Ida Toivonen

Constructions with Lexical Integrity

Construction Grammar holds that unpredictable form-meaning combinations are not restricted in size. In particular, there may be phrases that have particular meanings that are not predictable from the words that they contain, but which are nonetheless not purely idiosyncratic. In addressing this observation, some construction grammarians have not only weakened the word/phrase distinction, but also denied the lexicon/grammar distinction. In this paper, we consider the word/phrase and lexicon/grammar distinction in light of Lexical-Functional Grammar and its Lexical Integrity Principle. We show that it is not necessary to remove the word/phrase distinction or the lexicon/grammar distinction to capture constructional effects, although we agree that there are important generalizations involving constructions of all sizes that must be captured at both syntactic and semantic levels. We use LFG’s templates , bundles of grammatical descriptions, to factor out grammatical information in such a way that it can be invoked either by words or by construction-specific phrase structure rules. Phrase structure rules that invoke specific templates are thus the equivalent of phrasal constructions in our approach, but Lexical Integrity and the separation of word and phrase are preserved. Constructional effects are captured by systematically allowing words and phrases to contribute comparable information to LFG’s level of functional structure; this is just a generalization of LFG’s usual assumption that “morphology competes with syntax” (Bresnan, 2001).

The directed motion construction in Swedish

This paper introduces a Swedish construction, called THE DIRECTED MOTION CONSTRUCTION (DMC). The DMC is parallel to the English WAY construction, which has recently received considerable attention in a debate comparing constructions to lexical rules. The DMC is very productive, and must therefore be taken seriously by any grammatical theory. This paper gives a detailed description of the DMC, and formalizes it in two ways: as a construction and as a lexical rule. Although both formalizations are possible, the construction more straightforwardly captures the most interesting aspect of the DMC: the fact that the overall meaning cannot be tied to any one of its individual parts.

Phonetic Duration, Phonological Quantity and Prosodic Structure in Inari Saami

Inari Saami, an endangered Finno-Ugric language of Northern Finland, is reported to have a three-way surface contrast in consonant length (short, halflong and long). We studied disyllabic words (C)V1CxV2(C) using data from 5 native speakers under two conditions, with short and long preceding vowel, V1, and found support for the claim that Inari Saami has a ternary contrast in consonant length. The three-way length contrast is more robust following a short V1. The duration of V2 correlates negatively with the length of the medial consonant. However, there is one major departure from this pattern. When both V1 and the medial consonant are long, V2 is also longer. This finding supports the idea that disyllables of this class differ from the others in their prosodic structure in having two metrical feet rather than one. This interpretation tallies with independent evidence from synchronic morphophonology and the historical development of the prosodic system of Inari Saami.

With Lexical Integrity

Muller and Wechsler (MW) contrast lexical (lexicalist) and phrasal (constructional) approaches and conclude that a lexical approach is to be preferred. They present a careful review of the arguments that have been presented for both positions, and they also introduce several new arguments for the lexicalist position. The target article is commendable in many respects, including its thoroughness. However, their representation of our position on Lexical Integrity and constructions is not accurate (Asudeh, Dalrymple, and Toivonen 2008, 2013),1 and they use too broad a brush in painting their picture of Germanic motion constructions; sections 2 and 3 below deal respectively with these issues.

Symptomatic imperfections David Adger, Core syntax: a Minimalist approach . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii+424. Andrew Radford, Minimalist syntax: exploring the structure of English . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii+512.

Minimalist syntax and Core syntax are reasonably good textbooks. They should be very helpful indeed in teaching a syntax course on current Principles and Parameters theory (PP Chomsky 1981) that focuses on the Minimalist Program (MP; Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005). The books present a range of syntactic phenomena, which are for the most part discussed lucidly and illustrated by considerable relevant data. Nevertheless, the books are not pedagogically faultless and the pedagogical faults are often due to underlying theoretical problems.

Gradience, features and hierarchies

In Shifting Animacy, Peter de Swart and Helen de Hoop argue that animacy in general and animacy shifts in particular can be better understood if we take into account the distinction between grammatical and conceptual animacy. They argue that possible mismatches between conceptual and grammatical animacy licence animacy shifts. Their approach seems promising to me,1 but I would nevertheless like to take this opportunity to discuss further some of the points made in the paper. If I understand their claims correctly, de Swart and de Hoop propose that linguistic animacy is discrete and binary and conceptual animacy is gradient and non-binary. Linguistic animacy is modelled with binary features and conceptual animacy is modeled with a hierarchy (the animacy hierarchy). I view their proposal as an invitation to consider further the question whether featural analyses are necessarily discrete and analyses that appeal to hierarchies necessarily gradient.

The phonetics of code-switched vowels

Aims and Objectives: This study investigates the effects of code-switching on vowel quality, pitch and duration among English–French bilinguals. Code-switching has been claimed to influence the morphology, syntax and lexicon, but not the phonology of the switched language. However, studies on voice-onset time have found subtle phonetic effects of code-switching, even though there are no categorical phonological effects. We investigate this further through the following three questions: (1) Are F1 and F2 influenced in the process of code-switching? (2) Are code-switched words hyper-articulated? (3) Does code-switching have an effect on vowel duration before voiced and voiceless consonants? Methodology: To address our research questions we relied on an insertional switching method where words from one language were inserted into carrier phrases of the other to simulate English–French code-switching environments. Bilingual speakers were recorded while they read code-switched sentences as well as sentences that did not involve code-switching, that is, monolingual sentences. Data and Analysis: The vowels of target words in the recorded utterances were compared – code-switched contexts against monolingual contexts – for vocalic duration, F0, F1 and F2. Findings/Conclusions: Like previous voice-onset time studies, our results indicate that code-switching does not shift the phonology to that of the embedded language. We did, however, find subtle lower level phonetic effects, especially in the French target words; we also found evidence of hyper-articulation in code-switched words. At the prosodic level, target switch-words approached the prosodic contours of the carrier phrases they are embedded in. Originality: The approach taken in this study is novel for its investigation of vowel properties instead of voice-onset time. Significance: This new approach to investigating code-switching adds to our understanding of how code-switching affects pronunciation.

Response to David Adger's ‘Remarks on Minimalist feature theory and Move’

David Adger raises some interesting issues and makes several valuable points in his ‘Remarks on Minimalist feature theory and Move’ (henceforth MFTM), a response to our review article ‘Symptomatic imperfections’ (henceforth SI) in this journal (Asudeh & Toivonen 2006), which was in part a review of his Core syntax (Adger 2003). In this response, we address some of the points in MFTM. We would also like to set the record straight about some points in SI which we feel have been misrepresented. In several instances, MFTM argues against claims that were not made in SI. Whatever the independent merit of these arguments, we do not wish to defend viewpoints we did not propose in the first place. We argue in SI that the low standard of formal rigour and explicitness in the Minimalist Program (MP) is problematic. Adger agrees with our assertion that various formalisations of Minimalism, including Stabler (1998), have been ignored in the mainstream MP literature, including Core syntax (CS). However, he claims that this is ‘beside the point ’. Adger writes :

Verbal Particles in the Swedish VP

This chapter discusses Swedish VP-internal syntax in general, but focusses on verbal particles. I will show that Swedi sh is easily accounted for within the theory laid out in the previous chapter. The ordering of the particles in relation to the VP-internal XPs follows straightforwardly from the assumption that the particles are head-adjoined to V0. Section s I and 2 layout the c-structure specifications, the lexical specifications and the c- to f-structure mapping principles for the Swedish VP. Section 3 presents evidence that the particles are attached at the V0-Ievel, rather than the V’-level. Section 4 addres ses the possibility of recursion and the appearance of multiple particle s. Section 5 discusses the notion of Economy, which will be shown to play an important role in the analysis. Finally, section 6 presents two types of expression which appear to go against the generalization concerning the ordering of particles and direct objects.

The Meaning of Swedish Particles

The previous chapters have focussed on the structural realization of the verbal particles, and I have argued for a quite simple c-structure. However, particles and verb-particle combinations have some intricate semantic properties, and this has led many previous researchers to assume a more complicated syntactic realization. We will see in this chapter that the LFG architecture makes it possible to account for the semantics without complicating the c-structure.