Morphosyntactic Domain Research Articles

Introduction to Lexical constraints in grammar: Minority verb classes and restricted alternations

Abstract This is an introduction to the Special Issue Lexical constraints in grammar: Minority verb classes and restricted alternations. In many languages, grammatical relations are subject to lexical constraints. These constraints can be manifested in different morphosyntactic domains, for instance, through deviation from canonical case frames or different argument indexation patterns. Other constructions that have been studied through this lens are voice and valency constructions and some clause-combining constructions. The types of oppositions established by lexical constraints vary: some absolute restrictions entail the obligatory presence or absence of a grammatical marker, while others entail the ability of a lexical item to alternate. In the latter instance, differences in the statistical preferences for one construction over another may be observed. In some cases, verb classes can be easily identified based on a common semantic feature; however, various other factors can also lead to the formation of minority verb classes and restrictions on alternations. This article introduces a collection of four articles investigating lexical constraints in a variety of morphosyntactic domains, adopting different perspectives and methodologies. It sets out a framework for considering different opposition types formed by the differing behaviour of different verb classes and outlines a number of different factors that motivate the formation of verb classes. This introductory article shows that lexical constraints provide fertile ground for typologists adopting a token-based approach seeking to compare languages at ever-greater levels of specification.

Does digital media use contribute to decreased expressive language skills of pre-school-aged children? An exploratory study in Portuguese children

Purpose/Aim of the study The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between digital media use and expressive language skills in the semantic and morphosyntactic domains, of pre-school-aged children (3 years-and-0 months to 5 years-and-11 months). Materials and methods Verbal oral expression (VOE) tasks of the Pre-school Assessment of Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar) were administered to 237 pre-school children with no previous identified neurological or developmental conditions associated with language disorders to assess expressive language skills in the semantic and morphosyntactic domains. Parents completed a questionnaire about their children’s medical conditions, development (using the milestones of the Survey of Well-being of Young Children and the Pre-school Paediatric Symptom Checklist), and exposure to screens (using ScreenQ). Correlations between VOE and continuous variables such as ScreenQ were computed and a regression model incorporating all variables significantly associated with total language verbal expression was created. Results ScreenQ revealed a negative and significant correlation with children’s verbal oral expression as well as significance in the regression model. Parents’ education was the most significant predictor in this regression model. Conclusions This study emphasizes the importance of parents establishing limits for digital media use and promote good practices such as co-viewing.

English as a heritage language: The effects of input patterns and contact with Hebrew

Purpose: This study examines the extent to which language skills of adult speakers of heritage language (HL) English in a Hebrew-speaking society are affected by individual HL input patterns and cross-linguistic influence. Methodology: Adult HL-English speakers who grew up in families with one ( N = 22) or two ( N = 25) English-speaking parents were compared to a baseline group of native English speakers who emigrated to Israel as adults ( N = 20). Data: Proficiencies in morphosyntactic and lexical domains were measured based on formal test performance and error types and frequencies in narratives. Detailed histories of speakers’ linguistic input were documented. Findings: Results showed near-ceiling performance across the three groups in the morphosyntactic domain, while significant differences were observed between the baseline and HL groups in the lexical domain. No differences were found between HL-English speakers who grew up in families with one or two English-speaking parents. Individual HL input patterns explained a larger proportion of the variance in the lexical abilities, compared to morphosyntactic ones. Evidence of cross-linguistic influence from Hebrew was not detected in the morphosyntactic domain, but only in the lexicon, in the form of minor lexical production errors and calques. Originality: The HL examined here was English which, unlike other HLs, is heard and used in a variety of contexts outside the home. In most previous studies on HLs, English was the dominant societal language. Implications: The results suggest that morphosyntactic divergences, unlike lexical divergences, are not necessarily found in all HLs—morphosyntactic structures acquired in childhood, reinforced periodically in the societal environment, may be well-maintained because of the language’s ubiquity and relatively sparse morphology.

Language Profiles of School-Aged Children with 22q11.2 Copy Number Variants.

Although it is known that copy number variants (CNVs) on chromosome 22, such as 22q11.2 deletion (22q11.2DS) and 22q11.2 duplication (22q11.2Dup) syndromes, are associated with higher risk for neurodevelopmental issues, few studies have examined the language skills across 22q11.2Dup nor compared them with the 22q11.2DS. The current study aims to characterize language abilities in school-aged children with 22q11.2Dup (n = 29), compared to age-matched children with 22q11.2DS (n = 29). Standardized language tests were administered, assessing receptive and expressive language skills across different language domains. Results indicate that children with 22q11.2Dup demonstrate significantly more language problems compared to the general population. Mean language skills were not significantly different among children with 22q11.2 CNVs in this cohort. While children with 22q11.2DS demonstrated language difficulties starting at the word level, the most common language problems in children with 22q11.2Dup started at the sentence level. Importantly, both expressive and receptive language as well as lexico-semantic and morphosyntactic domains were impaired in children with 22q11.2 CNVs. Early identification, therapeutic intervention, and follow-up of language impairments in children with 22q11.2Dup are recommended to support language development and to reduce longitudinal impact of language and communicative deficits.

Identifying Linguistic Markers of French-Speaking Teenagers With Developmental Language Disorder: Which Tasks Matter?

This research aimed to identify reliable tasks discriminating French-speaking adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) from their peers with typical language (TL) and to assess which linguistic domains represent areas of particular weakness in DLD. Unlike English, morphosyntax has not been identified as a special area of weakness when compared with lexicosemantics in French preschoolers with DLD. Since there is evidence that subject-verb number agreement is consolidated in later childhood, one might expect morphosyntax to be a particular weakness and marker of French DLD only in (pre)adolescence. We administered 20 subtasks that assessed linguistic and phonological working memory skills of two groups: 17 adolescents clinically identified as having DLD (M = 14.1 years) and 20 (pre)teens with TL (M = 12.2 years). Using robust statistics that are less affected by outliers, we selected the most discriminating subtasks between our groups, calculated their optimal cutoff score, and derived diagnostic accuracy statistics. We combined these subtasks in a multivariable model to identify which subtasks contributed the most to the identification of DLD. Seven subtasks were selected as discriminating between our groups, and three showed outstanding diagnostic accuracy: Recalling Sentences, a multiword task assessing lexicosemantic skills, and a subject-verb number agreement production task. When combined, we found that the latter contributed the most to our multivariable model. This study provides evidence that the most relevant markers to identify DLD in French teenagers are tasks assessing lexicosemantics and morphosyntactic domains, and that morphosyntax should be considered an important area of weakness in French-speaking teenagers with DLD. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21753932.

The effects of age and experience with input in the acquisition of clitic climbing in heritage and L2 Spanish

Aims and objectives: This study examines the role of age of first exposure and experience with input in the syntax of English–Spanish bilinguals. More specifically, I examine the production of clitic climbing constructions in Spanish (e.g., lo quiero ver “[I] want to see it” [Kayne; Rizzi]). Design/methodology: I compare two experimental groups of heritage speakers of Spanish ( n = 16) and L2 Spanish learners ( n = 17) from the United States (matched in proficiency) against a group of native Spanish speakers from Mexico ( n = 20). A sentence completion task was employed to elicit proclitic sentences across four verbal conditions: two in which clitic climbing is possible but with a higher or lower probability of occurrence, and two in which proclitic placement is agrammatical. Data and analysis: Results show a strong tendency to avoid clitic climbing constructions across all testing conditions. Two logistic regression analyses report no differences across all groups, who only favored the proclisis in highly grammaticalized verbs; proficiency among the experimental groups was a predictor in the production of these sentences. Findings/conclusions: A different time of onset of first exposure to the second language and a different experience with linguistic input (heritage language acquisition vs L2 acquisition) do not appear to affect the production of complex proclitic sentences in Spanish. Originality: Previous studies have employed a few selected periphrastic conditions to elicit clitic climbing constructions among English–Spanish bilinguals. This study further expands the range of verbal matrices employed in the four testing conditions and uses a more controlled testing environment. Significance: This study adds adult bilingual data to the ongoing debate on whether an early exposure to the second language results in advantages in the morphosyntactic domain.

Not only size matters: limits to the Law of Three Consonants in French phonology

Grammont’s (1914) influential Law of Three Consonants (LTC) states that French schwa is obligatorily pronounced in any CC_C sequence to avoid three-consonant clusters. Later works have shown that schwa presence is also sensitive to the nature of the consonants involved, at least at the word and phrase levels. However the LTC is still generally considered as accurate under its original formulation to describe schwa-zero alternations at the stem level. The goal of the paper is to test whether the LTC should be relaxed even in this context. The paper presents two studies using judgment data to compare the behavior of schwa in derived words (stem-level phonology) and in inflected words (word-level phonology). The results of the two studies show that the nature of consonants involved in the CC_C sequence plays a role at both stem and word levels. Moreover, the same phonotactic asymmetries among consonant clusters are found in both contexts. The data therefore support a weaker version of the stem-level vs. word-level divide than what is usually assumed for French. This conclusion is strengthened by the results of a modeling study showing that a constraint-based grammar with the same phonotactic constraints across stem- and word-level phonologies provides a better fit to the judgment data from Study 1 and Study 2 than a grammar with different phononotactic constraints in the two morphosyntactic domains. The paper also replicates a number of earlier findings on the role of morphosyntactic domains, clash avoidance, and dialectal variation in schwa-zero alternations.

Grammatical functions of tone in San Maka

The paper is an overview of the functions of tone in San Maka (Eastern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). In this language, tone has different grammatical functions in addition to distinguishing lexical meanings of words. The analysis of tone shows that its grammatical functions embrace different morpho-syntactic domains. Tonal oppositions are analyzed in the wide contexts of segmental morphology of the language. It is shown that tonal oppositions may distinguish paradigmatic word forms, which is primarily characteristic of a verb; tone is often the only distinctive feature that opposes neutral and perfective verbal forms. San Maka also displays verbal derivation by means of the tonal change. Tone oppositions are used in genitive constructions of the type N+N, where the tone of the second component rises. A special section is devoted to so-called floating tones. In San Maka, floating tones are allomorphs of segmental units: the 3sg pronoun à and the perfective predicative marker nə́, in certain contexts, are realized as tones.

The role of age and timing in bilingual assessment: non-word repetition, subject-verb agreement and case marking in L1 and eL2 children with and without SLI

ABSTRACT Diagnostics in bilingual children is challenging, due to an overlap of production patterns in typically developing (TD) bilingual children and monolingual children with specific language impairment (SLI). To screen bilingual children effectively, the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) tools were developed in an international project. The present study tests three of these tools for their suitability and diagnostic accuracy for early second language learners (eL2) of German, aged six to eight years. The study focuses on the timing in first language (L1) TD acquisition, investigating early and late acquisition phenomena of the morphosyntactic domain (subject-verb agreement [SVA], and case marking), combined with a non-word repetition (NWR) task targeting phonological complexity. The study aims at evaluating these three LITMUS-tools regarding their diagnostic accuracy, compared to a standardised assessment tool (LiSe-DaZ). To this end, forty-two children were tested using the LITMUS-tools, namely, contrastive case marking (CCM), supplemented by an elicitation task for the prepositional case, SVA and NWR. Four groups of children participated: eL2 children with SLI (mean age 7;6, mean age of onset 3;1), eL2 children with TD (mean age 7;10, mean age of onset 2;11), L1 TD children (mean age 7;3) and L1 SLI children (mean age 7;2). Results show NWR and SVA as suitable markers and the LITMUS-tools as suitable screenings. Conversely, CCM does not disentangle SLI from TD in the investigated bilingual population by this age.

“Les copains *dit au revoir”: On Subject–Verb Agreement in L2 French and Cross-Linguistic Influence

This study focuses on the production of subject–verb (SV) agreement in number in L2 French and investigates the role of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in this particular morphosyntactic domain. CLI is a well-known phenomenon in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research but it has rarely been investigated systematically in relation to SV agreement in French. The participants of the study are 114 learners with Italian, German, Dutch and Swedish as L1. The source languages are all inflectional languages but they vary in terms of morphological richness in the verb paradigm, ranging from very poor (Swedish) to very rich (Italian). The participants performed an oral narrative task contrasting singular and plural contexts of SV agreement. Results indicate a significant difference between L1 groups in terms of correct SV agreement but they also show that the overall presence of rich verb morphology in the L1 does not, on its own, result in a more correct SV agreement. It is when comparing learners at two different proficiency levels that we observe differences in the rate of L2 development, which may be explained as an effect of CLI. Overall, results indicate a complex interplay of different factors, where the role of CLI must be further investigated in future studies in relation to L2 French.

A Phonetic Account of Spanish-English Bilinguals’ Divergence with Agreement

Does bilingual language influence in the domain of phonetics impact the morphosyntactic domain? Spanish gender is encoded by word-final, unstressed vowels (/a e o/), which may diphthongize in word-boundary vowel sequences. English neutralizes unstressed final vowels and separates across-word vocalic sequences. The realization of gender vowels as schwa, due to cross-linguistic influence, may remain undetected if not directly analyzed. To explore the potential over-reporting of gender accuracy, we conducted parallel phonetic and morphosyntactic analyses of read and semi-spontaneous speech produced by 11 Monolingual speakers and 13 Early and 13 Late Spanish-English bilinguals. F1 and F2 values were extracted at five points for all word-final unstressed vowels and vowel sequences. All determiner phrases (DPs) from narratives were coded for morphological and contextual parameters. Early bilinguals exhibited clear patterns of vowel centralization and higher rates of hiatuses than the other groups. However, the morphological analysis yielded very few errors. A follow-up integrated analysis revealed that /a and o/ were realized as centralized vowels, particularly with [+Animate] nouns. We propose that bilinguals’ schwa-like realizations can be over-interpreted as target Spanish vowels. Such variable vowel realization may be a factor in the vulnerability to attrition in gender marking in Spanish as a heritage language.

Constituency and coincidence in Chácobo (Pano)

Abstract This paper provides a detailed description of the results of 24 constituency diagnostics, both morphosyntactic and phonological, to Chácobo, a southern Pano language of the northern Bolivian Amazon. While it is often assumed that misalignments across the domains that emerge from constituency diagnostics can be resolved by reference to a distinction between phonological and morphosyntactic words, I argue that this is not true of Chácobo. Divergence is at least as high within phonological domains and morphosyntactic domains as it is across them. While it is often assumed that domains tend to converge overall on a single wordhood candidate or that domain divergence is marginal, I argue that this is not true of Chácobo. I present a cluster of methodologies that assess the motivation for a word constituent as an empirical hypothesis, rather than treating it as an a priori assumption. No strong evidence for a word constituent emerges from the Chácobo data. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

A unified approach to domains in word- and phrase-level phonology

This paper discusses parallels between the conditioning of phonological processes at the word- and phrase-level. The approach taken here is a direct reference approach in which apparent mismatches between morphosyntactic domains and phonological domains are derived from the spell-out procedure. The analysis relies on two main ingredients, i) inclusion of the output of spell-out in subsequent cycles, and ii) layering of concatenation. Under (i), the phonological output of spell-out is visible and can be affected, however the internal structure is not. This can yield the effects of phonological domains extending beyond the morphosyntactic domain. Under (ii), processes are specified to apply at either early or late concatenation, where early and late concatenation are determined by the selectional relationship between the elements, limiting the application of phonological processes within the spell-out domain. This is first illustrated by the application of umlauts in Icelandic and then this approach is extended to penultimate vowel lengthening (PVL) in Zulu.

Beyond grammatical and phonological words

AbstractThis paper reviews recent research on the cross‐linguistic comparison of wordhood domains. A prominent solution to misalignments in wordhood domains is to distinguish between grammatical (morphosyntactic, morphological) words and phonological (prosodic) words. Recent studies reveal problems with this solution insofar as it is meant to serve as a basis for cross‐linguistic comparison. Language‐internal divergences within morphosyntactic domains and the phonological domains are not straightforwardly handled by the grammatical‐phonological word distinction. Moreover, cross‐linguistic variation in the motivation for these constituents is such that it is not clear that the grammatical/phonological word of one language is comparable to that of the next. Recent descriptive and typological studies seek to overcome these problems by questioning some of the methodological and conceptual assumptions underlying the concept of a word and the interpretation of wordhood diagnostics.

The grammar of ‘non-realization’

AbstractOn the basis of cross-linguistic data from both genetically and geographically related and unrelated languages, in this article we argue that the linguistic phenomena usually referred to as the avertive, the frustrative and the apprehensional belong not to three but to five – semantically related, and yet distinct grammatical categories, all of which involve different degrees of non-realization of the verb situation in the area of Tense-Aspect-Mood: apprehensional, avertive, frustrated initiation, frustrated completion, inconsequential. Our major goal here is to account for these grammatical categories in terms of an adequate model of linguistic categorization. For this purpose, we apply the notion of Intersective Gradience (introduced for the first time in the morphosyntactic domain in Aarts (2004,2007) to the morphosemantic domain. Thus the present approach reconciles two major approaches to linguistic categorization: (i) the classical, Aristotelian approach and (ii) a more recent, gradience/fuzziness approach.

Los verbos de afección psicológica entender y gustar en el guaraní-jopara: divergencias en-tre roles temáticos y la estructura argumental

Este artículo indaga sobre el funcionamiento de dos verbos de afección psicológica formados a partir de las bases verbales hispánicas entender y gustar integradas al dominio morfosintáctico guaraní, a partir de un corpus de guaraní-jopara recogido en Formosa (Argentina). El guaraní-jopara es una variedad preeminentemente oral del guaraní y manifiesta una gran permeabilidad al préstamo de verbos, pese a las restricciones semánticas y morfológicas que hacen que esta categoría léxica no sea fácilmente transferible de una lengua a otra. A partir del análisis y descripción de las propiedades léxico-semánticas de predicados formados con las bases verbales del español entender y gustar, se explican las divergencias observadas entre la estructura temática y la estructura argumental en interacción con el sistema de alineamiento activo/inactivo y jerárquico que prefigura las relaciones gramaticales en guaraní.

Synchronic stratum-specific rates of application reflect diachronic change: morphosyntactic conditioning of variation in English /l/-darkening

Phonological processes that exhibit morphosyntactic sensitivity can provide evidence of historical processes which have ascended through the grammar over time. English /l/-darkening shows such effects. Although syllable-based accounts state that light [l] occurs in onsets (e.g. light) and dark [ɫ] in codas (e.g. dull), several studies report overapplication of darkening to onset /l/ in certain morphosyntactically defined positions: e.g. word-finally in phrases such as heal it, and stem-finally before a suffix in words such as heal-ing. Although many phonological theories attempt to account for such opacity, they cannot adequately account for the potential variability in application alongside this.The present paper explores these ideas through modelling data on /l/- darkening in English taken from Hayes’s (2000) Optimality Theoretic study. It is argued that a combined Stochastic Stratal OT approach to the data is an improvement over a parallel stochastic model (e.g. Boersma &amp; Hayes 2001) because it avoids fixed innate constraint rankings, which are required to prevent the prediction of impossible grammars. Moreover, it is shown that observations about the diachronic life cycle of phonological processes enable us to deduce quantitative predictions about rates: should apply with lower frequency in smaller morphosyntactic domains.

A descriptive grammar of morphosyntactic constructions in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL)

The Ugandan Deaf Community, consisting of approximately 25,000 sign language users, has seen significant developments in its recent history. Government recognition of sign language, establishment of schools for the deaf, and the beginnings of research into Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL) have been important milestones. While Deaf Ugandans are entering university level education for the first time, a number of challenges to the community remain. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the linguistic structures of UgSL in order to produce a description of the language’s morphosyntax. There is a close relationship between word (or sign) properties and syntactic expressions, so UgSL is described here in terms of its morphosyntactic constructions, rather than a differentiation between morphological and syntactic features (cf. Croft 2001; Wilkinson 2013:260). While a substantial number of such descriptions exist for languages outside of Africa, this thesis is the first attempt at describing the morphosyntax of an African sign language. Many African sign languages are severely under-documented, and some are endangered. This study uses an inductive approach and a corpus-based methodology, examining how UgSL signers construct utterances of morphosyntactic complexity. The thesis is in three parts: part I is an introduction and overview of UgSL and also provides the theoretical and methodological background; part II provides a preliminary survey of UgSL grammar to provide a sider context for subsequent chapters; and part III is a detailed survey of five morphosyntactic domains of UgSL. The author is a native Deaf user of UgSL and a member of the Ugandan Deaf Community, as well as being fluent in several other sign languages and participating in international communities of Deaf people.

A contrastive study of two varieties of Onicha and the Central Igbo language

He crux of this paper is to compare the Onicha and the Central Igbo varieties of the Igbo language. Igbo is a language spoken in south eastern Nigeria, precisely in the present Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states. It is the sole language of the Igbo ethnic group of the south east states. Igbo is also a minority language of the people of Delta, Rivers, and Edo states in the present south-south geopolitical zone. It is fraught with numerous dialects which can be arranged in clusters. Some Igbo linguists recognize merely two major dialect areas, namely Onicha (Onitsha) and Owere (Owerri) on which this study is based. The objective of the paper is to present the morphosyntactic and phonological analyses of the two lects (by comparing them) in order to highlight their similarities and differences. It is observed that there are variations in the speech forms of the Central and the Onicha Igbo varieties. These variations are attested both in the lexical and the morphosyntactic domains.

A longitudinal linguistic analysis of written text production in a case of semantic variant primary progressive aphasia

Abstract The semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) presents with a degradation of semantic knowledge due to atrophy of the anterior temporal lobe and is characterized by impaired confrontation naming and impaired single-word comprehension. So far, little is known about the development of symptoms and their order of occurrence in the preclinical phase, and information regarding written text production is scarce. We had the unique opportunity to analyze the diary of a man written over a time span of 12 years before he was diagnosed with svPPA. We sought to identify the earliest indicators of cognitive change in his diary entries, and to track the important changes over time. Based on transcripts of the entries (one week every six months) we assessed the overall structure, vocabulary, surface dysgraphia and semantic paraphasia, syntax, and morphology. We found changes in all domains up to seven years before the clinical diagnosis. The earliest changes concerned the vocabulary, with decreased variety and increased use of high frequency words. This was followed by syntactic and morphological errors. We found no increase of surface dysgraphia. Semantic paraphasias increased only during the last three years but characterized the entries of the last year. We were therefore able to further corroborate recent findings regarding difficulties in the morpho-syntactic domain in this patient group. In this natural context for written text production, such errors seem, in addition to changes in vocabulary, to be the first error types to appear, possibly as a result of compensating for the degradation of semantic representations.