Journal Issue: Proceedings of the 44th Annual Penn Linguistics Conference
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07/09/2021
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Publication Locative Causatives in European Portuguese as Voice Alternations(2021-07-09) Soares, Catarina; Wood, JimIn this paper, we discuss the syntax of a causative construction in European Portuguese, which is similar to the ordinary causative (OC) but which also differs from it in important ways. We refer to this construction as the Locative Causative (LC) construction, which alternates between transitive (TLC) and intransitive (ILC) variants. We show that LCs entail a change of location of the theme and exhibit an existence presupposition on the theme. We suggest that this is because the entire VoiceP is embedded in a LocP structure, and that this structure also leads to the existence presupposition. We propose that both TLCs and ILCs may embed a passive VoiceP despite having infinitival morphology, and that the distinction between light verbs ‘go’ in ILCs and ‘put’ in TLCs stems from the presence or absence of an external-argument-introducing Voice head in the matrix clause.Publication The Computational Similarity of Binding and Long-Distance Consonant Dissimilation(2021-07-09) Ikawa, Shiori; Jardine, AdamThis work shows that the binding patterns are computationally similar to long-distance consonant dissimilation. From a computational point of view, phonological patterns have long been hypothesized to be regular. More recent work has suggested this holds for syntax as well, given the correct representation. By examining binding conditions from morpho-syntactic transformational point of view, we show that binding conditions can be logically characterized in a parallel way to long-distance consonant dissimilation. The similarity shows that binding patterns as transformations fall into a subsequential class, a subregular class of transformations which is considered to capture a great deal of segmental phonological process. This result adds further support to the subregular hypothesis for syntax.Publication NO NEED TO YELL: A Prosodic Analysis of Writing in All Caps(2021-07-09) Heath, MariaWriting in all caps, while not unique to the internet, has become a common feature used in social media. English-speaking internet natives seem to have shared intuitions about what meaning it contributes to a text, even though it is not a feature taught in standard English orthographic education. This study employs production studies to determine how readers produce tweets written in all caps out loud, in order to provide evidence that there is a prosodic component to the interpretation of all caps. Though common discourse about all caps holds that it indicates yelling and anger, the data from this study shows that it's not just average loudness but also average pitch and syllable duration that tend to be increased in the production of all caps text versus text with standard capitalization. This combinaiton of prosodic features which can be associated with all caps also supports the conclusion that it can be used in contexts exemplifying a wide range of emotions, not just anger. This study lays groundwork for a better understanding of the interaction between orthography and prosody on social media and how production studies can be used to test such interactions.Publication Intra- and Interspeaker Repetitiveness in Locative Variation(2021-07-09) Li, Aini; Tamminga, MeredithA long research line in quantitative sociolinguistics has been aimed at understanding how persistence, the tendency for people to repeat a linguistic variant they have just used, influences language variation and change. Previous studies have variously attributed variant repetitiveness to priming in the psycholinguistic sense, socially-motivated style-shifting, or interspeaker accommodation, implying that intraspeaker persistence and interspeaker convergence are potentially different phenomena. This study reports both interspeaker convergence and intraspeaker persistence in a morphological variable that has been recently documented in the Chengdu dialect of Mandarin, a variety which is subject to language contact with standard Mandarin. We compare the relationship between repetitiveness within and across speakers. Results from mixed-effect logistic regression show that there is a persistence effect within speakers and a convergence effect across speakers; however the size of the effect varies according to different meaning contexts. Findings further shed light on the understanding of language change from psycholinguistic perspectives.Publication How to Derive Non-Logophoric Backward Binding for Stative Location Verbs(2021-07-09) Wilson, MichaelI provide new evidence that backward binding is not restricted to psych contexts, as commonly thought. Backward binding refers to a phenomenon in which an anaphor is bound by a DP below it, in apparent contravention of Principle A. Some popular previous accounts have explained backward binding in psych contexts as truly exceptional, in that anaphors are licensed by and corefer with animate perspective takers and are exempt from the usual Principle A requirements. I present new data that shows backward binding is possible for at least some speakers with stative uses of location verbs, which cannot be explained under such accounts. I outline two possible ways of deriving Principle A-obeying backward binding if Featural Relativized Minimality is assumed: featural differences between binder and bindee, and smuggling movement. I provide further new evidence from stative uses of location particle verbs that favor the featural differences approach. I close with a brief discussion of some possible implications for the structure of stative location verbs.Publication Partitive Case in Finnish Numeral-Noun Constructions(2021-07-09) Lohiniva, KaroliinaThis paper is about the case pattern of nouns in singular numeral-noun constructions in Finnish. It is proposed that the case of the noun – partitive or non-partitive – is determined by the semantic properties of the numeral-noun construction. In particular, by analyzing numeral-noun constructions as distributive constructions that incorporate an unboundedness requirement formalized as stratified reference (Champollion 2010, 2015, 2017), I show that it is possible to account for the case contrast without assuming any crucial syntactic or semantic differences between the numerals or nouns themselves.Publication Scope Assignments and Scalar Implicatures in Child English: The Role of Working Memory(2021-07-09) Wang, ShuyanAcquisition delays have been found for scope assignments and scalar implicatures (cf. Musolino 1998; Lidz 2016; Chierchia et al. 2001; Noveck 2001; Katsos & Bishop 2011). Both acquisition delays have separately been attributed to childrenÃs immature processing capacities, like their limited working memory. Yet, no study has ever directly looked at the role of processing limits in the acquisition of scope assignments or in the acquisition of scalar implicatures. Moreover, no one has looked at the two fields in combination. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate English-speaking childrenÃs mastery of scope assignments as well as their command of scalar implicatures. Most importantly, I also tested each childÃs digit span which is generally used to measure working memory. The results showed that although inverse-scope readings are allowed in English, adults hesitated to accept them but children were more permissive. Moreover, a significant correlation was found between participantsà acceptance of inverse-scope readings and their digit span. Regarding scalar implicatures, children did not compute the scalar implicatures while adults did, and a significant correlation was observed between a childÃs computation of scalar implicatures and their digit span. These findings provide new support for the processing approaches to the observed delays in scope assignments and scalar implicatures.Publication Stress Shift Accompanying Verb Suffixation in Gujarati(2021-07-09) Wang, ChenchenGujarati, an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the state of Gujarat in northwest India, is a synthetic agglutinative language. Examining its systematic and extensive suffixation system provides an opportunity to shed more light on Gujarati stress by allowing observation of how stress shifts during suffixation. This paper investigates stress shift and corresponding root alternations accompanying suffixation in Gujarati Type 1 causatives and passives. It is shown that in these causatives and passives, Gujarati maintains a well-defined stress pattern, i.e. the ultimate syllable in di-syllabic words and the penultimate syllable in tri-syllabic words, by shifting the stress to the suffix.Publication Abkhaz Stress as a Segmental Property(2021-07-09) Andersson, SamuelThis paper deals with the phonology of word stress in Abkhaz. Stress is both contrastive, forming minimal pairs, and dynamic, with stress placement alternating within morphological paradigms. I evaluate several theories of how Abkhaz stress should be represented, focusing on the size of units which host stress contrasts in the lexicon. A full analysis of Abkhaz stress requires an understanding of schwa, and I present arguments from exceptionless phonotactic restrictions that schwa is predictably epenthesized based on stress. I compile and analyze a corpus of 644 stress alternations, the largest dataset used in the literature. A subset of 426 alternations is used to evaluate four theories, where underlying stress specifications appear once per morpheme (Dybo 1977), syllable (Trigo 1992), mora (Kathman 1992, Vaux and Samuels 2018), or segment (Andersson 2020). The moraic and segmental analyses are the most successful, with 97% and 100% empirical coverage respectively. Arguments from consonant clusters and schwa distribution introduce additional problems for the moraic account, suggesting that Abkhaz stress is a property of individual segments in the lexicon. I conclude that the units capable of bearing stress can be as small as the segment, and may be more crosslinguistically variable than previously assumed.Publication The Codex Aubin: Nahuatl Glyphic Writing in Post-Conquest Mexico(2021-07-09) Krishnan, Arjun SaiIn this paper, we study the Nahua glyphic script as used in the Codex Aubin, a post-Conquest codex produced in 1576 that narrates the traditional Aztec founding myth and chronicles indigenous life in the early colonial period. The text consists of a preconquest-style annal written in the form of a European book; traditional depictions of events and transcriptions in the traditional glyph script are paired with Nahuatl glosses in Roman script, allowing for analysis of glyphs alongside their intended readings. In particular, we look for evidence of phoneticity in glyphs; a number of Spanish language names are transcribed in glyphs in the Codex, providing yet-undescribed examples of phonetic glyph compounds. Further, we also explore the generation of new logograms and phonetic compounds to capture Spanish-language lexemes in the post-Conquest period. We demonstrate the fundamentally polyvalent usage of the script with novel data, interpreting the simultaneous usage of multiple modes of meaning-conveyance and proposing novel readings of some glyphs. Finally, we also investigate the assembly and visual organization of complex glyphs in the codex. In particular, we detail a new modality of glyph usage, which we dub ‘emphatic cross-reference’ — it involves the assignment of extra-graphemic meaning to individual glyphs by means of their visual organization in compounds. To our knowledge, this particular usage of the Aztec script is undescribed to date, and we preliminarily detail our analysis of a few examples found in the Codex Aubin.