An aspect of the unravelling debate between proponents of ‘abstract’ phonology and ‘natural’ phonology focuses on the role of diachrony in justifying one’s descriptions and in underpinning one’s theories (insofar as they are meant to explain and predict). As a phonetologist who has no theoretical predilections for either transformational generative phonology (TGP) or Hooper’s natural generative phonology (NGP), my viewpoint leads me to view some of the issues raised in Piggott 1980, and in Hooper 1980 which replies to it, as either side-stepping what seem to me to be more fundamental issues or as addressing the issues discussed obliquely instead of head on. Although the fundamental position of developmental linguistics (or lectology) has been clarified at length in other writings, there may be some profit in making those points concrete in direct connection with an actual debate over an actual analysis. Piggott argues against the adequacy of Hooper’s NGP with data taken from Algonquin-Ojibwa. He contrasts Ojibwa nouns that exhibit the deletion of word-final glide plus lax vowel (e.g. anini ‘man’ vs aniniwag ‘men’) and Ojibwa verbs that exhibit the loss of word-final lax vowel but not a preceding glide (e.g. ni-wīndigōw ‘I am a Windigo’ vs ni-wīndigōwi-min ‘we are Windigos’).

Stowell (1981) demonstrates that nominal phrases in VP or PP are subject to certain constraints which are not pertinent in the domain of NP or AP. Nominal phrases in VP or PP are obligatory and they must be realized in a position which is adjacent to the head of the phrase (i.e., in a phrase marker; “V° NP” or “P° NP”). In contrast, nominal phrases in NP or AP are optional and do not have to be adjacent to the head. There is a systematic exception to this generalization in the lexically determined class of nouns known as Bare NP adverbs (cf. Larson 1985). Nominal phrases headed by one of this class of nouns appear optionally in VP and they are not required to be adjacent to the verb.

Freezing is the cover term for the restriction on extraction from constituents in a derived position. The traditional Freezing cases are illustrated here with topicalization in (1a), heavy-NP shift in (1b), and extraposition in (1c).

This article explores some evidence against the ECP that appears at first to be fairly overwhelming. Upon deeper inspection, however, the evidence supports the ECP and a special universal computation involving the complementizer system, the Complementizer Contraction rule (Pesetsky 1982). Complementizer Contraction is parameterized; some languages have an overt reflex (French, Norwegian); other languages do not (English, Tagalog). To make the argument, many intricate details are described about the structure of relative clauses, comparative clauses, embedded complement clauses, and wh-questions in Rejang, a Western Austronesian language of Sumatra.

This article explores the realization of definiteness in Chuj, an underdocumented Mayan language. I show that Chuj provides support for recent theories that distinguish between weak and strong definite descriptions (e.g., Schwarz 2009, 2013; Arkoh and Matthewson 2013; Hanink 2018; Jenks 2018). A set of morphemes called “noun classifiers” contribute a uniqueness presupposition, composing directly with nominals to form weak definites. To form strong definites, I show that two pieces are required: (i) the noun classifier, which again contributes a uniqueness presupposition, and (ii) extra morphology that contributes an anaphoricity presupposition. Chuj strong definites thus provide explicit evidence for a decompositional account of weak and strong definites, as also advocated in Hanink 2018. I then extend this analysis to third person pronouns, which are realized in Chuj with bare classifiers, and which I propose come in two guises depending on their use. On the one hand, based on previous work (Postal 1966, Cooper 1979, Heim 1990), I argue that classifier pronouns can sometimes be E-type pronouns: weak definite determiners which combine with a covert index-introducing predicate. In such cases, classifier pronouns represent a strong definite description. On the other hand, I argue, based on diagnostics established in Bi and Jenks 2019, that Chuj classifier pronouns sometimes arise as a result of NP ellipsis (Elbourne 2001, 2005). In such cases, classifier pronouns reflect a weak definite description.

Les adverbes français se terminant en –ment ont évolué par un double processus de grammaticalisation. Une première grammaticalisation, d'origine romane, a été responsable de l'émergence de tels adverbes, tandis qu'un second processus (appelé (inter)subjectification) a entrainé des changements syntaxiques et sémantiques spécifiques. Selon Traugott, ces changements répondent aux principaux critères établis pour le processus de grammaticalisation (recatégorisation, amélioration de la portée syntaxique, sens plus abstraits, enrichissement pragmatique et unidirectionalité (Traugott 1995b, 2010; Traugott et Dasher 2002). Afin de prouver cette hypothèse, j'analyse ici une collection de tels adverbes qui ont au moins trois usages différents en français contemporain : sérieusement, honnêtement, franchement, apparemment, carrément, décidément, étonnamment et seulement. Outre l'analyse synchronique et diachronique de ces adverbes, je rapporte des régularités spécifiques (ou chaînes sémantiques, selon Heine et Kuteva (2002) observées au cours de leur évolution.

This article is concerned with WH-words and WH-constructions in Prince Edward Island Acadian French (PEIAF). The principal data come from the French variety spoken in the small community of Abram-Village in the Evangeline region located in the northwest of the island. French is a minority language in Prince Edward Island, spoken as a first language by less than 6% of the population according to the 1986 census. The number of French speakers has declined sharply over the last several decades but in the Evangeline region the francophone population is stable and French enjoys both institutional support and considerable language loyalty. The majority of Abram-Village residents, educated in French-medium schools, are fluently bilingual in French and English.

This article takes a critical look through the lens of linguistics at the “always-speaking” principle in law — an influential principle that is recited in materials on legislative drafting as the justification for using the present tense, adopted in many common-law jurisdictions as a principle of interpretation, and accepted as a foundation for the linguistic analysis of the use of tense in statutes. The article concludes that the principle is an inadequate basis for interpreting or analysing statutes, for at least two reasons: the interpretive results that the principle is intended to support are explainable in terms of widely accepted principles in the analysis of tense, without any need to posit special principles that apply only to statutes; and the interpretations that would be required if the always-speaking principle were taken seriously would in many cases probably be regarded as unnatural by native speakers of English.

This contribution explores a methodological problem in language acquisition studies. Much research in language acquisition has shown that children use statistical learning as a strategy in the acquisition of their native language (Saffran et al. 1996 and many others). Frequency of occurrence is also believed to determine the order of acquisition of phonological structures in the construction of the grammar (Boersma and Levelt 2000, Levelt et al. 2000, van de Weijer and Sloos 2013). How do we obtain the relevant frequency information for acquisition studies?

Ideally, we should take into account children's speech or child-directed speech (CDS), depending on the purposes of the investigation. Investigations into the construction of the lexicon and acquisition of the grammar depend on the input, the perception, and the lexical storage of the child, and therefore, frequency data on CDS seem most desirable.

L’étude porte sur des constructions à interprétation adversative du français, articulées par et, comme John a un doctorat en linguistique et il ne sait ni lire ni écrire. Dans un premier temps, on caractérise le concept d’attente trompée et on illustre l’effet de surprise qui en découle. Dans un second temps, on étudie les raisons qui président à l’ordonnancement contraint des énonciations. On verra qu’il s’agit d’une manœuvre rhétorique ordonnée, procédant en deux temps: d’abord l’ouverture d’une attente forte, puis le déni de cette attente. Cela montre que ce ne sont pas des constructions totalement symétriques. On verra également qu’il y a très peu d’asyndètes (John a un doctorat en linguistique, il ne sait ni lire ni écrire) — avec la même interprétation adversative: ce sont des constructions massivement connectées par et.

Montreal became famous in socio-psychological and sociohnguistic circles half a century ago, when a group of researchers—Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, and Fil-lenbaum — invented a new methodology to measure speech evaluations indirectly. They came up with an innovative technique, called matched guise, which allows researchers to access subjects’ reactions without asking for their opinions directly or doing extensive field work. In 2004, another matched guise study of the evaluational reactions of Montrealers added new aspects to the original methodological design in order to test some of its limits. The fundamental methodological difference was to include members of different language groups in a representative sample of the population of Montreal so that multivariate analysis could determine the extent to which belonging to a specific linguistic group could actually account for reactions to spoken language. This analysis reveals that some earlier interpretations should be realigned.

In Breton, lexical subjects occur both in finite clauses and infinitival clauses. Within the Principles and Parameters model, the question arises as to how infinitival subjects can be Case-licensed, since the finite Tense element associated with Case-licensing in finite clauses is absent from infinitival clauses. Infinitival subjects are, however, preceded by some prepositional element, and previous accounts have proposed that these are Case-markers, assigning abstract Case to the subjects. However, prepositional elements also occur in controlled infinitival clauses—which have the null subject PRO—yet lexical subjects and PRO are not interchangeable. In this article, it is proposed that the crucial property associated with the Case-licensing of lexical subjects in all Breton clause types is subject agreement. This occurs not only on finite verbs, but also on the prepositional elements in infinitival clauses, which are sometimes complementizers and sometimes AgrSP heads. Clauses containing PRO, however, lack subject agreement, and hence cannot license lexical subjects.

Recent analyses of word order and clause structure suggest that natural language syntax employs competing processes of Verb Fronting (VF) and Inflection Movement (IM) for the realization of Tense and Agreement (TNS and AGR) features on verb stems. As the names suggest, Verb Fronting is a process that raises a verb from the head of VP to INFL and INFL Movement is a rule that lowers the contents of INFL to the head of VP. Both rules are assumed to involve Chomsky-adjunction of the moved node to the target node and both are assumed to leave a trace.