Mark de Vos

Subject marking and preverbal coordination in Sesotho: A perspective from Optimality Theory

Abstract Agreement usually operates in a one-to-one fashion where an agreement target is matched to a source of agreement. However, when there is more than one source (for example, in preverbal coordination constructions) agreement mismatches occur. These may be resolved either through partial agreement with only a single source, or by various resolution strategies. Bantu languages with their rich noun-class system are an ideal domain to explore resolution strategies. This paper examines the phenomenon of subject-verb agreement with preverbal coordinated DPs in Sesotho (S33) and outlines an Optimality Theoretic analysis of the various strategies that speakers use to negotiate subject verb agreement.

Educated mother-tongue South African English : a corpus approach

Abstract South Africa is anecdotally known for its complex system of speech varieties correlating with variables such as ethnicity, first language, class and education. These intuitions (e.g. Lass 1990) require further investigation, especially in the context of a changing South Africa where language variety plays a key role in identifying social, economic and ethnic group membership. Thus, in this research, the extent to which these variables play a role in variety is explored using a corpus approach (the nature of class and race in the corpus is discussed more fully later in the article). The corpus project, focusing primarily on accent, has been undertaken by members of the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Rhodes University in South Africa, collaborating with staff from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. A corpus (the first of its kind) is being compiled, comprising the speech of educated, white, mother-tongue speakers of South African English (as distinct from Afrikaans English, Indian English, and the second language (L2) varieties of English used by speakers of indigenous African languages), and data collection is well under way. This short article aims to describe the aims of the project, and the methodological approach which underpins it, as well as to highlight some of the more problematic aspects of the research.

Head movement is an artefact of optimal solutions to linearization paradoxes

Head movement, while endemic in natural languages, has long been a thorn in the sides of syntacticians as it does not seem to be logically necessary nor does it follow from first principles. I will argue that head movement is not only necessary – it is indispensable. It is an intrinsic part of the language-computational system. Converting two-dimensional “trees” into uni-dimensional linearizations is mathematically difficult and in doing so, losing information is a distinct possibility. If too much information is lost then it would prove difficult for a hearer or a child acquiring the language to infer the original syntactic information from the signal and the system would become unlearnable. Linearization is the strategy of choosing an optimal ordering and head movement is a logical response to an optimization puzzle.

Homogeneity in subject-verb concord in South African English

Abstract This paper explores the strategies employed by speakers of South African English for subject-verb concord using a large-scale methodology. It is argued that there is a complex interplay between broad types of agreement (e.g., syntactic vs notional agreement) and specific strategies for agreement (e.g., agreement with head noun vs ‘attraction’ agreement with the linearly closest noun). It is demonstrated that a particular type of notional agreement, namely ‘Atomic-Homogeneous’ agreement plays the largest role in South African English; although other types of agreements are also present in the data set. Since this type of agreement has not been widely reported on in the literature on American and British English, it may be that South African English represents a departure from agreement in these varieties. The paper also demonstrates the viability of large-scale methodologies for this type of research.Abstract This paper explores the strategies employed by speakers of South African English for subject-verb concord using a large-scale methodology. It is argued that there is a complex interplay between broad types of agreement (e.g., syntactic vs notional agreement) and specific strategies for agreement (e.g., agreement with head noun vs ‘attraction’ agreement with the linearly closest noun). It is demonstrated that a particular type of notional agreement, namely ‘Atomic-Homogeneous’ agreement plays the largest role in South African English; although other types of agreements are also present in the data set. Since this type of agreement has not been widely reported on in the literature on American and British English, it may be that South African English represents a departure from agreement in these varieties. The paper also demonstrates the viability of large-scale methodologies for this type of research.

An argument for VP coordination: scene-setting coordination and weak islands

This article provides a minimalist analysis of a novel type of weak island that has not been discussed in the literature until now. The island is a subtype of extraction from asymmetric coordination islands in violation of the across-the-board constraint. The islands in question are characterised by being weak islands for certain types of adjunct extraction, and by being discontinuous – XP coordination. This article demonstrates the properties of this curious construction type and proposes the first analysis to date. It is argued that this is an instance of VP coordination and that this configuration allows the possibility of high merger of direct objects in a constrained fashion.This article provides a minimalist analysis of a novel type of weak island that has not been discussed in the literature until now. The island is a subtype of extraction from asymmetric coordination islands in violation of the across-the-board constraint. The islands in question are characterised by being weak islands for certain types of adjunct extraction, and by being discontinuous – XP coordination. This article demonstrates the properties of this curious construction type and proposes the first analysis to date. It is argued that this is an instance of VP coordination and that this configuration allows the possibility of high merger of direct objects in a constrained fashion.

The development of phonological awareness literacy measures for isiXhosa

Abstract This study outlines the development of linguistically based, language-specific measures of phonological awareness in isiXhosa and presents some preliminary findings. Hitherto, the study of phonological awareness has predominantly focussed on English, and to date phonological awareness in Bantu languages has not been adequately addressed. This study explicitly discusses the decisions made when developing a phonological awareness test for isiXhosa, which can easily be adapted for other Bantu languages. Our results show how participants perform better in syllable awareness tasks and how this is conditioned by the language-specific structures of isiXhosa. We demonstrate the need for micro-linguistic and language-specific considerations in the development of phonological awareness tests.

Atomic Homogeneity: A semantic strategy for the determination of plurality in the complex noun phrases of South African English

The existence of a particular semantic agreement strategy, what I will here call Atomic Homogeneity , has been argued to determine plurality in complex noun phrases. If the denotational properties of a complex noun phrase can be distributed to its smallest, atomic subset then plural agreement is the result. This paper explores this prediction using a large-scale experiment and demonstrates that Atomic Homogeneity is a highly significant statistical effect in the data, thus validating the prediction of this strategy. In addition, this paper serves a methodological purpose by exploring the utility of large-scale data collection by peer interview. Although it might be expected that the method is noisy, this is offset by the large amount of data collected and which is more amenable to statistical analysis than smaller-scale case studies. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2014, 32(1): 1–19Abstract The existence of a particular semantic agreement strategy, what I will here call Atomic Homogeneity, has been argued to determine plurality in complex noun phrases. If the denotational properties of a complex noun phrase can be distributed to its smallest, atomic subset then plural agreement is the result. This paper explores this prediction using a large-scale experiment and demonstrates that Atomic Homogeneity is a highly significant statistical effect in the data, thus validating the prediction of this strategy. In addition, this paper serves a methodological purpose by exploring the utility of large-scale data collection by peer interview. Although it might be expected that the method is noisy, this is offset by the large amount of data collected and which is more amenable to statistical analysis than smaller-scale case studies.

Towards a definition of SUBJECT in binding domains and subject oriented anaphors

This paper is concerned with the notion of SUBJECT and with providing a definition couched in Minimalist terms. The question of subjecthood has long been an area of serious debate. In current versions of Minimalism, subjects do not have primitive status and can only be defined in derived terms. However, subjects and the broader theoretical notion of SUBJECT remain important in linguistic description. This paper develops a definition of subjecthood in terms of set-theoretic notions of functional dependency: when a feature, say f, determines the value of some other feature, say uf. This notion is used to describe various phenomena where subjecthood has been invoked, namely binding domains and subject-oriented anaphors.