Journal Issue: Proceedings of the 35th Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium
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05/10/2012
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Publication The Information Structure of Subject Extraposition in Early New High German(2012-05-01) Light, CaitlinThis paper investigates the information-structural characteristics of extraposed subjects in Early New High German (ENHG). Based on new quantitative data from a parsed corpus of ENHG, I will argue that unlike objects, subjects in ENHG have two motivations for extraposing. First, subjects may extrapose in order to receive narrow focus, which is the pattern Bies (1996) has shown for object extraposition in ENHG. Secondly, however, subjects may extrapose in order to receive a default sentence accent, which is most visible in the case of presentational constructions. This motivation does not affect objects, which may achieve the same prosodic goal without having to extrapose.Publication Syntactic Positions of Bare NPs in Turkish: Some Implications from Aspect and Prosody(2012-05-01) Nagai, Miho; Özçelik, ÖnerThis paper proposes that internal arguments of verbs in Turkish do not uniformly occur in the complement position of the verb (contra e.g. Perlmutter 1978, 1989). We focus on syntactic positions of bare arguments in Turkish on the basis of aspectual (Aktionsart) properties of VPs (e.g. Vendler 1967) and prosodic structure. Looking at syntactic locations of low adverbs, we argue that bare internal arguments of Turkish achievements occur in SpecVP while those of accomplishments occur in the complement position of V.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 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 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 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 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.Publication Preface(2012-05-01) Fruehwald, JosefThe University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) is an occasional series published by the Penn Linguistics Club. The series has included volumes of previously unpublished work, or work in progress, by linguists with an ongoing affiliation with the Department, as well as volumes of papers from NWAV and the Penn Linguistics Colloquium. This volume contains selected papers from the 35th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, held from March 18-20, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA at the University of Pennsylvania. Alphabetic thanks go to Mao-Hsu Chen, Aaron Ecay, Sabriya Fisher, Aaron Freeman, Lauren Friedman, Kyle Gorman, Anton Ingason, Marielle Lerner, Laurel MacKenzie, Hilary Prichard, and Kobey Schwayder for help in editing, uploading, and general support. Since Vol. 14.2, PWPL has been an internet-only publication. Since Vol. 13.2, PWPL has been published both in print and online gratis via ScholarlyCommons@Penn. Due to the large number of hits these online papers have received, and the time and expense of managing a back catalog of PWPL volumes, the editorial committee decided in 2008 to cease print publication in favor of wider-scale free online dissemination. Please continue citing PWPL papers or issues as you would a print journal article, though you may also provide the URL of the manuscript. An example is below: Authier, Marc . 2012. Ellipsis as Movement and Silence: Evidence from French. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 18.1: Proceedings of PLC 35, ed. J. Fruehwald, 1-9. http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol18/iss1/2 Ultimately, the entire back catalog will be digitized and made available on ScholarlyCommons@Penn. Publication in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) does not preclude submission of papers elsewhere; copyright is retained by the author(s) of individual papers. The PWPL editors can be contacted at: U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 619 Williams Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104–6305 working-papers@ling.upenn.edu http://ling.upenn.edu/papers/pwpl.html Josef Fruehwald Issue EditorPublication -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 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.
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