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Proceedings of the 31st Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 30
  • Publication
    Against restructuring in modern French
    (2008-04-23) Authier, J. Marc; Reed, Lisa A.
    Cinque (2002) examines those transparency effects that have been claimed to point to the existence of restructuring in French and concludes that quantifier and adverb climbing depend not on restructuring but, rather, on an irrealis context. In this paper, we show that restructuring does not play an active role in explaining the existence of en `of-it' and y `there' climbing or long movement in `easy-to-please' constructions either, which leads to the conclusion that Modern French has no transparency effects of the restructuring kind. We then present three arguments against Cinque's (2004) thesis that verbs of the restructuring class are universally functional verbs that appear with infinitives in a monoclausal configuration. Instead, we adopt the Cinque (2001)/Cardinaletti & Shlonsky (2004) approach according to which restructuring verbs can be merged either as lexical or functional verbs. We argue that this approach should be parametrized to yield three options that account for cross-linguistic/dialectal variation associated with restructuring.
  • Publication
    Social networks and intraspeaker variation during periods of language change
    (2008-04-23) Troutman, Celina; Clark, Brady; Goldrick, Matthew
    Previous work has revealed general characteristics of language change at both the level of linguistic communities as well as individual speakers. What are the properties of language users such that we can account for these characteristics? To address this question, we built a computational model of a social network of language users. By holding the network structure constant and varying properties of the language users, we found that language change reflects both the structure of social networks and properties of language users. In particular, our results suggest that although language users must be capable of probabilistically accessing multiple grammars, they must prefer to access a single grammar categorically.
  • Publication
    Positionally licensed extended lapses
    (2008-04-23) Houghton, Paula
  • Publication
    Wh-in-situ and the Spanish DP: Movement or no movement?
    (2008-04-23) Reglero, Lara; Ticio, Emma
    Two main theories compete to analyze wh-in-situ constructions in the Spanish clause: The “movement approach” (Uribe-Etxebarria (2002) and Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria (2005)) and the “in situ approach” (Reglero (2004, 2005)). According to Uribe-Etxebarria (2002) and Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria (2005), Spanish wh-in-situ questions have a complex syntax and involve two movement operations. First, the wh-word moves to Spec CP overtly. Then, the non-interrogative material (i.e. the remnant IP) moves over the displaced wh-word. Reglero (2004, 2005) argues against massive overt movement. She proposes that the properties of wh-in situ constructions are the result of the interplay of syntactic and phonological properties of these elements. This paper examines in detail wh-in-situ constructions in the nominal domain. The descriptive generalization is that wh-extraction is different from wh-in-situ in Spanish DPs, and it is not possible to analyze wh-in-situ as the result of movement. Crucially, the only requirement for wh-in-situ in the clausal and the nominal domains is the Sentence Final Requirement. That is, the presence of a wh-in-situ alters the neutral word order possibilities in the nominal domain. According to the evidence presented, the paper argues that a unified analysis of Spanish wh-in-situ is possible by appealing to Reglero’s non-movement approach.
  • Publication
    Reconstruction of Proto-Trique phonemes
    (2008-04-23) Matsukawa, Kosuke
    Trique languages are spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico and belong to the Mixtecan family of the Otomanguean stock. Trique languages are composed of three languages: San Andrés Chicahuaxtla Trique, San Juan Copala Trique and San Martín Itunyoso Trique. Based on the data on these three Trique languages, Proto-Trique has been reconstructed by Matsukawa (2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2007a, 2007b). This article is the refined version of my previous reconstruction of Proto-Trique. In Proto-Trique, seven stop sounds (/*t/, /*d/, /*k/, /*g/, /*kw/, /*gw/, /*ʔ/), three fricative sounds (/*ß/, /*s/, /*ʃ/), three affricate sounds (/*ts/, /*tʃ/, /*tʂ/), five resonant sounds (*m/, /*n/, /*l/, /*r/, /*y/), seven oral vowels (/*i/, /*e/, /*ɨ/, /*ə/, /*a/, /*o/, /*u/) and four nasal vowels (/*ĩ/, /*ɨ̃/, /*ã/, /*ũ/) can be reconstructed as phonemes. Both oral and nasal vowels have four types: short vowels (V), long vowels (VV), glottalized vowels (Vʔ) and aspirated vowels (Vh). Some of these reconstructed phonemes show very limited distributional constraints. All of the nasal vowels, long vowels, glottalized vowels and aspirated vowels occur only in a final syllable. In non-final syllables, only short oral vowels can occur. Although Proto-Trique has both voiced and voiceless stop sounds, voiced stop sounds can be reconstructed only in a final syllable. In non-final syllables, only voiceless stop sounds can occur. In this article, I will show how these Proto-Trique phonemes were reconstructed and how these reconstructed Proto-Trique phonemes have undergone series of historical sound changes in the three modern Trique languages.
  • Publication
    An argument/adjunct asymmetry in wh-questions
    (2008-04-23) Yoon, Suwon
    Contra previous uniform approaches for wh-phrases, the current paper argues that there is a clear asymmetry between in-situ argument and adjunct wh-phrases with respect to Intervention Effects (IEs) in Korean and Japanese. Based on the categorical (nominal vs. adverbial) dichotomy evidenced by structural case attachment tests and formation of complex wh-expressions, different base locations for wh-arguments (inside vP) and wh-adjuncts (outside vP) are suggested in these languages. Finally, I propose that IE asymmetries be attributed to the inherently different properties of argument and adjunct wh-phrases under scrambling operation.
  • Publication
    An evolutionary account of loanword-induced sound change in Japanese
    (2008-04-23) Crawford, Clifford
    Generative accounts of loanword phonology typically focus on the role of an individual speaker's grammar and/or perceptual biases in generating the phonological adaptations seen in loanwords. While these types of generative models can be successfully used to explain static synchronic patterns in loanword adaptations in terms of the set of existing constraints in the native phonology, it is more difficult to use these models to explain changes in such patterns over time. In this paper I will propose a so-called "evolutionary" model of loanword borrowing which extends generative accounts by considering how the transmission of a loanword among the members of a speech community affects the establishment of adaptation patterns over time, allowing integration into the model of both the perceptual and social factors influencing adaptation patterns. I then use an agent-based implementation of the evolutionary model to model diachronic data on the adaptation of coronal obstruents before /i/ in Japanese loanwords from English, showing that the greater acceptability of [ti] and [di] sequences over time can be tied to the increase in contact with English speakers that took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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    Comparatives and inversion in English: A (necessarily) diachronic account
    (2008-04-23) Gergel, Remus
    The paper argues that, based on insight gained from the syntax of earlier English, comparative inversion (CI) reveals itself as a far simpler process than what is standardly assumed. Starting from the insight of a suggestion made by Haeberli (2002) and adapting it to comparatives, the major syntactic diachronic developments of CI are explored.

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