L’Objet de cette étude est une analyse comparative et critique de deux ouvrages portant sur la syntaxe structurale du français, celui de Knud Togeby Structure immanente de la langue française (SI) et celui de Lucien Tesnière Eléments de syntaxe structurale (ESS).

Nous avons essayé de dégager les principes d’analyse syntaxiques utilisés par ces deux auteurs, de marquer dans quelle mesure leur méthode et les résultats qu’ils ont obtenus sont originaux à l’égard de la grammaire traditionnelle et s’ils apportent des solutions suffisantes à tous les problèmes de la syntaxe.

The concepts of X-bar theory are fundamental to the framework of generative grammar. The last version of the theory (Chomsky 1992) defines the projected positions as either narrowly or broadly L(exically)-related to the head X, where “L-relation” means inclusion in the checking domain of X. Narrowly L-related positions, nonadjoined (e.g., Spec), obey structure preserving rules; they have the basic properties of A-positions. Broadly L-related positions, adjoined and optional, have the properties of A’-positions.

We argue that Agree is an asymmetric relation. According to Asymmetric Agree, if x Agrees with y, then the features of y must be properly included in the features of x. If the links of a chain created by movement are related by Agree, this correctly predicts the properties of syntactic movement chains. And if the links of a chain created by movement are subject to the Proper Inclusion Condition, that accounts for the (un)availability of extraction out of a moved XP. The following distinctions interact with Asymmetric Agree: whether movement is A or A-bar, whether or not the constituent extracted out of the moved phrase is selected by the head of that phrase, and whether movement is overt or covert. Syntactic movement is feature-structure preserving, in that the Proper Inclusion Condition applies to sets of features in a particular configuration.

I argue that syntactic structure encodes three types of asymmetries. The first corresponds to the asymmetry between mother and daughters nodes that is called dominance, that is, syntactic hierarchy. The second is the selectional asymmetry between sister nodes, which is translated into the precedence relation in the phonological component. The third, called behindance, is an alternative to dominance, and corresponds to parataxis. Parenthesis, coordination, and apposition are analyzed on the basis of behindance. In our derivational model of grammar it is defined as a special type of inclusion that blocks c-command. It follows that parenthetic material can neither move toward the matrix, nor be bound by a constituent from the matrix.

The colonization of many parts of rural Manitoba got well under way in 1870. The arrival in the south of the province of numerous settlers, most of them from France, is an event of considerable importance in the history of the development of the Canadian west. Indeed, the colonization of Manitoba by French Catholics appeared to preoccupy greatly the St. Boniface diocese. Mgr. Taché remained convinced that St. Boniface ar.d St. Norbert would.cease to thrive unless linked to other cities and towns under the patronage of the church and extending to the very limits of the Saskatchewan boundary. Colonization seemed in many ways to be synonymous with Catholic evangelism, and the booklets distributed free of charge to the new settlers upon their arrival in the province did not fail to point out to them the advantages which they could obtain by settling near an established church, the symbol of Christian fraternity on the barren expanse of the uncultivated prairie.

1. Cette étude a pour but d’analyser le statut catégoriel et la structure interne de petites propositions adjointes que la grammaire traditionnelle désigne couramment sous le terme de “constructions participiales absolues”. Nous sommes d’avis, toutefois, que cette appellation est inappropriée puisqu’ elle ne permet pas d’effectuer une généralisation légitime avec des constructions identiques qui ne présentent pas de forme participiale ou même de valeur absolue. Dans le cadre de la théorie du gouvernement et du liage qui est le nôtre, nous identifions plutôt celles-ci comme des “petites propositions à valeur aspectuelle”. Il s’agit de structures copulatives sans la présence du verbe copule en surface, elles sont introduites par un adverbe aspectuel et la position prédicat peut être remplie par différents syntagmes tels que AP, PP, NP ou un VP participial:

1. 1. a. [Une fois présentable], elle a ouvert la porte

   2. b. [Aussitôt dans le couloir], il s’est mis à hurler

   3. c. [Une fois médecin], elle a été heureuse

   4. d. [Sitôt les ballons crevés], la musique a commencé

Le marqueur aspectuel (une fois, aussitôt, etc.) permet d’identifier le temps interne de l’événement, il marque l’accompli et est lié à l’aspect perfectif.

The experiment reported on here investigating the syllabic attachment of post-vocalic nasals and l grew out of an earlier experiment which compared the post-vocalic liquids r and l (Laubstein 1989). Using the error elicitation technique described in Motley et al (1983), induced errors involving Vr and Vl sequences were compared. The two sequences behaved quite differently, suggesting different syllabic attachments for the two liquids. Vowel-r sequences consistently interacted with single vowels or vowel glide sequences and such sequences never split up, supporting the hypothesis (based on naturally occurring errors) that vowel-r sequences belong to a uni-positional peak constituent and supporting Kahn’s argument that English r, like w and y, is a glide (Kahn 1976). Vowel-l sequences, on the other hand, did split apart; errors involved the l alone or the vowel alone, significantly more often than they involved the r or V alone from Vr sequences (Wilcoxon p <.0001). This supported the hypothesis that the r and l belonged to different constituents. The relative frequency of errors is commonly assumed to reflect constituency. See, for instance, Stemberger and Treiman’s (1986) arguments regarding different positions in the onset. Nevertheless, such sequences also acted as single units, and in this respect behaved like vowel-r sequences. In addition, when such sequences were involved as a unit they interacted with single vowels or vowel glide sequences, suggesting that at some level of analysis they belonged to the same constituents as vowels. Speech errors which involve interactions between two items, or the substitution of one item for another, are in general structure-preserving. They involve units of the same constituent type at some level of analysis; for instance, noun phrase with noun phrase, preposition with preposition, verb with verb, and at the sub-lexical level, syllabic constituent type a with syllabic constituent type a (Laubstein 1987).

Modern colloquial Japanese exhibits within its grammatical system several types of imperative constructions which, on the surface, seem quite diverse. Examples of some imperatives are

All of these imperatives may be glossed as “close the window,” with various differences in style noted in parentheses. In each of the constructions above, both ‘window’ and o, the direct object marker, remain unchanged, while the shape of the verb ‘close’ as well as the presence of other morphemes such as ‘give’, ‘do’, and i, ro, imperative shapes, change considerably. The negative imperatives are equally diverse. Each of the following examples may be glossed as “do not close the window”:

In this paper we explore differences in prosodic rhythm between two English speech communities in rural Southern Alberta, Canada: speakers of Blackfoot First Nation descent and those of settler descent. Using the Variability Index (VI), we show that there are statistically significant differences between English speakers of settler descent and those of Blackfoot descent, where those of Blackfoot descent have a higher VI, that is, they are further along the stress-timing continuum than those of settler descent. We hypothesize that these differences are due to language transfer effects stemming from the community's original Blackfoot phonology which were present in their L2 English when the community norm shifted primarily to English, and that the historical, social, and geographical isolation of Blackfoot people in Southern Alberta has contributed to the development of a new local Blackfoot English norm.

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.

One well-known difference between British and American English concerns the verb prevent. In both varieties, the verb is commonly found in constructions with NP from -ing, as in […] the extreme temperature of the cold tenderises the flesh and prevents it from becoming tough (NOW Corpus 2010), and in British English it is also commonly found in corresponding constructions lacking the preposition from, as in Morgan […] fastened a belt around his wrists to prevent him saving himself (NOW Corpus 2011). There are major unresolved issues relating to the two types of constructions illustrated. One question is whether the constructions involve object control or a Raising rule. One novel idea proposed is that an ACC -ing analysis should be available for the pattern without from. The British and American segments of the NOW corpus offer good sources of data, which have not been used in earlier work on prevent.