Morphosyntactic Contexts Research Articles

Verbs Matter: A Tutorial for Determining Verb Difficulty.

Research indicates that when teaching grammatical forms to children, the verbs used to model specific grammatical inflections matter. When learning grammatical forms, children have higher performance when they hear many unique verb forms that vary in their frequency and phonological complexity. In this tutorial, we demonstrate a method for identifying and characterizing a large number of verbs based on their frequency and complexity. We selected verbs from an open-access database of transcribed child language samples. We extracted verbs produced by 5- to 8.9-year-old children in four morphosyntactic contexts: regular past tense -ed, third person singular -s, is/are + verb+ing, and do/does questions. We ranked verbs based on their frequency of occurrence across transcripts. We also coded the phonological complexity of each verb. We coded each verb as high or low frequency and high or low phonological complexity. The synthesis yielded 129 unique verbs used in the regular past tense -ed context, 107 verbs used in the third person singular -s context, 69 verbs used in the is/are + verb+ing context, and 16 verbs used in the do/does question context. We created tables for each form that include the frequency rankings and phonological complexity scores for every verb. Clinicians may use the verb lists, frequency ratings, and phonological complexity scores to help identify verbs to incorporate into assessment and intervention sessions with children. Researchers and clinicians may use the step-by-step approach presented in the tutorial to identify verbs or other syntactic components used in different morphosyntactic contexts or produced by individuals of different demographics in different speaking contexts.

The versatile classifier və¹³ in Zauzou

Abstract This article presents a frequently used versatile classifier və¹³ in the endangered Ngwi language Zauzou. After investigating seven morphosyntactic contexts in which və¹³ may occur, this classifier exhibits considerable syntactic and semantic overlaps with ordinary classifiers and the inanimate plural quantifier in this language. və¹³ is used as the only classifier for unclassified nouns (i.e., some abstract and count nouns) and an alternative classifier for nearly all kinds of ordinary sortal or mensural classifiers for inanimates, especially when the canonical classifier is not known to the speaker. It shares a wide range of distributions with ordinary numeral classifiers and the plural quantifier and parallels these two classes of determiners in marking various referential values in different noun phrases. However, və¹³ is semantically special in that it may classify nouns of various semantic classes, including abstract and mass nouns, and is underspecified in number. It is compatible with singular, plural and mass interpretations. The final quantity in the reference must be determined in the context. Moreover, və¹³ is a lexical item involved in marking partitives, the function that is not found in ordinary classifiers and the plural quantifier. This study is a systematic description of an under-studied type of versatile classifier, highlighting the internal complexity of a classifier system in Tibeto-Burman languages.

The phonology of Guébie

AbstractGuébie is an Eastern Kru language spoken by about 7000 people in the Gagnoa prefecture of Côte d’Ivoire. This paper provides an overview of the phonology of Guébie, including the complex tone system with four contrastive pitch heights, multiple types of vowel harmony, reduplication in multiple morphosyntactic contexts, CVCV/CCV alternations, and the phonotactic behaviour of implosives as sonorant‐like rather than obstruent‐like. Comparisons with other Kru and West African languages are made along the way.

Portuguese infinitives: their pieces and their meaning

Traditionally taken as one of the nominals forms of the verb, infinitives in Portuguese, in spite of their morphophonological homogeneity (-r), appear in a range of morphosyntactic contexts. This paper argues that all these contexts can be reduced to three, namely, a nominal, a verbal and a “mixed” – in the sense of Chomsky (1970). Specifically, by assuming Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz, 1993), it proposes a step-by-step morphosyntactic and semantic derivation of the contexts where the /R/-morpheme appears, also addressing the issues involving tense and aspect in these forms. In summary, we argue that nominal, verbal and mixed infinitives share the same derivational path up to AspP, which – we claim – is underdetermined, thus competing with (perfective) participles and (imperfective) gerunds. Above AspP, the first bifurcation is between no and T. Projecting no generates a predicate of events. By projecting T (in verbal and mixed infinitives), the system has a three-way path: T[+tense], where T will be futurate in relation to the finite matrix verb; T[–tense], where T will be simultaneous /anaphoric in respect to the finite matrix verb; or T[ ], where there is no c-commanding T and then, as last resort, the grammar will change this phrase into a predicate of events.

There is no Stem: the Distribution of Verbal Allomorphs, a Distributed Morphology Analysis

It is widely accepted by traditional grammarians and linguists that Persian verbal roots fall into two forms depending on their tense feature: present stem and past stem. In contrast to this traditional view, the present study considers an alternative notion of allomorphy, indicating that a few verbs use a basic form, called “morph”, in all morphosyntactic contexts while some other roots allow for having two or more allomorphs. Within the framework of Distributed Morphology, especially on the basis of underspecification condition, I will review the empirical evidence adduced in favor of the hypothesis that the tense feature has no role in producing and selecting the so-called present and past stems. In this approach, the systematic distribution of verbal allomorphs like /suz/ and /sux/ (derived from “OSUZ” = burn) is constrained by some other formal features, such as adjacency to the morphophoneme {D}, absorbing the causative suffix (“-ān” or its free variation “-un”) or appearing in the boundary of a word. Finally, to avoid terminological and empirical confusion, I will suggest that we should avoid the use of the term “stem” altogether and speak of root, morph and allomorphs only. It should be added that the different variations in phonetic shape of lexical roots are divided into two classes: the first one follows from the phonological rules and the second one is affected by the morphophonological (or readjustment) rules. Phonological changes are predictable and produce automatic alternations, but unpredictable morphophonological changes lead to non-automatic alternations. Following the general trend of DM, I restrict the term “allomorphy” to those cases in which the variation in phonetic shape of a morpheme does not follow from the automatic phonological rules of the language. This analysis raises the theoretical question of whether language-specific readjustment rules (i.e. the alteration of root or affix phonology) are needed for morphological theory. Rejecting readjustment rules, I show that allomorphs of verbal roots are independently stored in Vocabulary.

Incorporação nominal e aspecto lexical em Tenetehára (Tupí-Guaraní)

Este trabalho tem por objetivo investigar o mecanismo de Incorporação Nominal na língua Tenetehára e sua relação com as classes aspectuais propostas por Vendler (1967). Nessa língua, o mecanismo de Incorporação Nominal se realiza por meio de dois diferentes contextos morfossintáticos: (i) incorporação total do objeto ao vo e (ii) incorporação do núcleo do sintagma genitivo ao vo. Na incorporação total, quando o objeto direto se incorpora ao predicado verbal, é gerado um predicado que se comporta como um verbo intransitivo. Todavia, nas construções de alçamento do possuidor, apenas parte do sintagma genitivo, a saber seu núcleo, pode se incorporar ao núcleo do vP. O resultado desse processo não altera a estrutura transitiva inicial. Assim, nas construções de alçamento do possuidor não ocorre diminuição de valência, apesar de haver Incorporação Nominal. Ademais, em relação ao plano semântico das construções de alçamento de objeto, o que tenho observado é que os falantes dessa língua costumam apontar duas interpretações distintas, uma para a versão sem Incorporação Nominal outra para a versão com Incorporação Nominal. Assim, no presente artigo, pretendo responder qual organização constante se pode depreender do paradigma de interpretação apresentado. A hipótese que defenderei é que as nuances de sentido entre estes dados têm a ver com a noção de aspecto verbal e as definições de accomplishment e achievement delineadas por Vendler (1967). Neste sentido, minha hipótese é de que as construções sem Incorporação Nominal podem se conformar à classe semântica de predicados verbais de accomplishment, ao passo que as versões com Incorporação Nominal em contextos de alçamento de objeto abrangem obrigatoriamente os predicados de achievement.

Nominalizaçôes em A’uwẽ (Xavante), com foco especial no nominalizador de nome de açâo

O artigo versa sobre nominalizações na língua A’uwẽ (Xavante), língua do ramo Central da família Jê, tronco Macro-Jê (Rodrigues 1986, 1996,; Davis 1966, 1968; Gudschinsky 1971). O objetivo central do presente artigo é demonstrar a importância das nominalizações de nome de ação na gramática A’uwẽ. Descrevemos os alomorfes do nominalizador de “nome de ação, a nominalização por esse morfema como antecedente a outros processos derivacionais e os contextos morfossintáticos em que é requerida.

Normalized gestural overlap measures and spatial properties of lingual movements in Korean non-assimilating contexts*

The current electromagnetic articulography study analyzes several articulatory measures and examines whether, and if so, how they are interconnected, with a focus on cluster types and an additional consideration of speech rates and morphosyntactic contexts. Using articulatory data on non-assimilating contexts from three Seoul-Korean speakers, we examine how speaker-dependent gestural overlap between C1 and C2 in a low vowel context (/a/-to-/a/) and their resulting intergestural coordination are realized. Examining three C1C2 sequences (/k(#)t/, /k(#)p/, and /p(#)t/), we found that three normalized gestural overlap measures (movement onset lag, constriction onset lag, and constriction plateau lag) were correlated with one another for all speakers. Limiting the scope of analysis to C1 velar stop (/k(#)t/ and /k(#)p/), the results are recapitulated as follows. First, for two speakers (K1 and K3), i) longer normalized constriction plateau lags (i.e., less gestural overlap) were observed in the pre-/t/ context, compared to the pre-/p/ (/k(#)t/>/k(#)p/), ii) the tongue dorsum at the constriction offset of C1 in the pre-/t/ contexts was more anterior, and iii) these two variables are correlated. Second, the three speakers consistently showed greater horizontal distance between the vertical tongue dorsum and the vertical tongue tip position in /k(#)t/ sequences when it was measured at the time of constriction onset of C2 (/k(#)t/>/k(#)p/): the tongue tip completed its constriction onset by extending further forward in the pre-/t/ contexts than the uncontrolled tongue tip articulator in the pre-/p/ contexts (/k(#)t/>/k(#)p/). Finally, most speakers demonstrated less variability in the horizontal distance of the lingual-lingual sequences, which were taken as the active articulators (/k(#)t/=/k(#)p/ for K1; /k(#)t/</k(#)p/ for K2 and K3). Taken together, the results suggest that biomechanical constraints be, at least partly, active: speakers can control spatio-temporal articulatory coordination in an interactive way such that greater tongue dorsum horizontal advancement is related to less gestural overlap in consecutive lingual-lingual (/k(#)t/) sequences.

The effect of verbal agreement marking on the use of null and overt subjects: a quantitative study of first person singular in Brazilian Portuguese

Em um estudo de corpus e em dois experimentos de aceitabilidade, investigamos se existe uma preferência por sujeitos nulos ou pronominais com verbos ambíguos (sincréticos) ou exclusivos (não-ambíguos) no Português Brasileiro (PB). A literatura propõe que o PB (i) está desativando o “Princípio Evitar Pronome” e (ii) é uma língua parcialmente “pro-drop”, cujos contextos morfossintáticos para sujeitos nulos são restritos. Nosso estudo de corpus e os experimentos de aceitabilidade mostram que há um efeito do sincretismo de pessoas no paradigma verbal sobre a frequência relativa de sujeitos nulos e sobre a aceitabilidade de sentenças com sujeitos nulos na primeira pessoa do singular: há uma tendência a evitar ambiguidade para sujeitos nulos com formas verbais ambíguas, mas apenas em contextos em que há competição de antecedentes. Esses resultados são analisados à luz de uma teoria geral da resolução da anáfora (Ariel 1990, etc.), como resultado de um cálculo levando em conta a acessibilidade dos antecedentes potenciais e o custo da forma anafórica (ALMOR, 1996).

Introduction

AbstractThis introduction to the special issue presents a brief overview of the phonological phenomenon of liaison in French, drawing on the morphosyntactic contexts of its use by native speakers. We outline previous research on liaison in second language acquisition, focusing on the challenges this phenomenon presents to learner comprehension and production, and on major findings in each area. We then present a synopsis of the articles in this special issue, which highlight key questions with regard to the development of this phonological feature in the learners’ French.

Sigmatic plurals in Romance varieties spoken in Italy and their interaction with -i plurals

In Sardinian, Friulian, Rhaeto-Romance, Occitan (not considered in this work) and Franco-Provençal varieties spoken in peripheral Italian areas, the -i inflection is not totally eradicated but interacts with plural -s. The coexistence of -s and -i reflects syntactic constraints. Specifically, -i is in complementary distribution with -s or it combines with –s, giving rise to a duplicated lexicalization of plurality. In any event, it is specialized for a subset of the morpho-syntactic contexts. The distribution of -i generally involves the D domain, i.e. determiners and clitics. In some cases, -i is limited to the D elements. Different agreement systems on D and on N emerge, recalling partial or asymmetric agreement phenomena known in literature. Moreover, in the relevant varieties (-)i is in turn the inflection of the dative clitic; this suggests that (-)i is endowed with a slightly different content from plural -s, that, on the contrary, shows no connection with dative.

Pragmatic versus structural difficulties in the production of pronominal clitics in French-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

Background and aims Impaired production of third person accusative pronominal clitics is a signature of language impairment in French-speaking children. It has been found to be a prominent and persistent difficulty in children and adolescents with specific language impairment. Previous studies have reported that many children with autism spectrum disorder also have low performance on these clitics. However, it remains unclear whether these difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder are due to structural language impairment or to pragmatic deficits. This is because pragmatics skills, notoriously weak in children with autism spectrum disorder, are also needed for appropriate use of pronouns. Use of pronouns without clear referents and difficulty with discourse pronouns (first and second person), which require taking into account the point of view of one’s interlocutor (perspective shifting), have frequently been reported for autism spectrum disorder. Methods We elicited production of nominative, reflexive and accusative third and first person pronominal clitics in 19 verbal children with autism spectrum disorder (aged 6–12, high and low functioning, with structural language impairment, or with normal language) and 19 age-matched children with specific language impairment. If pragmatics is behind difficulties on these elements, performance on first-person clitics would be expected to be worse than performance on third person clitics, since it requires perspective shifting. Furthermore, worse performance for first person clitics was expected in the children with autism spectrum disorder compared to the children with specific language impairment, since weak pragmatics is an integral part of impairment in the former, but not in the latter. More generally, different error patterns would be expected in the two groups, if the source of difficulty with clitics is different (a pragmatic deficit vs. a structural language deficit). Results Similar patterns of relative difficulties were found in the autism spectrum disorder language impairment and specific language impairment groups, with third person accusative clitics being produced at lower rates than first-person pronouns and error patterns being essentially identical. First-person pronouns did not pose particular difficulties in the children with autism spectrum disorder (language impairment or normal language) with respect to third-person pronouns or to the children with specific language impairment. Performance was not related to nonverbal intelligence in the autism spectrum disorder group. Conclusions The elicitation task used in this study included explicit instruction, and focus on perspective shifting (both visual and verbal), allowing for potential pragmatic effects to be controlled. Moreover, the task elicited a variety of types of clitics in morphosyntactic contexts of varying complexity, providing ample opportunities for employment of perspective shifting, which may have also curtailed perseveration of third person over first person. These properties of the task allowed for the grammatical nature of children’s difficulties with third-person accusative clitics to emerge unambiguously. Implications Assessment of structural language abilities in children with autism spectrum disorder requires careful consideration of task demands. The influence of pragmatic abilities on structural language performance can be circumvented by making the pragmatic demands of the task explicit and salient. Filtering out this potential influence on structural language performance is fundamental to understanding language profiles in children with autism spectrum disorder and thus which children could benefit from which kinds of language intervention.

Multiple number systems in one language: Split number in Nungon

The grammars of some languages include two or more number subsystems that function in different morphosyntactic contexts. These subsystems may vary in the number of distinct number values distinguished, or in other ways such as obligatoriness. Such “mixed” systems (Dixon, 2012:52) have been little-investigated. Corbett (2000:89–94, 120–121) analyzes them solely in terms of the nominal Animacy Hierarchy (Smith-Stark, 1974; Silverstein, 1976; Comrie, 1989:128; Corbett, 2000:56), asserting that in such languages, the number subsystem with the most number values should always function at the top of the Animacy Hierarchy (2000:92). A further assumption of the Animacy Hierarchy is that splits between number subsystems should fall between adjacent entries on the Animacy Hierarchy. This detailed case study of splits between number subsystems in the Papuan language Nungon shows that the Animacy Hierarchy fails to account for the distribution of number subsystems there in three ways. First, the assumption that the subsystem with the most values must function at the top of the Animacy Hierarchy falters. Second, Nungon number subsystems are split both within a single paradigm and between multiple paradigms belonging to the same Animacy Hierarchy category. Third, splits between these subsystems also occur in a category, tense marking, that is apparently unrelated to the Animacy Hierarchy. Representation of number system splits as they relate or do not relate to the Animacy Hierarchy requires a three-dimensional schema rather than the linear Animacy Hierarchy. Finally, Nungon presents a previously unattested dependency between number and other grammatical systems.

Mass is more: The conceiving of (un)countability and its encoding into language in 5-year-old-children.

Is the mass-count distinction merely a linguistic issue, or is it coded in representations other than language? We hypothesized that a difference between mass and count properties should be observed even in absence of linguistic distinctions driven by the morphosyntactic context. We tested 5-6-year-old children's ability to judge sentences with mass nouns (sand), count nouns (ring), and neutral nouns (i.e., those that appear in mass and count contexts with similar frequency; cake). Children refused neutral nouns embedded in uncountable morphosyntactic contexts, showing a preference for a count interpretation. This suggests that linguistic features alone are not sufficient to define the mass-count distinction. Additional analyses showed that children's performance with mass-but not count-morphosyntax correlated with their performance in tasks concerning logical and conservation operations. Altogether, these results suggest that the processing of mass features is not more demanding than count features from a linguistic point of view; rather, mass features entail additional abstraction abilities.

Ordklassepotentiale

In this paper, the issue of lexical categories is discussed. Traditionally, words are considered to belong to lexical categories, and if they are used in ways known to be the properties of other categories, this use is considered derived or secondary. In this paper, it is proposed that words do not belong to a lexical category before they are used, but that they instead hold the potential to belong to one or more categories. The assignment of lexical category only takes place in specific morphosyntactic contexts. Thus, according to the idea of potential, a word like hjem ‘home’ is not a noun a priori, but holds the potential of being a noun et smukt hjem ‘a beautiful home’ or an adverb jeg skal hjem ‘I must-go home’ in the proper contexts.

An inverse relation between expressiveness and grammatical integration: On the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones, with special reference to Japanese

Words and phrases may differ in the extent to which they are susceptible to prosodic foregrounding and expressive morphology: their expressiveness. They may also differ in the degree to which they are integrated in the morphosyntactic structure of the utterance: their grammatical integration. We describe an inverse relation that holds across widely varied languages, such that more expressiveness goes together with less grammatical integration, and vice versa. We review typological evidence for this inverse relation in ten spoken languages, then quantify and explain it using Japanese corpus data. We do this by tracking ideophones – vivid sensory words also known as mimetics or expressives – across different morphosyntactic contexts and measuring their expressiveness in terms of intonation, phonation and expressive morphology. We find that as expressiveness increases, grammatical integration decreases. Using gesture as a measure independent of the speech signal, we find that the most expressive ideophones are most likely to come together with iconic gestures. We argue that the ultimate cause is the encounter of two distinct and partly incommensurable modes of representation: the gradient, iconic, depictive system represented by ideophones and iconic gestures, and the discrete, arbitrary, descriptive system represented by ordinary words. The study shows how people combine modes of representation in speech and demonstrates the value of integrating description and depiction into the scientific vision of language.

Heterosemy of case markers and clause-linkers in Andaandi (Nile Nubian)

Case markers are usually associated with nouns or noun phrases but, as shown in Aikhenvald’s (2008) cross-linguistic study on “versatile cases”, case markers are also used as clause-linkers in a wide range of genetically diverse languages. However, African languages are not found in Aikhenvald’s sample. Our paper shows that in some subgroups of Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic case markers are, in fact, attested on subordinate clauses. Focusing on Andaandi, a Nubian language classified as a member of the Eastern Sudanic subgroup of Nilo-Saharan, we first present an outline of the system of grammatical relations and an overview over the use of core and peripheral case markers on noun phrases. This overview serves as a background for our study of case markers. While the Accusative case marker is employed as subordinator of object complement clauses, various peripheral case markers are used as subordinators of adverbial clauses. The different morphosyntactic contexts in which the case markers occur, i.e. on noun phrases and on verbs of subordinate clauses, determine their functional change and heterosemy.

Phrasal grammatical tone in the Dogon languages

Tonosyntax in the Dogon languages of Mali is characterized by word-level tone overlays that apply in specific morphosyntactic contexts. This paper focuses on the resolution of competitions that arise when a word is targeted by more than one tone overlay. For example, in Poss N Adj the possessor and the adjective compete to impose their respective tone overlays on (at least) the noun, and Dogon languages show different outcomes. We argue that overlays are tonal morphemes associated with particular syntactic positions and propose a series of phrasal Optimality Theoretic constraints, grounded in syntactic structure, that control the association of these morphemes. The relative ranking of constraints determines the outcome of tonosyntactic competitions in a given language.

How Utterances are Divided into Tone Groups in Yongning Na: 短語切分、重點突出與形態聲調學——永寧摩梭話的語句如何形成聲調組

提要永寧摩梭話(納語)是漢藏語族納語組的一種語言，位於雲南跟四川交界地帶的永寧壩與瀘沽湖地區。永寧納語的聲調系統有高、中、低三個調域。本文介紹和分析納語中的語句如何被劃分為“聲調組”。選擇何種聲調組往往反映了語句不同的信息結構。由於句法結構跟聲調組的切分沒有硬性直接的對應，說話人可以選擇將一個大的組塊整合為一個聲調組，從而使結構更加緊密，或者也可以把語句分成一些聲調組，加強不同成分的風格效應。論文用例子詳細說明在語句分為聲調組的過程中，說話人選擇某種變調類型的動機。結構越緊密的語句，其可能劃分的聲調組就越少。而在生動語境裡，說話人可以將句子分作更多的聲調組，表示強調。

A classification of French adverbs based on distributional, syntactic and prosodic criteria

This study explores formal criteria for the classification of adverbs in French. Distributional analysis tests whether adverbs appear in particular morpho-syntactic contexts, including syntactic constructions. It analyses combinations of adverbs, and their relative order in particular syntactic contexts. Finally it tests whether using adverbs in these positions imposes prosodic restrictions. These criteria result in a classification which is compatible with those found in major studies on this topic.