Natural Language & Linguistic Theory

Idioms, collocations, and structure Abstract Phrasal idioms have been used as evidence in syntactic theorizing for decades. A common assumption, occasionally made explicit (e.g., Larson 2017), is that non-literal phrasal idioms differ significantly from completely literal collocations in the kinds of syntactic structures they can be built from. I show with a detailed empirical study that this is false. In fact, the syntactic constraints on idioms and collocations are identical. In particular, patterns that are missing from one are missing from the other, most strikingly ditransitives with a fixed first object and open second object (*throw the wolves X). Idioms and collocations should therefore be treated the same, as a broad class of conventionalized expressions. I propose a new analysis of the syntactic forms that conventionalized expressions can take. Unlike most previous analyses, I take the open slots to be part of the expression, and the task then becomes to explain the distribution of the open slots. A structural constraint on open slots accounts for the missing ditransitive pattern. It also explains why expressions with a fixed subject but open object are rare, but also why certain examples of this pattern do exist in English and in other languages.

Trisyllabic hypocoristics in Spanish and layered feet Abstract Spanish hypocoristics are usually bisyllabic and sometimes bimoraic. In this paper we study a process of truncation in Spanish that results in trisyllabic hypocoristics (Encárna ← Encarnación, Mariájo ← María José). Trisyllabic hypocoristics usually surface with amphibrach (weak-strong-weak) rhythm (Encárna ← Encarnación), although some forms show anapest (weak-weak-strong) rhythm (Marijó ← María José). This article develops an analysis of this process by means of internally layered ternary feet. Internally layered feet are binary feet to which a weak syllable adjoins to create a minimally recursive foot. The theoretical claim of this paper is twofold: (i) that Spanish trisyllabic truncated forms correspond to an internally layered foot, which reconciles the general assumption that truncated forms maximally correspond to the size of a metrical foot, and (ii) that morphological operations such as truncation can directly refer to internally layered feet, expanding the body of work on layered feet by Martínez-Paricio and Kager (2015). Overall, the analysis presented in this article explores a less studied theoretical and descriptive advantage of this ternary metrical configuration (i.e. its templatic use) and provides new evidence in support of layered feet as a possible metrical representation which emerges in some languages from independently needed constraints.

Perspectives in causal clauses

Whither head movement? Abstract We argue that head movement, as an operation that builds head-adjunction structures in the syntax, has been used to model two empirically distinct classes of phenomena. One class has to do with displacement of heads (fully formed morphological words) to higher syntactic positions, and includes phenomena like verb second and verb initiality. The other class has to do with the construction of complex morphological words and is involved in various types of word formation. Based on the very different clusters of properties associated with these two classes of phenomena, we argue that they each should be accounted for by distinct grammatical operations, applying in distinct modules of the grammar, rather than by the one traditional syntactic head movement operation. We propose that the operation responsible for upward displacement of heads is genuine syntactic movement (Internal Merge) and has the properties of syntactic phrasal movement, including the ability to affect word order, the potential to give rise to interpretive effects, and the locality associated with Internal Merge. On the other hand, word formation is the result of postsyntactic amalgamation, realized as either Lowering (Embick and Noyer 2001) or its upward counterpart, Raising. This operation, we argue, has properties that are not associated with narrow syntax: it is morphologically driven, it results in word formation, it does not exhibit interpretive effects, and it has stricter locality conditions (the Head Movement Constraint). The result is a view of head movement that not only accounts for the empirical differences between the two classes of head movement phenomena, but also lays to rest numerous perennial theoretical problems that have heretofore been associated with the syntactic head adjunction view of head movement. In addition, the framework developed here yields interesting new predictions with respect to the expected typology of head movement patterns.

A processing-based account of subliminal wh-island effects Abstract Wh-island effects are notorious for their cross-linguistic variation. However, experimental syntax studies observed super-additive wh-island effects in some languages which were previously argued to be immune to them. In four acceptability judgment experiments, we investigate the origin of super-additivity in acceptable wh-islands, so-called "subliminal island effects," focusing on Hebrew. Our first experiment reveals a super-additive wh-island effect in Hebrew. However, we suggest that the super-additivity measure for wh-islands is contaminated by processing factors. Specifically, we propose that in this case, the decrease in acceptability reflects interference caused by the simultaneous maintenance of two dependencies, rather than grammatical islandhood. The following experiments demonstrate that super-additivity can be observed in binding structures, where it cannot be attributed to a violation of a grammatical constraint, but rather to processing costs related to interference for maintenance processes. We also show that when minimizing these costs, super-additivity does not emerge in Hebrew wh-islands. We conclude that processing costs underlie the apparent wh-island effect in Hebrew, and perhaps in additional languages, and that the super-additivity paradigm should be fine-tuned in order to avoid these confounds.

Gestural semantics Abstract We argue that a large part of the typology of linguistic inferences can be replicated with gestures, including some that one might not have seen before. While gesture research often focuses on co-speech gestures, which co-occur with spoken words, our study is based on pro-speech gestures (which fully replace spoken words) and post-speech gestures (which follow expressions they modify). We argue that pro-speech gestures can trigger several types of inferences besides entailments: presuppositions and anti-presuppositions (derived from Maximize Presupposition), scalar implicatures and 'Blind Implicatures,' homogeneity inferences that are characteristic of definite plurals, and some expressive inferences that are characteristic of pejorative terms. We further argue that post-speech gestures trigger inferences that are very close to the supplements contributed by appositive relative clauses. We show in each case that we are not dealing with a translation into spoken language because the fine-grained meanings obtained are tied to the iconic properties of the gestures. Our results argue for a generative mechanism that assigns new meanings a specific place in a rich inferential typology, which might have consequences for the structure of semantic theory and the nature of acquisition algorithms.

Templatic morphology as an emergent property Abstract Modern Hebrew exhibits a non-concatenative morphology of consonantal "roots" and melodic "templates" that is typical of Semitic languages. Even though this kind of non-concatenative morphology is well known, it is only partly understood. In particular, theories differ in what counts as a morpheme: the root, the template, both, or neither. Accordingly, theories differ as to what representations learners must posit and what processes generate the eventual surface forms. In this paper I present a theory of morphology and allomorphy that combines lexical roots with syntactic functional heads, improving on previous analyses of root-and-pattern morphology. Verbal templates are here argued to emerge from the combination of syntactic elements, constrained by the general phonology of the language, rather than from some inherent difference between Semitic morphology and that of other languages. This way of generating morphological structure fleshes out a theory of morphophonological alternations that are non-adjacent on the surface but are local underlyingly; with these tools it is possible to identify where lexical exceptionality shows its effects and how it is reined in by the grammar. The Semitic root is thus analogous to lexical roots in other languages, storing idiosyncratic phonological and semantic information but respecting the syntactic structure in which it is embedded.

Verb phrase external arguments in Mande Abstract Mande languages are well-known for their rigid SOVX word order: verb phrases cannot accommodate postpositional phrases, and all oblique arguments must appear after the main verb. This study explores, based on data from Wan (Southeastern Mande), new evidence for syntactic constituency that is essential for developing a formal account of this typologically unusual pattern. First, I show that previously unexplored tonal evidence rules out argument raising accounts. Tone is sensitive in Wan to prosodic phrasing, which is in turn closely related to syntactic constituency; the way postpositional arguments are prosodically integrated into the clause points to their unusually high, clause-level attachment. Second, I argue against a base-generation analysis, which would require a serious modification of the Projection Principle and locality of selection. Third, an analysis based on obligatory extraposition is discussed as the remaining option in transformational frameworks. While accounting for both semantic and tonal evidence, the extraposition account has to rely on a highly unusual kind of filter to rule out all structures where a PP argument appears clause-internally. Accounts postulating such idiosyncratic filters can hardly be considered satisfying, as they merely model constraints on surface structure, without deriving them from underlying structural properties. The obligatory argument extraposition of Mande languages receives a more elegant explanation in constraint-based, surface-oriented theories, which do not need to introduce special devices to handle the basic word order of Mande languages. I illustrate this with a sketch of an account coached in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar.

Negation and the functional sequence Abstract There exists a general restriction on admissible functional sequences which prevents adjacent identical heads. We investigate a particular instantiation of this restriction in the domain of negation. Empirically, it manifests itself as a restriction the stacking of multiple negative morphemes. We propose a principled account of this restriction in terms of the general ban on immediately consecutive identical heads in the functional sequence on the one hand, and the presence of a Neg feature inside negative morphemes on the other hand. The account predicts that the stacking of multiple negative morphemes should be possible provided they are separated by intervening levels of structure. We show that this prediction is borne out.

Distinguishing nouns and verbs Abstract Many standard tests for identifying syntactic category, such as distribution and morphological potential, fail to distinguish between nouns and verbs in Tagalog. This state of affairs has led some scholars to propose that Tagalog does not treat verbs as a separate syntactic category from nouns. One such proposal by Kaufman (2009) further argues that adopting this so-called nominalist view of Tagalog allows us to straightforwardly understand a number of facts about the syntax of this language that have so far resisted consensus in analysis. This paper argues that the nominalist view cannot be maintained for Tagalog by showing differential behavior between nominal and verbal constituents in this language. It will furthermore be argued that the nominal behavior exhibited by verbal constituents can be attributed to a pervasive process of nominalization, broadly construed, neutralizing the aforementioned differential behavior. The result of this neutralization is reminiscent of phenomena found in other languages, and raises interesting questions regarding the range of nominalization processes observed cross-linguistically.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
Anapafseos 5 . Agios Nikolaos
Crete.Greece.72100
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6948891480

alsfakia@gmail.com