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Non-agreeing degree constructions Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-06-04 Jon Ander Mendia, M.Teresa Espinal
This paper deals with a construction, which we dub Non-Agreeing Degree (NAD) constructions, with the distinguishing property that the agreement pattern between subjects and degree predicates is optionally disrupted, even in languages (like Spanish) where verbs commonly agree with their subjects. We show that the agreeing versus non-agreeing alternation comes with important semantic differences for
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A pragmatics-cognitive approach to the opposition relations lexicalized in Chinese Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Baiyao Zuo
Contrast, adversative and corrective can all be represented by er in Classical Chinese, but they are lexicalized respectively by er, danshi and ershi in Modern Chinese. The two lexicalization systems suggest that the opposition relations have commonalities as well as differences. In the framework of relevance theory and ‘three domains’, this study argues that the three opposition relations are in different
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Processing and production of affixes in Georgian and English: Testing a processing account of the suffixing preference Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Alice C. Harris, Arthur G. Samuel
The hypothesis that affixes following a stem are easier to process than ones preceding has not been tested in a straightforward manner in any language, as far as we know. Cutler, Hawkins & Gilligan (1985) and Hawkins & Cutler (1988) adduce some evidence that supports this hypothesis indirectly, but they do not conduct experiments to test it directly. They use this hypothesis to explain in part the
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Processing and production of clitics in Udi and European Portuguese: Testing a processing account of an extension of the suffixing preference Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Alice C. Harris, Arthur G. Samuel
In our paper testing the Cutler–Hawkins hypothesis that suffixes are easier to process than prefixes (Harris & Samuel 2025), we report little experimental support for the hypothesis. Several sources treat clitics as being similar to affixes (e.g. Himmelmann 2014, Asao 2015), and some argue that there is a parallel preference for enclitics over proclitics (Cysouw 2005, Dryer 2017). On this basis, we
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Opaque morphology and phonology: Historical prefixes in English Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Quentin Dabouis, Jean-Michel Fournier
In most of the literature on English phonology, historically prefixed words such as contain, respect or submit are seen as having no morphological structure synchronically. However, such words were treated as complex in the early generative literature and are still analysed in that way in part of the literature. In this paper, we seek to review the evidence for the claim that such words are simplex
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Stress in French loanwords in British and American English Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Quentin Dabouis, Pierre Fournier
This paper presents a dictionary-based study of French loanwords in contemporary English in order to investigate the location of primary stress in these loanwords. Four factors are found to be significant predictors of the position of primary stress: endings, word complexity, the segmental structure of the final syllable, and syllable count. Moreover, this study confirms previous observations on the
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Separability of dependents from VP in English: Beyond the argument/adjunct distinction Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-19 Andrew McInnerney
This paper considers the traditional idea about English that syntactic operations targeting Verb Phrase (VP), including do so-anaphora, do what-pseudoclefting and VP-fronting, can separate adjuncts but not arguments from the VP. I argue that, in each case, the argument/adjunct distinction (A/AD) makes incorrect predictions and that the behavior of verbal dependents is more accurately explained without
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Mutation, allomorphy and Galician clitics Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-12 Itamar Kastner
The Galician definite article and direct object clitics exhibit allomorphy-like alternations which raise a number of questions for the morphology-phonology interface. This squib highlights inadequacies of allomorphic approaches to these alternations, outlining a novel way forward in which segmental changes apply to a stem in a fashion reminiscent of Celtic mutation. Differences between the article
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Chinese copy raising and its implications for predication Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Hsiao-Hung Iris Wu
This study examines the copy raising constructions in Chinese and proposes an integrated analysis built on the insights of the prominent proposals from recent years. It argues that the matrix subject in Chinese copy raising is base-generated and requires a coindexed copy in the complement. Though concurring with Landau’s (2011) predication theory that recognizes theta assignment and predication as
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Theme-vowel minimal pairs show argument structure alternations Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Predrag Kovačević, Stefan Milosavljević, Marko Simonović
This paper investigates correlations between theme vowels and argument structure in Serbo-Croatian. Specifically, we focus on two different theme vowels, -i- and -ova-, isolating ‘minimal pairs’, that is cases where the same base combines with the two theme vowels to derive different verbs. Starting from two online corpora of Serbo-Croatian, we created a comprehensive list of -i-/-ova- minimal pairs
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Intransparent-Gap Relatives in Japanese Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Tohru Seraku
In the present article, we describe what we call Intransparent-Gap Relatives (IGRs) in Japanese. In IGRs, a gap is located within the relative clause, and the head noun appears outside the relative clause. Unlike the standard head-external relatives, the gap in IGRs is not transparently associated with the head noun, but they are mediated through a metonymic relation. We propose a formal account of
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Processing dissociations between raising and control in Brazilian Portuguese Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Doug Merchant, Timothy Gupton
Generative approaches to syntactic control have traditionally viewed it as a distinct component of the grammar, one that governs the interpretation and distribution of the empty category (EC) PRO. However, the Movement Theory of Control (MTC) proposes that control should instead be conceived of as a form of raising, with both sentence types involving the EC DP/NP Trace. In addition to theoretical arguments
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Shift is derived Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-12 ANDREW LAMONT
Shift is an input–output mapping where a feature or autosegment loses its underlying associations and surfaces with different associations. In Harmonic Serialism, shift can either be analyzed as a multi-step process or a single-step process. While Gietz et al. (2023) argue for the latter, this paper refutes their arguments and provides evidence supporting a multi-step analysis of shift. Specifically
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Parsability revisited and reassessed Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Sergei Monakhov
This paper provides evidence that the inveterate way of assessing linguistic items’ degrees of analysability by calculating their derivation to base frequency ratios may obfuscate the difference between two meaning processing models: one based on the principle of compositionality and another on the principle of parsability. I propose to capture the difference between these models by estimating the
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Comprehending non-canonical and indirect speech acts in German Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-12-07 ANDREAS TROTZKE, LAURA REIMER
In this paper, we compare the comprehension of the speech act meaning of non-canonical speech acts (i.e., rhetorical questions and surprise-disapproval questions) with the comprehension of indirect speech acts (i.e., indirect requests). Both speech act types are ‘mixed’ in the sense that they involve secondary and primary illocutionary forces, but our hypothesis is that they differ in their degree
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Non-canonical questions at the syntax-prosody interface Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-11-28 AGNÈS CELLE, MAUD PÉLISSIER
This special issue is dedicated to the syntax-prosody interface in non-canonical questions and originated in the international workshop Non-Canonical Questions at the Syntax-Prosody Interface, organised at the Université Paris Cité and held online in November 2020. Recent research has demonstrated that the phonology-syntax relation cannot solely account for prosodic structure, prosody being closely
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Distributive numerals in Albanian Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 BUJAR RUSHITI, CARMEN DOBROVIE-SORIN
This paper investigates nga-marked numerals in Albanian. They qualify as distributive numerals, since the presence of nga on the numeral yields a distributive reading of the sentences they belong to. Beyond their differences, most of the previous accounts rely on the hypothesis that distributive numerals introduce some kind of semantic feature, e.g. a covariation feature; an evaluation plurality requirement
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L’é ciaro che se dise cusì. On Change in the System of Expletive Subject Clitics in Opitergino Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 CHIARA ZANINI, GRETA BATTISTELLA, FRANCESCO GARDANI
Expletive subject clitics (ESCs) are pronominal elements that occur in impersonal contexts with which no individual reference is associated. Their presence strikingly distinguishes northern Italo-Romance varieties from standard Italian. We target this structural incongruence by studying the occurrence of ESCs in present-day Opitergino, a virtually unstudied Venetan variety. We explore the question
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Gender marking in the first-person singular: A case of paradigm (in)consistency Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-09-06 THOMAS BERG
Since the sex of the speaker is normally as obvious as can be, there is no point in coding first-person singular gender – or so it may seem. This typological study examines the extent of sex-based gender marking in personal pronouns, possessive determiners, predicative adjectives, and verbs across first-, second-, and third-person singular. A worldwide perusal of grammars in addition to data elicitation
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On the status of NCIs: An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-08-25 M. TERESA ESPINAL, ELOI PUIG-MAYENCO, URTZI ETXEBERRIA, SUSAGNA TUBAU
This paper investigates the status of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) in three so-called Strict Negative Concord (NC) languages (namely, Greek, Romanian, and Russian). An experimental study was designed to gather evidence concerning the speakers’ acceptability and interpretation of sequences with argumental NCIs in subject, object, and both positions when dhen/nu/ne were not present. Our results show
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A new approach to Negative Concord: Catalan as a case in point Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-08-25 SUSAGNA TUBAU, URTZI ETXEBERRIA, M. TERESA ESPINAL
In this paper, we revisit the phenomenon of Negative Concord focusing on the Strict vs. Non-Strict divide. With Catalan as a case in point, we show that Negative Concord Items (NCIs) are not negative quantifiers (NQs) or polarity items (PIs) but inherently negative indefinites by virtue of carrying a negative feature [neg] that contributes a negative semantics to the proposition and is subject to a
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The dual face of structural object case: on Lithuanian genitive of negation Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-26 EINAR FREYR SIGURÐSSON, MILENA ŠEREIKAITĖ
We analyze genitive of negation (GN) in Lithuanian. When the verb is negated, GN is realized on an object that would otherwise be realized as accusative. We demonstrate that Lithuanian GN is a syntactic (in line with Arkadiev 2016) and morphological phenomenon in contrast to Russian GN, whose realization is influenced by semantic factors (e.g. Kagan 2013). It differs from Russian (Pesetsky 1982) in
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Internally caused change as change by inner predisposition: Comparative evidence from Romance Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-05-30 DELIA BENTLEY
This article investigates the morphosyntax of verbs of internally caused scalar change and the main facets of their meaning. Availing ourselves of primary evidence from Italian, French, and Spanish corpora, we argue that the verbs under scrutiny divide into three subclasses whose common denominator is that they encode ‘change by inner predisposition’ or change that is possible because of inherent propensities
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Modal raising and focus marking in Chinese Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-05-29 YU-YIN HSU
This paper presents several new empirical observations regarding some interpretive effects and structural restrictions of modals that occur in sentence-initial positions in Chinese. It provides a new analysis of sentence-initial modal sentences in terms of the overt head-movement of a modal to the sentence periphery to value strong focus features and to focus-mark either the proposition or the subject
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Attack of the snowclones: A corpus-based analysis of extravagant formulaic patterns Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-04-14 STEFAN HARTMANN, TOBIAS UNGERER
The concept of ‘snowclones’ has gained interest in recent research on linguistic creativity and in studies of extravagance and expressiveness in language. However, no clear criteria for identifying snowclones have yet been established, and detailed corpus-based investigations of the phenomenon are still lacking. This paper addresses this research gap in a twofold way. On the one hand, we develop an
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The syntactic flexibility of German and English idioms: Evidence from acceptability rating experiments Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-04-14 MARTA WIERZBA, J.M.M. BROWN, GISBERT FANSELOW
It is controversial which idioms can occur with which syntactic structures. For example, can Mary kicked the bucket (figurative meaning: ‘Mary died’) be passivized to The bucket was kicked by Mary? We present a series of experiments in which we test which structures are compatible with which idioms in German (for which there are few experimental data so far) and English, using acceptability judgments
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Directional serial verb constructions in Mandarin – a neo-constructionist approach Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-04-05 ZHISHUANG CHEN
This paper develops Ramchand’s first phase syntax theory by investigating the Mandarin directional serial verb construction. Specifically, the position of the theme argument in these constructions is investigated, and two major word order variants are identified: the VOV type and the VVO type. The former are argued to be accomplishments, whereas the latter are achievements. The analysis embraces Ramchand’s
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Viewpointed morphology: A unified account of Spanish verb-complement compounds as fictive interaction structures Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-17 ESTHER PASCUAL, BÁRBARA MARQUETA GRACIA
Spanish verb-complement (VC) compounds, one of the most common compound types in Spanish, raise interesting questions, because they are inflected, prototypically containing a verb in the third-person singular of the present indicative. This complexity seems paradoxical, given the strong restrictions of Romance languages on word compounding. Based on a self-compiled corpus of over 1,400 VC compounds
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The prosody of surprise questions in Estonian Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-13 EVA LIINA ASU, HEETE SAHKAI, PÄRTEL LIPPUS
This paper examines the role of prosody in a little-studied type of non-canonical questions: syntactically and lexically canonical interrogative sentences that have been uttered by the speaker in order to express surprise. The study compares Estonian surprise questions with string-identical information-seeking questions elicited by means of context descriptions. The materials comprise 1,008 utterances
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Fluctuations in allomorphy domains: Applying Stump 2010 to Armenian ordinal numerals Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-09 HOSSEP DOLATIAN
Numerals and ordinals occupy a special place in the typology of suppletion. In generative work, one basic cross-linguistic parameter is whether ordinal allomorphy displays internal vs. external marking. Internal marking is when irregular forms propagate from lower ordinals to higher ones (English ‘first’ $ \to $ ‘twenty-first’), whereas external marking is the lack of propagation. We catalog ordinal
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Bundling telicity, verbal quantification, and perfective aspect: A study on lǝ in Yixing Chinese Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-06 XUHUI HU
This paper investigates the properties of a particle, 1ǝ, in Yixing Chinese that invariably denotes telic reading, obligatorily fronts definite and bare NP objects to the topic position, and imposes past event reading in most situations. It is argued that 1ǝ is a functional item bearing a quantity feature in the sense of Borer (2005b) and is hence responsible for telicity. Following Partee et al. (1987)
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Bidirectional grammaticalization: Chinese modal and conditional Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-02 YUEH HSIN KUO
Using a constructional approach to morphosyntax, this study describes a triclausal construction (a type of anankastic conditional construction) and related constructions in the history of Chinese. It demonstrates that the triclausal construction constitutes a context of morphosyntactic vagueness where category boundaries between modals and conditional protasis connectives are underdetermined; consequently
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Voice mismatch and contrast in French Right-Node Raising Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-13 ANNE ABEILLÉ, AOI SHIRAISHI, BARBARA HEMFORTH
Right-Node Raising is generally considered to impose stricter identity conditions than other kinds of ellipsis, such as VP ellipsis, according to Hankamer & Sag 1976 and Hardt 1993. In this paper, we investigate voice mismatch in French Right-Node Raising (RNR) through a corpus study and two experiments. We show that RNR with voice mismatch can be found in a written corpus (frTenTen 2012) and that
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Information structural effects in processing contrastive ellipsis: Eye-tracking evidence from a flexible word order language Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-03 MARJU KAPS
Previous experimental work on the processing of clausal ellipsis with contrastive remnants shows a Locality preference – DP remnants are preferentially paired with the most recently encountered DP correlate in the antecedent clause, even in the presence of contrastive prosody or semantic bias favouring a non-local correlate. The Locality effect has been argued to arise from the language processor consulting
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Intonation correlates of canonical and non-canonical wh-in-situ questions in Spanish Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-01-16 CAROLINA GONZÁLEZ, LARA REGLERO
This project investigates the intonation of canonical (information-seeking) and non-canonical wh-in-situ echo questions conveying repetition and surprise in Northern Peninsular Spanish. Data from 14 female participants were collected via a contextualised elicitation task. The following correlates were examined: (i) the melodic curve of the wh-in-situ question, (ii) the nuclear peak (in Hz), (iii) the
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Introduction to the special issue Experimental and Corpus-based Approaches to Ellipsis Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-01-13 GABRIELA BÎLBÎIE, JOANNA NYKIEL
Ellipsis has been, and continues to be, of both theoretical and empirical interest. It affects the syntax of phrases or clauses by stranding their various constituents but keeps the semantics of the stranded constituents identical to that of their non-elliptical counterparts. The theoretical value of ellipsis lies, therefore, in the relationship between meaning and form that it encodes, such that a
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Oblique complements in Estonian: A corpus perspective Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-01-12 MARI AIGRO, VIRVE-ANNELI VIHMAN
This study focuses on Estonian verb-complement structures, which include oblique (non-canonically marked) complements marked in spatial cases. Not all approaches agree on whether canonical arguments and oblique complements have argument status of the same type, but they do mostly agree that the two types of complement markings are used by different types of verbs. First, oblique case is viewed as always
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The intricate inflectional relationships underpinning morphological analogy Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-12-27 LOUISE ESHER
In Gévaudan varieties of Occitan (Gallo-Romance), exceptionless syncretism between preterite and imperfect subjunctive forms arises in the first and second person plural (e.g. faguessiám [faɡeˈsjɔn] ‘do.pret/ipf.sbjv.1pl’, faguessiatz [faɡeˈsjat] ‘do.pret/ipf.sbjv.2pl’). Reconstructing the historical emergence of this syncretism pattern reveals that it is crucially dependent on multiple and diverse
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Factivity and complementizer omission in English embedded gapping Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 GABRIELA BÎLBÎIE, ISRAEL DE LA FUENTE, ANNE ABEILLÉ
Taking as a starting point the variation in introspective judgments on embedded gapping in English in the literature, the main goal of this paper is to test the ‘No Embedding Constraint’ experimentally. Building on a first experimental study designed to measure the interaction between that-omission and factivity in English embedded complement clauses, we conducted two experiments testing the role of
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Recomplementation as a paratactic phenomenon: Evidence from Spanish and English Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 JULIO VILLA-GARCÍA, DENNIS OTT
We provide a variety of empirical arguments in favor of a paratactic account of recomplementation constructions, in which a left-dislocated element appears in between two complementizers. Contrary to integrated analyses assuming Complementizer Phrase (CP) recursion or Rizzi’s split periphery, we assume that the dislocated phrase is structurally independent from the embedded clause it precedes, which
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Metrical Strength in Persian Poetic Metres Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-12-12 MOHSEN MAHDAVI MAZDEH
In determining the metrical structure of quantitative poetic metres, heavy (i.e. long) syllables are usually associated with metrically strong positions. In this study, examining the case of Persian metres, I argue that the metres must be treated as temporal patterns in music, where research on rhythm perception has shown that the metrical strength of an event is not directly determined by the inter-onset
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Clause type vs speech act: Knowledge confirmation questions in Basque Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-12-01 AITOR LIZARDI ITUARTE
This article analyzes Knowledge Confirmation Questions (KCQ) in Basque, an instance of non-canonical questions that has not been analyzed yet. KCQs display three characteristic elements, namely, (i) a declarative-type syntax, (ii) an interrogative-like intonation, and (iii) the discourse particle ba; and are interpreted as follows: “Do you know that p?”. Here, I propose that the meaning contribution
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Clause types, intonation and stranded embedded clauses Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-11-24 DUK-HO AN
In this paper, I examine the properties of a construction in Korean speech that has not received much attention in the literature. I refer to the construction in question as the ‘stranded embedded clause’ (SEC). SECs are a special type of echoed utterance, where an utterance in the form of an embedded clause is repeated for various reasons. The characteristic properties of the SEC involve the fact
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Formalising phonological perception: The role of voicing assimilation in consonant cluster perception in Emilian dialects Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-11-24 EDOARDO CAVIRANI, SILKE HAMANN
Speech perception is influenced by language-specific phonological knowledge. While phonotactics has long been established to play a role, the study of how phonological alternations influence perception is still in its infancy. In this paper, we make a case for the latter by investigating the role of regressive voicing assimilation (RVA) in the perception of obstruent clusters in Emilian dialects of
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Onset conspiracy in Upper Sorbian Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-11-02 JERZY RUBACH
This article has two goals: descriptive and theoretical. On the descriptive side, the article presents a grammar of gliding and epenthesis of Upper Sorbian. The descriptive goal is worthy because Upper Sorbian has a highly complex but regular and productive system of gliding and epenthesis. Upper Sorbian stands out from a typological point of view because it has ten [sic] different strategies to satisfy
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Case and agreement as contextually manipulable properties of functional heads Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 MATTHEW TYLER
Some recent work has argued that agreement and case-assignment dependencies between a functional head and a nearby NP are not part of the syntactic derivation proper, but take place in the postsyntactic, morphological component of the grammar. I argue that this view is correct, by showing that one of its largely unexplored predictions has real empirical payout. The prediction is that the dependency-forming
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Filler–gap dependencies and the remnant–correlate dependency in backward sprouting: Sensitivity to distance and islands Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-08-30 DUK-HO JUNG, GRANT GOODALL
The relationship between the wh-remnant and the null correlate in the type of ellipsis known as backward sprouting is superficially almost identical to the relation between a wh-filler and a gap in a wh-question. In both cases, there is a dependency between the wh-phrase and a later null element. We conduct a sentence acceptability experiment to test whether the remnant–correlate dependency in backward
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A gradualist view of word meaning in language acquisition and language use Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-08-02 EVE V. CLARK
For both children and adults, communicating with each other effectively depends on having enough knowledge about particular entities, actions, or relations to understand and produce the words being used. Speakers draw on conventional meanings shared with their interlocutors, but do they share every detail of word meaning? They need not have identical, or fully specified, representations for the meanings
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The interaction of discourse markers and prosody in rhetorical questions in German Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-07-13 NICOLE DEHÉ, DANIELA WOCHNER, MARIEKE EINFELDT
Recent research has shown that rhetorical questions (RQs) have certain prosodic characteristics in terms of voice quality, tempo, and intonation, which distinguish them from genuine, information-seeking questions (ISQs). This paper focuses on the interaction between prosodic cues to rhetorical meaning on the one hand, and lexical and morpho-syntactic means, on the other, in German. The production experiment
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All TRs are not created equal – L1 and L2 perception of English cluster affrication Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-06-08 GEOFFREY SCHWARTZ
This paper describes a perception experiment with L1 Polish and L1 English listeners on the affrication of initial English /tr/ and /dr/ (TR) consonant clusters. The goal was to test phonological predictions formulated within the Onset Prominence (OP) framework. OP offers two distinct structural configurations for representing rising sonority onset clusters. One predicts synchronous cluster articulation
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Aggressively non-D-linked construction and ellipsis: A Direct Interpretation approach Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-06-03 JUNGSOO KIM, JONG-BOK KIM
The so-called aggressively non-D-linked construction (ANDC) involving wh-the-hell phrases like what the hell is of empirical and theoretical interest due to its complex morphosyntactic and semantic/pragmatic properties. This paper focuses on the construction in general as well as in ellipsis phenomena. We first explore its grammatical properties on the basis of attested corpus data and show that the
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Palatalisation can be quantity-sensitive: Dorsal Fricative Assimilation in Liverpool English Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 AMANDA CARDOSO, PATRICK HONEYBONE
This paper shows that the Liverpool English dorsal fricative, derived through the lenition of /k/, is subject to place of articulation assimilation, driven by the preceding vowel. This is similar to the vowel-driven aspects of typical perseverative Dorsal Fricative Assimilation (a type of palatalisation), as found, for example, in the German ich-Laut~ach-Laut alternation, where (among other things)
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Existential indefinite constructions, in the world and in Mainland Southeast Asia Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-05-13 JOHAN VAN DER AUWERA, QUAN NGUYEN HAI, VIPAS POTHIPATH, STEFANIE SIEBENHÜTTER
In some languages assertions about ‘somebody’ or ‘nobody’ are existential in a strong sense, i.e. they need or prominently allow an explicit syntactic marker of existence (‘there is’, ‘exist’). This paper presents a state-of-the-art typology of existential indefinite constructions and finds the typological understanding to be inconclusive in many respects. The paper responds to this inconclusiveness
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Romance pronominal clitics as pure heads Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-05-10 MARIA RITA MANZINI
Romance clitics are currently accounted for as DP arguments moved to functional head positions or as functional heads (AccVoice, etc.) licensing pro-DPs in argument position. I take the view that clitics are first merged as heads, projecting independently motivated categories on the functional spine of the sentence (φP, ApplP). I argue that they can satisfy theta relations without need for a pro associate
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Affixal rivalry and its purely semantic resolution among English derived adjectives Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-05-10 AKIKO NAGANO
This paper aims to fill in a long missing piece in the paradigmatic word-formation research: a set of rival affixes whose members are differentiated in meaning. We argue that such a set can be found in English derivational adjectivalization, in the affixal rivalry between the adjectivalizing suffixes -ed and -y. Using the traditional method of doublet comparison (Aronoff 1976, 2020), we reveal that
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When information structure exploits syntax: The relation between the loss of VO and scrambling in Dutch Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-05-06 TARA STRUIK, GERT-JAN SCHOENMAKERS
This paper addresses the relation between two types of word order variation in two stages of Dutch: OV/VO variation in historical Dutch and scrambling in present-day Dutch. Information structural considerations influence both types of word order variation, and we demonstrate by means of a comprehensive corpus study that they have a comparable pattern: given objects tend to appear earlier in the sentence
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Modelling non-specific linguistic variation in cognitive disorders Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-04-25 WOLFRAM HINZEN, MARTINA WILTSCHKO
Clinical linguistic diversity extends far beyond ‘specific language’ disorders, such as acquired aphasia or specific language impairment (SLI), to a large range of mental disorders that are not language-specific. As cognitive impairments are involved in the latter, models with an integrated approach to language and cognition can be useful for understanding and classifying the variation in question
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The Role of Word Recognition Factors and Lexical Stress in the Distribution of Consonants in Spanish, English and Dutch Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-04-11 D.P. VAN SOEREN
The distribution of labials and coronals within Spanish CVCVCV words and English and Dutch CVCVC words has been studied from a functional perspective and in fine detail. We argue that word recognition is key in the explanation of the results; as a word is pronounced, an increasing number of word candidates is eliminated, and consequently the beginning of the word has a higher communicative load than
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Telicization in Mandarin Chinese Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 QIANPING GU
This paper investigates aspectual meanings that resultative morphemes in Mandarin Chinese contribute to interpretations of the entire predicates, and in particular the culmination readings they bring out of the originally non-culminating accomplishments. Two resultative morphemes are studied: -wán and -diào. I argue that while both morphemes give rise to culmination readings, the culmination readings
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FOFC and what left-right asymmetries may tell us about syntactic structure building Journal of Linguistics (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-04-01 HEDDE ZEIJLSTRA
In this paper, I demonstrate that a well-known left-right asymmetry, Biberauer, Holmberg and Roberts’s (2014) Final-over-Final Condition (FOFC), which these authors claim follows from Kayne’s Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA), is actually better explained under a symmetric approach to syntactic structure building in tandem with the mechanism that underlies the constraints on rightward movement. Apart