Words which in southern Greek dialects contain [azis], [úsis], and other sequences of stressed vowel + sibilant + [i] + sibilant, appear widely in the north with [áys], [úys] etc., and the phenomenon constitutes a major crux in modern Greek phonology. Although the problem has been widely discussed, no really satisfactory solution based on attested processes has been offered. It is the purpose of this paper to review the data, criticize existing treatments, and offer a new proposal.

The aim of this paper is threefold: descriptive, methodological and theoretical. It offers a distinctive collexeme analysis of two pairs of near-synonymous complex prepositions (sous le coup de SN/sous le choc de SN; sous l’emprise de SN/sous l’empire de SN), completed by a qualitative analysis. The analysis of the statistically significant co-occurrents suggests that sous le coup de has a more abstract and general meaning than sous le choc de, while the semantics of the second pair are less differentiated. The analysis touches upon several methodological issues; thus, examination of the problem addressed allows for assessment of the method. It also shows that the collostructional analysis offers an interesting contribution to the debate on the existence of a constructional semantics by identifying repelled collexemes that may yield coercion effects.

This article examines whether L2 acquisition of morphology and syntax develops independently (the Separation Hypothesis) or not (the Rich Agreement Hypothesis), focusing on the acquisition of Number specification on certain Spanish quantifiers by French speakers. In Spanish, some quantifiers are specified for Number and directly precede the head noun, in contrast to their French counterparts where a dummy preposition de must appear inside the DP. Results from a grammaticality judgement task and a production task show that intermediate and advanced learners perform poorly on plural inflection with some quantifiers, and reject the use of de. This suggests that they have acquired Number specification on these quantifiers, which allows Case marking on the following noun, but do not produce the appropriate morphology. These results support the Separation Hypothesis, but not the Rich Agreement Hypothesis.

In a modest way, I have something in common with Webster, Mencken, and Avis, the three spokesmen for linguistic autonomy whom I am discussing. True, St. Noah of Amherst ascended to that great lexicographical office in the sky fifty-eight years before I was born; and as varied as my dreaming has been, I have never dreamed of meeting him. Nevertheless, we share a common birthday, October 16; and in the line of duty, I have often been entangled with his successors and their critics, especially with the critics of Merriam’s Webster’s Third New International.

With Mencken, my relationship was more direct. I had heard vaguely about The American Language in my South Carolina boyhood, when—in the eyes of the southern Baptists who dominated my community—Mencken metaphorically had horns, hoofs, and a tail. But I never read it till 1937, two years after I acquired a Ph.D. as a Miltonist. I had gone to the Ann Arbor Linguistic Institute, under orders from my college president (a retired four-star general) to improve my teaching and my use of the language.

Old French (OF) is often characterized as a Germanic-style asymmetric V2 language, although this characterization is often questioned. The present study evaluates the nature of OF V2 from a quantitative perspective. An extensive set of data provided by syntactically annotated corpora shows that both IP and CP structure change over the OF period. Focusing on Germanic inversion – XVS word order – I argue that most of the attested inversion in OF occurs within an elaborated IP structure and that this type of subject inversion dwindles over time due to the decreasing use of null expletives. True Germanic-style embedded V2 does not appear until the late 12th century, and is only rarely used throughout the 13th century. Thus, OF is an asymmetric V2 language, but with a difference, namely in having an IP field that allows for apparent V2 orders and a CP field that is only marginally employed.

1. A not insignificant problem of Spanish syntax is that of relating the subdeletion sentence (1) to its comparative-deletion congener (2)

• (1) Juan comió más manzanas que peras había traído.

  Juan ate more apples than he had brought pears.

• (2) Juan comió más manzanas de las que había traído.

  Juan ate more apples than he had brought.

At first glance there appears to be little that is problematic and the solutions that have been proposed for English seem readily applicable; under such an analysis (as we shall see below) both sentences are held to be structurally identical, but subject to a more or less extensive deletion rule in accord with the extent of the identity of lexical elements in the compared constituents of the matrix and subordinate clause.

Comme le faisait justement remarquer A. M. Kinloch dans une récente notice nécrologique (Kinloch 1980), le nom de W. S. Avis est indissolublement lié—avec celui de mon collègue et ami M. H. Scargill—à l’expansion des études de linguistique canadienne, domaine anglais: “it is no belittlement of the work of C.J. Lovell or of other of his associates to say that it was Avis who put Canadian English on the map.” II est done normal de placer la présente note sous l’égide de Avis, et j’en profite pour rappeler les contacts fructueux qui ont existé entre nous tout au long des années 1950 et 1960. Je voudrais cependant adopter ici une perspective un peu différente de la sienne, celle des canadianismes pancanadiens, si l’on peut dire, en ayant à l’esprit le problème très concret d’un dictionnaire bilingue français-anglais à l’usage des Canadiens (Vinay 1962). Je me propose d’examiner brièvement les différents critères retenus par les auteurs pour cerner le concept de canadianisme; et pour compléter l’image que Avis donne du mot canadianism, je ferai porter l’accent sur l’aspect français de la question.