Clausal Boundaries Research Articles

Phasehood as defective intervention: Possessor extraction and selective DP islandhood in West Circassian

AbstractĀ‐extraction of possessors in West Circassian is constrained in a puzzling way: the possessor of an ergative or applied argument DP may not undergo clausebound wh‐movement, but long‐distance possessor extraction across a clausal boundary is grammatical. Based on the variable islandhood of these DPs, this paper argues for an agree‐based approach to phasehood. Phase opacity is treated as intervention defective intervention, with the phase intervening between the probe and the goal. Defective intervention does not take place if the corresponding phase has independently entered an Agree relation with the movement‐triggering probe. Islandhood is thus correctly predicted to be contextually determined: in West Circassian, the difference between clausebound and long‐distance possessor extraction is conditioned by the set of agreement features on the local movement‐triggering probe: a wh‐feature on C in the case of clausebound extraction and a successive‐cyclic edge feature on embedded C in the case of long‐distance wh‐movement. Additionally, the account appeals to the opacity of phase edges to explain the contrast between DPs that display islandhood effects (ergative and applied argument DPs) and constituents that are uniformly transparent for subextraction (the absolutive DP and postpositional phrases).

The particle s uo in Mandarin Chinese: a case of long X0-dependency and a reexamination of the Principle of Minimal Compliance

Abstract X0-dependencies are known to be highly local. It has been argued that syntactic head movement can affect locality constraints. While some recent studies have revealed that verbal heads can undergo long-distance movement similar to phrasal movement, nominal categories still appear to adhere to strict locality constraints on head movement. In this context, we examine an exception, the particle suo in Mandarin Chinese, and explore its theoretical implications. We begin by showing that the X0-element suo exhibits a long dependency across every type of clausal boundary in Chinese, including finite ones. By placing suo in a typology that accommodates resumptive pronouns and Romance-type clitics, we highlight the significance of suo’s long dependency. Next, we argue that suo forms a big-DP with the relative operator; since movement of the relative operator has satisfied the locality constraint, according to Richards’ (1998. The Principle of Minimal Compliance. Linguistic Inquiry 29. 599–629) Principle of Minimal Compliance, suo can have a long dependency on its underlying position. This discussion leads us to conclude that the original formulation of the Principle of Minimal Compliance needs reexamination regarding the true meaning of exemption. Once exemption from a locality condition is separated from movement itself, both the initial data for the PMC and the behaviors of suo are accounted for.

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.

Individual variation in attitudes towards Chinese-English code-switching

AbstractThis paper aims to improve our understanding of the social psychology of code-switching by investigating societal attitudes towards two types of Chinese-English code-switching, insertions of English words in Chinese sentences and switching to English at clausal boundaries in Chinese. It examines how subjects’ evaluation of code-switching is influenced by their general language attitudes and language use associated with network exposure. The subjects were recruited from four different cities in mainland China. They participated in an online perception experiment and completed a socio-biographical questionnaire. Quantitative analyses show that clausal switching was rated as the least likable CS mode, but at the same time was considered as having high status as an indication of high English proficiency. Their evaluation was mainly influenced by their general attitudes towards English language and culture. Network exposure also played a marginal role, affecting their judgement of the speaker’s English proficiency.

‘The Egiptians adored the Sun, and called it the visible sone of the invisible God’: Clausal Boundaries in Early Modern English Scientific Handwritten Texts

ABSTRACTIn comparison with late Middle English, a period characterised by a high level of orthographic variation, the beginning of the 16th century witnesses the emergence of an identifiable standard English spelling, which was not completed in print until about 1650 (Nevalainen 2006: 32; Rutkowska 2013: 48). Punctuation is no exception, and it is in the early modern period when the English language definitely consolidates a wider inventory of punctuation symbols which, after their incorporation into the English system of punctuation, were soon immersed in a process of specialisation for the expression of new syntactic relations.The study of punctuation has traditionally focused on Old and Middle English handwritten material – literary and scientific texts in particular – while the early modern period has been generally left unexplored (Calle-Martín forthcoming). The existing approaches to the topic are, however, descriptions of the specific systems found in individual texts, which offer a minute analysis of the choices and preferences of particular scribes. The diachronic approach has been frequently disregarded, perhaps on the erroneous assumption that punctuation lacks uniformity. The present paper, therefore, sets out to analyse scribal punctuation from a diachronic perspective in Early Modern English in order to shed some new light on the standardisation of punctuation symbols in the expression of three types of clauses: coordinate clauses, adjectival clauses (defining and non-defining relative clauses) and conditional if-clauses. The study relies on handwritten material from the Málaga Corpus of Early English Scientific Prose for the historical period 1500–1700. The corpus has been compiled so as to contain both theoretical treatises and recipe material written in the 16th and 17th centuries, which allows for a diachronic and variationist approach to the study of punctuation.

Wh-clefts as evidence of resultatives in ASL

Abstract The status of syntactic resultative constructions has been disputed in the American Sign Language (ASL) literature. These are single sentences such as “Mary hammered the metal flat,” where two predicates share the same object and an event (hammered) causes the affected object (the metal) to change state (flat) as a result. While not all languages permit such constructions, this study shows that (several) alternate multi-sentential analyses can be ruled out. WH-clefts are used to provide a test for independent clausal boundaries, providing additional support that American Sign Language (ASL) permits resultative constructions. We also observe possible word order variations and note common features of the result predicates in these constructions.

Asymmetric Behavior of Relative Pronouns and Clausal Boundary Marking

The Journal of Studies in Langauge 28.2, 199-217. It is traditionally prescribed in English grammar that object relative pronouns are optionally omitted while subject relative pronouns are not. This research addresses the issue: why the two relative pronouns behave differently. For this purpose, this research employs the key concept of clausal boundary marking. Subject and objects occupy different positions in English: subjects are positioned before verbs and objects are after verbs. This paper shows that the fixed word order in English has to do with a different degree in the omission of relative pronouns. What is more, it is suggested in this research that the key factor is not whether relative pronouns are a subject or an object. This paper demonstrates that relative pronoun omission depends on whether the clausal boundary is maintained or not, even after relative pronoun omission.

Typology of clausal boundary marking devices

An important executive function in “language design” is marking the boundaries of embedded clauses, and of clauses (and clause sequences) in the scopal domain of operators such as conditional ‘if’ and negation. Crosslinguistic comparison reveals a range of devices that have this effect, facilitating parsing by listeners. These include (i) prosody, (ii) constituent ordering, (iii) coordination, (iv) boundary-marking morphemes, and (v) continuous morphological indexation. The last two are emphasized in this article, with data from Australian and West African languages. Such boundary-marking functions deserve greater recognition in grammatical typology, especially since acoustic analogues have been well-studied by phoneticians.

Utilization of Prosodic Information in Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution

Two self paced listening experiments examined the role of prosodic phrasing in syntactic ambiguity resolution. In Experiment 1, the stimuli consisted of early closure sentences (e.g., "While the parents watched, the child sang a song.") containing transitive-biased subordinate verbs paired with plausible direct objects or intransitive-biased subordinate verbs paired with implausible direct objects. Experiment 2 also contained early closure sentences with transitively and intransitive-biased subordinate verbs, but the subordinate verbs were always followed by plausible direct objects. In both experiments, there were two prosodic conditions. In the subject-biased prosodic condition, an intonational phrase boundary marked the clausal boundary following the subordinate verb. In the object-biased prosodic condition, the clause boundary was unmarked. The results indicate that lexical and prosodic cues interact at the subordinate verb and plausibility further affects processing at the ambiguous noun. Results are discussed with respect to models of the role of prosody in sentence comprehension.

Hypernegation, Hyponegation, and Parole Violations

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Developmental changes in the weighting of prosodic cues

Previous research has shown that the weighting of, or attention to, acoustic cues at the level of the segment changes over the course of development (Nittrouer & Miller, 1997; Nittrouer, Manning & Meyer, 1993). In this paper we examined changes over the course of development in weighting of acoustic cues at the suprasegmental level. Specifically, we tested English-learning 4-month-olds' performance on a clause segmentation task when each of three acoustic cues to clausal units was neutralized and contrasted it with performance on a Baseline condition where no cues were manipulated. Comparison with the reported performance of 6-month-olds on the same task (Seidl, 2007) reveals that 4-month-olds weight prosodic cues to clausal boundaries differently than 6-month-olds, relying more heavily on all three correlates of clausal boundaries (pause, pitch and vowel duration) than 6-month-olds do, who rely primarily on pitch. We interpret this as evidence that 4-month-olds use a holistic processing strategy, while 6-month-olds may already be able to attend separately to isolated cues in the input stream and may, furthermore, be able to exploit a language-specific cue weighting. Thus, in a way similar to that in other cognitive domains, infants begin as holistic auditory scene processors and are only later able to process individual auditory cues.

ERP Effects of Subject—Verb Agreement Violations in Patients with Broca's Aphasia

This article presents electrophysiological data on on-line syntactic processing during auditory sentence comprehension in patients with Broca's aphasia. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from the scalp while subjects listened to sentences that were either syntactically correct or contained violations of subject-verb agreement. Three groups of subjects were tested: Broca patients (n = 10), nonaphasic patients with a right-hemisphere (RH) lesion (n = 5), and healthy aged-matched controls (n = 12). The healthy, control subjects showed a P600/SPS effect as response to the agreement violations. The nonaphasic patients with an RH lesion showed essentially the same pattern. The overall group of Broca patients did not show this sensitivity. However, the sensitivity was modulated by the severity of the syntactic comprehension impairment. The largest deviation from the standard P600/SPS effect was found in the patients with the relatively more severe syntactic comprehension impairment. In addition, ERPs to tones in a classical tone oddball paradigm were also recorded. Similar to the normal control subjects and RH patients, the group of Broca patients showed a P300 effect in the tone oddball condition. This indicates that aphasia in itself does not lead to a general reduction in all cognitive ERP effects. It was concluded that deviations from the standard P600/SPS effect in the Broca patients reflected difficulties with on-line maintaining of number information across clausal boundaries for establishing subject-verb agreement.

Syllable onset intervals as an indicator of discourse and syntactic boundaries in Taiwan Mandarin.

This study looks at the syllable onset interval (SOI) patterning in Taiwan Mandarin spontaneous speech and its relationship to discourse and syntactic units. Monologs were elicited by asking readers to tell stories depicted in comic strips and were transcribed and segmented into Discourse Segment Units (Grosz & Sidner, 1986), clauses, and phrases. Results showed that the degree of final lengthening was modulated by boundary types. Lengthening before discourse boundaries was longer than that before clausal boundaries, which was in turn longer than that before phrasal boundaries. Final SOI lengthening also seemed to reflect cognitive load. At the discourse and clausal levels, the degree of lengthening is modulated by narration order. First narrations tended to have longer final SOIs than second narrations. In addition, there was also a mild lengthening effect in nonfinal SOIs, as was evidenced by the length differences in initial and medial SOIs and the differential lengthening effect regarding the positioning of phrases in a clause.

Processing complexity and sentence memory: Evidence from amnesia

This study examines sentence memory as a function of linguistic processing complexity in amnesic patients. Sentence length as well as lexical and syntactic complexity were manipulated in two sentence repetition experiments. It was found that the amnesic patients performed considerably worse than the control subjects and that performance decreased: (1) when sentence length was increased by the addition of adjuncts compared to arguments of the verb; (2) when the verb selected more thematic frames; and (3) when sentences involved “empty” argument positions that must be linked to antecedents, particularly across clausal boundaries. These data showed how linguistic complexity affects sentence memory and implied that the amnesic deficit did not involve a generalized difficulty for materials of similar length, rather, the deficit was specific to certain representational types and processing routines.

How the prosodic cues in motherese might assist language learning.

The function of motherese has become a pivotal issue in the language-learning literature. The current research takes the approach of asking whether the prosodic characteristics that are distinctive to motherese could play a special role in facilitating the acquisition of syntax. Hirsh-Pasek, Kemler Nelson, Jusczyk, Cassidy, Druss & Kennedy (1987) showed that infants aged 0;7-0;10 are sensitive to prosodic cues that would help them segment the speech stream into perceptual units that correspond to clauses. The present study shows that infants' sensitivity to segment-marking cues in ongoing speech holds for motherese but not for adult-directed speech. The finding is that, for motherese only, infants orient longer to speech that has been interrupted at clausal boundaries than to matched speech that has been interrupted at within-clause locations. This selective preference indicates that the prosodic qualities of motherese provide infants with cues to units of speech that correspond to grammatical units of language-a potentially fundamental contribution of motherese to the learning of syntax.

The effect of distraction on sensitivity to syntactic structure in schizophrenic and affective disorders.

This study was designed to determine whether the presence of a distracting message would interfere with schizophrenics' ability to utilize syntactic structure in processing information from a relevant sentence. Seventeen schizophrenics, 17 patients with affective disorders, and 16 normals were given a word recognition task in both the presence and absence of auditory distraction. None of the patients was hospitalized at the time of testing. Subjects listened to a sequence of sentences which consisted of two clauses. Immediately following each sentence, the subject heard a probe word and was required to indicate whether it had been part of the preceding sentence. In the neutral condition, the recognition latencies of subjects in all three groups were shorter if the word came just after, rather than just before, the clausal boundary of the preceding sentence. In the presence of a distracting message, the normals and affective patients continued to exhibit this same effect. The schizophrenics did not. The latency of their responses in the distractor condition was not influenced by the location of the target word relative to the clausal boundary. This result indicates that although schizophrenics are sensitive to syntactic structure, their ability to organize verbal messages into meaningful grammatical units may be relatively fragile and subject to disruption by auditory distraction.

A LATENCY ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIES UNDERLYING CHILDREN'S RECALL OF SENTENCES1

ABSTRACTIt has been found that an information‐processing analysis of latencies collected in an immediate sentence recall task using children with median age 4 yr 4 mo favors a serial processing mechanism which consists of three major parts: the detection of a clausal boundary, the assessment of whether or not the observed noun‐verb‐noun structure satisfies a unique semantic constraint (in terms of the meaningfulness of interchanging its two clausal nouns), and the assessment of whether the observed surface sequence satisfies a canonical order of subject‐verb‐object.