Journal Issue: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Penn Linguistics Conference
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Publication Nonactive Voice in Hebrew and Elsewhere: Between Unaccusativity and Agentivity(2016-01-01) Kastner, ItamarTwo verbal templates in Modern Hebrew allow for any kind of verbal construction, except for a simple transitive verb. Unaccusatives, reflexives, reciprocals and unergatives that take an obligatory indirect object are all attested, but transitive verbs are not allowed. I discuss what the morphology of these templates actually signals, given that external arguments and internal arguments are both possible. Working in Distributed Morphology, I propose that a number of functional heads conspire to produce the existing alternations in argument structure, with implications for theories of anticausativization, reflexivization and reciprocalization.Publication Obviating the Disjoint Reference Effect in French(2016-01-01) B-Violette, LaurenceThis paper investigates the phenomenon of the “subjunctive disjoint reference effect” or “obviation” in French. Object-Subject Obviation (OSO) occurs when the dative clitic object of a directive predicate cannot be coreferential with the subject of an embedded subjunctive clause. I propose to build on a previous account in which obviation results from an antilogophoricity effect arising from the co-occurrence of two logophoric centres within an embedded subjunctive clause: an expressive operator and the referent of the dative clitic. I also argue that obviation is best accounted for by competition theories and that subject-subject obviation (SSO), in the complement clauses of direc- tive predicates, in which the subject of the directive cannot be coreferential with the subject of the embedded subjunctive clause, is not a real instance of obviation.Publication Towards a Syntactic Focus Movement Account of the Sluicing-Like Construction in Chinese(2016-01-01) Song, WeiThere have been two camps on the analysis of the ellipsis construction dubbed sluicing by Ross (1969) in Mandarin Chinese. The pseudosluicing analyses argue that Chinese sluicing involves a copular clause with a null pro, whereas the focus movement analyses propose that it is derived from focus movement plus TP-deletion. In this paper I provide evidence for the second view by showing parallels between sluicing and the wh-fronting construction in Chinese. Three parallel behaviors involve the distribution of shi, exhaustive identification, and the (im)possibility of the how family.Publication Definiteness Morphology in Swedish Determiner Phrases(2016-01-01) Goodwin Davies, AmyIn Swedish determiner phrases definiteness can be realised both pre-nominally with a definite article and post-nominally with a definite suffix on the head noun. This paper discusses the distribution of definiteness morphology in a number of morphosyntactic contexts. Separate patterns of definiteness marking emerge when considering the following morphosyntactic contexts: DPs modified with a prepositional phrase, DPs followed by a restrictive relative clause, and DPs with adjectival pre-nominal modification. This paper synthesizes various proposals in the literature to develop the working analysis: in particular, LaCara's (2011) analysis which includes two component features of definiteness and insights about DEN-omission from Simonenko (2014: Chapter 2). This working analysis demonstrates that the distribution under discussion can be unified using while maintaining a straightforward mapping between the semantics and the morphosyntax. The following avenues are identified as promising areas for future work: the distribution of definiteness morphology in additional morphosyntactic or semantic contexts and between varieties of Swedish; the semantic features adopted here and their alternatives; typological work concerning the semantic and morphosyntax definiteness cross-linguistically, including the properties of adjectival modification in definite DPs.Publication New Definition of Edge and its Consequences for PBC(2016-01-01) Yoo, YongSukThis paper argues that the asymmetries found in various remnant CP-movement constructions in Korean can be accounted for if we assume the contextual edge approach (henceforth, CE). CE shows that among edges of a phase, only the highest edge is available for movement/binding (Bošković to appear). The particular analysis provided here will reduce various generalizations with regard to Proper Binding Condition (Kitahara 1997, Müller 2001).Publication Prevoicing and Aspiration in Southern American English(2016-01-01) Hunnicutt, Leigh; Morris, Paul A.This paper reports on an investigation of voicing and aspiration of stops in Southern American English (SAE) and discusses theoretical implications of the findings for the features of contrast in SAE. Languages that have a two-way stop contrast generally fall into two categories: voicing languages (Russian, Dutch, Spanish) and aspirating languages (German, English, Mandarin). Many phonologists have suggested that aspirating languages have a [spread glottis] ([sg]) contrast and true voice languages a [voice] contrast (Beckman, Jessen, & Ringen 2013, Iverson & Salmons 1995). Surface phonetic cues are intrinsically connected to these phonological features; prevoicing or aspiration in certain environments implicates the phonological feature [voice] or [sg] (Beckman et al. 2013). In utterance-initial position, voicing languages have negative VOT lenis and short-lag VOT fortis stops, while aspirating languages have short-lag lenis and long-lag fortis stops. However, Helgason and Ringen (2008) show that the two-way contrast in Swedish has phonetic cues of both [sg] and [voice]; they propose that the phonological contrast in Swedish stops is between [voice] and [sg]. Rate effects support this proposal (Beckman, Helgason, McMurray, & Ringen 2011). This study analyzed utterance-initial lenis and fortis stops across all places of articulation from 13 speakers of Southern American English (SAE). Overall, 77.8% of the 951 lenis stop tokens for SAE speakers were prevoiced in utterance-initial position, with a mean VOT of -92.0 ms for lenis stops; this far exceeds data found in Lisker and Abramson (1964) and is comparable to that found for Dutch, a [voice] contrast language. Additionally, the SAE speakers had fortis VOT values comparable to aspirating languages such as NAE (Northern American English). If prevoicing implicates phonological [voice] and aspiration implicates [spread glottis], then SAE appears to have both, as is argued for Swedish in Helgason and Ringen (2008).Publication Subject-Object Asymmetries in English Sentences with Two Negatives(2016-01-01) Blanchette, FrancesThis paper presents the results of an experimental study on gradient acceptability of English sentences with two negatives such as ‘John didn’t eat nothing’ and ‘nobody didn’t eat’. These sentences have two possible interpretations. In the Negative Concord interpretation, the two negatives contribute a single semantic negation (e.g. ‘John ate nothing’). In the Double Negation interpretation, each negative contributes a semantic negation, yielding a logical affirmative (e.g. ‘John ate something’). Negative Concord is heavily stigmatized in contemporary English. The results of this study show that despite their overall unacceptability, Negative Concord sentences with a negative object are significantly more acceptable than Negative Concord sentences with a negative subject. This subject-object asymmetry is not present in Double Negation sentences, which are equally unacceptable with negative subjects and negative objects. This paper discusses how these results support the hypothesis that Negative Concord constructions have the same underlying structure as Negative Polarity Item constructions (e.g. John didn’t eat anything), which also exhibit subject-object asymmetries in acceptability (cf. *Anybody didn’t eat.)Publication Wh-Concord in Okinawan = Syntactic Movement + Morphological Merger(2016-01-01) Kinjo, Kunio; Oseki, YoheiThe main purpose of this paper is to provide a novel account for Wh-Concord in Okinawan based on the Copy Theory of Movement and Distributed Morphology. We propose that Wh-Concord interrogatives and Japanese-type wh-interrogatives have exactly the same derivation in the syntactic component: the Q-particle -ga, base-generated as adjoined to a wh-phrase, undergoes movement to the clause-final position. The two types of interrogatives are distinguished in the post-syntactic component: only in Wh-Concord, the -r morpheme on C0 triggers Morphological Merger, which makes it possible to Spell-Out lower copy of -ga. It is shown that the proposed analysis correctly predicts three descriptive generalizations on the distribution of -ga in (i) syntactic islands, (ii) subordinate clauses, and (iii) (embedded) multiple wh-interrogatives.Publication No Clash Constraint in Nominal RNR Number Agreement(2016-01-01) Shen, ZhengThis paper presents a survey of agreement patterns in the right node raising construction in the nominal domain, makes a novel cross-linguistic generalization, and offers a multi-dominance account for singular targets in this and that student and a conjunction account for plural targets in John’s and Mary’s students. The account proposed here make various implications on agreement/ concord, NP structures, and RNR analyses.Publication A Freezing Approach to the Ish-Construction in English(2016-01-01) Duncan, DanielThe English affix -ish has historically been a derivational morpheme that creates adjectives denoting approximation to the root. In this paper, I introduce a novel use of ish in English, in which it may appear following VP/PP and a pause, even when no adjective is present. I assert that this novel use is a syntactic construction, and provide an analysis of the syntax of the ish-construction. Based on facts from clefting, Sluicing, and incompatibility with NPI-licensing, I show that ish is TP-Internal and triggers island effects. Because it appears to the right of the island in the surface structure, I propose an analysis drawing from Müller's (1998) discussion of Freezing, by which moved objects cannot be extracted from. I argue that ish Merges above the VP/PP it modifies, which then moves past ish to derive the surface structure. I provide evidence from Raising constructions that support predictions made by such an analysis.