Farrell Ackerman

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions of causee encodings

There have been essentially two types of theoretical approaches to account for the grammatical relations associated with the causee argument of causative constructions. Ignoring the specifics of particular theories, there are transitivity based approaches in which the causee is a direct object when the embedded clause is intransitive, and an indirect object or oblique when the embedded clause is transitive. This pattern finds considerable cross-linguistic support. On the other hand, there are languages in which the causee exhibits alternative grammatical relations irrespective of transitivity: the causee direct object correlates with direct causation, while indirect object or oblique causees are associated with indirect causation. Such phenomena have motivated a semantic approach.Focusing primarily on data from Spanish, we account for both sorts of phenomena by proposing a novel extension of Dowtys [(1991) Language 67, 547–619] proto-property proposal, thereby rendering it a comprehensive model of argument selection for both simple and complex predicates. According to Dowtys original Argument Selection Principle, the most proto-patientive argument in a single argument structure tends to be encoded as a direct object. In the case of causatives with intransitive base predicates, the most proto-patientive argument will be the causee. However, if the embedded clause is transitive, the causee will be less proto-patientive that the embedded patient, and will not be encoded as a direct object. Thus, the Argument Selection Principle, operating in a syntagmatic fashion over co-arguments, effectively derives the transitivity-determined causee encodings. In order to address the effects associated with the semantic approach, we develop paradigmatic interpretation of the Argument Selection Principle. That is, when the causee argument varies in degree of proto-patientivity, the most proto-patientive alternant is encoded as a direct object, and any decrease in proto-patientivity is reflected by relational encodings that are sequentially lower than direct object on the relational hierarchy. Thus, the transitivity and semantic effects of causee encoding are accounted for by the interaction of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic argument selection strategies. We propose that these two strategies represent organizing principles for argument selection information associated with lexical entries.Finally, the interaction of these two selection strategies creates a tension in the encoding of causee arguments that is resolved in different ways in different languages. Hence, we suggest that some of the cross-linguistic variation with respect to causee encoding is due to the resolution of this conflict. Thus, we conclude by showing how these selection principles and lexical properties interact to derive a typology for well-attested patterns of variation in causee encoding.

A Lexical-Functional Analysis of Predicate Topicalization in German

In this paper we examine the topicalization paradigm for ten different verbal constructions in German. We argue that a uniform explanation for the observed behaviors follows from the interpretation of the relevant expressions as (parts of) lexical representations. To this end we motivate a revision of Functional Uncertainty as proposed in Kaplan and Zaenen 1989 to account for filler/gap relations in long-distance dependencies. We assume with the original formulation of this principle that topicalized elements share values with the (grammatical) function status of an entity an indeterminate distance away. We appeal to the inventory of functions posited within LEXICAL-FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR (LFG), inclusive of the frequently neglected PREDICATE function, which, we argue, is associated with both simple and complex predicates. In addition we show that topicalization, given this function-based proposal, should not be limited to maximal categories. We argue that the need to posit a PREDICATE function for German topicalization is supported by an independent line of research within LFG concerning the analysis of complex predicates. For this purpose we employ the proposals of T. Mohanan (1990/1994), which argue for the independence of the construct PREDICATE from its categorial realization. We show that this type of proposal extends to provide a uniform account of the German topicalization paradigm. This permits us to explain the similarities and differences in the behaviors of various sorts of predicators as well as certain idiomatic expressions interpreted as complex predicates.

In-situ and ex-situ wh-question constructions in Moro

Abstract This paper addresses the formation of wh-questions in Thetogovela Moro, a Kordofanian language spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. Moro has both in-situ and ex-situ wh-questions, but exhibits a subject/non-subject asymmetry: while non-subjects may employ either construction, subjects must appear in the ex-situ form. Ex-situ wh-questions are analyzed as wh-clefts, and they share several properties with clefts and relative clauses. The fronted element is marked with a cleft particle and for noun phrases, a demonstrative that we analyze as a relative pronoun is used. Verbal tone patterns are those that are found in dependent clauses rather than main clauses. Subject questions, clefts and relative clauses are marked with a verbal prefix é-, while non-subject questions, clefts and relative clauses are marked with a verbal prefix ə́-. We analyze these prefixes as dependent clause markers and provide evidence of additional dependent clause uses in the language. Finally, non-subject wh-questions bear an optional particle nə́- on the subject and/or verb. We offer several arguments that this is best analyzed as a complementizer

Implicative organization facilitates morphological learning

One dimension of this task is segmentation. For example, how can learners separate the stems from the affixes that signal a particular morphosyntactic property? If this information was all that learners had, they might hypothesize that zavod has the lexical meaning ‘factory’, and the –ov suffix signals genitive plural. A large body of experimental research addresses this syntagmatic, structural challenge of identifying recurrent partial forms (e.g., Saffran et al. 1996; Finley and Newport 2011; Aslin and Newport 2012). However, there is also a paradigmatic aspect to the problem. For example, the table below shows some alternative possibilities for how a plural form might be realized with different cases in Russian (Baerman et al. 2009).

Aspectual contrasts and lexeme derivation in Estonian: a realization-based morphological perspective

Many languages have morphological means for distinguishing between atelic/telic aspectual contrasts associated with related transitive predicates1. For example, it is well-known that the lexicons of Slavic languages contain pervasive patterns of paired predicates. This is exemplified by Russian in (1): (1) a. Vcera ja kosil travu yesterday I cut.past grass.acc ‘Yesterday I cut/was cutting (the) grass.’ b. Vcera ja skosil tselij gektar yesterday I cut. perfective. past whole hectare.acc ‘Yesterday I cut the whole hectare.’ Roughly speaking, the situation denoted in (1a) need not be construed as fully completed, hence the possibility for a progressive reading, nor need the action be interpreted as directed at a specifically delimitable quantity denoted by the OBJ(ect) argument. In contrast, the situation denoted in (1b) is construed as completed, affecting the entirety of the entity denoted by the OBJ argument. For the time being, I will assume that (1a) corresponds to an atelic reading and (1b) to a telic one (see section 4 for more detailed discussion). As can be seen, while the predicates in each of these sentences vary, they share the same verbal root: this root is unprefixed in (1a), but prefixed in (1b). Crucially, this variability in predicate marking and semantic interpretation is correlated with invariance of OBJ marking: the obj arguments in both (1a) and (1b) bear acc case.

Acoustic differences in morphologically-distinct homophones

ABSTRACT Previous work demonstrates that a words status as morphologically-simple or complex may be reflected in its phonetic realisation. One possible source for these effects is phonetic paradigm uniformity, in which an intended words phonetic realisation is influenced by its morphological relatives. For example, the realisation of the inflected word frees should be influenced by the phonological plan for free, and thus be non-homophonous with the morphologically-simple word freeze. We test this prediction by analysing productions of forty such inflected/simple word pairs, embedded in pseudo-conversational speech structured to avoid metalinguistic task effects, and balanced for frequency, orthography, as well as segmental and prosodic context. We find that stem and suffix durations are significantly longer by about 4–7% in fricative-final inflected words (frees, laps) compared to their simple counterparts (freeze, lapse), while we find a null effect for stop-final words. The result suggests that wordforms influence production of their relatives.

Symmetrical objects in Moro: Challenges and solutions

This paper examines the syntactic and semantic behavior of object arguments in Moro, a Kordofanian language spoken in central Sudan. In particular, we focus on multiple object constructions (ditransitives, applicatives, and causatives) and show that these objects exhibit symmetrical syntactic behavior; e.g., any object can passivize or be realized as an object marker, and all can do so simultaneously. Moreover, we demonstrate that each object can bear any of the non-agentive roles in a verb’s semantic role inventory and that the resulting ambiguities are an entailment of symmetrical object constructions of the type found in Moro. Previous treatments of symmetrical languages have assumed a syntactic asymmetry between multiple objects and have developed theoretical analyses that treat symmetrical behaviors as departures from an asymmetrical basic organization of clausal syntax. We take a different approach: we develop a Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar account that allows a partial ordering of the argument structure ( arg-st ) list. The guiding idea is that languages differ with respect to the organization of their arg-st lists and their consequences for grammatical function realization: there is no privileged encoding, but there is large variation within the parameters defined by arg-st organization. This accounts directly for the symmetrical behaviors of multiple objects. We also show how this approach can be extended to account for certain asymmetrical behaviors in Moro.

Word-based morphology–syntax interdependencies: Thai passives

In this article, we argue that insights concerning the word-based nature of morphology, especially the hypothesis that periphrastic expressions are cross-linguistically common exponents of lexical relations, permit a novel lexical constructional analysis of periphrastic predicates that preserves the restriction of morphosyntactic mapping operations, such as passive, to the lexicon. We do this in the context of the periphrastic Thai thuuk passive, justifying in detail the monoclausal status of the construction, its flat phrase structure, the semantics of affectedness associated with it, and its paradigmatic opposition with other passive constructions in the language. Building on the proposal of Bonami & Webelhuth ( 2013 ) and Bonami ( 2015 ) that a periphrase relies on a form of the main verb that selects collocationally for an auxiliary element, we develop an analysis of Thai periphrastic passives in which the surface syntax of these predicates is mediated by appropriate lexical representations. Crucially, the rearrangement of arguments in the passive is done lexically, via lexical rule, rather than in the syntax. The resulting analysis is consistent with the classical tradition of Word and Paradigm morphology, which posits periphrastic expression as one of several encoding strategies for the realization of morphosyntactic information within words.

Adult learners use both entrenchment and preemption to infer grammatical constraints

Learners acquire grammatical constraints (e.g., the knowledge that giggles use in The joke giggled me is ungrammatical) in part through statistical learning. The entrenchment and preemption hypotheses claim that correlated statistics are relevant. This makes it difficult to find unambiguous evidence in favor of one or the other. The present work circumvents this issue by orthogonalizing effects of entrenchment and preemption in a learning task with a novel verb. We find evidence that both entrenchment and preemption have significant independent effects in adult learners.