This paper critically reviews S. J. Keyser and Paul Kiparsky's “Syllable Structure in Finnish Phonology” (1984). We also treat Finnish morphophonemics using a CV-tier analysis, but account for forms that their method fails on. We posit six stem types in the verbal lexicon and derive the forms of all inflections of all types with just twelve morphophonemic rules. After the stems are modified and suffixes (and person/number endings) are attached, a single, general, phonological rule of Consonant Gradation applies postlexically. To develop a general theory from our analysis, we consider restrictions on rules which may alter stems: lexical rules apply to stems before affixation and only to the final segments of stems; only post-lexical phonological rules apply to affixes. We eliminate all morphological conditions on individual rules and extrinsic ordering conditions.

The paper discusses the historical origin, present day distribution and prosodic status of preaspiration in Icelandic. Having developed as a movement of the openness of the glottis, originally a feature of “hard” stops, towards the nucleus of the stressed syllable, its distribution must be accounted for by a “segmental” rule operating on historical (underlying) hard stops. Its status with respect to length and stress is, however, shown to be that of a prosody of the nucleus of the Modern Icelandic syllable, since it carries length when the syllable is stressed. The development of preaspiration is seen as a part of a more general rule also responsible for voiceless sonorants and fricatives in the nucleus.

This paper deals with the syntax of the so-called ‘complex passive’ and, more generally, with investigating the range, effects, and interaction of certain reanalysis processes that have been claimed to be operative in this and other syntactic constructions.

The present paper deals with the syntactic status of the indefinite NP in Norwegian existential-presentative constructions with a formal subject det in a typological perspective. It is argued that the NP in question is identifiable as a syntactic object both on account of its behaviour and control properties and its coding properties. Moreover, this analysis parallels Itkonen's description of “existential subjects” in Finnish as belonging to an “inverted ergative system”, which is clearly relationally different from the two kinds of ergativity systems described elsewhere in the literature.

This paper presents possible evidence from Apachean English for the existence of state/nonstate and punctual/nonpunctual distinctions as theorized in Bickerton's bioprogram concept. In addition, it is pointed out that bioprogram characteristics may surface in contact situations other than classic creoles.

This paper reports work in progress. It concerns the relationship in Germanic languages between the sentence initial constituent XP, and the rest of the sentence S, assuming a rule S → XP S. An informal proposal is presented, according to which that relationship is better characterized in terms of the notion of unification than that of predication. The author is currently working with Elisabet Engdahl on producing a precise grammar of some long distance dependency constructions which should be able to embody the ideas sketched here.

In this paper, I have shown that Joshi's (1982) framework of codeswitching constraints can largely be applied to Swedish-English code-switches. I feel qualified to conclude that Joshi's claims concerning the non-switchability of closed class items and matrix language and embedded languages are held up by the Swedish- English data. The need for corresponding categories proved to be less clear-cut than originally proposed by Woolford (1983) and others. It seems that optimal switching conditions are given if the categories, rules and metarules correspond in the two languages. Apparently, however, it is also possible to switch if the node admissibility conditions for the matrix language only are met, as was shown by code-switched sentences containing RPs. This requires that the speaker has a clear sense of which language is the host and which is embedded. Rules from the embedded language only are not acceptable. This calls for some sort of determination strategy by the parser. I found no evidence for determining Lm at any specific point in the sentence, except at the topmost S. Rather, the judgments by code-switchers that a sentence “comes from” one language seems to coincide with the fact that the resulting sentence is based on the rules from that language. Other than that, the matrix language is determined by the communicative context as a whole.

The data involving RPs also seemed to indicate that RPs are not separate ategories, but are NPs, introduced by a “de-slashing” rule (Sells 1984). If they were separate categories, this would be evidence for there being no need for category equivalence. In this case, we would have to explicitly state all other cases which require category equivalence (the majority of cases), which is undesirable.

It is proposed that nominative and accusative Case are both assigned by structural positions at surface structure. From this it follows that Case-absorption is not and cannot be part of the definition of passive. It is shown that a definition of passive without Case-absorption captures the data of personal and impersonal passives in Norwegian with minimal machinery. It also accounts for Case-assignment in impersonal constructions with active verbs without any additional statements. The difference between English and Norwegian with respect to the “forced movement” in English passive is accounted for by appealing to a difference between the two languages in their permissibility of expletive subjects.

This paper attempts to combia a theoretical model of analysis with the empirical findings from a case study concerning shift. It seems that the process of language shift ought to be studied from an ecological point of view considering different levels of explanation. In the case of the Swedishpeaking minority in Finland, a description confined to the societal level would imply that the minority holds a secure position. On the other hand it is clear that certain subgroups within the minority shift to Finish. The results from a case study suggest that every miniority memeber occupies a key position in the process of language shift. Every attempt to save a language should therefore start with the bilingual individual.