Complex DP Research Articles

Los puertorriqueños se les está cayendo la “a”

Abstract This study addresses a gap in the extensive literature on Spanish indirect objects by offering a study of unmarked datives (i.e., Ø eso le pones un papel de aluminio ‘to that you put an aluminum foil’; PRESEEA 2001). Analyzed are the linguistic constraints on the variable absence of dative marker a ‘to’ in corpora of spoken Puerto Rican Spanish, in which the rate of marker absence is 33% (n = 380). Results of logistic regression analysis reveal that unmarked datives occurred with low frequency, non-prototypical dative verbs. Inanimate referents favored the absence of the dative marker, as did complex DPs, where the dative phrase and the clitic pronoun+verb are not adjacent. The findings are discussed from the twin perspectives of analogy as a mechanism of change and frequency effects: unmarked datives seem to most affect items at the margins of the dative category, in terms of both verbs and referents.

Island sensitivity and case matching in Uyghur pseudo-prolepsis

Movement and binding constitute two classes of dependencies between nominals. Movement dependencies tend to have stricter locality requirements and involve connectivity effects between positions, while binding can often occur over longer distances and does not involve featural connectivity between the two positions. While the objects in movement are restricted to be identical — only surfacing differently in the case of deletion or use of pronominals — the objects of a binding dependency can have independent lexical content (Nunes 1995; Aoun et al. 2001). This paper concerns a kind of dependency between two DPs in Uyghur, originally classified as proleptic (Major 2021a; Rabinovitch 2022), in which the two positions associated with the dependency possess the locality restrictions and case connectivity effects of movement, while also having the independence of form associated with a binding dependency. This paper argues that this construction, dubbed here as ‘pseudo-prolepsis’, is a form of subextraction, in which a complex DP contains two coreferent DPs, one of which undergoes movement into a higher position. Locality and connectivity properties of the dependency derive from this movement, while the presence of a coreferent DP in the base position gives the illusion that the movement involves a chain of two lexically independent elements. The existence of ‘pseudo-prolepsis’ demonstrates that the independence of form between two elements in a dependency is not sufficient to rule out a movement dependency or diagnose binding.

Recursivity and Focus in the Prosody of Xitsonga DPs

This paper explores the prosodic patterns of complex DP structures in Xitsonga by looking at penultimate lengthening in DPs with marked and unmarked word orders of different types. We discuss the underlying syntactic structures and prosodic realizations of Xitsonga DPs. We are particularly interested in the way in which recursion applies in the Xitsonga DP, where it surfaces in DPs with multiple modifiers of the same or different categories that appear in fronted (i.e., pre-nominal) positions. We propose that in Xitsonga nominal constituents move to a left-periphery-like position within the DP domain and that this position matches to a focus-marked phonological phrase. This type of phonological phrase is forced to remain in the phonology even if the one-word phrase violates the Binarity constraint. We argue that the penultimate lengthening effects found in Xitsonga with the reordering of DP internal elements are best analyzed as showing sensitivity to this focus-marked phonological phrase.

The Syntax of Comitative Structure in Standard Arabic: A Minimalist Approach

This paper investigates comitative structures in Standard Arabic from a Minimalist perspective. The main aim is to find generalizations that describe and explain comitative structures. Specifically, the objectives are to distinguish comitative structures from coordinative structures and to analyze comitative structures from syntactic and semantic perspectives. We reach the following results: first, there is a difference between /wa/ in coordination and /wa/ in comitative structures. Second, comitative structures can be symmetric and asymmetric. In the symmetric comitative structures, the concomitate object is an argument and obligatorily agrees with DP1 in terms of the [ animate] feature. In the asymmetric comitative structures, the concomitate object is an adjunct and optionally agrees with DP1 in terms of the [ animate]. In our analysis of comitative structure, we propose the complex DP, headed by /wa/. The difference between the two types of comitative structures is that the derivation of the symmetric one happens at the level of complementation; in contract, the asymmetric one is merged in the adjunct position. Another significant finding is that the verb is not always the one that assigns the accusative Case. The major significance of this study is that it gives a distinction between comitative and coordinative structures, distinguishes between two types of comitative structures, and analyses the structure in the light of the DP hypothesis and the Minimalist program.

Post-syntactic mechanisms of pronominal case variation in Germanic

ABSTRACT Pronoun-case-only (pro-case) languages in Germanic have been under-investigated, despite exhibiting theoretically significant patterns of inter- and intra-individual case variation. The goals of this paper are thus twofold. First, it establishes a pro-case typological distinction between Oblique-Form Default (OFD) as observed in Danish and English, and Subject-Form Default (SFD), as observed in Swedish. In OFD varieties, SFs (Subject Forms) occur as subjects of finite clauses, while OFs (Oblique Forms) occur elsewhere, including as predicatives and in heterogenous other syntactic environments. OFs also appear inside coordinate and other complex DPs, where sociolinguistic variation is attested. In SFD varieties, variation inside complex DPs is unattested; SFs occur as predicatives, but variable OFs express non-deictic semantics. My second aim is to demonstrate that these patterns of variation result from distinct post-syntactic mechanisms for OFD and SFD pro-case. Following Emonds, I argue that OFD pronouns are not the phonological realization of case features; instead, pro-case forms are morphosyntactic-contextual allomorphs. SFD pro-case, in contrast, is the phonological realization of dependent Oblique and Nominative features assigned by post-syntactic rules.

The Acquisition of Grammatical Gender of Determiners in Danish Monolingual and Bilingual Children: An Experimental Study

This paper examines the acquisition of grammatical gender of indefinite and definite DPs in Danish. It investigates which grammatical contexts further acquisition and which slow it down, and whether distinguishing between monolinguals and bilinguals makes a difference. Danish has a two-way gender distinction (common and neuter), fusing gender with definiteness in the DP. In order to answer our research questions, we tested monolingual and bilingual Danish-speaking children (n=72) from different age groups using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, a Picture Description Task, and a Story Task. A generalized linear mixed effects regression analysis of the results showed that i) the children produced the Standard Danish determiner significantly more often with common than with neuter nouns; ii) the children produced significantly more Standard Danish gender marking in simple DPs than in complex DPs; iii) the children produced significantly more expressions with definite determiners realized as suffixes than with indefinite determiners expressed as prenominal articles in accordance with conventional norms; and iv) bilingual children produced significantly less Standard Danish gender marking than their monolingual peers, but ceiling effects in the monolingual group made it impossible to examine interactions between group and grammatical context.*

DP structure and internally headed relatives in Washo

This paper contributes to recent lines of inquiry addressing the nature of indices in definite expressions. The primary language of investigation is Washo, a North American isolate spoken in the western United States. Building on previous claims about the structure of anaphoric definites, I propose a unified analysis of the Washo DP that lends novel evidence to the claim that indices are best thought of as syntactic objects in their own right, independent from D. The structurally encoded index—introduced by a head idx—is shown to be overtly realized by the morpheme gi/ge in both pronouns and demonstratives, as well as at the periphery of internally headed relative clauses, which are themselves complex DPs. An important aspect of this proposal is the argument that idx can play two related semantic roles: The semantic index it hosts can be interpreted either as a variable, as previously proposed for familiar definites, or itself as a variable binder. The availability of the latter explains the appearance of gi/ge in internally headed relatives. I show moreover that the exponence of idx in Washo is sensitive to the type of complement it takes, a proposal that makes sense of the observed distribution of gi/ge in a range of definite expressions.

The acquisition of recursively embedded noun modifiers in Romanian by Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals

The present study examines how simultaneous bilinguals acquire phenomena which are delayed in monolingual development. It compares how 5- and 7-year-old Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals and Romanian monolinguals comprehend complex DPs with recursively embedded locative Prepositional Phrase and subject relative clause modifiers. The order of acquisition is the same in L1 and in 2L1: during the early stages children assign both conjunctive and recursive readings to complex DPs with embedded modifiers and gradually reduce the number of conjunctive responses to the advantage of recursive ones. At age 7 neither the monolinguals nor the bilinguals behave adult-like. But the results reveal a significant increase in recursive responses from age 5 to age 7 only in L1. In 2L1, at this stage, there is an increase only in the number of conjunctive responses and in errors which target the lexical preposition. Our findings show that the simultaneous bilinguals follow the same acquisition path as the monolinguals but at a slower pace. We argue that when a derivationally complex structure is vulnerable in L1 acquisition, cross-linguistic interference effects may cause an even more prolonged delay in 2L1 acquisition.

Diplatinum(II) Catecholate of Photoactive Boron-Dipyrromethene for Lysosome-Targeted Photodynamic Therapy in Red Light.

The binuclear platinum(II) boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) complex [{Pt(dach)}2(μ-Dcrb)] (DP), where dach is 1,2-diaminocyclohexane and H4Dcrb is a morpholine-conjugated BODIPY-linked dicatechol bridging ligand, was prepared for lysosome organelle targeting and near-IR (NIR) light (600-720 nm) induced photocytotoxic activity. The platinum complex [Pt(dach)(cat)] (CP), where H2cat is catechol, was synthesized and used as a control complex without bearing the BODIPY unit. The complex DP displayed a band at 660 nm (ε = 2.1 × 104 M-1 cm-1) in the red region of the UV-visible spectrum recorded in 10% dimethyl sulfoxide/Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMSO/DMEM, pH 7.2). The complex DP and the BODIPY ligand displayed emission in 10% DMSO-DMEM (pH 7.2) giving an λem value of 668 nm (λex = 650 nm) with a ΦF value of 0.02 for DP and 0.16 for H4Dcrb (ΦF, fluorescence quantum yield). Titration experiments using 1,3-diphenylisobenzofuran (DPBF) indicated that the complex DP and H4Dcrb on irradiation with near-IR light of 600-720 nm generated singlet oxygen (1O2) as the ROS (reactive oxygen species). The complex DP showed significant lysosomal localization and remarkable apoptotic photodynamic therapy (PDT) effects, giving half-maximal inhibitory concentration values (IC50) within 0.6-3.4 μM in HeLa cervical cancer, A549 lung cancer, and MDA-MB231 multidrug resistant cancer cells, while being essentially nontoxic in the dark and in the HPL1D immortalized lung epithelial normal cells. The acridine orange assay using A549 cells showed lysosomal membrane permeabilization by the complex DP under near-IR light (600-720 nm). This complex on near-IR light (600-720 nm) activation in A549 cells induced apoptotic cell death, as observed from an Annexin-V FITC assay.

Optional wh-movement is discourse-connected movement in Eastern Cham

Eastern Cham (Austronesian: Vietnam) exhibits apparent optional wh-movement, which shares properties with apparent topicalization. This paper demonstrates that it is not true wh-movement, but discourse connected-, or DC-movement. DC requires a phrase to have an antecedent in a prior sentence and for the antecedent's sentence and the anaphor's sentence to be in a particular discourse structural configuration. Data from complex DP's, specifically partitives, inventory forms, and close appositives demonstrate that DC is a property of referential indices that bind DP's. The incompatibility of wh-phrases and topicality is then explained as the inability of wh-phrases to supply referential indices on their own.

An argument for ezafe constructions and construct state in Zulu

Zulu (Niger-Congo, South Africa) exhibits a complicated interplay between morphological and phonological processes that, combined with an inherited, traditionalist approach to syntactic categories in the Nguni languages, obscures an overt phoneme that is argued to be common to all complex DPs. Here it is claimed that the traditional categories of adjective, relative, compound noun, possessive, and demonstrative can all be unified under a DP approach that takes this overt phoneme to be a functional marker that is analogous to those appearing in Persian ezafe constructions and construct state constructions in Afro-Asiatic languages. This approach reduces a variety of seemingly different Zulu-specific phenomena to a single, cross-linguistically established phenomenon.

Down two steps: Are bilinguals delayed in the acquisition of recursively embedded PPs?

The present study examines whether bilingual children are delayed in the ability to produce complex DPs. We elicited production of DPs containing two PP modifiers, in two conditions designed to tease apart the acquisition of an embedding rule from the acquisition of the recursivity of an embedding rule. In the recursive condition, one modifier PP was itself modified by an additional PP. In the non-recursive condition, both PPs sequentially modified the main noun. Participants were 71 English monolingual children and 35 bilinguals between the ages of four and six. The evidence suggested an overall difference between groups, however further analysis revealed that bilinguals differed from monolinguals only insofar as the onset of PP embedding. No specific additional bilingual delay arose from the recursive condition. This suggests that recursive embedding is a resilient domain in language acquisition and supports proposals that link morphosyntactic delays in bilingual children to domains of grammar that are heavily reliant on lexical learning, which would include learning the first instance of PP embedding. --- Original in English. --- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/matraga.2017.28781

RASTREANDO O PROCESSAMENTO DE RELATIVAS DE OBJETO: ANTECIPAÇÃO E INTEGRAÇÃO DE INFORMAÇÃO CONTEXTUAL NA RESOLUÇÃO DE AMBIGUIDADES TEMPORÁRIAS

Investiga-se o processamento incremental de orações relativas de objeto temporariamente ambíguas (relativas/completivas) em contextos favoráveis à integração de informação e antecipação do referente de um DP complexo. Busca-se verificar se informação contextual elimina a ambiguidade a favor de estruturas relativas, se informação de mais baixo nível (da interface sintaxe/prosódia) possibilita a distinção entre relativas e completivas a despeito do contexto, ou se, diante de ambiguidade estrutural, prevaleceria o princípio da aposição mínima, que favorece o processamento de completivas com consequente inibição da integração de informação. Um experimento com tarefa bimodal (apresentação oral de estímulos verbais e de estímulos visuais) de rastreamento ocular seguido de tarefa de compreensão, conduzido com falantes de português, é relatado. Os resultados são sugestivos da prevalência de princípios estruturais diante de ambiguidade temporária. Discutem-se as condições nas quais processos integrativos e antecipatórios podem ser conduzidos, por meio de um processador que opere em dois estágios.

‘Quite’ in Acadian French: A variety of Scalar Focus

This paper discusses the properties of the ‘quite de’ construction in the Baie Sainte-Marie, Nova Scotia variety of Acadian French in examples such as le/un quite de souper ‘quite the/a supper’ which have a hyperbolic connotation. Unlike epithet nouns and other binominals of French (and Romance more generally), we argue that this Acadian French construction contains a complex DP with a unique N but an expanded left nominal periphery (cf. Giusti 2005, 2006, 2012). In order to unify its syntactic and semantic properties, we propose an analysis where [Adv quite] is a scalar Focus head (following Kayne’s 1998 treatment of scalar only), with a null M(easurement) Op(erator) (Rett 2008, 2011) in its specifier. This M-op is associated with a degree argument (i.e. N) bound by existential closure, which forces its linearization within the predicate domain (cf. Diesing 1992). Lastly, we show that de in the AF ‘quite de’ construction cannot be construed as a linker (pace den Dikken 2004, 2006) or as a P category (pace Kayne 1994), but is best analysed as a nominal functor (cf. Ihsane 2013) at the Comp-Infl interface whose role is to recategorize a referential DP into a property denoting DP.

Selected aspects of amount relatives: The Romanian-English connection

The inter-related goals of this paper are: (i) To contribute to a better understanding of the semantic and morphological properties of amount relatives in Romanian, (ii) to compare and contrast these constructions with their English counterparts, and (iii) to bring into bolder relief than has so far been done in the literature the fact that amount relatives in general are compatible not only with an amount denotation of the complex DPs that contain them, but with an entity denotation as well.

Double Negation in a Negative Concord language: An experimental investigation

This paper investigates the interpretation and processing of simple transitive Catalan sentences with multiple negative expressions experimentally. Our results provide empirical confirmation that Negative Concord (NC) is the preferred and faster interpretation for negative sentences that either omit or contain the overt negative marker no ‘not’. However, they also reveal that, in contrast to traditional descriptions of Catalan and independently of particular favouring contexts, a non-negligible amount of Double Negation (DN) readings arises, mainly when the negative marker co-occurs with pre-verbal Negative Concord Items (NCIs), and when these NCIs have a complex DP structure. Our results further suggest that two populations could be distinguished: one for whom the negative marker is optional and leaves the favoured NC reading essentially unaffected, and another where the co-presence of no significantly increases DN readings. We account for these findings within a micro-parametric approach that features ambiguous NCIs (non-negative vs. negative) and a possible ambiguous negative marker no (negative vs. expletive) variably available for Catalan speakers. The nuanced empirical NC landscape that our experimental work reveals serves to stress the importance of taking DN readings into consideration for a better understanding of the nature of negative constructions in Catalan and cross-linguistically.

On The Absence of Scope Reconstruction in Tough Subject A-Chains

On The Absence of Scope Reconstruction in <i>Tough</i> Subject A-Chains

T.P.1 Parallel effects of α-methyl-prednisolone on skeletal muscle and brain of mdx mice: Identification of a novel mechanism of action

Glucocorticoids are clinically used in Duchenne muscular dystrophy although their mechanism of action is largely unclear. Part of their effect in dystrophic muscle can be mediated by the enhancement of utrophin expression; however the impact of this increase on dystrophin–glycoprotein complex (DGC) is unknown. In the present work we assessed the effect of a chronic treatment with α-methyl-prednisolone (PDN) (4–6weeks at 1mg/kg day) in the exercised mdx mouse model, on the expression of utrophin and key proteins of the DGC in skeletal muscle. We found a significant increase in expression of utrophin, α and β dystroglycan and DGC-bound aquaporin (AQP)-4 at both mRNA and protein level in PDN-treated muscles. Interestingly, this was paralleled by a normalization of phosphorylation state of β-dystroglycan and an increase in laminin. Immunohistochemistry supported the correct sarcolemmal localization of the proteins. On pathology-related signs, PDN increased mdx mouse force in vivo, while ex vivo it ameliorated calcium homeostasis and reduced signs of myofiber degeneration; however plasma creatine kinase and susceptibility to eccentric contraction were not ameliorated. In parallel we also assessed the impact of PDN treatment on blood–brain barrier (BBB), based on its serious impairment in mdx mice and on the clinical use of glucocorticoids in disorders characterized by leaky BBB. Interestingly, we found a restoration of key BBB markers at level of endothelium (ZO-1 and occludin), pericytes (desmin) and glial cells (glial fibrillary acidic protein, GFAP) in PDN-treated mdx mice. In parallel, an increase of mRNA and protein content of DGC (α–β dystroglycan complex Dp 71, AQP4), and a rescue of the phosphorylation state of AQP4 and β dystroglycan were found. Then PDN exerts a positive action on DGC in both muscle and brain, disclosing a novel mechanism of action whose impact on therapeutic effect deserves to be better investigated (Supported by Duchenne Parent Project NL).

Polydefinites in Greek: Ellipsis, close apposition and expletive determiners

Greek polydefinites are cases of adjectival modification where the adjective features its own definite determiner. We propose an account of the phenomenon that treats it as an instance of close apposition. Like close appositives, polydefinites in Greek instantiate multiple definite determiners, display a freedom in word order, and involve a restrictive interpretation. We propose that close apposition in Greek forms a complex DP out of two DPs which are in a sisterhood relationship through identification of the Referential roles within the DPs. This operation, semantically tantamount to set intersection, is constrained to apply only when the resulting set is not co-extensive with either initial set. This ensures the restrictive interpretation of one DP over the other. The fact that in polydefinites, it is always the DP containing the adjective that obligatorily satisfies the constraint has to do with the presence of noun ellipsis within that DP: (noun) ellipsis is known to come with a disanaphora requirement. We show that noun ellipsis is also responsible for the distribution of adjectives and adjective interpretations, as well as those discourse effects of polydefinites that have been thought of as the result of a DP-internal Focus projection. Finally, we make a proposal for the encoding of definiteness in Greek, consonant both with the existence of polydefinites in the language and with the prerequisite for set intersection among DPs: the overtly realized Greek definite determiner does not itself contribute an iota operator but preserves the &lt;e,t&gt;denotation at the DP level. Our proposal thus deals not only with the multiple occurrence of definite determiners in a construction that picks out a single discourse referent, but also with the compositionality problem that such a situation gives rise to. In the final part we tie the cross-linguistic (un)availability of expletive determiners of the Greek type to the (un)availability of morphologically realized case.

Structure sharing—The case of free relatives in Serbian

The puzzling syntax of free relative clauses (FRs) has been the subject of substantive linguistic work. The core issue, which has divided the field, has been to determine whether this type of relative clause is a complex DP whose head is a wh-pronoun or a wh-clause without the overt external head. Lately, some theoretical reconsiderations of the nature of phrase structuring or, more precisely, of the nature of the syntactic operation Merge allowed for a fresh start in this matter. In this paper, I will follow the proposal put forward by Riemsdijk (2006b) that FRs are structurally ambiguous and that they are derived through grafting, a special type of Merge. As the relevant data in Serbian show, this—still unorthodox, though theoretically legitimate—move is also empirically sound. It also provides us with a new insight into another related phenomenon in this language—the optionality of clitic placement in FRs. The analysis will also reinterpret the status of the particle god typically occurring in this type of clauses, showing why it could be viewed as a complementizer.