Evidence for a DP-projection in West Greenlandic Inuit Abstract The goal of this paper is to argue in favor of a DP-layer in West Greenlandic Inuit noun phrases and in doing so contribute to the argument that the absence of overt D-elements is not directly indicative of the absence of a DP-layer. Inuit is a polysynthetic, ergative language with no overt articles; for this reason it has been argued that a D-head is unnecessary. Others have argued contrastively that a functional projection KP (Case) is necessary (often assuming DP). This paper differs from both camps in the sense that it considers syntactic features specific to D. I present three primary arguments in support of a D-head in West Greenlandic: (i) the D-head acts as the locus of agreement features in possessive DPs, (ii) the D-head is the locus of the syntactic/semantic feature of definiteness; and (iii) a DP-layer is needed to provide a landing site for movement in DP-internal word order variations.

This study investigates the complexity of the mapping task in children’s acquisition of the Spanish subjunctive in temporal clauses. We consider that children’s difficulty with this task arises from the interaction between mood and other elements determining the evaluation of the temporal clause, such as semantic factors, tense, and cognition. Forty monolingual Spanish-speaking children first completed a cognitive assessment test, evaluating false belief understanding; this was followed by a linguistic prerequisite test assessing understanding of temporal connectors and knowledge of subjunctive morphology, and finally a temporal clause production task. Results reveal that mood selection in temporal clauses does not simply start with indicative followed by its replacement by subjunctive. On the contrary, the use of subjunctive temporal clauses involves a complex process for children in which tense corresponds to a fundamental source of bootstrapping. These results confirm the view that the acquisition of mood selection undergoes a protracted development. Spanish subjunctive meanings are not immediately accessible to children.

The motivations of sound change are almost exclusively treated as articulatory phenomena, even when the source and the target sounds are generated by very different articulatory mechanisms and no transitional stages can be found. What will be argued here is that seemingly regular place shifts in the articulation of consonants, such as the ones known under the term of “Rhenish Velarization” or “Rhenish Gutturalization” are actually manifestations of acoustically induced variants, very similar to those known as “slips of the ear”, which differ from one another only by the presence or absence of a single acoustic feature. The data assembled from a larger Rhenish corpus show that the operative process entails variations between labial, dental and velar place of articulation and involves stops, fricatives and nasals; its directionality is basically undetermined. Data from other sources and languages suggest that such place variations may be much more general than previously thought.

Le coratin est un dialecte parlé dans la région des Pouilles où l'on observe un processus de réduction vocalique : toutes les voyelles atones se réduisent à schwa sauf /a/. Cependant, cette réduction n'a pas lieu lorsqu'elles sont adjacentes à une consonne qui partage de la mélodie comme la palatalité pour les voyelles antérieures et la vélarité ou la labialité pour les voyelles postérieures. On observe également que l'ATRité des voyelles moyennes alterne : /ε,ɔ/ tonique se réalisent [e,o] en position atone et /o,ɔ/ font surface en position atone par un [u] uniquement lorsque la consonne adjacente est vélaire. L'analyse de cette alternance sera basée sur une version de la Théorie des Eléments ainsi que sur des contraintes de licenciement qui définissent d'une part le choix particulier qu'une langue fait des possibilités combinatoires, et d'autre part participe à définir les propriétés des processus phonologiques de la langue.

This paper presents a case study of verb phrase ellipses with adverbially modified antecedents. It is shown experimentally that there is a preference for resolving ellipses in certain embedded clauses with unmodified VPs. The effect is hypothesized to reflect a general requirement to minimize the complexity of accommodated content. Four experiments support this hypothesis over plausible candidate hypotheses, including syntactic approaches to the effect (Matsuo 2001; Sailor 2014).

One of the particularly fine passages in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the description of the Castle when Gawain first sees it. Yet when one studies the way in which translators have handled it, one finds that many modern versions seem unnecessarily colourless, and others though more colourful, are freer than needful. I have consequently gathered a fairly full sampling of modern versions of the passage, with the purpose of searching for possible principles of translation which might be useful elsewhere as well as in the passage itself. It seems fitting that the results should be presented here, since the chief tool I have used is the semantic law formulated by Martin Joos in 1953. The law, as it applies to a given context, states that the possible meanings are to be judged as to which contributes least to the totality of the context. I have discussed and used the law frequently with students, and also in print in 1959 (Hill 1959). The present essay constitutes a further presentation of the results of using the law.

One of the conundrums of the historical phonology of Spanish is the seemingly intrusive -s- in the word hasta ‘until.’ Its putative etymon, the Arabic ḥattā ‘up to, until, as far as, even, in order to’ does not have this -s- and, as far as is known, has never had it. The most recent serious discussion of and accounting for this -s- that I am aware of is that presented by Malkiel (1979) in which, dismissing previous lexical and phonological attempts as inadequate, he suggests that hasta (earlier fasta) resulted from a contamination of its predecessor fata, coming unambiguously from ḥattā, with a Romance form fascas ‘nearly, almost,’ derived in part from Latin usque ‘until.’ Both fata and fascas then went out of use, and fasta (> hasta) alone remains. In spite of the wealth of documentation adduced by Malkiel, his evidence adds up to this: before roughly 1300, there was a -word fata ‘until’ and a word fascas ‘almost’; after 1300 both fell out of use, and there was a new word fasta ‘until.’ The rest is speculation.

Vowel-consonant metathesis is observed in a variety of contexts throughout the Nivaĉle (Mataguayan) grammar. It occurs in both verbal and nominal domains, characteristically resulting from the affixation of a consonant-initial suffix to a consonant-final stem. This paper provides an optimality theoretic account for vowel-consonant metathesis and vowel epenthesis in Nivaĉle. It is demonstrated that metathesis responds to phonological requirements; specifically, it serves to avoid marked structures in the language: complex codas, derived complex onsets, and bad syllable contacts. The prosodic analysis of syllable structure constraints aims to provide broad empirical coverage, as well as a coherent and integrated theoretical interpretation.

Thirty years ago the leitmotif of ethnology and linguistics was militant relativism. It was emphasized that each culture and each language is a world of its own with its own elements and arrangements, its own standards, and its own laws. It was often, though not always, clearly recognized that, running across the differences, there were points of agreement among different systems. In the effort to avoid ethnocentrically based errors, the principle of generalization itself was sometimes atrophied.

In the matter of research technique, openmindedness was emphasized. The field-worker was urged to gather plentiful evidence before drawing any conclusions. In matters of phonology it was recommended that one write exactly what one heard. Now, one of the positive fruits of the relativist epoch was the development of the idea of structure, the gestalt principle, and, in the study of sounds, phonemics. This means that not until one has discovered the system is he in a position to perceive sounds adequately. And something of the same kind is applicable in other phases of language. In dropping the illusion of objective non-phonemic recording there was opened up a short-cut to the laborious collection of unorganized facts.

This paper provides evidence for the activity of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) as a constraint on dynamic alternations in the synchronic grammar of Qatari Arabic. It shows that the OCP is subject to proximity and to a gradient similarity effect. In Qatari Arabic, there are two variable phonological alternations that interact with the OCP, affrication and lenition. The velar stops /g/ and /k/ affricate to [ʤ] and [ʧ], respectively, when adjacent to [i(:)]. However, affrication is blocked when the outcome includes a sequence of segments that are highly similar. Lenition applies variably to the phoneme /ʤ/, which surfaces as [ʤ] or [j]. Usually, the probability of lenition applying to its eligible candidates is around the level of chance. The process, however, applies categorically when a violation of the OCP would otherwise be incurred. The data are analyzed within the framework of Optimality Theory.

As far as phonology and morphology are concerned, the available evidence indicates that the role of L1 in shaping interlanguage is confined to those of its rules that are needed to account for its global alternations, alternations that are independent of its morphology (cf. Cearly 1974, Dressler 1985, Kilbury 1981, Singh and Ford 1982, 1987, Singh and Martohardjono 1989, Wode 1978, and Wurzel 1977, among others). The rules needed to account for the local, morphologically dependent alternations of L1 or the ones needed to account for its word-formation processes do not play such a role. Interference, in other words, can be caused only by across-the-board phonological rules of L1. So-called morphophonemic rules of L1 do not cause it, and morphological interference from L1 seems not to exist as word-formation errors in intermorphology are the results of illegal extensions of L2 word-formation rules (cf. Singh 1989 and Singh and Martohardjono 1989). The purpose of this note is to critically examine the accounts contemporary theories of phonology provide of this state of affairs and to argue that the account provided by the sort of theory proposed in Ford and Singh (1983, 1985a, 1985b) and Singh and Ford (1982, 1987) is the most satisfactory one.

L’évolution du modal should s’est caractérisée par l’émergence progressive d’une interprétation non-déontique en construction hypotaxique. En effet, certaines constructions comportant should, du type It is surprising that he should say that, révèle un conflit sur une valeur construite ; celle-ci n’est alors plus repérée comme «effective» mais comme «fictive», et est considérée comme inattendue. Cette contribution se propose d’analyser le lien entre représentation attendue/inattendue et interaction de marqueurs hypotaxiques. L’examen d’exemples authentiques d’anglais contemporain révèle, en effet, la coexistence de plusieurs formes après la séquence It is + adjectif de valuation : constructions en for … to, propositions introduites par that (ou ∅) comportant should ou une forme assertée ou une base verbale. Il s’agit de montrer les différences de repérages entre ces formes et de rendre compte de l’apparition de l’une plutt que de l’autre en contexte.

The derivational system of Sechelt (Coast Salish) includes stative formations serving a variety of functions, one of which is the indication of possession in certain constructions. A sampling of stative forms is offered here, along with observations on their derivation. The purpose of this study is to propose, on the basis of such a survey, a generalized conceptual definition of the stative aspect in Sechelt and to suggest reasons for certain restrictions in the use of statives in possessive structures.

The ways in which the vowel system of Vulgar Latin (VL) differs from that of Classical Latin (CL) have been well documented. These differences arise from historical innovations including:

• (1) the monophthongization of the diphthongs [oj] œ and [aj] œ to [ē] and respectively,

• (2) the lowering of the short vowels to respectively, and the consequent introduction of a new phonemic degree of vowel height for the front unrounded and back rounded vowels,

• (3) the neutralization of the phonemic CL length differences, all stressed vowels now being long whatever the length of their CL source, and all unstressed vowels being short, and

• (4) the introduction of phonemic stress, since the position of stress is no longer synchronically predictable because of the neutralization of vowel length mentioned in (3).