This paper should be considered a sequel to the paper read at the meetings of the Canadian Linguistic Association at Kingston in June 1960 and to be published in the Proceedings of the Learned Societies of Canada; in the first paper, the linguistic theories of J. R. Firth (and which are summarised in section 1.0. 1.1, and 1.11 of this paper) were outlined, and in this article the procedures at the different levels (Firth himself has used the term “spectrum analysis”) of the analysis of a text are described and copiously illustrated from the works of Firth and his associates. These methods have been developed by Professor Firth and his colleagues in London on the lines of the linguistic theory promulgated by Professor Firth and adumbrated in the original paper. This article concludes with a detailed bibliography of the writings of Firth and his colleagues; reference is also made to the work of other scholars who have discussed Firth’s linguistic theories.

I advance the thesis that the narrow syntactic component of CHL is purely symmetrical, with all apparent asymmetries reducing to interface conditions. Properties of Germanic object shift and scrambling, in particular the VO order-preservation (Holmberg’s Generalization), derive from symmetry-breaking strategies which dispose of superfluous (symmetric) syntactic information and ensure the PF-legibility (linearization). These interface desymmetrization strategies provide a Minimalist analysis of non-lexical (macro-)parameters, such as the head-directionality parameter.

The Linear Correspondence Axiom is reconciled with the VO/OV head parameter such that linear “shape” is preserved across the derivation. This allows object shift and scrambling to emerge as two sides of a single parametric coin. The implications of this system for the A/A-bar movement typology are explored, and a Minimalist reconceptualization is offered.

In this article, we consider legal notices of various forms, including imperative, indicative, and non-sentential. We argue that these convey various illocutionary forces depending on their particular content. In particular, those that prohibit actions — unlike laws that do so — typically have “directive” illocutionary force, with different linguistic classes of legal notices achieving this force through different means, given their distinct linguistic properties. We propose a “bare phrase” treatment of non-sentential notices, whereby these are underlyingly and not just superficially non-sentential; and a semantic treatment in terms of Discourse Representation Theory, which perspicuously describes their contribution to interpretation. Finally, we argue that assigning such sparse syntactic and semantic representations to non-sentential notices has conceptual and empirical advantages over analyses that posit richer underlying structure, capturing a broader range of data, including patterns involving default case and the absence of articles, and minimizing the need to posit linguistic ambiguity.

Over the past several years, a considerable amount of research on language comprehension has been carried out under the assumption that comprehension crucially involves language-independent cognitive strategies interacting with grammatical properties specific to a given language. Accordingly, the two factors of grammatical structure and cognitive strategies interact to render certain structures relatively more difficult to process than others. For example, it has been suggested that centre-embedded structures are more difficult to process than right-branching structures because centre-embedding interrupts the main clause and imposes a burden on short term memory, thereby making it relatively more difficult for the hearer to obtain closure on the entire sentence (Kuno 1974). Much attention within the cognitive strategies paradigm has been addressed to the comprehension of English complex sentences, and in particular to those sentences containing relative clauses. Since English permits relative clauses to be attached to NPs playing almost any grammatical role, and since, within a relative clause, the relativized NP can itself play almost any role, sentences containing relative clauses have provided a useful arena for testing various proposed cognitive strategies insofar as they relate to complex structures. In particular, much research has been addressed to SVO sentences in which a relative clause is formed on either the subject or object NP, and in which the relative pronoun is either subject or object.

In this article, the author demonstrates that verbal compound constructions involving an ideophone and a light verb represent a widespread syntactic device in the world's languages. The author provides evidence that phono-symbolic morphemes cannot be treated as ‘bare’ direct objects in such constructions. Ideophones appearing in the light verb-adjacent position form a semantic unit with the verbal predicate, despite the fact that in some languages they can be syntacticized as (bare) nouns and appear in argumental position. Specifically, ideophones in complex predicates are part of the verbal domain with which they ‘blend’ (yielding a single predicate) through the mechanism of conflation, along the lines of Hale and Keyser (1993, 2002), and building on Ramchand (2008).

This paper documents the existence of swiping – that is, inversion of a wh-phrase and its associated preposition under sluicing – in a non-Germanic language. We discuss swiping in a variety of Ontario French (Lafontaine French, LFF), which shares some of the characteristics of its extensively-studied English counterpart (Ross 1969, Merchant 2002, among others). We offer a preliminary description of swiping in LFF and consider some implications of these novel facts for the theory of swiping and sluicing. We suggest that LFF swiping supports an analysis in terms of non-constituent deletion, as originally suggested by Ross (1969) in his seminal work on sluicing.

In considering the cognitive notion of informativeness, variants of the Spanish first-person singular object a mí ‘to me’, ‘myself’ convey different meanings. These meanings are used to pursue communicative goals in discursive interactions. A qualitative examination of specific examples of first-person singular object a mí variants (omitted, preverbal, and postverbal) as well as a quantitative analysis of these variants across different socio-professional affiliations of speakers was conducted to ascertain how these variants contribute to the construction of communicative styles based on the cognitive dimension of subjectivity. This article demonstrates that these forms and their meanings are unevenly distributed across the socio-professional affiliations of speakers; thus, it may be concluded that variation of first-person singular object a mí shape different communicative styles.

This paper provides a syntactic and semantic analysis of sentences such as those in (1).

1. (1) a. Mary has to leave early.

2. b. I have a paper to write/a dress to wear.

3. c. Mary has only/but to call, and Fred comes running.

4. d. We have yet to figure out why the car won’t start.

This study addresses both the practical question of what forms of complementation are found with verbs expressing the notion of choice in English and the theoretical question of explaining the control and temporal effects found with these verbs. The explanation proposed is based on an approach in which syntax is taken to be driven by semantics. Semantics is defined in terms of the meaning-content associated with the linguistic forms occurring in the constructions examined, namely the to-infinitive, the gerund-participle, and the lexical content of the different verbs of choice themselves, together with the semantic value of the complement’s function with respect to the main verb. Although it does not utilize a corpus in the strict sense of the word, nor employ statistical argumentation, the study is based mainly on an examination of attested usage in Canadian English as reflected by Canadian websites accessed in the fall of 2006.

It is always gratifying when one’s research elicits a response, particularly the detailed discussions by Singh (1980) and Morin (1980) of Walker (1978). It is also clear that both of these authors have contributed to our understanding of the process of epen-thesis in Old French, although I am not convinced that we may yet be confident of having dealt with the process in a fully satisfactory way. The following comments on Singh’s and Morin’s proposals may illustrate certain of the difficulties which remain.

Research in second language phonology has, until recently at least, been principally concerned with the interference of the learner’s first language in his acquisition of a new sound system. In practice, the belief that interference from the first language is the major source of pronunciation problems is well established among second language teachers, and teachers have traditionally been trained to recognize and remedy, if not try to prevent, the errors resulting from this interference. Recently, however, researchers (for example, Garnica and Herbert 1979) have begun to conclude that interference is not a sufficient explanation, and that the second language learner’s developing phonology, his approximative system, is undoubtedly influenced by many other factors.

Since the paper by Barss and Lasnik (1986), the fact that the double object construction exhibits Theme/Goal asymmetries has been the object of an important debate in the literature. The central question of this discussion is whether these asymmetries should be accounted for in terms of dominance (e.g., Larson 1988, 1990; Aoun and Li 1989; den Dikken 1991) or precedence (e.g., Barss and Lasnik 1986; Jackendoff 1990; Tremblay 1991). On the dominance account, the Goal must asymmetrically c-command the Theme (e.g., Larson 1988, 1990). On Barss and Lasnik’s account, the Goal and the Theme of the construction may symmetrically c-command each other but the Goal must precede the Theme. This proposal is captured in their definition of domain of (1986:352).

This study examines certain properties of human memory which impose limits on topic accessibility in discourse. While the discussion is centred on so-called “dative” and “cleft” sentences in English, the work is motivated by more general concerns which have been variously referred to as “topicworthiness” (Thompson 1988), “information flow” (Chafe 1987; Kuno, 1987), “topic continuity” (Givón 1983), “degree of presuppositionality” (Givón 1979), “pragmatic perspective” (Dik 1978), “packaging phenomena” (Chafe 1976), “staging” (Grimes 1975), “communicative dynamism” (Firbas 1967), “the theme system” (Halliday 1967), and “linear modification” (Bolinger 1952). The term adopted here is “information flow”.

One important aspect of the study of information flow is the attempt to determine the conditions under which speakers make selections from among alternative syntactic expressions of identical propositional meaning. While some of the motivation for such choices lies in sentence-internal factors such as the animacy or definiteness of NPs (e.g., Ransom 1979), I shall restrict the discussion here to the issue of contextual motivation as originally developed in Smyth (1977) and in Smyth et al (1979). A particular syntactic choice is said to be contextually motivated if the information flow features which govern it are external to the sentence, and the alternative structure is contextually inappropriate. Where contextual motivation is absent, I claim that either of the candidate syntactic forms is appropriate, although sentence-internal information flow factors may then exert a weaker influence on syntactic choice.

Introduction. In Spanish, pairs of sentences like the following are found:

1. (1)

   1. a. Oigo que Juan toca la guitarra.

      I-hear that John is-playing the the guitar.

   2. b. Oigo a Juan que toca la guitarra.

      I-hear John that (he) is-playing the guitar.

2. (2)

   1. a. Vio que María estaba de regreso.

      He-saw that Mary had returned.

   2. b. Vio a María que estaba de regreso.

      He-saw Mary that (she) had returned.

3. (3)

   1. a. Veo que el río trae mucha agua.

      I-see that the river carries a-lot-of water

   2. b. Veo el río que trae mucha agua.

      I-see the river that (it) carries a-lot-of water.

   In general, it appears that in sentences with verbs of perception which introduce a que clause, the embedded subject (see a. sentences) is able to move upwards to the object position in the main clause (see b. sentences). This pattern also occurs in the causative construction with dejar.

4. (4)

   1. a. Dejé que Juan saliera.

      I-let that John leave (Subjunctive)

   2. b. Dejé a Juan que saliera.

      I-let John that (he) leave (Subjunctive)

Since the close of the Second World War a number of efficient and relatively inexpensive light-weight electrical recording machines using cheap plastic tape have come onto the market. It is rather surprising that dialect geographers have not used these machines to a greater extent in the field, for limited field experience indicates that dialect investigators can expect to benefit greatly when the potentialities of these machines are properly exploited.

Harbour (2016) argues for a parsimonious universal set of features for grammatical person distinctions, and suggests (ch. 7) that the same features may also form the basis for systems of deixis. We apply this proposal to an analysis of Heiltsuk, a Wakashan language with a particularly rich set of person-based deictic contrasts (Rath 1981). Heiltsuk demonstratives and third-person pronominal enclitics distinguish proximal-to-speaker, proximal-to-addressee, and distal (in addition to an orthogonal visibility contrast). There are no forms marking proximity to third persons (e.g., ‘near them’) or identifying the location of discourse participants (e.g., ‘you near me’ vs. ‘you over there’), nor does the deictic system make use of the clusivity contrast that appears in the pronoun paradigm (e.g., ‘this near you and me’ vs. ‘this near me and others’). We account for the pattern by implementing Harbour's spatial element χ as a function that yields proximity to its first- or second-person argument.

Transformational grammar has attempted to outline the systematic nature of language structure while also stressing the creative aspect of language. Language is systematic in that speakers use a finite number of means to make up their messages, and yet it is creative in that there are an infinite number of individual different messages which are possible in any natural language. In natural languages, however, there is not a perfect one-to-one correspondence between possible messages—intended or perceived—and possible linguistic realizations, as there exists in conventional or artificial languages. Often it is found in natural languages that a single linguistic form may have two or more meanings. Homonymy, whether it is lexical or syntactic, is an important notion, not only because syntactic ambiguity plays a central role in linguistic theory, but also because its study gives us a better understanding of the systematics of language and of the way we attach meaning to linguistic representations. Hence, the importance of evaluating how speakers deal with syntactic ambiguity in their attempts to understand and to be understood.

Substance-free phonology or SFP (Reiss 2017) has renewed interest in the question of abstraction in phonology. Perhaps the most common form of abstraction through the absence of substance is underspecification, where some aspects of speech lack representation in memorized representations, within the phonology or in the phonetic implementation (Archangeli 1988, Keating 1988, Lahiri and Reetz 2010 among many others). The fundamental basis for phonology is argued to be a mental model of speech events in time, following Raimy (2000) and Papillon (2020). Each event can have properties (one-place predicates that are true of the event), which include the usual phonological features, and also structural entities for extended events like moras and syllables. Features can be bound together in an event, yielding segment-like properties. Pairs of events can be ordered in time by the temporal logic precedence relation represented by ‘<’. Events, features and precedence form a directed multigraph structure with edges in the graph interpreted as “maybe next”. Some infant bimodal speech perception results are examined using this framework, arguing for underspecification in time in the developing phonological representations.