Synchronic Grammar Research Articles

Learning biases in proper nouns

Abstract It has been proposed that there are cognitive biases in language learning that favour certain patterns over others. This study examines the effects of such bias factors on the learning of the phonology of proper nouns. I take up the phenomenon of compound voicing in Japanese surnames. The results of two judgment experiments show that, while Japanese speakers replicate various kinds of statistical regularities in existing names, they tend to extend only phonologically motivated patterns to novel names. This suggests that phonological naturalness plays a role even in the learning of a highly faithful category of words, namely proper nouns, and provides evidence for the relevance of learning biases in synchronic grammar.

Making Nouns with Prefixes <i>ka- and na-</i> in Chichewa: An Alternative View

The paper discusses the noun prefixes ka- and na-, specifically those used to derive nouns that trigger the agreement marker traditionally associated with noun class 1 in Chichewa. The motivation for conducting this study comes from the current partial understanding of these prefixes in Chichewa and many other Bantu languages. In the existing analyses, the noun prefixes ka- and na- are taken either to be marginal or ceased to be noun prefixes in the synchronic grammars of some Bantu languages. In the present paper, I show that these two prefixes are productive in the synchronic grammar of Chichewa. I provide three types of evidence to support this view, namely (i) Chichewa neologisms, (ii) Chichewa names of places and persons, and (iii) nominal lexicon evidence from the Chichewa Monolingual Dictionary. I conclude that ka- and na- are not marginal prefixes in noun class 1 but productive prefixes of present-day Chichewa grammar.

Form (Prosody)-Meaning (Pragmatics) pairings of discourse markers: A case study of Nǐ zhīdào (‘You Know’) as a construction in Chinese media interviews

This article makes the first empirical corpus-based study of the actual performance of the discourse marker (DM) nǐ zhīdào (NZ) in Chinese media interview conversations from the perspective of synchronic Construction Grammar (CxG).1 The main objective is to pair the prosody of NZ at varying utterance positions (‘form’ properties at prosodic and discourse structural levels) with its pragmatic functions (‘meaning’ properties at the discourse communicative level), to enhance our understanding within the existing literature, specifically in relation to pragmatics in spontaneous speech, and provide implications for the broader study of discourse markers. The analysis of the ‘form’ properties of NZ reveals distinct, context-specific attributes of such prosodic metrics as duration, tempo, pause, F0, and intensity at varying utterance positions; the analysis of its ‘meaning’ properties discovers pragmatic functions with characteristic utterance distributions; and the form-meaning pairing between prosody and pragmatics highlights the roles of prosody in deciphering and materializing pragmatics and of pragmatics in underlying and motivating prosody. This study has shown that insights gained from CxG can enhance our understanding of the fields of pragmatics, discourse, and interaction, and specific linguistic phenomena whose importance has been entrenched in these domains can be sufficiently explained using CxG. It follows that the notion of construction can be extended to the discourse (e.g., dialogue and conversation) level to approach the complexities of spoken language and address diverse elusive pragmatic issues like DMs effectively.

Evidence for prosodic correspondence in the vowel alternations of Tgdaya Seediq

This paper brings new evidence for PROSODIC CORRESPONDENCE, where prosodic units (e.g. main-stressed nuclei and prominent syllables) of morphologically related forms are compared. Since prosodic correspondence was formalized in Crosswhite’s (1998) analysis of Chamorro, it has received almost no empirical discussion. I argue that Tgdaya Seediq (Austronesian, Atayalic) has vowel alternations that should be analyzed using prosodic correspondence. In Seediq, unsuffixed and suffixed forms tend to share the same stressed syllable nucleus. This VOWEL MATCHING pattern cannot be explained as surface harmony, but it can be explained as the result of a constraint enforcing vowel identity of main-stressed nuclei in morphologically related forms. Unlike the categorical alternations analyzed by Crosswhite (1998), Seediq vowel matching is gradient and only emerges on a statistical level. Nevertheless, prosodic correspondence appears to be active in the synchronic grammar of Seediq; in a production experiment, speakers applied vowel matching to novel forms and even over-generalized it to environments not predicted by lexical statistics. Vowel matching is modeled in Maximum Entropy Harmonic Grammar (Goldwater & Johnson 2003), a stochastic variant of OT. I use prosodic correspondence to enforce vowel matching, and Zuraw’s (2000, 2010) dual listing approach to capture the discrepancy between lexical and experimental results.

On the emergence of inflection classes

Laz has a rich verb classification system. While the language presents robust morphological correlates of argument structure, it also exhibits finer morphological distinctions that have been argued to encode less canonical semantic features. This paper argues that these distinctions merely constitute inflection classes in the synchronic grammar of Laz but could be a residue of a grammar where these semantic features were active in exponent selection.

What is “residual verb second”? And what does Romance have to do with it?

This paper aims to clarify a point of persistent confusion in the literature: namely, the status of residual verb second. We approach this from both a terminological and typological perspective. Terminologically, traditional usage of residual V2 in the literature has conflated two different senses (one formal, and one historical); we argue that it is essential to keep these two senses separate. We propose a distinction between partial V2 and residual V2 within the general typology of verb second. Following a formal definition of V2 from the recent literature, we define partial-V2 systems as involving genuine instances of V2 that are limited to nondeclarative environments in a given language (e.g. English). By contrast, we (re)define residual V2 as describing purely vestigial structures that do not qualify as formally V2 in the synchronic grammar of a given language, despite their historical origins in an earlier stage in which the language had true V2. In this respect, almost all modern Romance languages provide clear examples of residual V2: the syntax of these languages is only historically related to V2, with all formal traces of V2 having been long lost, even in nondeclaratives. With these clarifications in place, we propose an updated typology of V2 systems, conceiving of it as a spectrum of degrees from partial V2 through strict V2 (as measured by the set of formally-V2 environments that a given language allows).

Sufixos de dupla face

Este texto tem por objetivo mostrar que sufixos de duas faces se distinguem em diferentes categorias que vão da alternância lexical à morfofonológica ou simplesmente alternância fonológica. Discutem-se: -or/dor, como sufixo de uma face só -ivo introduzido como argumento; ão/são, -dade/idade como sufixos de duas faces; ɛl/vel, sufixos diferentes com propriedades fonológicas em distribuição complementar. O ciclo fonológico tem o seu lugar. Outros sufixos são chamados como argumento. A análise situa-se na morfofonologia com ênfase na fonologia, isto é, no processo derivacional em que regras fonológicas operam. A base da derivação é o particípio passado ou o tema verbal. E os sufixos são caracterizados em termos de localidade, lugar de inserção na palavra. O ciclo fonológico também tem o seu lugar. A análise fundamenta-se na teoria autossegmental e no modelo de derivação sincrônica. Todos os sufixos em estudo estão presentes na gramática sincrônica. O que se apresenta neste estudo é um novo olhar sobre eles.

Phonetically natural rules benefit from a learning bias: a re-examination of vowel harmony and disharmony

Substance-based phonological theories predict that a preference for phonetically natural rules (those which reflect constraints on speech production and perception) is encoded in synchronic grammars, and translates into learning biases. Some previous work has shown evidence for such biases, but methodological concerns with these studies mean that the question warrants further investigation. We revisit this issue by focusing on the learning of palatal vowel harmony (phonetically natural) compared to disharmony (phonetically unnatural). In addition, we investigate the role of memory consolidation during sleep on rule learning. We use an artificial language learning paradigm with two test phases separated by twelve hours. We observe a robust effect of phonetic naturalness: vowel harmony is learned better than vowel disharmony. For both rules, performance remains stable after twelve hours, regardless of the presence or absence of sleep.

두 특수구문에 나타난 ‘도’와 ‘야’의 의미·화용 비교 : 두 특수구문 ‘Wh+都/也+VP’ ‘(連)+NP+也/都+VP’을 중심으로

This paper attemps to compare the essential semantic and pragmatic nature of Chinese adverb ‘dou’ and ‘ye’ in the two same construction, ‘wh+dou/ye+VP’ and ‘(lian)+NP+dou/ye+VP’. In this paper, we most interested in why the ‘dou’ and ‘ye’ have the same meaning in the two constructions, because they were classified as different sub-categories of adverbs in traditional grammar. We regard the synchronic grammar is the result of a diachronic grammar exchange based on the Grammaticalization theory. Also, we regard the different construction have the same logical form result from they have a different semantic and pragmatic reason. So, we attempt to compare the semantic pragmatic feature of ‘dou’ and ‘ye’ in that two constructions and the construction themselves. In this paper, we deal with the following three problems. First, based on the grammaticalization theory that all grammatical components have an organic relationship with each other, we analyze the grammaticalization process of ‘dou’ and ‘ye’, mainly looked at what kind of organic relations they have, how they have exchanged, and what their mechanisms are. Second, we analysis the semantic functions of the other constituents including the two special constructions, in particular, the interrogative pronoun (Wh-phrase) and the ‘one(一)+Cl+N’ constituting the two constructions, mainly looked at what kind of organic relationship they have with other constituents. Third, we found that ‘dou’ and ‘ye’ denote the different frequency of the use in the affirmative sentence and a negative sentence, mainly discuss syntactic semantic pragmatic environment which they appear. And compare the feature of the two constructions, make clear the common and different feature between them.

Gemination and segmental patterns with reference to Sanskrit and Assamese: An OT account

This paper addresses the issue of segmental distribution and patterns with reference to the gemination processes in Sanskrit and Assamese within an Optimality theoretic model (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Segmental properties inherent in a segment and cross-linguistic well formedness conditions play a significant role in triggering gemination. The underlying liquids and approximants /j/, /r/, /l/, and /w/ trigger gemination of the preceding obstruents in Assamese. However, what has been conspicuously observed in synchronic Assamese grammar is that, in the surface forms, /j/ gets dropped in gemination and a process of metathesis occurs in the form of an insertion of a vowel before the geminates. The process is analyzed in an Optimality theoretic model and I have proposed the ranking *CCG>>MAX C>> Linearity to represent the phenomenon. However, we need one more markedness constraint *V[back, round]glides to address the issue of obstruent geminates followed by approximant ‘w’. In such cases ‘w’ gets dropped in the surface form, and we do not get any process of metathesis operating here. Actually, what happens is a consequence of the fact that metathesis is not possible because Assamese does not allow / ɔw / or /Vu/ diphthongs. Hence, I propose that the constraints *V[back, round]glides, *Cw are higher ranked over [Max Round>>Max W] and Linearity.

Synchrony and diachrony in Menominee derivational morphology

This paper identifies two difficulties with treatments of derivation in Algonquian languages. In traditional approaches to grammar, in which the morpheme is seen as a unitary entity, morphemes are understood as minimal units of meaning and/or function. Definitions share an appeal to the morpheme’s indivisibility. In the Algonquianist literature, in contrast, some morphemes (‘components’) can themselves contain other morphemes (which we call ‘formatives’) and they can also be synchronically derived from other components or stems. Drawing data from Menominee, we propose that these difficulties disappear if the formatives are seen as historical rather than synchronic units, while the components are the synchronic morphemes. Formatives bear the hallmarks of historical products of morphologization (phonetic/phonological reduction, semantic bleaching, and increase in grammatical function), and we conclude that they are not part of synchronic grammatical computation. This resolves problems present in traditional and modern theoretical approaches to Algonquian derivation, and has broader ramifications for linguistic theory: in both the structuralist and generativist traditions, synchronic grammar has often been seen as expansive, responsible for generating surface patterns that may instead be products of history. This has been the case in phonology and syntax. The present paper provides a study of the phenomenon in derivational morphology, and suggests that a more modest role for synchronic rules is called for.

The productivity of ‘unnatural’ labial palatalization in Xhosa

Xhosa (Bantu, South Africa) has a pattern of labial palatalization. When the passive suffix /-w-/ is added to a stem ending in a labial, the labial becomes palatal (uku-lum-a → uku-luɲ-w-a). Two main types of analysis have been proposed for this alternation: (i) the ‘phonological analysis’, which states that the alternation is part of speakers' synchronic phonological grammar, and (ii) the ‘lexical analysis’, which states that speakers learn the palatalized passive forms as part of their lexical knowledge. To distinguish between the two hypotheses, we conducted a wug test in which speakers of Xhosa were shown nonce verbs and asked to provide their corresponding passive form. Since the phonological analysis requires there to be a synchronic phonological rule, speakers should passivize nonce forms in the conditioning environment. Under the lexical analysis, however, speakers are predicted not to palatalize nonce forms, since the real-word palatalized passives they produce are simply stored in the lexicon. Our results show a great deal of inter-speaker variation. While some speakers produced palatalized nonce forms nearly 100% of the time, other speakers failed to produce any palatalized nonce forms at all. We argue that labial palatalization may be analyzed in different ways by different speakers.

Referential hierarchies: A new look at some historical and typological patterns

AbstractThis paper proposes a diachronic typology for the various patterns that have been referred to as Hierarchical Alignment or Inverse Alignment. Previous typological studies have tried to explain such patterns as grammatical reflections of a universal Referential Hierarchy, in which first person outranks second person outranks third person and humans outrank other animates outrank inanimates. However, our study shows that most of the formal properties of hierarchy-sensitive constructions are essentially predictable from their historical sources. We have identified three sources for hierarchical person marking, three for direction marking, two for obviative case marking, and one for hierarchical constituent ordering. These sources suggest that there is more than one explanation for hierarchical alignment: one is consistent with Givón’s claim that hierarchical patterns are a grammaticalization of generic topicality; another is consistent with DeLancey’s claim that hierarchies reflect the deictic distinction between present (1/2) and distant (3) participants; another is simply a new manifestation of a common asymmetrical pattern, the use of zero marking for third persons. More importantly, the evolution of hierarchical grammatical patterns does not reflect a consistent universal ranking of participants – at least in those cases where we can see (or infer) historical stages in the evolution of these properties, different historical stages appear to reflect different hierarchical rankings of participants, especially first and second person. This leads us to conclude that the diversity of hierarchical patterns is an artifact of grammatical change, and that in general, the presence of hierarchical patterns in synchronic grammars is not somehow conditioned by some more general universal hierarchy.

Person-based split ergativity in Nez Perce is syntactic

Nez Perce is one among many ergative languages that consistently use nominative case, rather than ergative, for 1st and 2nd person transitive subjects. Two major lines of analysis have been proposed for the synchronic grammar of this type of ergative split. Morphological analyses approach the phenomenon as a case of syncretism between ergative and nominative in 1st and 2nd person; all transitive subjects are assigned an identical syntax. Syntactic analyses posit a featural or structural distinction between 3rd person subjects and 1st and 2nd person subjects, or the clauses containing them. On the basis of modification and coordination patterns, I argue that person-based split ergativity in Nez Perce requires a syntactic analysis. Comparison of the Nez Perce data with recent findings by Legate (2014) reveals variation among languages showing person-based split ergativity: some languages require a morphological analysis, and some (like Nez Perce) require a syntactic analysis. A treatment of the syntactic type of person-based split ergativity is proposed, making use of person-sensitive phrase structure as introduced by Bianchi (2006) and Merchant (2006).

The morphome in constructive and abstractive models of morphology

Although the definition and usage of the term ‘morphome’ differs in the academic literature, the original definition of a morphome by Aronoff (1994) is that it is a function which determines the distribution of form within the inflectional paradigm and beyond. More importantly, however, morphomes suppose the existence of what Aronoff terms ‘a morphomic level’ which embodies an empirical claim about the structure of language: ‘the mapping from morphosyntax to phonological realization is not direct but passes through an intermediate level’ (Aronoff in Morphology by itself, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994:25). This is a strong claim concerning all types of morphological exponence. In this article, after an analysis of Aronoff’s model of morphology, I draw upon the distinction which Blevins (J. Linguist. 42:531–573, 2006) makes between constructive and abstractive models of morphology. I note that the introduction of a morphomic level merely constitutes an incorporation of a partial paradigmatic dimension into a constructive model of morphology. With reference to a semantically and phonologically unmotivated distribution of allomorphy in Romance I argue that although the introduction of the morphomic level is beneficial, since it can formalise systematic and ‘psychologically real’ homonymies in synchronic grammars in a way which is not merely coincidental, a constructive morphomic theory of morphology does not present significant advantages over abstractive theories as regards the formalisation of the synchronic facts and presents disadvantages as regards the motivation of diachronic tendencies which this particular distribution of allomorphy shows cross-linguistically. I argue that these historical tendencies support a more paradigmatic theory of morphology inherent in abstractive models, which consider the word as the basic unit of analysis and word formation a matter of analogical deduction based on the predictable capacity of stored exemplar paradigms and principal parts.

Spanish Rhotics: More Evidence of Gradience in the System

The present study examines the nature of the Spanish rhotics experimentally, investigating the possibilities that the trill is best understood as deriving from an underlying geminate or that the tap and trill may be separate phonemes. In order to explore these two theories, a behavioral task was designed exploiting the absence of native words in Spanish containing a final trill onset that carry antepenultimate stress. The geminate view of Spanish rhotics argues that this pattern is absent because it is prohibited by the synchronic phonological grammar, while two-phoneme approaches consider it a diachronic gap. A nonword naming task tested the representation of this nonextant word shape by comparing trisyllabic nonce forms containing trills to other controlled sequences in theoretically banned (antepenultimate) and permitted (penultimate) stress conditions. The results of the experiment are interpreted as evidence against a geminate analysis of Spanish taps and trills. The data also suggest gradience in phonemic categorization and are considered within an emergent conception of the lexicon.

Rethinking the ‘duplication problem’

This paper reviews arguments regarding the ‘duplication problem’ (DP) in phonology, which is the observation that in many languages a productive alternation coexists with a related static generalization about underlying forms. The DP has been of particular relevance to phonological theory in the era of Optimality Theory (OT) because it has been claimed that derivational models of phonology suffer from the DP while OT with Richness of the Base (OT-ROTB) does not. In this paper, it is argued that there is no DP. An understanding of the diachronic origins of alternations and lexical patterns explains the frequent cooccurrence of the two types of patterns, such that the relation between the two does not necessarily have to be formally captured in the synchronic grammar. A model in which alternations and generalizations about roots are not driven by a single constraint in the grammar is argued to make more accurate empirical predictions than OT-ROTB.

Optimality theory and historical phonology: an example from nasal harmony in Mundurukú

This paper offers an account of diachronic changes in nasal harmony in Mundurukú, a Tupian language from Brazil. It attempts to show that the Optimality Theory provides new ways of accounting for sound change, other than constraint re-ranking. A comparison of Mundurukú and Kuruaya's modern systems points out that the source system, Proto-Mundurukú, had similar properties to those currently observed in Kuruaya. In particular, nasal spread targets were voiced stops and sonorants, whereas voiceless obstruents were transparent. This system was developed into another in Pre-Mundurukú, because new contrasts were introduced in the language, turning obstruents into opaque segments, thus blocking nasalization. Formal OT account of both cases relies on restricting harmony constraints, as shown by the relative chronology that gave rise to Mundurukú's modern system. In addition, this study discusses the consequences of this change to synchronic grammar, and how it explains the process' irregularities.

Latin Rhotacism: A Case Study in the Life cycle of Phonological Processes

AbstractRhotacism in Latin is a well‐known phonological generalisation which, in its paradigm cases, can be stated as a regular sound change of [s] to [r] between vowels. This change/rule is posited on the basis both of comparative evidence, e.g. *swesor > Latin soror‘sister’, and of paradigms in which final s alternates with medial intervocalic r, e.g. flos, floris‘flower’. It is possible, however, to cite a number of exceptions to the basic rule which, if one attempts to account for all of them in a synchronic grammar, amount to outright paradoxes. This paper presents a diachronic model of the progress of rhotacism through the expected life cycle of a phonological process, within the formalism of Stratal Optimality Theory, and demonstrates that this model can account for the exceptions to rhotacism as epiphenomena of the expected progress of the constraint ranking giving rise to it from phrase to word level, and from word to stem level. Finally, I argue that rhotacism became a systematic property of the lexicon, at which point it was subject to analogical extension, giving the paradigm levelling observed in e.g. honor, honoris‘honour’ (formerly honos, honoris).

Typologizing grammatical complexities

An important theme in work attempting to situate creoles with respect to non-creoles typologically is the extent to which it can be said that creole grammars are relatively simple from a cross-linguistic perspective. Work arguing for and against this position has generally focused on an examination of the synchronic grammars of creoles in order to show that they are either simple or complex in one way or another. By contrast, there has not been a detailed examination of two important related questions: How can we typologize grammatical complexities themselves? And, once we have typologized them, will we find that different types of complexities are affected differently during creolization? This paper examines these questions and proposes that distinguishing between complexities derived from paradigmatic structure as opposed to syntagmatic structure may yield important insights into apparent patterns of simplicity within creoles, in particular with respect to which complexities we might expect to be readily transferred from source languages into an emerging creole.