across populations demonstrates that ON sharing is unmarked. It is favoured among the outputs of first and second language learners and individuals with Specific Language Impairment. It is further argued that final onsets are optimal for parsing in end-state grammars, as they demarcate the right word-edge more effectively than codas. Among the two types of onsets, ON sharing is preferred: through the nuclear release, it is better able to host the range of contrasts that right-edge onsets display. The parsing argument serves to illustrate how ON sharing provides an advantage to end-state grammars, beyond being an emergent property from acquisition.
Three approaches to contrastive phonological analysis
Authors: Wardhaugh Ronald
Published: February 2018

In Recent Years there has developed an increasing interest in the contrastive study of languages and in the theoretical principles underlying such study. As different pairs of languages are contrasted the problems inherent in contrastive analysis are more clearly revealed, and each new problem forces a re-examination of contrastive principles. Recent developments in grammatical theory, particularly the development of transformational-generative theory, have also compelled the attention of the contrastive analyst.
How Not To Count Gaps
Authors: Wheeler Eric S.
Published: February 2018

Králík (1977) examined four Czech texts of 7000 words each, in which he marked every occurrence of the word meaning and (and separately, three other words). The interval between two successive occurrences of the marked word is called a gap, and the number of words in that gap is the gap length. When the quantity of gaps of each length was recorded, it was found that there were many more short gaps than long ones. Králík proposed an exponential decay model of this distribution of gap lengths: For N gaps in a text of T words, the proportion of those gaps that are of length x should tend to be:

f(x) = a exp (— ax) where a = N/T

That is, as the gap length increases, the number of such gaps decreases in a smooth, downwardly convex, “swooping” curve.
Structure de la diphtongaison québécoise1
Authors: Dumas Denis
Published: February 2018

Plusieurs observateurs ont noté que le français québécois faisait en réalisation phonétique un plus grand usage de la durée vocalique que le français standard, par exemple, et surtout qu’il utilise la diphtongaison comme mode de réalisation privilégié de la durée dans certains contextes. La présente étude se propose d’en décrire les manifestations et d’en montrer la portée exacte à partir d’exemples pris essentiellement au français populaire de Montréal: au-delà de ses caractéristiques de détail particulières, c’est un bon représentant des grands traits phonétiques du français québécois, à l’exclusion des variétés d’origine acadienne qu’on peut rencontrer dans la Basse Matapédia et la Baie des Chaleurs, aux Iles de la Madeleine et sur la Basse Côte Nord.
Morphologie et évolution des pronoms déterminatifs dans le français parlé à Welland (Ontario)
Authors: Mougeon Raymond , Beniak Edouard , Bélanger Monique
Published: February 2018

Les études plus ou moins récentes consacrées expressément ou en partie au système des pronoms déterminatifs en français parlé européen ou canadien ont mis à jour l’étonnante diversité des formes qui peuvent coexister au sein de ce système. Si ces travaux contiennent parfois en plus d’un simple inventaire des formes relevées, des explications sur les origines possibles de ces formes, ils laissent cependant de côté plusieurs questions qui intéressent de près la sociolinguistique contemporaine. C’est ainsi par exemple que très peu de renseignements sont fournis relativement à l’effet des caractéristiques sociales des locuteurs (âge, sexe, appartenance socio-professionnelle, etc.) sur leur fréquence d’emploi des différentes formes determinatives. Or de tels renseignements pourraient permettre de dégager les tendances évolutives du système pronominal déterminatif dans les différents dialectes du français. Par le biais de cette étude nous voudrions combler en partie cette lacune en examinant non seulement la morphologie mais aussi l’évolution des pronoms déterminatifs dans le français parlé de Welland (Ontario). Le français parlé à Welland se prête à une telle étude dans la mesure où il possède lui aussi un système pronominal déterminatif dans lequel les formes standard côtoient de nombreuses formes non standard.
La Surcomposition dans le verbe français
Authors: Bleton Paul
Published: February 2018

Si la linguistique, en tant que discipline scientifique, évacue la vieille tentation de l’anomalisme, elle doit parfois, comme dans le cas de l’étude de la morphologie des temps, reconstruire une régularité parodoxale, une régularité remettant en cause 1’ ‘évidence.’ C’est bien le geste qu’effectue E. Benveniste dans un article justement célèbre, “Les relations de temps dans le verbe français” (1966). La régularité ‘évidente’ était la symétrie des formes simples et des formes composées, qui dans tout manuel scolaire se présentent comme suit:
A Note on Ancient Hispanic Orthographic Signs
Authors: Anderson James M.
Published: February 2018

The Hispanic peoples of pre-Roman Spain and Portugal employed a curious semi-syllabic writing system whose orthographic signs were derived from Graeco-Phoenician and Aegean sources (Anderson 1975). The script seems to have been brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Eastern Mediterranean seafarers sometime during the middle or early half of the first millennium B.C.

Of interest here are several ancient signs of rare occurrence, namely, and ↑ or found, for example, in inscriptions from southern Portugal and Andalucia. A partial illustration of a text from Portugal which reads and one from Andalucia, the Gador lead tablet, which contains the sequences places the signs in question in brief context.
On the Origins and Elimination of Ergativity in Indo-Aryan Languages
Authors: Bubenik Vit
Published: February 2018

Ergativity is a term used in traditional descriptive and typological linguistics to refer to a system of nominal case-marking where the subject of an intransitive verb has the same morphological marker as a direct object, and a different morphological marker from the subject of a transitive verb. Languages in which this system is found are divided into two main types, A and B (following Trask 1979:388). In Type A the ergative construction is used equally in all tenses and aspects. Furthermore, if there is verbal agreement, the verb agrees with the direct object in person and number in exactly the same way it agrees with the subject of an intransitive verb. The verb agrees with the transitive subject in a different way. Well-known representatives of this type are Basque, Australian ergative languages, certain North American languages, Tibeto-Burman and Chukchee. In type B there is most often a tense/aspect split, in which case the ergative construction is confined to the perfective aspect (or the past tense), and the nominative-accusative configuration is used elsewhere. Furthermore, if there is verbal agreement, the verb may agree with the direct object in number and gender but not in person.
Adult L2 Acquisition of Two Distinct Phonetic Forms of Anaphora
Authors: Flynn Suzanne
Published: February 2018

Perhaps the most pervasive issue in the study of adult second language (L2) acquisition concerns the relative contribution of prior first language (L1) experience — the contrastive component — and universal grammatical principles — the constructive component — to this language learning process. Concern with this issue stems in part from basic linguistic and psychological questions about the nature of language learning in the adult and in part from the desire to integrate these two components within a framework that can provide for a unified theory of language learning in general. Current research within the field endeavors to isolate and quantify each of these two components in the adult L2 learning process.

Within this context, this paper reports results of an experimental study of the acquisition of anaphora in structures such as in (1) and (2).

(1) Alice helped Mary when she walked through the garden.

(2) Alice helped Mary when walking through the garden.
Direct Object Definiteness Effects
Authors: Georgopoulos Carol
Published: February 2018

This article examines the effects of direct object definiteness in Austronesian (AN) and relates these effects to marking for transitivity. Definite objects often correlate with a high degree of transitive marking in the verb phrase, while indefinite objects correlate with or trigger intransitive marking, even in transitive sentences. The primacy of goal/object orientation over actor/subject orientation is another widespread tendency in AN languages. In some languages, a definite goal/object must be marked as the focus of the clause, either overtly or via the obligatory indefiniteness of other arguments, or by making it the syntactic subject, or in other ways. The article thus shows how definiteness restrictions on various arguments in AN languages can be explained against the background of historical focus systems. Data come primarily from Muna (Celebes), in which, it is argued, the historical object focus function is continued in verb forms marked explicitly for definite objects.
Webster, Mencken, and Avis: Spokesmen for Linguistic Autonomy
Authors: McDavid Raven I.
Published: February 2018

In a modest way, I have something in common with Webster, Mencken, and Avis, the three spokesmen for linguistic autonomy whom I am discussing. True, St. Noah of Amherst ascended to that great lexicographical office in the sky fifty-eight years before I was born; and as varied as my dreaming has been, I have never dreamed of meeting him. Nevertheless, we share a common birthday, October 16; and in the line of duty, I have often been entangled with his successors and their critics, especially with the critics of Merriam’s Webster’s Third New International.

With Mencken, my relationship was more direct. I had heard vaguely about The American Language in my South Carolina boyhood, when—in the eyes of the southern Baptists who dominated my community—Mencken metaphorically had horns, hoofs, and a tail. But I never read it till 1937, two years after I acquired a Ph.D. as a Miltonist. I had gone to the Ann Arbor Linguistic Institute, under orders from my college president (a retired four-star general) to improve my teaching and my use of the language.