- Pembroke College, Cambridge
Alice Corr
University of Birmingham, Modern Languages, Faculty Member
- Linguistics, Syntax, Ibero-Romance Linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Romance Languages, Asturian language, and 27 moreLlingua Asturiana, Galician language, Leonese, Syntax-Semantics Interface, Syntax-Pragmatics interface, Romance dialectology, Dialect syntax, Generative Syntax, Speech Act Phrase, Comparative Romance linguistics, Spanish Linguistics, Dialectology, Spanish, Catalan Language, Word order, Diachronic Linguistics (Or Historical Linguistics), Iberoromance, Generative linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Deixis, Spanish in contact with other languages, Galician Studies, Diachronic Syntax, Grammaticalization, Portuguese, Historical Syntax, and Discourseedit
- Drapers' Company Research Fellow and Director of Studies for Spanish (MML), Pembroke Collegeedit
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Research Interests: Cartography, Historical Linguistics, Language Variation and Change, Syntax, Formal syntax, and 14 moreSpanish Linguistics, Grammaticalization, Comparative Romance linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Language Change, Epistemic modality, Syntax-Pragmatics interface, Epistemicity, Portuguese Linguistics, Subjecthood, Catalan linguistics, Pragmaticalization and Grammaticalization, Expletives, and Ibero-Romance Linguistics
This paper explores the hypothesis that wide-focus subject-verb inversion in Ibero-Romance is a type of locative inversion, involving a null locative argument. Ibero-Romance displays fine-grained, systematic variation determined by verbal... more
This paper explores the hypothesis that wide-focus subject-verb inversion in Ibero-Romance is a type of locative inversion, involving a null locative argument. Ibero-Romance displays fine-grained, systematic variation determined by verbal class and variety, offering evidence that Ibero-Romance neutral word order is SVO, rather than VSO as claimed by some null-subject accounts. It is proposed that ‘locative’ subject-verb inversion is a consequence of grammatically-encoded deictic features correlating with the semantic properties of the verbs involved. The locative element, available unequally across Ibero-Romance, can surface in different positions in the left periphery, yielding the variation encountered. The data indicate that the licensing of these constructions depends neither on the null-subject parameter, since this type of inversion also occurs in non- and partial null-subject varieties, nor on the unaccusative/unergative division, though in both cases a degree of correspondence exists. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.85
Research Interests: Spanish, Portuguese, Syntax, Spanish Linguistics, Spanish language varieties, and 14 morePrepositions, Generative linguistics, Locatives, Asturian language, European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Generative grammar, Generative Syntax, Portuguese Linguistics, Locative Inversion, Prepositional Phrase, Null Subject Parameter, Null Subject, and Subject Inversion
This article analyses the function and distribution of the so-called “overt subject expletive” ello/ele/ell in certain non-standard Ibero-Romance varieties. Novel empirical facts are presented to illustrate the phenomenon’s heterogeneous... more
This article analyses the function and distribution of the so-called “overt subject expletive” ello/ele/ell in certain non-standard Ibero-Romance varieties. Novel empirical facts are presented to illustrate the phenomenon’s heterogeneous characterization, the present-day variation of which is argued to be explained by the different degrees of change undergone by the expletive element in each Ibero-Romance variety. The pragmatic import of today’s Iberian expletive resembles the semantic value of the oldest and most commonly attested examples of the phenomenon in the historical corpora used. This observation serves as the point of departure for the diachronic reconstruction of the element’s development from its proposed origin in epistemic contexts to the present day, where the alleged Iberian expletive exhibits both expletive and pragmatic characteristics even within the same variety.
En este artículo se analiza la función y distribución del llamado “sujeto expletivo visible” ello/ele/ell en ciertas variedades ibero-románicas no estándares. Se presentan nuevos datos empíricos con el fin de demostrar la caracterización heterogénea del fenómeno, cuya variación actual, según se argumenta, se ve explicada por los distintos grados de cambio sufridos por el elemento expletivo en cada variedad ibero-románica. La contribución pragmática del expletivo ibérico actual semeja el valor semántico de las pruebas empíricas más antiguas y más frecuentes del elemento en los corpus históricos consultados, observación que sirve de punto de partida para reconstruir la trayectoria diacrónica del elemento desde su propuesto origen en contextos impersonales y epistémicos hasta la actualidad, en que el presunto expletivo ibérico demuestra características tanto expletivas como pragmáticas incluso dentro de la misma variedad.
En este artículo se analiza la función y distribución del llamado “sujeto expletivo visible” ello/ele/ell en ciertas variedades ibero-románicas no estándares. Se presentan nuevos datos empíricos con el fin de demostrar la caracterización heterogénea del fenómeno, cuya variación actual, según se argumenta, se ve explicada por los distintos grados de cambio sufridos por el elemento expletivo en cada variedad ibero-románica. La contribución pragmática del expletivo ibérico actual semeja el valor semántico de las pruebas empíricas más antiguas y más frecuentes del elemento en los corpus históricos consultados, observación que sirve de punto de partida para reconstruir la trayectoria diacrónica del elemento desde su propuesto origen en contextos impersonales y epistémicos hasta la actualidad, en que el presunto expletivo ibérico demuestra características tanto expletivas como pragmáticas incluso dentro de la misma variedad.
Research Interests: Catalan Language, Dialectology, Romance philology, Syntax, Romance historical syntax, and 23 moreComparative Romance linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Portuguese Language, Generative linguistics, Diachronic Syntax, Iberoromance, Gramática Histórica Del Español; Sintaxis Histórica, Dialect syntax, Generative grammar, Generative Syntax, Portuguese Linguistics, Gramàtica Espanola, Catalan linguistics, Syntax, Historical Linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Linguística Portuguesa, Sintaxis, Syntax of Romance Languages, Romance Linguistics (Syntax, Lingüística catalana, Spanish Dialectology, Ibero-Romance Linguistics, Gramatica Historica Espanola, and diachronic Romance syntax
This paper examines the present-day characterisation and historical development of non-referential uses of the pronoun ello/ele/ell (ELLO) in certain Ibero-Romance varieties. Since overt expletives are predicted to be incompatible with... more
This paper examines the present-day characterisation and historical development of non-referential uses of the pronoun ello/ele/ell (ELLO) in certain Ibero-Romance varieties. Since overt expletives are predicted to be incompatible with referential null subjects, the appearance of ELLO in an apparently expletive position and function is typologically anomalous with respect to the null subject parameter as traditionally conceived. Recent treatment in the literature places ELLO in the C-domain, and exceptionally in SpecTP. However, existing accounts tend to assume a unified characterisation across varieties for what we claim is actually a heterogeneous phenomenon. Novel empirical data show that ELLO displays both expletive-like and discourse-oriented properties even within the same variety, targeting different structural positions cross-dialectally. Today’s variation is argued to be an effect of ELLO reaching different stages of grammaticalisation across varieties, originating from its usage in impersonal epistemic contexts. We may therefore wish to revise our typology of expletives so as to encompass a more nuanced range of parametric values.
Research Interests: Philology, Cartography, Historical Linguistics, Catalan Language, Dialectology, and 14 moreRomance philology, Syntax, Spanish Linguistics, Iberoromance, Portuguese Dialectology, Dialect syntax, Generative Syntax, Portuguese Linguistics, Catalan linguistics, Historia del español, Dialectología española, Dialectología, Expletives, Portuguese dialect syntax, and Ibero-Romance Linguistics
Research Interests: Diachronic Linguistics (Or Historical Linguistics), Spanish, Dialectology, Romance philology, Syntax, and 13 moreSpanish Linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Spanish philology, Dominican Republic, Diachronic Syntax, Dialect syntax, Republica Dominicana, Spanish Syntax, Romance dialectology, Sintaxis, Syntax of Romance Languages, Dominican Spanish, and Ibero-Romance Linguistics
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Research Interests: Syntax, Spanish Linguistics, Hispanic Linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Evidentiality, and 12 moreSemantics and Pragmatics of Quotation, Left Periphery, Quotations, Clausal Left Periphery, Portuguese Linguistics, Catalan linguistics, Syntax of Romance Languages, Clause Types, Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics, Ibero-Romance Linguistics, Presentative Constructions, and Ibero-Romance
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Research Interests: Cartography, Languages and Linguistics, Contact Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Spanish, and 19 morePortuguese, Historical Syntax, Syntax/Semantics, Syntax, Romance historical syntax, Morphosyntax, Spanish Linguistics, Syntax-Semantics Interface, Romance Linguistics, Morphology and Syntax, Comparative Syntax, Reduplication, Portuguese Linguistics, Distributivity, Numerals, Syntax of Romance Languages, Ibero-Romance Linguistics, Old Ibero-Romance, and Ibero-Romance
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Research Interests: Historical Linguistics, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician Studies, Romance philology, and 24 moreSyntax, Romance historical syntax, Spanish Linguistics, Hispanic Linguistics, Syntax-Semantics Interface, Romance Linguistics, Medieval Romance, Romance Languages, Galician language, Iberoromance, Galician dialectology, Portuguese Linguistics, Filología Hispánica, Filologia romanza, Galego in Galicia; evolution of Galego throughout the diaspora., Complementizer Phrase, Galego, Galician-Portuguese Lyric Poetry, Galician-Portuguese Language, Complementizers, Filologia Galego-portoghese, Historical Linguistics (Indo-European and Romance), Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics, and Ibero-Romance Linguistics
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Research Interests: Diachronic Linguistics (Or Historical Linguistics), Historical Linguistics, Romance philology, Syntax, Grammaticalization, and 8 moreSyntax-Semantics Interface, Comparative Romance linguistics, Romance Linguistics, Pragmaticalisation, Diachronic Syntax, Epistemic modality, Pragmaticalization and Grammaticalization, and Subjectification
The relatively rare Iberian expletive 'ello' can be found across modern Spanish varieties from Argentina, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Puerto Rico, USA to Venezuela, in both formal and informal contexts. Since overt expletives are... more
The relatively rare Iberian expletive 'ello' can be found across modern Spanish varieties from Argentina, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Puerto Rico, USA to Venezuela, in both formal and informal contexts. Since overt expletives are predicted to be incompatible in languages with null referential subjects (Rizzi 1982, 1986), the presence of a seemingly non-referential ello (henceforth ELLO, to differentiate it from its referential counterpart) in an apparently expletive position and function in certain non-standard Spanish and other Ibero-Romance varieties appears to contravene our knowledge of Romance typology and understanding of the null-subject parameter (Biberauer et al 2010, Camacho 2013a).
Recent work (Silva-Villar 1998; Carrilho 2005, 2008; Hinzelin & Kaiser 2006; Camacho 2013b) typically adopts a left-peripheral analysis of ELLO; some postulate a TP-expletive analysis for Dominican Spanish (Martínez-Sanz & Toribio 2008; Martínez-Sanz 2011; Camacho 2013a; Muñoz Pérez 2014). However, the problem with previous accounts is that they tend to offer a homogeneous characterisation for what, when cross-dialectal data is considered, appears to be a heterogeneous phenomenon. I argue that modern-day ELLO demonstrates both expletive-like and discourse-related properties even within the same variety, and that an analysis locating ELLO in a low CP position (viz. Fin) within the fine structure of the left-periphery (Rizzi 1997) is more appropriate.
Using comparative evidence from other Ibero-Romance varieties as well as diachronic data found in historical Spanish texts from both the New and Old Worlds, I demonstrate that – contrary to previous hypotheses (Henríquez-Ureña 1939, Bartra-Kaufmann 2011, Gupton & Lowman 2013) – modern-day ELLO has an unexpected origin in epistemic impersonal constructions from the 15th century onwards, specialising in function and extending into other contexts through the processes of grammaticalization/pragmaticization and analogy. Starting life as a referential subject pronoun, it develops into a pragmatic marker of (epistemic) value, from which the modern heterogeneous characterisation of ELLO across different varieties – both within Spanish and more widely across other Ibero-Romance varieties – is derived. As such, the grammaticalization of ELLO reflects the leftward progression up through the clausal architecture as predicted by, amongst others, Roberts & Roussou (2003); van Gelderen (2004); Roberts (2010, 2011).
Recent work (Silva-Villar 1998; Carrilho 2005, 2008; Hinzelin & Kaiser 2006; Camacho 2013b) typically adopts a left-peripheral analysis of ELLO; some postulate a TP-expletive analysis for Dominican Spanish (Martínez-Sanz & Toribio 2008; Martínez-Sanz 2011; Camacho 2013a; Muñoz Pérez 2014). However, the problem with previous accounts is that they tend to offer a homogeneous characterisation for what, when cross-dialectal data is considered, appears to be a heterogeneous phenomenon. I argue that modern-day ELLO demonstrates both expletive-like and discourse-related properties even within the same variety, and that an analysis locating ELLO in a low CP position (viz. Fin) within the fine structure of the left-periphery (Rizzi 1997) is more appropriate.
Using comparative evidence from other Ibero-Romance varieties as well as diachronic data found in historical Spanish texts from both the New and Old Worlds, I demonstrate that – contrary to previous hypotheses (Henríquez-Ureña 1939, Bartra-Kaufmann 2011, Gupton & Lowman 2013) – modern-day ELLO has an unexpected origin in epistemic impersonal constructions from the 15th century onwards, specialising in function and extending into other contexts through the processes of grammaticalization/pragmaticization and analogy. Starting life as a referential subject pronoun, it develops into a pragmatic marker of (epistemic) value, from which the modern heterogeneous characterisation of ELLO across different varieties – both within Spanish and more widely across other Ibero-Romance varieties – is derived. As such, the grammaticalization of ELLO reflects the leftward progression up through the clausal architecture as predicted by, amongst others, Roberts & Roussou (2003); van Gelderen (2004); Roberts (2010, 2011).
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This presentation summarises the results of my recent study into the licensing of wide-focus subject- verb inversion in Ibero-Romance (namely, Asturian, European and Brazilian Portuguese, and Peninsular, Mexican and Rioplatense Spanish),... more
This presentation summarises the results of my recent study into the licensing of wide-focus subject- verb inversion in Ibero-Romance (namely, Asturian, European and Brazilian Portuguese, and Peninsular, Mexican and Rioplatense Spanish), a property which has been linked to the null subject parameter (Chomsky 1981, Rizzi 1982). The empirical data surveyed paints a more complex picture of such constructions at the microparametric level than previous accounts assume, displaying fine- grained and systematic variation according to variety and according to verb class. Further, it offers strong evidence that the neutral word order of these varieties is SVO, rather than VSO as has often been claimed in the literature. As such, an approach to null subjects of the Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998) and Barbosa (1995) type, involving a parameterized EPP, appears to make the wrong predictions for Ibero-Romance, whereas the data supports the approach to null subjects pursued in Holmberg (2005), Sheehan (2006) and Roberts (2010). Following Benincà (1998), Pinto (1997), Tortora (2001), Sheehan (2006, 2010), I assume that one major wide-focus inversion construction is a type of locative inversion. However, I depart from previous ‘locative’ accounts by postulating a more fine-grained analysis of the relevant locative element in such inversion constructions. This locative element is available unequally across Ibero-Romance and can surface in different positions in the higher portion of the sentential architecture, leading to the microparametric variation encountered. The data suggests that the licensing of ‘locative’ subject- verb inversion is dependent neither on the null subject parameter, since this type of inversion also occurs in non- and partial null subject varieties, nor on the unaccusative/unergative division, though there is in both cases a degree of correspondence. Instead, I argue the construction is a consequence of grammatically-encoded deictic features which correlate with the semantic properties of the verbs involved in such cases of inversion.
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Research Interests: Spanish Linguistics, Syntax-Semantics Interface, Speech acts, Generative linguistics, Asturian language, and 12 moreGalician language, Dialect syntax, Generative Syntax, Portuguese Linguistics, Llingua Asturiana, Romance dialectology, Catalan linguistics, Aragonese Language, Lingüística catalana, Romance dialect syntax, Ibero-Romance Linguistics, and Speech Act Phrase
Generative linguistics – a school of thought characterised by a belief in human capacity to acquire language commonly associated with the work of Noam Chomsky – has revolutionised how we think about language and has been crucial in the... more
Generative linguistics – a school of thought characterised by a belief in human capacity to acquire language commonly associated with the work of Noam Chomsky – has revolutionised how we think about language and has been crucial in the elaboration of a putatively universal architecture of language. I reflect on how the generative revolution shook up previous thinking about language and demonstrate the contributions it has to offer – irrespective of the many controversies it stirs up – to our understanding of the nature of language and its position at the intersection of the humanities, social and natural sciences.
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Invited opening address for the Researcher Development Programme, Schools of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
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This dissertation examines the syntax of so-called ‘illocutionary complementisers’ —that is, the repurposing of the finite complementiser que ‘thət’ to introduce matrix clauses, with a range of utterance-related functions— across... more
This dissertation examines the syntax of so-called ‘illocutionary complementisers’ —that is, the repurposing of the finite complementiser que ‘thət’ to introduce matrix clauses, with a range of utterance-related functions— across Ibero-Romance. Offering original comparative data from a range of predominantly European varieties standard and non-standard, we argue that the distinct interpretation and behaviour of each of the three types of illocutionary complementiser examined necessitates a revision and expansion of the clausal left-edge to incorporate utterance-oriented information within a dedicated domain above the CP.
Chapter 2 argues that Ibero-Romance vocatives and discourse particles exhibit syntactic behaviour which cannot be accounted for within a clausal architecture whose topmost layer is the CP. Instead, these utterance-oriented items’ behaviour and sentential distribution is indicative of an internally-articulated dedicated utterance field, which we call the Utterance Phrase (UP), above the CP, divisible into a higher, externally-oriented layer and a lower, internally-oriented layer (itself decomposable into dedicated projections for addressee and speaker). The remainder of the dissertation describes and analyses three types of illocutionary complementiser attested in Ibero-Romance, and shows that each item differs from the others not only in interpretation, but also in terms of their formal and distributional properties, and availability across Ibero-Romance dialects. Only one of these complementisers (quotative que, Chapter 4) patterns like a C-head; the other two (exclamative and conjunctive que, in Chapters 3 and 5 respectively) show distinct behaviour which we argue is evidence that they lexicalise separate U-heads within an expanded and revised cartographic left-periphery. The bundling of features on functional heads at the UP/CP boundary —the locus of the split Rizzian ForceP, or Speas & Tenny’s (2003) SentienceP— is unique to European Portuguese, contrasting with feature-scattering (following Giorgi & Pianesi 1997) across projections in other Peninsular Ibero-Romance varieties. This variation in feature distribution is argued to be responsible for microparametric differences in the availability and behaviour of illocutionary complementisers across Ibero-Romance. The compositionality of sentence-typing; fine-grained differences in the specification of complementisers; and gradient judgments on the constructions in which the illocutionary complementisers participate are also accounted for in these terms.
The dissertation proposes that, despite the progressive obsolescence of such items in standard, contemporary European Portuguese, the ubiquity of matrix illocutionary complementisers in European/Peninsular Ibero-Romance is a defining characteristic of this branch of the Romance languages. On the view that their loss in European Portuguese is counterbalanced by verb-based mechanisms for sentence- and illocutionary-typing, Chapter 6 concludes by exploring the possibility that the prevalence of illocutionary complementisers, and other utterance-oriented elements, correlates inversely with verb height.
Chapter 2 argues that Ibero-Romance vocatives and discourse particles exhibit syntactic behaviour which cannot be accounted for within a clausal architecture whose topmost layer is the CP. Instead, these utterance-oriented items’ behaviour and sentential distribution is indicative of an internally-articulated dedicated utterance field, which we call the Utterance Phrase (UP), above the CP, divisible into a higher, externally-oriented layer and a lower, internally-oriented layer (itself decomposable into dedicated projections for addressee and speaker). The remainder of the dissertation describes and analyses three types of illocutionary complementiser attested in Ibero-Romance, and shows that each item differs from the others not only in interpretation, but also in terms of their formal and distributional properties, and availability across Ibero-Romance dialects. Only one of these complementisers (quotative que, Chapter 4) patterns like a C-head; the other two (exclamative and conjunctive que, in Chapters 3 and 5 respectively) show distinct behaviour which we argue is evidence that they lexicalise separate U-heads within an expanded and revised cartographic left-periphery. The bundling of features on functional heads at the UP/CP boundary —the locus of the split Rizzian ForceP, or Speas & Tenny’s (2003) SentienceP— is unique to European Portuguese, contrasting with feature-scattering (following Giorgi & Pianesi 1997) across projections in other Peninsular Ibero-Romance varieties. This variation in feature distribution is argued to be responsible for microparametric differences in the availability and behaviour of illocutionary complementisers across Ibero-Romance. The compositionality of sentence-typing; fine-grained differences in the specification of complementisers; and gradient judgments on the constructions in which the illocutionary complementisers participate are also accounted for in these terms.
The dissertation proposes that, despite the progressive obsolescence of such items in standard, contemporary European Portuguese, the ubiquity of matrix illocutionary complementisers in European/Peninsular Ibero-Romance is a defining characteristic of this branch of the Romance languages. On the view that their loss in European Portuguese is counterbalanced by verb-based mechanisms for sentence- and illocutionary-typing, Chapter 6 concludes by exploring the possibility that the prevalence of illocutionary complementisers, and other utterance-oriented elements, correlates inversely with verb height.
Research Interests: Catalan Language, Dialectology, Galician Studies, Romance philology, Syntax, and 18 moreFormal syntax, Comparative Linguistics, Spanish Linguistics, Speech Act Theory, Romance Linguistics, Comparative Syntax, Speech acts, Generative linguistics, Romance Languages, Microvariation, Dialect syntax, Portuguese Linguistics, Illocutionary Acts, Complementizers, Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics, Ibero-Romance Linguistics, Utterance syntax, and Illocutionary complementizers
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This Special Issue brings together ten articles authored by the participants and invited speakers of the Romance Grammars, Context and Contact (RGCC2021) workshop. This introductory article provides an overview of the workshop and... more
This Special Issue brings together ten articles authored by the participants and invited speakers of the Romance Grammars, Context and Contact (RGCC2021) workshop. This introductory article provides an overview of the workshop and summarizes the articles in the present collection.
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This article proposes a ‘topological’ reinterpretation of the extended nominal architecture in relation to southern Italo-Romance vocatives with and without allocuzione inversa (‘address inversion’, Renzi 1968), a phenomenon involving the... more
This article proposes a ‘topological’ reinterpretation of the extended nominal architecture in relation to southern Italo-Romance vocatives with and without allocuzione inversa (‘address inversion’, Renzi 1968), a phenomenon involving the ‘inverse’ lexical indexation of the speaker-addressee relationship (reg.It. Mangia, papà! ‘Eat up, little one!’, father to child). Topological Mapping Theory (Longobardi 2005; Martín & Hinzen 2014) posits a unified model of grammatical structure and nominal reference denotation in argumental constituents, where a hierarchy of referentiality (from predicativity to deixis) emerges through the expansion of the functional architecture. Contributing to a growing theoretical consensus favouring extra ‘vocative’ structure in the nominal left periphery, I argue that Italo-Romance vocatives with and without address inversion involve a part-whole expansion of structure, yielding a necessarily tripartite nominal architecture (VocP-DP-NP) in line with topologi...
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Ibero-Romance affective que constructions implement a conversational move associated with the speaker’s affective perspective. The speaker simultaneously asserts the truth of their utterance—whence the requirement of the indicative in... more
Ibero-Romance affective que constructions implement a conversational move associated with the speaker’s affective perspective. The speaker simultaneously asserts the truth of their utterance—whence the requirement of the indicative in such clauses—realized through c/overt V-to-Fin movement, whilst the complementizer insertion mitigates the extent to which the utterance performs an extensional truth. The affective contribution of the construction involves a greater degree of intensity relative to complementizer-less sentence exclamations, indicating that it is the complementizer itself that acts as a syntactic conduit for the construction’s expressive (Potts 2007a) value, the interpretative result of which is the bootstrapping of the speaker’s affective stance to the complementizer’s overt realization. Affective que utterances thus perform a ‘double duty’ insofar as they are configured with the referential potential of a truth-denoting deictic act whilst additionally providing instru...
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This chapter synthesizes the key findings of Part I, and lays out the proposal for the Utterance Phrase (UP) as the utterance-oriented domain ‘beyond the clause’. U-heads are argued to assemble structure outside the phasal template, such... more
This chapter synthesizes the key findings of Part I, and lays out the proposal for the Utterance Phrase (UP) as the utterance-oriented domain ‘beyond the clause’. U-heads are argued to assemble structure outside the phasal template, such that utterance-oriented constituents (in the specifiers of the UP) are formally connected to the ‘host’ sentence at its leftmost edge without being ‘part of’ that sentence (i.e. its phasal structure). The UP is conceptualized as the locus of utterance packaging of base-generated ‘utterance topics’ (viz. root-like, phase-external adjuncts) interpretatively modificational and hierarchically superior to the CP. Extending the sentence to include the (non-phasal) UP facilitates, in turn, the proposal that ‘dynamic’ conversational moves can be modelled under topological mapping principles within the clausal syntax. Accordingly, a maximally specified ‘rigid’ CP constitutes a simple (single) conversational update, and U-heads connect via their specifiers si...
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This chapter surveys the categorially heterogeneous taxonomy of conversation-oriented particles and interjections, which are variously characterized as ‘non-syntactic’, ‘autonomous’, ‘deficient’, or otherwise ‘deviant’. It argues that the... more
This chapter surveys the categorially heterogeneous taxonomy of conversation-oriented particles and interjections, which are variously characterized as ‘non-syntactic’, ‘autonomous’, ‘deficient’, or otherwise ‘deviant’. It argues that the structural deficiency of these items is merely apparent, and that their incompatibility with a range of formal operations is, paradoxically, a reflection of the complexity of their internal syntax. On this view, utterance-oriented constituents are unified by their topological mapping at the ‘edge of the edge’ of the phasal template where the descriptive content of their interior is (increasingly) irrelevant to their interpretation. Their contribution to the universe of discourse is instead determined through ostension with the result that utterance-oriented constituents are characterized not by what they say but by what they ‘do’. Accordingly, the categorial non-uniformity of taxa such as ‘interjections’ and ‘particles’ results from classifying utt...
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Linguistic items which encode utterance-oriented information have famously been consigned to a non-syntactic status within the generative enterprise, a scepticism which persists in today’s theory, despite mounting cross-linguistic... more
Linguistic items which encode utterance-oriented information have famously been consigned to a non-syntactic status within the generative enterprise, a scepticism which persists in today’s theory, despite mounting cross-linguistic evidence that certain types of illocutionary phenomena obey syntactic constraints. Through critical examination of developments in clause structure within syntactic theory and the modelling of speech acts within pragmatics and philosophy of language, this chapter examines the conceptual case for a radical rethinking of the sentential architecture in Romance and beyond in order to capture the intuition that speakers can ‘do things’ with utterance information, specifically, via the topological organization of grammatical structure. It ends by laying out the theoretical ‘un-Cartesian’ principles (viz. those of the Topological Mapping Theory) pursued in the study. In so doing, it defends a conceptual shift to a so-called grammar of reference, wherein the mind ...
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This book examines how speakers of Ibero-Romance ‘do things’ with conversational units of language, paying particular attention to what they do with utterance-oriented elements such as vocatives, interjections, and particles; and to what... more
This book examines how speakers of Ibero-Romance ‘do things’ with conversational units of language, paying particular attention to what they do with utterance-oriented elements such as vocatives, interjections, and particles; and to what they do with illocutionary complementizers, items attested cross-linguistically which look like, but do not behave like, subordinators. Taking the behaviour of conversation-oriented units of language as a window into the indexical nature of language, it argues that these items provide insight into how language-as-grammar builds the universe of discourse. By identifying the underlying unity in how different Ibero-Romance languages, alongside their Romance cousins and Latin ancestors, use grammar to refer—i.e. to connect our inner world to the one outside—, the book’s empirical arguments are underpinned by the philosophical position that the architecture of grammar is also the architecture of thought. The book thus brings together the recent flurry of...
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This chapter reconsiders the discursive contribution of the Romance illocutionary complementizer identified here as dialogic que, which is traditionally understood to introduce a ‘speech act’ causal clause. On the basis of a range of... more
This chapter reconsiders the discursive contribution of the Romance illocutionary complementizer identified here as dialogic que, which is traditionally understood to introduce a ‘speech act’ causal clause. On the basis of a range of syntactic tests for various clause-combining operations (viz. clausal complementation, co-ordination, adverbial subordination, and adjunction) in addition to diachronic and comparative evidence, it is argued that dialogic que constructions are syntactically autonomous utterances which serve primarily to build discourse coherence between the complementizer construction and a salient linguistic antecedent or non-linguistic stimulus. On this view, the complementizer’s insertion enables the speaker to implement an act of grammatically configured ostension, akin to an act of declarative pointing, beyond the utterance it introduces. The role of silence is held to be formally significant, such that an obligatory prosodic break licenses a clause-initial expleti...
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In this article, colleagues from the Linguistics in Modern Foreign Languages Project consider the proposed changes to the GCSE MfL qualifications in England from the perspective of linguistics. They identify several areas where engagement... more
In this article, colleagues from the Linguistics in Modern Foreign Languages Project consider the proposed changes to the GCSE MfL qualifications in England from the perspective of linguistics. They identify several areas where engagement with key aspects of knowledge from the field of linguistics may be useful in taking forward current proposals and in avoiding unintended consequences
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Há pelo menos 20 anos, linguistas teóricos têm discutido a necessidade de haver uma interação entre as descobertas das pesquisas formais e o ensino de línguas (cf. MOURA NEVES, 2003; VIEIRA; BRANDÃO, 2007; OLIVEIRA; QUAREZEMIN, 2016;... more
Há pelo menos 20 anos, linguistas teóricos têm discutido a necessidade de haver uma interação entre as descobertas das pesquisas formais e o ensino de línguas (cf. MOURA NEVES, 2003; VIEIRA; BRANDÃO, 2007; OLIVEIRA; QUAREZEMIN, 2016; PILATI, 2017; MAIA, 2019; GUESSER; RECH, 2020, entre outros). Porém, ao analisarmos os materiais didáticos de ensino de português como língua primeira (PL1) e como segunda (PL2) (cf. CALINDRO, 2019; CALINDRO; RODRIGUES, 2021, no prelo), é notável que essa interface não tem sido bem sucedida. Ademais, os resultados que os estudantes brasileiros vêm obtendo em testes internacionais, como o Pisa, não têm sido satisfatórios. Os professores, por sua vez, têm um papel decisivo ao contribuir com as experiências e resultados de aprendizagem dos estudantes. Tendo isso em mente, conduzimos uma pesquisa e análise temática das perspectivas dos docentes (de PL1 e PL2) em relação ao ensino e aprendizagem de português na sala de aula, com foco nas necessidades pedagóg...
The Romance Inter-Views are short, multiple Q&A pairs that address key issues, definitions and ideas regarding Romance linguistics. Prominent exponents of different approaches to the study of Romance linguistics are asked to answer some... more
The Romance Inter-Views are short, multiple Q&A pairs that address key issues, definitions and ideas regarding Romance linguistics. Prominent exponents of different approaches to the study of Romance linguistics are asked to answer some general questions from their viewpoint. The answers are then assembled so that readers can get a comparative picture of what’s going on in the field. After the first Inter-Views focused on (morpho)syntax more generally, the second Inter-Views focus more narrowly on Cartography. We invited six syntacticians, working on this topic from a variety of perspectives, to answer our questions.
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This paper argues for a place for linguistics within the UK Modern Languages curriculum as part of a more pluralistic approach to languages study. Based on an intervention involving over 300 A-level students of French, German and Spanish,... more
This paper argues for a place for linguistics within the UK Modern Languages curriculum as part of a more pluralistic approach to languages study. Based on an intervention involving over 300 A-level students of French, German and Spanish, we demonstrate: 1) that it is feasible and appropriate to include linguistics topics on the A-level Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum; 2) that many of these topics are inherently interesting for A-level language students; and 3) that pupils report increased confidence in their language skills after having been exposed to a short linguistics course (four hours). In light of our further finding that there is already considerable untapped scope for linguistics within the current formal framework of the A-level MFL qualification, we recommend that linguistics topics should be included in MFL A-levels as a matter of priority. This is the case not least because linguistics has the potential to attract new pupils to the study of MFL, while also pr...
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Review of Carrilho, Ernestina, Alexandra Fieis, Maria Lobo & Sandra Pereira (eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 28, Lisbon [Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10].... more
Review of Carrilho, Ernestina, Alexandra Fieis, Maria Lobo & Sandra Pereira (eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 28, Lisbon [Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10]. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2016. 330 pp.
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This paper examines the present-day characterisation and historical development of non-referential uses of the pronoun ello/ele/ell (ELLO) in certain IberoRomance varieties. Since overt expletives are predicted to be incompatible with... more
This paper examines the present-day characterisation and historical development of non-referential uses of the pronoun ello/ele/ell (ELLO) in certain IberoRomance varieties. Since overt expletives are predicted to be incompatible with referential null subjects, the appearance of ELLO in an apparently expletive position and function is typologically anomalous with respect to the null subject parameter as traditionally conceived. Recent treatment in the literature places ELLO in the C-domain, and exceptionally in SpecTP. However, existing accounts tend to assume a unified characterisation across varieties for what we claim is actually a heterogeneous phenomenon. Novel empirical data show that ELLO displays both expletive-like and discourse-oriented properties even within the same variety, targeting different structural positions cross-dialectally. Today’s variation is argued to be an effect of ELLO reaching different stages of grammaticalisation across varieties, originating from its ...
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This paper argues for a place for linguistics within the UK Modern Languages curriculum as part of a more pluralistic approach to languages study. Based on an intervention involving over 300 A-level students of French, German and Spanish,... more
This paper argues for a place for linguistics within the UK Modern Languages curriculum as part of a more pluralistic approach to languages study. Based on an intervention involving over 300 A-level students of French, German and Spanish, we demonstrate: 1) that it is feasible and appropriate to include linguistics topics on the A-level Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum; 2) that many of these topics are inherently interesting for A-level language students; and 3) that pupils report increased confidence in their language skills after having been exposed to a short linguistics course (four hours). In light of our further finding that there is already considerable untapped scope for linguistics within the current formal framework of the A-level MFL qualification, we recommend that linguistics topics should be included in MFL A-levels as a matter of priority. This is the case not least because linguistics has the potential to attract new pupils to the study of MFL, while also pr...
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The use of the Ibero-Romance complementiser que in non-embedded contexts with various illocutionary functions is argued to be non-trivially distinct from its canonical function as a marker of subordination. Interpretative and grammatical... more
The use of the Ibero-Romance complementiser que in non-embedded contexts with various illocutionary functions is argued to be non-trivially distinct from its canonical function as a marker of subordination. Interpretative and grammatical differences, and variation in the availability and clause-typing of non-embedded ‘exclamative’ and ‘quotative’ illocutionary que across Catalan, European Portuguese and Spanish provide evidence that the subordinating complementiser has been repurposed for the representation of pragmatic information in the complementiser systems of Ibero-Romance, a hypothesis supported by analogies drawn between illocutionary que and illocutionary functions of the interrogative complementiser si/se in Catalan and European Portuguese.
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Typologically-unexpected overt expletives can be found in a restricted number of non-standard Ibero-Romance null-subject varieties. Historical data suggest that these overt expletives, which in today’s varieties show both... more
Typologically-unexpected overt expletives can be found in a restricted number of non-standard Ibero-Romance null-subject varieties. Historical data suggest that these overt expletives, which in today’s varieties show both discourse-oriented and expletive characteristics, have their origin in 15th century impersonal epistemic constructions. This article argues that it is the expletives’ epistemic origin which gives rise to, and thus explains, their present-day heterogeneous properties, in particular their function as a marker of epistemicity in a number of varieties. Despite undergoing the same mechanisms of change, the variation in modern Ibero-Romance is understood to be a consequence of the different stages and degrees of grammaticalization reached in each variety.
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En este artículo se analiza la función y distribución del llamado "sujeto expletivo visible" ello/ele/ell en ciertas variedades ibero-románicas no estándares. Se presentan nuevos datos empíricos con el fin de demostrar la... more
En este artículo se analiza la función y distribución del llamado "sujeto expletivo visible" ello/ele/ell en ciertas variedades ibero-románicas no estándares. Se presentan nuevos datos empíricos con el fin de demostrar la caracterización heterogénea del fenómeno, cuya variación actual, según se argumenta, se ve explicada por los distintos grados de cambio sufridos por el elemento expletivo en cada variedad ibero-románica. La contribución pragmática del expletivo ibérico actual semeja el valor semántico de las pruebas empíricas más antiguas y más frecuentes del elemento en los corpus históricos consultados, observación que sirve de punto de partida para reconstruir la trayectoria diacrónica del elemento desde su propuesto origen en contextos impersonales y epistémicos hasta la actualidad, en que el presunto expletivo ibérico demuestra características tanto expletivas como pragmáticas incluso dentro de la misma variedad. Original recibido: 2015/05/28Dictamen enviado al autor...
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En este artículo se analiza la función y distribución del llamado "sujeto expletivo visible" ello/ele/ell en ciertas variedades ibero-románicas no estándares. Se presentan nuevos datos empíricos con el fin de demostrar la... more
En este artículo se analiza la función y distribución del llamado "sujeto expletivo visible" ello/ele/ell en ciertas variedades ibero-románicas no estándares. Se presentan nuevos datos empíricos con el fin de demostrar la caracterización heterogénea del fenómeno, cuya variación actual, según se argumenta, se ve explicada por los distintos grados de cambio sufridos por el elemento expletivo en cada variedad ibero-románica. La contribución pragmática del expletivo ibérico actual semeja el valor semántico de las pruebas empíricas más antiguas y más frecuentes del elemento en los corpus históricos consultados, observación que sirve de punto de partida para reconstruir la trayectoria diacrónica del elemento desde su propuesto origen en contextos impersonales y epistémicos hasta la actualidad, en que el presunto expletivo ibérico demuestra características tanto expletivas como pragmáticas incluso dentro de la misma variedad. Original recibido: 2015/05/28Dictamen enviado al autor...