Generative linguistics

El uso social de la lengua suscita a diario dudas y curiosidades. Dudamos al elegir un método para aprender
una lengua, ignoramos cuántas lenguas se hablan en el mundo, tenemos la sensación de que cada vez
hablamos peor; pensamos que los emoticonos vienen a empobrecer la lengua; nos da la impresión de que, con
las posverdades, cada uno puede decir libremente lo que quiera y sospechamos que la lengua del futuro
podría ser un inglés global. Tales cuestiones, tan cotidianas, nacen de preguntas más profundas: ¿cómo
emergieron las lenguas?, ¿cómo se adquieren?, ¿cómo varían y cambian?, ¿cómo se nos engaña
manipulando la lengua? Esta obra intenta responder a grandes cuestiones sobre la lengua apelando a su
naturaleza social. Nos interesan la lengua y la gente; nos interesan las secuelas de Babel.

Focus sensitive operators (like only, also and even) are usually taken to operate on focus alternatives to their prejacent and, more specifically, on a contextually restricted set of propositions (‘C’) which are identical to the prejacent p, except from the focused element, which is replaced by a distinct element of the same semantic type (Rooth 1985, 1992).  I will call such standard (or ‘Roothian’) alternatives, external alternatives.
The main goal of this paper is to examine cases where a focus sensitive expression can also operate on another type of alternatives, which I will call ‘internal’ alternatives. Intuitively, such alternatives are not alternatives to p, but rather alternative interpretational versions of p. That is, with internal alternatives, the focused element is not replaced by a distinct element (of the same semantic type), but rather with an identical element with a distinct interpretation. Thus, the overt material in p and the propositions in the set of internal alternatives is identical, and the difference only lies in the interpretation given to covert material in p.
More formally, I will propose that in the case of ‘internal’ altenatives the alternatives to the prejacnet are derived by assigning a covert variable in the focused element a distinct value. Depending on the semantics of the associate, this covert variable can be a standard variable (with gradable expressions), a covert quantifier, a domain restriction variable, a precision standard variable, etc. 
The main operator I will analyze in this respect is the Hebrew 'bixlal' (cf. Migron 2003, Greenberg & Khrizman 2012). I will claim that it is an 'even-like operator, which unlike the standard 'even' (and the Hebrew 'afilu') can operate on such 'internal alternatives.

In this paper, I will present a cross-linguistic analysis of the syntax of items signalling temporal distance. Basing on insight form cartography and nanosyntax, I will shown that the mechanism of Phrasal Spell-out (and the Superset Principle) can elegantly explain why in many language 'before' and 'ago' meanings are expressed with the same word. Above all, I will present a previously unnoticed *ABA constraint (cf. Caha 2009; Bobaljik 2012) on lexical spans in the  domain of temporal distance. The *ABA pattern will be crucial to account for possible counterexamples of Haspelmath's (1997) fairly robust descriptive generalization, which states that forms expressing spatial relations of front and back regularly express, respectively, anteriority and posteriority across languages when they are 'shifted' from space to time (namely, before ≈ in front; after ≈ back).

In this talk I try to make progress in capturing an informal observation about only and even, which, although rather old, has not been formally captured by traditional formal entries of these two particles. The observation is that only and even express some sort of ‘scalar antonymy’, and it is illustrated in (1):
(1) (Context: We are arriving late to a committee meeting evaluating John’s and Bill’s achievements, and manage to hear what one of the committee members says about Bill):
a.. …and during the last 3 years he only wrote [3]F papers. > 5 is ‘a little’
b. …and during the last 3 years he  even wrote [5]F papers . > 5 is ‘a lot’
I examine three schematic suggestions which did try to capture the scalar antonymy of only and even, namely that only vs. even presuppose that their prejacent, p is lower vs. higher (respectively), (a) than what is expected /  what is the default standard in the context (the ‘mirative / evaluative antonymy’ view), (b) than some (salient) alternative in the set of contextually relevant focus alternatives, C, (the ‘existential antonymy’ view), or (c) than all alternatives in C (the ‘superlative antonymy’ view). The differences between these views are often subtle, and in many contexts the predictions they make empirically overlap. One goal of the paper, then, is to examine the felicity and interpretation of only and even in a wider range of contexts than has been done so far, so we end up with  better diagnostics for teasing apart the predictions of each of these view. A second goal is to argue that this examination supports the preferability of the ‘superlative’ view over the ‘existential’ and the ‘mirative / evaluative’ views, and to discuss ways to handle issues which were raised against this view. Finally, I hope to discuss potential implications and open questions raised by the examination of the scalar antonymy of only and even regarding the way contextual factors affect the construction of sets of alternatives, and compare them to parallel implications and questions raised in experimental studies on activation  / processing of alternatives and in research on Scalar Implicatures.

The present study investigates the use of code-switching between Vietnamese and English in casual conversations and focuses on how and why conversational participants code-switch. The data include recordings of talk among a small Vietnamese-English bilingual female group and short interviews with the participants after the recordings. The paper will discuss how the bilinguals code-switched as a part of their communicative resources. I conclude with implications for ESL/EFL teaching.

While matrix clauses pronouns are almost never dropped in matrix clauses in Russian, silent pronouns are licensed in almost all kinds of embedded clauses. Null pronouns in such positions share similarities with PRO, but they also differ from PRO in many respects. In this paper, I show that there are two kinds of environments in which such pronouns can appear. The first kind of environment includes complements of attitude verbs, where there is strong evidence for a syntactic relation between the null pronoun and its antecedent. In the second kind of environment, which includes sentential adjuncts and embedded wh-questions, the nature of this relation seems to be different. I propose that Russian possesses a minimally specified silent pronoun which is phonologically deficient and must cliticize onto a higher projection and thus can only be found in the presence of an overt complementizer. I adopt the proposed in Holmberg (2005) that a major feature of pro-drop phenomena is the valuation of the D feature of the null pronoun. I propose that in Russian the null pronoun is unable to value this feature inside the clause where it is merged and therefore needs to probe outside the clause to get the D feature valued. The difference between properties of silent pronouns in the two kinds of environments is derived from the exact mechanism by which the valuation takes place. In the case of complements of attitude verbs, the valuation takes place as a result of an agree relation, in other cases the valuation takes place via a topic-chain.

When we speak, we use sounds. Through these sounds, we are able to understand each other. This is because there are different types of relationships that exist between the sounds that we use in speech acts. This is the principal objective of Phonology: to study the relationships between speech sounds within a language system. Bearing in mind the afore-mentioned, a brief report is given on one chapter from Davenport and Hannahs’ (1998) book, shedding light on the importance of Phonology in the study of language. This paper discusses what generative grammar is about, and how phonology fits into this grammar. Attention is paid to the similarities and differences between phonetics and phonology and their relevance to language study, providing relevant examples to substantiate certain claims. Concluding remarks are given, based on the information presented.

Keywords: phonology, phonetics, sound, speech sound, phoneme, language, communication, generative grammar.

Construction grammar(s) and the Minimalist Program occupy opposite, but equally polar, positions in the pre-scientific setting of studies that attempt to scientifically unravel the make-up of human languages. Both schools share a basic flaw. They favour outdated and inadequate strategies, primarily based on empirically unfounded ideological preconceptions. Construction Grammar is – against better judgment – entangled in the quandaries of functional accounts that biology has conclusively found to be fatal for any scientific progress already a century ago. The MP has turned into a self-centred activity of playful tinkering with syntactic calculi, in a gated-community that would let in nothing but hand-picked evidence. These two schools have lost their scientific orientation but their marketing is still superb. This paper is a 'profit warning' for young linguists. Investments into these companies are going to be investments à fonds perdu in the long run.

Indonesian has three morphemes that are commonly used to express futurity, namely 'akan', 'mau', and 'pasti'. I argue that for certain speakers, the meanings of these three morphemes all contain a future modal, and that two of the morphemes (mau and pasti) each additionally include as part of their meaning a different aspectual operator (progressive-like and generic-like respectively) affecting the temporal argument of the accessibility relation of the modal. These combinations of aspect and a future modal I will call “aspectualized futures.” Throughout, I compare the Indonesian future forms with those in English: 'will' and 'be going to'. I propose that be going to is aspectually similar to 'mau', while 'will' is ambiguous between an 'akan' reading and a 'pasti' reading. I discuss as well a slightly different dialect of Indonesian in which the meanings of 'akan' and 'mau' are different.

Bantu languages, which are spoken throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, permit wh-questions to be constructed in multiple ways, including wh-in-situ, full wh-movement, and partial wh-movement. Shona, a Bantu language spoken by about 13 million people in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, allows all three of these types. In this dissertation, I conduct the first in-depth examination of Shona wh-questions, drawing on fifty hours of elicitation with a native speaker consultant to explore the derivational relationships among these strategies.

Wh-in-situ questions have received a wide variety of treatments in the syntactic literature, ranging from covert or disguised movement to postsyntactic binding of the wh-phrase by a silent question operator. In Bantu languages, wh-in-situ questions are often taken to be derived via a non-movement relation (e.g., Carstens 2005 for Kilega, Diercks 2010 for Lubukusu, Muriungi 2003 for Kîîtharaka, Sabel 2000 for Kikuyu and Duala, Sabel & Zeller 2006 for Zulu, Schneider-Zioga 2007 for Kinande), but alternatives have rarely been considered. I demonstrate how movement-based analyses that have been proposed for wh-in-situ in non-Bantu languages make the wrong predictions for Shona wh-in-situ, which lacks word order permutation, extraction marking, island effects, and intervention effects. These properties provide support for the traditional Bantuist view that the relation between the pronunciation site of an in-situ wh-phrase and its scopal position in the left periphery is not movement; I claim that in Shona it is unselective binding.

Many Bantu languages, including Shona, prohibit wh-phrases from appearing in the canonical preverbal subject position. Wasike (2007) demonstrates that this restriction applies to topicalized non-subjects as well as preverbal subjects. I replicate these results for Shona and argue that they cast doubt on Sabel & Zeller's (2006) attempt to characterize the ban with an appeal to improper movement. I argue instead that restrictions on the distribution of wh-in-situ in Bantu are tied to restrictions on the domain for focus licensing. This claim is further bolstered by an examination of crosslinguistic variation within Bantu with respect to whether the ban on in-situ preverbal wh-subjects applies in embedded clauses. I observe a previously unnoticed generalization: languages that universally ban in-situ preverbal wh-subjects (like Zulu) have immediately after the verb (IAV) focus effects; languages that do allow in-situ preverbal wh-subjects in embedded clauses (like Shona, Lubukusu, and Kîîtharaka) also lack IAV effects.

Full wh-movement in Shona gives rise to questions that bear a certain similarity to English wh-questions. However, using a range of diagnostics including extraction marking, island effects, reconstruction effects, and the distribution of temporal modifiers, I argue that what appears to be full wh-movement in Shona actually has a cleft structure: the wh-phrase moves to become the head of a relative clause, which is selected by a copula in the matrix clause. Just as in wh-in-situ, an ex-situ wh-phrase is pronounced lower than its scopal position, and the relation between these two positions is established via unselective binding. Additional evidence for this proposal comes from the sensitivity of partial wh-movement to island boundaries below but not above the pronunciation site of the wh-phrase, a pattern that has been predicted by previous analyses (e.g., Abels 2012, Sabel 2000, Sabel & Zeller 2006) but for which empirical support has been lacking until now. I therefore unify full and partial wh-movement under a single analysis for cleft-based wh-in-situ that involves a step of relativization (independently needed for relative clauses) and a step of unselective binding (independently needed for wh-in-situ).

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a representação sintática do aspecto perfect. Assumiu-se a existência de tipos distintos de perfect: perfect universal / situação persistente, perfect existencial / resultativo, perfect existencial / experiencial e perfect existencial / passado recente. Para tanto, foi investigada uma possível perda linguística desse aspecto associado ao tempo presente em sujeitos portadores da Doença de Alzheimer, tanto na variante clássica (DA), quanto na variante frontal, conhecida como Afasia Progressiva Primária Logopênica (APPL). A metodologia elaborada para este trabalho consistiu na realização de um estudo duplo de caso, tendo participado uma paciente portadora da DA e outra da APPL, ambas falantes nativas do português do Brasil. Foram aplicados dois testes de funcionalidade, dois testes neuropsicológicos e dois testes linguísticos e foi realizada também uma análise de fala espontânea. Os resultados indicaram que ambas as pacientes apresentaram declínio funcional e comprometimento cognitivo, ainda que o déficit na paciente com DA fosse maior do que o da paciente com APPL. A análise referente à expressão linguística, resultante da comparação dos resultados dos dois testes linguísticos e da análise de fala espontânea, revelou que a paciente com DA apresentava um déficit que incide sobre os quatro tipos de perfect, tempo presente e aspecto imperfectivo, enquanto que a paciente com APPL apresentava um déficit que incide sobre perfect existencial / passado recente e tempo presente. Observou-se, então, que o perfect existencial / passado recente está dissociado na gramática mental, havendo um sintagma referente a esse conhecimento na representação sintática, o RecPerfP, que domina os demais sintagmas de perfect. Além disso, discutiu-se que TP encontra-se acima dos sintagmas de perfect na hierarquia sintática, ao passo que AspP encontra-se abaixo. Foi proposto, dessa forma, que a hierarquia entre sintagmas de perfect, tempo e aspecto perfectivo/imperfectivo na representação sintática seja a seguinte: TP > RecPerf > ExPerfP > UPerfP > ResPerfP > AspP. ////// Abstract: This research aims to investigate the syntactic representation of the perfect aspect. Different types of perfect were assumed to exist: universal perfect / persistent situation, existential perfect / resultative, existential perfect / experiential and existential perfect / recent past. Therefore, a possible linguistic impairment of this aspect associated with the present tense was investigated in subjects with Alzheimer's disease, both in the classic variant (AD) and in the frontal variant, known as Logopenic Primary Progressive Aphasia (LPPA). The methodology developed for this study consisted of a double case study, involving one patient with AD and one with LPPA, both Brazilian Portuguese native speakers. Two functionality tests, two neuropsychological tests and two language tests were applied and a spontaneous speech analysis was also performed. The results indicated that both patients presented functional decline and cognitive impairment, although the deficit in the AD patient was greater than that of the LPPA patient. The analysis of the linguistic expression, resulting from the comparison of the results of the two linguistic tests and the spontaneous speech analysis, revealed that the patient with AD presented a deficit that affects the four types of perfect, present tense and imperfective aspect, while the patient with LPPA had a deficit that affects existential perfect / recent past and present tense. It was observed, then, that the existential perfect / recent past is dissociated in mental grammar, and there is a phrase referring to this knowledge in syntactic representation, RecPerfP, which dominates the other perfect phrases. In addition, it has been argued that TP is above the perfect phrases in the syntactic hierarchy, whereas AspP is below. Thus, it was proposed that the hierarchy between perfect, tense and perfective / imperfective aspect phrases in syntactic representation is as follows: TP> RecPerf > ExPerfP > UPerfP > ResPerfP > AspP.

This paper brings diachronic and synchronic evidence for the claim that the Parameter of Definiteness coined by Danon (2010) is active in the syntax of the Romanian nominal phrase. We analyze the status of the definiteness feature in the typology of grammatical features put forth by Kibort (2010), and show that definiteness is realized as a grammatical suffix and behaves like a morphosyntactic feature in Romanian as it is involved in syntactic agreement and, marginally, in licensing. The morphosyntactic nature of definiteness opens the way towards a proper parameterization. We then thoroughly discuss the patterns of definiteness realization which indicate that the definite article starts low, as a suffix on the noun (as chiefly shown by the “low definite article” of Old Romanian identified by Cornilescu and Nicolae 2011a), and its (sometimes multiple) realization is driven by Agree.

This textbook approaches second language acquisition from the perspective of generative linguistics. Roumyana Slabakova reviews and discusses paradigms and findings from the last thirty years of research in the field, focussing in particular on how the second or additional language is represented in the mind and how it is used in communication. The adoption and analysis of a specific model of acquisition, the Bottleneck Hypothesis, provides a unifying perspective. The book assumes some non-technical knowledge of linguistics, but important concepts are clearly introduced and defined throughout, making it a valuable resource not only for undergraduate and graduate students of linguistics, but also for researchers in cognitive science and language teachers.

La siguiente tesis estudia un amplio número de construcciones del español rioplatense que contienen un clítico marginal de acusativo femenino (la y las). Adoptando el marco de la Morfología Distribuida (Halle & Marantz, 1993 y trabajos posteriores), perseguimos dos objetivos centrales. En primer lugar, nos proponemos llevar a cabo una descripción morfosintáctica, semántica y pragmática de los 452 verbos que integran el corpus diseñado, el cual está organizado en tres grupos con propiedades y comportamientos definidos: (i) verbos transitivos (e.g. sacarla barata, cortarla); (ii) verbos inergativos (e.g. matearla, caretearla); (iii) verbos inacusativos (e.g. pirarla, morirla). En segundo lugar, la propuesta incluye un análisis morfosintáctico del clítico marginal en relación a su interpretación semántica y su morfología de género, número y caso, y realiza un abordaje composicional y sintactista de la totalidad de las construcciones, a diferencia de la mayoría de los antecedentes en la bibliografía, que suelen ubicarlas dentro del ámbito de la lexicografía al considerarlas sintagmas (semi)lexicalizados, locuciones o unidades fraseológicas. Amén de que abarca en simultáneo tres tipos de estructuras que hasta el momento han sido estudiadas por separado (i-iii), una de las contribuciones de la tesis constituye el análisis de construcciones que no han sido exploradas en la literatura, dentro de las cuales se destacan casos de extraposición similares al inglés (e.g. No me la esperaba que Juan sea un facho), verbos meteorológicos (e.g. La re llovió anoche) y, fundamentalmente, verbos inacusativos con clítico acusativo marginal (e.g. La re murió Harry al final). En conclusión, mostramos que la gran mayoría de las secuencias estudiadas constituyen un fenómeno productivo regido por los principios de la sintaxis.

Abstract

The Island constraints, proposed by Ross (1967) and developed further by other scholars, are the structures out of which elements cannot move. Wh-in-situ languages and syntactic movement languages show different characteristics on these constraints. The studies that focus on the island structures in Turkish (e.g. Özsoy (1996), Arslan (1999), Görgülü (2006)) make explicit claims on the behavior of such constraints in Turkish; yet such studies need support from the performance analyses of native speakers. In this study, the data obtained from 100 participants through an intuition test were analyzed to determine the characteristics of three island constraints in Turkish: Complex NP, Sentential Subject, and Adjunct Island Constraints. Following research questions were investigated:

1- Are there argument & adjunct, and VP-internal & VP-external adjunct asymmetries in Turkish in the interpretation of wh-expressions out of island structures?
2- Are there two dialects for the interpretation of VP internal wh-adjuncts out of island structures?
3- Do the effects of the island constraints on wh-movement in Turkish show divergence?

The results of the study showed that there are both argument &adjunct and VP-internal &VP-external adjunct asymmetries in Turkish. VP internal wh-expressions do not violate island structures altogether. They show unstable characteristics. Leaning on the total numbers, however, it is not possible to mention a second dialect for Turkish which views all of them totally ungrammatical. Lastly, the findings of the study suggest that Complex NP Constraint appears to be a stronger island in Turkish in comparison with the other island constraints that have been analyzed in this study.

STRUCTURE OF WH-QUESTIONS AND WH-MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH AND BOSNIAN/CROATIAN/SERBIAN
Theoretical accounts and description of the syntactic operation of Movement (Internal merge) is based largely on the structure of wh-questions and the bahavior of wh-expressions. Movement takes place in successive cyclic steps, which are determined by conditions and principles that play a central role in the Principles and Parameters theoretical framework.
This dissertation explores movement of wh-words and phrases in English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian from a theoretical and comparative perspective. The two languages are compared with respect to the typology of their wh-questions, the behaviour of wh-phrases in two main types of wh-questions (with one or multiple wh-phrases), the positions occupied by wh-phrases, and their morphological and interpretative properties. The theoretical contribution of the thesis is in discussing formal mechanisms and conditions which allow, motivate and restrict wh-movement, especially in the context of the contrasts between the two languages. The thesis makes an empirical contribution, too, by introducing new data, based on empirical surveys of native speakers of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, showing that certain structures of wh-questions, previously not assumed as non-existant, are attested at least by some speakers of this language.
Most similarities in the structure of wh-questions of the two languages are found in wh- questions with a single wh-phrase, the most important among those being the obligatory fronting of the wh-phrase. The subject-verb inversion does not apply identically in both languages since it is obligatory in direct wh-questions only in English. Wh-movement in both languages proceeds in a successive cyclic way; the cyclicity is detectable in the phenomenon of islands, and in the structure of long-distance and partial questions. Parasitic gaps occur and are dependent on wh-movement in both languages, too. The differences between English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian parasitic gaps are conditioned by different frequency in the use of structures licensing parasitic gaps. The thesis also establishes that both languages allow, in principle, wh-phrases to remain in situ, or in positions where they do not receive their scopal interpretation, although not to the same extent or under identical circumstances.
Most differences between the two languages occur in multiple wh-questions and are related to the behavior of multiple wh-phrases. In English, only one wh-phrase is moved while Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian standardly moves all wh-phrases. However, this thesis introduces new data showing that the movement of one wh-phrase is acceptable for some Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian speakers. Superiority restricts movement of wh-phrases in English and is reflected in the ordering of wh-phrases in multiple wh-questions: the wh-phrase which is structurally superior to all others is allowed to front. Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian is known to allow any ordering of wh-phrases in direct and simple multiple wh-questions, thus showing no Superiority effects. However, this language is also known to have Superiority effects in embedded contexts and questions which can be overtly shown to have the CP layer. This thesis introduces new data showing that some speakers do not have Superiority effects even in the presence of the CP layer.
On the basis of minimalist formal mechanisms to trigger movement of wh-phrases (the Probe's uninterpretable features, where the Probe is the element that moves), this thesis accounts for partial wh-questions in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, which are shown to be a variant of long- distance wh-questions with their wh-phrase not undergoing successive cyclic movement to the final scope position in the interrogative CP. Unlike Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, English does not have partial wh-questions. I argue that this difference is a natural consequence of different morphological properties of wh-words in the two languages, with English wh-words being morphologically opaque and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian being transparent so as to allow the separation of the wh-feature (morpheme), which is then subject to movement independently of the wh-word itself. The review of locality restrictions imposed on wh-movement by various conditions and principles also reveal properties of islands and parasitic gaps, and complementizer-trace effects in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.

Key words: wh-movement, minimalism, long-distance wh-questions, partial wh-questions, multiple wh-questions, superiority, cyclicity, wh-in-situ, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, English.

En este artículo exploramos una serie de desafíos relativos a la enseñanza de gramática en el nivel superior en la formación de docentes y traductores de inglés. Planteamos, fundamentalmente, la necesidad de abordar la enseñanza de la gramática desde una perspectiva generativa e inquisitiva, que ponga de manifiesto el carácter creativo y constructivista de la búsqueda del conocimiento lingüístico. Asimismo, ofrecemos una serie de actividades concretas que pueden contribuir a tal cambio de paradigma, para abandonar así un modelo de enseñanza conductista y repetitivo que tiende a desalentar la creatividad, la argumentación y el pensamiento crítico de nuestros estudiantes.

This new book by Daniel Everett stands as a significant contribution to the
discussion of language evolution because it puts forward the strongest claims so
far in what has been an important exchange, probably the most visible in recent
years. While How Language Began (henceforth HLB) is written for a general
readership, the main proposals are presented clearly, drawing the lines of the
debate sharper than in previous turns. Its strong hypotheses now set the stage
for better understanding the points in contention and for drawing us closer to
resolving them.

Abstract. "Are there ... phonological rules which can be stated more appropriately in terms of the syllable than in terms simply of segments?" (J. ANDERSON, 1969). The existence of numerous phonological processes which cannot be formulated in a general and explanatory way without syllable boundaries is demonstrated in this paper. The theory of grammar must therefore provide rules for syllabification, It is shown that the operation of these rules is not limited to any particular level of representation such as the systernatic phonemic or phonetic level, but that syllabification rules apply after each step in a derivation, i.e., they are persistent or anywhere rules. Relationships between syllabification and word-initial clusters are pointed out. An important principle for phonological descriptions can be formulated in "syllabic phonology": Assimilation rules (more generally: segment harmony rules) never require an obligatory grammatical boundary.

The paper provides a partial phonological and phonetic description of the segmental system of L2 Telugu English (TE). Previous research on the subject has been carried out in the context of a more general notion of Indian English (IE), so the properties of TE as distinct from other varieties of IE (e.g., Gujarati English) have largely remained unexplored. We have primarily focused on areas that previous research identified as prominent issues in the study of IE: vowel inventory and production, representation and realization of liquids, word-final obstruent phenomena, and allophones of /w/. To account for these aspects of TE, we have combined a generative approach to the study of an individual's linguistic competence with linguistic fieldwork as a means of collecting first-hand data. On the basis of collected data, we have conducted a spectrographic analysis of TE vowels and a distributional analysis of TE consonants. The paper provides the first description of the acoustic spaces of TE vowels. We found that all vowels except [ɔ] and [i] are more central in TE than in General American English. /r/ was realized as either [r] or [ɻ] without a specific pattern, and occasionally as [ɽ] in the intervocalic position. /l/ was realized as [ɭ] in word-final position and as [l] elsewhere. TE displayed word-final obstruent devoicing for all obstruents except for /b/, which was consistently unreleased. /w/ was realized as [ʋ] before front vowels and as [w] elsewhere. While previous research that concentrated on the broad notion of Indian English recognized the issue of /w/-allophony, it has not provided a principle that governs the exact distribution of /w/'s allophones. By combining the generative framework with linguistic fieldwork, we have accounted for this long-standing puzzle with a single rule: /w/ → [ʋ] / __ [-CONS, -BACK].

In this paper I discuss two types of adjectival modification in Polish, namely the semantics of prenominal and postnominal adjectives. I discuss different entailment patterns related to the placement of adjectival modifiers and the relation between adjectives in both positions and genericity. I postulate a unified intersective semantics for both prenominal and postnominal adjectives and argue that they are predicates denoting properties of objects and kinds respectively. I posit that the kind area is associated with the NP and in the process of semantic composition nouns first combine with postnominal modifiers and then with prenominal ones. The proposal is based on the syntactic analysis of Rutkowski and Progovac (2005) and the semantic framework of McNally and Boleda (2004).

This paper presents an analysis of sentences featuring superficial coordinations of unlike categories in English, such as John is a Republican and proud of it (NP and AP) and Pat is stupid and a liar (AP and NP). We argue that, despite the fact that examples like these have been grouped in the literature on coordination of unlikes, there are significant syntactic differences that justify distinguishing between them representationally and derivationally. We propose two categories of coordination of unlikes: anaphoric and intersective coordinations. In particular, we will focus on how to formulate a structural description that gets the right reference for it in a Republican and proud of it, a point unexplored in many current proposals.

La fonología moderna y su aplicación a la lengua española es el tema principal de esta obra. A través de los diferentes capítulos, se introduce al lector a la evolución de los enfoques teóricos que han dominado el estudio de la fonología en los últimos cincuenta años, comenzando con el trabajo generativo clásico de Chomsky y Halle (1968) "The Sounds Patterns of English", y terminando con la Teoría de la Optimidad (Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy and Prince 1993); además, en el capítulo 1 se hace un recorrido histórico sobre el desarrollo de la lingüística como ciencia, desde Panini hasta Chomsky y otros lingüistas contemporáneos. El libro es, pues, una introducción al estudio de la teoría fonológica moderna, aplicable a cualquier lengua natural. Aunque los datos principales para sustentar las propuestas teóricas provienen del español, especialmente de las variantes habladas en El Salvador y el resto de países centroamericanos, también se utilizan datos de otras lenguas y familias lingüísticas para demostrar la universalidad de la teoría desarrollada. Los datos utilizados para el análisis provienen principalmente del trabajo de campo del autor sobre la lengua salvadoreña y otras variantes centroamericanas.

В данной главе обсуждается проблема соотношения коммуникативно-нерасчлененных (thetic) и коммуникативно-расчлененных (categorical) предложений в рамках формальной модели синтаксиса и просодико-синтаксического интерфейса. Применяется аппарат теории Линейно-Акцентных преобразований и доказывается гипотеза о том, что все русские нерасчлененные предложения получаются из расчлененных на основе трансформационных правил.

Chapter 3 from Anton Zimmerling, Ekaterina Lyutikova (eds.). Clause Architecture in Parametric Models. Moscow: LRC, 2016. In this chapter, I discuss the derivation of Russian thetic and categorical sentences in a generative-transformational framework with movement operations. Information structure is analyzed in terms of c(ommunicative)-constituents. I argue that all Russian thetics are derived from categorical sentences and develop a version of the Linear-Accent analysis which is compatible with mildly context-sensitive grammars.


OUTLINE OF THE CHAPTER

1. Topic, focus and thetic sentences.
1.1. Thetic-A sentences and thetic-B sentences.
1.2. Formal markers of thetic-A and thetic-B sentences in Russian.
2. Linear-Accent transformations.
2.1. Word order and theticity in Russian.
2.2. A-scrambling and thetic sentences.
3. Linear-Accent grammars.
3.1. Tonal alphabet.
3.2. Basic c-structures.
3.3. Left Focus Movement and predictability of Intonation Construction 2.
3.4. Rheme Dislocation.
3.5. Verb Topicalization and Verb Focalization.
4. Topic-Focus Inversion and VS order in thetic sentences.
4.1. Active and remnant movement with bilateral Linear-Accent transformations.
4.2. Derivation of primary thetic sentences with VS order.
4.3. Thetic-A sentences and presentational constructions.
4.4. Default word order in Russian presentational constructions.
4.5. Communicative triggers and the direction of Linear-Accent transformations.
4.6. Right Focus Movement as source of primary VS thetics in Russian.
4.7. Inventory of Linear-Accent transformation.
5. Expletive elements in A-thetic sentences.
5.1. A-thetics and the Observer parameter.
5.2. Ontology of events and sub-events.
5.3. Typological perspectives: formal and functional analysis.
6. Conclusions.

Sollecitato da alcuni amici che non sono specialisti in linguistica, propongo una discussione dell'argomento chomskyano della povertà di stimolo (sezioni 1–3 dell'articolo). Inoltre, si offre una panoramica del dibattito su questo tema (sezioni 4–7).

In this thesis, I propose that the distribution of nominal phrases is constrained by the relative positions of phi-features that nominal phrases contain. More specifically, I propose a condition according to which two syntactic nodes bearing visible phi-features cannot be directly merged. This constraint results in the well-described generalization according to which Agreement is severely limited in the Nominal Domain and complements to nominals may not bear direct case-marking, unlike the complements of verbs and prepositions. Next, I suggest that the propagation of phi-features can be blocked by a formal feature – epsilon – that is borne on such morphemes as prepositions and linkers, as well as oblique case markers. A nominal phrase merged with an epsilon may combine with another nominal phrase when a bare nominal phrase may not. Next, I argue that the syntactic identity of nouns can be fully reduced to phi-features. The proposed approach is shown to extend to adjectives – another category whose syntactic behavior is largely determined by the presence of phi-features. To that effect, I show that the ban on direct marking of the complements of both adjectives and nouns can be understood as a constraint on the merger of two phi-bearing structures. I show how the proposed theory can account for several well known syntactic phenomena, including the ban on double Absolutives in Ergative languages and the lack of Structural Dative marking in the Nominal Domain. The empirical data is mainly drawn from Slavic, Romance, Germanic and Iranian languages of the Indo-European family and from Nakh-Dagestanian languages.