Journal Issue: Proceedings of the 37th Annual Penn Linguistics Conference
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03/28/2014
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Publication (Anti-)locality and A-scrambling in Japanese(2014-01-01) Goto, SayakaIn this paper, I investigate binding effects triggered by long-distance scrambling in Japanese. The first purpose of the study is to describe an environment where long-distance scrambling can feed A-binding and make a generalization about it. The generalization made in this paper is that Long-distance scrambling can feed A-binding only if i) the embedded subject is null, and ii) a bindee is contained in the matrix object (or in the matrix subject if there is no matrix indirect object). The second purpose is to give an analysis to derive the generalization without recourse to A/A'-distinction. As discussed in the paper, there are some problems in an approach to capture binding phenomena resorting to A/A'-distinction. Therefore, I propose an analysis to derive the generalization without using the notion of A/A'-distinction.Publication Interaction of Phonology and Morphology in Maltese and Makassarese Clitics(2014-01-01) Shwayder, KobeyThis paper presents two case studies in which surface phonological form is determined by an interaction of phonological and morphological information and processes. In both Makassarese (South Sulawesi, Austronesian) and Maltese (Semitic) the attachment of certain clitics to a host results in an asymmetry in phonological behavior. The phonological form of these host-clitic structures is sensitive to both the morphology of the clitic (that is, not all clitics show this behavior) and to the phonological shape of the host. To analyze this data, I propose a framework, following Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993, et. seq.), in which the triggers for the application of phonological processes are specific morphosyntactic structures and processes. One such morphosyntactic process, Local Dislocation, is known to be conditioned by phonological information about the objects to which it applies. The interleaving of Vocabulary Insertion, which results in available phonological material, Linearization and Local Dislocation result in a framework which has a complicated but restricted interaction of phonological and morphological information. With this framework, the data in the case studies can be explained with one simple morphological process and a few simple phonological rules.Publication Getting your Gutturals out of the Mind: An Assessment of the Role of Phonology in the Patterns of Historical Gutturals in Modern Hebrew(2014-01-01) Montoya, Ignacio L.In traditional accounts of Hebrew morphology, the primary basis of word formation is an underlying consonantal root and vocalic/prosodic template. However, many words in Modern Hebrew containing reflexes of historical gutturals deviate from the canonical form with regard to syllable structure, the number of surface root consonants, and the number and quality of vowels in the template. These deviations can be characterized as deletion, vowel epenthesis, and vowel lowering, suggesting that the exceptional words can be explained via phonological approaches. Indeed, phonological explanations have been by proposed by previous generative and Optimality Theory (OT) accounts (Bar-Lev 1977, Bolozky 1978, Faust 2005), though these studies have been limited with regard to their explanatory scope. The present paper begins both by expanding on these treatments using a wider array of ordered rules and ranked constraints than was previously proposed and by exploring their limitations. To address their shortcomings, this paper then adopts an Evolutionary Phonology (EP) framework. Under an EP analysis, we can assess the extent to which the tools of phonology are appropriate for explaining patterns involving the modern reflexes of the gutturals by exploring multiple sources of explanation for these patterns: phonetic and historical factors, external factors such as language contact and prescriptive norms, and analogical change (Blevins 2004). The source of vowel lowering and epenthesis is posited to be the effects of the relatively high F1 associated with gutturals, which became phonological processes in Biblical Hebrew (McCarthy 1994). Incorporated into Hebrew orthography, these effects remained evident in Modern Hebrew, despite the fact that the guttural triggers themselves were not recovered in the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language in the late 1800s (Sáenz-Badillos 1993) and therefore did not form part of the synchronic phonology. After considering non-phonological sources of explanation for vowel lowering and epenthesis, deletion alone is left as a strictly phonological process. This paper proposes that the synchronic effects associated with vowel lowering and epenthesis should be explored using the tools of morphology rather than those of phonology.Publication Mandarin Resultative Verb Compound Involves VP Complementation(2014-01-01) Liu, MingmingMandarin Resultative Verb Compounds (RVCs) are verbal complexes of the form V1-V2, where V1 denotes an activity and V2 the result of that activity. Previous literature either assigns to RVCs a Complex Verb structure [V V1-V2] (Li 1990, Williams 2012) or a Small Clause structure [V1P V1 [SCV2]] (Sybesma 1999). In the paper, I will propose a VP Complementation syntax for Mandarin RVC [V1P V1 [V2PV2P]] (similar to Sybesma 1999 but contra Williams 2011,see (1) (Also, in (1) there are multiple V-to-v movements, see Collins 2002)) and present new data to support it. Specifically, the data involves two types of Event Modifiers Duratives and Locatives, and I will show those event modifiers can modify either V1 or V2, independently; also, the positions of these modifiers determine their interpretations and that certain positions of Duratives are not allowed, all of which are predicted by the VP Complementation syntax.Publication Compounds, learning mechanisms, and the continuity hypothesis in language acquisition(2014-01-01) Gamache, Jessica; Schmitt, CristinaNobody denies that the input plays an important role in language acquisition, but the issue as to whether the input is sufficient to drive language learning is still a matter of debate. In this paper we examine children’s acquisition of synthetic compounds in English and Dutch. Despite having necessarily different input, Dutch- and English-speaking children produce the same set of non-adult forms when acquiring synthetic compounds: drive-truck and driver-truck, but not truck-drive. In this paper we review three proposals for the English-speaking children’s data and examine how they fair in light of the Dutch-speaking children’s data. The proposals fall into two types: (i) input-driven proposals that argue that frequent, but unrelated, aspects of the input are causing the non-adult forms we see and (ii) grammar-driven proposals that argue that the children’s non-adult forms are actually driven by the adult derivation. Given the inability for the two experience-driven accounts to explain why Dutch- and English-speaking children produce the same non-adult forms, we will ultimately claim that only a proposal that relies on the grammar explains the data at hand. More specifically we argue that children proceed from their earliest non-adult productions to the adult truck-driver form in a manner consistent with a strong version of the continuity hypothesis. Rather than being approximations of the adult forms that are affected by other constructions in the input, the forms that children produce are steps in the adult derivation of synthetic compounds. As children learn more about the structure and can confidently advance the structure without missing any of the adult features, the forms progress towards the adult truck-driver form.Publication Looking Back and Looking Forward: Anaphora and Cataphora in Italian(2014-01-01) Fedele, Emily; Kaiser, ElsiPronoun interpretation is central for comprehension. Prior work focused mostly on anaphora, where pronouns refer to previously-mentioned antecedents. Less research is on cataphora, where antecedents follow pronouns. Existing work suggests cataphora triggers an active-search mechanism: The parser actively searchers for a syntactically-licenses antecedent. Our results on Italian null and overt subject pronouns show that both processing constraints (“impatient parser”) and the grammatical properties of referring expressions contribute to the outcome of reference resolution; parsers try to “discharge” unresolved pronouns when encountered first (i.e., cataphora) due to a processing load of keeping an unresolved pronoun in memory, even if this goes against grammar specific properties. Furthermore, in line with related research, we find that strong grammatical principles (Binding Theory) are powerful enough to “block” processing effects, contributing to our view of how different components of language processing interact.Publication First Language Taiwanese Tonal Attrition: Revisiting First Language Attrition Hypotheses and Their Relevance(2014-01-01) Chang, YufenMost first language (L1) attrition research focuses on syntactic and morphological deterioration in environments where L1 ‘attriters’ rarely have contact with their L1, such as immigrants. There is no study on L1 attrition in tones and in contexts where L1 can still be often heard. This study examines this attrition type in Taiwan, where the attriters cannot speak their L1 Taiwanese fluently and have become L2-Mandarin dominant after five years old. This study investigates L1 attriters’ Taiwanese tonal system by evaluating tonal attrition hypotheses based on four of the six L1 attrition proposals in the literature. The data in this study are composed of natural speech provided by 10 L1 Taiwanese attriters, 6 older L1 Taiwanese non-attriters, and 5 younger L1-Taiwanese L2-Mandarin bilinguals. The participants performed a film retell and a story-telling task. The results indicate that Taiwanese tone sandhi is so ingrained in the attriters’ phonology that the attriters are still capable of accurately performing tone sandhi (approximately 90% accurate). Although the attriters have become L2 Mandarin dominant, L2 interference is not observed. Given these findings, the L1 Taiwanese tonal attrition hypotheses referencing L2, such as the simplification hypotheses, cannot account for the attriters’ system. Rather, attrition hypotheses referencing L1 acquisition, such as the threshold hypothesis, are more successful at accounting for the attriters’ tonal system. There is still a larger question as to why the complex Taiwanese tone sandhi system is so well maintained in light of the presence of the competing dominant L2 Mandarin tonal system. Perhaps it is because the Taiwanese system is so complex. Tone sandhi interacts with the syntax, the semantics, the morphology and even the segmental phonology of the language. If the complexity was learned before the onset of massive exposure to Mandarin, then we can revise slightly the threshold hypothesis by saying complicated structures that are learned well are unlikely to attrite.Publication Phonological Opacity and Icelandic Preaspiration(2014-01-01) Heimisdóttir, Linda Ö.This paper explores the relationship between constraints on syllable contact and the emergence of so-called preaspirated stops in Icelandic. It is a well-known fact of Icelandic phonology that, when followed by a sonorant, a stop loses its aspiration. However, there are two patterns. When followed by /l, n, m/, a stop surfaces with `preaspiration', i.e. as a sequence of [h] + plain stop. When followed by /j, v, r/, the result is a plain stop preceded by a long vowel. The most promising approaches to this problem have attributed the dierence between the two patterns to dierences in syllabication, due to language-specic constraints on syllable contact. The argument is that the dierence between the two patterns lies in the amount of sonority rise within the dierent clusters, i.e. that consonant clusters that rise too much in sonority (apirated stop + /j, v, r/) cannot cross a syllable boundary and will therefore emerge as complex onsets preceded by a long vowel. Preaspirated stops, on the other hand, have nothing to do with syllable contact and emerge in the surface structure for independent reasons. I propose that laws of syllable contact are in fact also the main motivation behind the emergence of preaspirated stops in Icelandic, along with constraints on glottal activity in stressed syllables. The two patterns arise due to dierent rankings of specic syllable contact constraints relative to other phonological constraints in the system. I furthermore demonstrate that preaspirated stops are the result of an opaque interaction of phonological constraints and can therefore not be derived within the framework of classic OT.Publication A Necessity Priority Modal and its Interaction with Tense in Korean(2014-01-01) Mun, BokyungThe interaction of a modal auxiliary with tense or aspect components often gives rise to some unexpected inferences. In Korean, when a necessity priority modal –eya ha– ‘should’ is combined with past tense morphology, the sentence yields the ‘non-actualization’ inference. Condoravdi (2002) examines that the similar phenomenon in English. Focusing on the epistemic modal-perfect combination, she proposes a scope-based analysis, and argues that counterfactuality arises as a conversational implicature. I show that, even though Condoravdi’s scope-reversal analysis well explains the counterfactual reading from might have sentences, this account cannot be extended to the Korean data. In my analysis, the non-actualization inference found in priority modal sentences in Korean is a not-at-issue assertion, and this inference arises from the temporal relations between SIT-T, MOD-T and UT-T.Publication A Prosodic Analysis of Romanian Pronominal Clitics(2014-01-01) Chereches, AncaRomanian pronominals have an extensive array of surface forms. Most previous literature calls this variation idiosyncratic and focuses on the morphosyntactic status of pronominals. I show that the phonology of pronominals is not only quite regular, but entirely predictable from the general phonology of Romanian. What is special about pronominals is not the constraints that apply to them, but how they are included into the prosodic hierarchy. The prosody of pronominals is partly due to general prosodic constraints, as outlined in Selkirk 1996, and partly due to lexical prespecifications, as in Zec's (2005) analysis of Serbian function words.