Journal Issue: Proceedings of the 35th Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium
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05/10/2012
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Publication Is There a Difference between ‘You’ and ‘I’? A Psycholinguistic Investigation of the Chinese Reflexive Ziji(2012-05-01) He, Xiao; Kaiser, ElsiWe report two experiments examining first/second-person blocking effects on the Chinese long-distance reflexive ziji during on-line processing. Participants read sentences with varying matrix and embedded subjects (Exp1: 1st-person pronoun/3rd-person name; Exp2: 2nd-person pronoun/3rd-person name) and answered comprehension questions probing their interpretations of ziji. Work on English found that structurally inaccessible referents can cause competition at the reflexive, indicated by reading-time slowdowns (Badecker and Straub 2002). In Exp1, the 1st-person blocking condition (3rd-person matrix/1st-person embedded) exhibited slowdowns and a higher-than-expected rate of matrix-subject-interpretations, suggesting 1st-person blocking is not consistently effective. However, the subset of trials with effective blocking (local-antecedent interpretations) revealed no slowdowns. In Exp2, the 2nd-person blocking condition (3rd-person matrix/2nd-person embedded) showed consistent blocking and no significant slowdowns. Our results suggest that referents’ ability to compete depends not only on prominence (Badecker and Straub 2002) but also how it is blocked (person-feature vs. syntactic barrier). Building upon Brunyé et al.’s (2009) finding that 2nd-person pronouns are more effective at triggering perspective-taking than 1st-person pronouns, we suggest that the difference between first- and second- person blocking may be attributable to perspective taking: Identifying with the 2nd-person addressee leads comprehenders to more consistently interpret the reflexive as referring to the local 2nd-person subject, resulting in a consistent blocking effect.Publication Ellipsis as Movement and Silence: Evidence from French(2012-05-01) Authier, MarcFrench allows ellipsis after a number of verbs that express priority or dynamic modality. This phenomenon is known as ‘modal ellipsis’ and, in the past ten years, its syntactic status has been hotly debated in the literature on Romance syntax in ways reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the proper syntactic treatment of English VP ellipsis and Sluicing that started with the early works of Ross (1967) and Sag (1976). What has been established so far with some degree of certainty is that unlike English VP-ellipsis, French modal ellipsis is ellipsis of a TP (Dagnac, 2010). Also established by Busquets and Denis (2001) is the fact that modal ellipsis allow syntactic extraction out of the elision site. This weighs heavily in favor of a PF-deletion approach because it suggests that the ellipsis site has inner structure and therefore provides an extraction site that would remain unavailable under a pro-form approach. In this paper, I explore a novel formulation of the licensing conditions on modal ellipsis that takes as a point of departure a suggestion by Johnson (2001) that English VP-Ellipsis should be derived by way of movement and that elided VPs stand in a topic position though they are not spelled out at PF. I argue that adopting a similar approach to French modal ellipsis correctly predicts (a) the class of French verbs that license modal ellipsis, (b) some novel grammaticality contrasts involving infinitival forms of these verbs, and (c) the fact that French does not have VP-Ellipsis and that English does not have modal ellipsis.Publication Numerical cognition among speakers of the Jarawara language: A pilot study and methodological implication(2012-05-01) Everett, CalebDixon (2004) suggests that the Jarawara language contains no native number terms. This assertion implies that Jarawara is one of the most extreme documented cases of a language with a paucity of number terms (Hammarström 2010), and helped to motivate an investigation into the numerical cognition of its speakers. Investigations among speakers of languages with limited number terminologies have proven useful to cognitive scientists interested in the language-cognition interface (see De Cruz & Pica 2008). For instance, it has been demonstrated that speakers of Pirahã, a numberless Amazonian language, face difficulties when performing basic tasks related to numerical cognition (Gordon 2004, Frank et al. 2008, C. Everett & Madora in press). In order to contrast the numerical cognition of the Jarawara with those of the Pirahã, and in so doing shed light on the interaction between anumeric language and thought, we replicated three of the basic tasks described in the aforementioned studies on Pirahã. Unlike speakers of Pirahã, the seven speakers of Jarawara tested generally performed quite well on the tasks in question. Differences between the two tribes were significant (at pdohave a native cardinal number system, contra Dixon (2004), and that this system can be used for numerosities as large as twenty. In addition to the experimental data presented, this paper includes the most extensive documentation to date of a number system in an Arawá language.Publication Null Subject Behavior in the Attrition of Brazilian Portuguese(2012-05-01) Castro, TammerThe syntax of referential null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is the topic of much recent work (Kato & Negrão 2000; Ferreira 2000, 2004; Martins & Nunes 2005, 2010; Modesto 2000; Rodrigues 2002, 2004). In light of the Interface Hypothesis (Tsimpli, Sorace 2006), uninterpretable features such as purely syntactical elements should not undergo attrition. This study tests whether this theory is valid in regard to the Null Subject behavior in the production of BP speakers under influence of L2 English. In order to do so, I conducted an experiment with monolingual BP speakers and bilingual (English/BP) speakers to establish a clear-cut comparison. The experiment consisted of an elicited production task and a grammaticality judgment task. The results of the data analysis show that BP speakers under influence of L2 English do seem to indicate attrition, thus encouraging further studies questioning the Interface Hypothesis.Publication On the Role of Experiencer in the Interaction of Aspect and Unaccusativity in Russian(2012-05-01) Glushan, ZhannaIn this paper I identify the factors that can skew the result of two standard unaccusativity diagnostics in Russian (distributive po-phrase and verb prefixation): (i) animacy of the subject (ii) verbal aspect. I introduce a new class of data, which reveals a contrast that is characteristic of all unaccusative predicates: Experiencer/Theme interaction. Unlike the well-known agentivity effects (Permutter and Postal (1984), Hoekstra and Mulder (1990), Zaenen (1993)), Experiencer/Theme interaction is linked to animacy, but not to volitionality. The connection between animacy and an Experiencer is formalized as an Experiencer condition: the Experiencer role must be assigned if the sole argument is animate. I propose a novel view of argument distribution whereby animate arguments can be base generated VP-externally. Variable applicability of unaccusative tests to telic/atelic verb forms results from the interaction between the Experiencer condition, the structural view of telicity (Folli and Harley (2005), Ramchand (2008)) and world knowledge.Publication -Nibud’ Pronouns in Irrealis Infinitivals: Structure and Licensing(2012-05-01) Fitzgibbons, NataliaThis paper uses the distribution of ni- and –nibud’-series of irrealis pronouns in Russian to explore the structure of irrealis infinitivals. Members of the ni-series are negative concord items licensed by sentential negation (the head of NegP, which dominates TP); they cannot be licensed long across a CP phase boundary (Brown (1999), Fitzgibbons (2010), among others). -Nibud’-items are licensed by certain items that have been argued in the literature to be in the CP domain at LF, such as, for example, question operators ((Cheng (1991), Chomsky (1995), Rizzi (1997), (1999), Sportiche (1995))) and imperative operators ((Han (2001), (Belletti (1999), Schwager (2005), Zanuttini (2008)). This paper draws the following conclusions from the near-complementary distribution of these two pronominal series in irrealis infinitivals,: Russian irrealis infinitivals can be generated as either CPs or as TPs, and the irrealis infinitivals where–nibud’-items are licensed are CPs. -nibud’-items that are licensed in the subject position of moč’ ‘can’ undergo A-movement out of the infinitival complement CP. It is not the matrix modal word that licenses the –nibud’-items in irrealis infinitival complements. The licenseris the irrealis C of the embedded infinitival.Publication Toward a Phase Account of Dependent Case(2012-05-01) Kučerová, IvonaIn the generative tradition, Accusative case ACC is often analyzed as a dependent Case, where being dependent means being dependent on another argument (Burzio 1986), more precisely a theta-role, or being dependent on a chain assigning Nominative case NOM to another argument (Marantz 1991), more precisely, an unmarked, i.e. non-lexically governed, case. In both approaches, ACC is a result of grammatical competition. The Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2001, 2008) seems to be an exception: in this framework, abstract Case is assigned by functional heads. Concretely, ACC is assigned by v*. Whether or not v* assigns ACC then depends on whether or not v* is a strong phase. Even though the Minimalist Program doesn't seem to employ a competition view of ACC as a dependent case, it is at its core a look-ahead system. Although the dependency on another argument is not explicitly declared, it is inherent to the system. This paper presents data from Polish, Ukrainian and Northern Russian that contradict the dependency view of ACC and suggest an alternative in terms of structure-dependency, independent of another argument receiving a theta-role or another case being assigned to a chain. This bears on the question of the role of case in syntax and on the nature of spell-out and of cyclic domains.Publication The indefinite article – Indefinite? – Article?(2012-05-01) Leu, ThomasPerlmutter (1970) argued that the indefinite article is categorically different from the definite article and proposed that it is a clitic version of the numeral "one". But there are, as Perlmutter himself pointed out, instances of "a" as well as of "one" that don't seem to have the semantics of the numeral. Hence a divorce of "a" (and of "one") from "numeral"-hood is called for. Furthermore, there are instances of what looks like the indefinite article (e.g., German "ein" or its Dutch, etc. counterpart) which occur in contexts from which the indefinite article is supposed to be excluded: with plural nouns, with non-count nouns, in definite noun phrases, etc. This state of affairs was addressed by Bennis et al. (1998), and others since, by reference to a so-called 'spurious article,' homophonous with the traditional indefinite article "een/ein". The goal of the present paper is twofold: First of all, I argue that German "ein" is not always an `indefinite article,' and, pursuing the idea that there is only one "ein", it is hence never an `indefinite article.' Secondly, I explore some consequences for the structural representation of certain function words which contain "ein" as one of their components, in particular "kein" as well as its English counterpart "no". The discussion promotes a strongly non-lexicalist view, advocating a syntactic derivation of function words, including movement.Publication Syntax and Prosody in Kashaya Phrasal Accent(2012-05-01) Buckley, Eugene; Gluckman, JohnThis paper explores the nature of prosodic phrasing in Kashaya, an endangered language of northern California, as diagnosed by the location of accent. Previous work has reported that iambic feet are constructed across prosodic phrases that can consist of multiple words, but there has been little research into how these p-phrases interact with syntactic constituency. We propose an alignment analysis in which the right edge of XP usually corresponds to the end of a p-phrase. But prosodic considerations, in particular an avoidance of phrase-final accent and a preference for a right-branching intonational phrase, can override the alignment of prosodic and syntactic constituency and sometimes leads to mismatches. An examination of a text corpus reveals general pressures against final accent, which can be avoided by accent suppression and leftward retraction as well as the choice of prosodic phrasing. Syllabification across a word boundary also encourages certain groupings in order to satisfy crisp edge-alignment of prosodic categories, showing a further influence of pure prosody rather than alignment with the syntactic edges.Publication The Role of Negative and Positive Evidence in Adult Phonological Learning(2012-05-01) Finley, SaraOne of the great mysteries of language development is how children acquire language so efficiently while adults are never able to reach the same level of proficiency. Adding to this mystery is that child learners rarely receive negative evidence regarding the nature of the grammatical structure of their language, but adults are more likely to receive and use such evidence (in classes, corrections, etc.) (Baker, 1979). The present study tests the role of negative evidence in adult language learners, who were exposed to an artificial grammar characterized by round vowel harmony, a phonological process whereby vowels agree in the feature round. Participants were exposed to either positive evidence only (Positive Evidence Condition), or both negative and positive evidence (Positive Evidence Condition). In two experiments, participants in the Positive Evidence Condition outperformed participants in the Negative Evidence Condition, specifically for test items tat measured extension of learned items to novel items. These results suggest that negative evidence may hinder adult grammatical rule learning.
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