It is commonly noted that standard French is losing the contrast between its two low vowels /a/ and /ɑ/, due to the fronting of the back vowel. The difference in length, which accompanied the qualitative difference of this pair, is affected as well. In mainland France, this tendency can be found to various degrees across the country, and is spreading throughout the speech community. This article further develops the picture of the current status of the low vowel contrast by investigating Belgian and Swiss French, where length is known to play overall a far more prominent role in the vowel inventories than it does in standard French. Are Belgian and Swiss French also affected by the merger of the two low vowels? To what extent can a difference in length and/or timbre still be found? And how do the patterns of contrast neutralisation/preservation relate to the developments in France?

Cet article présente une étude diachronique portant sur le changement de la norme de prononciation québécoise entre 1970 et 2008 sur la base d'un corpus de quatre heures et trente minutes de journaux télévisés de Radio-Canada, 52 à 58 minutes d'enregistrements ayant été prises en compte tous les dix ans durant cette période. L’étude compare la perspective sociolinguistique externe sur la norme (de prononciation) à la perspective interne de la phonétique sur cette même norme en se basant sur une analyse quantitative de deux traits de prononciation particulièrement saillants du français québécois : l'affrication de /t, d/ ainsi que la réalisation antériorisée de /ɑ̃/. Les résultats indiquent – du moins pour ces deux traits de prononciation – un changement significatif partant du standard de prononciation parisien et débouchant sur un standard québécois, les changements les plus frappants pouvant être observés entre les années 1970 et 1990.

Dewell (1994), following Brugman (1981) and Lakoff (1987), provides a semantic analysis of over by relying more exclusively on image-schema transformations than did Brugman and Lakoff. The Brugman-Lakoff-Dewell analysis, however, can be improved by using simpler image-schemas, more natural image-schema transformations, and metaphorical extensions. A key idea adopted in the present article is to capture both trajectors and landmarks three-dimensionally and topologically. This modification brings about the elimination of unessential features such as the shape and size of the trajector and the landmark, contact/non-contact between the trajector and the landmark, and physical properties of the trajector. Its main advantage is that a central image-schema for a semicircular path provides the basis for explaining all of the senses of over using natural image-schema transformations and metaphorical extensions. The proposed image-schema transformations include: segment profiling, profiling the endpoint of access paths, the profiled peak position of the semicircular path with the constraint that the rest of the semicircular path is excluded, and the extension of the semicircular path-trajectory to an image of covering. The proposed metaphorical senses are time, means, and control. In addition, the radial category relating each sense of over is presented.

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.

This article presents a novel analysis of Negative Auxiliary Inversion (NAI) constructions such as didn't many people eat, in which a negated auxiliary appears in pre-subject position. NAI, found in varieties including Appalachian, African American, and West Texas English, has a word order identical to a yes/no question, but is pronounced and interpreted as a declarative. We propose that NAI subjects are negative DPs, and that the negation raises from the subject DP to adjoin to Fin (a functional head in the left periphery). Three properties of NAI motivate this analysis: (i) scope freezing effects, (ii) the various possible and impossible NAI subject types, and (iii) the incompatibility of NAI constructions with true Double-Negation interpretations. Implications for theories of Negative Concord, Negative Polarity Items, and the representation of negation are discussed.

This article examines a key feature of Denis Bouchard's Sign Theory of Language, namely the Substantive Hypothesis (SH), the idea that “the most explanatory linguistic theory is one that minimizes the elements (ideally to zero) that do not have an external motivation in the prior properties of the perceptual and conceptual substances of language”. The article argues that the strongest form of the SH is challenged by two widespread classes of phenomena: morphosyntactic generalizations that are not sign-based, and non-sign-based external pressures on grammars. It concludes with some speculative remarks on why, to a significant degree, grammatical patterning is not sign-based.

This paper examines the nature of person complementarity in Eastern Canadian Inuktitut (Eskimo-Aleut), arguing that despite its apparent patterning as a Person Case Constraint (PCC) effect, it is not due to the presence of a defective intervener blocking person agreement with a lower argument, as is often the case in other languages. Instead, the observed effect is caused by a defective or missing person probe on C that cannot value local person features on absolutive arguments. Given the use of the PCC as a diagnostic for differentiating clitics and agreement, this result has implications for the proper identification of φ-marking in Inuktitut.

This article investigates the varied uses of wh-words in Chuj, an understudied Mayan language of Guatemala. Cross-linguistically, wh-words are commonly used not only for question formation but also in a range of other constructions, including wh-quantification, indefinites, and the formation of relative clauses. In Chuj, we will show that wh-words are used to form indefinites (in certain limited environments), universal quantifiers, free choice items, and two kinds of free relatives: definite free relatives, but also the typologically rarer indefinite free relatives. We sketch an analysis of each construction, and discuss generalizations concerning their distribution. The varied uses of wh-words in Chuj support the view that wh-words are used in two capacities: to generate alternatives, and to create a movement/binding relation.

Following Denis Bouchard's neo-Saussurean Sign Theory of Language, with a focus on the notion of Grammar Semantics, this article sketches a proposal for a unified understanding of the most multifunctional among Norwegian verbs, namely få ‘get’. Based on Bouchard's analysis of French être ‘be’ and avoir ‘have’ and corresponding signs in other languages, I propose that få is the dynamic version of ha ‘have’, which is a bivalent transitive copula. This abstract semantic value is shown to form the basis for the many contextual interpretations få receives, in its use both as a main verb and as an auxiliary. To my knowledge, a monosemic, unified understanding of få that covers all its uses and interpretations has not yet been proposed, especially not one that highlights its relationships with være ‘be’, ha ‘have’ and bli ‘be, become, get’. The study also includes a contrastive analysis of få and the English verb get.

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).

L'expression durative postverbale en chinois mandarin a été traitée dans quatre approches différentes dans la littérature, à savoir l'approche de complément, l'approche de prédicat, la cooccurrence des structures de complément et de prédicat et l'approche d'adjoint. Dans cet article, nous proposons une analyse combinatoire par adjoint et par prédicat en tenant compte des facteurs à la fois syntaxiques et sémantiques non seulement de l'expression durative postverbale, mais aussi des verbes et des objets auxquels les duratifs peuvent s'attacher. Nous avons pour objectif de montrer que ce sont ces facteurs conjoints qui permettent de déterminer la distribution en surface et la position syntaxique de l'expression durative postverbale en chinois mandarin.

This paper provides a novel Optimality Theoretic analysis of the 19th century French secret language Largonji. While Largonji is a reversal game, we show that it is a type not previously described, in which the first onset that is not an /l/ reverses, even if it is not at an edge. Thus, traditional approaches to reversal games, such as cross-anchoring, do not work for Largonji. However, our account does not require direct reference to onsets. Instead, it is based on preservation of moraic structure, combined with alignment of a Largonji-specific prefix. Though suprasegmental faithfulness has been noted previously in language games, the present account implements it in Optimality Theory for the first time. Further, in analyzing the Largonji affix as a prefix that is sometimes realized as an infix, we suggest that Largonji provides additional evidence that language games can reflect cross-linguistic patterns not present in the base language.

Many pairs of words traditionally treated as crosslinguistic equivalents do not share the same set of senses, and dominant theories fail to account for this asymmetry. This article proposes an explanation for the crosslinguistic variation of polysemy based on two key insights from Bouchard's Sign Theory of Language. First, multifunctional words have only a single, abstract meaning, and second, properties of the linguistic sign follow from properties of the external systems with which language interfaces. The article describes the content of the English and French deictic verbs go, aller, come, and venir, showing that each possesses a simple semantic representation composed of primitives from general cognition. It then examines several specific semantic uses of go and aller, showing that differences in the surface polysemy of these verbs follow directly from a single difference in their abstract lexical meaning and the way the latter interacts with context, extralinguistic knowledge and grammar.

This paper develops a generalization about agreement in German copula constructions described in Coon et al. (2017), and proposes an analysis that ties it to other well-established hierarchy phenomena. Specifically, we show that “assumed-identity” copula constructions in German exibit both person and number hierarchy effects, and that these extend beyond the “non-canonical” or “inverse” agreement patterns described in previous work on copula constructions (e.g., Béjar and Kahnemuyipour 2017 and works cited there). We present experimental evidence to support this generalization, and then develop an account that unifies it with hierarchy phenomena in other languages, with a focus on PCC effects. Specifically, we propose that what German copula constructions have in common with PCC environments is that there are multiple accessible DPs in the domain of a single agreement probe, the lower of which is more featurally specified than the higher (see, e.g., Béjar and Rezac 2003, 2009; Anagnostopoulou 2005; Nevins 2007). We also offer an explanation as to why number effects are present in German copula constructions but notably absent in PCC effects. We then place our account within the broader context of constraints on predication structures.

Cet article porte sur cesser qui, en contraste avec ses quasi-synonymes finir, achever et arrêter, semble échapper à la contrainte stative qui est généralement observée avec les verbes aspectuels. En fait, cesser permet assez facilement des infinitifs qui dénotent des états (Il a cessé d’être membre du syndicat), contrairement aux autres verbes aspectuels terminatifs (??Il a fini/achevé/arrêté d’être membre du syndicat). Je montre que les cas où ce prédicat ne semble pas respecter les contraintes générales imposées par les verbes aspectuels ne sont qu'apparemment des exceptions. L'article propose que la combinaison de certains états avec cesser crée un effet qui s'apparente à la sérialisation, une stratégie discutée dans certaines recherches, qui rend acceptable l'emploi de situations statives avec les verbes aspectuels. L'analyse s'inspire donc des prémisses des travaux de Bouchard (en particulier 1995, 2002), selon lesquelles l'explication des faits de langue doit demeurer simple et ne doit pas avoir recours à des mécanismes complexes qui sont autrement sans fondements.

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.

Person features play a role in narrow-syntax processes. However, a person feature is often characterized as [±participant], a characterization that suggests pragmatic or semantic features. Relatedly, person has been the subject of an ongoing debate in the literature: one family of approaches argues that 3rd person is an elsewhere case, while another argues that it is a valued interpretable feature. This article provides a programatic argument that this disagreement has a principled basis. I argue that the representation of the features we identify as person changes between narrow syntax and the syntax-semantics interface. The tests and empirical descriptions are incongruent because they target different modules of the grammar and in turn different grammatical objects. The article thus contributes to our understanding of the division of labour among the modules, with a special focus on the autonomous status of narrow syntax.