Auxiliary Inversion Research Articles

Contactul româno-slav: efecte convergente în sintaxa românei vechi și a istroromânei

In this paper I present two cases of Romance-Slavic contact: direct contact in bilingual context (Istro-Romanian and Croatian), and indirect contact via translations (old Romanian and Old Church Slavonic). After briefly presenting the syntactic features attested in Istro-Romanian and in old Romanian (but which have disappeared from modern Romanian), I focus on two features: the prenominal position of relational adjectives and auxiliary inversion, features explained by convergence (as they are attested both in Latin/Old Romance and in the Slavonic contact languages, Croatian and Old Church Slavonic). Finally, I make some theoretical remarks on the consequences of contact in syntax.

Adaptation at the Syntax-Semantics Interface: Evidence From a Vernacular Structure.

Expanding on psycholinguistic research on linguistic adaptation, the phenomenon whereby speakers change how they comprehend or produce structures as a result of cumulative exposure to less frequent or unfamiliar linguistic structures, this study asked whether speakers can learn semantic and syntactic properties of the American English vernacular negative auxiliary inversion (NAI) structure (e.g., didn't everybody eat, meaning "not everybody ate") during the course of an experiment. Formal theoretical analyses of NAI informed the design of a task in which American English-speaking participants unfamiliar with this structure were exposed to NAI sentences in either semantically ambiguous or unambiguous contexts. Participants rapidly adapted to the interpretive properties of NAI, selecting responses similar to what would be expected of a native speaker after only limited exposure to semantically ambiguous input. On a separate ratings task, participants displayed knowledge of syntactic restrictions on NAI subject type, despite having no previous exposure. We discuss the results in the context of other experimental studies of adaptation and suggest the implementation of top-down strategies via analogy to other familiar structure types as possible explanations for the behaviors observed in this study. The study illustrates the value of integrating insights from formal theoretical research and psycholinguistic methods in research on adaptation and highlights the need for more interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary work in both experimental and naturalistic contexts to understand this phenomenon.

A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS ON EXCLAMATIVES IN THE PHILIPPINE

Exclamatives constructions in the Philippine English form a variegated class which is often confused with other types of clauses. These structures are characterized by intonation contour, emphatic stress and propositional properties beyond their syntactic form. Using the AntCoc protocol, this corpus-based study presents a survey of the categories and syntactical characteristics as well as the functions of the exclamatives found in ICE-PHI with 199 hits out of 1,172 tokens from the word collection. Key words such as what, how so, such a/an and others were used to locate the target hits of the utterances. Analysis was made on the syntactic and formulaic forms, semantic categories and pragmatic impressions. Results show that 'so' exclamatives posted the highest frequency, followed by the prototypes, and 'the such a/an' exclamatives. Minimal occurrences were recorded for DP – 'the way' exclamatives and nominal exclamatives. A majority of the exclamatives followed the initial exclamative phrase syntactic formula except for the 'such a/an' exclamatives which follow the subject auxiliary inversion. The syntactic features and functions of the exclamatives illustrated the semantic nature of the structures which differentiated them from seeming to be similar structures as in expressive/emotional utterance.

Testing the Bottleneck Hypothesis: Chinese EFL learners’ knowledge of morphology and syntax across proficiency levels

This study tests the Bottleneck Hypothesis (BH) that functional morphology presents the greatest difficulty in second language acquisition by examining Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ knowledge of both functional morphological properties and core syntactic properties across three language proficiency levels. Specifically, this study compares Chinese EFL learners’ grasp of subject–verb agreement (a functional morphological property) vs. their grasp of the syntactic formation rules (properties) of WH-questions including WH-movement, WH- do-insertion (i.e. the insertion of the auxiliary do), and WH- do-inversion (subject–auxiliary inversion): three core syntactic transformation rules. Analyses of the experimental results using generalized mixed-effects models yield complex results that generally support the BH. While subject–verb agreement was found to be persistently more difficult than WH-movement and WH- do-inversion, it was shown to pose essentially the same level of difficulty as WH- do-insertion due to the fact that the latter also involves the application of the functional features of SV-agreement and tense, i.e. the high level of difficulty of WH- do-insertion likely lies in its accompanying application of functional features. Possible explanations for the complex results and their implications are discussed.

Inversion calculation and prediction of extreme conditions by in-situ test of real machine in a hydropower station

The in-situ test of the real engine in hydropower station is a necessary test before the unit is put into operation. During the test, the problems in the test process can be found through the auxiliary inversion calculation, and the calculation and analysis of extreme conditions can provide important support for the unit’s permanent operation. First of all, this paper analyzes the problem that the maximum pressure of the spiral shell and the increase rate of the unit speed in the load rejection test of the hydropower station exceed the control standard. Through inversion calculation, it is found that the closing law of the guide vane of the unit is different from the set closing law, and the robustness of the closing law is poor; then, combined with the test situation, the closing law of the guide vane of the unit was optimized. While the adjusted load rejection test was simulated under the same boundary conditions, and the measured data and numerical calculation results were compared and analyzed to obtain the modified values of the characteristic parameters. Finally, the extreme conditions in the transition process of large fluctuations are predicted and calculated by numerical simulation. This research idea provides reference and guidance experience for similar projects.

Linguistic Diversity in Appalachia

This study investigates how American English speakers from within and outside the Appalachian region interpret negative auxiliary inversion (NAI). Previously observed in Appalachian and other English varieties, NAI has surface syntax similar to yes-no questions but receives a declarative interpretation (e.g., Didn’t everybody watch Superbowl 53, meaning ‘not everybody watched’). Previous work shows that NAI is associated with a reading in which some but not all people participated in an event, as opposed to one in which no one participated. Results from an interpretation task revealed that Appalachian participants tended to obtain the ‘not all’ and not the ‘no one’ reading for NAI. In contrast, non-Appalachian participants’ interpretations exhibited greater inter- and intraspeaker variability. Appalachian participants with more ‘not all’ interpretations reported positive attitudes toward NAI use, and they also distinguished between attested and unattested syntactic subject types (e.g., everybody, many people, *few people) in a naturalness rating task. Appalachian participants with more ‘no one’ interpretations had more negative attitudes toward NAI use and made no distinction between subject types. These results highlight how individuals from Appalachia interpret NAI differently than individuals from outside the region and suggest that language attitudes may impact semantic interpretation within a nonmainstream speaker group.

On the Subject of Negative Auxiliary Inversion

AbstractThis article presents a novel analysis ofNegative Auxiliary Inversion(NAI) constructions such asdidn't many people eat, in which a negated auxiliary appears in pre-subject position. NAI, found in varieties including Appalachian, African American, and West Texas English, has a word order identical to a yes/no question, but is pronounced and interpreted as a declarative. We propose that NAI subjects are negative DPs, and that the negation raises from the subject DP to adjoin to Fin (a functional head in the left periphery). Three properties of NAI motivate this analysis: (i) scope freezing effects, (ii) the various possible and impossible NAI subject types, and (iii) the incompatibility of NAI constructions with true Double-Negation interpretations. Implications for theories of Negative Concord, Negative Polarity Items, and the representation of negation are discussed.

The role of person in subject auxiliary inversion in English wh-questions: Evidence from Korean-English bilingual children

Aims: The present study investigates whether Korean-English (K-E) bilingual children develop subject auxiliary inversion (SAI) in English wh-questions differently from monolingual English (M-E) speaking children. Specifically, an experimental study was designed to determine whether there is an effect of subject person in their acquisition of SAI in English wh-questions, a factor that had been suggested but not tested as a contributing factor in SAI in a previous study. Design: Twenty-six K-E bilingual and 20 M-E preschool-aged children were recruited for an elicitation study testing the effect of person on the use of SAI in wh-questions in English. The experiment consisted of having children interact with puppets in a guessing game that elicited first, second, and third person object- what questions in English. Data and analysis: Data from the experiment were analyzed through a binomial logistic regression, which accounts for the binary nature of the data (auxiliary inversion: present or absent) and identified which variables contribute significantly to the presence and absence of SAI. Findings/conclusions: Results indicated a significant difference between K-E and M-E groups and a significant main effect for person on SAI for the K-E group. The paper proposes that the [prs] feature is part of the bundle of features that drives the movement of the features in T to C. Originality: The paper contributes evidence for a link between the person feature and SAI, a link that has not been seen before for wh-question research. Significance/implications: The new evidence of a possible link between subject person and auxiliary inversion may open a window to new avenues for wh-question acquisition research.

Micro-syntactic variation in American English Negative Concord

This paper presents a series of quantitative gradient acceptability judgment studies of English negative sentences. Adult native speakers of American English recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk were asked to rate sentences on a scale of 1 to 7 on the basis of their naturalness. The main study compares sentences with the marker n’t and either a negative object (e.g. ‘John didn’t eat nothing’) or a negative subject in canonical position (‘nobody didn’t eat’). Each sentence type has two possible interpretations, one in which the two negatives contribute a single semantic negation, the so-called Negative Concord reading, and another in which the two negations yield a semantic Double Negation logically equivalent to an affirmative. While mean acceptability ratings were below the median for all items, statistical analyses of the gradient data revealed that speakers prefer Negative Concord over Double Negation readings for sentences with negative objects. To rule out a processing explanation for the preference for negative objects over sentence initial negatives, a follow-up study tested the acceptability of sentences with a single negative subject or object and no negative marker. This revealed a preference for subjects, suggesting that the object preference in the two negatives study is a true grammatical effect. A third study revealed that Double Negation constructions are unacceptable overall even in explicit denial contexts, and a fourth study added Negative Auxiliary Inversion constructions (e.g. ‘Didn’t nobody eat’), to compare three types of Negative Concord. The results of all four studies are argued to reveal an English grammar that generates both Negative Concord and Double Negation, and in which Negative Concord is generated despite its unacceptability and reported absence in usage.

Meaningful questions: The acquisition of auxiliary inversion in a connectionist model of sentence production

Nativist theories have argued that language involves syntactic principles which are unlearnable from the input children receive. A paradigm case of these innate principles is the structure dependence of auxiliary inversion in complex polar questions (Chomsky, 1968, 1975, 1980). Computational approaches have focused on the properties of the input in explaining how children acquire these questions. In contrast, we argue that messages are structured in a way that supports structure dependence in syntax. We demonstrate this approach within a connectionist model of sentence production (Chang, 2009) which learned to generate a range of complex polar questions from a structured message without positive exemplars in the input. The model also generated different types of error in development that were similar in magnitude to those in children (e.g., auxiliary doubling, Ambridge, Rowland, & Pine, 2008; Crain & Nakayama, 1987). Through model comparisons we trace how meaning constraints and linguistic experience interact during the acquisition of auxiliary inversion. Our results suggest that auxiliary inversion rules in English can be acquired without innate syntactic principles, as long as it is assumed that speakers who ask complex questions express messages that are structured into multiple propositions.

Does Neg-Raising Involve Neg-Raising?

Neg-Raising concerns the phenomenon by which certain negated predicates (e.g. think, believe, expect) can give rise to a reading where the negation seems to take scope from an embedded clause. The standard analysis in pragma-semantic terms goes back to Bartsch (Linguistische Berichte 27:1–7, 1973) and has been elaborated in Horn (Pragmatics, Academic Press, New York, 1978, 1989), Gajewski (Neg-raising: polarity and presupposition, PhD Dissertation, MIT, 2005; Linguistics Philosophy 30:298–328, 2007), Romoli (Linguistics Philosophy 36:291–353, 2013), and many others. Recently, this standard approach has been challenged by Collins and Postal (Classical NEG Raising, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014), who argue, by providing various novel arguments, that Neg-Raising involves syntactic movement of the negation from the embedded clause into the matrix clause. The syntactic structure of ‘I don’t think you’re right’ would then be like: I do[n’t]i think you’re ti right, and the Neg-Raising reading would result from the interpretation of the lower copy of the negation. In this paper I present three novel arguments against this account. First, following up work by Horn (Black Book: a festschrift in honor of Frans Zwarts, University of Groningen, Groningen, 2014), I show that Collins and Postal (Classical NEG Raising, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014), and their reply to Horn (Collins and Postal, ‘Dispelling the Cloud of Unknowing.’ Ms., NYU. LingBuzz/002269, 2015), predict that every negated predicate that can license so-called Horn-clauses (non-negative clauses containing NPIs in a position where subject–auxiliary inversion is licensed) should receive a Neg-Raising reading, contrary to fact. Second, Collins and Postal (Classical NEG Raising, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014) adopt various instances of phonological deletion of negative operators—a necessary ingredient for their account—but these instances of phonological deletion cannot be independently motivated. Third, it turns out that for certain constructions, Collins and Postal (Classical NEG Raising, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014) must also allude to the original Bartschian approach. I further demonstrate that the standard, pragma-semantic approach to Neg-Raising actually explains the grammaticality of Horn-clauses and other phenomena, such as the distribution of negative parentheticals, that were presented by Collins and Postal (Classical NEG Raising, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014) as arguments in favour of the syntactic approach to Neg-Raising, equally well, if not better, than this syntactic alternative.

Alignment in Syntax: Quotative Inversion in English

AbstractThis paper explores the idea that many languages have a phonological Align(ment) constraint that requires alignment between the tensed verb and C. This Align constraint is what is behind verb‐second and many types of inversion phenomena generally. Numerous facts about English subject–auxiliary inversion and French stylistic inversion fall out from the way this Align constraint is stated in each language. The paper arrives at the Align constraint by way of a detailed reexamination of English quotative inversion. The syntactic literature has overwhelmingly accepted Collins & Branigan's (1997) conclusion that the subject in quotative inversion is low, within the VP. This paper reexamines the properties of quotative inversion and shows that Collins & Branigan's analysis is incorrect: quotative‐inversion subjects are high, in Spec,TP, and what moves is a full phrase, not just the verb. The constraints on quotative inversion, including the famous transitivity constraint, fall out from two independently necessary constraints: (1) a constraint on what can be stranded by phrasal movement like VP fronting, and (2) the aforementioned Align constraint, which requires alignment between V and C. This constraint can then be seen to derive numerous seemingly unrelated facts in a single language, as well as across languages.

The role of DO-auxiliary in subject-auxiliary inversion: Developing Langacker’s notion of existential negotiation

AbstractThis paper builds on Langacker’s (in press. How to build an English clause.Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2(2)) analysis of subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI) as involving “existential negotiation”. Langacker’s account is completed by relating it to full verb inversion (FVI). In FVI, non-core elements are fronted, resulting in inversion without an auxiliary, as inInto the room walked Mary; however, non-core elements are also frontable in SAI, as inBitterly did we regret our decision.Dois treated as denoting full actualization and SAI is accounted for by focus on an exceptionally intense mode of actualization, whence the use ofdoto explicitly express what is focused on. The role ofinto the roomin the FVI example is to define a locus into which an entity is introduced. Since this does not involve focus on the fact or manner of the verbal event’s actualization,dois not used. This leads to a different division of inverted structures than that of Chen (2013. Subject auxiliary inversion and linguistic generalization: Evidence for functional/cognitive motivation in language.Cognitive Linguistics24. 1–32), who distinguishes those that merely reverse subject and auxiliary (argued to denote non-indicative mood) from those where the inverted auxiliary-subject order is accompanied by fronting of a non-subject element (treated as involving focus on the fronted item). It is argued here that frontingdo-auxiliary marks focus on the actualization of the verbal event itself.

Doubling Grammars: Mandarin-English and Spanish- English Bilingual Children and the So-Called Auxiliary Inversion Conundrum

Doubling Grammars: Mandarin-English and Spanish- English Bilingual Children and the So-Called Auxiliary Inversion Conundrum

Are there Slavonic features in the syntax of Romanian? Two case studies

The present paper discusses the issue of the Old Church Slavonic influence on the syntax of (old) Romanian. The starting point is the hypothesis that many of the syntactic features of Romanian previously explained by postulating the influence of (Old Church) Slavonic (especially in studies strongly influenced by ideological issues, published during the Communist period) are actually either regular transformations which occurred in the transition from Latin to Romanian, common to the other Romance languages as well, or the output of more general tendencies manifested in the history of Indo-European languages. In order to check the role of the Slavonic influence in the syntax of Romanian, we have established a working algorithm, which is applied to two phenomena from old Romanian: (i) the position of relative adjectives, and (ii) scrambling in compound verbal forms in correlation with auxiliary inversion.

Question Affix Analysis in Standard Arabic: A Minimalist Perspective

The study examines question affix analysis in Standard Arabic within the minimalist framework of Chomsky (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001) and shows how Standard Arabic is different from English in terms of feature strength, feature checking, and I-raising to Q (i.e., raising of the head INFL to the head COMP). The objective is to present a unified treatment of question affix analysis in Standard Arabic and illustrate to what extent possible the Arabic data interacts with Chomsky’s minimalist analysis. It also demonstrates how feature licensing takes place in the right checking domains in the derivation of yes-no questions. It points out that Standard Arabic resorts to ‘Merge’ because it does not have auxiliary inversion, while English resorts to ‘Adjunction’ because of auxiliary inversion. Besides, question particles in Standard Arabic are viewed as merely morphological affixes placed sentence-initially to form yes-no questions. Furthermore, we argue that the interrogative particles in Standard Arabic have one function (that of showing interrogativity) since they do not stand for any DP, PP or AP argument. Given this, we propose that the question particles in Standard Arabic are base-generated in the head C position of CP, since they never undergo any morpho-syntactic movement.

On Swiping in English

This paper examines the syntax of clauses in which prepositions undergo Swiping/Sluice-Stranding in elliptical questions like Who with? (e.g. in response to ‘She’s having an affair’). We begin by outlining characteristic properties of Swiping, noting that this involves an interrogative wh-constituent positioned in front of a focused preposition, and that the clause remnant following the preposition obligatorily undergoes a type of ellipsis traditionally termed Sluicing. We outline the recent CP shell analysis of Swiping developed by van Craenenbroeck (2010), under which a PP containing a wh-word is moved into the specifier position of an inner CP, the wh-word is moved into the specifier position of an outer CP (stranding the preposition on the edge of the inner CP), and the residual TP is deleted at PF. We discuss a range of problems with his analysis, and argue that it can be substantially improved if we adopt a more richly articulated cartographic structure for the clause periphery under which Swiped clauses contain ForceP, FocP, and FinP projections. More specifically, we argue that the wh-PP moves to the edge of FinP (with the auxiliary moving to Fino in structures involving auxiliary inversion), the preposition moves into Foco to mark it as focused, and the wh-constituent moves into Spec-ForceP to type the clause as interrogative. We claim that the obligatory Sluicing component of Swiping involves ellipsis of FinP in the PF component, and that this is required in order to repair violations of PF constraints which would otherwise arise. We show how our analysis accounts for a range of phenomena not captured under van Craenenbroeck’s original analysis.

Subject auxiliary inversion and linguistic generalization: Evidence for functional/cognitive motivation in language

AbstractThis paper provides a unified account of English subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI). It argues that SAIs, as have been called in the literature, belong to two semantically distinctive constructions. The first is the Auxiliary Subject Construction (ASC), one that merely reverses the subject and auxiliary order, without the fronting of another unit. It functions to mark non-indicative moods. The second SAI construction is the X Auxiliary Subject Construction (XASC), in which the auxiliary-subject (AS) order is accompanied by the fronting of a unit from its original, post-subject position in the canonical, SV order sentence. The XASC serves a different purpose from the ASC, i.e., to focus the fronted unit. As such, it shares both structural and functional affinity with full-verb inversion (Chen 2003), which is referred to hereafter as the X Verb Subject Construction (XVSC) for sake of consistency. The second purpose of this study is to address the issue of invertability of the subject auxiliary/verb order. Drawing on Deane (1992), I propose an Invertability Hypothesis, which applies to both the XASC and the XVSC. On this hypothesis, invertability depends on the strength of the linkage between the fronted unit and the auxiliary/verb that exists in the canonical sentence. The stronger the link, the more likely the order of the subject and the auxiliary/verb will be inversed once the unit is fronted. With this analysis – one that is decidedly different from previous accounts (e.g. Goldberg 2006) – I intend to demonstrate that the functional/cognitive approach to language is indeed capable of handling a complex construction such as inversion, the generalization of which generative linguists believe can only be stated formally (Newmeyer 1998; Borsley and Newmeyer 2009; Lidz and Williams 2009).

The transfer of V2: inversion and negation in German and Dutch learners of English

This article investigates the transfer of verb-second syntax (V2) from L1 German and Dutch into L2 English. A comparative learner corpus analysis between L1 German, Dutch and French, and native English writing reveals that the German and Dutch speakers produce distinct patterns of inversion in declarative clauses, indicating the transfer of V2. They produce non-target subject–auxiliary inversion and copula inversion. However, other reflexes of V2 in interrogatives or with sentential negation are not produced. This is analysed as evidence that the German and Dutch learners have mastered the syntax of English but transfer continues to occur at the level of discourse-pragmatics, where L1 preferences for topicalization structures continue to transfer. This is in line with predictions of the Interface Hypothesis in second language acquisition, which assumes that the interfaces of syntax with other modules of the grammar are more difficult to acquire and may continue to show L1 effects even after the narrow syntax has been mastered.

Reconsidering the syntax of non-canonical negative inversion

Two main hypotheses have been proposed to account for the word order of negative inversion (NI) in varieties of non-canonical English (e.g.Don't nobody else care). An auxiliary inversion analysis argues that the word order is derived via movement of the auxiliary to the left periphery, whereas an existential analysis argues that the word order is an artifact of deletion of the expletive subject, parallelingthere-insertion existential constructions. After reviewing these hypotheses, I provide empirical evidence that neither of these theories adequately explains the peculiarities of NI. I advance a third hypothesis, namely that NI is the result of negative movement to the specifier of NegP, and that this movement is pragmatically motivated by an existential meaning in NI constructions. Syntactically, NI is made possible through the Neg-Criterion (Haegeman & Zanuttini 1991, 1996). This analysis explains problems encountered by prior analyses, and offers a unified analysis for variation in NI across dialects. Finally, I explain cross-dialectal differences in NI by considering the relationship between subject requirements and agreement.