Architecture Of Grammar Research Articles

What lexical acquisition has to say about a non-lexicalist architecture of grammar – and vice-versa

What lexical acquisition has to say about a non-lexicalist architecture of grammar – and vice-versa

Flat structure: a minimalist program for syntax

Abstract We explore the possibility of assuming largely flat syntactic structures in Simpler Syntax, suggesting that these are plausible alternatives to conventional hierarchical structures. We consider the implications of flat structure for analyses of various linguistic phenomena in English, including heavy NP shift, extraposition, topicalization and constituent order variation in the VP. We also sketch a general strategy to circumvent some of the problems flat structure is said to cause for semantic interpretation. Our proposals eliminate the need for movement, unpronounced copies and feature-bearing nodes postulated to trigger syntactic operations. We assume the Parallel Architecture and use declarative schemas to establish direct correspondences between phonology on the one hand and syntactic and semantic structures on the other. The resulting picture is one in which narrow syntax can be relatively stable across languages and constructions, largely reflecting the structure of human thought, and the main source of linguistic variation is the linearization of conceptual and syntactic structures. Unlike other minimalist theories that reach a similar conclusion, the theory we propose takes mappings to phonology to be central to the architecture of grammar.

Negative Concord without Agree: Insights from German, Dutch and English Child Language

Children acquiring a non-negative concord language like English or German have been found to consistently interpret sentences with two negative elements in a negative concord manner as conveying a single semantic negation. Corpus-based investigations for English and German show that children also produce sentences with two negative elements but only a single negation meaning. As any approach to negative concord and negative indefinites needs to account for both the typological variation and the child data, we revisit the three most current syntactic Agree-based analyses, as well as a movement-based approach and show that they either have difficulties with the child data or face challenges in the adult language variation or both. As a consequence, we develop a novel analysis of negative concord and negative indefinites which relies on purely morphological operations applying to hierarchical semantic representations within a version of the Meaning First architecture of grammar. We will argue that the typological variation between the main three different types of languages as well as the children’s non adult-like behaviour fall out from this in a straightforward fashion while the downsides of the Agree- and the movement-based accounts are avoided.

Clitic Climbing and Presuppositional Negative Markers in Occitano-Romance Verbal Complexes. Exploring the Crossroads of Micro-Syntactic Phenomena

In this paper we propose that verbal clusters with restructuring verbs contain a defective embedded clausal boundary. Additionally, this paper constitutes a methodological and empirical contribution to syntactic microvariation in Occitano-Romance varieties: we describe the synchronic variation in the expression of presuppositional postverbal negation and the position of clitics in infinitival complex structures. This empirical study contributes to the understanding of the micro-syntax of negation and clitics as independent phenomena. However, the interaction of both phenomena brings to light the structure of three types of verbal clusters: restructuring verbs, non-restructuring verbs and control predicates. Crucially, the data collected highlight that, although clitic climbing and embedded presuppositional negation are independent phenomena, they can both be explained by the transparency of the embedded clausal boundary. We claim that restructuring verbs select for a defective embedded C/T. Ultimately, the article shows how the comprehension of phenomena in closely related varieties allows us to better understand the architecture of grammar.

The Processing of Negation and Polarity: An Overview

Negation is a universal component of human language; polarity sensitivity (i.e., lexical distributional constraints in relation to negation) is arguably so while being pervasive across languages. Negation has long been a field of inquiry in psychological theories and experiments of reasoning, which inspired many follow-up studies of negation and negation-related phenomena in psycholinguistics. In generative theoretical linguistics, negation and polarity sensitivity have been extensively studied, as the related phenomena are situated at the interfaces of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and are thus extremely revealing about the architecture of grammar. With the now long tradition of research on negation and polarity in psychology and psycholinguistics, and the emerging field of experimental semantics and pragmatics, a multitude of interests and experimental paradigms have emerged which call for re-evaluations and further development and integration. This special issue contains a collection of 16 research articles on the processing of negation and negation-related phenomena including polarity items, questions, conditionals, and irony, using a combination of behavioral (e.g., rating, reading, eye-tracking and sentence completion) and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., EEG). They showcase the processing of negation and polarity with or without context, in various languages and across different populations (adults, typically developing and ADHD children). The integration of multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives in this collection provides new insights, methodological advances and directions for future research.

Intransitive Phrasal-Prepositional Verbs in English: A Case of Constructional Idiom

There are intransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs in English which are intermediate between fixed and free combinations such as look in on ‘visit’ in He looked in on his parents. They are not permanently fixed with the idiomatic meaning, but partly, though limitedly, productive such as call in on, drop in on, pop in on, etc. This paper argues that these multiword combinations are a constructional idiom that is stored in the lexicon as an underspecified form with the constructional meaning. The idiom has the unspecified verb (V) and noun phrase (NP) with the particle (Prt) and preposition (P) specified, as in V in on NP ‘visit NP’. It is then fused with a compatible lexical verb in the lexicon to form a lexical VP, and then with a suited noun phrase in phrasal syntax to complete the VP. This lexical VP analysis is proposed with an alternative in terms of Jackendoff’s (2002) parallel architecture of grammar.

A Syntactic Approach to Teaching English as a Second Language at the Undergraduate Level

The aim of this paper is to present a model of teaching English as a second language (L2) at the undergraduate level based on some theoretical insights of generative syntax. Broadly, it is an attempt to reconcile some insights about language expounded in generative syntactic theories overtime with second language teaching, hence, at the application level. These two disciplines, i.e., generative syntax and language teaching have developed as two distinctive domains at both theoretical and empirical levels, and hardly any organized attempt has been made to see the pedagogical advantages that the latter can derive from the former. The different language teaching methodologies and approaches from Grammar Translation to Audio Lingual method, Audio Visual method, Communicative Approach, and to more recent ones have been attempted at both Sri Lankan schools and the universities. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the L2 teachers are practicing more of an eclectic method in the L2 classroom in both places. In terms of syllabus, mode of presentation, and assessment forms, a discrete point pedagogical organization of language items can be seen. In contrast, when language teachers are shown the nature of native speaker competence as reflected in his/her performance, i.e., his/her utterances, in a rather modular architecture of grammar, better results can be expected from both the language teacher and the learner. Hence, this paper examines teaching of lexical categories, verb complementation, and tense and aspect in terms of distributional criteria, argument structure, thematic roles, and tense as a linguistic representation of time.

Insertion and deletion in Northern English (ng): Interacting innovations in the life cycle of phonological processes

In north-western varieties of British English the historical process ofng-coalescence that simplified nasal + stop clusters in words likewrongandsingernever ran to completion, with surface variation between [ŋ] and [ŋɡ] remaining to this day. This paper presents an empirical study of this synchronic variation, specifically to test predictions made by the life cycle of phonological processes; a diachronic account of /ɡ/-deletion has been proposed under this framework, but crucially the life cycle makes hitherto-untested predictions regarding the synchronic behaviour of (ng) in north-west England. Data from 30 sociolinguistic interviews indicate that these predictions are largely met: internal constraints on the variable are almost entirely accounted for by assuming cyclic application of /ɡ/-deletion across a stratified phonology. There is also evidence of apparent time change in the pre-pausal environment, which is becoming increasingly [ɡ]-favouring contrary to the life cycle’s predictions. It is argued that this reflects a separate innovation in the life cycle of (ng), with synchronic variation reflecting two processes: (i) the original deletion, overlaid with (ii) a prosodically-conditioned insertion process. These results have implications for theories of language change and the architecture of grammar and add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the effect of pause on probabilistic phenomena can be synchronically variable and diachronically unstable.

Els fenòmens discursius com una finestra a les interfícies

This paper examines the two lines of analysis that are generally pursued when dealing with discourse phenomena in the generative tradition: syntactico-centric and interface-based approaches. Syntactico-centric analyses are criticized because they need construction-specific mechanisms, while interface-based analyses sometimes challenge standard assumptions about the architecture of grammar. The discussion is mainly theoretical, but three case studies serve as exemplification: focalization, ellipsis and parentheticals. The second part of the paper is focused on parentheticals; a brief proposal is presented regarding the distinction between free and anchored parentheticals from a syntax-phonology interface perspective. The general conclusion is that following an interface-based perspective to approach discourse phenomena can help us gain new insights about the nature of the interfaces and their role in grammar.

Gender at the Edge

This article develops an analysis of Gender whereby D-gender enters grammar as a feature variable (edge linker), without a fixed value, either probing n or scanning the context for a value. Only the latter strategy is available in pronominal gender languages such as English, as they lack n-gender, whereas both strategies are applicable in n-gender languages, variably so for variable DPs, depending on their nP content and on context. The article adopts the idea that context linking does not merely involve pragmatic context scanning but also has a syntactic side to it, edge computation, whereby context-scanned and recycled features are computed at the phase edge in relation to CP-internal elements, via edge linkers. The context-linking approach has been previously launched for Tense and Person. This article extends it to Gender, thereby generalizing over context-sensitive grammatical categories and developing a novel view of the overall architecture of grammar.

On the syntax-discourse interface of nonsententials in Mandarin

Abstract This paper aims to develop the empirical and theoretical basis for the necessity of motivating a cartographic approach (Rizzi 1997; Cinque 1999) to the clausal structure of nonsententials (NSs) in Mandarin. Especially noteworthy about NSs is that they are able to encode clause type information, illocutionary force and the discourse roles speaker and hearer/addressee, though their structure is considerably reduced. Following the line of reasoning in Sigurðsson & Maling (2012) and Tsai (2015a, 2015b), I show that NSs have a fully-fledged CP structure, according to the effects exerted upon their interpretation. Adopting Haegeman’s (2014) sa*P analysis of the discourse particle in West Flemish, I argue that NSs contain a suprasentential structure, a Speech Act layer, dominating ForceP and responsible for the encoding of the speaker- hearer/addressee relation sensitive to the immediate context. Crucially, it is argued that the discourse properties surrounding NSs pertain to the articulated CP structure of NSs. The major consequence of the proposed analysis is to show that the theory of discourse is closely tied to the architecture of grammar in general, adding weight to the view that the transparent syntax-discourse mapping results from a set of functional projections layered in the CP periphery.

Semelfactives are bigger than degree achievements

This paper argues that semelfactive and degree achievement verbs are morphosyntactically distinct, despite the fact that the morphemes they are made of are often syncretic even in languages with synthetic verb morphology like Czech or Polish. We use the mechanisms of Nanosyntax, a theory of the architecture of grammar in which the lexicon stores entire syntactic subtrees, to show that there is a structural containment between semelfactives and degree achievements such that semelfactives include more syntactic structure than degree achievements. In this respect, the relative structure of these two verb classes contributes to Bobaljik’s (2012) general claim that syncretism anchors structural containment as well as to the ongoing discussion about the form of spell out in syntax. The resulting picture supports the view whereby the semantics of lexical items is determined by their fine-grained internal syntax.

Vowel Nasalisation in Scottish Gaelic: The Search for Paradigm Uniformity Effects in Fine-Grained Phonetic Detail

According to the modular feedforward architecture of grammar, the phonetics is sensitive only to the output of the phonology and is thus blind to morphological or lexical conditioning (Pierrehumbert 2002). However, this prediction is challenged by claims that fine-grained phonetic detail may display paradigm uniformity (PU) effects (Steriade 2000). In the present study I search for phonetic PU effects in vowel nasalisation in Scottish Gaelic by investigating alternating items in which a nasalising environment is removed by a morpho(phono)logical process known as lenition, which replaces initial [m] with [v] under certain morphosyntactic conditions.In vowels following initial [m], a clear distinction is found between (i) categorical phonological nasalisation, which may be subject to lexically conditioned blocking and which displays overapplication in lenited forms, and (ii) gradient phonetic nasalisation, which applies in those items where categorical phonological nasalisation fails to occur and which disappears completely in lenited forms. The differing patterns displayed by these two types of nasalisation fit neatly with the predictions of a modular architecture, in which categorical phonology has direct access to morphological information but gradient phonetics does not, and I conclude that non-modular architectures such as Exemplar Theory are not the correct explanation for putative PU effects.

Action sequences instead of representational levels.

Despite enthusiastic agreement that experimental data are directly relevant for determining grammar architecture, we present one main objection to the conclusions that the authors draw from their results: The data are perfectly compatible-in fact, much more in line-with an alternative that does not rely on syntactic representations. Instead, it is processing actions whose activation for comprehension/production explains intra-/inter-speaker priming.

The Modular Architecture of Grammar by Jerrold M. Sadock

Reviewed by: The Modular Architecture of Grammar by Jerrold M. Sadock Francesco-Alessio Ursini Jerrold M. Sadock. 2012. The Modular Architecture of Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 282 USD 114.99 (Hardcover). The Modular Architecture of Grammar presents a state-of-the-art introduction to automodular grammar, a theory based on Fodor’s (1983) modularity of mind hypothesis. According to the Modularity of Grammar Hypothesis, autonomous modules generate linguistic representations (e.g., sentence structures, propositions), but do not interact (p. 7). The representations that these systems generate, however, are connected via mapping principles governed by the interface (meta-) module. The theoretical consequences of this assumption are far-reaching. For instance, the theory lacks movement operations or hierarchical levels of representation, and syntax does not have a central function in the architecture (cf. GB and Distributed Morphology: Chomsky 1981, Halle and Marantz 1993). The theory is tested against a wide range of data, including some well-known but still controversial problems. It presents an interesting representational alternative to derivational theories, and can provide several stimulating points of reflection for theoretically inclined linguists. Below, I summarize the contents of the book. Chapter 1, “Autonomous modularity: syntax and semantics”, introduces the two central modules of this architecture: semantics and syntax. The semantic module generates Function/Argument (FA) structures, which determine how the meanings of lexical items, phrases and sentences are composed. The syntax module generates phrase/sentence structure, as standardly assumed in generative frameworks. The syntactic rules of representation come in a standard, if conservative generative format (e.g., S→NP, VP). The semantic rules also come in a conservative, categorial format. For instance, an object of type Fap is a function that takes an argument object of type a as an input, and returns a type p proposition as a result (Cresswell 1973). Lexical items are initially defined as pairings of F/A and syntactic representations, which include information about category and distribution. For instance, the intransitive verb sneeze has F/A type Fa and syntactic category “Vin[vp ___]” (i.e., it is a verb in a VP). Chapter 2, “The interface”, presents the interface module and its three core principles. The first is lexical correspondence: each lexical item must have a representation in each module/dimension. The second is categorial correspondence: categories from different modules are mapped in a homogenous way (e.g., NPs to arguments, propositions to sentences). The third is geometric correspondence: a relation from one dimension (e.g., c-command in syntax) must correspond to a relation in another dimension (e.g., scope in semantics). Since the theory assumes that different rules generate syntactic and semantic representations, which are connected via precise mappings, it predicts that discrepancies and asymmetries among representations can arise. For instance, copular sentences such as Sally is a carpenter are analysed as including lexical correspondence discrepancies, which emerge when lexical items (is, a) have syntactic representations, but null semantic representations. The interface module maps the contentful NPs in this sentence to, respectively, argument [End Page 225] and predicate type representations, and the copula and indefinite article to null representations. Hence, lexical and categorial correspondence is maintained even if not all syntactic representations correspond to non-null semantic representations. Other types of discrepancies can emerge as well (e.g., lexical items with a semantic but no syntactic representation). Chapter 3, “Role structure”, adds the Role (also event, cognitive) structure module (RS), which determines the event structure and thematic roles associated to lexical items and sentences. Only three roles are postulated: proto-agent, proto-patient, and ancillary participant (Dowty 1991). Thus, the role structure of a verb such as put can be represented as “RS: ‘put’ (type), AGT, PAT, ANC”. Notably, unlike syntactic structures, role structures are assumed to be non-hierarchical sequences including event type and roles. The assumption that there is a distinct role structure module is motivated via the analysis of voice phenomena and relations among the role structures of verbs. For instance, passive and active sentences are analysed as involving subject NPs that have an argument (semantic) type, but distinct role values (agent for active sentences, patient for passive ones). Antonym verb pairs such as buy and sell...

Construction Morphology and the Parallel Architecture ofGrammar.

This article presents a systematic exposition of how the basic ideas of Construction Grammar (CxG) (Goldberg, ) and the Parallel Architecture (PA) of grammar (Jackendoff, ) provide the framework for a proper account of morphological phenomena, in particular word formation. This framework is referred to as Construction Morphology (CxM). As to the implications of CxM for the architecture of grammar, the article provides evidence against a split between lexicon and grammar, in line with CxG. In addition, it shows that the PA approach makes it possible to be explicit about what happens on which level of the grammar, and thus to give an insightful account of interface phenomena. These interface phenomena appear to require that various types of information are accessible simultaneously, and it is argued that constructional schemas have the right format for expressing these mutual dependencies between different types of information.

Hidden complexity – The neglected side of complexity and its implications

AbstractLinguistic complexity is the result of the two motivations of explicitness and economy. Most approaches focus on the explicitness-side of complexity (overt complexity) but there is also an economy-oriented side to it (hidden complexity). The aim of the paper is to introduce hidden complexity and to show how it opens new perspectives on central issues of linguistics. It will discuss the following questions: (i) the implementability of hidden complexity for psycholinguistic experiments, (ii) the evolution of linguistic complexity, (iii) its realisation in creole languages and (iv) its consequences for theories on the architecture of grammar. With this aim, the paper is a programmatic paper with the intention of pointing out ideas for future research.

The perfect participle paradox: some implications for the architecture of grammar

The topic of this article can be exemplified by the final clause of the following attested sentence: I don't know how he found out that she belonged to that lass, but find out he has. Clauses like this one show a preposed verb phrase that is headed by a plain verb whereas the non-preposed verb phrase of their canonical counterparts is obligatorily headed by a perfect participle (i.e. he has {found / *find} out). This peculiarity of verb phrase preposing, which will be referred to as the perfect participle paradox, has seldom been discussed. The article starts by showing that clauses that manifest the paradox are more frequent in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and in the British National Corpus than their non-paradoxical analogues with preposed canonical perfect participles. The article then looks at the paradox from the point of view of generative syntax, discusses and rejects previous analyses, and argues that a solution entails the rejection of two assumptions that have been associated with a lexicalist position, especially by proponents of distributed morphology. These are the assumptions that (a) a syntactic terminal is an item supplied by the lexicon and comprising a phonological representation and (b) that syntax may not manipulate the internal structure of syntactic terminals. The article proposes an analysis that is not based on these assumptions, but argues that the analysis does not entail the superiority of a distributed morphology framework.

Japanese Causatives are Not Relevant To Lexical Integrity

AbstractProductive Japanese causative verbs appear to form a problem for the idea that the relation between morphology and syntax is characterised by lexical integrity, meaning that the internal structure of complex words is opaque to syntax. This is because such causatives show behaviour that indicates the verb and the causative morpheme head separate syntactic clauses underlyingly, so their structure must be syntactically transparent, but nevertheless the combination of verb and causative morpheme seems to be a morphological complex. In this paper I argue that, given a modular architecture of grammar, the module in which verb and causative morpheme might be argued to be a complex word is morpho‐phonology, which is not the module to which lexical integrity pertains. In the module to which this does pertain, morpho‐syntax, the productive causative morpheme is a free morpheme, rather than an affix, at all levels of representation. The construction is therefore not relevant to the question of whether or not lexical integrity holds. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between the productive causative and the ‘lexical’ causative, which arguably does involve a morphological complex in morpho‐syntax as well as morpho‐phonology. It is argued that the occurrence of the same morpheme in syntactic causatives and some lexical causatives does not imperil its status as a free morpheme in the syntactic causative.

From intonational phrase to syntactic phase: The grammaticalization of enclisis in the history of Portuguese

In the history of European Portuguese, from the 16th to the 19th century, clitic-placement underwent significant changes, specifically with respect to the environments where enclisis obligatorily occurs. In this paper, we show how the architecture of grammar proposed in Distributed Morphology (Embick and Noyer, 2001, 2006) can shed a light on this change. We analyze enclisis as the result of post-syntactic rules and we argue that the change involved a shift in the operation that displaces the clitic from Prosodic Inversion to Lowering, accounting for the different environments where enclisis obligatorily occurs across time. Moreover, the employment of such a view of the architecture of grammar allows us to interpret this shift as a case of grammaticalization, thus broadening the treatment of this concept in the framework of Generative Grammar.