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Dependent Case by Agree: Ergative in Shawi Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Emily Clem, Amy Rose Deal
Ergative and accusative behave as dependent cases insofar as their appearance on a nominal depends on the presence of another nominal in the same domain. Recent work on case theory has taken the phenomenon of case dependency to challenge the idea that case is assigned via the operation Agree. Focusing on the Shawi language (Kawapanan; Peru), we show not only that patterns of case dependency can be
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Talmy’s Typology Revisited: A Spanning Approach Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Víctor Acedo-Matellán, Arkadiusz Kwapiszewski
We dispute Folli and Harley’s (2020) account of Talmy’s typology, as it does not derive the unavailability of satellite-framed constructions in verb-framed languages, and it fails to predict the existence of weak satellite-framed languages like Latin and Slavic (Acedo-Matellán 2016). We propose an alternative approach based on Spanning (Svenonius 2016). Variation stems from the distribution of PF-interpretable
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A Learning-Based Account of Phonological Tiers Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Caleb Belth
Morphophonological alternations often involve dependencies between adjacent segments. Despite the apparent distance between relevant segments in the alternations that arise in consonant and vowel harmony, these dependencies can usually be viewed as adjacent on a tier representation. However, the tier needed to render dependencies adjacent varies crosslinguistically, and the abstract nature of tier
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Concord in the Verbal Domain: External Agreement in Nakh-Daghestanian Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Dmitry Ganenkov
The article discusses agreeing ablatives in Aqusha Dargwa (Nakh-Daghestanian), arguing that morphological agreement in gender–number that these constituents display with the clausemate absolutive argument is not an instance of Agree, but should rather be analyzed as the result of Concord. The argument relies on a difference between Agree and Concord with regard to c-command. The article explores the
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Pair-List Interpretation in Multiple Sluicing in Mandarin Chinese Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Xue Bai, Daiko Takahashi
Among the proposals for multiple sluicing in Mandarin Chinese is what we call the multi-clausal analysis, which posits that it involves conjoined single wh-questions. This paper aims to examine the analysis through the possibility of pair-list interpretation for multiply sluiced clauses. The conclusion drawn is that the multiclausal analysis alone is not sufficient to fully explicate the relevant phenomenon
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Interaction, Satisfaction, and the PCCs Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Amy Rose Deal
The Person-Case Constraint (PCC) is a family of restrictions on the relative person of the two objects of a ditransitive. PCC effects offer a testing ground for theories of Agree and of syntactic features, both those on nominals and those found on agreement probes. This article offers a new theory of PCC effects in an interaction/satisfaction theory of Agree (Deal 2015a) and shows the advantages of
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The Concatenative Structure of Tonal Overwriting Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Jochen Trommer
Replacive overwriting by morphological tone has been used as major evidence for cyclic construction approaches to phonology (Hyman 2013, Inkelas 2018, Rolle 2018). In this article, I show that this argument is unwarranted: tonal overwriting can be derived by simple concatenation of tonal morphemes, general phonological constraints, and minimal access to morphological information—in Autosegmental Colored
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The Informativeness/Complexity Trade-Off in the Domain of Boolean Connectives Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Wataru Uegaki
I apply the model of semantic universals in terms of informativeness/complexity trade-off (Kemp, Xu, and Regier 2018) to Boolean connectives. The model explains the crosslinguistic absence of the connective , once theoretical insights from Horn 1972 and Katzir and Singh 2013 are incorporated. The lack of follows if languages optimize the trade-off between (a) simplicity of the lexicon measured in terms
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Deconstructing Subcategorization: Conditions on Insertion vs. Conditions on Position Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Laura Kalin, Nicholas Rolle
The mechanism of subcategorization has been used for decades to account for many sorts of idiosyncratic behaviors of lexical items. We home in on the use of subcategorization for regulating the behaviors of individual exponents (morphs, vocabulary items), in particular, for infixation and suppletive allomorphy. We compare two distinct approaches, (a) enriched subcategorization, which takes there to
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The Representation of Gender and Inflectional Class in Italian: A Reply to Kučerová 2018 Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Pietro Baggio, Yasutada Sudo
Kučerová (2018) puts forward a novel theory of the morphology and interpretation of nominal gender in Italian. Here, we take issue with this theory from both empirical and theoretical standpoints. We first show that several generalizations presented as empirical support for it are incorrect. We then point out three fundamental theoretical challenges. First, the proposed three-way classification of
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Intrusion as Template Satisfaction and the QaTaT-QaTa Problem in Semitic Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Noam Faust
The paper focuses on the realization strategies of the final C-slot of templates hosting /j/-final roots in Hebrew and Amharic. Two of these strategies, nonrealization and realization through templatic intrusion, are motivated by a constraint *Misalignment. The latter strategy occurs only in nouns, because it employs a suffix marking noncontextual grammatical gender.
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Scope Freezing Restricts Binding in Italian Right Dislocation Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Stefano Castiglione, Ad Neeleman, Vieri Samek-Lodovici
Binding into right-dislocated categories is generally possible in Italian but fails when the binder is a direct object and the right-dislocated constituent an indirect object or a PP doubled by ci, even though direct objects binding into indirect objects or PPs is otherwise acceptable. These data fall into place once it is recognized that cliticization of an indirect object or a PP gives rise to a
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Asymmetric Coordination in Romanian: A Diagnostic for DOM Position? Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-10-13 Monica Alexandrina Irimia
The question of whether differentially marked objects require raising is not a simple one for languages like Romanian. Kalin and Weisser (2019) use asymmetric coordination involving marked and unmarked objects to support the hypothesis that both classes (can) share the same position. Here we point out numerous complications in the data; crucially, it cannot be confirmed that asymmetric coordination
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On Realizing External Arguments: A Syntactic and Implicature Theory of the Disjointness Effect for Passives in Adult and Child Grammar Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-27 Loes Koring, Eric Reuland, Nina Sangers, Kenneth Wexler
This contribution presents an account of why disjoint reference effects obtain in verbal but not in adjectival passives. Our focus will be on passives in child language, which are independently argued to be always adjectival. This allows us to use a natural experiment in child grammar that is not available in the adult grammar—predicting the lack of a disjoint reference effect in even those passives
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On Internal Merge Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-27 Mark Steedman
The rule MOVE, used in various forms in generative grammars to capture displacement or discontinuous constituency, has recently been talked of as an “internal” version of MERGE, the operation of simple node- or set-formation. Internal merge “reconstructs” the displaced element in its original argument-structural position at the level of logical form via a “copy”, to which it has been identical throughout
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Topic Particles, Agreement and Movement in an Arabic Dialect Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-27 Murdhy Alshamari, Anders Holmberg
The dialect of North Hail in Saudi Arabia, a variety of Najdi Arabic, has a set of sentence-initial particles marking topics of various kinds. The kinds of topics they mark correspond closely to the three classes of topics argued by Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl (2007) to be characteristic of Italian and German: Shift-Topic, Contrastive Topic, and Familiar Topic. In their work, as in much other work in
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What Divides, and What Unites, Right-Node Raising Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Zoe Belk, Ad Neeleman, Joy Philip
We argue, following Barros and Vicente (2011), that right-node raising (RNR) results from either ellipsis or multidominance. Four considerations support this claim. (a) RNR has properties of ellipsis and of multidominance. (b) Where these are combined, the structure results from repeated RNR: a pivot created through ellipsis contains a right-peripheral secondary pivot created through multidominance
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Serial Reduplication Is Empirically Adequate and Typologically Restrictive Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Andrew Lamont
Wei and Walker (2020) and Zymet (2018) claim that derivational lookahead effects are attested in the interactions between reduplication and other phonological processes in Mbe and Logoori, respectively. On the basis of this evidence, they argue that reduplication in these languages cannot be modeled by Serial Template Satisfaction (McCarthy, Kimper, and Mullin 2012), a theory of reduplication set in
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Revisiting Passive Participles: Category Status and Internal Structure Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Maša Bešlin
This article challenges the view that eventive and stative passive participles are verbs and adjectives, respectively. Instead, I argue that existing diagnostics are sensitive to the eventive/stative contrast and to independent restrictions on word order. I show that both eventive and stative participles in Serbo-Croatian have the external syntax and morphology of adjectives, and propose that passive
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Attention and Locality: On Clause-Boundedness and Its Exceptions in Multiple Sluicing Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Matthew Barros, Robert Frank
We provide an account of clause-boundedness in multiple sluicing that also captures its exceptions. Clause-boundedness arises whenever an embedded clause’s subject is not coreferential with a topical discourse referent in the embedding clause. Our account ties clause-boundedness to discourse factors. We discuss implementations that import sensitivity to information structure into the syntax, and compare
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The Domain of Formal Matching in Sluicing Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Pranav Anand, Daniel Hardt, James McCloskey
This article is concerned with the role of syntax in the licensing of sluicing in English. It amends and provides new support for a proposal made by Rudin (2019) in which syntax plays a crucial but circumscribed role: crucial in that antecedents are required; circumscribed in that matching with an antecedent holds only with respect to a proper subpart of the elided clause—its argumental core.
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Obligatorily Overt PRO in San Martín Peras Mixtec Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-08-18 Jason Ostrove
This article presents obligatory control constructions in San Martín Peras Mixtec, a language in which PRO must be exponed with an overt pronoun. I propose a morphological analysis of this phenomenon in which this language lacks a null allomorph for bound minimal pronouns (Kratzer 2009, Safir 2014, Landau 2015, 2018), posited to underlie silent PRO in other languages. This suggests that null exponence
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The Featural Life of Nominals Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-08-18 Ivy Sichel, Maziar Toosarvandani
We introduce a novel locality violation and its repair in Southeastern Sierra Zapotec: an object pronoun cannot cliticize when the subject is a lexical DP. We develop an account in which pronouns and lexical DPs interact with the same probe because they share featural content. In particular, we suggest that the Person domain extends to include non-pronominal DPs, so that all nominals are specified
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E-Raising Reconsidered: Constituency, Coordination and Case-Matching Reciprocals Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-07-26 Troy Messick, Gísli Rúnar Harðarson
In Icelandic, part of the complex reciprocal hvor annar matches in case with the reciprocal’s antecedent. In structures where the reciprocal is embedded in a PP, the P intervenes between the two parts. A recent analysis of these data suggests that part of the reciprocal overtly moves to the base position of the antecedent by an operation termed e-raising. We show that such an analysis makes a number
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Verbal Templates Can Influence L-Selection in Semitic Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-07-26 Matthew Hewett
This squib documents a novel empirical generalization from selection in Semitic: lexically selected PPs can vary by (verbal) template. This discovery is problematic for current analyses which take (lexically) selected arguments to either be introduced by the root (Harley 2014a) or by the categorizing head (Merchant 2019), both of which are lower than the functional heads realized as Semitic templates
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Morpheme Structure Constraints Solve Three Puzzles for Theories of Blocking in Nonderived Environments Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Ezer Rasin
In Nonderived Environment Blocking (NDEB), a phonological process applies across morpheme boundaries or morpheme-internally when fed by another phonological process but is otherwise blocked. I present a theory of NDEB that attributes blocking to an interaction between morpheme structure constraints (which constrain possible URs in the lexicon) and the usual phonological mapping from URs to surface
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Applicative Recursion and Nominal Licensing Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Yining Nie
Languages with applicative morphology vary in whether their applied arguments can stack, or “recurse.” Focusing primarily on Bantu languages, I argue that the availability of applicative recursion in a given language depends on abstract nominal licensing, in particular, on whether the applicative heads responsible for introducing applied arguments are nominal licensers. Applicative recursion therefore
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3/4 of a Monster: On Mixed Shifty Agreement in Telugu Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Troy Messick
Within the typology of embedded pronouns, there are languages that allow for non-first person pronouns to apparently control first person agreement morphology when in certain embedded contexts. This type of agreement displays some degree of optionality: it is also possible for the pronoun to control the expected agreement morphology given the pronoun’s own overt morphological features. This paper provides
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On the Syntax of Multiple Sluicing and What It Tells Us about Wh -Scope Taking Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Klaus Abels, Veneeta Dayal
Across many languages, multiple sluicing obeys a clausemate constraint. This can be understood on the empirically well-supported assumption that covert phrasal wh-movement is clause-bounded and subject to Superiority. We provide independent evidence for syntactic structure at the ellipsis site and for locality constraints on movement operations within the ellipsis site. The fact that the distribution
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Agreement Shift in Embedded Reports Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Dmitry Ganenkov
The article discusses person agreement in embedded reports in Aqusha Dargwa (Nakh-Daghestanian). In contrast to root clauses, which have obligatory person agreement matching the features of the controller, finite embedded reports allow pronoun-agreement mismatches, such as third person agreement in the presence of a first person singular subject or first person singular agreement in the presence of
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High and Low Applicatives of Unaccusatives: Dependent Case and the Phase Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Marcel den Dikken
The principal objective of this article is to establish a direct relationship between the structural height of the base position of the applied argument and the case and promotion-to-subject patterns observed in applicative constructions, with particular reference to applicatives of unaccusatives. The article achieves this through an approach exploiting dependent case, with the domains relevant for
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Quexistentials and Focus Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Kees Hengeveld, Sabine Iatridou, Floris Roelofsen
Many languages have words that can be interpreted either as question words or as existentials. We call such words quexistentials. It has been claimed in the literature (e.g., Haida 2007) that, across languages, quexistentials are (a) always focused on their interrogative interpretation and (b) never focused on their existential interpretation. We refer to this as the quexistential-focus biconditional
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Definiteness Effect in the PP Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Katalin É. Kiss
This article demonstrates that abessive PPs impose the same type of definiteness restriction on their complements that existential predicates impose on their subjects. The definiteness effect (DE) in PPs is accounted for in the framework of the DE theory of Szabolcsi (1986a,b, 1992), who derives the DE from the incompatibility of a presuppositional subject and a logical predicate of existence that
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Relativized Locality: Phases and Tiers in Long-Distance Allomorphy in Armenian Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Hossep Dolatian, Peter Guekguezian
Linguistic processes tend to respect locality constraints. In this article, we analyze the distribution of conjugation classes in Armenian verbs. We analyze a type of tense allomorphy that applies across these classes. We show that on the surface, this allomorphy is long-distance. Specifically, it is sensitive to the interaction of multiple morphemes that are neither linearly nor structurally adjacent
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The Argument/Adjunct Distinction Does Not Condition Islandhood of PPs in English Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-05-05 Andrew McInnerney
I argue that the well-known islandhood of adjunct prepositional phrases does not substantially derive from their adjuncthood. Instead, islandhood of these domains derives from various factors that are orthogonal to the argument/adjunct distinction, including PP-internal structure, lexical properties of prepositions, and semantico-pragmatic construal. To show this, I demonstrate that PP-islandhood cross-cuts
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Contiguity Theory and the Ordering of Contrastive Elements Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-04-27 Daiki Matsumoto
This paper examines the typology of the ordering of contrastive elements. It is shown first that languages including English, French, Italian, Japanese and Georgian ban a contrastively focused object from preceding a contrastive topic subject. It is further observed that among these languages, only English and French allow a contrastively focused subject to precede a contrastive topic object. In order
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Type-Restricted Argument Ellipsis and Generalized Quantifiers Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Idan Landau
Theories of argument ellipsis based on PF deletion or LF copying do not generate predictions regarding possible constraints on the semantic type of the elided argument. Yet such constraints obtain, as documented in Landau 2022: only type-e arguments can be targeted by argument ellipsis. Focusing on quantificational arguments here, I show that when they yield readings expressible by type-e denotations
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Supplements without Bidimensionalism Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Philippe Schlenker
In seminal work, Potts (2005) claimed that the behavior of “supplements”—appositive relative clauses (ARCs) and nominals—offers a powerful argument in favor of a multidimensional semantics, one in which certain expressions fail to interact scopally with various operators because their meaning is located in a new semantic dimension. Focusing on ARCs, with data from English, French, and German (Poschmann
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The Impersonal Use of German 1st Person Singular Ich Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Sarah Zobel
This article replies to Ackema and Neeleman’s (2018) claim that 1st person singular pronouns are grammatically blocked from having impersonal uses. In connection with this claim, they argue that the impersonal use of German 1st person singular ich described in Zobel 2014 does not exist. I show that Ackema and Neeleman’s alternative analysis of the German data analyzed in Zobel 2014 is flawed, and that
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Rapa Nui: A Case for Correspondence in Reduplication Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Yifan Yang
This squib argues for the role of correspondence in reduplication by examining the vowel length alternations in Rapa Nui reduplication. The analysis shows that vowel shortening in the base after reduplication is due to the enforcement of vowel length identity through Base-Reduplicant correspondence, while the motivation of vowel shortening is problematic for theories without surface-to-surface correspondence
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Probabilistic Feature Attention as an Alternative to Variables in Phonotactic Learning Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Brandon Prickett
Since Halle 1962, explicit algebraic variables (often called alpha notation) have been commonplace in phonological theory. However, Hayes and Wilson (2008) proposed a variable-free model of phonotactic learning, sparking a debate about whether such algebraic representations are necessary to capture human phonological acquisition. While past experimental work has found evidence that suggested a need
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Category Mismatches in Coordination Vindicated Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Agnieszka Patejuk, Adam Przepiórkowski
Bruening and Al Khalaf (2020) deny the possibility of coordination of unlike categories. They use three mechanisms to reanalyze such coordination as involving same categories: conjunction reduction, super-categories, and empty heads. We show that their proposal leaves many cases of unlike category coordination unaccounted for, and we point out various methodological, technical, and empirical problems
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Cyclic Selection: Auxiliaries Are Merged, Not Inserted Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Asia Pietraszko
Traditional approaches to verbal periphrasis (compound tenses) treat auxiliary verbs as lexical items that enter syntactic derivation like any other lexical item, via Selection/Merge. An alternative view is that auxiliary verbs are inserted into a previously built structure (e.g., Bach 1967, Arregi 2000, Embick 2000, Cowper 2010, Bjorkman 2011, Arregi and Klecha 2015). Arguments for the insertion approach
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The Interrogative Left Periphery: How a Clause Becomes a Question Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-17 Veneeta Dayal
This paper considers phenomena related to embedded interrogatives that do not fit the canonical profile of subordinate clauses. It focuses on restrictions on such noncanonical cases of subordination, here referred to as quasi-subordination, and makes the following claims. There are three points in the interrogative left periphery for building question meaning. The lowest point is CP, where interrogatives
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Selectional Violations in Coordination (A Response to Patejuk and Przepiórkowski to appear) Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-10 Benjamin Bruening
Bruening and Al Khalaf (2020) showed that selectional violations in coordination are extremely limited (there are exactly two) and exactly match those that are permitted in ellipsis and displacement. Patejuk and Przepiórkowski (to appear) criticize Bruening and Al Khalaf (2020) on numerous fronts. They do successfully show that conjuncts do not need to match in syntactic category, but their dismissal
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Locality in Exceptional Tagalog Ā-Extraction Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-03-10 Henrison Hsieh
This paper investigates Tagalog Ā-extraction, considering cases conforming with and cases violating the well-known Tagalog extraction restriction. A unified analysis is proposed using properties of the lower phase and ways this boundary can be circumvented. Two mechanisms are available for this purpose. First, arguments may escape the lower phase through independently attested operations. Second, the
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Incongruent Enjambments: The Case of Classical French Verse Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2023-01-23 François Dell, Romain Benini
In versified texts congruence is one facet of the concordance between the edges of metrical constituents and those of grammatical constituents. Congruence may be characterized roughly as the requirement that no element within a syntactic constituent be in a stronger metrical position than the final element in that constituent. If break strength is defined in terms applicable to any constituent structure
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Cyclic Expansion in Agree: Maximal Projections as Probes Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-22 Emily Clem
When we couple the cyclic expansion of a probe’s domain assumed in Cyclic Agree (Rezac 2003, 2004, Béjar and Rezac 2009) with the lack of formal distinction between heads, intermediate projections, and phrases emphasized in Bare Phrase Structure (Chomsky 1995a,b), an interesting prediction arises. Maximal projections should be able to probe through the same mechanisms that allow intermediate projections
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The Puzzle of Anaphoric Bare Nouns in Mandarin: A Counterpoint to Index! Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-22 Veneeta Dayal, Li Julie Jiang
Jenks (2018) argues that Mandarin bare NPs cannot be classified as definites simpliciter. Adopting the distinction between weak- and strong-article definites in Schwarz 2009, he proposes that Mandarin makes a lexical distinction between the two types of definites: bare nouns are weak definites, demonstratives are strong definites. He further proposes that their distribution is regulated by a principle
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Names, Light Nouns, and Countability Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-22 Friederike Moltmann
Making use of Kayne’s (2005, 2010) theory of light nouns, this article argues that light nouns are part of (simple) names and that a mass/count distinction among light nouns explains the behavior of certain types of names in German as mass rather than count. The article elaborates the role of light nouns with new generalizations regarding their linguistic behavior in quantificational and pronominal
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Communicative Stability and the Typology of Logical Operators Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Moshe E. Bar-Lev, Roni Katzir
The typology of the logical vocabulary in natural language is highly skewed. In the domain of logical connectives, AND and OR are often lexicalized, lexicalizations of NOR are less common and tend to be structurally complex, and no other logical connective is ever lexicalized. Existing accounts fail to fully derive this major crosslinguistic pattern, and moreover resort to otherwise unwarranted assumptions
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Binding and Anti-Cataphora in Mayan Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Justin Royer
This paper examines a puzzle pertaining to the distribution of covalued nominal expressions in two understudied Mayan languages, Chuj and Ch’ol. While Ch’ol behaves entirely as expected with regards to the binding conditions, Chuj appears to consistently tolerate violations of Condition C, often privileging linear precedence as the determining factor in the distribution of R-expressions and pronouns
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When VP-Ellipsis and Sluicing Conspire against Syntactic NEG Raising Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Yosuke Sato
In this squib, I will analyze a hitherto unnoticed interaction between VP-ellipsis and sluicing (TP-ellipsis) in English in which the VP-ellipsis site contains a certain positive propositional complement headed by a neg-raising predicate whereas the TP-ellipsis site instead denotes the negative counterpart of the exact same proposition, thereby yielding a mismatched-polarity interpretation between
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Reconciling “Heavy” and “Long”: The Typology of Lexical Geminates Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Nina Topintzi, Eva Zimmermann
After decades of research, opinions are still split as to whether geminates should be represented as long or as heavy. In this paper, we attempt to resolve this issue by entertaining a model that rests on the assumption that all underlying geminates are moraic consonants but they might not emerge as such on the surface. We argue that this intuition—due to Davis (2011)—can be formalized in a theoretical
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Still Free to Have a Wh-Phrase: A Reply to Donati, Foppolo, Konrad, and Cecchetto (2022) Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-12-08 Ivano Caponigro
Donati et al. (2022) aim at supporting the theoretical and empirical claims in Donati and Cecchetto 2011 about the grammar and free relative clauses by responding to the new data and criticism presented in Caponigro 2019. I critically examine the data and arguments in Donati et al. 2022, provide new data and arguments against the core theoretical proposal and the analyses advanced in Donati and Cecchetto
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Case in Wholesale Late Merger: Evidence from Mongolian Scrambling Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-11-15 Zhiyu Mia Gong
Takahashi and Hulsey (2009) suggest that wholesale late merger is controlled by case. This paper presents novel evidence for this idea from Condition C reconstruction effects in Mongolian local and long distance scrambling. Departing from previous accounts, I argue that the complexity of the phenomenon reveals that Condition C connectivity is neither related to the position of underlying binders, nor
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On Trees Blocking Roads and Cameras Recording Burglars: An Experimental Comparison of the Availability of Inverse Scope in English and German Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-11-08 Mareike Philipp, Malte Zimmermann
We present two off-line experiments on the interpretation of doubly quantified sentences with existential subject and universal object in German and English, which have been reported to allow for inverse readings only in English. We show for this specific syntactic configuration that there is no categorical cross-linguistic difference, but only a gradual one, with English more readily allowing for
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To Be or Not to Be? Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-11-04 Sophie Hardie, Elena Titov
This squib accounts for the inconsistencies in the occurrence of GenNeg with the Russian verb byt’ ‘to be’ and other genitive verbs by distinguishing two independent lexical entries for byt’ with a specified location with differing syntactic and semantic characteristics. One is predicative/argument-taking, while the other is the copula in a copular construction with a locational prepositional predicate
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Using Computational Models to Test Syntactic Learnability Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Ethan Gotlieb Wilcox, Richard Futrell, Roger Levy
We study the learnability of English filler–gap dependencies and the “island” constraints on them by assessing the generalizations made by autoregressive (incremental) language models that use deep learning to predict the next word given preceding context. Using factorial tests inspired by experimental psycholinguistics, we find that models acquire not only the basic contingency between fillers and
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More on (the Lack of) Reconstruction in English Tough-Constructions Linguistic Inquiry (IF 1.549) Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Ethan Poole, Jon Ander Mendia, Stefan Keine
This squib presents three new arguments that the matrix subject in English tough-constructions cannot reconstruct into the embedded gap. The first two arguments reexamine data in the literature purported to show such reconstruction. Upon closer scrutiny, we argue that these data in fact involve short reconstruction below a modal or generic operator in the matrix clause, and not genuine long reconstruction