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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements …………………………………………….………………. 1
Campus Map …………………….………………………………...………….... 2
Program …………………………………………..….…………………………. 3
Invited Speakers and Invited Student Abstracts ……………………………...7
Paper Abstracts …………………………………………………...……………14
Transportation ………………………………………………………………...138
Photocopying and Printing ……………………………...……………….…...140
Where to East ………………………………………………………………….142
Other Local Information ……………………………………………………...144
Participant List ………………………………….………………...………...…147
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to express our gratitude to the following sponsors for their
generous support of LSRL 41:
Conseil de recherches en science humaines du Canada/Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (CRSH/SSHRC)
Research Management Services, University of Ottawa
Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa,
Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa
Special thanks to Antoni Lewkowicz, Dean and Lucie Hotte, Associate
Dean, Research, Faculty of Arts, for their sponsorship of LSRL 41.
The help of Jeanne-D’Arc Turpin, Administrative Assistant, Department of
Linguistics, was invaluable in all matters organizational.
LSRL would not have been possible without the energy, dedication and hard
work of the student members of the LSRL Organizing committee: Lorenzo
Patino, Mélissa Chiasson and Yukiko Yoshizumi. We are also grateful to the
many student volunteers who graciously gave of their time to ensure the
success of the conference: Isabelle Benoit, Christie Brien, Stephanie Cherry,
Karine Cyr, Karine Groulx, Laura Kastronic, Julien Léger, Richard Léger,
Martine Leroux, Claire O’Brien, Joe Roy, Ariane Séguin, Keren Tonciulescu
and Lia Walsh.
Finally, we would like to thank our plenary speakers, parasession conveners,
presenters, anonymous referees, and all our delegates for their contributions
to the success of LSRL 41.
We wish you an instructive and enjoyable conference!
~LSRL 41 Organizing Committee
Marie-Hélène Côté, Eric Mathieu, Shana Poplack
1
CAMPUS MAP
Rytec Printing
Rideau Centre
Parliament Hill
TABARET
Photocopying: Level 1
ATM: Level 1
OC Transpo
(Laurier 1A):
Toward Airport &
VIA Rail Station
Laurier Office Mart
Merriam Printing
ART
Registration, Breakfast, and Breaks:
Room 256
DESMARAIS
Welcome Reception:
(Room12102)
※ART 256 is accessible directly from
Simard 221, 222 and 224.
SIMARD
Sessions:
Room 221, 222, 224
Photocopying: Level 0
MORRISSET
Photocopying: in the library
UNIVERSITY CENTRE (UCU)
Banquet: Jazzy Restaurant (107)
ATM: Level 0 & 1
Pivik (bus ticket): Level 0
2
3
6:00-9:00
4:00-5:30
3:30-4:00
Reception (Desmarais 12102)
Mihaela Pirvulescu, Ana Perez-Leroux,
Nelleke Strik & Yves Roberge (U Toronto)
Pousse-le! Clitic production across tasks in
young French-speaking children
Ruth Lopes (U Campinas, Brazil) How children
distribute: The acquisition of the universal
quantifier in Brazilian Portuguese
João Costa & Maria Lobo
(U Nova de Lisboa) Assessing children’s
knowledge of null objects in European
Portuguese
PARASESSION 2 (Simard 224)
(Chair: William Snyder)
Break (Art 256)
John Lipski (Pennsylvania State U) Colliding
vowel systems in Andean Spanish: carryovers
and emergent properties
Daniel Scarpace (U Illinois, UrbanaChampaign) Is the hiatus/diphthong contrast in
Peninsular Spanish a product of domain-initial
strengthening?
Lena Baunaz & Genoveva Puskas (U Genève)
The syntax of French mood
Sonia Colina & Miquel Simonet (U Arizona)
Vocalization in Galician plural clusters: an
acoustic study
INVITED STUDENT: Bethany MacLeod (U
Toronto) The effect of perceptual salience on
cross-dialectal phonetic convergence in Spanish
Marc Authier (Penn State U) French modal
ellipsis and topicalization: Two sides of the same
coin
Ion Tudor Giurgea & Eva-Maria Remberger
(Universität Konstanz, Institutul de Lingvistică
Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti, Bucharest) Polarity
fronting in Romanian and Sardinian
PHONOLOGY 1 (Simard 222)
(Chair: Tobias Scheer)
Martine Leroux (U Ottawa) All or nothing?
How French null subjects travelled through time
SYNTAX 2 (Simard 221)
(Chair: Lisa Reed)
Carolina Petersen (U São Paulo/U Maryland)
Tense agreement and obviation effects in
Romance
Roberto Mayoral Hernandez & Asier Alcazar
(U Alabama, Birmingham; U Missouri,
Columbia) Analyzing weight effects on subject
position in Spanish
Ion Tudor Giurgea (U Konstanz/Institutul de
Lingvistică Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti, Bucharest)
How can a bare quantifier be a ‘topic’
Will Dalton (U Ottawa) Can non-native
allophones be acquired?: Evidence from the L2
acquisition of Québec French
Colleen Balukas & Amelia Dietrich (Penn State
U) A corpus study of usage frequencies in
Spanish complement-taking verbs
Nicolas Guilliot & Magda Oiry (U Nantes,
UMass-Amherst) Some questions (and answers)
about cleft sentences
Rafael Nuñez-Cedeño (U Illinois-Chicago) The
acquisition order of complex onsets in Spanish
SOCIOLINGUISTICS 1 (Simard 222)
(Chair: Stephen Levey)
(Chair: Yves Roberge)
(Chair: Tania Zamuner)
Opening remarks (Simard 224)
1:45-2:00
2:00-3:30
Registration (Art 256)
1:00-1:45
Thursday, May 5, 2011
PROGRAM
Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 41
University of Ottawa
5-7 May 2011
4
3:00-3:30
1:30-3:00
12:00-1:30
Mihaela Marchis (Hamburg U) Defective
intervention in clitic doubling and Agree
constructions
María Cristina Cuervo & Natalia Mazzaro
(U Toronto) Preverbal multiple negation as
negative doubling in Spanish
Danielle Thomas (U Toronto) A Processing
Account of Cross-Language Influence in Late
(L2) Bilingualism
Amelia J. Dietrich & Paola Dussias (Penn State
U) The role of L1 Spanish verbal information on
L2 English syntactic processing
Break (Art 256)
Roberta D’Alessandro (Leiden U) Agreement
mismatch phenomena: A new typology for
Romance
(Chair: Christina Tortora)
Gianina Iordachioaia & Elena Soare (U
Stuttgart, U Paris 8) The syntax-semantics of
pluractionality: An insight from the Romanian
supine
Joyce Bruhn de Garavito (U Western Ontario)
L2 knowledge of gender and number agreement
in ellipsis constructions
(Chair: Laura Sabourin)
Lunch (on your own)
Nuria Sagarra, Aroline Hanson Seibert,
Jacqueline Gauthier & Caroline Hauser
(Penn State U) Processing L2 word order:
Universal, capacity-based, or transfer, is it?
Rosa Guzzardo-Tamargo, Paola Dussias, Chip
Gerfen, Christine Theberge, Jorge Valdés
Kroff & Jason Gullifer (Penn State U) Linking
comprehension costs to production patterns:
Spanish-English auxiliary phrase codeswitches
Patricia Andueza & Javier Gutierrez-Rexach
(Ohio State U) Embedding Spanish exclamatives
Jorge Valdés Kroff, Paola Dussias, Chip
Gerfen, Rosa Guzzardo Tamargo, Jason
Gullifer & Donna Coffman (Penn State U)
Using experimental methods to investigate
Spanish-English code-switching: Eye-tracking as
a window into on-line comprehension
Cristina Sánchez (U Complutense de Madrid /
Harvard U) Proportional determiners phrases in
Romance
(Chair: Ángel Gallego)
Sonia Balasch (U New Mexico) Does Spanish
differential object marking have a social
dimension?
Benjamin Millard & Deryle Lonsdale
(Brigham Young U) Developing French
sentences for use in French oral proficiency
testing
Anne-José Villeneuve (Indiana U) A minority
language leaving its trace in French: the
influence of Picard on Vimeu French
SOCIOLINGUISTICS 2 (Simard 222)
(Chair: Allison Lealess)
Laura Colantoni & Alexei Kochetov (U
Toronto) Weakening and assimilation: An
electropalatographic study of coda /s/ in
Argentine Spanish
Simona Sunara (U Toronto) Lenition in French
intervocalic stops: some preliminary
characteristics
Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza (Ohio State U)
Sibilant voicing assimilation in Spanish as
gestural blending
(Chair: Marc Brunelle)
Break (Art 256)
10:00-10:30
(Chair: Juana Liceras)
PLENARY (Simard 224): Tobias Scheer (U Nice-Sophia Antipolis) Branching onsets in the light of diachronic lenition in French and Sardinian
metathesis
9:00-10:00
10:30-12:00
Breakfast (Art 256)
8:30-9:00
Friday, May 6, 2011
5
Banquet (Jazzy, University Center 107)
7:00-10:00
Irina Marinescu (U Toronto) Cross-dialectal
differences between vowels in Cuban and
Peninsular Spanish
Michael L. Mazzola (Northern Illinois U) Schwa
at the phonology/syntax interface
Carolina Gonzalez (Florida State U) Prevocalic
fronting in Chilean and Proto-Romance
(Chair: Bethany MacLeod)
PLENARY (Simard 224): Rena Torres Cacoullos (Penn State University) Are Spanish exprressed and English stressed subject pronouns equivalent?
Jelena Runic (U Connecticut) PCC repairs in
Romance: Feature hierarchy and late insertion
Anna Gavarró & Xavier Parramon (U
Autònoma de Barcelona) The acquisition of
Catalan passives and the adjectival
interpretation
Maria Biezma (UMass, Amherst) Conditional
inversion and pragmatic presupposition: Spanish
and English
Anamaria Falaus (U Basque Country/HiTT)
Obligatory (but restricted) freedom of choice
Monica-Alexandrina Irimia (U Toronto)
Variation in resultative secondary predicates
(Chair: Roberta D’Alessandro)
Patrícia Amaral & Fabio Del Prete (U
Liverpool, U Milan) On truth persistence
SEMANTICS 1 (Simard 224)
(Chair: Keren Tonciulescu)
5:15-6:15
3:30-5:00
6
(Chair: Elena Valenzuela)
1:30-3:00
PLENARY (Simard 224): Yves Roberge (University of Toronto) Object omission in L1: incorporation and separation
Closing remarks (Simard 224)
3:30-4:30
4:30
Javier Gutierrez-Rexach & Melvin GonzalesRivera (Ohio State U, College of Wooster)
Degree quantification and scope in Puerto Rican
Spanish
Pilar Chamorro (Ohio State U) What does the
construction tener+past participle mean in
Galician Spanish?
Lisa Reed (Penn State U) Control can’t be a
fact
SEMANTICS 2 (Simard 222)
(Chair: Heather Burnett)
Break (Art 256)
Ángel Gallego (U Autònoma de Barcelona)
Prepositional verbs in Romance
Christina Tortora (CUNY) On the relation
between functional architecture and patterns of
change in Romance clitic syntax
María Cristina Cuervo (U Toronto) An
argument struture alternation among
unaccusative verbs
(Chair: Michael Barrie)
Francesc Torres-Tamarit (U Autònoma de
Barcelona) The right path towards
underapplication in Harmonic Serialism:
Evidence from glide strengthening in Spanish
Maria Cabrera-Callís (U Barcelona)
Morphologically conditioned intervocalic
rhotacism in Algherese Catalan: An account
with lexically indexed constraints
Valeria Bandecchi (U College Dublin) The shift
in auxiliary selection of Italian manner-ofmotion verbs: is it due to the lexical properties
of the prepositions?
Manuel Delicado-Cantero & Melvin
Gonzalez-Rivera (Australian National U,
College of Wooster) Binominal DPs and
specificity in Spanish
Fernando Martínez-Gil (Ohio State U) A
Stratal OT account of lax mid-vowel reduction in
Galician
Julio Villa-García (U Connecticut) On the
Spanish clausal left edge – in defense of a
TopicP account of recomplementation
(Chair: Sonia Colina)
3:00-3:30
Ana de Prada Pérez & Diego Pascual y Cabo
(U Florida) Invariable gusta in the Spanish of
Heritage Speakers in the US
Lisa Hsin (John Hopkins U) Accelerated
acquisition in English-Spanish bilinguals: the
Structural Transfer Hypothesis
Alejandro Cuza, Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux &
Liliana Sanchez (Purdue U, U Toronto, Rutgers
U) The role of semantic transfer in clitic drop
among Chinese L1-Spanish L2 bilinguals
Lunch (on your own); Business meeting
12:00-1:30
Mary A. Kato (U Campinas, Brazil) The role of
the copula in the diachronic development of
focus constructions in Portuguese
Sandrine Tailleur (U Toronto) Historical and
crosslinguistic perspectives on a French
intertogative variant: WH+complementizer
Michelle Troberg, Heather Burnett &
Mireille Tremblay (U Toronto, UCLA, U
Montréal) On the non-uniformity of secondary
predication: Evidence from the history of French
(Chair: Marc Authier)
Break (Art 256)
10:00-10:30
DIACHRONY 1 (Simard 224)
(Chair: Alexandra Hänsch)
PLENARY (Simard 224): William Snyder (University of Connecticut) Children as deterministic learners: Evidence from Romance
9:00-10:00
10:30-12:00
Breakfast (Art 256)
8:30-9:00
Saturday, May 7, 2011
INVITED SPEAKERS ABSTRACTS
Object omission in L1: incorporation and separation
Yves Roberge (University of Toronto)
Early child language is characterized in part by constrained patterns of omissions of arguments
(e.g. Mets Ø dedans. ‘Put in.’; Grégoire 1;11). We use the direct object omission stage observed
in the acquisition of numerous languages as a window into the initial representation and
development of syntactic categories and argument structure in clauses. Experimental results
involving French and English are presented. The two languages develop essentially along the
same continuum; however, the object omission stage remains for a longer period in French.
There is a debate in the literature as to whether or not non-target object omission constructions in
L1 production involve a syntactically projected null object. Our results point to the intriguing
possibility that both views are essentially correct. A dual analysis is presented based on recent
analyses of pronominal clitics (Mavrogiorgos 2006; Roberts 2007, 2009) in combination with
Hale & Keyser’s (2002) influential analysis of unergative (intransitive) verbs.
7
Branching onsets in the light of diachronic lenition in French and Sardinian metathesis
Tobias Scheer (Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis)
The purpose of this talk is to adduce evidence for the existence of an empty nucleus between the
two members of muta cum liquida clusters. Three sets of data are examined: 1) the lenition of
Latin branching Onsets in Gallo-Romance (French, Occitan, Franco-Provençal), 2) a particular
case thereof, i.e. the compensatory lengthening of r in lat. tr,dr > rr in French (petra > pierre,
quadratu > carré) and 3) the metathesis found in Tertenìa Sardinian (point 211 Contini 1987).
1. Lenition of Latin branching Onsets in Gallo-Romance (French, Occitan, Franco-Provençal)
(joint work with Guylaine Brun-Trigaud)
Coda Mirror theory (Ségéral & Scheer 2001, 2005, 2008) makes predictions regarding the
lenition consonants in all positions, except for branching onsets (i.e. obstruent-liquid clusters,
henceforth TR). In the same theory, the representation of TR clusters is also non-local in the
syntactic sense (Relativized Minimality Rizzi 1990).
There is thus reason to modify the treatment of TR clusters in this particular theory, and this is
done in the presentation according to the principles of locality: two objects of the same kind
(onsets and nuclei in our case) may not contract a relationship over another object of the same
kind. We show that this move makes a precise prediction regarding TR clusters: positional
conditions being equal, all consonants involved in TR clusters behave exactly like if they
occurred without an adjacent consonant.
In other words: for any consonant of a TR cluster, the other consonant behaves as if it were not
there. This appears to be true for the evolution of obstruents from Latin to French: 1) intervocalic
position V__V capra (> chèvre) = ripa (> rive), petra (> pierre) = vita (> vie); 2) strong position
{#,C}__ pruna = porta, tres = tela, comprend(e)re = talpa, capistru = cantare.
We show that this equivalence also holds true for a number of other cases where the behaviour of
TR clusters in regard of lenition is documented (Celtic, Gorgia Toscana). Finally, we use the
dialects of the ALF (Atlas Linguistique de la France) as a testing ground for our hypothesis.
Given dialectal variation, the prediction is that whatever the treatment of TR clusters and
consonants in isolation in a particular system, all dialects will produce the same result for the
same consonant when involved in a TR cluster and when occurring in isolation. That is,
isoglosses of, say, p in ripa and p in capra coincide. This turns out to be by and large true.
2. Compensatory lengthening tr,dr > rr
In intervocalilc position, (primary and secondary) tr,dr produces either simplex r or geminated rr
in (Old) French: compare petra > ofr. pierre, quadratu > ofr. carré with matre > ofr. mere,
crēd(e)re > ofr. creire (>croire). Based on an observation by Fouché (1966-73:719ff), the
following conditioning is identified: singleton r occurs if the preceding vowel was stressed in
gallo-romance (irrespectively of its length in Latin), while geminate rr is observed in case the
preceding vowel was unstressed. Good illustration comes from the variation that is observed in
ofr. for a given root in different verbal forms.
tonic V__ > r
*riid(e)re
3sg it(e)rat
creed(e)re
occiid(e)re
buut(y)ru
afr. rire
afr. eire
afr. creire
afr. ocire
afr. bure
non-tonicV__ > rr
fut.3sg *riid(e)rát
it(e)raare
fut.3sg *creed(e)rát
fut.3sg *occiid(e)rát
*buut(y)raare
*buut(y)rariu
8
afr. rirra
afr. errer
afr. crerra
afr. ocirra
afr. burrer
afr. burrier
Since stress has been transformed into length in Gallo-Romance, the generalization is that
gemination is prohibited after a long vowel: *VVCx.CxV. In other words, super-heavy rhymes
are illegal. This ties in with the contrast that is generally observed for the evolution of stressed
vowels in open and closed syllables: length is prohibited in the latter. The argument for the
existence of an empty nucleus in the midst of tr,dr comes from the fact that the gemination, in
case it occurs, is a compensatory lengthening on the position that was vacated by the lenition of
the t,d: while having been the first member of a branching onset originally, this position has
become a coda after the muta cum liquida was destroyed. It is shown that this change of status
(frist member of a branching onset > coda) is automatic if the muta cum liquida is hosts an empty
nucleus in the first place. It is difficult to represent with traditional representations where the
muta cum liquida is literally a branching onset.
3. Metathesis in Tertenìa Sardinian (work by Rosangela Lai)
Tertenìa Sardinian features a metathesis of word-internal r that is involved in a cluster. This
process is triggered when the preceding word is consonant-final.
/sɔi dɔrmɛndu/
[sɔi ɔr'mɛndu]
I am sleeping
/sɛs dɔrmɛndu/
['sɛzi ɔr'mɛndu]
you are sleeping
['sɛr ðrɔm'mɛndu]
The two forms of the 2nd person sg. are in free variation: either the final empty nucleus of the
/sɛs/ is vocalized by way of epenthesis (the following /d/ is then in intervocalic position and
deletes), or metathesis occurs and creates a branching onset with the /d/, which is in strong postconsonantal position and survives. The analysis presented argues that the illegal situation that
triggers either solution (epenthesis or metathesis) is the existence of a sequence of two empty
nuclei: /sesø1 dø2ɔrmɛndu/. In case ø1 is filled, there is no trouble anymore. In case it is not, the r
moves to the left and creates a muta cum liquida cluster that circumscribes ø2. The situation is
more intricate than what can be shown here (lexically, and also regarding the conditions on
starting and landing sites of metathesized r): it is presented during the talk.
References
Contini, Michele 1987. Etude de géographie phonétique et de phonétique instrumentale du sarde.
2 vols. Alessandria: dell'Orso.
Fouché, Pierre 1966-1973. Phonétique historique du français. Trois vols. Paris: Klincksieck.
Rizzi, Luigi 1990. Relativized Minimality. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 16. Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press.
Ségéral, Philippe & Tobias Scheer 2001. La Coda-Miroir. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique
de Paris 96: 107-152.
Ségéral, Philippe & Tobias Scheer 2005. What lenition and fortition tells us about GalloRomance Muta cum Liquida. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003, edited by
Twan Geerts, Ivo van Ginneken & Haike Jacobs, 235-267. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ségéral, Philippe & Tobias Scheer 2008. The Coda Mirror, stress and positional parameters.
Lenition and Fortition, edited by Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho, Tobias Scheer & Philippe
Ségéral, 483-518. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
9
Children as deterministic learners: Evidence from Romance
William Snyder (University of Connecticut)
Children’s acquisition of Romance languages provides some of the most striking evidence for
the following three generalizations: (i) Young children's spontaneous speech contains only a tiny
subset of the logically possible syntactic errors; (ii) the vast majority of attested errors involve
omission, not “co-mission”; and (iii) the few types of co-mission errors that do occur are
remarkably consistent across children.
This general pattern, which I have termed “grammatical conservatism” (GC), demands an
explanation. I will argue that children are “deterministic learners” of syntax, in the sense that
they never backtrack. In other words, the child reserves judgment, and begins making productive
use of a new syntactic structure only when she is confident she has identified the adults’
(abstract) grammatical basis for it. That this is even possible has profound implications both for
the mechanisms of child language acquisition, and for the nature of syntactic knowledge.
10
Are Spanish expressed and English stressed subject pronouns equivalent?
Rena Torres Cacoullos (The Pennsylvania State University)
Is it true that "Spanish person marking corresponds functionally to English unstressed pronouns
while Spanish pronouns correspond to English stressed pronouns" (Payne 1997: 43)? We test this
received view through a comparison of Spanish expressed yo and English stressed I, based on
parallel multivariate analyses of 1,000 clauses with first person singular subjects from
conversations recorded in Cali, Colombia, and 2,000 tokens of I from the Santa Barbara Corpus
of Spoken American English. Both are subject to structural priming and lexical effects, but
additional constraints in English are distance from previous mention, turn position, and polarity,
providing evidence for a general contrastive function of English stressed I that is not evident for
Spanish expressed yo.
11
INVITED STUDENT ABSTRACT
The effect of perceptual salience on cross-dialectal phonetic convergence in Spanish
Bethany MacLeod (University of Toronto)
Behavioural alignment has been found to occur in many aspects of human behaviour, including
speech (Chartrand & Bargh 1999). Within speech, choice of lexical item (Garrod & Doherty
1994), speech rate (Giles et al. 1991), pitch and vocal intensity (Goldinger 1998), and acoustic
characteristics of segments (Babel 2009, Nielsen 2008) are all subject to alignment. Research on
phonetic convergence (alignment of the acoustic-phonetic properties of segments) has found that
talkers imitate the phonetic characteristics of the speech of another talker in non-social situations,
such as in rapid shadowing (Goldinger 1998), and in social situations, such as during
conversation (Evans et al. 2010, Pardo 2006). Much of the previous research has focused on
convergence between speakers of the same dialect (and primarily of English); however, the
pattern of phonetic convergence across two dialects may be distinct since it could involve the
perceptual salience of the differences between the dialects. Trudgill (1986) suggests that the
more salient a particular difference is, the more talkers will converge upon it. In contrast, Kim,
Horton & Bradlow (in press) found that the more distinct two talkers’ language backgrounds
were, creating greater language distance between the talkers, the less phonetic convergence
occurred.
The present study investigates phonetic convergence during spontaneous conversation between
speakers of Spanish from Madrid (MS) and Buenos Aires (BAS) in order to determine whether
the extent to which speakers converge depends on the perceptual salience of the particular
dialectal difference upon which they are converging. Six differences between the dialects were
investigated including those predicted to be highly perceptually salient (such as the realization of
orthographic <z>, <ci>, and <ce> as /Ɵ/ by MS speakers and as /s/ by BAS speakers),
moderately salient (such as the apical realization of /s/ in MS and the laminal realization in BAS),
and least salient (such as the presence of the so-called exceptional hiatus (Hualde 1997, 1999) in
the speech of MS speakers, but not BAS speakers) via a map task experiment (Anderson et al.
1991) testing 10 pairs of talkers (one talker from each dialect area). A perception task
functioned as a metric to establish salience of the six dialectal differences for each participant
and a repetition task determined that any lack of convergence would not be the result of an
inability to articulate sounds in the contrasting dialect. All participants performed a sentence
reading task before and immediately after exposure to the contrasting dialect.
Statistical analyses comparing the acoustic data collected in the sentence reading task pre- and
post-conversation suggest that, in general, the more perceptually salient a particular dialectal
difference is, the less the participants converge upon it. In contrast, the less salient differences
showed greater degrees of phonetic convergence, providing support for the effect of language
distance as proposed by Kim, Horton & Bradlow (in press). The negative correlation between
perceptual salience and degree of phonetic convergence was found to be statistically significant.
This study helps clarify issues of perceptual salience in phonetic convergence contributing to our
understanding of second dialect acquisition, and dialect contact and change in multi-dialectal
regions. In addition, it provides the first examination of Spanish in the emerging body of
research on phonetic convergence in spontaneous conversation.
12
References
Babel, M. (2009). Phonetic and social selectivity in speech accommodation. Berkeley, CA,
University of California, Berkeley. PhD: 164.
Chartrand, T. and J. Bargh (1999). "The chameleon effect: the perception-behavior link
and social interaction." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(6): 893-910.
Evans, B. and W. Alshangiti (2010). "Investigating the effects of regional accent background on
phonetic alignment in spontaneous speech. Paper presented at UCL Seminar Series."
Garrod, S. and G. Doherty (1994). "Conversation, co-ordination and convention: an empirical
investigation of how groups establish linguistic conventions." Cognition 53: 181-215.
Giles, H., N. Coupland, et al. (1991). Accommodation theory: Communication, context, and
consequence. In H. Giles, N. Coupland & J. Coupland (eds). . Contexts of
Accommodation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1-68.
Goldinger, S. (1998). "Echoes of Echoes? An Episodic Theory of Lexical Access."
Psychological Review 105(2): 251-279.
Hualde, J. I. (1997). "Spanish /i/ and Related Sounds: An Exercise in Phonemic Analysis."
Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 27(2): 61-79.
Hualde, J. I. (1999). "Patterns in the Lexicon: Hiatus with unstressed high vowels in Spanish."
In J.Gutierrez-Rexach & F.Martinez-Gil (Eds) Advances in Hispanic Linguistics: 182197.
Kim, M., W. Horton, & A. Bradlow (in press). "Phonetic Convergence in Spontaneous
Conversations as a Function of Interlocutor Language Distance."
Nielsen, K. (2008). Word-level and Feature-level Effects in Phonetic Imitation, University of
California, Los Angeles. PhD.
Pardo, J. (2006). "On phonetic convergence during conversational interaction." Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America 119: 2382-2393.
Trudgill, P. (1986). Dialects in Contact. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
13
PAPER ABSTRACTS
On truth persistence
Patrícia Amaral (University of Liverpool) & Fabio Del Prete (University of Milan)
In its most typical uses, the adverb sempre ‘always’ in European Portuguese (EP) and Italian can
be analyzed as involving universal quantification over situations (Q-value), as in the generics
(1a,b). This paper focuses on a different interpretation of sempre in these languages, in which it
does not seem to involve quantification over situations, but it intuitively expresses persistence of
the truth of the proposition it modifies (Truth Persistence-value). This is exemplified by the nongenerics (1c,d). We propose a unified semantic account of both values of sempre in which both
the Q-value and the TP-value express universal quantification over a modal domain: the former
quantifies over situations from the actual course of events and its expected continuations, while
the latter quantifies over epistemic states. We show that the specificity of the epistemic domain
with the TP-value introduces certain contextual restrictions on this interpretation that are shared
by EP and Italian.
(1)
a. Vou sempre ao cinema no domingo à noite. [EP]
Q-value
b. Vado sempre al cinema la domenica sera. [I]
‘I always go to the movies on Sunday night.’
c. Sempre vou ao cinema no domingo à noite. [EP]
TP-value
d. Vado sempre al cinema domenica sera. [I]
‘I am still going to the movies this Sunday night.’
In (1a,b) sempre universally quantifies over situations as shown by the paraphrase ‘every
situation s on a Sunday night is such that I go to the movies in s’ (this reading corresponds to
focus on ao cinema / al cinema). Such quantificational uses of sempre in generics are familiar
from the semantic literature. Less familiar are the prima facie non-quantificational uses attested
in (1c,d): here, the intuitive meaning is that the speaker was planning on going to the movies on a
specific Sunday night and her plan persists to be valid, i.e. by using sempre the speaker conveys
that nothing happened in the meanwhile that could have changed her plan and caused her to not
go to the movies. In more technical terms, sempre in (1c,d) implies that a change of polarity in
the alethic state of the prejacent (the proposition that I am going to the movies this Sunday night)
may have occurred, which can be described as a transition from being True (+) to being False (-)
back to being True (in symbols, <+, -, +>) relative to possibilities entertained by the
conversational participants at different times. On this value sempre is similar to phase adverbs
(Löbner, 1989), which also denote transitions between polarly opposite states.
We frame our account in a situation-based Branching Time (BT) model. In our analysis, the
domain of quantification is what uniquely changes from the Q-value to the TP-value. In (1a,b)
sempre universally quantifies over both situations that have actually occurred and situations that
may occur in the future in light of what conversational participants expect. This domain
corresponds to the following set (‘b’ varies over continuation branches, Alt(sR) contains the
expected continuations of a reference situation sR, ⊆S is temporal inclusion between situations):
(2)
{s: ∃b ∈ Alt(sR) [on-Sunday-night(s) ∧ s ⊆S b]}
In (1c,d) sempre universally quantifies over epistemic states. Any such state is temporally linked
to a situation s which either precedes or coincides with the reference situation sR and which is in a
contextually salient temporal region. The relevant epistemic states must be “about” the prejacent
14
proposition p, in the following sense: relative to any such state σ, p must be either true or false –
equivalently, we say that σ supports p. We model epistemic states as sets of continuation
branches: the epistemic state σ temporally linked to s0 is the set Δ(s0) containing the
continuations of s0 which are compatible with the content of σ. The domain of sempre in (1c,d)
can thus be defined as the following set (≤S is a partial order of temporal precedence between
situations, ℜ is a temporal region that is contextually salient):
(3)
{Δ(s): s ≤S sR ∧ s ⊆S ℜ ∧ support(Δ(s), that I am going to the movies this Sunday night)}
We propose that the domain of sempre is further restricted by an ordering source (as the domain
of modals in standard Kratzerian accounts). For the specific case of the TP-value, we assume that
the ordering source induces an ordering of the epistemic states according to how much ineffective
the Impeding Factor is taken to be. The universal quantification expressed by sempre is thus
restricted to those epistemic states in (3) that are highest ranked according to the ordering source.
We further assume that the felicitous use of the TP-value of sempre is subject to the following
condition (reminiscent of Condoravdi’s 2002 Diversity Condition):
(4)
[Felicity condition for the TP-value] The modal base must contain both epistemic states in
which the prejacent p is true and epistemic states in which p is false.
The idea behind (4) is that if all the epistemic states in the modal base made p true, there would
be no point in giving a confirmation of p through a statement of the form sempre(p). Crucially,
the felicitous use of TP-sempre requires a succession of epistemic states relative to which p has
different truth values.
A central feature of our analysis of the two values of sempre is the idea of persistence: whereas in
the Q-value sempre expresses the persistence of an event type across different situations, in the
TP-value sempre expresses the persistence of the alethic state of a proposition across different
epistemic states.
Finally, we consider a difference between EP and Italian wrt the availability of the TP-value of
sempre. In EP, but not in Italian, TP-sempre is also natural with the past tense, as shown in (5):
(5)
Sempre fui ao cinema no domingo à noite.
‘Actually, I ended up going to the movies on Sunday night.’
In Italian one would rather use the adverbial alla fine ‘in the end’ with the past, as in (6) (with
focal stress on the verb andato ‘gone’):
(6)
Alla fine sono andato al cinema domenica sera.
‘In the end, I did go to the cinema on Sunday night.’
However, we show that sempre and alla fine are not equivalent in meaning: alla fine (and its EP
counterpart afinal) implies a transition from True to False (or from False to True) - in symbols,
<+(-), -(+)>. Basically, alla fine implies a polarity switch. We claim that alla fine and sempre
differ wrt what previous alethic state the emphasis is on: with alla fine emphasis is on the unique
preceding polarly opposite state; with sempre, emphasis is on the previous positive alethic state –
according to the truth persistence implication (also called “confirmative”, cf. Âmbar et al. 2004).
Transition from one alethic state to another is not all that matters to the meaning of these adverbs.
What is crucial in licensing their use in discourse is what type of transition is at issue: if one that
simply reverses the polarity of the speaker’s epistemic state to a new unexpected value (alla fine)
or one that restores its presupposed positive polarity (sempre).
References
Âmbar, M. et al. (2004). Tense, quantification and clause structure in EP and BP. Evidence from
a comparative study on sempre. In R. Bok-Bennema et al. (ed.), Romance languages and
linguistic theory: Selected papers from Going Romance 2002, 1-18.
15
Embedding Spanish exclamatives
Patricia Andueza & Javier Gutierrez Rexach (The Ohio State University)
There are two main streams about the question of exclamative embedability. Some authors
(Grimshaw, 1979; Elliot, 1982; Zanuttini & Portner, 2003) claim that only emotive predicates can
embed exclamatives, and others, (Lahiri, 1991; D’Avis, 2002; Abels, 2005) argue that any kind
of wh-clauses embedded in emotive factives are to be treated as wh-interrogatives. In this paper I
want to show that: (i) factivity is a property of the predicates that embed exclamatives; (ii)
factive/emotive predicates can embed exclamatives because they always select facts and (iii) the
denotation of matrix and embedded exclamative is the same and (iv) not only factives predicates
can embed exclamatives. Elliot (1974) and Grimshaw (1979) claim that complements of a particular semantic type will be
selected by predicates of the same type. The fact that EXCs can be embedded only by factive
predicates, but not by non-factive predicates such as ask or wonder ((1) vs. (2)), proves that
exclamatives themselves are factive. In a similar vein, Zanuttini and Portner (2003) hold that
exclamatives, which have the same denotation as interrogatives, can be embedded by factive
predicates because exclamatives themselves are factive. On the other hand, Lahiri (1991) points
out that wh-clauses embedded in predicates of surprise need not be interpreted as EXCs. D’Avis
(2002) and Abels (2003) claim that the exclamative reading that emerges is the result of
embedding a wh-interrogative clause in an exclamative/surprise predicate. I claim that
exclamatives can be embedded by factive predicates because they always denote facts. More
precisely, they denote a true proposition of which the speaker has de re beliefs (Kratzer 2002). A
speaker utters an exclamative such as (3) in a situation s where s/he can verify that indeed Juan is
tall to a degree that exceeds the speaker’s expectations: for instance, in a situation where the
speaker’s expectation is that Juan is 4’.5 ft., but realizes that in the world of evaluation, Juan is
indeed 6 ft. tall. In that situation by uttering an exclamative such as (3), the speaker is uttering a
true proposition. The speaker needs to have some previous expectations about the descriptive
content elicited in the exclamative, as well as some evidence about the actual fact. In a situation
where the speaker ignores the actual height of Juan, uttering an exclamative would not be
possible.
On the other hand, data from data bases, such as CHILDES and CREA, and from grammatical
judgments tests show that speakers find more natural to embed exclamatives under perception
verbs in the imperative/subjunctive mood, (4)-(5) or under future tense (6)-(7) verbs than under
factive predicates (8)-(10). I claim that this is due to the presuppositional requirements (Simons,
2002) of exclamatives. I state that exclamative sentences are easily felicitous when the
interlocutors share the de re beliefs. The interlocutor needs to have access to the evidence that
triggers the exclamative in order to create her/his own state of information and be able to
accommodate the information encoded by the exclamative utterance. By uttering these embedded
exclamatives the speaker is pointing to the addressee the actual fact that is triggering her/his
surprise and s/he wants to share the evidence with her/his interlocutor.
16
DATA
(1) It is amazing how fool John is
(2) *I don’t know what a fool he is
(3) Es increíble/sorprendente lo alto que es Juan
‘It is incredible/amazing how tall Juan is’
(4) ¡Mira qué flores más bonitas! (CHILDES)
‘Look how beautiful these flowers are, Ana!’
(5) ¡Vaya bonitas que son estas flores! (CHILDES)
‘Wow, these flowers are beautiful!’
(6) ¡Ya verás que cambio tan grande ha dado! (CREA)
‘You will see he has changed a lot!’
(7) ¡Verás qué simpático es!’
‘You will see how nice he is!’
(8) ?Es increíble/sorprendente que tonto es Juan
‘It is incredible/surprising how stupid Juan is’
(9) ?Me sorprende que listo es Juan
‘It surprises me how smart Juan is’
(10) ? Es increíble que listo es Juan
‘It is incredible how smart Juan is’
17
French Modal Ellipsis and Topicalization: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Marc Authier (The Pennsylvania State University)
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how ellipsis sentences like (1) are represented in syntax.
(1) Elle voulait venir me voir, mais elle n’a
pas pu [ ].
she wanted to-come me to-see but she NEG-has not been-able
‘She wanted to come and see me, but she wasn’t able to.’
In the past ten years or so, such sentences have given rise to analyses that mirror those offered to
account for VP ellipsis in English. In discussing Spanish and Italian sentences similar to (1),
Depiante (2001) and Cecchetto and Percus (2006) argue that because the gaps they contain
disallow extraction, they must be cases of null complement anaphora in the sense of Hankamer
and Sag (1976) (i.e., contain silent pro-forms). However, as Dagnac (2010) shows for French,
Spanish and Italian, this proves to be empirically inaccurate. Elliptical sentences like those in (1)
do, in fact, allow syntactic extraction out of the elision site (cf. the ACD configuration in (2)).
(2) Ils m’ont envoyé tout l’argent
qu’ils
ont pu [ ].
they me-have sent
all the-money that-they have been-able
‘They sent me all the money they could.’
Data such as (2) weigh heavily in favor of a PF-deletion approach because they suggest that the
ellipsis site has inner structure and therefore provides an extraction site that would remain
unavailable under a pro-form approach. In this paper, I will first show that French exhibits both
PF-deletion ellipsis and pro-form ellipsis with different classes of verbs and I will make use of
three tests (“missing antecedents”, quantifier scope, and syntactic extraction of various types) to
delineate each class of verbs in as precise a fashion as possible. I will then focus exclusively on
modal ellipsis (= PF deletion) as exemplified by (1) and will explore a novel formulation of its
licensing conditions that takes as a point of departure Johnson’s (2001) proposal that English VPEllipsis should be derived by way of movement and that elided VPs stand in a topic position. I
will show how extending this type of approach to French modal ellipsis appears to correctly
predict (a) the class of French verbs that license modal ellipsis, (b) some novel grammaticality
contrasts involving infinitival forms of these verbs, and (c) the fact that French does not have VPEllipsis and that English does not have modal ellipsis. The gist of my analysis of French modal
ellipsis is that it reduces to topicalization of an infinitival clause with both the head and the tail of
the chain created by Move not being spelled out phonologically (cf. (3)) or with only part of the
head of the chain being spelled out (what Busquets and Denis (2001) name French “PseudoGapping” - cf. (4)).
(3) [PRO aller au
ciné avec elle], [je veux bien [PRO aller au
ciné
avec elle]].
to-go to-the movies with her I want fine
to-go to-the movies with her
(4) [PRO aller au
ciné avec elle], [je veux pas [PRO aller au
ciné
avec elle]].
to-go to-the movies with her I want not
to-go to-the movies with her
French is usually taken to not have English-style topicalization because dislocated NPs are
“clitic-doubled.” There is, however, a notable exception to this general ban: infinitival clauses
18
can appear in a left-dislocated position and be linked directly to a gap, provided that they are
introduced in the complement position of those verbs that license modal ellipsis as (5) illustrates.
(5) a. Elle m’a
dit que fumer
dans les couloirs, on a le droit [ ].
she to-me-has said that to-smoke in the hallways one has the right
b. *Eric dit ne pas aimer le caviar, mais aimer le champagne, il dit [ ].
Eric says NEG not to-like the caviar but to-like the champagne he says
Further, the phenomenon in (5) displays a crucial characteristic of English VP topicalization,
namely that topicalization of a phrase contained in an infinitival is possible only if that phrase can
move out of the infinitival that contains it and find a finite clause to land in (cf. (6a) where the
infinitival, being an adjunct, is an island to extraction).
(6) a. *Paul a téléphoné pour [obtenir son visa plus rapidement, pouvoir [ ]].
Paul has phoned to
to-obtain his visa more quickly
to-be-able
b. Soulever ce sac de ciment tout seul, tu risques pas de pouvoir [ ]!
to-lift this bag of cement all alone you are-likely not of to-be-able
Given my analysis, we therefore correctly predict that French modal ellipsis becomes illicit in
infinitivals that are islands to extraction (cf. 7).
(7) *Arnold a blessé son petit frère sans
vouloir [ ].
Arnold has hurt his little brother without to-want
Finally, we correctly expect French to not have VP ellipsis (since the latter is parasitic on VP
topicalization and VP topicalization is disallowed in French) and English to not license Frenchtype modal ellipsis (since it does not allow topicalization of an infinitival clause complement to a
modal verb taking a clausal complement, as (8) shows).
(8) *[PRO to go to Spain] i, Anne wants t i.
19
Does Spanish differential object marking have a social dimension?
Sonia Balasch (University of New Mexico)
In vernacular oral Spanish, the differential use of a instead of Ø before direct objects (DOs) or
differential object marking (DOM), illustrated in (1), departs from the accounts of numerous
scholars taking a variety of approaches. Thus, contrary to the affirmations of many authors
(Comrie 1979, Laca 2006, among others) definiteness and animacy of the direct object do not
completely determine the use of the a-marker.
(1) nunca había escuchado a Los Beatles, yo vine a escuchar Ø Los Beatles como en el año
setenta y tres (MDB3MB)
‘I had never listened to The Beatles, I started to listen to The Beatles around the year
[nineteen] seventy three’
Scholars have begun to agree that differential object marking “is determined by parameters in a
multi-dimensional space” (von Heusinger and Kaiser 2007:109). Research to date has explored
this complex variation largely via individually selected examples, anecdotal evidence or intuitive
judgments and furthermore, its social patterning has been entirely overlooked (cf. Pensado
1995:18). It is primarily this second gap that the present study aims to fulfill.
Following the variationist perspective (Labov 1969), the present study provides an account of the
patterning of DOM in vernacular oral Spanish with respect to a range of social and linguistic
factors. The analysis of over 700 tokens drawn from 80 sociolinguistic interviews conducted in
Mérida (Venezuela) detects a social class effect such that an increased rate of accusative a is
observed among lawyers, professors, doctors and other college degree professionals. This finding
is contrary to the expectations that a use would be favored by lower social classes given the
diachronic spread of a-marking (Company 2002) and strong prescriptive injunctions on
accusative a. The higher rate of a+DO among professionals noticed in the results may be
attributed to differences in the topic of conversation (traditional celebrations, personal issues,
social concerns, among others), but also to an independent predilection of more educated
speakers for a-marking (cf. Poplack 1997). In terms of the linguistic constraints, the results
indicate that mainly the verb class triggers the use of a+DO. Furthermore, definiteness, form and
the kind of animate DO contribute to explain the behavior of the Spanish DOM.
The present study enhances our understanding of the social factors that constrain the speaker’s
choice between a+DO and Ø+DO in vernacular oral Spanish. In doing so, it aims to demystify
grammatical prescriptions that are still the rule in many classrooms, despite their lack of
relevance to current Spanish usage. The results indicate that DOM in contemporary Spanish not
only has a linguistic explanation, but a social dimension too, which represents a crucial part of its
distribution and behavior.
References
Company Company, Concepción. 2002. Grammaticalization and category weakness. In Ilse
Wishcer and Gabriele Diewald (eds.). New reflections on grammaticalization. 201-15.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
20
Comrie, Bernard. 1979. Definite and animate direct objects: a natural class. Linguistica Silesiana
3.13-21.
von Heusinger, Klaus and George Kaiser. 2007. Differential object marking and the lexical
semantics of verbs in Spanish. In G. A. Kaiser and M. Leonetti (eds.). Proceedings of the
Workshop “Definiteness, Specificity and Animacy in Ibero-Romance Languages”. 85-110.
Arbeitspapier 122. Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft, Universitä Konstanz 2007.
Labov, William. 1969. Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula.
Language 45. 4. 715-62.
Laca, Brenda. 2006. El objeto directo. La marcación preposicional. In Concepción Company
(ed.). Sintaxis histórica del español. Primera parte: La frase verbal. Vol. 1. 423-475. México:
Fondo de Cultura Económica/Universidad Autónoma de México.
Pensado, Carmen. 1995. El complemento directo preposicional: Estado de la cuestión y
bibliografía comentada. In Carmen Pensado (ed.). El complemento directo preposicional. 1159. Madrid: Visor Libros.
Poplack, Shana. 1997. The sociolinguistic dynamics of apparent convergence. In G. Guy, J.
Baugh and D. Schiffrin (eds.). Towards a social science of language. 285-309. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.
21
A Corpus Study of Usage Frequencies in Spanish Complement-taking Verbs
Colleen Balukas & Amelia J. Dietrich (The Pennsylvania State University, University Park)
Verb bias—or the tendency of a verb to appear with a certain type of complement—has been
employed in psycholinguistic literature as a tool to test competing models of sentence processing.
To date, the vast majority of sentence processing research involving verb bias has been
conducted almost exclusively with monolingual speakers, and predominantly with English
speakers. To test the generality of competing theories of sentence comprehension, it is important
to conduct cross-linguistic studies of sentence processing. Given this, it is critical for the field to
develop verb bias estimates from monolingual speakers of languages other than English and from
bilingual populations. We begin to address this issue in a corpus study that examines verb bias in
a subset of Spanish verbs.
Using the Corpus del Español (Davies 2002), we analyzed 722 tokens of ten complement-taking
verbs from 20th century Peninsular Spanish sources and compared our results to the findings
reported in a norming study conducted by Dussias et al. (in press), which focused on Direct
Object (DO) or Sentential Complement (SC) biases, a binary distinction customary to verb bias
literature. For example, the verb decir can optionally take DO or SC complements as seen below:
Direct Object: “…Juan dijo la verdad [DO]…”
Sentential Complement: “…Juan dijo que [C] la verdad duele…”
When a verb appears twice as often with a DO complement as it does with a SC complement, it is
considered to have a DO bias. If the opposite is true, the verb has a SC bias. While seven of the
10 verb biases confirm the findings reported in the Dussias et al. study, three of the verbs
demonstrate different behavior. We suggest that these differences are due to limitations of the
procedure used to gather the Dussias norms. Specifically, the stimuli, which took the pattern of
“Maria contestó _____” with the completion to follow, did not allow for the placement of
indirect object clitics in the sentence completion, discouraging completions with a DO as
opposed to a SC complement. Furthermore, these results suggest that examining completions
other than DO or SC might be useful for further insight into a verb’s preferred complement,
given that for some verbs (e.g., decidir) infinitival complements are actually the most frequent.
Large percentages of other kinds of completions may have consequences for processing, which
remains to be investigated by future experimental data.
In order to establish what factors may be influencing the selection of either a DO or SC across
and within verbs, we examined the effects of the form of the subject and presence or absence of
indirect object using Goldvarb X (Sankoff et al. 2005). We find that the presence of an indirect
object has a statistically significant effect on the selection of a DO completion. Also important is
the trend seen in the form of the subject, where proper nouns appear to behave more like reduced
forms (pronouns and unexpressed) than like the full, definite NPs with which they are usually
grouped. Though proper names are full, lexical forms, they are more likely to be discourse-given.
This finding has implications for Preferred Argument Structure (Du Bois 2003), where the
treatment of proper nouns in considerations of information flow and NP realization has
historically been to leave them aside or treat them like full NPs.
22
References
Davies, Mark. (2002-) Corpus del Español (100 million words, 1200s-1900s). Available online
at http://www.corpusdelespanol.org.
DuBois, John W. 2003. Discourse and grammar. In Michael Tomasello (ed.), The new
psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure,
vol.2, 47-88. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Dussias, Paola E., et. al. 2010. Usage frequencies of complement-taking verbs in Spanish and
English. (in press).
Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S. A., and Smith, E. 2005. Goldvarb X: A multivariate analysis
application
[Computer
program].
Retrieved
31
March
2010
from
http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/Goldvarb/GV_index.htm.
23
The shift in auxiliary selection of Italian manner-of-motion verbs: is it due to the lexical
properties of the verbs or to the lexical properties of the prepositions?
Valeria Bandecchi (University College of Dublin)
In Italian a few manner-of-motion verbs like correre ‘run’, scivolare ‘slide’, rotolare ‘roll’,
display a variable syntactic behaviour: when they express activity without a bounded path, they
select the auxiliary avere, ‘to have’ as in (1), while when they express movement to an end-point
they select the auxiliary essere ‘to be’ (as in (2)).
(1) Maria ha corso per due ore “Mary ran for two hours”
(2) Maria è corsa a casa “Mary ran home”
Two main approaches have been put forth by Folli&Ramchand(2005) and by
Zubizarreta&Oh(2007) to account for examples such as (2). According to
Folli&Ramchand(2005) the goal-telic motion interpretation in verbs like correre depends on the
lexical properties of the verb. The shift in auxiliary selection accompanying the directed motion
interpretation confirms the unaccusative nature of the structures and the argumental status of the
PP. For Zubizarreta&Oh(2007) the presence of auxiliary essere and of a goal denoting argument
in sentence like (2) indicates a structure headed by an empty V. Correre recruits the auxiliary
position designated for restructuring verbs of motion (verbs that have some properties of
functional verbs and some properties of lexical verbs) and modifies the directed motion VP
headed by empty V.
The key difference between the two approaches is the interpretation of Goal, which is the main
concept related to this topic and the cover term for two distinct processes: one at the level of
inner aspect involving the specification of a lexical feature and the other at the level of outer
aspect involving the adjunction of a Prepositional Phrase that independently has an
accomplishment interpretation. Folli&Ramchand(2005) claim that Italian, unlike English, cannot
form complex-eventive VP structures through accomplishment adjunction (which implies an
accomplishment preposition in adjunct position) but it uses a process termed accomplishment
creation, to form complex eventive VP structures with morphologically simple prepositions in
complement position. For Zubizarreta&Oh(2007) only a complement structure gives rise to an
accomplishment reading across languages.
I argue that the complementation structure realizes Accomplishment in Italian manner-of-motion.
Do-so substitution facts and inversion of a locative PP and a path PP show that Path PPs (either
realized by morphologically complex prepositions, or realized by morphologically simple
prepositions) must be complements of the verb and not adjuncts. A complex PP introduced by
fino a has an impact on the aspectual structure of the predicate: phase verbs like smettere di,
‘stop‘, cominciare a ’begin‘, cannot take telic verbs as complements. They can take a predicate
with a directional PP introduced by verso but not one introduced by fino a;
(3) a.Maria cominciò a correre verso casa “Maria started to run towards home “, “Maria started
running towards home”
b. *Maria cominciò a correre fino a casa “Maria started to run home”, “Maria started running
home “
In constructions like in (4) the DP complement of a preposition like dietro cliticizes to the verb.
Assuming that clitics cannot move out of adjuncts, such PP must be a complement.
(4) a.Maria è corsa dietro a lei “Maria ran after her”
b. Maria le è corsa dietro “Maria her ran after”
24
I claim that the PPs play a key role in the realization of Accomplishment and I want to focus on
the Path denoting prepositions such as sotto, ‘under’, avanti ‘forward’, dietro, ’behind’ etc. that
are ambiguous between a locative and a directional reading. The spatial geometry involved might
be one that does not imply a clear bound.
(5)a.La palla è rotolata sotto il tavolo” the ball rolled under the table”, and it stopped there.
b.La palla ha rotolato sotto il tavolo “ the ball rolled under the table”, and it didn’t stop there
But external word knowledge gives (6.b) an implausible interpretation;
(6) a. La palla è rotolata sotto il piede,”the ball rolled under the feet”, and it stopped there
b. *La palla ha rotolato sotto il piede,”the ball rolled under the feet”, and it didn’t stop there
The shift of the auxiliary in “correre verbs” doesn’t correlate automatically with an overt
transparent telos and contextual cues seem to determine the bounded vs unbounded interpretation
of the directional reading involved in PP with Italian manner-of-motion verbs. A controlled
experiment is in order to verify empirically which kind of preposition is used when an Italian
native speaker has to use a manner of motion verb to lexicalise a displacement.
In addition I would like to shed light on the particle via ‘away’ which systematically induces a
directed/ bounded motion reading with “correre verbs” (7) triggering the auxiliary verb essere to
form the past perfect;
(7) E’ corso via/ E’ saltato via/ E’ volato via “It ran away/It jumped away/It flew away”
The particle via illustrates that endpoint telicity is only a particular case of a general phenomenon
of “threshold” telicity (Borer 2005). Borer (2005: 149–154) argues extensively that endpoint is
not an adequate characterization of what the result predicate contributes to resultatives generally.
Rather, endpoint telicity is only a special sub-case of the overall phenomenon, in which any
sufficiently distinct transition can give rise to a telic interpretation, even one which is
intermediate within the event as a whole. “Telicity does not predict co-finality, or, for that matter,
co-initiality. It suffices that there be some sub-part of an event with a property P which is not,
itself, P… If, however, some intermediate point within the event should turn out to be sufficiently
well differentiated from the rest of the event, in involving, specifically, the (sub-)culmination of
some sub-event, we predict the emergence of a telic reading without co-finality” (Borer 2005:
148). Via may function as a direction, path marker and telos indicator: it indicates the change of
position from being here to not being here anymore and lexicalises the intermediate point of the
event (sub-event) of the absence, the state of being away.
References
Borer, H. (2005). Structuring sense, Volume II: The normal course of events. Oxford: OUP
Folli, R. and G. Ramchand. (2005).Prepositions and Results in Italian and English: An Analysis
from Event Decomposition, in H. Verkuyl, H. De Swart, and A. van Hout, eds.,
Perspectives on Aspect, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 81-105
Zubizarreta, M.L. and Oh E. (2007). On the Syntactic Composition of Manner and Motion.
Cambridge: The MIT Press
25
The Syntax of French Mood
Lena Baunaz & Genoveva Puskas (University of Geneva)
Subjunctives are traditionally divided into two kinds, ‘lexically selected’ and polarity
subjunctives (Quer 2009). The group of lexically selected subjunctive complements is not
uniform since both factive and non-factive predicates may select subjunctive. In this paper, we
show that the conditions on subjunctive selection can be unified and we propose that mood
choice is related to the subject's attitude and is linked to emotional/affective state vs cognitive
readings of the predicate. We further show that the extraction facts related to mood choice can be
explained in terms of relativized minimality (RM) (Rizzi 2004).
We investigate a class of so-called "semi-factive" verbs in French, such as comprendre
('understand'), admettre ('admit'), accepter ('accept') which are ambiguous and alternate between
(i) expressing (a) an emotional state or (b) an episodic reading; (ii) licensing (a) NPIs or (b) PPIs
(1,2); (iii) selecting (a) subjunctive or (b) indicative mood.
(1)
Paul n'admet pas que Marie vende/* vend quoi que ce soit
Paul doesn't admit that Marie sells-subj /-* indic anything
Paul n'admet pas que Marie vende / *vend le moindre objet.
Paul doesn't admit that Marie sells-subj /-*indic the slightest thing.
(2)
We adopt Kiparsky&Kiparsky (1970)'s definition of factivity where a factive predicate
presupposes the truth of its complement. We also adopt Giannakidou's (2009:1889) definition of
(non-) veridicality as "a propositional operator F is veridical iff from the truth of Fp we can infer
that p is true according to some individual x (i.e. in some individual x’s epistemic model)". We
show that the (a)-version of these predicates are non-veridical and non-presuppositional. Hence
they appear to be non-factive. However, the (a)-version, which are semantically non-factive,
behave strikingly like the so-called "emotive-factives" (regretter 'regret') (3).
(3)a.
b.
Paul regrette que Marie parte/*part.
Paul regrets that Marie leaves-subj/*leaves-indic
Paul (ne) regrette (pas) que Marie vende quoi que ce soit/le moindre objet.
Paul (doesn't) regret(s) that Marie sell-subj anything/the slightest thing
Indeed, although verbs like regretter are described as strongly veridical (Giannakidou 2009) and
are also termed "factives", we agree with Egré (2008) and show that these predicates are better
analyzed as non-veridical (ex. from Schlenker 2005: (ib), fn.14 ) (4). (4) would be contradictory
if the cognitive factive verb savoir ‘know’ substituted for regretter in (4):
(4)Jean est persuadé qu'il pleut, et il regrette qu'il pleuve. (Mais bien entendu il ne pleut pas!)
Jean is convinced that it rains, and he regrets that it rain-subj. (But of course it doesn't rain!)
Hence so-called emotive factives do not presuppose that their complement is true, although the
subject's emotional/affective state is necessarily involved.
The (b) versions pattern with cognitive factives (savoir 'know') (5), i.e. they are veridical and
presuppositional:
(5)a.
Paul sait que Marie part/*parte.
Paul knows that Marie leaves-indic/*leave-subj
b. * Paul ne sait pas que Marie vend quoi que ce soit/la moindre chose.
Paul doesn't know that Marie *sells-indic anything/the slightest thing
They trigger episodic readings of the event denoted by the complement, abstracting away from
the subject's emotional/affective state. We can test this with adverbs:
(6) Paul comprend très vite/soudain que Marie est/*soit partie.
(episodic reading)
Paul understands very quickly/suddenly that Marie is-indic/*is-subj left
26
(7) Paul admet petit-à-petit que Marie puisse partir/ * peut partir.
Paul admits gradually that Marie can-subj/*can-indic go
(non-episodic reading)
We also observe that the clauses under the (a)-type predicates allow for wh-extraction (whfronting, wh-clefts) more freely than the clauses under the (b)-type (8).
(8)a.
b.
C'est quel tableau que Paul admet que Marie vende/*vend?
It is which picture that Paul admits that Marie sell-subj /*sell-indic
Quel tableau est-ce que Paul admet que Marie vende/*vend?
Which picture does Paul admit that Marie sell-subj/ *sell-indic
In order to account for the phenomenon, we assume feature composition along the lines of Starke
(2001) where the features are organized hierarchically. In our case, quantificational features come
in (at least) two flavors: bare (-presuppositional) or presuppositional. They are hierarchically
ordered so that Q contains Qpresupp but the reverse is not true. Given RM, we expect intervention
effects to show up.
To account for the correlation between presupposional complement and extraction facts, we
adopt Manzini and Savoia 2003, Roussou (2010)'s idea that the complementizer system is
nominal. In the cases of the (b)-version of our verbs, the complementizer que is
[+presuppositional] hence heavy in our feature composition. Therefore, wh-extraction is difficult
or even ungrammatical. In the (a)-versions, the complementizer que is bare. This is lighter is our
feature composition. Hence extraction of some wh-phrases is possible (see 8).
Given our analysis, we predict that verbs like savoir will exhibit the same restrictions in terms
of extractions as the verbs in the indicative form in (8), while verbs like regretter behave like the
verbs in subjunctive form in (8). This is verified:
(9)a. *C'est quel tableau que Paul sait que Marie vend?
It is which picture that Paul knows that Marie sells-indic
*Quel tableau est-ce que Paul sait que Marie vend?
Which picture does Paul know that Marie sell-indic
(10)a. C'est quel tableau que Paul regrette que Marie vende?
It is which picture that Paul regrets that Marie sell-subj
b. Quel tableau est-ce que Paul regrette que Marie vende?
Which picture does Paul regret that Marie sell-subj
b.
Finally, we consider the case of verbs like dire, selecting indicative mood and préférer
('prefer'), which selects subjunctive mood, but which are both non-presuppositional. Note that
préferer involves emotion, while dire involves cognition; mood choice is associated with this
distinction. It turns out that extraction is less restricted than with the other cases of subjunctive –
and for that matter – indicative factive embedded clauses. Given the above exposed analysis, they
seem not to fit in the picture. However, if the complementizer system is refined in such a way
that the feature composition includes a three-way distinction (presuppositional, nonpresuppositional and non-quantificational/indefinite complementizer), we expect extraction to be
possible, as it does not interact with a wh-element. Thus, if we accept that both dire and préférer
have indefinite complementizers (and allow for extraction), we are lead to conclude that
extraction restrictions are independent from mood selection.
References
Egré, P. 2008. Question-Embedding and Factivity. Grazer Philosophische Studien 77 (1):85- 125. Giannakidou, A. 2009. The dependency of the subjunctive revisited: temporal semantics and polarity. Lingua,
special issue on Mood. 883-1908.
Kiparsky, C & P. Kiparsky. 1970. Fact, in Bierwish M. & Heidolph K. (eds), Progress in Linguistics, La Haye, 143173.
Manzini, R & L. Savoia. 2003. The nature of complementizers. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 28 (2003), 87–
110.
27
Conditional inversion and pragmatic presupposition: Spanish and English
Maria Biezma (University of Massachusetts at Amherst)
Spanish has inverted (InvC) (1b) and non-inverted (RegC) (1a) counterfactual conditionals, (1).
(1) a. Si hubieras insertado el código $34$6$ en el sistema, tu ordenador no habría
colapsado
if had.2.Subj inserted the code
in the system your computer neg would-have crashed
b. Hubieras insertado el código $34$6$ en el sistema, tu ordenador no habría colapsado
had.2.Subj inserted the code in the system your computer neg would-have crashed
I argue that conditional inversion in Spanish has special discourse licensing conditions: it carries
the pragmatic presupposition that the antecedent is Given in [8]’s terms, i.e. it is entailed by
previous discourse. This link between form and function is arbitrary ([5]) and need not hold
across-languages, but I argue that the same link is found in English (contra [3]).
Spanish: (2) illustrates the different discourse licensing conditions in Spanish InCs and RegCs.
(2) A message in your computer pops up. Part of the system is crashing and you have to do
something or it will be fatal. You don't know anything about computers, you do nothing, and
the computer crashes. You are now telling the story to your friend Mr. Jobs.
a. Mr.Jobs: Si hubieras insertado el código $34$6$, tu ordenador no habría
colapsado
if had.2.Subj inserted the code
your computer neg would-have crashed
b. Mr.Jobs’: #Hubieras insertado el código $34$6$, tu ordenador no habría colapsado
had.2.Subj inserted the code
your computer neg would-have crashed
(2a) is merely the assertion of a conditional statement, i.e. the most similar worlds to the actual
world in which you inserted the code $34$6$, are worlds in which your computer does not crash
(à la Lewis-Stalnaker). However, the InvC in (2b) is not felicitous (despite carrying the same
conditional meaning). (2b) is felicitous in the dialogue in (3), in which the antecedent proposition
in the InvC has been previously entertained/it is Given [8]: An utterance U counts as Given iff it
has a salient antecedent A and modulo ∃-type shifting, A entails the Existential F-Closure of U.
(3) You: I did no know what to do, and the computer crashed.
Mr.Jobs: So, you did not know about the security code $34$6$
You: What does the security code have to do with my computer crashing?
Mr.Jobs: It’s a security code designed to avoid computer crashes in the system.
Hubieras introducido el código $34$6$, tu ordenador no habría colapsado (as in (2b))
The InvC is fine in (3), once the antecedent proposition is previously entertained (it is Given).
The syntax of inversion: [4] argues that inversion in conditionals is movement from T to C.
However, T to C movement in conditional antecedents is more constrained than T to C
movement in other clause types. Non-wh questions allow inversion of all modals and auxiliaries,
but the same is not true in conditionals (English *Could you come to the party, you would enjoy
it, Spanish: *Pudieras venir a la fiesta, lo pasarías bien). Also, [3] argues that languages with
InvCs also allow inversion in questions, but the opposite is not true and, in English, for example,
questions allow contracted negation, but this is not allowed in InvCs, (4).
(4)
a. Hadn’t he seen the car coming? [Inversion in questions]
b. *Hadn’t he seen the car coming, he would have been killed [InvC]
These facts indicate that inversion in questions is independent from inversion in conditionals:
inversion is triggered for independent reasons (see [6] for arguments in favor of different features
COND and Q for conditionals and questions located in different projections in the CP domain).
Thus, the claims made regarding inversion do not extend to questions.
Meaning of conditional inversion in English: [4] propose that inversion in counterfactuals
indicates that the antecedent proposition is known to be false, i.e. the actual value of the
antecedent proposition is old information. [4] compare inverted counterfactual antecedents
28
(InvAs) with non-inverted ones and argue that InvAs can’t be focused: InvAs do not allow focus
adverbs (6), and are not answers to questions, (7B’), while non-inverted can, (5) and (7B).
(5)
(6)
(7)
a. Even if she had been allergic to dill, he would (still) have served the stuffed grape leaves
b. Only if Peter had come would Susan have left
a. * Only had I thought that he was sick would I have called him
b. ? Even had Joe served truffles Kathy would not have been happy ([3], ex. 20-21)
A: When/Under what circumstances would Mary have come?
B: If she had been offered many artichokes (with final falling intonation)
B’: #Had she been offered many artichokes (with final falling intonation) ([3], ex. 31)
Besides not being able to be focused, [3] provide (8) as evidence that when an InvC is uttered, the
antecedent proposition is presupposed to be false, its truth value is old information.
(8) “You arrive at the house of friends, who know that you have just been to a job interview but
do not know the results. […] (8b) would […] leave some of the people present wondering why
they had been left out on a previous announcement about the interview results:”
a. If I had been offered the job, I would have brought champagne
b. Had I been offered the job, I would have brought champagne ([3], ex. 45)
According to [3], (8) supports the idea that InvAs indicate that the antecedent proposition is
known to be false, it is old information. [3] further claim that the data in (6) and (7) can then be
explained assuming that old information cannot be focused. Proposal: I argue that inversion in
English antecedents signals, as in Spanish, that the antecedent proposition has already been
entertained, it is Given. InvAs and focus: InvAs can be focused, as shown in (9) with even.
(9) Even had this match been struck, it (still) wouldn’t have lit ([1])
Also InvCs are allowed as (partial) answers to questions (10):
(10) B: Mary is not coming...She loves artichokes. We could have offered her lots of artichokes!
A (slow in the uptake): I wonder, under what circumstances would Mary have come?
B: Well, had she been offered many artichokes, she would (definitely) have come
The InvC in (10B) is fine, indicating that inversion itself is not responsible for the infelicity of
(7B’). Notice that the consequent in (10B) is spelled out, but it’s heavily de-accented, proving
that its presence is not required for information structure reasons. I argue that InvCs, also in
Spanish (and others, like German), require the presence of the main clause (syntactic constraint).
Notice also that in (10) the antecedent proposition has already been introduced in the previous
discourse (the antecedent is Given: it is entailed by B’s first utterance), without the utterance by
B that raises the issue later recovered in the InvC, the InvC is rated worse by speakers, indicating
that entertaining the antecedent proposition plays a role in licensing conditional inversion.
Unlike InvAs, non-inverted antecedents can stand on their own, thus (7B) is good. With respect
to the status of the antecedent proposition in InvCs and counterfacutality, (11) shows that
inversion does not signal that the antecedent proposition is already known to be false.
(11) A: I wonder if Susan is at the meeting
B: I just saw John coming out of the conference room smiling
A: Well, then she is probably not there
B: Why do you say that?
A: Well, had she actually been there, John would have not been that happy
After (11) it is not known whether Susan is at the meeting, but the InvC is felicitously uttered.
Conclusion: Conditional inversion is interesting because it shows that there is a direct link
between the syntax and discourse, supporting the view that “what the sentence level reflects is the
place and function of the utterance in the discourse” [7]. We have seen that similar mechanisms
are found across languages.
References
Goodman. 1947. The problem of counterfactual conditionals.
Horn. 2000. Pick a theory, not just any theory.
29
L2 knowledge of gender and number agreement in ellipsis constructions
Joyce Bruhn de Garavito (The University of Western Ontario)
The case of ellipsis of any type may make an interesting contribution to research into second
language acquisition because it is a prime example of poverty of the stimulus: the focus of what
you are examining is not pronounced. Most studies on noun drop (or NP drop, see Ticio 2005)
have focused on the constraints on noun drop that are internal to the DP, e.g. the fact that only
post-nominal but not pre-nominal adjectives may be remnants of ellipsis. However, not all data
regarding noun drop may be accounted for from within the DP. Masullo and Depiante (2003)
showed that there is an interesting parallelism effect on gender when a noun is dropped (1), but
the same effect is not present in the case of number (2). As (1) and (2) show, a gender mismatch
between the noun in the main clause and the elided noun leads to ungrammaticality, while a
number mismatch does not. Masullo and Depiante suggest that this is due to the fact that gender
is instantiated in the lexicon, while number is introduced in the course of the derivation. It is not
clear exactly what mechanisms are in play in their explanation.
(1) a. Juan visitó a sus tíos y Pedro visitó a los suyos.
John visited poss-masc uncles and Pedro visited poss-masc.
b. *Juan visitó a sus tías y Pedro visitó a los suyos.
John visited poss-fem and Mary visited poss-masc.
(2) Juan visitó a sus tíos y María visitó al suyo.
Following Aelbrecht (2010) I will argue that for noun drop, as for other types of ellipsis, we find
a licensor in the main clause and a head noun that carries a feature [E] for ellipsis. An AGREE
operation takes place between the head and the licensor. In the case of noun drop, the licensor is
the NP of the main clause, while the head is the determiner of the embedded clause. The question
that arises is whether L2 speakers are able to acquire the representation of noun drop that
includes AGREE. Previous work on a parallelism effect in English (Duffield and Matsuo 2009)
has shown that L2 speakers have gradient judgements, but in fact most native speakers do too.
A group of 20 L2 learners at advanced level completed two tasks: a grammaticality judgement
task along the lines of (1) and (2), and a sentence completion task. Results showed that for the
advanced learners there was no significant difference between them and the native speaker group.
Both groups preferred to a significant degree sentences with no mismatches, neither of gender
nor of number. Also, both preferred the number mismatches over the gender mismatches. In other
words, we find no mismatch > number mismatch > gender mismatch. In both groups some
individuals exhibited very clear judgements, rejecting gender mismatches and accepting number,
while others tended to reject any type of mismatch. Finally, some participants had no preference.
I will argue that the first two groups have acquired AGREE between the licensor and the head,
while the last group had not. However, results show the same gradient judgements previously
found in Duffield and Matsuo’s studies, showing that the judgements were not categorical as
expected. It is interesting to note that L2 learners are able to acquire this type of judgements,
equivalent to linguists’ distinction between *, ?, and acceptable.
30
References
Aelbrecht, L. (2010). The syntactic licensing of ellipsis. John Benjamins:
Amsterdam/Philadepphia.
Duffield, N. & A. Matsuo (2009). Native speakers' versus L2 learners' sensitivity to parallelism
in VP-ellipsis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31, 1-31.
Masullo, P. J. and M. A. Depiante (2004). Variable vs. intrinsic features in Spanish nominal
ellipsis. GLOW 2004. Thesaloniki, Greece.
Ticio, M. E. (2003). On the Structure of DPs. Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut.
31
Morphologically conditioned intervocalic rhotacism in Algherese Catalan.
A lexically indexed constraints account
Maria Cabrera-Callís (Universitat de Barcelona)
Data. In Algherese Catalan, a process of intervocalic rhotacism turning intervocalic coronal laterals and
dental voiced stops into a flap has applied: oli [ɔ́́ɾi] ‘oil’, Nadal [naɾál] ‘Christmas’ [4]. So far, however,
the process has been described as applying categorically, and poor attention has been given to its lack of
activity in certain lexical items (alegria [alagɾía] ‘happiness’, odi [ɔ́di] ‘hate’ [1]) and to the
morphological and lexical factors that determine it. In this paper, four patterns of intervocalic rhotacism
are considered. 1.1. In root-internal position the process has applied diachronically to a closed set of
inherited words, and it is not productive anymore: thus, loanwords and learned words exhibit a
systematic lack of rhotacism (sòlid [sɔ́lit] ‘solid’, escadença (It.) [askadɛ́ntsa] ‘expiration’). The
percentage-wise of rhotacism in this position is 33% [1]. 1.2. At the left edge of the root rhotacism is
always blocked: whenever a vowel-ending prefix is added to a root starting with /l, d/, the input is
always mapped faithfully (alinear /a+line+a+ɾ/ [alineá] ‘to align’, adolorir /a+doloɾ+i+ɾ/ [aduɾuɾí] ‘to
hurt’). The percentage-wise of rhotacism in this position is 0% [1]. 1.3. At the right edge of the root
rhotacism is almost equitatively blocked and triggered among the lexicon: whenever a vowel-starting
suffix is added to a root ending in /l, d/ the rotacized mapping is given in half of the cases, whereas the
faithful one occurs in the other half. This context supplies some evidences of still syncronically
productive alternations (cf. llençol /ʎensɔ́l/ [ʎantsɔ́l] ‘sheet’ but llençolet /ʎensɔl+ɛt/ [ʎantsuɾɛ́t] ‘sheet
DIM.’, fred /fɾɛd/ [fɾɛ́t] ‘cold’ but freda /fɾɛd+a/ [frɛ́ɾa] ‘cold FEM.’). The percentage-wise of rhotacism
in this position is 52% [1]. 1.4. Within the suffix rhotacism is always triggered, with the only exceptions
of the suffixes -edu (Sard.), -cidi and -dura, which systematically fail to apply the process (cf. arribada
/arib+a+d+a/ [aribáɾa] ‘arrived FEM.’ but adobadura /adob+a+duɾa/ [adubadúɾa] ‘repair’). The
percentage-wise of rhotacism in this position is 98% [1]. 2. Interpretation. 2.1. Following [9] and [8],
it is assumed that the triggering of intervocalic rhotacism is the drive towards the minimization of
sonority contrast between vowels: the most sonorous the intervocalic consonant is, the better. Thus,
ranking faithfulness between (*VdV >>) *VlV and *VɾV, the process can be accounted for
straightforwardly. 2.2. The uneven behavior of rhotacism in the edges of the root can be understood as a
positional faithfulness effect by which the identity of the segment standing at its left edge is preferently
protected, whereas in root-internal position it is less protected and, within the suffix, it is minimally
protected, as shown in the following scale: FAITHFULNESSLeftRoot >> FAITHFULNESSRoot >>
FAITHFULNESSSuffix. This idea is consistent with the well-known assumption of the peripheral character
of prefixation [5] and the salience assigned to the beginning portion of the word in studies of word
recognition [3]. 2.3. The irregular behavior of rhotacism within the root can be captured, along the lines
of [6] and [7], by splitting the markedness constraints *VdV and *VlV into a general and a lexically
indexed version, the last one targeting the 33% - 52% of the roots that exceptionally entail rhotacism.
2.4. Similarly, the exceptional behavior within the suffixation (§ 1.4) can be captured by splitting the
faithfulness constraint that protects the suffix into a general and a lexically indexed version, the last one
targeting the 2% of suffixes that exceptionally lack of rhotacism. 3. Analysis. 3.1. Tableau in (1) shows
the activity of the lexically indexed markedness constraint *VlVL and its general counterpart *VlV
when FAITHRoot is ranked between them: rhotacism is only triggered when the root bears the index (L) in
the lexicon. 3.2. Tableau in (2) provides evidence of the activity of FAITHLeftRoot, which, being
unviolated, ensures the lack of rhotacism at the left edge of a root —no matter if the root is lexically
indexed or not. 3.3. Tableau in (3) shows the blocking of the process at the left edge of the root, on the
one hand, and its lexically conditioned triggering within the root (by the means of the index L) and
32
within the suffix (by the means of the index S), on the other. 4. Extentions of the analysis. Along the
lines of [2], the observed/expected ratio of the sequences /VdV/, /VlV/ and /VɾV/ within the root will be
calculated, in order to derive the hierarchy between the markedness constraints targetting them from the
degree to which they are obeyed in the lexicon.
(1) oli ‘oil’, dòlar ‘dolar’
/ɔli/L
*VdVL
*VlVL
FAITHRoot
*
a. [ɔ́́ɾi]
b. [ɔ́li]
*W
L
/dɔlaɾ/
a. [dɔ́lar]
*W
b. [dɔ́ɾar]
(2) adolorir ‘to hurt’
/a#doloɾL+i+ɾ/
FAITHLeft-R
*VdVL
*VlVL
a. [aduɾuɾí]
*
b. [aduluɾí]
*
*W
c. [aɾuɾuɾí]
*W
L
d. [aɾuluɾí]
*W
L
*W
(3) adolorida ‘hurted FEM.’
/a#doloɾL+i+d+a/
FAITH
FAITH
*VdVL
*VlVL
Left-R
a. [aduɾuɾíɾa]
b. [aduɾuɾída]
c. [aduluɾíɾa]
d. [aduluɾída]
e. [aɾuluɾída]
f. [aɾuɾuɾída]
g. [aɾuɾuɾíɾa]
h. [aɾuluɾíɾa]
Suffix-S
*VdV
*VlV
FAITHRoot
*
L
**W
*
FAITH
*W
*VɾV
*
L
*
L
*W
*VdV
*
*
L
L
*VdV
*VlV
Root
*
*
*
*
*W
*W
*W
*W
*
*
L
L
*
**W
**W
*
*W
*W
*W
*W
*VlV
*W
*W
FAITH
*VɾV
**
*L
***W
**
*VɾV
Suffix
*
**W
*
**W
*
*
L
L
*W
*W
*W
*W
*
L
*
L
L
L
*
*
***
**L
**L
*L
**L
***
****W
***
N.B.: Notation: It. = Italian, Sard.= Sardinian.
References
Cabrera-Callís, Maria (2009), El rotacisme de /d/ intervocalica. Anàlisi quantitativa de la variació.
Manuscript. Universitat de Barcelona.
Coetzee, Andries W. & Pater, Joe (2006), Lexically Ranked OCP-Place Constraints in Muna. Rutgers
Optimality Archive 782.
Hawkins, John A. (ed.) (1988), Explaining Language Universals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Kuen, Heinrich (1934), El dialecto del Alguer y su posición en la historia de la lengua catalana, Anuari de
l’Oficina Romànica de Llengua i Literatura VII, 41-112.
McCarthy, John J. (1981), The role of the evaluation metric in the acquisition of phonology. In: Backer, C. L. &
McCarthy, John J. (1981) The Logical Problem of Language Adquisition, Cambridge: MIT
Press.
Pater, Joe (2000), Nonuniformity in English stress: the role of ranked and lexically specific constraints,
Phonology 17: 2, 237-274.
Pater, Joe (2009), Morpheme-Specific Phonology: Constraint Indexation and Inconsistency Resolution. In:
Parker, Steve (ed.), Phonological Argumentation: Essays on Evidence and Motivation, London: Equinox, 123154.
Pons-Moll, Clàudia (2008), Regarding the sonority of liquids. Some evidence from Romance. Paper
presented at the 38th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign, Illinois (USA).
Uffmann, Christian (2005), Optimal Epenthetic Consonants. Talk presented at the OCP-2 University of Tromsø
(Norway).
33
Sibilant voicing assimilation in Spanish as gestural blending
Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza (Ohio State University)
Voicing assimilation of syllable final /s/ before a voiced consonant is a widely reported feature of
the Spanish sound system ([rázgo] ‘feature’ vs. [rásko] ‘I scratch’). This process is often
described as stylistically determined, gradient and variable (Hualde 2005). However, there is a
scarcity of non-impressionistic data supporting these claims. Following previous approaches to
assimilation, we analyze voicing assimilation in Spanish as an instance of gestural blending.
Taking this as a point of departure, this study presents an acoustic analysis of this assimilatory
process, focusing on its main phonetic correlates in relation to the production of voicing, and
tests the effect of different factors that have been shown to influence gestural organization,
namely stress and prosodic boundaries.
Two previous studies provide some instrumental data on Spanish /s/ voicing assimilation.
Schmidt & Willis (2010) analyze acoustic data from Mexican Spanish and conclude that /s/
assimilation is not categorical. Similarly, Romero (1999) presents articulatory and
transillumination data showing that assimilation is not complete. More precisely, he finds that
single voiced stops display a higher degree of voicing than /s/ + voiced stop clusters. Romero
also finds that the laryngeal gesture peak in /s/ + voiced stop clusters is not synchronized with the
oral gesture peak for /s/ but rather, it occurs between the oral peaks for /s/ and the stop. Romero
sees this is an indication of mutual influence among consonants and concludes that Spanish
voicing assimilation is the result of gestural blending in the laryngeal configuration.
Based on previous findings showing that voicing assimilation is gradient and variable, this study
aims at finding what factors condition the process. Modeling assimilation as gestural blending let
us consider factors that affect the magnitude and organization of gestures as possible
conditionings on the degree of assimilation. Previous research has shown that gestures are larger
in prosodically strong positions, including stressed syllables (Beckman & Edwards 1994,
Pierrehumbert & Talkin 1992). Thus, we would expect more assimilation when stress falls on the
syllable following /s/ than when it falls on the syllable containing it (/rás.ge/ ‘I tear.subj’ vs.
/ras.gé/ ‘I tore’), under the assumption that greater gestural magnitude results in more overlap
among adjacent gestures and consequently, leads to more assimilation. Articulatory studies have
also examined overlap patterns under the influence of prosodic structure and found that temporal
overlap is less among gestures separated by or adjacent to a boundary (Byrd et al., 2000, Byrd &
Choi 2010), indicating that gestures are pulled apart across a phrasal boundary. Furthermore,
prosodic boundaries of different strengths (e.g. phrase boundary vs. word boundary) display
differences in the magnitude of their effects (Byrd & Salzman 1998, Parrell et al. 2010). Thus, we
would expect the degree of voicing assimilation to decrease as we move to higher prosodic
boundaries, from word internal position to a word boundary to an intonational phrase boundary.
The current experiment tests the degree of voicing assimilation of /s/ preceding a voiced
obstruent in Northern Peninsular Spanish under different prosodic conditions, more precisely, the
role of stress (/rás.ge/ vs. /ras.gé/) and prosodic boundaries: word internal (/rasgámos/ ‘we tear’)
vs. word boundary (/las gómas/ ‘the erasers’) vs. intonational phrase boundary (/buskalas, gómas
no kjeɾo/ ‘look for them, erasers I don’t want’). Three acoustic cues to voicing were measured:
fricative duration, voicing during frication and preceding vowel duration. The percentage of
voicing during frication was calculated and, following Smith 1997, used to categorize each token
as unvoiced (less than 20% of voicing, based on the distribution of the voiceless sequences,
partially voiced (between 20% and 90% of voicing) or fully voiced (over 90% of voicing).
34
As expected, the results show that there is variation in the degree of voicing in that speakers do
not fully voiced all instances of /s/ preceding a voiced stop. As for the factors, stress conditions
assimilation only to a limited extent, contrary to what was predicted. Stress significantly affects
preceding vowel and fricative duration but it does not correlate with the voicing category (i.e.
unvoiced, partially voiced or fully voiced). Although the results for stress were unexpected,
careful observation of the data led us to identify another possible conditioning, i.e., manner of
articulation of the following voiced stop, and we recoded the data according to this variable. All
the voiced stops following /s/ occurred in a position subject to spirantization and were realized as
lenited, approximant consonants. Following Martínez-Celdrán (1991), we coded the manner of
the following consonant as an open approximant (which displays formant structure with
decreased amplitude) or a close approximant (which is formed without a tight closure and does
not display a burst). The statistical results show that there is a relation between the voicing
category and the following consonant manner: when the following consonant is a close
approximant, there is a higher percentage of no voicing, compared with a following open
approximant, which favors voiced realizations. Preliminary results for the prosodic boundary
effect suggest that the degree of assimilation changes in the predicted direction as the prosodic
boundary is modified from word internal position to across an intonational phrase. However, the
acoustic analysis is still in process and we cannot present definite results at this point.
Modeling voicing assimilation as the result of changes in the gestural organization of the
elements involved allows us to capture the results presented above. The small effect of stress can
be seen as due to conflicting durational requirements. On the one hand, voicing imposes certain
durational patterns on /s/, i.e., shorter frication duration, but stress is normally associated with
longer duration. As for the effect of the following consonant manner of articulation, the pattern
can be explained as resulting from restrictions on the amount of voicing due to a closer
constriction: it is harder to maintain the voicing gesture during a closer constriction due to
aerodynamic reasons. This analysis predicts that a following sonorant would trigger a greater
degree of voicing assimilation. This prediction will be tested in future research.
References
Beckman, M. E., & Edwards, J. 1994. Articulatory evidence for differentiating stress categories. In P.A. Keating
(ed.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology III. CUP.
Byrd, D. & E. Saltzman. 1998. Intragestural dynamics of multiple phrasal boundaries. Journal of Phonetics 26:173199.
Byrd, D., A. Kaun, S. Narayanan, & E. Saltzman. 2000 Phrasal signatures in articulation. In M. B. Broe & J. B.
Pierrehumbert, (eds.). Papers in Laboratory Phonology V. CUP.
Byrd, D. & S. Choi. 2010. The interaction of phrasal and syllable structure in shaping the timing of
consonant gestures. Papers in Laboratory Phonology 10. Mouton de Gruyter.
Hualde, J.I. 2005. The Sounds of Spanish. CUP.
Martinez-Celdrán, E. 1991. Sobre la naturaleza fonética de los alófonos de /b, d, g/ en español y sus
distintas
denominaciones. Verba 18, 235-253.
Parrell, B., S. Lee, & D. Byrd. 2010. Evaluation of juncture strength using articulatory synthesis of prosodic gestures
and functional data analysis. Speech Prosody 2010.
Pierrehumbert, J. & Talkin, D. 1992. Lenition of /h/ and glottal stop. In G. Docherty & D. R. Ladd (ed.), Papers
in Laboratory Phonology II. CUP.
Romero, J. 1999. The effect of voicing assimilation on gestural coordination. ICPhS99.
Schmidt, L. & E. Willis. 2010. Systematic investigation of voicing assimilation of Spanish /s/ in Mexico City.
Presented at Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology 2010.
Smith, C.L. 1997. The devoicing of /z/ in American English: effects of local and prosodic context. Journal of
Phonetics 25, 471-500.
35
What does the construction tener+past participle mean in Galician Spanish?
Pilar Chamorro (The Ohio State University)
This paper explores the meaning of the Galician Spanish perfect (GaSP) in Spanish as spoken in
Galicia, which consists of the periphrastic construction tener(Present) + non-agreeing past
participle. Data from constructed examples, corpus of semi-elicited interviews, and from
naturally-occurring conversations support an analysis of this construction as a pluractional.
Plurality in the verbal domain, or verbal pluractionality, is understood as pluralization of the
eventuality denoted by the predicate, independently of whether it involves multiple participants,
times, or locations (see Cusic 1981, and Lasersohn 1995). Accordingly, sentences with GaSP are
interpreted as referring to multiple eventualities; this is shown in (1), where (1a) is not felicitous
because of the incompatibility of GASP with ‘once’ adverbials, while (1b,c) are felicitous with
both frequency (every now and then, regularly) and iterative-cardinal (many times, several times)
adverbs (de Swart 1991, 1998).
(1)
a. #Tengo comido en ese restaurante una vez en mi vida.
(# I have eaten at that restaurant one time in my life)
b. Tengo comido en ese restaurante regularmente.
‘I have eaten at that restaurant regularly.’
c. Tengo comido en ese restaurante muchas veces.
‘I have eaten at that restaurant many times.’
Building primarily on work by van Geenhoven (2004, 2005) on pluractionals in English and in
West Greenlandic Eskimo and by Lasersohn (1995) on nominal and verbal plurality, I provide a
formal account of the semantics of this construction by combining both event and interval
semantic theories. GaSP requires pluralization of the eventuality denoted by the predicate
distributing the subevents over non-overlapping discontinuous intervals (cf. Giorgi & Pianesi
1997, Cabredo-Hofherr et al. [to appear] for Portuguese). The pluralized eventuality cannot be
cardinalized by exact cardinals (e.g., two, three times) as shown in sentence (2). Additionally,
intermittent or internal readings (Laca 2006), that is, readings involving temporal gaps in the
progression of a single eventuality are not possible (see (3a)); thus, GaSP always requires
repetition of the basic eventuality (see (3b)).
(2)
(3)
#Tengo visto esa película de Almodóvar un total de dos/tres veces .
(#I have seen that Almodóvar’s movie a total of two/three times)
a. #María tiene leído La Guerra y la Paz pero aún no acabó.
(#María has read/been reading [on and off/intermittently] War and Peace but hasn’t
finished yet.)
b. María tiene leído La Guerra y la Paz varias veces para las clases de literatura.
‘María has read War and Peace several times for the Literature classes.’
My findings are significant for current theories on verbal pluractionals in two respects. On the
one hand, they corroborate assumptions of variation with respect to the array of readings different
markers show cross-linguistically. On the other hand, they reveal that not all pluractionals are
incompatible with adverbials vaguely specifying the frequency of the plural eventuality (e.g.,
iterative-cardinal adverbs). This result contrasts with assumptions about the inability of
36
pluractionals to co-occur with vague or exact cardinals (Laca 2006, Yu 2003, Cabredo-Hofherr et
al. [to appear]).
References
Cabredo-Hofherr, Patricia, Brenda Laca, & Sandra de Carvalho (to appear). When Perfect means
Plural. In Cabredo-Hofherr, Patricia & Brenda Laca (eds.), Layers of Aspect. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Cusic, David Dowell. 1981. Verbal Plurality and Aspect. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University
dissertation.
Dowty, David R. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Geenhoven, Veerle van. 2004. For Adverbials, Frequentative Aspect, and Pluractionality.
Natural Language Semantics 12. 135-190.
Geenhoven, Veerle van. 2005. Atelicity, pluractionality, and adverbial quantification. In Verkuyl,
Henk, Henriette de Swart & Angeliek Van Hout (eds.), Perspectives on Aspect,107-124.
Berlin: Springer.
Giorgi, Alessandra & Fabio Pianesi. 1997. Tense and Aspect. From Semantics to Morphosyntax.
Oxford studies in comparative syntax. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Laca, Brenda. 2006. Indefinites, quantifiers, and pluractionals. What scope effects tell us about
event pluralities. In Tasmowski, Liliane & Svetlana Vogeleer (eds.), Non-definiteness and
Plurality, 191-217. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lasersohn, Peter N. 1995. Plurality, Conjunction and Events. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Swart, Henriette de. 1991. Adverbs of Quantification: A Generalized Quantifier Approach. PhD
Dissertation, University of Groningen, published by Garland, New York, 1993.
Swart, Henriette de. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
16. 347-385.
Yu, Alan. 2003. Pluractionality in Chechen. Natural Language Semantics 24. 223-270.
37
Weakening and assimilation:
An electropalatographic study of coda /s/ in Argentine Spanish
Laura Colantoni & Alexei Kochetov (University of Toronto)
Few other phenomena have been more revisited in the variationist literature during the past 40
years than coda /s/ weakening in Spanish (e.g. pa[s]to > pa[h]to ‘grass’). There is a disproportion,
however, between what is known about the sociolinguistic distribution of the phenomenon and its
acoustic, articulatory or perceptual characteristics. Indeed, relatively few experimental studies
have been conducted on the topic, and even fewer have focused on the articulatory characteristics
of /s/ weakening (Romero 1995). Our goal here is to contribute to our understanding of the
process by providing electropalatographic (EPG) data on /s/ weakening in Argentine Spanish.
Guided by the general hypothesis that /s/ weakening is triggered by and has coarticulatory
consequences on the surrounding segments (Widdison 1997; Gerfen 2002), we set out to
investigate the role of position in the word (medial vs. final), place of the following stop
consonant (labial, coronal, velar) and stress in the realization of coda /s/ in Buenos Aires Spanish.
Custom-made palates were made for 5 Buenos Aires speakers (4 females, 1 male), who produced
12 repetitions of 15 utterances with /s/ in various segmental and prosodic contexts (180 items per
speaker). Measurements were taken at the midpoint of /s/ (defined acoustically) and involved the
degree of linguopalatal contact for the entire palate (Q) and for coronal and velar regions (cf.
Recasens & Espinosa 2007). The latter two measurements were used to define presence or
absence of coronal reduction and velar assimilation.
The results confirm the overall weakening hierarchy proposed in previous studies (e.g. Terell
1979; Bybee 2000), namely that weakening is more frequent in pre-consonantal position,
followed by pre-pausal and word-final pre-vocalic position. As seen in Table 1, the speakers
showed extensive reduction of the word-final /s/ before consonants (e.g. digas caja), but not
before vowels (e.g. digas haga). In the former context, weakening was more extensive before
velars and labials than before coronals (e.g. digas paja vs. digas tajo). These differences were
also reflected in the overall degree of contact (Figure 1). Interestingly, the absence of a coronal
contact before velars was often accompanied by the greater velar contact (at least in 33% of
cases), suggesting that weakening interacts with place assimilation. A detailed examination of the
contexts showed an interaction between stress and word position: in unstressed syllables, less
contact was observed word-finally than word-internally (e.g. digas paja < raspar); in stressed
syllables, the pattern was reversed (e.g. caspa < dirás paja) (Figure 1). These patterns of
weakening can be attributed to different degrees of overlap of gestures in these contexts. For
example, less overlap/assimilation in stressed word-final position can be explained by special
prosodic conditions, such as stress-clash (e.g. dirás caja). Thus, our results are consistent with
Romero’s (1995) findings that /s/ reduction can be analyzed as gestural overlap and interacts with
other processes in the language, such as spirantization in Romero’s case. In the contexts analyzed
here - /s/ followed by voiceless stops - /s/ retention is more likely when the following consonant
involves a tongue body or tongue tip gesture, as with velars and labials.
In summary, the present study provides further evidence (cf. Romero 1995) that coda /s/
weakening interacts with assimilation, resulting in more /s/ retention before those consonants that
involve a tongue gesture. The results are also consistent with the gestural episodic model
38
(Scobbie & Pouplier 2010), which predicts that the same gestures occurring word-internally and
word-finally are realized differently, given the inherent differences in the gestural representations
and production of lexical and post-lexical sequences.
Table 1. Percent of coronal reduction and velar assimilation in main segmental contexts,
averaged over 5 speakers.
Process
reduction
assimilation
V_#V
0%
-
_p
90%
0%
V_#C
_k
95%
33%
_t
70%
0%
Figure 1 (a,b): Mean overall degree of contact (Q) at the midpoint of /s/ by position in the word
(1a, left) and in coda position followed by stop consonants of different places of articulation (1b,
right). Results are presented for stressed and unstressed syllables.
References
Bybee, J. 2001. Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gerfen, C. 2002. Andalusian codas. Probus. 14 (2).247-277.
Recasens, D. & Espinosa, A. 2007. An electropalatographic and acoustic study of affricates and
fricatives in two Catalan dialects. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 37.143172.
Romero, J. 1995. Gestural organization in Spanish. An experimental study of spirantization an
aspiration. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut.
Scobbie, J. & Pouplier, M. 2010. Conditioning factors in external sandhi: an EPG study of
vocalisation and retraction of word-final English /l/. Journal of Phonetics 38(2).240-259.
Terrell, T. 1979. Final /s/ in Cuban Spanish. Hispania 62.599-612.
Widdison, K. 1997. Phonetic explanations for sibilant patterns in Spanish. Lingua 102.253-64.
39
Vocalization in Galician plural clusters: an acoustic study
Sonia Colina & Miquel Simonet (The University of Arizona)
Galician is a Romance language with rather strict restrictions on coda consonants. The only
consonants acceptable in the coda are /l, r, s/, and /n/, usually realized as a velar; /θ/ is possible
only in word-final position (1). Coda clusters are generally prohibited. Some exceptions exist in
learned words in word-internal position, in which /s/ is the second member of the cluster:
solsticio ‘solstice’, perspectiva ‘perspective’. Yet, in many dialects, words ending in a nasal
consonant form their plural by adding /s/, thus creating a /ns/ coda cluster (2a), in spite of the fact
that other sonorant + s plural clusters, such as /rs/ and /ls/, are repaired through epenthesis or
vocalization (2b) (Carballo 1966, Freixeiro 1998). The behavior of /ns/ clusters is also
unexpected if one considers similar facts in a closely related language such as Spanish, where
despite looser restrictions on coda clusters, /ns/ plural clusters are illformed, being repaired
through e-epenthesis: pan/ panes 'bread(s)’, camión/ camiones 'truck(s)'. Regueira (2002: 239)
proposes that the Galician velar nasal is in the coda and the /s/ is directly incorporated into the
Prosodic Word. However, he also notes that this account does not explain why /s/ cannot be
parsed directly into the Prosodic Word when preceded by the liquids, *mars, *sols. Colina
(2007, forthcoming) proposes that the sequence /ns/ is well-formed because its output
correspondent is not a coda cluster, but a nasal glide parsed in the nucleus followed by a coda /s/.
She argues that postvocalic glides can be part of the nucleus, this being a strategy to avoid a coda
cluster (thus creating a complex nucleus and a *COMPLEX N violation). In OT terms: a *COMPLEX
N violation is incurred under the domination of the highly ranked *COMPLEX CODA. The present
study aims to investigate the glide hypothesis through a phonetic experiment.
Five young native speakers of Galician were recorded in Santiago de Compostela. They read a
list of phrases containing /ansa/ sequences. Materials differed as a function of the position of the
word boundary: (1) /an#sa/, pan santisimo ‘most holy bread’, vs. (2) /ans#a/ pans antigos
‘ancient breads.’ A total of 400+ tokens were acoustically analyzed. The analysis focused on the
following parameters: (1) duration of /an/, (2) duration of /s/, (3) difference in intensity (dB)
between the 25% of the duration of /an/ (which roughly corresponds to /a/) and the 75% of the
duration of /an/ (which roughly corresponds to /n/). Following Kingston (2008) and others, five
different frequency bands were extracted from the signal through filtering in order to study the
acoustic correlates of gliding/lenition; thus, parameter (3) was explored in five different
frequency bands. By hypothesis, a [vowel + gliding nasal] cluster will show a smaller difference
in intensity between the 25% and the 75% of the sequence than will a [vowel + nasal stop]
cluster.
Linear mixed-effects regression models with subject and word as random intercepts and wordboundary location (/ans#a/ vs. /an#sa/) as fixed factor revealed systematic differences (larger for
some subjects than for others) between the two patterns for acoustic parameters (1), (2) and (3).
In fact, significant effects for parameter (3) were found only for two frequency bands (800-1500,
1200-2000). These two bands roughly capture F2, which is arguably much lower in intensity in
nasal stops than in vocoids. In sum, our acoustic study showed that word-final, postvocalic /n/ is
more constricted than postvocalic /n/ followed by /s/ in the same word. Colina’s (2007) analysis
captures and even predicts this acoustic difference, otherwise unexpected. The findings have
40
implications for diachronic and synchronic variation in the treatment nasals and coda clusters, for
our understanding of syllabification in Galician, and of the nature of nasals and glides.
(1)
alma 'soul'
once 'eleven'
orde 'order'
ostras 'oysters'
rapa[θ] 'child'
(2) a. man
can
camión
b. hotel
mal
mar
mans
cans
camions
*hotels
*mals
*mars
mel
xoven
fogar
lápis
'honey'
'young'
'home'
'pencil'
'hand, hands'
'dog, dogs'
'truck, truck'
hot[éj]s 'hotel, hotels'
males
'evil, evils'
mares
'sea, seas'
References
Carballo Calero, R. (1966) Gramática elemental del gallego común. Vigo, Spain: Galaxia.
Colina, S. (2007) Galician coda restrictions: accounting for plural clusters. Paper presented at the
37th LSRL, University of Pittsburgh.
Colina, S (forthcoming). Plural formation in Galician. To appear in the Selected Proceedings of
the 40th LSRL. John Benjamins.
Freixeiro Mato, X. R. (1998) Gramática da lingua galega. Vigo, Spain: Nosa Terra.
Kingston, J. (2008) Lenition. In Selected Proceedings of the Third Conference on Laboratory
Approaches to Spanish Phonology. 1-31. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Regueira, X.L. (2002) A sílaba en galego: Lingua, estándar e ideoloxía. In Homenaxe a
Fernando R. Tato Plaza, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago, pp.235-254.
41
Assessing children’s knowledge of null objects in European Portuguese
João Costa & Maria Lobo (CLUNL/FCSH/Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
That children omit clitics in early stages of acquisition is a well established fact (see Jakubowicz
et al. 1998, Costa & Lobo 2006, Grüter 2006, Wexler et al. 2004, Pérez-Leroux et al. 2008,
Gavarró et al. 2009, a.o.). Approaches to clitic omission vary: whereas some authors claim that
clitic omission should receive a grammatical explanation (e.g. Wexler et al. 2004), other authors
propose a pragmatic account for this behavior (Serratrice et al. 2002, Tedeschi 2008). Clitic
omission and its nature is harder to assess in a language with null objects, like European
Portuguese. As shown in Raposo (1986), in this language, null objects are in free variation with
clitics. As such, when a child utters a sentence in which a transitive verb is not followed by a
complement, one may wonder whether the child is omitting a clitic – as was found for other
languages, or producing a target adult null object construction. In order to disentangle these two
options, Costa and Lobo (2006), and Costa, Lobo and Silva (2009) elicited pronouns in contexts
in which null objects are ruled out for adults (reflexive, strong islands and 1st and 2nd person),
finding that children also omit clitics in these contexts. According to these results, two options
still persist: either children omit clitics, as was found for other languages, or they overuse the null
object construction, extending it to contexts in which they are ruled out in adult grammar. The
key difference between these two options involves assessing whether children’s grammar
includes the null object construction. The goal of this paper is to report on a set of experiments
that enable us to argue that:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Children acquiring European Portuguese, at the age of 4, know that the language has a null object
construction;
Children acquiring European Portuguese overuse the null object construction;
Children acquiring European Portuguese overuse the null object construction, because they do not yet
master the tools to differentiate pronominal and variable empty categories (pro vs. variable).
In order to assess children’s knowledge of the null object construction, three experiments were
run on 20 4 year-old children: Experiment 1 adapted Grüter’s (2006) truth-value judgment task
on the interpretation of verbs that are not followed by a complement. Grüter (2006) found out
that children acquiring French are not able to assign a transitive reading to a complement-less
verb. We adapted this test to European Portuguese, using verbs that can alternate between a
transitive and an intransitive reading, and tested whether children could interpret sentences like
“Olha! A Rita acordou!” (lit: Look! Rita woke up) transitively, i.e. meaning “Look! Rita woke
him up!”. In order to control for transitivity, the experiment tested the following conditions: a)
Null object in declarative clauses; b) Clitics in declarative clauses; c) Superfluous arguments
(clitic and DP) in declarative clauses. It was found that children perform adult-like in all
conditions, which shows that children master transitivity, and – crucially – that their grammar
includes knowledge on the null object construction (differently from Grüter’s finding for French).
Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, but conditions were added in which the null object was
included in a strong island context, or had a reflexive reading. Recall that, in these contexts, null
objects are ruled out in the adult grammar. The addition of these contexts allowed for testing
whether children’s grammar is overaccepting null objects, assessing whether comprehension data
match production data. It was found that children, unlike adults, assign reflexive readings to
42
complement-less verbs, and are able to assign transitive readings to complement-less verbs in
strong island contexts. These results confirm the idea that children know that European
Portuguese is a null object language, although they overuse null objects, extending it to
illegitimate contexts. This experiment also included control conditions on the interpretation of
pronouns and anaphors, in order to control for children’s knowledge of binding conditions.
Confirming independent evidence on the acquisition of binding in European Portuguese
(Cristóvão 2006), it was found that children perform adult-like in such conditions.
Experiment 3 is an attempt to determine the nature of the overuse of null objects. Following
Raposo (1986), we assume that null objects are ruled out in islands and reflexive contexts,
because they are variables. For instance, Brazilian Portuguese accepts null objects in islands
given their pronominal nature (e.g. Bianchi and Figueiredo Silva 1994, Kato and Raposo 2000).
pro and variables can be distinguished on the basis of their interpretive properties. As shown in
Miyagawa (2009), pro induces strict readings, whereas variables trigger sloppy readings.
Accordingly, sentences with a null subject (pro) have strict readings (cf. 1), whereas sentences
with a null object (variable) have sloppy readings (cf. 2):
(1) O Pedro disse que os pais são bonitos e o João disse que pro usam chapéu.
The Pedro said that the parents are pretty and the João said that pro wear hat
*pro = João’s parents / okpro = Pedro’s parents
(2) O Pedro abraçou os pais e o João beijou vbl.
ok
vbl = João’s parents / okpro = Pedro’s parents
In this experiment, we tested children’s comprehension of these types of sentences, using the null
subject sentences as a control condition. The experiment also included a VP-ellipsis condition, as
a control for sloppy readings. It was found that children performed at chance in all conditions,
even at the null subject condition, in which sloppy readings are ruled out. We hypothesize that
children fail to distinguish pro from variables, because they do not master the key ingredient to
tease these two empty categories apart: the distinction between strict and sloppy readings. As
such, it is predicted that children annul the difference between the two categories. If that is so,
there is an obvious consequence for their null object grammar: children will lack the necessary
knowledge to ban null objects from islands or to assign them non-reflexive readings, and,
consequently, they will overuse null objects. Altogether, the three experiments provide important
insights on children’s early abilities: i) we have robust evidence to assert that children know that
European Portuguese is a null object language, confirming Wexler’s (1998) idea that parameters
of this type are set quite early; ii) we have robust evidence to assert that, when children omit
pronouns in contexts in which adults require them, they are overusing the null object
construction; iii) we have data showing that children’s overuse of null objects is guided by a lack
of mastery of the tools allowing for a distinction between subtypes of empty categories.
Moreover, the comparison between the results of the experiments reported on in this paper and
those of Grüter’s (2006) study show that clitic omission is child language is not a uniform
phenomenon. Again, the lack of uniformity in children’s early capacities may be revealing a very
fine and detailed knowledge of subtle language-specific properties, which provides a very good
argument in favor of very early acquisition of syntactic properties, guided by innate mechanisms.
43
An argument structure alternation among unaccusative verbs
María Cristina Cuervo (University of Toronto)
This work focuses on a set of verbs in Spanish that have a reflexive variant (se-variant) and a
regular (se-less) variant, such as caer(se) ‘fall’, salir(se) ‘go/come out’, morir(se) ‘die’, subir(se)
‘go up’, bajar(se) ‘go down”. The alternation of verbs with and without se has received a lot of
attention, and several authors have proposed that Spanish se has an aspectual role or acts as a
modifier of the verbal valency (Fernández Lagunilla & de Miguel 1999, Zagona 1996,
Zubizarreta 1987, among many others). Most work, however, has focused on the
causative/inchoative alternation, which involves a difference in the number of arguments. In this
case, the alternation (which has not been studied as such) involves one-argument unaccusative
structures in both variants and, therefore, does not affect the valency of the verb.
(1) a. Cayeron muchas hojas
Fell. PL many leaves
‘Many leaves fell’
b. Se cayeron
muchas hojas
SE fell.PL
many leaves
‘Many leaves fell (down)’
The variants share the typical morphosyntactic properties of unaccusative configurations: the sole
argument normally appears postverbally and the verb agrees in number and person with it. There
are, however, several contrasts between the variants. The postverbal subject of the se-less variant
can be a bare noun phrase (BNP), but this is not possible with the se-variant (2). The variants
impose different restrictions on the subject argument, sometimes complementary, as illustrated in
(3). Different restrictions are also found with respect to modification (4) and licensing of dative
arguments, (5). The variants also differ in their aspectual properties; specifically,
(in)compatibility with modification by during-type adverbials show the se-less variant is atelic,
while the se-variant is telic (6).
SE-less variant
(2) a. Cayeron (las/muchas)
hojas
Fell
the/ many
leaves
(3) a. Cayeron 10mms de lluvia/*muchos libros
Fell 10 mms of rain
many books
(4) a. La rata murió electrocutada
The rat died
electrocuted
(5) a. *Le murió la rata a Juan
Intended: ‘The rat died on Juan’
(6) a. Cayeron las
hojas durante horas
Fell
the
leaves during hours
SE-variant
b. Se cayeron
*(las/muchas) hojas
SE fell
the/ many
leaves
b. Se cayeron
*10mms de lluvia/muchos libros
SE fell
10 mms of rain
many books
b. *La rata se
murió electrocutada
The rat SE died electrocuted
b. Se le murió la rata a Juan
The rat died on Juan
b. Se cayeron
los vasos *durante 10 minutos
SE fell
the glasses during 10 minutes
This alternation raises several questions central to any theory of argument structure and the
relation between the lexicon and syntax. What is the difference in structure and meaning between
the two constructions? Is there a common source of the contrasts? Is this a true argument
structure alternation, even when it does not seem to involve a contrast in number or type of
arguments? What is the contribution of SE? I propose that the contrast between the variants is a
contrast in event structure. Specifically, I argue that the se-less variants are the poster case of
unaccusative constructions in which the sole argument is introduced as a complement of the root;
in turn the root phrase (root + complement) merges with a dynamic verbalizing head vGO (7a).
The se-variant, in contrast, corresponds to an inchoative configuration which comprises two subevents: a dynamic event of change (represented by vGO) which embeds a state (represented by
vBE). The reflexive clitic spells out —in the higher verbal head— the φ-features of the argument
undergoing the change. The argument DP is licensed in this case as the specifier of the stative
verb vBE+Root, as represented in (7b). The restriction on BNP (2) derives from the DP being
44
licensed as a specifier (Cuervo 2008, Espinal & Mateu 2006). The telic character of (6b) derives
from the structure (7b), while the simple configuration (7a) is, in principle, atelic.
The meaning of the verbs (verbal phrases) is systematically different across the variants.
Dynamic simple unaccusatives express a kind of change. Inchoatives, in contrast, are bi-eventive:
the change of state they express is decomposed into an unspecified change (vGO) to a new state
specified by the root (here vBE conflates with the bare root). This difference is the source of the
restrictions on the subject and dative arguments, (3) and (5). The exclusion of predicates that
specify a final state are excluded from inchoatives in which the state is already specified by the
root (4b).
This proposal goes against some well accepted analyses of se-unaccusatives and verbs of change
of state in general. Specifically, it goes against 1) the idea that the DP argument is licensed as a
complement of the verb, 2) that change of state is the meaning of one head BECOME (Embick
2004; Hale & Keyser 2002; Harley 2006, among others) and 3) that inchoative se is the
expression of the suppression of one of the arguments of the verb either in the syntax or in the
lexicon (e.g., Levin & Rappaport-Hovav 1995; Reinhardt & Siloni 2005; Zubizarreta 1987, but
see Folli & Harley 2005; Schäfer 2008).
Although this alternation is not as productive as other, better studied alternations, it sheds light in
the analysis of the intransitive, inchoative variant of the causative alternation (as in abrir(se)
‘open’, derretir(se) ‘melt’, romper(se), ‘break’). It also covers the intransitive se-less use of verbs
such as abrir ‘open’ and cerrar ‘close’, as in Esta puerta no cierra/abre ‘This does doesn’t
close/open’. This alternation argues against derivational analysis of the causative-inchoative
alternation since it involves cases of inchoative variants which do not have a transitive, causative
counterpart. The contrasts and the proposed analysis are tested against further data from idioms
and idiomatic expressions which are compatible with one or the other variant.
(8) a. Juan (*se) cayó enfermo
Juan
fell ill
‘Juan became ill’
b. Juan *(se) salió de las casillas
Juan SE came.out of the slots
‘Juan got very upset’
This work suggests that the meaning of roots determines in crucial but very restricted ways the
types of configurations in which they can appear. It supports the idea that verbal meanings
emerge as the interpretation of roots combined—by compatibility of meaning— with a small set
of ‘flavours’ of verbalizing heads.
References
Cuervo, María Cristina. 2008. La alternancia causativa y su interacción con argumentos dativos. Revista de
lingüística teórica y aplicada 46, 1. 55–79.
Embick, David. 2004. On the Structure of Resultative Participles in English. Linguistic Inquiry 35, 3, 355-392.
Espinal, M.T. and J. Mateu. 2006. On bare nominals and argument structure. Proceedings of the XXXV Incontro di
Grammatica generativa, Universitá di Siena.
Fernández Lagunilla, Marina and Elena de Miguel. 1999. Relaciones entre el léxico y la sintaxis: adverbios de foco y
delimitadores aspectuales. Verba, 26, pp. 97–128.
Folli, Raffaella & Harley, Heidi. 2005. Flavours of v: Consuming results in Italian & English. In P. Kempchinsky
and R. Slabakova (eds.), Aspectual Enquiries, pp. 95-120. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hale, K. & S.J. Keyser. 2002. Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. Cambridge: MIT Press.
45
Preverbal multiple negation as negative doubling
María Cristina Cuervo & Natalia Mazzaro (University of Toronto)
Sentential negation with preverbal n-words displays a crosslinguistic contrast in the presence/
absence of a negative element, as illustrated with Spanish (1) and French (2). Analyses of this
contrast account for this variation in terms of some kind of syntactic parametric variation –e.g., in
strength of features, movement– or lexical ambiguity of the n-words (see Bosque, 1994;
Haegeman, 1995; Herburger 2001, Laka, 1994; Zannuttini, 1997; among others).
1) Nadie (*no) abrió la puerta
Nobody NEG opened the door
'Nobody opened the door.'
2) Personne *( n)’a
ouvert
Nobody
NEG has opened
'Nobody opened the door'.
la porte
the door
This contrast is not only found across languages but also within dialects of one language (see
Franco & Landa 2006 for Basque Spanish, Espinal 2000 for Catalan). In Corrientes Spanish
(CS), a variety of Argentine Spanish in contact with Guaraní, the negative clitic no can appear
with a preverbal n-word, as shown in (3). Interestingly, the Standard Spanish (SS) variant without
no is also accepted (4).
3) Nunca no nos pasó
nada (D:164)
us happened nothing
Never NEG
'Nothing ever happened to us.'
4) Nunca nos controlaron (D:237)
Never us checked
They never checked on us.'
Beyond some claims in terms of its origin in the contact with Guaraní or in Old Spanish, this
variation has not been systematically described nor has there been a formal analysis of the
phenomenon. The very acceptability of the two variants within the same dialect is a crucial aspect
that should be taken into account by any thorough study. Based on new data from sociolinguistic
interviews, we develop a morphological account of the variation in terms of the spell-out of the
negative head (Cf. Watanabe 2001). The analysis draws a parallelism between variation in the cooccurrence of a preverbal n-word and the negative clitic –to which we refer as ‘negative
doubling’, ND– and variation in direct object clitic doubling.
Forty-five native speakers of CS were interviewed to determine the distribution of the variants
across social (sex, age, literacy) and linguistic (type of n-word, specificity and distance) factor
groups. From a total of 437 tokens, ND had an overall rate of 13.7%. As opposed to what was
initially hypothesized, this non-standard variant is present in both literate and illiterate subjects
(12.4% and 15.5%, respectively). The multivariate analysis conducted with Golvarb X (Sankoff
D., Tagliamonte & Smith, 2005) showed that the social factor groups were not selected as
significant in the probability of occurrence of ND. Moreover, since this variant is common in the
speech of all speakers, regardless of their social group, we conclude that ND in CS is a case of
stable variation. Interestingly, the analysis revealed that the variation is present within the same
speaker.
Concerning linguistic factors, the type of n-word (nada ‘nothing’, nadie ‘nobody’, ningún ‘none’,
nunca ‘never’, tampoco ‘neither’, ni ‘nor’) was analysed to determine whether ND is found
within a subgroup of the words or whether it is a generalized phenomenon. The results showed
that ND appears with all n-words, although it is significantly more frequent with tampoco and
nada and less with nunca (43.4%, 39.1% and 3.4%, respectively). It has been argued that
increased specificity (or referential use) is a factor that influences clitic or negative doubling
(Suñer 1988, Sánchez 2006, Franco & Landa 2006). This observation was confirmed by our
results, which showed that specific reference significantly influences the occurrence of ND while
non-specific reference disfavours it (probability of .70 and .29 respectively). Finally, the distance
46
(in number of words excluding clitics) between the n-word and the verb significantly influenced
the occurrence of ND in that the longer the distance, the greater the probability of doubling (less
local .81 vs. more local .49). As in clitic doubling of direct objects, then, the morphological spell
out of the relevant head is sensitive to the properties and position of the agreeing phrase.
Previous approaches to negation in Romance in terms of syntactic structure or lexical ambiguity
of n-words seem ill suited to account for the variation found in CS. They are particularly
problematic given the intra-speaker variation, since they would suggest speakers have two
distinct grammars.
ND emerges as the lack of complementarity in distribution of agreeing no and a preverbal nword, just as clitic doubling is lack of complementarity between an argument DP and an agreeing
clitic. We propose, in the spirit of Watanabe (2001), that no is the negative clitic which spells out
the Neg head when it has entered into an agreement relation with a non-local, specific negative
word (as opposed to a quantificational expression in its specifier). In SS, the item ø rather than no
is always inserted when SpecNeg is filled. This proposal is compatible with Espinal’s (2000)
analysis of Spanish n-words as negative indefinite expressions underspecified for quantificational
force (they are [αQ]). Within this system, an n-word in CS can also function as a [–Q] in
preverbal position, having a specific referential interpretation.
Although of similar nature, this approach crucially differs from Franco & Landa’s (2006) in that
it does not depend on their claim –proven wrong by data such as in (1) and (4)– that preverbal nwords are contrastively focused and receive main stress. This account can also capture the fact
that negative doubling not only occurs with argumental n-words but with tampoco ‘neither’ and
ni ‘nor’ as well. Under our view, the variation found in CS is not a difference in structure or
feature strength, which would imply subject-internal variation in core syntax, nor a case of
multiple ambiguity of n-words. Here the variation is reduced to variation on the specification of
the lexical items ø and no (and underspecification of n-words), and is localized internal to the
grammar, in the functional lexicon (Adger&Smith 2002; Chomsky 1995; Halle&Marantz 1993).
References
Adger, D. and Smith, N. 2002. Variation and the minimalist program. In Cornips, L. & K. Corrigan (eds.)
Syntax and Variation. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
Bosque, I. 1994. La negación y el principio de las categorías vacías. In Violeta Demonte (ed.) Gramática
del Español. México: El Colegio de México.
Chomsky, N. (1995) The Minimalist Program. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Espinal, M.T. (2000) On the semantic status of n-words in Catalan and Spanish, Lingua 110, 557-580.
Franco, J. and Landa, A. 2006. Preverbal N-Words and Anti-Agreement Effects. In Sagarra, N. & Toribio,
A.J. (eds.) Selected Proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Proceedings Project, 34-42.
Haegeman, L. 1995. The Syntax of Negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halle, M. And Marantz, A. 1993. Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection. In Hale, K. and J.
Keyser (eds.). The View from Building 20. Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 111-176.
Herburger, E. 2001. The negative concord puzzle revisited, Natural Language Semantics 9, 3, 289-333.
Laka, I. 1994. The Syntax of Negation. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.
Watanabe, A. 2001. Decomposing the Neg-Criterion. In D'Hulst, Y., J. Rooryck & J. Schroten (eds.)
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory: Selected Papers from 'Going Romance' 1999. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins, 383-406.
Sankoff, David, Sali Tagliamonte, Eric Smith. (2005). Goldvarb X: A variable rule application for
Macintosh and Windows. Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto.
Zanuttini, R. 1997. Negation and Clausal Structure: A Comparative Study of Romance Languages. New
York: Oxford University Press.
47
The role of semantic transfer in clitic-drop among Chinese L1-Spanish L2 bilinguals
Alejandro Cuza (Purdue University), Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux (University of Toronto) &
Liliana Sanchez (Rutgers University)
Object clitic drop is a common phenomena in bilingual and second language populations, with
initial production and acceptance of non-target definite object drop (Bruhn de Garavito and
Guijarro-Fuentes, 2002), and mastery at the advanced levels (Borgonovo et al. 2009). One
possibility is to consider clitic drop as depending on the interpretation of the relevant pieces of
grammar, including the null objects (Sánchez & Al-kasey, 1999). Zyzik (2008) argues that object
drop is influenced by discourse context, noting that ungrammatical definite null objects in L2
speakers appear primarily in conjoined and contextually defined anaphora.
We investigate the interpretive dimension of clitic drop in the L2 Spanish of Chinese speakers
who acquired Spanish as a second language upon immigration to Perú at an early age. Whereas
the Chinese languages have null referential objects (1b), Spanish has referential D.O. clitics (2)
and non-referential null objects (3b):
(1)
(2)
(3)
a.
Zhangsan kanjian Lisi le ma?
“Did Zhangsan see Lisi?”
b.
Ta kanjian (ta) le
“He saw (her)” (from Huang 1986)
Ayer, la/ *Ø vi.
Yesterday, CL fem sg/*Ø saw
“Yesterday, I saw her.”
a.
¿Compraste pan?
“Did you buy bread”
b.
Sí, compré Ø
“Yes, (I) bought (it).”
.
Do cross-linguistic differences in the semantic/discourse licensing of referential null objects play
a role in the acquisition of object clitics despite intensive and early exposure to the L2? A truthvalue judgment task targeted referential meaning of null objects in a negation context (4) (PérezLeroux et al. 2008). Clitics were elicited by (a) a question after a story task (5), and (b) a sentence
completion task. The latter targeted left dislocation contexts, including [definite_nonspecific] (6),
[definite specific] (7) and [indefinite non-specific topics] (8). Finally, an acceptability judgment
task tested sensitivity to clitic presence in similar left-dislocation contexts as above. 13 early
bilinguals (average age at immigration 10;0, average stay 14 years) and 15 monolingual controls
were recruited in Lima, Perú. A proficiency test (revised MLA placement vocabulary section and
a cloze passage adapted from a Peruvian newspaper) showed no differences between groups
(bilinguals mean=43/50, controls=44/50 (t(26) = 3.95, p= .669).
Bilinguals differed from controls in comprehension, showing twice as many referential errors
(Table 1), and fewer individuals favoring non-referential readings. In production, bilinguals show
clitic difficulty in most dimensions (Table 2), avoiding clitics by producing DPs, as in Arche and
Dominguez (to appear). They are not sensitive to definiteness in the clitic left dislocation
contexts. In the acceptability task, bilinguals fail to note the ungrammaticality of null objects in
definite non-specific and definite specific dislocation contexts (Table 3) and to a lesser degree in
indefinite non-specific contexts. Some but not all of these patterns related to performance in
comprehension.
48
Transfer-induced clitic drop persists in this high proficiency population of early bilinguals, who
seem to retain and transfer the referential properties of their L1 null objects. The association
between failed comprehension of null objects and diminished production of clitics in some L2
contexts supports a role for semantic transfer in clitic omission.
Table 1: TVJT: Average acceptance of null objects under negation and pronominal object per group.
Null Object
Pronominal Object
no está leyendo (FALSE)
no lo está leyendo (TRUE)
Early Bilinguals
0.6
0.9
Control
0.3
0.9
ANOVA
*<.006
.8 n.s
Table 2: Question after Story Task and Sentence Completion Task: Proportions of clitics realized.
Anaphoric
Definite specific
Definite non specific Indefinite non specific left
contexts
left dislocation
left dislocation. 4
dislocation (*clitic)
8 items
4 items
items
4 items
Bilinguals (n=13)
Control (n=15)
ANOVA
0.49
0.70
0.63
0.18
0.71
0.98
*<.008
0.88
*<.05
0.13
.8 n.s
.07~
Table 3: Acceptability Judgment Task: Average acceptance of ungrammatical conditions per group
4 items
Definite_non specific_null*
Definite_specific_null*
Indef_non-specific_clitic*
Early bilinguals
Control
ANOVA
3.5/5
2.6/5
.06~
4.1/5
2.7/5
**<.001
3.2/5
2.6/5
.23 n.s
(4) No está comiendo Ø
“(He) is not eating
(5) ¿Qué hizo Laura con las rosas? Las cortó
“What did Laura do with the roses?” “She cut them”
(6) Luisito nunca se come los vegetales pero [la leche] siempre…(se la toma)
“Luisito never eats the vegetables but [the milk] he always…( drinks it)”
(7) Juan puso los libros en el estante pero [los documentos no importantes] …(los botó en el cesto)
“Juan put the books in the bookcase but [the important documents] (he threw them in the basket)”
(8) Mi marido bebe café y té pero yo [café] no…(bebo)
“My husband drinks coffee and tea but [coffee] (I don’t drink)
References
Arche, M. J. and Domínguez, L. (In Press). Morphology and syntax dissociation in SLA: evidence from L2 clitic
acquisition in Spanish. In A. Galani, G. Tsoulas, and G. Hicks (Eds) Morphology and its Interfaces.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Borgonovo, C., Bruhn de Garavito, J. & Prévost, P. (2005). Acquisition of mood distinctions in L2 Spanish. In A.
Burgos, M.R. Clark-Cotton and S. Ha (eds.) Proceedings of the
29th
BUCLD (pp. 97- 108).
Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Bruhn de Garavito, J., and Guijarro-Fuentes, P. (2002). L2 acquisition of indefinite object drop. In Costa, J., and
Freitas, M.J., editors, GALA 2001 Proceedings, Lisbon: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, 60-67.
Huang, J. (1986). On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry. 531-574.
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., M. Pirvulescu, and Roberge, Y. (2008). Children’s interpretation of null objects under the scope
of negation. Proceedings of the 2008 Meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association, ed. by S. Jones.
Sánchez, L. and Al-Kasey, T. (1999). L2 acquisition of Spanish direct objects. Spanish Applied Linguistics 3,1-32.
Zyzik, E. (2008). Null objects in second language acquisition: Grammatical versus performance models. Second
Language Research, 24(1), 65-110.
49
Agreement Mismatch phenomena: a New Typology for Romance
Roberta D’Alessandro (LUCL Leiden University)
Agreement displacement/mismatch (AM), is a phenomenon found in languages like Basque,
Georgian, Karok, and Ezra Mordvinian, whereby the agreement controller of a transitive verb is
sometimes the external argument (EA), sometimes the internal argument (IA), or even both (see
Bright 1957, Harris 1981, Abondolo 1982, Hewitt 1995, Nash 1995, Hale 2001, Rezac 2003,
Bejar & Rezac 2009). AM is traditionally claimed not to be found in Romance languages.
Moreover, AM is not expected to take place for gender, at least for languages like the Romance
(see Corbett 1990, Tsoulas 2008, Nevins 2010).
In this paper, I wish to bring to light a set of data on agreement in an Italo-Romance variety
where AM takes place for both gender and number. In this variety, Ripatransone (RT), a central
Italian dialect, if EA and IA have different gender or number, the verb is marked with a
“mismatch marker” [2]. I wish to propose that this mismatch arises because of the more
articulated structure of v in RT, which brings about an ergative-like structure.
According to Müller (2004), the EA in ergative languages is licensed by v. After showing that
this is also the case for the RT dialect group, I discuss the following generalizations: 1.
Languages that present AM phenomena have the EA licensed by v and have a richer v field; 2. A
rich v is also an indication for the null-subjecthood of a language (following D’Alessandro &
Roberts 2010), hence languages which present AM phenomena tend to be null-subject; 3. the
dialect group of RT is neither ergative-like not accusative-like, but exhibits features of both
language groups, suggesting the existence of a “Case”-continuum.
THE DATA. In RT, the finite verb is marked for gender[1] (Parrino 1967, Harder 1998). Moreover,
when the EA and the IA gender or number features do not coincide, the verb is marked with a
neuter ending (-ә) [2]. Obviously, no mismatch is marked on the verb when both the subject and
the object exhibit the same gender [3]. Following Silverstein (1976) and Zwicky (1977) on
animacy hierarchies, as well as Benveniste’s (1966) idea of 3rd person being equivalent to no
person, several accounts have been proposed for AM facts. Notably, Bejar & Rezac (2009)
propose an analysis of agreement displacement phenomena through a mechanism of Cyclic
Agree, whereby the v head first probes the IA and subsequently the EA, which is in the ccommand domain of v after the extension of the search space via cyclic reprojection of v (for
Agree see Chomsky 2001 and ff.). Cyclic Agree cannot easily account for AM in RT, as the IA
Agrees with, and values all, the φ-features of v. Hence, there is no reason for the fully valued v to
probe again the EA for gender and number.
Thus RT, a Romance language, presents striking agreement patterns: first, it marks gender on the
verb; second, it exhibits AM for gender and number and marks it on the verb.
THE ANALYSIS. It has been recently proposed that features on functional heads can be of at least
two kinds: structure-building, and probing [Pesetsky & Torrego 2006, Rizzi 2008, Adger &
Svenonius 2009, Cecchetto & Donati 2009, Müller to appear]. According to Müller (to appear),
features are ranked and only the features on the top of a feature list are accessible for
computation. Syntactic operations are feature-driven, and every syntactic operation must
discharge either a structure-building/Merge feature or a probing/Agree feature. Building on
Müller, I propose the following: 1. RT and the dialects of the surrounding area have a complex v
shell [4] and 2. All Merge features on v precede Agree features. This means that v will not Probe
for its IA right after its Merge but it will wait until the higher v is Merged. At this point, the
higher v will Probe for the EA while the lower v will Probe for the IA simultaneously, with the
50
result that the two vs, which are in a SHARE relation (i.e. display identical feature sets, Chomsky
2005, Ouali 2008) might display gender and number feature value mismatch. This mismatch is
resolved at PF by inserting a neuter ending on the verb. Person is instead encoded in T, which is
otherwise defective (D’Alessandro & Roberts 2010).
‘Delayed’ Agree brings about AM, and together with the complex v shell sketches an ergativelike pattern for RT, to which we return below.
Evidence for the existence of a complex v is given by dialects of the RT group, which exhibit
double auxiliary constructions like in [5] where BE+HAVE form a complex auxiliary and share
φ-features [D’Alessandro & Ledgeway 2010], and split auxiliary selection according to the
subject’s person [Mahajan 2004, Manzini & Savoia 2005]. All these instances are taken to
indicate the existence of a complex v field, where the v features are shared between two v heads
[see also Cocchi 2009 for a similar proposal on Bantu].
Building on an intuition by Contreras (1991), if v is rich and licenses the EA the language will be
null-subject. Under this view, given that AM in RT is caused by a rich v which licenses the EA,
we expect RT to be null-subject. This is in fact the case. This also predicts that all languages that
present AM phenomena determined by a rich v (like Basque, Georgian, Karok etc) must be nullsubject. This prediction is, to my knowledge, borne out.
Last, according to Müller (2004) v licenses the EA if the language is ergative. Hence, given this
proposal, RT should also be ergative. Although the RT pronoun system is a NominativeAccusative one, RT and its language group do exhibit many features in common with (split)ergative systems: a. split auxiliary selection according to person (1st and 2nd vs 3rd), also found
in ergative languages [Dixon 2004]; b. defective T not licensing the subject and not hosting the
subject in its specifier [D’Alessandro & Roberts 2010] . These facts suggest that NominativeAccusative and Ergative-Absolutive systems are distributed along a continuum and do not
constitute completely separate groups; feature ranking can determine also intermediate types of
languages. While some properties of Ergative or Nominative languages cluster together, possibly
because of uniformity of feature on functional heads [Roberts & Holmberg 2009], this is not
always the case.
51
Can non-native allophones be acquired?:
Evidence from the L2 acquisition of Québec French
Will Dalton (University of Ottawa)
Whereas the second language (L2) acquisition of phonemes has been the subject of much
research in the past few decades (see Flege, 1995, for review), relatively little attention has been
given to the acquisition of allophones. Successful acquisition of allophonic alternations is a
crucial step in constructing a native-like phonological system. Anecdotal evidence suggests that
allophone acquisition poses a significant challenge to the second language learner, with failure to
acquire the appropriate context-dependent phonetic alternations resulting in a persistent foreign
accent. To date, however, there have been few principled investigations of L2 allophone
acquisition.
Current models of L2 speech learning, such as Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model (SLM)
and Best’s (1995) Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), make testable predictions with respect
to phoneme acquisition, but it is not clear what predictions these models make for the acquisition
of L2 allophones. I argue that the challenging nature of allophone acquisition is due to several
factors: the lack of positive evidence that there is only one phoneme in the target language, the
lack of negative feedback (producing the wrong allophone in a given context is unlikely to lead to
misinterpretation on the part of the native speaker) and the often complex distribution of
allophones in the target language.
The purpose of this research is to determine whether second language learners can acquire the
allophonic distribution appropriate to the L2 by investigating the acquisition of high, front vowels
in Quebec French (QF) by native speakers of English. Whereas English has two high front
(unrounded) vowel phonemes (tense /i/ and lax /I/), QF has only one (/i/). Crucially, however,
this phoneme has two context-dependent variants ([i] and [I]), which are phonetically similar to
the L1 English phonemes. QF tense [i] occurs in open syllables, while lax [I] occurs in closed
syllables. However, this pattern is complicated by two phonological processes: (1) Vowel
harmony (Poliquin, 2006), resulting in lax [I] in some open syllables (e.g. [klInIk] ‘clinic’, cf.
*[klinIk]), and (2) word-final lengthening (Walker, 1984), causing tense [i] to appear in syllables
closed by voiced continuants (e.g. [li:v] ‘book’, cf. *[lIv]).
In order to determine if such a complex allophonic distribution can indeed be acquired,
participants completed a judgment task in which they were asked to judge which word in a pair
sounds more appropriate for QF. Results indicate that it is indeed possible to achieve native-like
production with respect to L2 allophones, but that it constitutes a difficult challenge, as only the
most advanced speakers approach native speaker levels of accuracy. Results also suggest that
L2ers are aware of non-contrastive phonetic information, which they use to construct a
distribution-based representation of L2 allophones.
References
Best, C. 1995. A direct realist view of cross-language speech. In W. Strange (ed.), Speech
Perception and Linguistic Experience, 171-204. York Press: Timonium, Maryland.
52
References
Best, C. 1995. A direct realist view of cross-language speech. In W. Strange (ed.), Speech
Perception and Linguistic Experience, 171-204. York Press: Timonium, Maryland.
Flege, J. E. 1995. Second Language Speech Learning: Theory, Findings and Problems. In W.
Strange (ed.), Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience, 233-272. York Press:
Timonium, Maryland.
Poliquin, G. C. 2006. Canadian French Vowel Harmony. Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard,
University.
Walker, D. 1984. The Pronunciation of Canadian French. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press
53
Invariable gusta in the Spanish of Heritage Speakers in the US
Ana de Prada Pérez & Diego Pascual y Cabo (University of Florida)
In recent years, a growing body of research has emerged examining the production and
competence of heritage speaker (HSs) bilinguals in order to determine what structures might be
more vulnerable to divergence from monolingual norms under specific environments of language
contact. Many researchers have identified the interfaces of syntax with other linguistic and
cognitive modules as a primary locus of (emerging) optionality in HS populations (e.g. Montrul
2004, 2008, Sánchez 2004, Sorace 2003, Rothman 2007, 2009, Toribio 2004). An understudied
structure relevant to this approach is the argument structure of Reverse Psychological Predicates
(RPPs), as it lies within the lexico-semantic interface with syntax. It is largely accepted that
Spanish canonical word order is SVO. However, RPPs, with gustar ‘to like/to please’ as its
prototype, are unique in displaying an unmarked OVS word order. These predicates select a
nominative theme and a dative experiencer. The theme, thus, controls verbal agreement although
it appears postverbally, while the experiencer, which is obligatorily doubled by a clitic, also
displays subject-like characteristics since it is higher in the thematic hierarchy (Grimshaw 1990)
and it appears preverbally in unmarked word order (1). As can be seen in the English translations,
however, in English psychological predicates do not reveal this structure.
These unique properties render these predicates especially problematic for second
language learners (Montrul 1997, 1998, Toth 2003) and HSs (Dvorak & Kirschner 1982, Toribio
& Nye 2004). In the case of HSs, several outcomes have been documented: (i) clitic agreement:
no clitic doubling or invariable singular clitic, (ii) verbal agreement: preverbal argument controls
agreement, and (iii) absence of the dative marker on the experiencer. While the previous
literature has paved the way to new research, there are some questions that remain to be
answered. In particular, these projects did not take into consideration different proficiency levels
between the speakers. In addition, their exploratory nature failed to examine variables
consistently. In order to address these concerns, we examined the speech of 47 HSs (7 low, 20
intermediate and 20 advanced) and 10 Spanish monolingual speakers as a control group.
Participants completed a contextualized acceptability judgment task targeting theme-verb
agreement and experiencer-clitic agreement (2). In all sentences the preverbal animate
experiencer and the postverbal inanimate theme were in the third person, with number as a
variable. Thus, we had two conditions: singular experiencer with plural theme (1a) and plural
experiencer with singular theme (1b). For each context, participants had to provide a judgment on
four sentences, one grammatical (2a), one ungrammatical due to verbal agreement (2b), one
ungrammatical due to clitic agreement (2c), and one ungrammatical due to both verbal and clitic
agreement (2d). These materials allowed us to test (i) whether the clitic agrees with the
experiencer, the theme, or none (i.e., it is invariable) and (ii) whether the verb agrees with the
experiencer, the theme, or none (i.e., it is invariable). Results indicate that clitic agreement is not
as problematic as suggested in previous research. Interestingly, however, the speakers prefer
invariable third person singular across conditions (i.e. they prefer a singular verbal form with
plural experiencers and with plural themes). Lastly, while indeterminacy was pervasive across
participants, advanced HSs outperformed low and intermediate HSs. This paper, thus, refines
previous accounts of HS reverse psychological predicate grammars and discusses these results
vis-a-vis accounts that seek to explain divergence in HS grammars. Among the possibilities, we
54
will explore the notions of incomplete acquisition in individual HS grammars as the source of
monolingual divergence (e.g. Montrul 2008) and also the possibility that cross-generational
attrition affects the quality of input HSs receive (e.g. Sorace, 2004; Pires and Rothman 2009).
Examples
(1) a. A Carlos le gustan las películas románticas.
‘Carlos likes romantic movies.’
b. A Carlos y a Marina les gusta esa película romántica.
‘Carlos and Marina like that romantic movie.’
(2) Next week it is your cousin’s birthday. Your aunt has not found the perfect gift yet so she
thinks that you may be able to give her good advice. She calls you on the phone to ask
you your thoughts about Shakira, so she asks you, “Does he like Shakira’s music?” You
respond:
a. A mi primo no le gustan los discos de Shakira.
-2
-1
+1
+2
*I do not know/I am unsure
b. A mi primo no le gusta los discos de Shakira.
-2
-1
+1
+2
c. A mi primo no les gustan los discos de Shakira.
-2
-1
+1
+2
d. A mi primo no les gusta los discos de Shakira.
-2
-1
+1
+2
‘My cousin doesn’t like Shakira’s albums.’
References
Dvorak, T. & Kirschner, C.(1982). Mary Likes Fishes: Reverse Psychological Phenomena in New York Puerto
Rican Spanish. The Bilingual Review/La revista bilingue, 1982, 9, 1, Jan-Apr, 59-65
Grimshaw, J. B. (1990). Argument structure. Linguistic inquiry monographs, 18. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Montrul, S. (1997). Spanish Psych Verbs and the Unaccusative se Construction: The Case of Dative Experiencers in
SLA. Contemporary Perspectives on the Acquisition of Spanish. Ed. Perez-Leroux & Glass. Vol. 1.
Cascadilla Press: Somerville, MA.
Montrul, S. (1998). The L2 acquisition of dative experiencer subjects. Second Language Research 14, 27-61.
Montrul, S. (2004). Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morpho syntactic
convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7, 2, 125–
142.
Montrul, S. (2008). Second language acquisition welcomes the heritage language speaker. Opportunities of a new
field. Review article. Second Language Research 24, 4, 487506
Pires, A. & Rothman, J. (2009). Disentangling Contributing Variables to Incomplete Acquisition Competence
Outcomes: What Differences Across Brazilian and European Portuguese Heritage
Rothman, J. (2007) Heritage Speaker Competence Differences, Language Change and Input Type: Inflected
Infinitives in Heritage Brazilian Portuguese. International Journal of Bilingualism 11, 4 359-389
Rothman, J. (2009). Pragmatic Deficits with Syntactic Consequences: L2 Pronominal Subjects and the SyntaxPragmatics Interface. Journal of Pragmatics, 41 951-973
Toribio, A.J. (2004). Convergence as an Optimization Strategy in Bilingual Speech: Evidence from Code-Switching.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2004, 7, 2, Aug, 165-173
Toribio, A.J. & Nye, C. (2004). Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicates
Toth, P. (2003). Psych Verbs and Morphosyntactic Development in Instructed L2 Spanish. Linguistic Theory and
Language Development in Hispanic Languages, ed. S. Montrul and F. Ordóñez, 468-497. Cascadilla Press:
Somerville, MA
Sorace, A. (2004).First Language Attrition and Syntactic Subjects: A Study of Greek and Italian Near-Native
Speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2004, 8, 3, 257-277
55
Binominal DPs and specificity in Spanish
Manuel Delicado-Cantero (Australian National University) & Melvin González-Rivera (College
of Wooster)
Introduction. In this paper the syntax and semantics of Spanish Qualitative Binominal Noun
Phrases are examined. Spanish Qualitative Binominal Noun Phrases come in two types:
attributive (1) and comparative (2) (den Dikken 2006; Villalba-Kaufmann 2010). Here we focus
our attention in (2), which will be called QBNP’s. Such clauses have the following syntactic
structures: (i) Def-A/N de Def-N (3), or (ii) Def-A/N de Def-PN (4), and involve at some level of
abstraction DP-internal predication -i.e. (3) and (4) can be paraphrased roughly as (5) and (6)
respectively. Español-Echevarría (1997, 1998) has highlighted that both DP’s must be definite, as
the ungrammaticality of (7) and (8) demonstrates. This agreement between the definite features
of both DP’s is known as the definiteness agreement effect (DAE) -i.e. an NP headed by a
definite D must contain a second definite D. This restriction ensures that when a definite
determiner appears in initial position, the post-prepositional nominal has to be definite, banning
examples such as (7) and (8).
Internal structure. Regarding the internal syntax of this construction, Villalba (2007) argues,
following den Dikken’s Predicate Inversion work, that the underlying structure of a QBNP’s is as
reflected in (9): the DP subject el doctor ‘the doctor’ stands in a predication relation with the DP
predicate idiota ‘idiot’. The mediation of the small clause is necessary in order to comply with
the Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) (Kayne 1994), and is done by means of the Relator
head R, a functional head that takes the predicate and its subject as its dependents, with one
sitting in the specifier position of the RELATOR PHRASE and the other occupying the RELATOR’s
complement position (den Dikken 2006).Villalba argues further that the predicate inverts around
its subject in the course of the syntactic derivation and lands finally in Spec,FocP, where the
interpretable ϕ-features of the DP predicate can probe the interpretable ϕ-features of the DP
subject, match and agree hold, and valuation of the ϕ-features of the DP predicate takes place.
Information structure is responsible for the inversion of the predicate. Finally, the D head, which
is the D for the whole construction, is merged and the final DP is constructed (10). Once more,
the uninterpretable ϕ-features of the D head probe the interpretable ϕ-feature of the DP subject,
without the intervention of the inverted predicate, which has become inactive after the Agree
operation. Therefore, valuation takes place and the determiner ends up agreeing with the subject
and the predicate (Villalba 2007: 131).
The problems. On the one hand, the DAE is quite puzzling because it is not always the case that
the post-prepositional nominal has to be definite -i.e. a definite article does not show up
necessarily in the DP subject position (11 and 12). Thus, contrary to Español-Echevarría (1997,
1998), we found that an upper definite article does not require another one in the lower DP. In
such cases, while the external D is indeed definite, the subject DP’s are actually indefinite.
Therefore, an unexpected configuration [+def] - [-def] is obtained. The semantics still depends on
the subject DP, as the semantic interpretation (definite, specific) is controlled by the DP subject.
On the other hand, a syntactic analysis along the lines of Villalba (2007) cannot account for the
agreement between the features inside the predicate AP/DP and those of the subject D below
56
because the former do not c-command those of DP subject; thus no Agree should be possible,
contrary to fact.
The analysis. Following an insight by Villalba (2007), we restate DAE in terms of the specificity
agreement effect (SAE): Spanish QBNP’s require specificity rather than definiteness. In
agreement with Lyons (1999) and, in particular, von Heusinger (2002), we assume that
indefinites and definites can both be specific and unspecific. For example, ‘unos vecinos (que
tengo)’ in (12) is semantically interpreted as [-def] but still [+spec], referential; the interpretation
of the referent is anchored to the speaker, the referent is not unique or not inclusive (von
Heusinger 2002). In cases such as (12) we claim that SAE (i.e. specificity spread) rightly
accounts for the agreement relation between the internal DP and the outer D, despite the formal
definiteness of the latter. Furthermore, we argue for a separation between syntactic and semantic
definiteness (Von Heusinger 2002), building on crosslinguistic support from Hebrew CSN's
(Danon 2008) and German possessives (Blümel, pc; Leu 2008). The syntactic analysis is
developed following the notion of agreement as feature sharing (FS) (cf. Frampton and Gutmann
2000; Pesetsky and Torrego 2007). Crucially, FS allows for indirect agreement without constant
c-command. Unvalued probe 1 may probe and find goal 1. If goal 1 is also unvalued, both
unvalued features become instances of the very same feature. Once any of the probes later on
finds an appropriate c-commanded goal 2, all of the instances of the feature in question will be
instantaneously valued, even those for which no c-command relation continues to hold.
(1) un idiota de vecino
‘an idiot of a neighbor’
(2) el idiota del vecino
‘the idiot of the neighbor’
‘the asshole of the Dean’
(3) eldef gilipollasA de+eldef decanoN
(4) eldef gilipollasA de+eldef PepePN
‘the asshole of Pepe’
(5) ⇒El decano es (un) gilipollas.
‘The Dean is an asshole.’
(6) ⇒Pepe es (un) gilipollas.
‘Pepe is an asshole.’
(7) *el imbécil de un doctor
‘the idiot of a doctor’
(8) *el imbécil de doctor
‘the idiot of doctor’
(9) [RP [DP el doctor] [R’ [DP idiota]]]
(10) [DP el [FocP [DP imbécil] [Foc’ R+Foc(de) [RP [DP el doctor] [R’ tR tDP]]]]]
(11) el idiota de presidente que tenemos
‘the idiot of President (we have)’
(12) los idiotas de unos vecinos que tengo ‘the idiot of some neighbors (I have)’
References
Danon, G. 2008. Definiteness spreading in the Hebrew construct state.
den Dikken, M. 2006. Relators and Linkers.
Español-Echevarría, M. 1997. Inalienable possession in copulative contexts and the DP-structure.
Español-Echevarría, M. 1998. N/A of a N DP’s. Predicate raising and subject licensing.
Frampton, J., and S. Gutmann. 2000. Agreement is Feature Sharing.
von Heusinger, K. 2002. Specificity and definiteness in sentence and discourse structure. Kayne,
R. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax.
Leu, T. 2008. The internal syntax of determiners.
Lyons, C. 1999. Definiteness.
Pesetsky, D, and E. Torrego. 2007. The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of features.
Villalba, X. 2007. True and spurious articles in Germanic and Romance.
Villalba, X., and A. Bartra-Kaufmann. 2010. Predicate focus fronting in the Spanish determiner
phrase.
57
The role of L1 Spanish verbal information in L2 English syntactic processing
Amelia J. Dietrich & Giuli Dussias (Penn State University, State College)
Research with monolingual speakers (e.g., Wilson & Garnsey, 2010) and proficient second
language speakers (e.g., Dussias & Cramer Scaltz, 2008) has shown that subcategorization
frequency, also referred to in the literature as verb bias, guides the initial selection of a structural
analysis (Trueswell et al., 1993; Wilson & Garnsey, 2010). Simply put, verb bias refers to the
likelihood of a particular verb occurring in a specific type of syntactic frame. To illustrate,
although worried can be followed by different types of complements, according to some
estimates (e.g., Garnsey et al., 1997) it is mostly often followed by a subordinate clause.
Recent research has shown that verb bias is used quickly during on-line syntactic ambiguity
resolution. For example, in (1) below the noun phrase the doctor is temporarily ambiguous
between a direct object reading and a reading in which it functions as the subject of the
subordinate clause. Psycholinguistic experiments using behavioral measures such as self-paced
reading and eye tracking have shown that native speakers of English encounter little difficulty
when reading the doctor, because readers’ expectations that a noun phrase following the verb
worried likely functions as the subject of an ensuing clause are met. In (4), however, this
expectation is violated, causing processing difficulties at the disambiguating region could be (i.e.,
the region where participants have linguist information to confirm or disconfirm their initial
analysis).
In tandem with the facts presented above, research has also shown that bilingual lexical access is
non-selective. That is, during reading comprehension and production tasks, when bilinguals are
processing in one language alone, the language not in use is also active. Given this activation, it
should be possible to examine how verbs with different verb biases in the bilingual’s two
languages impact L2 processing. The present study investigates this question by examining
whether verb bias information from the first language (Spanish) is activated and used during
second language (English) sentence processing by examining how verbs with same and different
verb biases in the bilingual's two languages impact initial syntactic analysis.
Seven same bias verbs and 15 different bias verbs were embedded in temporarily ambiguous
direct-object (3 and 4) and sentential-complement (1 and 2) sentence continuations:
(1) Same bias –The expecting mother worried the doctor could be taking on too many patients.
(2) Different bias-The expecting mother comprehended the doctor could be taking on too many patients.
(3) Different bias-The expecting mother comprehended the doctor when she saw him at her
appointment.
(4) Same bias-The expecting mother worried the doctor when she saw him at her appointment.
Critically for our purposes, we manipulated verb bias and sentence continuation such that if
Spanish-English bilinguals use verb bias from the L1 during L2 sentence processing, sentences
(2) and (3) should be equally easy to process. For English monolinguals, (2) should be harder to
process than (3) because the sentence continuation does not match their expectations about the
likely complement for comprehend. In addition, both groups should behave similarly for (1)—i.e.
58
easy to process— and for (4)—difficult to process—because the verb bias matches in the two
languages.
Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals read 36 experimental
sentences and 72 fillers. Sentences were presented using a reading moving-window paradigm
(Carpenter and Wooley, 1983). Reading times for the disambiguating region underlined above
were analyzed. As is standard procedure with moving-window experiments, reading times for
sentences followed by incorrect answers to the comprehension questions were excluded. Longer
reading times are indicative of greater processing difficulty. Preliminary findings indicate
differences between bilinguals reading in their L2 and native speakers reading in their L1, which
are modulated by differences in verb bias information between the two languages. Results are
discussed in light of constraint-based theories of syntactic processing (McDonald, 1994).
Key words
bilingual, sentence processing, verb bias
Topics: bilingual speech processing, psycholinguistic studies of bilingualism
59
Obligatory (but restricted) freedom of choice
Anamaria Fălăuş (University of the Basque Country, UPV-EHU)
BACKGROUND:
Recent work on Romance epistemic determiners (e.g. Fălăuş 2009) has shown
that Romanian vreun has a more restricted distribution than other epistemic determiners (e.g.
Spanish algún, French quelque). Unlike its Romance counterparts, it is restricted to contexts
which are interpreted with respect to an epistemic modal base, under operators which satisfy the
epistemic constraint in (1):
(1)
Op p entails that the speaker’s epistemic alternatives include non p-worlds
This generalization has been argued to capture the occurrence of vreun under epistemic modals
and epistemic attitude verbs (e.g. think, suppose, guess, hope) and its non-occurrence under nonepistemic (e.g. deontic modals) and factive (know, regret) or non-epistemic intensional verbs
(advise, say, intend).
PROBLEM: In this paper, we take this generalization one step further, by examining the
distribution of vreun in an understudied context, namely imperatives. Farkas (2002) argues that
vreun is ruled out in imperatives, as illustrated in (2):
(2)
* Ia
vreo
prăjitură!
Take.IMP.2SG VREUN cookie
However, a closer examination of empirical facts reveals that there are imperatives which allow
vreun, like in the following example:
(3)
Verifică
pe vreun site, nu sunt
sigur că nu e
o greşeală.
Check.IMP.2SG on VREUN site, NEG be.1SG sure that NEG be.3SG a mistake
‘Check on some website, I’m not sure it’s not a mistake.’
Standard analyses of imperatives treat them as ‘modalized’ propositions (e.g. Han 2000,
Schwager 2006, Aloni 2007). Accordingly, their interpretation involves a modal base and an
ordering source, which is obligatorily ‘preference-related’. On these assumptions, the occurrence
of vreun in (3) is surprising. We know that its use under modal operators is restricted to epistemic
contexts, but imperatives are not epistemic modals. Consequently, these examples pose a double
challenge. On the one hand, we want to pinpoint the distinction among imperatives that
determines the (non-)occurrence of vreun. On the other hand, we need to understand whether and
how these examples square with the data covered by (1).
PROPOSAL: In order to account for the use of vreun in imperatives and put it together with the
facts captured by the generalization in (1), we adopt the alternative-based, semantic approach to
polarity developed in Chierchia (2006, 2010) and Fălăuş (2009). On this account, a dependent
determiner like vreun has as part of its meaning active alternatives, which require the insertion of
an exhaustivity operator (akin to only), and give rise to (obligatory) implicatures, used for
enriching the basic meaning of assertions. The aforementioned analyses have shown that (i) like
all indefinites, vreun triggers scalar alternatives and (ii) like all polarity-sensitive items, it
activates singleton domain alternatives. The switch to singleton alternatives derives a parametric
difference among existential dependent determiners (Jayez & Tovena 2006, Alonso-Ovalle &
Menéndez-Benito 2010), namely the extent of variation (‘freedom of choice’) among the
members of the restriction set – TOTAL for existential FCIs like un NP oarecare / qualsiasi/
quelconque (4) and PARTIAL for epistemic items like algún or vreun (5):
(4)
(5)
Poţi dansa cu un coleg oarecare, # dar nu cu Paul.
‘You can dance with a colleague whatsoever, but not with Paul’
E posibil să se fi întâlnit cu vreun prieten, dar nu poate fi Luca tocmai l-am văzut.
‘It’s possible he met some friend, but it cannot be Luca, I have just seen him.’
60
This meaning difference stems from different sizes in the domain alternatives considered for
exhaustification: if the domain alternatives are non-minimal, the resulting meaning is a TOTAL
free-choice interpretation: there is a single individual satisfying the existential claim, and all
relevant alternatives qualify as possible options (existential FCI); if the domain alternatives are
minimal (singletons), the resulting meaning is PARTIAL VARIATION - some, but not necessarily all
alternatives qualify as possible options (epistemic items).
Elaborating on this analysis, we show it can capture the imperative facts. More precisely, we
argue that the contrast in (2)-(3) can be reduced to a more general distinction between two types
of imperatives, discussed in Aloni (2007). The two kinds of imperatives have different entailment
properties, as best illustrated by cases involving disjunctions – whereas choice-offering
disjunctive imperatives do a or b entail that the hearer is both allowed to do a and allowed to do
b (‘free-choice permission’), crucially, this entailment is absent for alternative-presenting
imperatives, i.e. Stop that foolishness or leave the room does not entail You may stop that
foolishness and you may leave the room. Importing this distinction in terms of total/partial
variation, we show that vreun is excluded from choice-offering imperatives (2) and possible in
alternative-presenting imperatives like (3) and (6) below. Only the latter is compatible with a
continuation of the type don’t do b, overtly excluding one possible value, thus qualifying as
partial variation models. This is confirmed by the continuation in (6), in a context where A is
waiting for an important parcel, but will be away for the next couple of days. B says:
(6) Vorbeşte cu vreun vecin, să ridice el coletul. Dar nu cu Petre, nu prea e dispus să ajute.
‘Talk to some neighbor, so that he picks up the parcel. But not to Peter, he is not too willing to help.’
In contrast to this, choice-offering imperatives like (2) qualify as total variation models, and
hence rule out the use of vreun. To account for the observed pattern, we argue that the full range
of occurrences of vreun can be captured by assuming that vreun imposes a stronger constraint on
its domain alternatives – not only does vreun allow partial variation, like other epistemic
determiners, but actually requires it:
(7)
Vreun rules out TOTAL VARIATION, i.e. one of the domain alternatives must stand a chance of being false.
We implement this requirement by assuming that the total variation implicature gets added to the
set of alternatives over which we exhaustify, and show that the resulting meaning in a modal
context entails that one of the alternatives must be false (but we ignore which one). Whereas
epistemic operators satisfy this constraint (in virtue of their non p-worlds meaning component),
this requirement cannot be met under deontic modalities, like in free-choice permission sentences
of the form You may eat the cake or the icecream, where each disjunct is a possible option (Fox
2007). In other words, the lexical semantics of deontic modalities and choice-offering
imperatives allows for total variation, a situation which gives rise to a clash with the partial
variation requirement imposed by vreun (7), which is correctly predicted to be ruled out in these
contexts. Summarizing, our proposal to reformulate the epistemic constraint as a condition on
domain alternatives maintains the empirical coverage of (1), and has the advantage of offering an
account for the distribution of vreun in imperatives. The alternative-based proposal we pursue
allows us to integrate vreun in a broader typology of dependent elements, and retains the
recurrent insight that differences among dependent indefinites result from different operations on
quantificational domains. Their restricted distribution then comes out as the result of the logical
interaction of their lexical meaning with other operators in the context.
References
Aloni 2007. ‘Free Choice, Modals and Imperatives’. NALS. 15, 65-94.
Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito 2010.‘Modal Indefinites’. NALS, DOI:10.1007/s11050-009- 9048-4.
Chierchia 2006. ‘Broaden your Views. Implicatures of Domain Widening and the Spontaneous Logicality of
Language’, LI 37(4): 535-590.
61
Prepositional verbs in Romance
Ángel J. Gallego (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
1. GOAL: This paper argues that two types of prepositional verbs must be distinguished in Romance. Building
on Demonte (1991), we claim that verbs of the insist (John insists on his innocence) and consist (The test
consists of four questions) types are to be teased apart. In particular, we take the former group to be unergative,
and the latter to be unaccusative. Crucially, we depart from Demonte’s (1991) analysis, since we take the
prepositional dependents of insist type verbs to be lexical adjuncts (i.e., adjuncts associated to the conceptual
content of the relevant √ROOT; Marantz 2001, Mateu 2005). Likewise, we modify the analysis of consist type
verbs, for which we posit a possessive syntax (Freeze 1992, Kayne 1994, Szabolcsi 1983). 2.
BACKGROUND: Some verbs in Romance require that their complements be introduced by a preposition.
Typically, the preposition fails to convey a specific meaning and cannot be replaced by a different
preposition, which led many authors (Grimshaw 1990, Pesetsky 1982, Williams 1981, a.o.) to treat it as a
lexical (subcategorization) property of the verb:
(1) a. Questo manca {di/*con} profondità.
(Italian)
b. Confiem {en/*amb} tu.
(Catalan)
this
lack-3.sg of with depth
trust-1.pl in with you
‘This lacks depth’
‘We believe in you’
The lack of semantic contribution by these prepositions has nonetheless been questioned. Focusing on Spanish,
Demonte (1991) suggests that the prepositional / transitive alternation in (2) has an aspectual impact: the
preposition ‘detelizices’ the verb (as in so-called “conative alternation”; Levin 1983).
(2) Pensó
#(en) la respuesta durante diez minutos.
(Spanish)
thought-3.sg in the answer during ten minutes
‘She/He thought (on) the answer for ten minutes’
Although the asymmetry in (2) is sound, it fails to provide a comprehensive understanding of what the role of
the preposition is, for the aspectual contribution appears to be restricted to verbs with a transitive variant. 3.
TWO TYPES OF PREPOSITIONAL VERBS: In order to better characterize prepositional verbs, we
would like to build on Demonte’s (1991) observation that these must be divided into two groups. An
important test, provided by Demonte, concerns the fact that only a subtype of prepositional dependents are
actually obligatory. Whereas verbs such as consist (of), abound (in) or suffer (from) must necessarily take a
prepositional dependent, verbs such as insist (on), disagree (with) or abuse (of) can appear in an intransitive
fashion. Consider the following Catalan examples, where Demonte’s observation holds:
(3) a. L’examen ha consistit *(en cinc preguntes). (Catalan) b. Insisteix (en la seva innocència). (Catalan)
the-exam have-3.sg consisted in five questions
insist-3.sg in the her innocence
‘The exam consisted of five questions’
‘She insists on her innocence’
Demonte handles the asymmetry in (3) by proposing two different analyses. As shown below, consist type
verbs are treated as unaccusative (see (4a)), whereas insist type verbs are regarded as transitive (see (4b)), the
preposition being the head of an aspectual/case checking projection.
CONSIST type (unaccusative)
(4) a. [vP v [VP consist [SC [ the exam] (of) [ five questions] ]]]
INSIST type (transitive)
b. [v*P John v* [VP insists [AspP on [DP his innocence]]]]
Different pieces of evidence are provided by Demonte (1991) in order to support her account. One that is
particularly revealing, and can be added to the ones in Demonte (1991), comes from Italian. As predicted by
(4), consistire (di) (consist of) takes “be” as auxiliary, while insistire (insist on) does “have”.
(5) a. L’ attività di ricerca {è/*ha}
consistita nel lavoro di preparazione.
(Italian)
the activity of research be/have-3.sg consisted in-the work of preparation
‘The research activity has consisted of the preparation work’
b. {Ho/*Sono}
insistito sull’importanza
di questo messaggio.
(Italian)
have/be-1.sg insisted about-the-importance of this
message
‘I insisted on the importance of this message’
4. A NEW ANALYSIS. Although Demonte’s solution suffices to capture the facts in (3) and (5), her
analysis is not without technical shortcomings. Here we focus on two of them. First, the account just outlined
62
fails to determine what the role of the preposition of consist type verbs is (more to the point, what is the
relationship between the exam and five questions in (4a)?). Secondand most importantly, it (wrongly)
treats all the prepositional dependents as equally argumental. Since we believe that the status of the
preposition in (4a) can indeed be given a better characterization, and both types of prepositional dependents
should not be treated as arguments by default, we put forward an alternative analysis. Let us first consider
the status of the preposition of consist type verbs. Right from the beginning, it must be noticed that, unlike
prepositional verbs of locatum and location (saddle, bottle, cage, etc.; Hale & Keyser 1993), the relationship
between the SC dependents in (4a) is not of central or terminal coincidence. Of course, it could be argued
that the preposition in (4a) is also an aspectual element. This would fit with the data in (2) and, if correct,
would allow us to envisage a unitary analysis for all the prepositions. Though appealing, Simoni (2005)
offers empirical evidence suggesting that verbs participating in the prepositional / transitive alternation do
not always manifest an aspectual shift. Verbs such as Spanish saber (know) or creer (believe), which
alternate too, are not telic in the transitive variant.
(6) a. Creyó
la historia de su familia {durante años / #en dos años}
(Spanish)
believed-3.sg the story of her family for
years in two years
‘She believed the story of her family {for years/in two years}’
b. Supo
la verdad {durante dos años / #en un año}
(Spanish)
knew-3.sg the truth
for
two years in one year
‘She knew the truth {for two years/in one year}’
Given the unclear status of the prepositional / transitive alternation, we propose to analyze insist type verbs
as unergatives (sing, sleep, laugh; Hale & Keyser 1993), assuming that the PP is an adjunct associated to the
conceptual (syntactically irrelevant; Marantz 2001, Mateu 2005) content of the root √INSIST. The analysis is
thus as follows:
INSIST type (transitive)
(7) [ [v*P John v* [√P √INSIST ]] [PP on [DP his innocence]]
As for consist type verbs, we argue that they should be treated as involving a possessive syntax along the lines of
Kayne (1993), Freeze (1992), and Szabolcsi (1983). Hence, we take the light verb (BE) to select for a SC whose head
is a (null) central coincidence P that establishes a figure-ground relationship (Svenonius 2007, Talmy 2000):
(8) [vP v [√P √CONSIST [PP [ five questions] [P’ PCENTRAL COINCIDENCE [ the exam]]]]] CONSIST type (unaccusative)
Empirically, these analyses fare better than (4). To begin with, (7) (unlike (4b)) captures the optional nature of
the PPs of insist type verbs in a straightforward fashion: simply put, they are optional because they are adjuncts.
If these PPs were arguments (as in Demonte’s account), extraction should be possible, but it is not (extraction
from PPs is ruled out in both consist and insist type verbs).
With respect to the analysis in (8), although it argues (unlike (4a)) for a possessive relationship between the two
DPs, it does not say anything about the preposition that is actually spelled-out. Given the central coincidence
nature of the abstract preposition, the expectation is that the spelled-out version will have the same nature. As far
as we can tell, this is borne out in most cases provided by Demonte (1991): consistir en (consist of), prorrumpir
en (burst into), abundar en (abound in), versar sobre (be about), redundar en (benefit), reposar en (lie in). There
are only two cases where the P is not of the central coincidence sort: constar de (consist of) and adolecer de
(suffer from). Happily, though, in thoses cases the P does not have a terminal coincidence (partitive, source, etc.)
nature either, which we take to indicate that it is inserted as default (in fact, this P is de, which is typically regarded
as semantically empty, inserted to satisfy Case demands at PF).
5. CONCLUSIONS: This paper has argued that prepositional verbs in Romance languages must be divided
into two main classes. Building on Demonte (1991), we have claimed that verbs of the consist type are
unaccusative (the PP being a predicate within the possessive SC selected by the light verb), whereas verbs of
the insist type are unergative (the PP being an adjunct associated to the conceptual content of the root; Marantz
2001, Mateu 2005). To the extent that this distinction is on track, some welcome results must be highlighted.
Although our analysis suggests that prepositional dependents cannot be given a unitary account, it nevertheless
states that PPs can never be direct dependents of verbs: either they are adjuncts or predicates of a selected small
clause. This fits with independent evidence from the Case-agreement systems: if PPs were direct dependents of
the verb, then the φ-features on v* could not be valued, given the opaque nature of PPs (Abels 2003, Pesetsky
& Torrego 2004, Řezáč 2008, a.o.).
63
The acquisition of Catalan passives and the adjectival interpretation
Anna Gavarró & Xavier Parramon (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Pierce (1992) presented the first results on the acquisition of passive in Romance. Her results
were later reinterpreted adopting the VP-internal subject hypothesis and could be accounted for
on a par with the results from other language families as showing late maturation of structures
derived by A-movement (Borer & Wexler 1987, Wexler 2004). Surprisingly, no more work has
been conducted in the acquisition of passive in Ibero-Romance, although miscomprehension of
passive is known to be a robust and lasting feature of child language cross-linguistically. In this
paper we contribute to the study of the acquisition of passives with the results of three
experiments run with Catalan-speaking children.
The first two experiments, carried out within COST Action A33, are picture matching tasks
testing actives (1a), passives with a per ‘by’ phrase (1b), and passives without an agent
complement (or: short passives) (1c).
(1)
a.
b.
c.
El pare tapa el germà petit.
The father covers the brother young
‘The father covers the younger brother.’
El germà petit és tapat pel pare.
The brother young is covered by-the father ‘The younger brother is covered by the father.’
El germà petit és tapat.
The brother young is covered
‘The younger brother is covered.’
The child had to select the correct picture, which in all cases appeared amongst a picture of the
reverse action, a picture of the same action carried out by different characters and a picture
without any action (to control for the understanding of the verb). Each child was tested on 22
active sentences and 22 passive sentences (passives with per ‘by’ in experiment 1, short passives
in experiment 2). Twenty children for each age group tested took part in each experiment; we
tested overall 40 3-year-olds (mean age 3;6), 41 4-year-olds (mean age 4;6), 41 5-year-olds
(mean age 5;5) and 40 6-year-olds (mean age 6;5).
The results of experiments 1 and 2 in Table 1 witness to the fact that, while actives are
understood for all age groups, passives are indeed poorly comprehended until the age of 6, when
comprehension of long passives improves very substantially.
Table 1. Percentage of correct answers, actives vs. passives
active
short passive
long passive
3-year- olds
86%
59%
20%
4-year-olds
94%
74%
37.8%
5-year-olds
97%
87%
31%
6-year-olds
99.7 %
96.6%
95.4%
The analysis of the results of 3, 4 and 5-year-olds indicates that there is a statistically significant
difference between actives on the one hand and all types of passive on the other (χ2 = 50.08; p
<.0001), but when we compare passives with and without the per ‘by’ phrase there is also a
statistically significant difference (χ2 = 37.02; p <.0001). The fact that all passives are different
from actives cast doubt on Fox & Grodzinsky’s (1998) Theta-role Transmission Deficit, which
placed the source of comprehension delay in the presence of an adjunct ‘by’ phrase. Here we see
that, independently of the presence of a per ‘by’ phrase, comprehension of passives lags behind
that of actives. The results are consistent with Wexler’s (2004), Hirsch & Wexler (2006)
maturational account, which predicts failure in comprehension of all structures involving Amovement, and sudden improvement driven by maturation, as in Graph 1, where the performance
of 6-year-olds is adult-like.
64
There is the standard assumption since Borer & Wexler (1987) that performance with short
passives is apparently better because an adjectival reading is available to the child. Our third
experiment addresses this issue directly, by exploiting the property of Catalan syntax which
expresses passives with the auxiliary ser ‘be’ and resultatives with auxiliary estar. We tested
forty children, 10 per age group (3-year olds, mean age: 3;8, 4-year-olds, mean age: 4;5, 5-yearolds, mean age: 5;6, and 6-year-olds, mean age: 6;5) with a picture-matching task. Children had
to select a picture out of two, one representing an action (such as a girl being combed by her
mother), the other representing no action, but the result of the action (the combed girl). Each
child was tested with 8 items, 4 short passives (2a) and 4 resultatives (2b). experimental items of
both types involved the same set of 8 verbs, all easily allowing for resultative readings.
(2)
a.
La germana petita és pentinada. b.
The sister small is combed
La germana petita està pentinada.
The sister small is combed
The percentages in Table 2 show that the adjectival/resultative interpretation of the short passive
was overwhelmingly preferred over the passive interpretation, while resultatives were correctly
interpreted over half of the time for all age groups.
Table 2. Percentage of correct answers, adjectival vs. passive
short passive
adjectival
3-year-olds
33.7%
65%
4-year-olds
42.5%
57.5%
5-year-olds
20%
84.7%
6-year-olds
40 %
81.2%
We conclude that experiment 3 provides independent evidence for the adjectival/resultative
interpretation of short passive in child grammar. The relation of this result to recent work on the
acquisition of ser/estar in Spanish (Holtheuer, Miller & Schmitt 2010) and the analysis of this
alternation for the adult grammar (Brucart 2010) are discussed.
References
Borer, H. & K. Wexler (1987) ‘The maturation of syntax’. In Roeper, T. (ed.) Parameter Setting,
Dordrecht: Reidel, 123–172.
Fox, D. & Y. Grodzinsky (1998) ‘Children’s passive: a view from the by-phrase’. Linguistic
Inquiry 29: 311–332.
Hirsch, C. & K. Wexler (2006) ‘Acquiring verbal passive: evidence for a maturational account’.
Paper presented at LSA 2006, Alburquerque, New Mexico.
Wexler, K. (2004) ‘Theory of phasal development. Perfection in child grammar’. MIT Working
Papers in Linguistics 48: 159-209.
65
How can a bare quantifier be a ‘topic’
Ion Tudor Giurgea (University of Konstanz & the “Iorgu-Iordan - Al. Rosetti”
Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy)
I argue that indefinite DPs which are surely non-partitive and, more generally, not existentially
presupposed, such as the bare existential quantifier ‘something’ (rom. ceva, sp. algo, it. qualcosa)
can be topicalized in Romanian, Spanish and Italian, and that they function as contrastive topics
(‘topics’ in the sense of Büring (1999)). I also propose an account for the fact that this
topicalization is usually accompanied by verum focus (i.e., focus on the truth value of the
sentence, see Höhle 1992, or focus on the degree of certainty of the sentence, see Romero & Han
2006):
(1)
Ro. Ceva TREBUIE să-ţi fi spus Maria ca să fii aşa supărat
something must SUBJ-you.DAT have told M. so-that SUBJ be.2SG so upset
‘Maria MUST have told you something since you are so upset’
It. Qualcosa ti ha certamente detto Maria perchè tu sia tanto amareggiato
something you has certainly said M. so-that you are so upset
Sp. Algo debe haberte dicho María para que te hayas enojado tanto (Zubizarreta 1998)
something must have-you told M. so that REFL have.2SG become-upset so-much
1. State of the art. Some researchers have analyzed this construction as focalization (Zubizarreta
1998) or as emphatic fronting used to signal verum focus (Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal 2009).
Cinque (1990) analyzed the fronted quantifier as base-generated in a dislocated position, without
discussing the informational-structural properties of this construction. Arregi (2003) is the only
author I know who correctly analyzed these expressions as topics, but he did not propose a
semantic analysis of the phenomenon and did not account for the obligatory or preferred presence
of verum focus in these sentences.2. Evidence for a topic analysis. Evidence against a focus
analysis comes from intonation and word order: (i) The fronted quantifiers in 0-0 do not bear
focus stress (while not only contrastive fronted foci, but also emphatic fronted constituents do
bear focus stress). They show instead the intonation characteristic of left-dislocated topics (as
noticed by Arregi 2003 for Spanish). (ii) In Romanian and Spanish fronted foci cannot be
separated from the verb by the subject (see Cornilescu 2002, Alboiu 2002, Zubizarreta 1998),
whereas fronted bare quantifiers allow an intervening subject:
(2)
Ro. Ceva el ŞTIE.
something he knows
Sp. [Context: Juan didn’t eat anything]
No; Algo, Juan sí comió, pero no mucho
no something J. yes ate but not much
(Arregi 2003)
3. Verum focus and contrastive topicality. I argue that the correlation between topic bare
quantifiers and verum focus results from the interplay between the requirements on contrastive
topicality and the semantics of bare quantifiers. ‘Topics’ as defined by Büring (1999) require (i)
the existence of a partition of the remainder of the sentence into focus and background and (ii)
the existence of topic alternatives (issues still under debate with different values for topic and the
same background). I use the term ‘contrastive topic’ for this notion of ‘topic’, in order to
distinguish it from aboutness-topics (defined as in Reinhart 1981, Erteschik-Shir 1997), which do
not require the existence of topic alternatives. Kiss & Gyuris (2003) have argued that the
restriction of topics to specific or generic indefinites is only found with non-contrastive, purely
aboutness topics, and the contrastive interpretation enables non-referential expressions, such as
properties, to function as topics. They analyze instances of topicalized narrow scope indefinites
66
in Hungarian and German similar to the examples discussed here as topicalization of a property
(see (4)). Following this line of thought, I argue that the contrastive topic part in the construction
discussed is not a referential or a first-order property denoting expression, but a quantificational
DP (type <<e,t>t>). The topic alternatives form series of the type {∃x.P1(x), MANYx.P2(x),
MOSTx.P3(x), ∀x.P4(x)}. The focus part (which must have different values across topic
alternatives, distinguishing between P1…P4) is the degree of certainty of the assertion. The
speaker asserts that one of these alternatives is certainly true or highly probable, contrasting it
with stronger alternatives for which the truth value is unknown or false. That’s why existential
quantifiers are usually found in affirmative sentences, while bare universal quantifiers or nonspecific many as in (3) prefer downward entailing contexts:
(3)
Ro. Chiar totul NU ştie
even everything not knows
(negation takes scope over the quantifier)
It. Molti amici non
si è fatto, di sicuro
(Benincà et al. 1988, 106)
many friends not REFL has done certainly
I suggest that the restriction to verum focus follows from the fact that the topic alternatives
cannot be distinguished from one another in terms of distinct properties or referents: something
cannot be contrasted with other entities or entities from a different class (having different
properties). Therefore, the other element which must vary across the topic alternatives, the focus,
cannot be an entity or property. It is then the degree of certainty of the sentence, sometimes
together with another quantifier, as in (4), and in the similar Romanian example (5). I consider
that the German examples of narrow scope indefinite contrastive topics discussed in Krifka
(1998) represent the same construction.
(4)
Hu. √Két könyvet \mindenki elolvasott. (Kiss&Gyuris 2003, 21a)
two book-ACC everybody read
(5)
Ro. Ceva
a CITIT fieCAre.
something has read everybody
4. The narrow scope of the topics in these examples is due to the fact that what is contrasted in
these cases are not referents, but generalized quantifiers (the comment being an abstract over
generalized quantifiers):
(6)
Comment: λQ<<e,t>,t> CERTAINLY (∀z(person(z)→Q(λx(read(z,x)))
Topic: λP<e,t>∃x P(x) (or λP<e,t>∃x(thing(x) & P(x)))
5. The position of the subject. Although a preverbal subject may intervene between the
quantifier and the verb (see 0), it is nevertheless true that VS orders are very common (see 0). I
explain these orders as resulting from focus fronting of the verb, which expresses verum focus
(resulting from the incorporation of the polar component into the verb or T). There is independent
evidence that the stressed verb can be used in the VS-order to convey verum focus:
(7)
It. VOREBBE, Gianni, il caffè (ma non può berlo) (Cardinaletti 2002, 54a)
would-want G. the coffee but not could drink-it
Ro. ARE el grijă, (nu-ţi fă probleme)
has he care (not-you.DAT do.IMPER problems) ‘He will take care, don’t worry’
References
Arregi, C. 2003. Clitic Left dislocation is contrastive topicalization. In E. Kaiser and S. Arunachalam (eds)
Proceedings of the 26th Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium: 31–44
Benincà, P., G. Salvi and L. Frison. 1988. L’ordine degli elementi della frase e le costruzioni marcate. In Grande
Grammatica italiana di consultazione I, ed. by L. Renzi and G. Salvi, 115-225. Bologna: Il Mulino
67
Polarity fronting in Romanian and Sardinian
Ion Tudor Giurgea* & Eva-Maria Remberger**
(University of Konstanz (*,**) & the “Iorgu-Iordan - Al. Rosetti”
Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy (*))
We argue that some word order phenomena in Romanian and Sardinian are the result of a
checking operation in the left periphery involving verum focus (i.e. focus on the polarity
component of the sentence, see Höhle 1992, Romero & Han 2002, Krifka 2007). In particular,
this operation accounts for some optional word order patterns found in polar questions.
1. Polar questions in Romanian. We will first show that the neutral order in Romanian nonconducive polar questions is the same as in declarative clauses. In order to achieve this, we will
present the neutral orders in Romanian. In all-new sentences, Romanian allows (or even imposes)
VS only with predicates which allow a presentational construal (introducing the discourse
participants into a salient spatio-temporal location, which acts as a stage topic, see Erteschik-Shir
1997). Otherwise, an argument, normally the subject or an oblique experiencer, occupies the
preverbal position in the neutral order. We explain this distribution by assuming that an
[aboutness]-feature is checked in the specifier position of a head intermediate between the
inflectional and peripheral domains (see Rizzi (2005) on preverbal subjects), and in
presentationals this feature is checked by a null adverbial representing the stage topic. Examining
polar questions, we find that those predications which cannot yield presentational sentences (for
semantic reasons) and, consequently, do not allow VS in all-new declaratives show the same
unmarked order in polar questions: (1)-(2) exemplify predicates which do not introduce a
location independent of their subject (see Kratzer 1995), and consequently cannot have a stage
topic (see Erteschik-Shir 1997). (2)-(4) illustrate generics and iteratives, which cannot enter
presentational VS because their spatial or at least temporal location is not limited to the here-andnow of the discourse, to which the null stage topic refers (in the following, ‘#’ refers to all-new
contexts).
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
a. (Maria) îl place (#Maria) pe Victor
CL likes (M.) OBJ V.
‘Maria likes Victor’
(M.
b. Maria îl place pe Victor?
a. (Fratele tău)
are (#fratele tău)
maşină
(brother-the) your has (brother-the your) car
b. Fratele tău are maşină?
a. (Belgienii) mănâncă (#belgienii) mult
(Belgians-the) eat
(Belgians-the) a-lot
b. Belgienii mănâncă mult?
a. (Copiii mei) fac (#copiii mei) zilnic o plimbare
children-the my make children-the my daily a walk
b. Copiii tăi fac zilnic o plimbare?
In all these cases, the VS order in the polar question is possible, but under special pragmatic
circumstances: it requires that the issue whether p has already been under discussion or in the
common concerns of the participants (see (5)), or it introduces a bias towards the negative answer
(see (6)):
(5)
a. Deci, ca să rezumăm, îl place Maria pe Victor?
so so-that sum-up.1PL CL likes M. OBJ V. ‘To sum up, does Maria like Victor?’
b. N-am
înţeles
până la urmă. ARE fratele tău maşină(, sau nu)?
not-have1.SG understood until end has brother-the your car( or not)
‘In the end, I don’t understand: does your brother have a car (or not)?’
68
(6)
c. (chiar) îl PLACE Maria pe Victor?
(really) CL likes Maria OBJ Victor ‘DOES Maria (really) like Victor?’
We consider that in (5) the content of p is taken as given and there is narrow focus on the polarity
component of the sentence (Pol). In Romanian, focus fronting excludes preverbal subjects
(possibly because it involves the same head, see Cornilescu 2002, Alboiu 2000). We assume that
in (5) Pol is incorporated into the finite verb and the focus probe is checked by head movement.
In (5) we have emphatic focus on Pol. Emphatic focus presents the truth of p as unexpected,
surprising, hence the bias towards a negative answer.
2. Predicate fronting in Sardinian interrogatives. In Sardinian, a common way of question
formation in constructions with auxiliaries and copula involves fronting of the (lexical) VP or of
a non-verbal predicate (see Jones 1993):
(7)
a. [Retzidu notízias malas de
su fizu] at?
(Blasco Ferrer, 1986:206)
received news bad from the son has ‘Did he receive bad news from his son?’
b. Mellus de nosus funti?
better than us are.3PL ‘Are they better than us?’
We consider that here too the checked feature is on Pol, but, unlike in Romanian, Pol needs the
support of a lexical head, which triggers the raising of the whole vP/PredP, by pied-piping.
Another difference with respect to Romanian is that this order is more common, suggesting that it
is not restricted to special pragmatic circumstances. We explain this by assuming that
interrogative fronting does not require a contrastive or emphatic focus on Pol, but just the feature
which makes Pol an open position in the question, which we call FocQ – ‘the focus of the
question’. This is not Focus in the sense of non-given, not implied by a salient antecedent (as in
Schwarzschild (1999)). However, it belongs to a broader notion of ‘focus’ in that it introduces
alternatives (see Krifka 2007). Supporting evidence for this proposal comes from the fact that
predicate fronting competes with the use of the question particle a (Floricic 2009, Remberger
2010), which we analyze as spelling-out interrogative Pol. A is incompatible with negation, as
expected for a polarity particle.
3. Polarity fronting in declaratives. In Romanian, with predicates which do not allow a
presentational construal, the order VSX is possible with focal stress on either V or S. Focal stress
on V signals emphatic or correction focus on the truth value of the sentence (presenting the
sentence as unexpected, in general or for the hearer), which we analyze as an [emph-foc/contrfoc] feature in Pol. Incorporated into the finite verb, Pol checks the focus probe:
(8)
ŞTIE Ion poezii
knows Ion poems
‘Ion does know poems’
In Sardinian, predicate fronting in declaratives has the same values, as expected if raising of Pol
is manifested as predicate fronting. In addition, it can also mark information focus of Pol, being
used in answers to polar questions:
(9)
A
POL
l’as
bistu, su mariane? – Eia, bistu l’appo
it-have.2SG seen the fox
yes seen it-have.1SG
The same difference between Sardinian and Romanian appears in other cases of focus fronting in
declaratives, Sardinian allowing information focus fronting (in answers to wh- questions) (see
Cruschina & Remberger 2009), which is marginal in Romanian.
References
Alboiu, G., 2002. The features of movement in Romanian. Bucharest: Editura Universităţii Bucureşti.
Cruschina, S. & E. Remberger, 2009. Focus fronting in Sardinian and Sicilian. In Moscati, V. & E. Servidio (eds.)
Proceedings of the XXXV Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, 118-130.
Erteschik-Shir, N., 1997. The Dynamics of Focus Structure. Cambridge University Press
Floricic, F., 2009. Negation and “Focus Clash” in Sardinian. In Mereu, L. (ed.) Information Structure and its
Interfaces. Berlin / New York: de Gruyter, 129-152
Höhle, T., 1992. Über Verum Fokus in Deutschen. Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 4, 112–141.
69
Prevocalic Fronting in Chilean and Proto-Romance
Carolina González (Florida State University)
This paper focuses on prevocalic velar fronting, which took place in Proto-Romance before front
vowels /i, e, ɛ/ as early as the 1st century (1a), and before /i, e/ in a diphthong as early as the 5th
(1b) (Penny 2002). Synchronically, velar fronting occurs in Chilean Spanish (1c) (Oroz 1966).
(1)
a. [kjeɾ.ka] > [tʃeɾ.ka]
cerca
(med.)
‘near’
b. CALCEA > [kal.tʃa]
calca
(med.)
‘stockings’
c. gente
/xente/
[çen.te]
(Chilean)
‘people’
Although many sources discuss Proto-Romance fronting and palatalization (Bhat 1977, Calabrese
2005, Telfer 2006, Bateman 2007, and many others), its connection to synchronic fronting in
Spanish has only been noted in passing (see for example Baker 2004). This paper proposes a
unified analysis of both in Optimality Theory to capture their similarities in triggers (front
vocoids), targets (onset velars), and outcomes (palatals/palato-alveolars), and throws light on
some of their differences, which include an intermediate stage of secondary fronting
diachronically but not synchronically, and a palato-alveolar affricate outcome in the first case but
a palatal stop or fricative in the second.
It is argued that the cases illustrated in (1) can be captured through the interaction between the
IDENT-IO and AGREEMENT constraints in (2) (based on McCarthy and Prince 1995 and Lombardi
1999, 2001 respectively). A crucial assumption is that both vowels and dorsals are specified for
[+/-front] and [+/-back]. Thus, front vowels, coronals, palatals and palato-alveolars are ([+front, back]); palatalized velars are [+front, +back], and back vowels and non-palatalized velars are [front, +back]. The vowel /a/ is considered to be [-front, -back].
(2) AGREE [-back] If a segment is [-back], adjacent segments in the same syllable are [-back]
AGREE [+front] If a segment is [+front], adjacent segments in the same syllable are [+front]
IDENT [+syl]
Corresponding [+syl] input and output segments have the same features
IDENT [-syl]
Corresponding [-syll] input and output segments have the same features
The ranking among the constraints in (2) captures the typology of fronting in Spanish and ProtoRomance. Intermediate secondary fronting in Proto-Romance, also reported for most Spanish
variants (NT 1996; Zamora Vicente 1967) is captured by AGREE [+front]>>IDENT [-syl] (3). If
both agreement constraints outrank IDENT [-syl], full palatalization results, in one direct step (4)
or via secondary palatalization (5). Finally, if IDENT outranks agreement, no fronting results (6).
(3) Secondary fronting before front vowels
/ɡemma/ > [ɡʲem.ma] ‘yolk’
/ɡemma/
IDENT-IO [+syl]
AGREE [+front]
IDENT-IO [-syl]
a. ɡem.ma
*!
 b. ɡʲem.ma
*
c. ɡom.ma
*!
d. ɟem.ma
**!
(4) Full fronting in Chilean before front vowels
/ɡente/ [ɟen.te] ‘people’
/ɡente/
IDENT [+syl]
AGREE [+front]
AGREE [-back]
IDENT [-syl]
a. ɡen.te
*!
*
b. ɡʲen.te
*!
*
 c. ɟen.te
**
d. ɡon.te
*!
70
(5) Full fronting diachronically
[kjeɾ.ka] > [tʃeɾ.ka] cerca (med.) ‘near’
j
/k eɾ.ka/
IDENT [+syl]
AGREE [+front]
AGREE [-back]
IDENT [-syl]
a. keɾ.ka
*!
*
*
b. kʲeɾ.ka
*!
 c. tʃeɾ.ka
**
d. koɾ.ka
*!
(6) Lack of fronting
/ɡente/ [ɡen.te] ‘people’
/ɡente/
IDENT-IO [+syl]
IDENT-IO [-syl]
AGREE [+front]
AGREE [-back]
 a. ɡen.te
*
*
b. ɡʲen.te
*!
*
c. ɟen.te
*!*
d. ɡon.te
*!
This paper will also show that the restriction of diachronic velar fronting to /e, i/ in diphthongal
contexts (as in 1b) is captured straightforwardly with the interaction of the constraints in (2) with
high-ranked syllabic constraints ONSET, MAX, and *VV ‘No adjacent vowels’.
Under the present approach, affrication concomitant with fronting does not require special
treatment, since it is assumed that palato-alveolar affricates are equivalent phonologically to
palatal stops. Both share similar acoustic properties (Lee 2000) and are regional or individual
allophones of each other synchronically (NT 1996; Hualde 2005:152). According to Martínez
Celdrán et al. (2007:47–52), the difference palato-alveolar/palatal correlates with affrication/lack
thereof, since the contact surface between articulators is greater in the first case, leading to longer
friction release, and smaller in the second, resulting in lesser or absent friction.
The proposed analysis captures the full range of prevocalic fronting outcomes attested in Spanish,
both in cases assumed to have proceeded in stages or directly. The restriction of agreement
constraints to [-back] and [+front] also avoids generating mirror-image phenomena such as
consonant velarization. Additionally, this analysis is not restricted to articulator-only or
perception-only factors, since agreement constraints are conceived here as able to encode
articulatory demands for featural assimilation, and also acoustic and perceptual factors that might
cause misperception and therefore drive assimilation. This reflects the complexity of means in
which fronting arises crosslinguistically (Lee 2000, Telfer 2006, Bateman 2007). The analysis
will also be extended to cases of coronal tongue raising diachronically and synchronically.
References
Baker, G. K. 2004. Palatal phenomena in Spanish phonology. UF thesis.
Bateman, N. 2007. A crosslinguistic investigation of palatalization. UCSD thesis; Bhat, D.N.S.
1978. A general
study of palatalization. In J. H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Human Language, vol. 2. Phonology, 47–92.
Standford: SUP.
Lombardi, L. 1999. Positional faithfulness and voicing assimilation in Optimality Theory.
Natural Language
and Linguistic Theory 17(2). 267–302.
Lombardi, L. 2001. Why Place and Voice are different: constraint-specific alternations in
Optimality
Theory. In L. Lombardi (ed.), Segmental Phonology in Optimality Theory:
Constraints and Representations,
13–45. Cambridge, MA: CUP.
Martínez Celdrán, E. & A. M. Fernández Planas. 2007. Manual de fonética española:
articulaciones y sonidos
del español. Barcelona: Ariel.
McCarthy. J. J. & A. Prince. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In J. Beckman, L.
Walsh
Dickey
& S. Urbanczyk (eds.), UMOP 18: Papers in Optimality Theory, 249–384.
MA: GLSA.
Oroz, Rodolfo. 1966. La lengua castellana en Chile. Santiago: U. de Chile.
Penny, R. 2002 [1991]. A history of the Spanish language. 2nd edn. Cambridge: CUP; Telfer. Corey S. 2006.
Coronalization as assibilation. U. of Calgary MA thesis.
71
Some Questions (and Answers) about Cleft Sentences
Nicolas Guilliot (University of Nantes - LLING) & Magda Oiry (University of Massachusetts)
I. Introduction & Main Claim: the goal of this study is to correlate various assumptions about
est-ce que/qui questions (see 0) with various assumptions about cleft sentences (see 0). One way
to emphasize the correlation is to consider examples such as in 0.
(1)
(2)
(3)
Qui est-ce que (tu crois que) Jean a vu ?
who is-it that you think that John has seen
(Lit.) “Who is it that (you think that) you saw?”
(Je crois que) c’est Marie que Jean a vue.
I think that it is Mary that John has seen
(Lit.) “(I think that) it’s Mary that John saw.”
(Tu crois que) c’est qui que Jean a vu ?
You think that it is who that John has seen
(Lit.) “(You think that) it’s who that John saw?”
Traditional accounts of examples such as 0 diverge as to whether est-ce que/qui should be
considered as an interrogative marker C°, or should rather be decomposed into a more complex
structure with subject (ce)-auxiliary (est) inversion (see Munaro & Pollock (2005)). The latter
would then relate to cleft constructions such as in 0.1 Similarly, traditional accounts of examples
such as 0 make a similar distinction, i.e. whether the focused element appears in situ in a copular
construction followed by a relative clause, or corresponds to a displaced constituent. In the light
of such accounts, one natural way to account for 0 is to call for the wh- in situ property of French:
0 and 0 would then be strictly parallel. Alternatively, one could consider that 0 rather relates to 0
as a kind of simple partial movement (SPM) of the wh- constituent, hence fulfilling Fanselow
(2006)’s claim that a language that allows for SPM also allows for wh- in situ and full whmovement.
Our main claim is that the two independent strategies co-exist, and that they just correlate with a
syntactic ambiguity of cleft constructions and est-ce que/qui questions.
II. Two morphosyntactic strategies: arguments
1. Complementizer/Relative Pronoun: one argument for the co-existence of both strategies in
French arises if you consider cases which might disambiguate between a pure ‘question’ strategy
vs a ‘cleft’ strategy with a relative clause. Extraction (out) of Prepositional Phrases (PPs) in
French provides such a case, as displacement of wh- constituents requires some form of piedpiping (the whole PP) whereas relative clauses make use of specific relative pronouns such as
dont (“of whom”), or à qui (“to whom”). And surprisingly both options lead to grammaticality in
standard French:
(4)
(5)
C’est de quoi
que tu as
parlé ?
It is of what
that you have talked
C’est quoi dont tu as
parlé ?
It is what Rel you have talked
“What is it that you talked about?”
Such cleft constructions allow both for a ‘question’ strategy in 0, with what looks like piedpiping of de quoi, or a ‘relative’ strategy in 0, with a relative clause modifier.
2. Structures with donc (“then”): a second argument comes from the fact that the same duality
can be seen with full whmovement structures, as shown by the following contrast:
1
Hamlaoui (2007) gives a convincing account as to why subject clefts are more productive than non-subject clefts.
However, we argue that non-subject clefts are productive in a wide range of cases that will be discussed.
72
(6)
(7)
(8)
De qui
est-ce que tu parles ?
of whom is it that you talk
Qui est-ce donc dont tu parles ?
who is it then Rel you talk
??De qui
est-ce (donc) dont tu parles ?
of whom is it then Rel you talk
“Who is it (then) that you’re talking about?”
Typical relative pronouns such as dont can also occur when adding an adverb like donc, as 0
shows. But this option correlates with a high preference for DP extraction over PP extraction.
III. Two morphosyntactic strategies: structures
1. The ‘question’ strategy: we argue for a partial movement approach, with the expression c’est
(“it is”) introducing contrastive focus on the displaced constituent2. Further movement of the whitem could give rise to the expected subject-auxiliary inversion est-ce.
parlé de quoi ]]
(9) [I’’ C’est [C’’ de quoi [C° que] tu as
It is
of what that you have talked
2. The ‘relative’ strategy: to account for the extraposition flavor of the relative clause, we argue
for a multidominance structure, as developed in Bachrach & Katzir (2008) for extraposed
constituents. Such structure correlates with a non-contrastive focus on quoi at the right-edge of
the intonation phrase (on a par with Hamlaoui (2007)).
(10)
[I” [D” [D° ce]
] est [D” [D” quoi]
]]
C”
6
dont tu as parlé
IV. Further arguments: under this view, 0 would just follow from a constraint on contrastive
focus: c’est targets the contrastive focus, which therefore cannot be empty. Similarly, 0 follows
from a constraint on non-contrastive focus: donc needs to be present to fill the right-edge of the
intonation phrase. Finally, the occurrence of donc in 0 forces the ‘relative’ strategy, hence
banning a second relative clause (unless preceded by et “and”).
(11)
(12)
(13)
??Qui crois-tu que c’est qui qui dort ?
who think-you that it is
who sleeps
Qui est-ce ??(donc) dont tu parles ?
who is-it
then Rel you talk
Qui est-ce (*donc) que Paul a invité que Marie aime ?
who is-it
then that Paul has invited that Mary loves
We further argue that our account can also shed light on various restrictions on the
(un)availability of reconstruction and/or resumption in other languages (see Kizu (2005)).
References
Bachrach, A. & Katzir, R. (2008) Right node raising and delayed spellout, OUP
Erteschik-Shir, N. (1997) The dynamics of focus structure, Cambridge.
Fanselow, G. (2006) Partial movement, Blackwell Companion to Syntax
Hamlaoui, F. (2007) French cleft sentences at the syntax-phonology interface, ACL Proceedings
Kizu, M. (2005) Cleft constructions in Japanese Syntax, Palgrave MacMillan
Munaro, N. & Pollock, J.-Y. (2005) Qu’est-ce-que (qu)-est-ce-que? A case study in comparative Romance
interrogative syntax, Oxford handbook of comparative syntax
Saddy, D. (1991) Wh scope mechanisms in Bahasa Indonesian, MIT WPL.
2
A Focus projection could be posited there, especially if we compare with Bahasa Indonesian where a focus particle
occurs with partial movement (Saddy (1991)). But the crucial matter is that the focus is contrastive, and therefore
does not have to coincide with the right-edge of the intonation phrase (see Erteschik-Shir (1997)).
73
Degree quantification and scope in Puerto Rican Spanish
Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach (OSU) & Melvin González-Rivera (College of Wooster)
Whereas in a majority of Spanish dialects it is not possible to delimit or restrict an n-word with a
degree delimiter occurring before the negative element (nada más, nada menos vs.*más nada,
*menos nada), in Puerto Rican Spanish (and Caribbean Spanish in general) pre and post-neg
delimitation is possible, as shown in (1). There are also phonetically reduced versions ([ná máh]
and [máh ná]) (2). In principle, it would seem that both forms are completely equivalent and in
free distribution (RAE 2005). Nevertheless, in this paper we argue that this is not the case and
that there are several syntactic and semantic constraints regulating the use of the two forms in
Puerto-Rican Spanish. Freedom of placement is limited to n-words (nunca más/más nunca; nada
más/más nada; nadie más/más nadie; ninguno más/más ninguna). It is not allowed with other
quantifiers (algo más vs. *más algo; poco más vs. *más poco; tanto más vs. *más tanto; tres
libros más vs. *más tres libros). Additionally, only ‘strong’ or purely negative uses of the n-word
(those licensed by a neg head) allow premodification. When, this is not the case, the degree
modifier cannot occur in a preposed position (3, 4, 5). When the n-word is a negative-polarity
item licensed in non-negative environments, premodification is not allowed either (6, 7).
There is also a difference in meaning when the modified neg quantifier applies to a property of
events. Consider (8/9) and (10). Sentence (8) is interpreted as stating that Pedro stopped and did
not continue eating. On the other hand, (9) states something additional, namely, that the Agent
(Pedro) was satiated and was not able to continue reading. Similarly, (10) states that the agent
was unable to continue reading, maybe because he got tired, etc. Sentence (11) presupposes that I
have read books by Vargas Llosa before, but (12) does not have such a presupposition. On the
other hand, such contrast is not possible when the involved individual is not the agent: (13)
cannot be interpreted as theme dependent ending of the event. As expected, non-agentive derived
subjects (14) or topicalized objects (15) do not allow premodification either.
Following an insight by Bosque and Brucart (1991), we assume that degree quantification in
Caribbean Spanish allows for higher scope of the degree element, something required by
comparative/superlative elements in general (Heim 1999, Matushansky 2008) (16). Thus, we
argue that when it occurs in a ‘premodifier’ position, the degree delimiter scopes out of the Neg
Phrase to a higher Degree Phrase (Corver 1997, Demonte 2008) (17). Such higher scope option is
only available when the degree element (copy) is licensed by negation, disallowing outscoping in
general decreasing non-negative environments (18/21). Similarly, when the delimiter más heads a
comparative phrase (Lechner 2000), it cannot escape it (22) -ie, there is a violation of the locality
constraint on comparative CPs (cf. Lechner 2004). The same restriction is attested in focus
constructions (inside a focus island) (23).
Assuming that the eventive-structure of a sentence projects in syntax (Kratzer 1997, McDonald
2008) and is conditioned by its qualia structure (Pustejovsky (1995), we derive the agentorientation restriction as the result of the interaction of the scopal properties of the degree
delimiter and event decomposition (Doetjes 2007) -ie, Ag is in the specifier of vP and is the
closest element to be attracted to DegP (Minimal Link Condition). Thus, here we argue that (i)
placement (preposition) of the degree delimiter is allowed by a Deg raising operation
characteristic of Puerto Rican Spanish (and possibly Caribbean Spanish in general); (ii) it is
74
restricted by a general syntactic locality constraints; and (iii) the associated differential
interpretations can be derived from general eventive requirements and the presuppositions they
trigger. We explore also further consequences from this property.
EXAMPLES
(1) No quiero saber nada más/más nada.
(2) ¿Quieres más? Nada más [ná máh] /más nada [máh ná].
(3) Esta persona es nada más (*más nada) y nada menos que el presidente.
(4)Voy al cine nada más (*más nada) que para verte.
(5) ¿Quieres comer algo? No, eso nada más (vs. *No, eso más nada).
(6) Como protestes nada más(*más nada), te suspendo.
(7) Todo el que diga nada más (*más nada) sufrirá las consecuencias.
(8) Pedro no comió nada más.
(9) Pedro no comió más nada.
(10) No leyo más nada.
(11) No leeré más nunca libros de Vargas Llosa.
(12) No leeré nunca más libros de Vargas Llosa.
(13) No quiero salir contigo nada más/(*más nada).
(14) Nadie más vino vs. *Más nadie vino.
(15) A nadie más vi vs. *A más nadie vi.
(16) Pepe es el (más) que (más) lee (más) de todos nosotros.
(17) [DegP… más … [NegP nada (más)copy ]]
(18) *Como protestes más nada, te suspendo.
(19) *Todo el que diga más nada sufrirá las consecuencias.
(20) *Voy al cine más nada que para verte.
(21) *¿Quieres comer algo? No, eso más nada.
(22) No hay nada más (*más nada) terrible que sufrir en vano.
(23) Nada más(*más nada) te digo que soy pobre.
References
Bosque, I. & J.M. Brucart. 1981. QP raising in Spanish superlatives. Ms., Universidad
Complutense, Madrid.
Corver, N. 1997. Much-support as a last resort. Linguistic Inquiry 28, 275-343.
Doetjes, J. 2007. Adverbs and quantification: degrees versus frequency. Lingua 117, 685-720.
Lechner, W. 2004. Ellipsis in comparatives. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York.
Matushansky, O. 2008. On the attributive nature of superlatives. Syntax 11, 26-90.
MacDonald, J. 2008. The syntactic nature of inner aspect. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Pustejovsky, J. 1995. The generative lexicon. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
75
Linking comprehension costs to production patterns: Spanish-English auxiliary phrase
codeswitches
Rosa Guzzardo-Tamargo, Paola E. Dussias, Chip Gerfen, Christine Theberge, Jorge Valdés Kroff
& Jason Gullifer (The Pennsylvania State University)
Psycholinguistic studies on monolingual sentence processing provide evidence of the
correspondence between production patterns and comprehension costs (Garnsey, Pearlmutter, &
Lotocky, 1997; Trueswell & Kim, 1998; Wilson & Garnsey, 2009). Based on these findings, the
main aim of this study was to test whether this connection between production and
comprehension also extended to bilingual codeswitching. We focused on Spanish-English
codeswitches involving two types of auxiliary phrases because of their distinct appearance in
naturalistic data. Although they comprise the same type of syntactic construction, switches
between the Spanish auxiliary estar ‘to be’ and an English present participle are attested in
bilingual production corpora (Pfaff, 1979; Poplack, 1980), whereas switches between the Spanish
auxiliary haber ‘to have’ and an English past participle are vanishingly rare.
Two groups of bilingual codeswitchers were included in this study: Spanish-dominant bilinguals
who arrived in the U.S. during late adolescence or during adulthood and English-dominant
bilinguals who were born and raised in the U.S. The eye-tracking technique was used to measure
the participants’ processing difficulties as they read sentences which included both types of
codeswitches on a computer screen. Examples of the six sentence conditions included in the
experimental design are displayed below. Conditions 1a, 2a, and 3a correspond to three estar
conditions, while conditions 1b, 2b, and 3b entail their haber counterparts. The unilingual
English sentences—those in Conditions 1a and 1b—were used as baseline comparisons for the
four codeswitched conditions. In conditions 2a and 2b, the switch occurs right at the auxiliary
phrase. Codeswitches like these, which occur at the phrasal boundary between a subject and a
predicate, are very frequent in production data. Finally, conditions 3a and 3b represent instances
where the switch occurs between both elements of the auxiliary phrase, that is, between an
auxiliary and a participle.
Condition 1a: The professor announced that the editors are approving her article for the journal.
Condition 2a: La profesora anunció que los editores are approving her article for the journal.
Condition 3a: La profesora anunció que los editores están approving her article for the journal.
Condition 1b: The professor announced that the editors have approved her article for the journal.
Condition 2b: La profesora anunció que los editores have approved her article for the journal.
Condition 3b: La profesora anunció que los editores han approved her article for the journal.
The study also incorporated two different tasks—a grammaticality judgment task and a sentence
comprehension task—to determine whether reading for “comprehension” versus reading for
“grammaticality” modulated participants’ eye-fixation durations.
Preliminary eye-tracking results display both group-based and task-based differences. The
Spanish-dominant bilinguals incurred larger processing costs when reading haber+participle
switches than estar+participle switches, evidenced by longer fixation durations with the former
type of codeswitch. These results likely reflect the unusual occurrence of haber+participle
switches in production data. This result, however, was only obtained when participants read for
comprehension. During the grammaticality judgment task, participants displayed similar
processing costs for both types of codeswitches. Therefore, the task that taps into the participants’
76
metalinguistic knowledge no longer led to an outcome that mirrored more natural bilingual
interactions. English-dominant bilinguals showed a markedly different pattern. For this group,
both estar+participle and haber+participle switches resulted in similar processing costs in the
comprehension question task and the grammaticality judgment task.
The differences in comprehension costs between the two groups of participants may reflect
differences in their codeswitching patterns. Whereas the Spanish-dominant bilinguals are more
likely to engage in intrasentential codeswitches of the type examined in this study, the Englishdominant bilinguals probably employ other types of switches, such as lexical switches or tag
switches. These findings are discussed in terms of models of language processing that emphasize
the close relationship between comprehension and production (Gennari & MacDonald, 2009).
References
Garnsey, S. M., Pearlmutter, N. J., & Lotocky, M. A. (1997). The contributions of verb bias and
plausibility to the comprehension of temporarily ambiguous sentences. Journal of
Memory and Language, 37, 58-93.
Gennari, S. P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009). Linking production and comprehension processes:
The case of relative clauses. Cognition, 111, 1-23.
Pfaff, C. W. (1979). Constraints on language mixing: Intrasentential code-switching and
borrowing in Spanish/English. Language, 55(2), 291-318.
Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: Toward a
typology of code-switching. Linguistics, 18(7-8), 581-618.
Trueswell, J. C. & Kim, A. E. (1998). How to prune a garden path by nipping it in the bud: Fast
priming of verb argument structure. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 102-123.
Wilson, M. P. & Garnsey, S. M. (2009). Making simple sentences hard: Verb bias effects in
simple direct object sentences. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 368-392.
77
Accelerated acquisition in English-Spanish bilinguals:
The Transfer/Conflict Hypothesis
Lisa Hsin (The Johns Hopkins University)
While bilingual children are said to differentiate their two languages as early as the babbling
stage, this does not mean that the languages cannot influence one another at all. In fact, crosslinguistic interference is commonly found in bilingual first-language acquisition. In much of the
literature on cross-linguistic interference, a child acquires the target uses of a given syntactic
construction in one language later than a monolingual child would (e.g. object drop, Müller &
Hulk 2001). Sometimes bilingual children systematically produce types of utterances that
monolinguals rarely, if ever, produce (e.g. Döpke 1998)—such utterances tend to display some
characteristic inherent to one of the child’s languages in the child’s other language. These
atypical patterns of language development are taken to be the result of the simultaneous
acquisition of two distinct grammars (e.g. Paradis & Genesee 1995).
In this study, I present analyses of novel data from CHILDES (MacWhinney 2000) corpora of
spontaneous child speech showing that early bilingualism can also accelerate first language
acquisition of syntax. In particular, I look at the development of the C-domain in three EnglishSpanish bilingual children (ages 1;3 to 3;3), analyzing all wh-question productions for word
order, tense inflection, agreement, and information structure; I examine the same features in the
child-directed speech of these corpora as well. The C-domain is of interest because it is the site
of the syntax-pragmatics interface, proposed to be the part of the grammar most susceptible to
cross-linguistic interference (Müller & Hulk 2001). Contrary to predictions of cross-linguistic
interference, however, English-Spanish bilingual children produce virtually perfect wh-questions
in both languages from the earliest stages of development, while English monolinguals make
frequent errors of auxiliary omission as late as age 3. While there are some attestations of
accelerated phonological acquisition and few instances of accelerated morphological acquisition,
this research is one of the first to present evidence of acceleration of syntactic acquisition in
bilinguals. I propose the Transfer/Conflict Hypothesis (TCH) to account for the difference in
acquisition patterns. Previous studies have proposed that morphosyntactic cross-linguistic
interference occurs at the syntax-pragmatics interface when there is an overlap of linear order for
some construction in both languages (e.g. wh-questions). In the TCH, I provide a more broadly
applicable proposal which captures three distinct types of cross-linguistic influence:
(1)
The Transfer/Conflict Hypothesis
FACILITATION occurs when there are grounds for syntactic bootstrapping:
Bilingual children produce adult-like utterances sooner than monolinguals
because identical syntactic structure is used by both languages.
DELAY occurs when discourse-pragmatic constraints conflict:
Bilingual children produce adult-like utterances later than monolinguals
because the rules for using ‘special’ structures in each language are confused.
INTERFERENCE occurs when ‘parametric settings’ conflict:
Bilingual children produce utterances that neither monolinguals nor adults do
because head-parameter settings, wh-movement settings, etc. interfere.
78
The TCH aligns with the Gradual Structure-Building Hypothesis of syntactic development (e.g.
Radford 1996), although in principle any theory of syntactic development that acknowledges the
relevance of varieties of utterances types would be amenable to the hypothesis. I argue that the
adult-like wh-questions produced in Spanish both by monolingual and bilingual children are the
result of an interaction between two factors: one, Spanish-speaking children produce error-free
questions from the start, so the pressure for them to match the form of those utterances to that of
adults is reduced, which in turn allows them to attend to other features of the input; and two,
Spanish child-directed speech makes frequent use of the C-domain, with an abundance of
topicalized objects, an imperative construction with an overt C head, and overt subjects that
occupy the CP as well (cf. Ordóñez 2000), providing children with a mass of evidence that
compels them to project a CP early. In the case of the English-Spanish bilingual child, the wellestablished CP that arises on the basis of the input in Spanish transfers over to her English
grammar, leading to adult-like productions of English wh-questions. I make plain why only
hypotheses of the development of hierarchical syntactic structure which place importance on the
nature of the input suffice, and also how the omnipresence of required functional items in
bilingual children’s English wh-questions contrasts with the all-or-nothing inclusion of those
elements in the monolingual English corpus that I analyze as a control (that is, in the monolingual
child’s speech, auxiliaries and determiners are included or omitted as a pair).
I explore the implications of these findings for theories of syntactic development as well as for
theories of cross-linguistic influence: by what other empirical findings in the literature do we find
this hypothesis corroborated? Continuing to pursue answers to this question, I formulate
predictions of the TCH with respect to further bilingual wh-question patterns in other language
pairs. Specifically, I present preliminary data on English-French bilinguals which suggest that
the variability in the surface structure of French wh-question constructions precludes crosslinguistic transfer of an accelerating sort from French into English, but, since the pragmatic
constraints on wh-question productions do not differ between the two languages, cross-linguistic
interference does not arise either, as predicted.
References
Döpke, S. (1998) “Competing language structures: The acquisition of verb placement by
bilingual German-English children.” J. of Child Lang. 25 (03): 555–584. Cambridge
University Press. MacWhinney, B. (2000) The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk.
Third Edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Müller, N. & Hulk, A. (2001) “Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual language acquisition: Italian
and French as recipient languages.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 4 (01): 1–21.
Cam- bridge University Press. Ordóñez, F. (2000) The Clausal Structure of Spanish: A
Comparative Study. Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics. New York: Garland.
Paradis, J. & Genesee, F. (1995) “Language differentiation in early bilingual development.” J. of
Child Lang. 22 (3); 611–631. Radford, A. (1996) “Towards a Structure-Building Model of
Language Acquisition” In Clahsen, H. (Ed.), Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition
(pp. 43–90). John Benjamins Publishing Company, Philadelphia/Amsterdam. Accelerated
acquisition in English-Spanish bilinguals
79
The syntax-semantics of pluractionality: An insight from the Romanian supine
Gianina Iordachioaia (University of Stuttgart) & Elena Soare (University of Paris 8)
In this paper we offer an insight into the syntax-semantics of pluractional operators (POs) as
markers of verbal plurality (Lasersohn 1995, Van Geenhoven: VG 2004 a.o.) from the point of
view of the Romanian supine the nominal form of which has also been argued to carry a PO
(Iordachioaia & Soare: IS 2008). While the former literature argues on the basis of polysynthetic
languages (but see also Laca 2006) that POs are plural operators that attach at the V-level, we
bring evidence for the existence of POs that act as Aspect-level operators that bind plural event
variables (as in Ferreira 2005). By comparing the nominal and the verbal supine, we show that
only the former carries a PO and thus always denotes plural, while the latter may receive both
plural and singular readings which indicates that it preserves the number ambiguity of verbs in
sentential contexts (Schein 1993, Landman 1996, Kratzer 2005 a.o.). Importantly, in view of this
long established idea that verbs may denote both singular and plural events, the existence of POs
in languages like Romanian would be superfluous, if we assumed that they are mere plural
markers for verbs. Should the V-level analysis be right for some POs/languages, our data indicate
that other POs act at the outer Aspect-level.
The Romanian supine is a nominalized form of the past participle: the nominal supine (NS)
always has a definite article and assigns genitive (1b), while the verbal one (VS) is bare, appears
in verbal periphrases after a preposition and assigns (weak) accusative case (1c).
(1) a. a chema-t
has call -PastP
'he called'
b. chema-t -ul copiilor
call -S –the children.G
'the calling of the children'
c. de chema-t copiii
of call
-S children.the
'(of) calling/to call the children'
IS (2008) argue that NS contains a PO which pluralizes the event. We retain here two tests: i) the
PO-specific scope interaction between the NS of one-time events and singular indefinites which
are interpreted as undergoing the same event several times and yield nonsense in (2) and ii) the
interaction between NS and aspectual verb classes which indicates that NS triggers aspect shift.
Thus the PO in the NS attributes achievements a habitual interpretation and is compatible with
for-PPs (3).
(2) ucisul de jurnalişti/*unui jurnalist de către mafia
kill.S.the of journalists/a.G journalist by
mafia
'the killing of journalists/*a journalist again and again by the mafia'
(3) Sositul
lui Ion cu întârziere timp de 2 ani i-a
adus
concedierea.
arrive.S.the John.G with delay
time of 2 years him-has brought firing.the
'John's (habit of) arriving late for two years brought about his being fired.'
The syntactic level of the PO. IS 2008 analyze the PO in NS as an outer aspect operator that
triggers unboundedness via pluralization. However, previous literature argues that PO is a Vlevel operator; in particular, VG (2004) takes Greenlandic POs to be atelicity markers. Here, we
support the former analysis by providing further evidence from the interaction of NS with in/forPPs, and the comparison between NS and VS with respect to dependent indefinites. First, note
that VG’s claim is incompatible with the ability of the NS to be simultaneously modified by both
an in- and a for-PP as in (4). (4) can be explained if we assume that the in-PP modifies the telic
inner aspect, and the for-PP the unbounded outer aspect contributed by the PO under AspectP.
The analysis also correctly excludes the reverse order of the two PPs.
(4) Traversatul râului în 5 minute timp de 2 luni l-au
făcut pe Ion vedetă.
cross.S.the river.the.G in 5 minutes time of 2 months him-have made John.A star
'The crossing of the river in 5 minutes for 2 months made John a star.'
Second, the interaction of the NS and the VS with dependent indefinites is elucidative for the
80
internal make-up of the NS and the syntax-semantics of the PO. Dependent indefinites (DIs)
require the presence of an individual/event variable with which their own variable must co-vary
(Farkas 1997). Importantly, the required variable must have at least two assignments, singular
variables are insufficient. In addition, bare plurals are not enough either which indicates that
plurality is not the only requirement, the variable must be bound by an operator:
(5) Ion a dat florile/fiecare
floare/*o floare/*flori câte unei fete.
John has given flowers.the/every flower/a flower/flowers DI a.D girl.D
‘John gave the flowers/every flower to a girl (each girl got some flower(s)).’
As a confirmation, note that the well-known semantic plurality of verbs (Landman, Schein etc) is
not enough to license DIs either, an adverbial operator over events is obligatory:
(6) Mafia a ucis *(adesea) câte un jurnalist.
(7) ucisul câte unui jurnalist
mafia has killed often DI a journalist
kill.S.the DI a.G journalist
'M. kept killing/often killed a journalist (again and again).'
'the killing of a j. now and then'
(7) vs. (6) shows that NS must carry an operator over events that cannot be solely the plural at the
V-level like in the case of verbs, since this wouldn't be enough to license DIs. In addition, just
like we expect of bare plurals, the number of events in a verbal context can be counted by a
cardinal quantifier on a participant (i.e. 'Mafia killed 3 journalists' is compatible with 3 killing
events), but the PO in the NS exhibits a scope interaction with the cardinal quantifier, i.e. we
understand that the same 3 journalists were killed several times. This means that the PO is not
simply a (bare) plural of events, but contributes an operator. A comparison between NS and VS
will reveal that the latter behaves just like verbs in sentential contexts (i.e. is ambiguous between
singular and plural readings and does not carry a PO) and its interpretation depends on the higher
verb: e.g. DIs are licensed only in some contexts (8).
(8)Mafia s-a
{pus pe/*lăsat de} ucis *(câte) un jurnalist.
mafia Rf-has put on/left of kill.S DI
a journalist
‘Mafia started/quit killing a journalist now and then.’
Syntax-semantics. We make use of Ferreira's (2005) insight that there is a contrast between
operators that bind plural variables and those that bind singular variables. The fact that THEpl
binds a plural individual triggers the anomalous effect in (9a), where the singular indefinite a
child is mapped onto a plural mother. The relative clause introduces distributivity and allows for
a distribution between mothers and children in (9b):
(9) a. #The mothers of a 5-year old child signed the form.
b. The mothers [who have a 5-year old child] signed the form.
Ferreira argues for a similar explanation in the case of bare habitual sentences which exhibit
similar effects. Making use of the fact that NS exhibits the same behavior (cf. e.g. (2) and (9a)),
we argue that the PO in the supine is an aspectual operator that binds plural events. Thus, despite
the ambiguity of verbs at V-level as possibly singular or plural, the PO in NS binds only plural
event variables and the NS will only be understood as a quantified plural event. Via their covariation requirement, DIs introduce a distributive operator which allows singular events to be
distributed over singular indefinites (cf. (2)-(7) and (9a)-(9b)).
Conclusion. This paper offers an insight into the role of POs in languages like Romanian where
verbs are semantically plural: besides rather lexical POs like in 'nibbling' (see e.g. Tovena &
Kihm 2008), such languages may employ outer Aspect-level POs that bind plural event variables.
This discussion generally contributes to our understanding of how (verbal) plurality is encoded
across languages and language families.
References
Farkas 1997. Dependent Indefinites. In Empirical Issues in Formal Syntax and Semantics (EISS 1), Peter Lang
Publishers. Fereirra 2005. Bare habituals and plural definite descriptions. Proceedings of SuB9. IS 2008. Two kinds
of event plurals: Evidence from Romanian nominalizations. EISS 7. Laca 2006. Indefinites, quantifiers and
81
Explaining variation in resultative secondary predicates
Monica-Alexandrina Irimia (University of Toronto)
Introduction. Resultative secondary predicates (RES-SP) are a well-known locus of crosslinguistic variation. For example, many (families of) languages lack RES-SP of the English type
italicized in (1), where the RES-SP is predicated of the internal argument the metal.
(1) ENGLISH RESULTATIVE SECONDARY PREDICATE
John pounded the metal flat.
(John pounded the metal until it became flat)
On the other hand, languages like Chinese are more permissible than English in that they allow
can be hosted by external arguments:
RES-SP which
(2) CHINESE RESULTATIVE SECONDARY PREDICATE
Zhangsan
pao-le
de
henlei.
RES. (= get)
tired.
Zhangsan
laugh-PRF.
‘Zhangsan laughed tired.’ (Zhangsan laughed till he got tired)
An explicit account of how these empirical facts are to be explained still proves hard to formulate
(Kratzer 2006, Zubizaretta & Oh 2008, Mateu & Rigau 2002, Folli 2001, a.o.) By examining first
a less studied construction with resultative-like semantics in Romanian (Romance), and secondly,
the Chinese and the English pattern, this paper argues for a new typology of RES-SP. They are
analyzed as forming complex predicates which assign a thematic role compositionally, and in
which the two sub-eventualities (V + ADJ/N) are combined via the contribution of functional
projections (PATH+IN, or IN). What makes the distinction cross-linguistically is, first, the position
where these functional projections attach (similarly to di Sciullo & Williams 1987, Pylkkänen
2008). Following Marantz (1997), it is also assumed that verbal categories are composed of a
root (√) which combines with a verbalizing functional projection (v). This paper will provide
evidence that there are resultatives which attach to the root. The complications are seen with
resultatives attached higher than the root, at v level, and at a level higher than v, called here vEXT, a
position where information about external arguments can be computed. The hypothesis is that in
some languages, among which Romance, the v head is more complex (following and developing
on Talmy 1985). Besides introducing the verbalizing semantics, it might also contain, “bundled”
(Pylkkänen 2008, Iatridou 1990) or “via conflation” (Mateu & Rigau 2002), the information of
the PATH functional projection. Languages select out of the inventory of functional projections
either the conflated or the non-conflated variant. Another claim made is that those Chinese RESSPs , which are possible with unergative verbs, are construed by the merger of the resultative
functional projection at the vEXT level.
1.
Resultatives in Romanian (Romance). Although adjectival resultatives of the type
illustrated in (1) are not robust/possible in Romance, it is not the case that RES semantics is
completely absent from these languages. The attention is focused in this paper on a less studied
RES-SP construction, illustrated here with the examples in (3) from Romanian (Romance). In these
examples the idiomatic resultative semantics is obtained by the addition of a noun in its default
form, characterized by the absence of the gender and number (en/pro)clitic inflection:
(3) ROMANIAN RESULTATIVE SECONDARY PREDICATES: NOUNS
a). a
bate
măr.
b).
a
răci
cobză
to
beat
apple
to
catch cold
violin
LIT.‘to beat apple’ (till it becomes an apple, i.e. soft)
LIT. ‘to catch a cold violin’ (to catch
a cold till the voice becomes like a
violin)
82
The puzzling constructions in (3) have not been the object of intense research. Semantically, they
might appear to be similar to “degree words” or “intensifiers”; but what drastically distinguishes
them from the latter is syntax: they can appear only post-verbally (like other SPs, ex. depictives),
while “degree words” are possible only pre-verbally in Romanian:
(4) ROMANIAN: DEGREE WORDS VS. NOUN RESULTATIVES
b).
NOUN RESULTATIVES
a). DEGREE WORDS
a
mai
munci (*mai)
a (*lună)
curăţa lună.
to more
work
to
clean moon. (‘spotless’)
In this paper the examples in (3) are analyzed as resultatives added to the root, having the
structure in (5). The further evidence for this assumption is that such noun RES-SP are preserved
cross-categorically (6). That is, as long as they do not take any type of (enclitic) inflection (7),
they are possible with eventive nouns or adjectives. As resultatives express a change of state (see
Rothstein 1985, Tenny 1994), they are impossible with purely stative elements (like the stative
nominalization of get cold, in 6).
(5) NOUN RESULTATIVES ADDED TO THE ROOT
[…. √ [FP PATH FPATH [FP IN FIN NP]]]
(6) NOUN RESULTATIVES ATTACHED TO EVENTIVE NOUNS/ADJECTIVES
curăţenie
lună/bătut
măr/ *răceală
cobză
the action of cleaning.-N.F.SG. moon/beaten-ADJ.M.SG. apple/ *cold-F.SG.STAT. violin
(7) NOUN RESULTATIVES: ONLY THE DEFAULT FORM IS POSSIBLE
a bate măr /* a bate mărul/* a bate un măr /* a bate mere/* a bate merele
to beat apple/*to beat apple-THE.M.SG./*to beat an apple/*to beat apple-PL./*to beat apple-PL.THE.
2.
Explaining variation. Similar types of resultatives are seen in other “non-resultative”
languages. Crucially, the observation that such resultatives are possible only in the default form
does not necessarily provide support to analyses in which resultative semantics results from a
process of “serialization”, which blocks the presence of inflectional morphology on the
secondary predicate (Kratzer 2006). According to such analyses, Romance adjectives require
overt rich inflection, and therefore are not possible candidates for “serialization”. The fact that
adjectival inflection is not what blocks the formation of resultatives is demonstrated by languages
like Icelandic, where adjectival resultatives of the type in (1) are possible, but always require
overt inflectional morphology (as seen on flat, inflected for gender, number and Case):
(8) ICELANDIC RESULTATIVES
(Whelpton 2006)
Járnsmiðurinn
hamraði
málminn
flatan.
metal- M.ACC.SG.flat- M.ACC.SG.
Blacksmith-the
hammer-PST.
‘The blacksmith hammered the metal flat’.
In order to explain the fact that Romance resultatives cannot attach higher than the root, it is
assumed here that v heads can contain, besides the verbalizing information, the semantics of
various motion-related functional projections, like the PATH (direction) component. Languages
like Romance select for this complex v type (v + PATH), while English and Icelandic have
“simple” v heads. This type of account is strengthened by typological investigations, like Talmy
(1985). Interestingly, there are also languages like Chinese, where resultatives can be combined
with unergatives, yielding examples like He laughed tired (He laughed till he got tired), which
are impossible in English. In this paper, such resultatives are analyzed as resulting from the
merger of the functional projections to a level higher than v, but still inside VP (Andrews 1982,
a.o.). This projection is labeled here vEXT, and it is assumed that in the construction of complex
predicates, this is the level where information about external arguments can be computed in some
languages (among which, Chinese).
83
The role of the copula in the diachronic development of focus constructions in Portuguese
Mary Aizawa Kato (State University of Campinas, UNICAMP)
Constructional focus, namely focus obtained by bi-clausal construction through the use of the
copula, is found in both Germanic and Romance languages. But pseudo-clefts, or wh-clefts, are
more well distributed than that-clefts. According to Jespersen’s classical work:
“In some, though not in all cases, this construction may be considered one of the means by which
the disadvantages of having a comparatively rigid grammatical word-order (SVO) can be
obviated. This explains why it is that similar constructions are not found, or are not used
extensively, in languages in which the word order is considerably less rigid than in English,
French, or the Scandinavian languages, thus German, Spanish and Slavic.” (1937: 85)
Lambrecht (2001) acknowledges the typological wisdom in Jespersen’s words, showing the
following contrast between English, Italian and French, which exhibit that-clefts, as opposed to
German, which does not:
(1)
(2)
Context: Is your knee hurting?
a.
No, it’s my FOOT that hurts.
b.
No, è il PIEDE che mi fa male.
d.
Non, c'est mon PIED qui me fait mal.
Nein, mein FUSS tut weh.
Modern European Portuguese (EP)is a counter-evidence to Jespersen’s generalization as its word
order encounters as much variation as Spanish does, but that-clefts are part of its vernacular as
much as it is of Brazilian Portuguese (BP), a much more rigid word order language. This is true
not only in its declarative sentences but also in its wh-questions.
(3)
a. É meu pé que dói.
b. Meu pé é que dói.
c. O que é que dói?
(cleft sentence)
(reverse cleft question)
(cleft wh-question)
EP BP
EP BP
EP BP
The aim of this paper is to solve this puzzle by resorting to the diachronic development of
Portuguese, as this was not always the picture in Portuguese history. According to Kato &
Ribeiro (2009), Portuguese in its oldest phase resorted mainly to word order to express the focus
of the sentence. Constructional focus was limited to pseudo-clefts of the reverse type. It was only
in the XVth century that that-clefts appeared, but also only of the reverse type. What was
common in the old clefts was that the Focus (between square brackets) appeared in sentence
initial position, with the copula in second position.
(4)
a. [ Ele] he o que tempera a sanha. (DSG, 14th c.)
he is what seasons the rage
‘He is who seasons the rage’
b. [A demanda do santo graal] é que, em tam mostrará a estes homees(DSGraal, 15th c.)
the quest of.the Holy Grail is that so
will.show to these men
‘The quest for the holy grail will then show these men […]’
Its only in the 18th century that both pseudo and that-clefts started to appear, with the copula in
initial position, and the Focus in post-verbal position.
(5)
a. foi [Vossa Eminência] quem julgou que eu era digna de expor […]
(Alorna, 18th c.)
was Your Eminence
who considered that I was worth of expose
‘It was Your eminence who considered that I was worth exposing…’
b.É o rei legítimo que devemos opor ao usurpador.
(Alorna, 18th c.)
is the king legitimate that (we) should oppose to the usurper
‘It is the legitimate king that we have to oppose to the usurper.’
In this paper I want to explore the role of the copula in the innovations that occurred in
Portuguese constructional focus structures, especially in BP. Old Portuguese had two positions
84
for narrow or emphatic focus : one at the sentence initial position, followed by the verb, a
typical V2 sort of pattern (cf. (6)), and one at the sentence final position, especially with the
subjects (cf. (7)).
(6)
(7)
a. [Bem] sei eu ainda algüa cousa
deste santo homen (DSG.1.5.3)
Well know I yet
some thing
about this mam
‘I knew something about this man.’
b. E [aacima a piedade] venceu a homildade (DSG.1.4.11)
and over the pity
won
the humbleness
“ and humbleness won over pity.’
a. Contou depós esto [San Gregorio] que... (DSG1.14.2)
Told then this Saint Gregory that
‘Saint Gregory told this then that..’
b. e esteverom aa porta [ambos] (CDP.20.48-49)
and were
at-the door
both
‘and both were at the door.’
EP still has such constructions, but BP has lost them, having innovated with clefts:
(8)
(9)
a. [Muitas mulheres] amou o João
EP
many women
loved the J.
b. [Muitas mulheres] é que o João amou.
EP BP
many women
is that J. loved
‘It was many women that John loved.’
a. - Quem te enganou? (Lit.: ‘Who deceived you?’)
b1- Enganou-me [o feirante].
EP
deceived me the market-man
EP BP
b2- Foi [o feirante] (que me enganou).
was the market-man (that me deceived)
‘It was the market-man that deceived me.’
What changed was that, while OP resorted to internal merge of the verb, BP resorted to external
merge of the copula, followed by its internal merge. This resource managed to maintain the V2
property with a single default verb.
(10)
a. [FP muitas mulheresi [F amouV [IP ti tV [vP .....o João ]]]]
b. [FP muitas mulheresi [F é [IP tcop [vP tcop que [IP o João amou ti ]]]]
A similar process can explain the loss of Romance VS order in BP. Assuming Belletti’s(2004)
low vP periphery, in the previous VS order stage, the focalized subject moved from the Spec of
vP to FP , deriving the VS order as in (11a). As for (11b) merging a copula to the proposition
[que o feirante me enganou], it was possible to create an FP adjacent to this vP containing the
copula. The subject of the proposition can now move to FP , with the copula moving finally to
the matrix I. Here again the construction is due to the external merge of the copula.
(11)
a. [IP enganouV-meme [FP o feirantei [vP ti tV tme ....
[FP o feirantei [vP tcop [CP que ti me enganou...
b. [IP foicop
In both cases, the external merge of the copula created the two former positions for the focus
with a single default verb. In EP, VS constructions and cleft constructions, survive together, with
the cleft construction considered the vernacular form. The difference is after all lexical: while VS
is allowed only with the copula in BP, it has no lexical constraint in EP, except a stylistic one.
References
Belletti, A. (2004) Aspects of the Low IP Area. In: The Structure of IP and CP. The Cartography of
Syntactic
Structures. v. 2, Luigi Rizzi (ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Chomsky ,N. (2007). Approaching UG from below. In: U. Sauerland and H-M. Gärtner (eds)
Interfaces+Recursion =Language? . Berlin/New York: Mouton.
Jespersen, O. (1937). Analytic syntax. London: Allen & Unwin.
Kato, M.A. and I. Ribeiro (2009) Cleft sentences from old Portuguese to Modern Brazilian Portuguese. In: A. Dufter
& D.Jacob (eds). Focus and Background in Romance Languages. 123-154. John Benjamins
85
All or nothing?
How French null subjects travelled through time
Martine Leroux (Université d’Ottawa)
In French, inflected verbs have purportedly lost the ability to appear variably with a null or an
overt subject. They are now bound by prescriptive rules to be accompanied by a lexical subject.
Despite this, examination of contemporary (Quebec) French reveals that the grammatical subject
is sometimes omitted in speech, as illustrated in (1):
(1) Je veux dire, Ø va t’être assis à l’hôtel avec lui, il va me dire de quoi [XX:74:827]3
‘I mean, Ø will be sitting at the bar with him, he will tell me something’
Given this discrepancy between prescription and usage, how can ellipsis be explained? This
paper adopts a variationist approach (Labov 1972) to trace the trajectory of null subjects over five
centuries, uncover their recurrent patterns of usage over time, and assess whether current
constraints on their variable selection are retentions from an older stage of French or are
motivated by recent internal developments.
The literature on specifically French subject ellipsis puts forward different explanations for the
alleged disappearance of null subjects, the two most recurrent ones being the loss of verbal
inflections inherently capable of distinguishing between persons and numbers (Bourciez
1967:684; Ewert 1967:123; Grevisse 1969:§470 hist.; Guiraud 1966:46; Price 1971; Wartburg
1971:63), and a change to a V2 structure forcing the first position in the clause to be filled only
by a subject pronoun (Ashby 1977:54; Dauzat 1939:188; Harris 1978; Yang, 2000:243). Other
reported motivations for null subjects centre around syntactic (eg. position of subject in the
clause), phonological (eg. lax pronunciation) and discourse explanations (eg. informal speech
style, identity with previous subject) (Buridant 2000:§344; Quirk et al. 1973; Silva-Corvalán
1982) (but see namely Adams 1988 and Vance 1996:457 for dissenting opinions).
To ascertain which of the above characterizations, if any, reflects actual usage of this rare variant
and to test whether contemporary usage is the product of change and, if so, in what direction, I
extracted and coded each occurrence of the 256 null subjects as well as some 500 adjacent
expressed subjects in the speech of sixteen 20th-century speakers culled from the Ottawa-Hull
French Corpus (Poplack 1989). Analysis revealed that ellipsis is favoured overwhelmingly by
the lexical verbs falloir (‘must’), sont (3rd per. plur. present be) and me sembler (‘seems to me’),
which together account for over 85 % of all occurrences. This finding has not been reported
previously to my knowledge. As such, it could be construed as a sign of change if a difference
can be attested with a prior point in time.
To test this hypothesis, I extracted another 592 null subjects, along with over 1,000 expressed
adjacent subjects, from two diachronic sources: the Récits du français québécois d’autrefois
(Poplack and St-Amand 2009), produced by speakers born in the 19th century, and a corpus of
3
Codes refer to speaker number and line number in the Ottawa-Hull French Corpus (Poplack 1989). The example is
reproduced verbatim from speaker utterances.
86
vernacular French texts from the 18th, 17th and 16th centuries. Analysis revealed that the lexical
conditioning of null subjects was generally already in place a century and a half ago – although
not as vigorous – and that the elements influencing variant choice also included subject type,
position in the clause, clause type, verb tense and discourse connectedness.
This paper adds to a growing body of data showing that although a form may lose its capacity to
be used productively, it may not disappear completely as a result. The obsolescing variant can
rather become entrenched and take on specialized functions over time (see namely Poplack and
St-Amand 2009 with respect to negation in French; Elsig and Poplack 2006 on question
formation in French; Poplack and Dion 2009, and Poplack and Turpin 1999 on the
synthetic/inflected future tense in French).
References
Adams, M. (1988). Les effets de V2 en ancien et moyen français. Revue québécoise de
linguistique théorique et appliquée 7,3:13–39.
Ashby, W. (1977). Clitic Inflection in French: an Historical Perspective. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Bourciez, É. (1967). Éléments de linguistique romane. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck.
Buridant, C. (2000). Grammaire nouvelle de l’ancien français. Paris: Sedes.
Dauzat, A. (1939). Tableau de la langue française. Paris: Payot.
Elsig, M. and S. Poplack (2006). Transplanted dialects and language change: question formation
in Québec. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 12,2 :77–90.
Ewert, A. (1967). The French language. London: Faber & Faber limited.
Grevisse, M. (1969). Le Bon Usage : Grammaire française avec des Remarques sur la langue
française d’aujourd’hui, 9th ed. rev., Gembloux (Belgium): Duculot.
Guiraud, P. (1966). Le système du relatif en français populaire. Langages, 40–48.
Harris, M. (1978) The Evolution of French Syntax: A Comparative Approach. New York:
Longman.
Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistc Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Poplack, S. (1989). The care and handling of a mega-corpus. R. Fasold and D. Schiffrin (eds),
Language Change and Variation, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 411–451.
Poplack, S. and N. Dion (2009). Prescription vs. praxis: the evolution of future temporal
reference in French. Language 85,3:557–587.
Poplack, S. and A. St-Amand (2009). Les Récits du français québécois d’autrefois: reflet du
parler vernaculaire du XIXe siècle. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 54, 3. 511–546. Poplack, S. and D. Turpin (1999). Does the FUTUR have a future in (Canadian) French?
Probus 11,1:133–164. Price, G. (1971). The French Language: Present and Past. London: Edward Arnold. Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech and J. Svartvik (1973). A grammar of contemporary English.
London: Longman.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1982). Subject expression and placement in Mexican-American Spanish. J.
Amastae and L. Elías-Olivares (eds.), Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic aspects,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 93–120. Vance, B. (1996). Null Subjects in Middle French Discourse. Aspects of Romance Linguistics.
Selected Papers from the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages XXIV. March 10-13,
1994, Washington: Georgetown University Press. Wartburg, W. (1971). Évolution et structure de la langue française. Bern: Francke. Yang, C. (2000). Internal and external forces in language change. Language Variation and
Change 12, Cambridge University Press, USA, 231–250.
87
Colliding vowel systems in Andean Spanish: carryovers and emergent properties
John Lipski (The Pennsylvania State University)
The acquisition of the Spanish 5-vowel system by speakers of the 3-vowel language Quechua (/ɪ//a/-/ʊ/), when learning takes place informally in post-adolescence, seldom results in accurate
approximation to Spanish vowel spaces. The failure to fully acquire the oppositions /i/-/e/ and
/u/-/o/ is manifested in a variety of stigmatized partial or total neutralizations referred to
colloquially as motosidad. The popular view is that Quechua-dominant speakers randomly
interchange Spanish high and mid vowels (e.g. misa de difunción `funeral mass’ > mesa di
defonciún); less frequently, all Spanish mid vowels are depicted as being replaced by the
corresponding high vowels, as actually occurred historically with Spanish borrowings into
Quechua: oveja `sheep’ > uvija. To date, research on the acquisition of Spanish vowels by
Quechua speakers has been conducted in laboratory environments, using elicited single-word
responses from speakers who had already partially mastered the Spanish vowel system. Such
studies, while providing correlations between age of acquisition and ultimate attainment of
Spanish vocalic oppositions shed little light on the realization of Spanish vowel spaces in
naturalistic speech, or on the acquisition process itself. The present study expands the scope of
empirical research by analyzing natural speech data collected in rural bilingual communities in
northern Ecuador and representative of the ethnolects that have given rise to motoso portrayals in
popular culture. The speakers are older (60+) Quechua-dominant bilinguals, who acquired
Spanish in informal agricultural settings during or after adolescence, who have had no schooling
in any language and are completely illiterate, and who have little or no ongoing contact with
canonical varieties of Spanish. In an environment in which few cues point to the existence of
mid-high vocalic oppositions in Spanish (e.g. no literacy, no corrective feedback, almost no
viable minimal pairs), these speakers reliably distinguish only three Spanish vowels. A
comparison of their Quechua and Spanish vowel tokens, as well as tokens produced by
monolingual Spanish speakers from neighboring towns, reveals that the Quechua-dominant
bilinguals have amorphous front and back vowel spaces considerably broader than those defining
Quechua /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, but with no bimodal clustering. Their vowel production represents a
congealed stage between simply mapping Spanish vowels to Quechua vowel spaces and
achievement of the Spanish 5-vowel system. The unfettered existence over an entire adult
lifetime of an expanded 3-vowel system effectively filling up the entire available vowel space
challenges “native language magnet” theories of L2 acquisition according to which an L2 vowel
that is phonetically similar to an L1 vowel will be attracted to the L1 target. Further examination
of Quechua-dominant Spanish reveals emergent properties that suggest that the converse of
Dispersion Theory (vowel phonemes are distributed across perceptual vowel space so as to
minimize potential confusion) may also obtain: in an expanded vowel space containing a small
number of vowel phonemes distributed broadly, new oppositions may emerge. Preliminary
Quechua-Spanish data suggest incipient exemplar-based distinctions based on vowel duration, as
well as within-word vowel harmony equalizing not only sequences of identical high or mid
vowels, but also sequences combining mid and high vowels.
88
References
Cerrón Palomino, Rodolfo. 1975. La motosidad y sus implicancias para la enseñanza del
castellano. Aportes para la enseñanza del lenguaje, ed. Martín Quintana and Danilo Sánchez,
125-165. Lima: Retablo de Papel Ediciones.
_____. 1989. Aspectos sociolingüísticos y pedagógicos de la motosidad en el Perú. Temas de
lingüística amerindia, ed. Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino and Gustavo Solís Fonseca, 153-180.
Lima: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología.
Delforge, Ann Marie. 2008. Unstressed vowel reduction in Andean Spanish. Selected
proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology, ed. Laura
Colantoni and Jeffrey Steele, 108-124. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings.
Guion, Susan. 2003. The vowel systems of Quichua-Spanish bilinguals: age of acquisition effects
on the mutual influence of the first and second languages. Phonetica 60.98-128.
Guion, Susan, James Flege, and Jonathan Loftin. 2000. The effect of L1 use on pronunciation in
Quichua-Spanish bilinguals. Journal of Phonetics 28.27-42.
Kuhl, Patricia and Paul Iverson. 1995. Linguistic experience and the “Perceptual Magnet effect.”
Speech perception and linguistic experience: issues in cross-language research, ed. Winifred
Strange, 121-154. Timonium, MD: York Press.
O’Rourke, Erin. 2010. Dialect differences and the bilingual vowel space in Peruvian Spanish.
Selected Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology,
ed. Marta Ortega-Llebaria, 20-30. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
www.lingref.com, document #2363.
Pérez Silva, Jorge, Jorge Acurio, and Raúl Benedezú. 2008. Contra el prejuicio lingüístico de la
motosidad. Un estudio de las vocales del castellano andino desde la fonética acústica. Lima:
Instituto Riva-Agüero, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
Pérez Silva, Jorge Iván and Virginia Zavala Cisneros. 2010. Aspectos cognitivos e ideológicos
del “motoseo” en el Perú. América en la Lengua Española, V Congreso Internacional de la
Lengua Española, Valparaiso, Chile 2010 (www.congresodelalengua.cl).
Schwartz, Jean-Luc, Louis-Jean Boë, Nathalie Vallée, and Christian Abry. 1997. The DispersionFocalization theory of vowel systems. Journal of Phonetics (1997) 25.255 – 286.
Stevens, Kenneth. 1989. On the quantal nature of speech. Journal of Phonetics 17.3-45.
89
How children distribute: The acquisition of the universal quantifier in Brazilian
Portuguese
Ruth E. Vasconcellos Lopes (University of Campinas/CNPq, Brazil)
Our aim is to examine the acquisition of quantifiers, especially the universal quantifier, by
monolingual Brazilian Portuguese (BP)-speaking children. Research on the acquisition of
quantifiers has been exhaustively conducted in a variety of languages since Inherlder & Piaget
(1964); however, results are still controversial (see, among many others, Meroni, Gualmini, and
Crain (2007) and references therein).
Given the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, there are no works available on the topic for
BP, our working questions were quite naive at first: when do children display an adult
interpretation of quantifiers in the language? Our general results on a picture selection task ran on
over 20 children, from 2 to 4 years-old, show that, when faced with a simple sentence containing
inergative verbs and only one universal quantifier in subject position (see [1]), they reach a 70%
figure of adult-like interpretation since their 2nd birthday.
Following other studies, we decided to test “Is every X V-ing a Y?” sentences (see [2]).
Considering Phillips’ (1995) symmetrical hypothesis, our question then was whether children,
given the chance, would go for a one-to-one mapping between the restrictor in subject and object
positions, when faced with an additional element for the object position and a distractor in the
picture, which would also give them a change to be exhaustive (see picture [3]). We applied a
picture truth value task; however we have tested affirmative sentences, asking the children
whether the sentences were right or not. Fourty 3 to 6 year-old children were tested and 81.5% of
the answers were adult-like. Nevertheless, one always wonders whether these children were
really not quantifiying over the event of ‘x V-ing with y’ – a hypothesis also entertained by
Phillips (op. cit.), which we will call “classic spreading” after Roeper et al. (2004). These authors
proposed that there is an acquisition path in English which goes from what they dubbed “bunny
spreading” (see below) to “classic spreading” to the target. In other words, children would start
out as event quantifiers, then would move into a symmetrical interpretation, and then into
quantifing over a restritor in the nominal domain. Considering Roeper et al. (2004) ‘spreading’
hypothesis we’ve tested that possibility through a replication of the authors’ experimental
paradigm: There is a picture of an event of V-ing – for example, 3 bunnies eating apples and a
teddy bear eating a piece of cake. The bunnies and the apples are mentioned in the test sentence,
but not the teddy bear and the cake (see picture [4] and sentence [5]). Therefore, if children faced
with the question ‘Is every bunny eating an apple?’ answer negatively, they can only be
interpreting the quantifier as an operator over the event and not the nouns. We tested 20 4 to 6
year-olds and they behaved adult-like across-the-board. Therefore, we decided to test younger
children. 14 2 to 4 year-olds were also tested but, again, they came close to adult behaviour: 77%
of the cases.
Finally, given the ambiguity of the sentences tested, the next natural question is whether children
distribute – not to be confused with going symmetrical – or go collective. We first tested a
control adult group by applying an off-line questionaire to 20 18 to 30 year-old monolingual
Brazilians with two conditions: every singular vs. every plural [see 6]. Results show a clear trend
towards the distributive interpretation when the restrictor is singular and a collective one when it
90
is in the plural form (χ2 = 29,9, df= 1, p < 0,05). The same sentences were tested with 40 3 to 6
year-old children in an act-out experiment. 79.2% of the answers showed a preference for the
distributive reading, despite the morphological options on the DP (χ2 = 8.4, df=3, p < 0,05).
Although Brazilian children do not show a symmetrical behaviour in terms of a strict relation
between “same subject restrictor” and “same object restrictor” and are not spreaders, they do
show a preference for distributing up to their 5th birthday, when they start to show adult-like
performance (χ2 = 5,8, df=1, p < 0,05). Our hypothesis for the difference between English
speaking children and Brazilian ones is related to the morphological differences of the two
languages. Agreement factors cue Brazilian children from very early on in regard to the fact that
the quantifier belongs in the nominal domain, therefore they don’t quantify over the event.
However, they also have to figure out which morphological forms go with which interpretation,
forcing them initially to default into distributing. The same distributive trend is also found in the
acquisition of Serbian (KNEŽEVIC, 2010), Dutch (Drozd, 1996) and Russian (Kuznetsova et al,
2007).
Examples and pictures:
[1] Todo sapinho -tá lendo.
Every frog_diminutive is reading.
[2] Toda foca –tá brincando com uma bola.
Every seal is playing with a ball.
Tá certo, criança? É isso mesmo?
Is that right, child?
[3]
[4]
[5] Todo coelhinho –tá comendo uma maçã?
Is every bunny eating an apple?
[6] (1) Todo menino -tá brincando com uma bola.
Q_sg boy is playing with a ball
Every boy is playing with a ball.
(2) Todas as bolas –tão numa caixa.
Q_pl the_pl balls are in+a box
All the balls are in a box
91
‘Defective intervention’ in clitic doubling and Agree constructions
Mihaela Marchis (Hamburg Universität)
In this paper we investigate the syntactic behavior of clitic doubling (CD) and Agree in the case of
‘defective intervention’. Specifically, we show that the crosslinguistic variation of CD and Agree with
defective intervention can be accounted for on the basis of a defragmented analysis of clitics (Dechaine &
Wiltschko 2002, Bleam 1999, Anagnostopoulou 2005, Alexiadou & Marchis 2010). It has been suggested
that languages like Romanian, Spanish and Greek which systematically allow CD show Long Distance
Agree (LDA) in raising constructions (cf. Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou, Iordachioaia & Marchis (AAIM)
2009):
CD
(1)
a.
b.
(2)
a.
b.
Ion îi
trimite
Mariei
o scrisoare.
Jon cl-dat. sends
Mary-dat. a letter.
Juan le
regala a María
una flor.
John cl-dat gives to. Mary a flower.
LDA
Romanian
[TP Au încetat [TP să citească [DP copiii]]]
stopped.3pl.
subj. read.3pl children.the.pl
Acabó
de leer Juan el libro.
stopped-3sg. to read John the book.
Romanian
Spanish
Spanish
Anagnostopoulou (2003, 2005) analyzes cliticization as an overt feature movement construction with a PF
reflex. Under this assumption, CD in (1) and LDA in (2) are the outcome of two different operations
Move vs. Agree. Chomsky (2000) proposes a diagnostic to distinguish them: violations of Minimal Link
Constraint (MLC) lead to ungrammaticality with Move and to default agreement with Agree. This has
been shown for Icelandic and Basque by Holmberg & Hróarsdóttir (2003) and Preminger (2009):
(3)
(4)
Manninum
virðast
[ hestarnir
vera seinir].
Icelandic
The.man-sg-dat seem-pl the horses-pl-nom
be slow
‘The man finds the horses slow.’
Ϸað virðist/* virðast einhverjum manni [hestarnir
vera seinir]
Expl seem-sg/*seem-pl some man-sg-dat the horses-pl-nom be slow
‘A man finds the horses slow.’
Holmberg & Hróarsdóttir (2003:12)
Moreover, clitic doubling is another strategy of obviating intervention effects in Agree constructions as
cliticization of IOs systematically licenses A-movement of themes, an operation blocked in the absence of
clitics due to MLC (cf. Anagnostopoulou 2003):
(5)
[To vivlio] i *(tis) charistike tis Marias t i apo ton Petro.
The book cl-gen awarded the Mary-gen from the Peter
Hence, Agree in Greek and Basque takes place in the case of defective intervention through feature
movement (see Anagnostopoulou 2003, Preminger 2009). In this paper, we show that although Greek,
Spanish and Romanian sentences with indirect object clitic doubling are double object construction (DOC)
where the doubled DP/PP is introduced by an applicative head, vappl, and c-commands the theme (cf.
Demonte 1995, Diaconescu & Rivero 2005), Greek, Spanish & Romanian CD behaves differently with
respect to intervention effects in the case of Agree and Move.
1. Agree: In Greek, in both cliticization and raising constructions, CD alleviates MLC violations
(Anagnostopoulou 2003). Unlike Greek, Romanian & Spanish allow subject raising and LDA (without
default agreement) in raising construction in the absence of dative clitic. Moreover, they are blocked in the
matrix clause in Romanian (see 6):
92
(6)
(7)
a. (Moşul) (*le-)a început să
(le) ofere copiilor multe cadouri.
Santa Claus cl-dat started-sg subj (cl-dat) offer children.dat many presents.
b. Multe cadouri a început să
ofere moşul copiilor.
Many presents started-sg subj offer Santa children.dat.
a. (Santa)
(les) empezó a ofrecer(les)
a los niños muchos regalos.
Santa Claus cl-dat started-sg to offer-cl.dat to the children many presents.
b. Muchos regalos (les) empezó a ofrecer Santa Claus a los niños.
Many presents cl-dat started to offer Santa Claus to the children.
2. Move: Romanian & Spanish permit the DO cliticization in the absence of the dative clitic. This leads to
MLC violation in Greek (cf. Anagnostopoulou 2003:119):
(8)
a.
?(Se)
la
presenté.
cl-dat cl-acc
presented.
‘I introduced her to him/her.’
b. (I)-am
prezentat-o
mamei.
cl-dat-have presented.cl-acc
mother.
‘I have introduced her to my mother.’
The data in (6), (7) and (8) raise a puzzling question, namely whether all types of clitics obviate locality
effects in the same way. In this paper, the dichotomy between Greek and Romanian & Spanish is
accounted for on the basis of a defragmented analysis of clitics: clitics in Greek are determiners while
dative clitics in Romanian and Spanish are agreement markers. Anagnostopoulou (2003) argues that
Greek clitics have a +D feature, being [+Animate] and [+Gender]. This is shown by the fact that when the
accusative clitic is unspecified for gender, it freely moves across the IO:
(9)
O Gianis to/
*tin edhose tis Marias.
Gianis cl-acc-neut/*fem gave-3sg Mary-gen
(Anagnostopoulou 2003: 199)
In line with Anagnostopoulou (2003), we argue that the MLC effect in (9) is caused by a categorical
animacy/gender D-feature of clitics in Greek while in Romanian & Spanish, dative clitics in (8) are devoid
of D-features, being mere agreement markers on a par with neuter clitic to. But how can the discrepancy
between Greek and Spanish/Romanian be accounted for in LDA constructions? There are two possible
explanations: First, according to Chomsky’s (2000) “closeness”/MLC, an XP can move across a ccommanding ZP if both arguments belong to the minimal domain of the same head. This seems to be so as
unlike in Greek, the non-CD constructions in Romance are not DOCs - they lack a v-applicative head
(Diaconescu & Rivero 2005). But in (6&7) the dative clitic can optionally occur in the embedded sentence
in Romanian and even in the matrix sentence in Spanish. Another way to explain this is to argue that
unlike in Spanish the feature movement of dative in Romanian is blocked as the target and the goal are not
in a clause-mate relation, but rather in a bi-clausal relation (see Iatridou 1990). This is in line with
Preminger’s (2009) diagnostic: failed CD results in the disappearance of the agreeing morpheme while
failed Agree in default agreement. The distinction between Greek and Romanian & Spanish clitics is,
hence, related to their status and their feature content rather than their mechanism of feature checking,
Move vs. Agree. An argument for a movement-based approach of CD is that cliticization in Greek,
Romanian and Spanish systematically leads to the cancellation of WCO effects (cf. Anagnostopoulou
2003, Diaconescu & Rivero 2005). However, both CD in (1) and LDA (2) are involved in an EPPagreement relation: LDA is the result of phi-feature valuation via Agree while CD is phi-feature
movement satisfying EPP (see Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998, 2001, Roberts 2009, Barbosa 2009,
AAIM 2009, Fischer 2010). We propose that the latter does not hold for Romanian and Spanish as their
IOs do not have a categorical D feature related to EPP (Chomsky 1995). Crucially, unlike in Greek, in
Romanian and Spanish non-specific indefinite IOs can be clitic-doubled (cf. Alexiadou & Marchis 2010).
We argue, hence, that CD in Romanian and Spanish involves phi-feature movement satisfying Case, rather
than D categorical features (EPP).
93
Cross-dialectal differences between vowels in Cuban and Peninsular Spanish
Irina Marinescu (University of Toronto)
The present study provides an acoustic description of vowels in two understudied local varieties
in León, Spain (PS) and Holguín, Cuba (CS), by comparing normalized vowel locations in the
F1xF2 space, intervocalic distances and distances from point vowels to centroids, as well as
variability patterns and durations. Among the few studies that address vowel variation across
Spanish dialects, a comparison between the Caribbean and Peninsular Spanish (Guitart, 1996
citing Valle, 1996) suggested that Peninsular Spanish speakers produced a higher [a] and a more
fronted [o] as compared to Caribbean speakers. Morrison and Escudero (2007) compared
Peruvian and Peninsular Spanish vowels but found few cross-dialectal differences. Specifically,
only /o/ differs significantly in the F2 dimension (>10%), having a more fronted realization in
Peninsular Spanish. Duration was also shorter (>30%) for Peninsular vowels.
Based on these findings on Spanish varieties, the following hypotheses were formulated.
H1 – vowel location: The back vowels [o, u] are more fronted in PS than in CS. Thus, significant
differences in F2 dimension (higher F2 for PS than for CS) and possibly for [a] in F1 dimension
(higher [a], i.e. lower F1 for PS vs. CS) are predicted.
H2 – vowel dispersion and intervocalic distances: The vowel spaces of PS and CS show similar
degrees of dispersion. If previous reports on a more fronted [o] and a higher [a] for PS are
correct, then PS is expected to have smaller /a-o/ and greater /a-e/ distances as compared to CS.
Different distances from point vowels /i, a, u/ to centroids (grand means across vowels) would
signal different degrees of dispersion.
H3 – variability patterns: Cross-dialectal differences in standard deviations for F1 and F2
respectively are predicted. Since a higher and more fronted vowel space is reported for PS, less
variation (i.e. smaller sd’s) is predicted for its front vowels /i, e/. Likewise, if the Cuban vowel
space tends to be more posterior, less variability is predicted along the F2 dimension for back
vowels in CS.
H4 – duration: Vowels tend to be shorter in PS than in CS.
Speech samples were obtained from a total of 40 speakers through a reading task, in which
participants were instructed to pronounce real Spanish words pVpa and bVba inserted in a carrier
phrase at a quick pace mimicking conversational speech. There were 21 participants (17 women,
4 men) in the PS group and 19 participants (14 women, 5 men) in the CS group with similar ages
and university education and were tested in their native regions. More than 800 stimuli were
extracted; vowel durations and F0-F3 were measured. Formants were normalized using
Lobanov’s (1971) z-score transformation, which was shown to preserve the regional variation
while eliminating gender differences (Adank et al. 2004).
Vowel locations: Ten one-way ANOVAs were run on normalized formant values with dialect as
independent variable. Only 3 analyses reached the level of significance, as follows. For /i/ F1 is
lower in PS than in CS, (F(1, 160) = 4.319, p = .039), F2 is higher in PS than in CS, (F(1, 160) =
8.763, p = .004). For /o/ F2 is higher in PS than in CS (F(1, 160) = 45.879, p < .001). The
94
differences between the mean normalized F1 and F2 values for the /i/’s in PS and CS are 4.97%
(F1) and 8.93% (F2). A 10.29 % difference in the mean normalized F2 values was found for the
/o/’s in PS and CS.
Vowel dispersion and intervocalic distances: The Euclidean distances calculated between vowels
do not differ significantly across dialects, despite a tendency for PS /a-i/ and /a-u/ to be greater,
i.e. more dispersed, than in CS. Distances between /a-e/ and /a-o/ are also comparable. Among
the five distances to the centroids, only the distance from /i/ to the centroid was significantly
different across the two dialects (F(1, 160) = 12.364, p = .001), with the /i/-C distance greater in
PS than in CS.
Variability: Ellipses drawn around each category so as to cover only vowels whose F1 and F2 are
within 2 sd’s, show different cross-dialectal patterns of variability. Along the F1 dimension, there
is more variability for PS vowels than for CS (ellipses are higher). However, along the F2
dimension, there is less variability in PS than in CS for /i, e/ (ellipses in CS are elongated) and
more variability for /a, o/ in PS than in CS. In both dialects /u/ seems to vary little. There is also
more category overlap between /i/ and /e/ in CS as compared to PS.
Duration: Significant differences in duration were found for /e, a, o/ vowels, which were shorter
in PS than in CS. However, the differences (<20 ms) are hardly significant from a phonetic
standpoint.
This study contributed data on Cuban Spanish and corroborated previous reports on Peninsular
Spanish. The most important finding is the different locations of the /i, o/ vowels that are more
fronted in PS for which the vowel space also tends to be more dispersed. Different patterns of
variability were also found suggesting that PS speakers tend to be less precise along the height
dimension whereas CS are less precise along the front-back dimension when producing front
vowels. These cross-dialectal differences are discussed as a potential source of differences in L2
perception and production (e.g. Holden and Nearey, 1986; Morrison and Escudero, 2007).
References
Adank, P. Smiths, R., and van Hout, R. 2004. A comparison of vowel normalization procedures
for language variation research. JASA 116: 3099-3107
Guitart, J.M. 1996. On the source of variance among Hispanophones with regard to the way they
perceive certain American English vowels. 1996 AATSP Biennial Northeast Regional
Meeting, University of Amherst
Holden K.T. and T.M. Nearey. 1986. A preliminary report on three Russian dialects: Vowel
perception and production. Russian Language Journal. 40: 3-21
Lobanov, B.M. 1971. Classification of Russian vowels spoken by different speakers. JASA 49:
606-608
Morrison, G.S. and P. Escudero. 2007. A cross-dialect comparison of Peninsular- and PeruvianSpanish vowels. XVI International Congress of Phonetic Sciences Saarbrucken.
www.icphs2007.de Last accessed Dec 14, 2010
95
A Stratal OT account of lax mid-vowel reduction in Galician
Fernando Martínez-Gil (The Ohio State University)
A phenomenon commonly observed across languages is the asymmetry that obtains between
stressed and unstressed vowels and the occurrence of certain phonological properties. Thus, in
many languages only vowels of a certain quality may occur in unstressed syllables (Crosswhite
2001). The present study deals with mid-vowel reduction (MVR) in Galician, a Romance language
spoken in Northwestern Spain, which exhibits an underlying seven-vowel inventory /i, u, e, o, ɛ, ɔ,
a/ and a tense ~ lax phonemic contrast among mid vowels (cf. (1)). In underived lexical items,
this distinction is restricted to stressed syllables; the contrast is neutralized in unstressed
positions, where only tense mid vowels occur (cf. (2)). As a result, underived lexical items may
only contain one lax vowel, which necessarily bears primary stress (Hualde & Martínez-Gil
1994). Although MVR is the norm in simplex words, when we consider the behavior of
morphologically-complex words, two distinct varieties of Galician can be singled out. In some
varieties (call them A-dialects), productive morphological derivation is also subject to MVR: an
underlying [-ATR] stem mid vowel surfaces as [+ATR] when stress is assigned to the suffix (cf.
(3); see Veiga Arias 1976: 59-62, Porto Dapena 1977: 21), with three systematic exceptions,
illustrated in (4): a) appreciative suffixation; b) -mente ‘-ly-’ adverbs; and c) compounds; here,
the underlying stem lax vowel survives the rightward shift of stress that results from suffixation/
compounding, a pattern also found in Portuguese (Wetzels 1991, 1992, Mateus and Andrade
2000). In other Galician varieties (call them B-dialects), while MVR still holds for underived
lexical items, it is consistently blocked in all instances of morphological derivation (not just the 3
types in (4)), as illustrated in (5) (cf. (5) with (3) above). In these dialects, the lax quality of a
base’s underlying vowel is consistently preserved in derived words, independently of suffix type
(Carballo Calero 1979: 114-118, Álvarez et al. 1986: 18, Freixeiro Mato 1998: 94-98). Given
MVR, the preservation of mid lax vowels in (4)-(5) reflects the familiar type of opacity by
underapplication: although the unstressed stem lax mid vowels in (3)-(5) meet the structural
description of MVR, they fail to undergo reduction.
The main purpose of this work is to present an account of both the morphologically-induced
blocking of MVR and the two distinct patterns of dialectal variation in Galician within the
framework of Stratal OT, a modular approach to the phonology-morphology interaction, in which
the lexical phonology consists of two ordered domains or strata correlated with the morphological
categories Stem (S) and Word (W). Each domain is an OT grammar with its own constraint
ranking; the output of the S domain is the input of the W stratum (Kiparsky 2000, 2008, 2009,
Bermudez-Otero 2006, forthcoming). Stratal OT provides a simple and straightforward treatment of
underapplication opacity in Galician MVR by resorting to the most basic formal mechanism of
classic OT: the interaction of universal markedness and faithfulness constraints (on the feature
[ATR], in our particular case), coupled with the two lexical modules –the S and W domains– of
Stratal OT. This analysis appeals to just three constraints: a) *[-low, -ATR] disfavours non-low [ATR] vowels; b) IDENT-[ATR] demands that the input [ATR] value be realized in the output; and
c) IDENT-σ´-[ATR] requires that input and output [ATR] values coincide in the stressed vowel.
Because the stressed vowel is never reduced, IDENT-σ´-[ ATR] must be undominated. Simplex
words in both A and B varieties, and all derivational morphology in A-dialects except the types in
(4), belong to the S-stratum. The (4) types in A-dialects and all suffixation and compounding
operations in B-dialects are processed at the W-level. Given these assumptions, unstressed MVR in
underived words in both A and B-dialects, as well as all derived words in A-dialects except (4),
96
follows directly from the ranking *[-low, - ATR] >> IDENT-[ ATR] in the S domain (i.e., where
[ATR] markedness dominates [ATR] faithfulness). Blocking of MVR in the W stratum is
accomplished by the ranking IDENT-[ ATR] >> *[-low, -ATR] (i.e., where [ATR] faithfulness
dominates [ATR] markedness).
Finally, it is argued that the proposed Stratal OT account provides a number of significant
advantages in terms of simplicity and explanatory adequacy over alternative parallel OT
treatments, such as Transderivational Correspondence (Benua 2000) or Uniform Exponence
(Kenstowicz 1996).
References
Álvarez, R., X. L. Regueira, and H. Monteagudo. 1986. Gramática galega. Vigo: Galaxia.
Benua, L. 2000. Phonological Relations between Words. New York: Garland.
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. 2006. Morphological structure and phonological domains in Spanish denominal derivation. In
Optimality-theoretic Studies in Spanish Phonology, ed. by Fernando Martínez-Gil and Sonia Colina. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, 278-311.
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo (forthcoming). Stratal Optimality Theory. (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics) Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Crosswhite, C. 2001. Vowel Reduction in Optimality Theory. New York: Routledge.
Freixeiro Mato, X. R. 1998. Gramática da lingua galega, Vol. 1: Fonética e Fonoloxía. Vigo: Edicións a Nosa Terra.
Hualde, J., and F. Martínez-Gil 1994. Un análisis autosegmental de ciertas alternancias vocálicas en el gallego moderno. Actas do
XIX Congreso Internacional de Lingüística e Filoloxía Románicas. Sección VI. Galego. A Coruña: Fundación Barrié de
la Maza, 181-195.
Kenstowicz, Michael. 1996. Base-identity and uniform exponence: alternatives to cyclicity. In Current Trends in Phonology:
Models and Methods, ed. by Jaques Durand & Bernard Lacks. Salford: University of Salford Publications, 365-395.
Kiparsky, Paul. 2000. Opacity and cyclicity. The Linguistic Review 17.351-367.
Kiparsky, Paul. 2008. Fenno-Swedish quantity: contrast in Stratal OT. In Rules, Constraints, and Phonological Phenomena, ed. by B.
Vaux & A. Nevins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185-219.
Kiparsky, Paul 2009. Reduplication in Stratal OT. In Reality, Exploration, and Discovery: Pattern Interaction in Language and
Life, ed. by Linda Uyechi and Lian-Hee Wee, 125-141. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications
(http://www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/reduplication.pdf).
Carballo Calero, R.1979. Gramátrica Elemental del gallego común. Vigo: Galaxia.
Mateus, M, H., and E. D’Andrade. 2000. The Phonology of Portuguese. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Veiga Arias, A. 1976. Fonología gallega: Fonemática. Valencia: Editorial Bello.
Wetzels, L. 1991. Contrastive and allophonic properties in Brazilian Portuguese vowels. In New Analyses in Romance Linguistics, ed. by
D. Wanner & D. Kibee. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 77-99.
Wetzels, L. 1992. Mid vowel neutralization in Brazilian Portuguese. Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos, 23. Campinas:
UNICAMP-IEL.
97
Analyzing weight effects on Subject Position in Spanish
Roberto Mayoral Hernández (University of Alabama at Birmingham) & Asier Alcazar
(University of Missouri at Columbia)
1. Introduction Abundant research reports that weight is a processing constraint that affects the
ordering of postverbal constituents (Hawkins 1994, 2004, Wasow 1997, 2002, Wasow and
Arnold 2003, Rosenbach 2005). Our study analyzes whether preverbal constituents may be
affected as well, specifically subjects, a central topic in the variationist literature (Poplack 1980).
We focus on the position of Spanish subjects with unaccusative verbs (Perlmutter 1978), because
they may precede or follow the verb. To this end, we extracted sentences from the online corpus
CREA (Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual, www.rae.es) and utilized statistical methods to
determine significance. We took into account the presence of co-occurring constituents in
preverbal and postverbal positions, as they change the overall sentence weight. The results
indicate that weight influences both preverbal and postverbal positions in several ways. First,
heavier subjects tend to be postverbal. Second, the presence of preverbal constituents favors
postverbal subjects. Conversely, the presence of postverbal constituents favors preverbal
subjects.
2. Methodology This study adopts a multifactorial variationist approach. We coded a sample of
410 sentences from the online corpus CREA. We applied cross-tabulations and the χ 2 test to
determine the significance of each independent variable. A value of p=.05 marks the threshold for
significance. The addition of a binary logistic regression analysis ensures the fitness of the model.
We obtained a correlation coefficient to determine the strength of the relationship among factors.
The dependent variable is subject position (preverbal, postverbal), and the independent variables
are subject weight, presence of preverbal constituent and presence of postverbal constituent. We
calculated weight as the number of words (Lohse, Hawkins and Wasow 2004), syllables (Gries
2003) and phonemes, which have not been previously studied in the literature. We found that the
three measures offer significant results. Here we report our results by number of words (see
tables 1 and 2).
3. Results Subject weight proves to be statistically significant (p=0.000). Table 1 shows that the
percentage of postverbal subjects is higher as the number of words increases. Thus, heavier
subjects tend to appear postverbally with Spanish unaccusatives. The presence of preverbal
constituent is a statistically significant factor (p=0.000). Preverbal constituents generally favor
postverbal subjects (71.3%). This tendency becomes stronger for sentences with no postverbal
constituents (96.2%, p=0.000). The presence of postverbal constituent is significant as well
(p=0.000). Table 2 shows that the presence of postverbal constituents increases the number of
preverbal subjects (75.2%). For sentences with no preverbal constituents, the amount of preverbal
subjects rises to 90.1% (p=0.000). The correlation coefficient values for each factor are presented
below (1).
(1)
a. Subject weight
b. Presence of preverbal constituent
c. Presence of postverbal constituent
r = .316;
r = .385;
r = .611;
p = 0.000
p = 0.000
p = 0.000
4. Conclusion This investigation contributes to the weight literature in novel ways. The more
flexible syntax of Spanish enables weight interactions between preverbal and postverbal
constituents, which had never been reported. First, lighter subjects normally precede the verb,
while heavier subjects tend to follow it. Second, the subject tends to appear in complementary
98
distribution with other co-occurring constituents. These results indicate that the human processor
favors a balanced distribution of weight across the preverbal and postverbal domains.
Table 1: Subject position by
Subject weight
count
Preverbal
% column
Position of
Subject
count
Postverbal
% column
Total
count
Pearson Chi Square
Value
41.792a
Table 2: Subject position by
Postverbal constituent
count
Preverbal
% column
Position of
Subject
count
Postverbal
% column
Total
count
Pearson Chi Square
Value
150.538b
Subject Weight
1-2 words
3-4 words
5 or more
101
43
66
69.7%
58.1%
34.7%
44
31
124
30.3%
41.9%
65.3%
145
74
190
Degrees of Freedom
2
Significance
.000
Co-occurring postverbal constituent
Absent
Present
20
191
12.8%
75.2%
136
63
87,2%
24.8%
156
254
Degrees of Freedom
2
Total
210
51.3%
199
48.7%
409
Total
211
51.5%
199
48.5%
410
Significance
.000
References
Gries, Stefan T. 2003. Multifactorial analysis in corpus linguistics: A study of particle placement.
Continuum: New York.
Hawkins, John A. 1994. A performance theory of order and constituency. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
----. 2004. Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lohse, Barbara, John A. Hawkins and Thomas Wasow. 2004. Domain minimization in English
verb-particle constructions. Language 80.2. 238-61.
Perlmutter, David M. 1978. Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. Proceedings
of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 157-189. Berkeley:
Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Poplack, S. (1980): Deletion and disambiguation in Puerto Rican Spanish. Language 56: 371-385
Rosenbach, Anette. 2005. Animacy versus Weight as Determinants of Grammatical Variation in
English. Language 81.3. 613-44
Wasow, Thomas. 1997. Remarks on grammatical weight. Language Variation and Change 9. 81105.
----. 2002. Postverbal behavior. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Wasow, Thomas and Jennifer Arnold. 2003. Post-verbal constituent ordering in English.
Determinants of grammatical variation in English, ed. by Günter Rohdenburg and Britta
Mondorf, 119-54. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
99
Schwa at the Phonology/Syntax Interface
Michael L. Mazzola (Northern Illinois University)
Recently, the discussion of schwa in French has centered around two orientations: (1) the role of
the segmental level (cf. Côté 2004, 2006, Côté & Morrison 2007); and (2) the insertion
determined by the prosody (Mazzola 1992, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006). The first
approach favors the immediate role of the morphology in cooperation with the prosody, while the
second emphasizes a syntax modified by a well defined accentuation peculiar to French. This
determinative influence of the phonology on the information handed down by the syntax
identifies in a specific way the environment for the insertion of schwa. The difference between
the two orientations can be formalized, therefore, within the perspectives regarding the interface
either between the morphology and the phonology, on the one hand, or the syntax and the
phonology, on the other.
Côté (2006) grants that the syntax has a role to play in the determination of the prosody, but
claims that the segmental level is also involved. To support her perspective, she brings forward
arguments that limit considerably the function of accentuation in the behavior of schwa as held
by a number of scholars, e.g. Dell 1985, Léon 1966, Mazzola 2001, Morin 1974, Tranel 1987.
For example, schwa is inserted between two morphemes if the second is monosyllabic and
accented; but realized only optionally before two syllables; and rarely if the second morpheme is
a polysyllable. To merely formalize this phenomenon according to Côté, perhaps more precisely,
to explain this phenomenon, it has been proposed that when the vowel is realized, it is to avoid
stress clash, while before bisyllables and polysyllables there is no clash to be resolved (cf.
Mazzola 1992, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006). Côté counters this approach by arguing
that instead of being determined by the accentuation of the phrases, the same phenomenon is
observed in the case of preceding syllables.
She argues that in certain phrases, schwa is realized not only by the number of syllables
following the environment, but also by the same syllabic configuration preceding the
environment in question. It is, therefore, the number of preceding syllables, as specified by
morphemic boundaries, that determine the insertion of schwa. She concludes, as a result, that the
behavior of schwa in French can not be related to the prosody, which requires explanation in
terms of stress clash as defined by the accentuation in question. From this, she goes on to
observe further that there is a link between what she regards as the prosodic entity and the
consonant clusters arising from the insertion/non-insertion of schwa. These permitted clusters,
she argues, are determined not by structural considerations, but rather by eurhythmic preferences.
It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate, in agreement with Côté, that the variation in the
behavior of schwa is determined primarily by the prosodic structure, and that the insertion of the
vowel is not dependant on the number of consonants following the environment. However, it is
argued here that the vowel is determined solely by a prosodic rhythm triggered at the interface of
the syntax and the accentuation. Consequently, the prosodic structure has little to do with the
morphology and is determined rather by an intonational patterning which, far from being rigid, is
changeable via stress displacement. This stress displacement works in cooperation with the
accentuation patterning to determine the environment of the segment.
100
References
Côté, Marie-Hélène. 2007. Rhythmic Constraints on the Distribution of Schwa. Romance
Linguistics 2006: Selected Papers from the 36th Linguistic Symposium on Romance
Languages, ed. Camacho José et al. 81-95. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hannahs, S. J. 1995a. Prosodic Structure and French Morphophonology. Linguistischen
Arbeiten 337. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Hannahs, S. J. 1995b. The Phonological Word in French. Linguistics 33: 1125-44.
Hoskins, Steven. 1994. Secondary stress and stress clash resolution in French: An empirical
investigation. Issues and theory in Romance linguistics, ed. by M. L. Mazzola, 35-47.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Léon, Pierre. 1966. Prononciation du français standard. Paris: Didier.
Mazzola, Michael L. 1992. Stress Clash and Segment Deletion. Theoretical Analyses in
Romance Linguistics, ed. by C. Laeufer and T. Morgan, 81-97. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Mazzola, Michael L. 1993. French Rhythm and French Segments. Linguistic Perspectives on
Romance Languages, ed. W. Ashby et al, 113-126. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Mazzola, Michael L. 1994. Indirect Phonology and French Segments. Generative French
phonology: Retrospective and Perspectives ed. by C. Lyche, 191-209. Salford, UK:
Association for French Language Studies and European Research Institute.
Mazzola, Michael L. 1996. Syntactic Constituency and Prosodic Phenomena. Aspects of
Romance Linguistics: Selected Papers from the Linguistic Symposium on Romance
Languages XXIV, ed. by C. Parodi et al., 313-327. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press.
Mazzola, Michael L. 1998. Suprasegmental Constituency as the Domain for Sandhi Variation.
Proceedings 16th International Congress of Linguists, ed. by B. Caron. CD Rom #0175.
Oxford: Pergamon.
Mazzola, Michael L. 2000. On the Independence of Suprasegmental Constituency. Issues in
Phonological Structure, ed. by S J Hannahs & M Davenport, 181-193.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Mazzola, Michael L. 2001. Prosodic Domains for Segment Deletion. 1999 Mid-America
Linguistics Conference Papers, ed. by M. Henderson, 285-294. Lawrence, KS: KU
Linguistics Department.
Mazzola, Michael L. 2006. Rhythm and Prosodic Change. Historical Romance Linguistics:
Retrospective and Perspectives, ed. by Deborah Arteaga & Randall Gess, 97-110.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: J Benjamins.
Martin, Philippe. 1975. Analyse phonologique de la phrase française. Linguistics 146. 35-67.
Martin, Philippe. 1978. Question de phonosyntaxe et de phono-sémantique en français.
Linguisticae Investigationes 2. 1-20.
Martin, Philippe. 1979. Sur les principes d'une théorie syntaxique de l'intonation. Problèmes de
prosodie, ed. by Pierre Léon and Mario Rossi, 91-101. Ottawa: Didier.
Martin, Philippe. 1981. L'intonation est-elle une structure congruente à la syntaxe? L'Intonation:
De l'acoustique à la sémantique, ed. M Rossi et al., 234-271. Paris: Klincksieck.
Passy, Paul. 1899. Les sons du français. Paris : Firmin-Didot et Société des Traités.
Nespor, Marina, & Irene Vogel. 1986. Prosodic Phonology. Dordrecht: Foris.
101
Developing French Sentences for Use in French Oral Proficiency Testing
Benjamin Millard and Deryle Lonsdale (Brigham Young University)
Oral proficiency scoring of L2 language is costly, time-intensive, and largely subjective.
Standard tests have been developed and are routinely administered to assess learners’ language
abilities. For example, the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is used for French language
proficiency assessment by ACTFL and the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR). This paper
presents findings from using another testing methodology for French called elicited imitation
(EI). EI involves aurally presenting a set of carefully designed sentences to a test subject, having
them repeat it back, recording the response, and scoring the result at the word or syllable level. EI
was initially developed by psycholinguists as a method for investigating L1 acquisition (Slobin &
Welsh, 1971) and was subsequently adopted in L2 proficiency testing (Bley-Vroman &
Chaudron, 1994), including for French (Burger & Chretien, 2001; Markman, Spilka, & Tucker,
1975; Naiman, 1974).
We have shown elsewhere how EI in general has proven successful in proficiency testing in
English (Graham, Lonsdale, Kennington, Johnson, & McGhee, 2008), Spanish, and Japanese.
However, problems in implementing the theory have also been identified in prior work. For
example, developing maximally discriminative sentences is time-consuming and challenging
given the number of linguistic features that have to be encoded in the sentence: length in
syllables, vocabulary levels, morphological complexity, syntactic complexity, semantic
transparency, idiomaticity, etc. Furthermore, sentences can sometimes be awkward or unnatural,
resulting in questionable usefulness.
In this paper we discuss how we have developed an implementation of EI testing theory that
results in a practical and viable procedure for developing and administering French EI testing.
This necessarily includes the creation of French EI test items. For example, we discuss how, in
designing French EI items, we have benefited from prior enumeration of language features as
detailed in OPI testing procedure guidelines and tied to specific proficiency levels (Lowe, 1982).
We discuss how we follow (Christensen, Hendrickson, & Lonsdale, 2010) in developing an
interactive toolkit that leverages several French language resources to help retrieve naturalistic
French EI test sentences from existing corpora. For example, the tool uses various sources to
provide lexical information (BDlex, WordNet, Lexique) and data on vocabulary levels (a recent
frequency-based learner’s dictionary of French). We also used a part-of-speech tagger (Treetagger) and a syntactic treebank-based parser (Berkeley in the Bonsai framework) to annotate
sentences from an enormous text corpus (French GigaWord). Using a tree-based regular
expression matcher (Tregex) we are able to retrieve appropriate sentences via queries to a
MySQL database. By specifying a collection of desired features, appropriate and natural
sentences can be retrieved for use in the EI test, assuring maximal testing viability.
We also report on the recent administration of an EI test developed in this way to about 30
French L2 learners at the university level. This includes an analysis of how well the results
correlated with the more traditional tests that the same subjects underwent at about the same time.
We also describe how we use IRT and other statistical methods to assess the performance and
discriminating value of individual EI items.
The presentation ends with a discussion of ongoing and future work in French EI testing and how
the results compare with current EI testing in English, Spanish, and Japanese. We also sketch
how we are using speech recognition to score the French results automatically, and explore its
correlation with human scoring of EI tests as well as with the more traditional testing methods.
102
References
Bley-Vroman, R., & Chaudron, C. (1994). Elicited imitation as a measure of second-language
competence. In E. E. Tarone, S. Gass & A. D. Cohen (Eds.), Research methodology in
second-language acquisition (pp. 245-261). Northvale N.J.: L. Erlbaum.
Burger, S., & Chretien, M. (2001). The Development of Oral Production in Content-based
Second Language Courses at the University of Ottawa. [Article]. Canadian Modern
Language Review, 58(1), 84.
Christensen, C., Hendrickson, R., & Lonsdale, D. (2010). Principled Construction of Elicited
Imitation Tests. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Seventh conference on
International Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'10).
Graham, C. R., Lonsdale, D., Kennington, C., Johnson, A., & McGhee, J. (2008). Elicited
Imitation as an Oral Proficiency Measure with ASR Scoring. Paper presented at the 6th
International Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC’08), Marakech,
Morocco. http://repository.dlsi.ua.es/242/1/pdf/409_paper.pdf
Lowe, P. (1982). ILR Handbook on Oral Interview Testing. 8-13.
Markman, B. R., Spilka, I. V., & Tucker, G. R. (1975). The Use of Elicited Imitation in Search of
an Interim French Grammar. Language Learning, 25(1), 31.
Naiman, N. (1974). The use of elicited imitation in second language acquisition research.
Working Papers on Bilingualism, 2, 1.
Slobin, D. I., & Welsh, C. A. (1971). Elicited Imitation as a Research Tool in Developmental
Psycholinguistic. In C. B. Lavatelli (Ed.), Language training in early childhood education
(p. 170). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
103
The acquisition order of complex onsets in Spanish
Rafael Nuñez-Cedeño (University of Illinois-Chicago)
Most research on children’s development of tautosyllabic Obstruent+Liquid clusters have
shown that in this sequence the least sonorous consonants are first to emerge. Thus when
children hear a stop+liquid cluster and attempt to articulate it, they tend to reduce it favoring the
survival of the stop rather than the sonorant consonant, as in /klabo/ clavo ‘nail’, /preso/, preso
‘prisoner’ /fresa/ fresa ‘strawberry’, which are rendered ['kabo], ['peso], ['fesa], respectively . It
has been proposed that the explanation of this reduction is guided by the interplay of the Sonority
Sequencing Principle along with the Universal Sonority Hierarchy, in which the latter represents
a scale where a Vowel > glide > liquid > nasal > fricative > stop. Given such a scale, the least
sonorous segment, the stop, will most likely surface, as the examples above show (Fikkert 1994,
Ohala 1999, Barlow 2003, Pater and Barlow 2003, Gnanadesikan 2004, Barlow 2007). Though
many researchers have concentrated their attention on the consonantal reduction processes for
these complex onsets, few have raised the question of whether there is a gradual or categorical
developmental order in their liquids. In other words, is there an order of acquisition in the
development of an Obstruent+lateral cluster as opposed to an Obstruent+rhotic one? Based on
cross-sectional data coming from 14 monolingual Spanish speaking children, and expanding on
Núñez-Cedeño’s (2008) findings and the seminal idea raised by Kehoe et al’s study (2008), the
present study shows there is a gradual developmental order whereby Obstruent+lateral emerge
before Obstruent+rhotic clusters. As a corollary of this proposal, I further suggest that this
ordering obeys the physical properties inherent in the production of a rhotic over a lateral in
children speech: they have articulatory difficulty in producing rhotics. This study thus supports a
hierarchy where the markedness constraint *RHOTIC-ONS outranks *LATERAL-ONS and
further confirms Kehoe et al’s insights on the existence of an acquisition order for the two types
of clusters in question.
This study is a first in the literature of Spanish phonological acquisition which seeks to provide
an explanation for the development of liquids in children’s speech based on production results of
large corpora. To this effect, 14 children participated in the research conducted in two preschools in the Dominican Republic. They were divided into three groups of four, consisting of
males and females, ranging from 18 months to 3 years of age, who were then recorded
individually as research progressed in a three-month period. The word illicitation procedure
consisted of presenting children with 30 images of animated and non-animated people, objects,
and animals which represented 60 targeted words containing grouped consonants, in stressed
and unstressed syllables, as well as singletons.
Preliminary results with numerous tokens analyzed show that children consistently produce
Obstruent+lateral clusters first, at a significant level (p < .05). In addition, the evidence shows
that children who were attempting to master Obstruent+rhotic clusters tended to substitute the
rhotic for a lateral, so that the clusters in la[dr]ón ‘thief’ and hom[br]e ‘man’ were generally
produced as la[dl]ón and hom[bl]e. Also, of notable interest is the production of CV syllables by
young children who targeted a rhotic in the onset but instead produced laterals, thereby
confirming the early markedness ranking *RHOTIC-ONS >> *LATERAL-ONS. Since previous
acoustic works (Parker 2002) have established an opposite ranking, my findings provide
104
empirical evidence suggesting that during the early stages of speech development a ranking of
liquids must be based on the articulatory efforts a child expends in producing them.
In sum, this presentation attempts to provide evidence toward explaining the development of
Dominican Spanish liquids in children’s speech, results which could be extrapolated to other
dialects and languages. This is the first experiment of its kind carried out with large corpora.
Thusly, the data obtained from various age groups indicate that the order of acquisition of liquids
obeys articulatory rather than acoustic factors in early language acquisition. To claim the
opposite cannot explain why children favor laterals over rhotics.
References
BARLOW, JESSICA A. 2003. Asymmetries in the acquisition of consonant clusters in Spanish.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 48: 179-210.
FIKKERT, PAULA. 1994. On the acquisition of prosodic structure. Leiden, The Netherlands:
University of Leiden dissertation.
GNANADESIKAN, AMALIA. 2004. Markedness and faithfulness constraints in child
phonology. Constraints in phonological acquisition, ed. by René Kager, Joe Pater and
Wim Zonneveld, 73-107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
KEHOE, MARGARET, GERALDINE HILAIRE-DEBOVE, KATHERINE DEMUTH,
CONXITA LLEÓ. 2008. The structure of branching onsets and rising diphthongs:
evidence from the acquisition of French and Spanish. Language Acquisition 15.5-57.
OHALA, DIANE K. 1999. The influence of sonority on children’s cluster reductions. Journal of
Communication Disorders 32:397-422.
NUÑEZ-CEDEÑO, RAFAEL. 2008. On the acquisition of onsets. Southwest Journal of
Linguistics 27:1.-30.
PARKER, STEVE. 2002. Quantifying the sonority hierarchy. Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts dissertation.
PATER, JOE and JESSICA A. BARLOW. 2003. Constraint conflict in cluster reduction. Journal
of Child Language 30:487-526.
105
Tense Agreement and Obviation effects in Romance
Carol Petersen (Universidade de São Paulo/University of Maryland)
Null subjects in indicative clauses in BP display all the diagnostics of obligatorily controlled
(henceforth, OC) PRO. Based on Hornstein’s (2001) Movement Theory of Control, they have
been analyzed as traces (deleted copies) of A-movement (Ferreira 2000, 2009, Rodrigues 2002,
2004). Ferreira, for instance, proposes that finite Ts in BP are ambiguous in that they can enter
the derivation specified as f-complete or f-incomplete, respectively yielding standard nominative
Case marked embedded subjects or OC null subjects derived by movement (cf. (1)). By contrast,
null subjects in BP subjunctive clauses do not always behave in this way. Control structures
involving subjunctive are allowed in complement clauses of dubidative and factive-emotive
predicates (cf. (2) and (3)) but banned from subjunctive complements of volitional predicates (cf.
(4)). It is a well-known fact that subjunctive complements of volitional predicates of many
Romance and Slavic languages show subject obviation (cf. (5)). Thus, given that finite indicative
clauses in BP may constitute a porous domain for A-movement due to their defective fspecification (T+, f-), the restrictions on finite control into subjunctive clauses seem rather
unexpected. With this picture in mind, in this paper I address the following issues: [1] why is OC
not allowed exclusively in obviative subjunctives in BP? [2] What do BP data reveal about
obviation effects?
Following Hornstein (2007, 2010) approach to Principle B, which treats obviation as a
consequence of economy of derivations, I argue that BP facts provide empirical evidence that
obviative subjunctives are underlying infinitives in that they derivationally compete. Assuming
with Hornstein that bound pronouns are grammatical formatives that are parasitic on the
impossibility of movement, I propose that sentences like (4), (5) and (6) are non-finite domains
that share the same syntactic properties, regardless of their overt morphological distinctions.
More specifically, they are defective Tense domains (T-) that need to agree in Tense value with
the matrix clause. Once (5a) and (6) share the same numeration, they compete. The unvalued
embedded T in the relevant step of the derivation is not allowed to Case mark its subject, being a
defective probe (Chomsky 2001), allowing the DP to move to the matrix clause for Case
requirements. Thus, the movement alternative is the only convergent result starting from a
numeration with a single DP for a subject and it surafces as an infinitive (cf. (6)). The same
considerations hold for a derivation such as (5b), the only difference being that it starts with a
numeration with two distinct DPs. After getting valued by the matrix T, the embedded T can
value the Case of its subject, which leads to a nominative embedded subject and subjunctive
morphology on the verb.
Back to questions [1] and [2], BP data show that a f-defective value in T does not necessarily
lead to OC. In obviative contexts, infinitives and subjunctives compete as they are both Tense
defective and share the same underlying numeration. Once the infinitive wins the competition, it
licenses OC (cf. (6)), whereas the subjunctive will be chosen just in case it does not compete with
an infinitive for having different information in the derivation (more than one DP for subjects);
hence the unacceptability of (4). Thus, this proposal accounts for the tense dependency in
subjunctive complements of obviative predicates, as repeatedly attested in the literature (e.g.
Raposo 1985, Kempchinsky 1986). Supporting evidence for this analysis comes from tense
properties that distinguish two subjunctive complement types in BP. The obviative/noncontrolled one (cf. (a) sentences of (7)-(10)) patterns like infinitive complements in that it shows
morphological anaphoricity, obligatory SOT embedded Tense interpretation, unavailability of
106
Double Access Reading (DAR) and transparency with respect to polarity item licensing. In
contrast, non-obviative subjunctive complements that allow OC (cf. (2) and (3)) show the
opposite pattern (cf. (b) sentences of (7)-(10)), behaving like indicative complements with respect
to the same properties, which confirms their independence in Tense.
The paper concludes by discussing more supporting data for the competition analysis of
movement/infinitive and bound-pronoun/subjunctive structures that come from de se/non-de se
readings of obviative pronouns. Specifically, I will show that languages that display two series of
pronominals (pro and ello/lui), like Italian and Spanish, show strong obviation with weak
pronominals (pro) - i.e. neither de se nor non-de se readings are possible - and weak obviation
with strong pronominals (ello/lui), where non-de se readings can be obtained. By contrast, BP has
homophonous versions for these pro-forms and only displays weak obviation. This can have a
straightforward explanation if we consider their different pronominal status and their
(im)possibility of a bound variable reading (cf. Hornstein and Pietroski 2010).
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
a. Joãoi disse que
elei/j/Maria vai viajar
hei/j/Mary
will travel
Joãoi said that
b. Joãoi disse que ti vai viajar
[TP [o João]i Tf-complete [vP ti disse [CP que [TP ti Tf-incomplete [vP ti vai viajar]]]]]
‘John said he/Mary was going to travel.’
a corrida
Joãoi duvida que ti ganhe
John doubts that
win-SUBJ the race
‘Johni doubts that hei would win the race.’
chegado
tarde na
reunião
[O professor]i lamenta que ti tenha
The teacher regrets
that
has-SUBJ get-PAST.PART late in.the meeting
‘The teacheri regrets that hei got late to the meeting.’
da
corrida
*O Joãoi quer/deseja que ti participe
the John wants/wishes that
participate-SUBJ of.the race
‘John wants/whishes to participate on the race.’
um livro por semana
a.*Joãoi quer que elei leia
um livro por semana
b. Joãoi quer que elej leia
Johni wants that he*i/j reads-SUBJ one book of week
‘Johni wants him*i/j to read one book every week’.
ler
um livro por semana
Joãoi quer ti/*j
read-INFINITIVE one book of
week
John wants
‘Johni wants to read one book every week’
a. João quer
que Maria *ganhasse/ganhe
a corrida
John wants-PRES that Mary
win-IMPERF/win-PRES the race
b. Pedro lamenta
que Ana acordasse/acorde
tão cedo
Peter regrets-PRES that Ana wake up-IMPERF/wake up-PRES so early
a. Ana exigiu que o Pedro estudasse mais naquela época
(SOT/*shifted reading)
Ana demended that Peter study-IMPERF more in.that time
b. Pedro lamentou que Ana acordasse tão cedo naquela época (SOT/shifted reading)
Peter regreted that Ana wake up-IMPERF so early in.that time
a.*Pedro queria que Ana esteja
grávida.
(*: DAR)
Peter wanted that Ana is-PRES.SUBJ pregnant
b. Pedro lamentou que Ana esteja
doente.
(OK: DAR)
Peter regreted that Ana is-PRES.SUBJ ill
a. A Maria não quer [que o Pedro converse com ninguém](OK:NPI)
the Mary not wants that the Peter talk-SUBJ with nobody
b. *A Maria não lamenta [que o Pedro saia
com ninguém] (*:NPI)
the Mary not said that
the Peter go.out-SUBJ with nobody
107
Pousse-le! Clitic production across tasks in young French-speaking children
Mihaela Pirvulescu, Ana T. Pérez-Leroux, Yves Roberge & Nelleke Strik (University of Toronto)
It is well known that children acquiring French as a first language (L1) experience difficulties
with object clitic pronouns (Müller et al. 1996, Jakubowicz et al.1997, Pérez-Leroux et al. 2008).
The difficulties can be characterized as delay with respect to other types of pronouns and
optionality when clitics appear in the production. With respect to the later, we see substantial
omissions, even though children are capable of producing the object clitic. An intriguing feature
of the object clitic optionality phenomena is the variety in rates of omissions between corpus
studies and experimental studies, and within the various experimental studies (Jakubowicz 1996,
Pirvulescu 2006). What factors can influence clitic production/omission in child language? The
role that certain features of context and pragmatics may play in the optionality of clitics is an
underexplored domain in experimental studies, which we wish to investigate further in the
present study.
For spontaneous speech, it has been shown that person and contextual presence of the reference
clearly play a role in argument omissions in young children (Allen 2000, Allen and and Schröder
2003, Serratrice et al 2004). Previous research proposed a sum of informativeness features that
control argument omission: for example, children will tend to omit the argument when the
referent of the argument is maximally clear from the discourse and situational context. However,
previous studies looked at general contexts, where a pronominal, DP or an omission would have
been possible. In recent experimental work, Hill & Pirvulescu (2010) also propose a direct
correlation between the presence of discourse protagonists and the production of object clitics in
L1 French in a controlled context requiring an object clitic. They suggest that a direct address
reference (first and second persons of discourse) presupposes triggering the left periphery, which
is directly involved in clitic spell-out. The interdependence of context and optionality is not
limited to developmental data. For example, studies of adult speech indicate that certain contexts,
including imperatives, favor omissions (Cummins and Roberge 2005 among others).
To investigate the role of context (discourse protagonists and deixis), we designed a three-way
comparison between different elicitation methods, testing the production of object clitics. All
tasks involve a definite referent which is the topic of the discussion in the immediate prompt; this
has been identified in previous literature as an elicitation procedure where an object clitic is the
target response for adults. The tasks are the following: a) A standard third person clitic elicitation
task, involving mention of an object and questioning a puppet about an activity on a picture .
(Prompt: Tell Kermit what the girl is doing with the cake. Target: She’s eating it). b) A second
person clitic elicitation task, involving mention of an object where the child is questioned about
an activity acted out with toys and props. (Prompt: What am I doing with the carrot? Target:
You’re eating it). c) An imperative task, where the object was presented in the context and the
child was asked to tell a puppet what to do with it. (Prompt, by puppet Kermit: Tell me what to do
with the cake. Target: Eat it). Furthermore, two age groups were compared: 3 year-old children
(n=10, age range 3;03–4;0, mean age 3;09, S.D. 2.8 months) and 4 year-old children (n=11, age
range 4;01–5;02, mean age 4;07, S.D. 5.2 months).
The results show a clear effect of task: children produce much more clitics in the second than in
the third person condition. Imperatives on the other hand, had low rates of clitic realization (see
Figure 1). The effect of clitic conditions was highly significant: second person > third person >
imperative (F 2,38 = 19.000, p < .000). There was also a highly significant effect of group: 4 year
olds > 3 year olds (F 1,19 = 23.895, p < .000). With respect to discourse protagonists, the results
108
confirm previous results in that tasks with involved discourse protagonists show a higher
production of clitics compared to tasks where children produce statements concerning third
persons. Deictic contexts, on the other hand, disfavor clitic production (however, the clitic is
replaced mostly by DPs and not by omissions). Notice that in all these elicitation tasks the
context allowed for the recoverability of the object (pictures or toys in the immediate context).
Therefore, the children had the option of not producing the clitic, recovering its reference in a
non-target-like manner directly from the context. A pragmatic approach would predict more
uniform omissions across the tasks, which is not the case, as Figure 2 shows. Omissions were
more frequent in the third person than in the second person condition and not frequent at all in the
imperative condition. Omissions decreased for the 4 year-old children, except in the imperative
condition. However, none of the observed effects was significant. On the other hand, the tasks
design requires the use of a pronoun clitic as the target answer; the expectation would be uniform
pronominalization across the tasks, and this is not borne out either. We argue that it is the
properties of the clitic as a defective and minimal category (Cardinaletti & Starke 1999, Roberts
2009) coupled with the null element in argument position that renders the clitic construction
unstable during the course of acquisition.
Figure1. Proportion of clitics across contexts
Figure 2. Proportion of omissions across contexts
(1. Third person, 2. Second person, 3 Imperative)
References
Allen, Shanley. 2000. A discourse-pragmatic explanation for argument representation in child
Inuktitut. Linguistics 38. 483–521.
Jakubowicz, C., Müller, N., Riemer, B., Rigaut, C., 1997. The case of subject and object
omissions in French and German. In: Hughes, E., Hughes, M., Greenhill, A. (Eds.),
Proceedings of the 21st BUCLD. Cascadilla Press, Somerville, MA, pp. 331–342.
Pirvulescu, M., 2006a. The acquisition of object clitic in French L1: spontaneous vs. elicited
production. In: Belletti, A., Bennati, E., Chesi, C., DiDomenico, E., Ferrari, I. (Eds.),
Language Acquisition and Development; Proceedings of GALA 2005. Cambridge
Scholars Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 450–462.
Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., Paoli, S., 2004. Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax–pragmatics
interface: subjects and objects in English–Italian bilingual and monolingual acquisition.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7, 183–205.
109
Control Can’t be a (Possible) Fact
Lisa A. Reed (The Pennsylvania State University)
Recent research on the syntax of Control (see, e.g., Bowers (2002), Bošković (1996, 2007),
Hornstein (1999), Landau (2004, 2008), Martin (1992, 2001), Radford (2004: 309-313), and
Sigurðsson (2008)) has focused, among other issues, on why it is attested in embedded clauses
like (1), but not in ECM (2) or Raising contexts (3):
(1) She wanted/promised/tried [to bring the wine].
(2) He believes/alleges [*(himself) to be quite intelligent].
(3) a. John appears [(John) to like Mary].
b. *It appears to John [to like Mary].
What has passed without remark, and what is the focus of the present paper, is why Control is
also disallowed in simple infinitival contexts like (4b), a restriction that this paper shows holds
for a class of at least twenty-six verbs in French; one that the author has verified obtains for the
equivalents of these verbs in English, Greek, Hebrew, and Serbian; and one that may actually
hold universally, given that an examination of a large body of the literature on Control revealed
no examples of it with any of these verbs, in any language.
(4) a. Elle a révélé/expliqué/avait le sentiment [qu’elle prendrait sa retraite
en 2028].
‘She disclosed/explained/suspected [that she would retire in 2028].’
b. *Elle a révélé/expliqué/avait le sentiment (de) [prendre sa retraite en 2028].
*‘She disclosed/explained/suspects [to retire in 2028].’
Specifically, this paper first shows that the prohibition on Control in contexts like (4b) does not
immediately follow from current syntactic approaches to the phenomenon. For example, current
null Case approaches provide no principled reason why the embedded I/T in (4) must be inflected
since it encodes a tense semantically distinct from that of the matrix, in a fashion parallel to (1),
yet, for some reason, that semantically [+tense] I/T may never surface in the infinitive, licensing
PRO. Similar problems are shown to arise with respect to other theories of Control.
Instead, it is argued, extending ideas in Asher (1993, 2000), Bach (1981), Link (1983), Krifka
(1987, 1989), Ter Meulen (1984), Vendler (1967), and others, that what distinguishes the verbs in
(4) is that they semantically select for complements denoting a Possible Fact, not an Actual Fact
(as in Kiparsky & Kiparsky, 1970), an Eventuality, or a Proposition: Possible Fact-selecting
verbs, it will be shown, contrast with other types of verbs in failing to provide lexical cues that
serve to anchor the understood tense of their complement clauses. As a consequence, this
anchoring must be achieved via inflection of the embedded I/T, which has, as a concomitant
syntactic effect, a need to check off/value Nominative Case, thereby barring PRO (under null
Case accounts of Control)/NP Movement (under Movement accounts)/VP small clause
complementation (under still other approaches to Control).
To establish that verbs of the type in (4) do semantically select for Possible Fact-denoting
complements, whereas Control and ECM verbs do not, nine different criteria enumerated in
Asher (1993, 2000) are applied to representative members of each class, only two of which are
provided below due to space considerations. First, Asher notes that only Facts consistently fail to
sum up to form a new, singular entity. In other words, only the domains of Eventualities and
Propositions can, if they form a coherent whole, be closed under a mass-type summation
principle. As demonstrated below, it is possible to add up the three separate Events denoted by
the complements of the Control and causative verbs in (5a) and refer to the newly formed
110
collective Event with a singular pronoun such as ça ‘it’ or a singular definite description like ce
travail ‘the work’; however, such is not the case for Fact-denoting clausal complements, such as
(5b):
(5) a. Anne a forcé Cédric à tondre la pelouse; j’ai persuadé Jean de sortir les
poubelles et David a fait faire la lessive à Sophie. Je suis bien contente que
(tout) ça/ce travail/ces corvées/#elles ait/aient été fait(es).
‘Anne forced Cédric to mow the lawn; I persuaded John to take out the trash;
and David made Sophie do the laundry. I’m so glad it/the work/those
tasks/#they all finally got done!’
b. Anne a fait allusion au fait [qu’on ne peut pas compter sur Cédric]; sa mère a
parié [que c’était un menteur]; et sa soeur a fait remarquer [que c’était
un plouc]. Si #ça/#cette allégation/ces allégations s’avère(nt) être fondé(e)(s),
je suis d’avis qu’on ne devrait plus lui parler.
‘Anne hinted [that Cédric is unreliable]; her mother bet [that he’s a liar];
and her sister remarked [that he’s quite a slob].
If #it/ #this allegation/these allegations prove(s) to be true, I think that we
should have nothing more to do with him.’
Second, Asher argues, again on the basis of separate data, that since Eventualities, Propositions,
and Facts are different types of semantic objects, it is not possible to quantify over two distinct
incompatible types in a complex open sentence. The sentences in (6) show that it is possible to
quantify over two identical types of semantic objects, be they two Events (6a), two Facts (6b) or
two Propositions (6c):
(6) a. Rien d’intéressant ne se passe jamais ici.
‘Nothing that is interesting ever happens here.’
b. Tout ce à quoi Anne faisait allusion s’est avéré être factuel.
‘Everything that Anne hinted proved to be a fact.’
c. Ce que Marie croit, Cédric en est certain.
‘Whatever Mary believes, Cédric is certain of.’
However, as (7) shows, quantifying over semantically distinct types leads to ill-formedness:
(7) a. #Tout ce quoi Anne faisait allusion s’est avéré être douloureux.
#‘Everything that Anne hinted proved to be painful.’
b. #Ce que Marie souhaite, Cédric y fait allusion.
#‘Whatever Mary wishes, Cédric hinted.’
In sum, this paper identifies a large class of verbs that have the interesting, heretofore
unremarked, characteristic of disallowing simple Control, ECM, and small clause
complementation, perhaps universally. It is argued, on the basis of tests developed in the
semantic literature, that what distinguishes these verbs is the lexical semantic feature of selecting
for a Possible Fact-denoting clausal complement. The truth-indeterminacy of Possible Facts is
then used to explain why they cannot be realized as simple Control, ECM, or small clause
complements under several current theories of these phenomena.
111
PCC repairs in Romance: Feature hierarchy and late insertion
Jelena Runić (University of Connecticut)
The Problem - The Person-Case Constraint (PCC), attested in a number of heterogeneous
languages, forbids the combination of 3rd person dative with 1st or 2nd person accusative within an
argument clitic cluster (1). In order to circumvent the effects of the PCC, Romance languages
employ a repair strategy - the use of a full pronominal form instead of one of the clitics in
argument position, the so-called “Spell-Out Elsewhere” (Bonet 1991), as in (2a). The standard
claim is that clitics originate in argument position and then are adjoined to an Infl node by Sstructure (Bonet 1991), leaving a trace/copy in its original position. Which copy will be
pronounced is a matter of PF considerations in non-trivial chains (Bobaljik 1995, i.a.).
Nevertheless, this approach has remained rather problematic since it does not account for the
difference between the tail of the (grammatical) chain containing the 3rd person (2a), and the tail
of the (ungrammatical) chain with the 1st person (2b). In this talk, I offer an alternative account
in light of the Universal Alignment of Features (Noyer 1997, i.a.) in the morphological
component of the grammar set in the theoretical setting of Distributed Morphology (Halle &
Marantz 1993) including Late Insertion of the exponents.
The Analysis - I assume that the syntactic component generates (via Move and Merge) an
abstract representation, which serves as the input to PF and LF. The architecture of grammar is
supplemented by the component Morphology as part of Spell-Out (Halle & Marantz 1993). All
the relevant syntactic operations with movement and copying are provided by the narrow syntax.
Thus, the repair strategy Spell-Out Elsewhere in Romance involves the creation of a non-trivial
chain, with the feature bundles of clitics copied in the syntax. Terminal nodes of clitics and
terminal nodes of the verb are adjoined to a single head (INFLº). The resulting syntactic structure
is then fed to the morphology component in order to undergo morphological processing. The
syntactic structure in the first phase of Morphology is represented in (3) with the bundles of
features of clitics and features of the verb adjoined to a (single) functional head. Nevertheless,
the adjunction to INFLº of both dative and accusative terminal nodes of clitics will be blocked
due to the violation of the PCC (1). Consequently, it is expected that only one of the clitics
adjoins to the INFLº head (2a). I propose, following Noyer’s (1997) account of Impoverishment
filters, that there is a deletion of the person feature, which is lower on the Universal Hierarchy of
Features. Since the 3rd person is lower than the 1st person (1/2 > 3), feature deletion of the 3rd
person occurs and adjunction takes place between the verbal head and the 1st person.
Subsequently, vocabulary insertion occurs with the head of the chain containing only features of
the 1st person (since the features of the 3rd person are deleted), and the tail of the chain
containing the 3rd person full pronominal form, as (2a) reveals. Thus, the examples containing
the 3rd person in the head of the chain (2b) are simply the violation of the feature deletion that
does not obey the Universal Hierarchy of Features. Vocabulary insertion will take place only
when it is assured in the morphological component of the grammar that the structure is
legitimate. Extended Discussion - The above analysis based on feature deletion obeying the hierarchy of
features predicts that there is no conflict in chains containing the 1st and 2nd person since the 1st
and 2nd person are equally ranked on the Universal Hierarchy of Features (1/2 > 3). This is
confirmed by Spanish in (4). Thus, deletion of any person features in the head of the chain
occurs, be it the 2nd person (4a) or 1st person (4b) with a subsequent vocabulary insertion in the
112
tail of the chain. Overall, PCC repairs in Romance can be accounted for by entertaining feature
hierarchy (1/2>3) with feature deletion in the Morphology followed by Late Insertion. (1) *A en Josep, me/te
li
va recomanar la Mireia [Catalan, Bonet 1991: 178]
to the Josep me/you.1/2ACC him.3DAT recommended the Mireia
‘She (Mireia) recommended me/you to him (Josep)’
(2) a. Me
recomendaron a él.
[Spanish, Bonet 1991: 203]
me.1ACC recommended.3PL him.3DAT
b.*Le
recomendaron a mi.
them.3DAT recommended.3PL me.1ACC
‘They recommended me to him.’
(4) a. Me
recomendaron a ti.
me.1ACC/DAT recommended.3PL you.2ACC/DAT
b. Te
recomendaron a mi.
you.2ACC/DAT recommended.3PL me.1ACC/DAT
‘They recommended me to you/you to me’
[Spanish, Bonet 1991: 203]
References
Bobaljik, J. (1995). Morphosyntax: The Syntax of Verbal Inflection. Doctoral dissertation,
MIT.
Bonet, E. (1991). Morphology after Syntax: Pronominal Clitics in Romance. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Halle, M. & A. Marantz (1993). Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection,
K.Hale and J. Keyser (eds.), The View from Building 20, MIT Press, 111-176. Noyer, R. (1997). Features, positions, and affixes in autonomous morphological
structure. New York & London: Garland Publishing.
113
Processing L2 word order: Universal, capacity-based, or transfer, is it?
Nuria Sagarra, Aroline Seibert Hanson, Jacqueline Gauthier, & Caroline Hauser
(The Pennsylvania State University)
Research suggests that low proficiency L2 learners tend to process the first noun or pronoun they
encounter in a sentence as the subject (Bates el al., 1984; LoCoco, 1987; VanPatten, 1984).
VanPatten (1996, 2004) attributes this to a universal processing strategy. However, because this
work focuses on beginning learners with an L1 that has a fixed word order (English) learning a
more flexible word order language (Italian, Spanish), there is reason to believe that this tendency
may be instead due to L1 transfer at some point in the acquisition process. According to
MacWhinney’s Competition Model (1987, 1989, 1992, in press), learners transfer L1 cue weights
for word order to their L2. When languages have no corresponding cues, such as when word
order is a cue for determining subjecthood in the L1 but not in the L2, slowly, the cue weights are
transferred from the L1 and then must be “retuned.” Offline data comparing beginning learners
that have an L1 with flexible word order (Italian) to those that have an L1 with rigid word order
(English) acquiring an L2 with flexible word order (Spanish) lack processing capacity measures
and are inconclusive as to whether universal processing strategies, transfer, or a combination of
the two is involved (Isabelli, 2008). Online data comparing English- and German-Dutch learners
show a preference for SVO interpretation but focus on the processing of relative clauses and
cannot draw conclusions regarding the reanalysis of OS sentences because the technique
employed, a word-by-word self-paced reading task, did not allow participants to make
regressions (Hopp, 2006; see also Havik et al., 2009, for similar findings). Our study takes one
step forward by examining how native speakers of a rigid (English) and a flexible (Romanian)
word order language process SVO and OVS sentences in Spanish at different L2 proficiency
levels, using processing capacity measures, an online task that allows for reanalysis
(eyetracking), and an offline task (grammaticality judgments).
Ninety-six adult learners of L2 Spanish (24 English-Spanish and 24 Romanian-Spanish low
proficiency learners; 24 English-Spanish and 24 Romanian-Spanish high proficiency learners)
and 72 controls (24 English, 24 Romanian, 24 Spanish) completed a language proficiency test, a
working memory task, an eyetracking task, and a grammaticality judgment task. For the
eyetracking task, participants read 85 sentences in Spanish (or their L1 for the control groups) (5
practice, 16 experimental-8 per condition-, and 64 fillers) and chose one of four pictures (1
grammatically and semantically congruent, 1 grammatically incongruent and semantically
congruent, 1 grammatically congruent and semantically incongruent, and 1 grammatically and
semantically incongruent). The conditions of the experimental sentences were SVO (la niña besa
al niño) and OVS (lo besa la niña). For the grammaticality judgment task, participants read
sentences similar to the ones shown in the eyetracking task. They identified whether they were
correct or not, and if not, they corrected the sentences.
The results from the eyetracking and the grammaticality judgment tasks indicated a preference
for SVO interpretation for the four L2 groups. Preliminary results from the working memory data
suggested that such preference was due to cognitive demands. These data are in line with Havik
et al.’s (2009) results that high, but not low working memory span Dutch-German learners
processed long object relative clauses like German native speakers. Based on these findings, we
propose that low proficiency learners prefer the least effortful interpretation regardless of their
114
L1. Once they have reached a sufficient level of proficiency, they can recur to L1 transfer. Our
data suggest that it is working memory, rather than universal processing strategies, that
determines the preference for an SVO interpretation at early stages of acquisition, and that
language experience influences when L1 transfer takes place.
115
Proportional Determiner Phrases in Romance
Cristina Sánchez López (Universidad Complutense de Madrid/Harvard University)
Romance languages lack a lexical item for the proportional meaning of English most. To express
the semantic content of most, they use definite partitive phrases, formed by a partitive head,
which can be a nominal phrase (1a) or a noun (1b), plus a coda containing a definite PD:
(1)
a. Sp. La mayor parte de los hombres / fr. la plupart des hommes / it. la maggior parte dei
uomini / port. a maior parte dos omes
Lit. ‘the bigger part of the men’
b. Sp. La mayoría de los hombres / it. la maggioranza dei uomini / port. a maioria des
omes
Lit. ‘the majority of the men’
Assuming that the meaning of proportional quantifiers is compositional (cf. Hackl 2009), I will
prove that Romance constructions in (1a) make explicit in a transparent way their two basic
semantic properties: they are proportional quantifiers which express a proportion between two
sets, and they are strong quantifiers which denote the totality of a set (cf. Barwise & Cooper
1981). Proportionality is a consequence of the combination of the partitive structure (parte de los
hombres ‘part of the men’) with the comparative degree head mayor which has, as a
consequence, the denotation of a set whose cardinality is interpreted with respect to the
cardinality of another set. The fact of being a strong quantifier is related to the definiteness of the
determiner la ‘the’ and explains the fact that they can float (2a) and are excluded in the coda of
existential constructions (2b):
(2)
a. Los estudiantes estaban la mayor parte muy preocupados por sus exámenes
Lit.‘The students were the bigger part very concerned about their exams’
b. *Aquí hay la mayor parte de los estudiantes
Lit. There is the (greater) part of students
I will show that proportional partitive phrases are always definite. Two ranges of empirical
evidence can be presented in support of this statement: the first one comes from the comparison
of proportional constructions in (1a) which cannot have a indefinite determiner (3a), with non
proportional partitive phrases in (3b) which actually can:
(3)
a. Sp.*Una mayor parte de los hombres / fr. *une pluspart des hommes / it. *una maggior
parte dei uomini / port. *unha maior parte dos omes
Lit. ‘a bigger part of the men’
b. Sp. {La/una} parte de los hombres / fr. {la/une} part des hommes / it. {la/una} parte dei
uomini / port. {a/unha} parte dos omes
Lit. ‘the / a part of the men’
The second one comes from the comparison of nominal proportional constructions in (1b). These
ones are ambiguous between the proportional reading –corresponding to the meaning of (1a)- and
a non proportional, non partitive reading. Only the non proportional interpretation is available if
the coda is a bare noun and, crucially, if the construction is headed by a non definite determiner
(4a). As one would expect, the non proportional, non partitive construction with the noun
mayoría ‘majority’ has an opposite which does not exist for proportional partitive constructions
(4c,d):
(4)
a. {La/una} mayoría de hombres
the / a
majority of men
b. Una minoría de mujeres / *La minoría de las mujeres
116
a minority of women / the minority of the women
c. *La menor parte de las mujeres
the (fewer) part of the women
I will propose that the definiteness of proportional partitive constructions is a consequence of the
interpretive conditions imposed by the comparative item mayor ‘bigger’. Assuming that the
semantics of most is the semantics of a superlative item (cf. Bresnan 1973, Hackl 2009,
Gajewsky 2010), I will propose that Romance proportional partitive constructions also have the
syntax of superlatives since they must be headed by the definite article. Spanish provides
empirical support for this assumption in two ways. Firstly, in Spanish, comparative heads can
appear in non definite DPs, usually in postnominal position. But, the interpretation is not
superlative since a comparative coda is possible, like in (5a). The presence of the definite article
makes the comparative coda unacceptable as it entails a superlative interpretation (5b):
(5)
a. Ellos reclamaron una parte de los beneficios mayor que la recibida
‘They demanded a part of the benefits bigger than what they received’
b. Ellos reclamaron la mayor parte de los beneficios (*que la recibida)
‘They demanded the bigger part of the benefits (than what they received)’
Secondly, in Old Spanish the superlative syntax of proportional constructions was very similar to
the rest of superlative constructions. Proportional quantifiers was created combining the definite
article el/la/los/las ‘the’ and the comparative degree head más ‘more’ both in a partitive and a
non partitive way, as shown in (6). These data, unexplained until now, are expected considering
that más is usually the comparative form of mucho and, consequently, the expected form in
proportional superlative constructions:
(6)
a. Pensé que Lisardo era como todos o los más hombres cortesanos, finos en lo aparente y
falso en lo interior (1628, A. Castillo Solórzano)
‘I thought that Lisardo was like all or most courteous men, apparently polite and false in
their interior’
b. ¿Por qué los más de los hombres viven desasosegados y muy pocos viven quietos?
(1529, A. de Guevara)
‘Why do most men live disturbed and a few live quietly?’
References
Bresnan, J. (1973) “Syntax of the comparative clause construction in English”, Linguistic Inquiry
4(3), 275-344.
Gajewski, J. (2010) “Superlatives, NPIs and Most”, Journal of Semantics, 27, 125-137.
Hackl, M. (2009) “On the grammar and processing of proportional quantifiers: most versus more
than half”, Natural Language Semantics, 17, 63-98.
Barwise, J. and R. Cooper (1981) “Generalized quantifiers and natural language”, Linguistics and
Philosophy, 4, 159-219.
117
Is the hiatus/diphthong contrast in Peninsular Spanish a product of domain-initial
strengthening?
Daniel Scarpace (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
In Spanish, vowel sequences of rising sonority where stress falls on the non-high vocoid (e.g.
/ié/) form diphthongs, but hiatuses are unexpectedly also possible in some words for some
speakers of Peninsular Spanish (Prieto & Cabré 2006, Hualde & Prieto 2002 among others).
Some general distributional tendencies are outlined in Hualde 2005; most prominently, hiatuses
are most likely in word-initial syllables (liana [li.á.na], ‘a vine’, but italiana [i.ta.ljá.na] ‘ItalianF’) and are most often of the sequence /iá/ or /ió/, and almost never /ié/. The phonetic reflex of
this diphthong/hiatus contrast is in duration of the entire vowel sequence (Hualde & Prieto 2002,
Chitoran & Hualde 2007): sequences where the vowels are considered to be in hiatus have a
longer duration than those that form a diphthong. Chitoran & Hualde 2007 suggest that perhaps
the lengthening of vowel sequences in initial position (which is compatible with their
categorization as hiatuses) follows from lengthening at the beginning of a prosodic boundary,
following other studies of domain-initial strengthening at the word level (e.g. Fougeron 2001 for
French).
This study examines the possibility that domain-initial strengthening is responsible for the wordinitial exceptional hiatuses in Peninsular Spanish. If it is, monopthongs and vowel sequences
alike should be durationally longer in initial position when compared to medial position.
Similarly, some level of lengthening should occur for all of the sequences /ia/, /ie/, and /io/
equally. Audio and concurrent linguopalatal (EPG) data was collected from two speakers of
Peninsular Spanish whose intuitions in a pen & paper syllable counting test suggested that they
had the diphthong/hiatus contrast as described above. The two speakers produced a series of
controlled nonce words containing /n(V)V/ or /t(V)V/ syllables in either word-initial or wordmedial position, where the vowel(s) were either monopthongs /a/, /e/, /o/, high-vowel-vowel
sequences /ia/, /ie/, /io/, or mid-vowel-vowel sequences /ea/, /eo/, /oe/. Domain-initial
strengthening was present in terms of amount of linguopalatal contact and duration for the
consonant in the target syllable (either /n/ or /t/), matching the findings for French in Fougeron
2001, but no effects were found on the syllabic nucleus, except for the sequences /ia/ and /io/,
which were longer in initial position as predicted. This finding suggests that the realization of
these vowel sequences has been phonologized for these speakers: /ie/ is always specified as a
diphthong in all positions, requiring close coordination between the two vocoids, whereas /ia/
and /io/ have a wider window of gestural coordination patterns: forming a diphthong in wordmedial positions but a hiatus in word-initial position. This appearance of vowels in hiatus only in
initial position is perhaps difficult to maintain in the face of rampant diphthongization elsewhere,
both positionally and for other vowel sequences, and can explain the lack of this contrast in other
dialects of Spanish.
118
References
Chitoran, I., & Hualde, J. (2007). From hiatus to diphthong: the evolution of vowel sequences in
Romance. Phonology. 24: 37-75.
Fougeron, C. (2000). Articulatory properties of initial segments in several prosodic constituents
in French. Journal of Phonetics. 29: 109-135.
Hualde, J. & Prieto, M. (2002). On the diphthong/hiatus contrast in Spanish: some experimental
results. Linguistics. 40-2: 217-234.
Hualde, J. (2005). The Sounds of Spanish. Cambridge: CUP.
119
Lenition in French intervocalic stops: Some preliminary characteristics
Simona Sunara (University of Toronto)
Intervocalic stop weakening, a lenition, has been attested in some Romance languages such as
Spanish (Lewis, 2002; Ortega-Llebaria, 2004, Cid-Hazard, 2004; Colantoni & Marinescu, 2008)
or Italian (Dalcher, 2008). O’Shaughnessy (1981) and Duez (1995) suggest that a similar
weakening process may also occur in French. However, in contrast with the data from Spanish or
Italian, the intervocalic stop weakening in French has not yet been explored in much detail. The
current study adds to the existing literature by investigating both voiceless and voiced stops in
two French varieties (continental French and Quebec French); one of the most recent
investigations of this phenomenon by Duez (1995) focused only on voiced stop weakening in one
variety, continental French. The study also strives to provide support in favour of closer ties
between French and other Romance languages such as Spanish where various degrees of
intervocalic lenition have been previously reported. The present study, conceived mainly as an
exploratory study, examines the intervocalic stop weakening in the speech of four native speakers
of French (3 speakers from France, 1 speaker from Quebec; 3 female speakers and 1 male
speaker). The data was originally obtained from a corpus gathered for the Romance Phonetics
Database (RPD; Colantoni & Steele, 2004) at the University of Toronto. Target intervocalic
consonants (343 tokens) surrounded by the preceding and the following vowels were extracted
from the recordings. Following the methodology of the some of the afore-mentioned studies such
as Colantoni & Marinescu (2008), an acoustic analysis of consonant duration, percentage of
voicing and CV intensity ratio was conducted in order to examine the degree of stop weakening
as well as the influence of other variables such as stress, type of consonant, vocalic context or
type of dialect. The results reveal many interesting patterns such as a clear Voiced/Voiceless
Asymmetry in which voiced segments lenite more (56%) than the voiceless ones (29%).
Importantly, the fact that the voiceless consonants in French also lenite has not been previously
explored and merits further examination. Additionally, a Place of Articulation Asymmetry has
also been observed: the coronal voiced /d/ lenites more than all the other stops (70%); among the
voiceless consonants, /p/ lenites the most (29%). The results also confirm that the weakening
process is more likely to occur in prosodically less prominent positions (in unstressed syllables
and across word boundaries). On the other hand, the current results do not demonstrate any
dialectal differences between Quebec and continental French as far as lenition is concerned,
which may be due to the limitations of the studied speech samples. The paper also addresses a
wide range in the realizations of the weakened consonants in the speech sample under
investigation as well as a large amount of interspeaker variation. Many of the reported results
appear in line with previous research on weakening in other Romance languages. The current
findings seem particularly compatible with approaches that include both phonological factors
(role of the consonantal inventory) and phonetic factors (perceptual and/or articulatory
constraints), such as the approach proposed by Colantoni & Marinescu (2008). The study also
offers a number of possibilities for future research with respect to the vocalic context, stress or
variation observed here.
120
References
Cid-Hazard, S. M. (2004). The process of consonant weakening in the Spanish of Santiago,
Chile: Phonological and stylistic variables. Dissertation Abstracts International, A: The
Humanities and Social Sciences, 65 (5), 1757-A.
Colantoni, L. & Marinescu, I. (2008). The scope of stop weakening in Argentine Spanish. Ms.
Paper presented at the 4th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology,
University of Texas-Austin, September 26-28.
Colantoni, L., & Steele, J. (2004). The University of Toronto Romance Phonetics Database.
http://r1.chass.utoronto.ca/rpd/
Dalcher, C. V. (2008). Consonant weakening in Florentine Italian: A cross-disciplinary approach
to gradient and variable sound change. Language Variation and Change, 20(2), 275-316.
Duez, D. (1995). On spontaneous French speech: Aspects of the reduction and contextual
assimilation of voiced stops. Journal of Phonetics, 23(4), 407- 427.
Lewis, A. M. (2002). Weakening of intervocalic /p, t, k/ in two Spanish dialects: Toward the
quantification of lenition processes. Dissertation Abstracts International, A: The Humanities
and Social Sciences, 62 (8), 2744-A.
Ortega-Llebaria, M. (2004). Interplay between phonetic and inventory constraints in the degree
of spirantization of voiced stops: Comparing intervocalic /b/ and intervocalic /g/ in Spanish
and English. In T.Face (Ed.), Laboratory Approaches to Spanish phonetics and phonology.
The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.
O’Shaughnessy, D. (1981). A study of French vowel and consonant durations. Journal of
Phonetics, 9, 385-406.
121
Historical and Crosslinguistic Perspectives on a French Interrogative Variant: the
Wh+Complementizer Construction
Sandrine Tailleur (University of Toronto)
Few people have looked into the details of the many variants of the French wh- interrogative
system, and those who have usually jump over the wh-+ complementizer form (example 1). One
of the main reasons for this omission is the assumption that this form is only a phonetic reduction
of the est-ce que form (2).
1) Où que tu vas?
where that you go
‘Where are you going?’
2) Où est-ce que tu vas?
where is-it that you go?
‘Where are you going?’
However, there has been no empirical or theoretical basis for this assumption. The aim of this
paper is therefore to establish the origin and usages of the wh- + complementizer (wh+comp
henceforth) interrogative construction. Many languages have a wh+comp-like construction, even
ones that do not have the equivalent of the French est-ce que (3); so are people arriving at a hasty
conclusion if they assume that it is only a phonetic reduction of the periphrastic form?
3) Apa yang Ali beli?
what that Ali buy
‘What is Ali buying?’
Malay (Cole, Hermon & Aman 1999: 2-3)
By looking at facts from historical documents, from geographical dialectology, and from
crosslinguistic data, we come to interesting conclusions on the evolution of this variant, as well
as on the state of the whole French interrogative system. Our conclusions also lead to typological
observations that are related to the universal status of the left periphery.
Our discoveries are threefold. The data from metalinguistic documents (and from linguistic
works) reveals that wh-est-ce que appeared as early as Old French, and that it took almost four
centuries for the usage to spread to all wh- words (Rouquier 2002). By Middle French the cleftlike meaning of emphasis had disappeared, and we have to wait until the mid-eighteenth century
to find occurrences of wh+comp in texts. The Classical French period (16th-19th) grammarians
never completely condemned the usage of wh-est-ce que, and they never explicitly mentioned
wh+comp.
The second piece of information come from a corpus search realised using the Frantext database
(ARTFL, U.Chicago). All occurrences of wh-est-ce que as well as wh+comp were retrieved
within a two-hundred year period (from 1750 to 1950, when wh+comp started appearing as a
variant of wh-est-ce que – all other variants of wh- interrogation were ignored, so the results for
our two variants are in relation to each other, not to the complete system). Two main observations
can be made from our results: first, there is a slight difference in usage between the two variants;
wh+comp appears a lot more in embedded contexts than wh-est-ce que. Second, the raw numbers
in themselves are very interesting; we found slightly more wh+comp than wh-est-ce que (583 vs.
572), which is quite surprising given the period and the nature of the corpus (all published,
mainly literary documents).
The last piece of information corroborates the findings just described: in the Atlas Linguistique de
la France (ALF) (1902-1910), wh+comp is the majority variant, i.e. the variant that is the most
spread geographically (Tuaillon 1975). The geographic spread varies according to the wh- word
122
(which was a significant factor in our corpus search as well), but in general it was used almost
everywhere in the northern half of France, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century.
Today, although we do not have any specific statistics since no sociolinguistic studies have
treated wh+comp as a distinct variant from the wh-est-ce que, wh+comp is well known and is
present at different degrees in many dialects (Coveney 2002, Starets 2002, King 1991, Elsig
2009).
Given these facts, we can conclude that wh+comp in French would not have appeared without
wh-est-ce que, but it has now taken on a life of its own. It has been reanalyzed and seems to
behave in a similar way as other wh+comp constructions found in other languages. French seems
to have the exact same properties than languages that have been described as having clefted whmovement (Malay for example), properties that include optional movement, absence of inversion
and presence of a complementizer. The repercussions of such a hypothesis are numerous, and it
can offer interesting answers to the well-known issue of optional whmovement. Ambar (2003)
has already observed the correlation between the three properties named above, but there has
been no attempt to propose a unified theoretical analysis for these facts. We are hoping that our
findings and reflexions will shed some light on this typologically very interesting problem, and
that our theoretical proposals will contribute to a widening of the study of the left periphery in
French.
Texts and Atlas
Gillieron, Jules & Edmont Edmond. 1968 (1902-1910). Atlas linguistique de la France (ALF),
Bologne, Forni (Paris, Champion).
The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language
(ARTFL). Dictionnaires d’autrefois en ligne, U. of Chicago, [Online], http://artflproject.uchicago.edu/node/17.
The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language
(ARTFL).
FRANTEXT
database,
U.
of
Chicago,
[Online],
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/databases/TLF07/frantext.search.html.
Vadé, Jean-Joseph. 1885 (1749). Lettres de la Grenouillère; suivies de Quatre bouquets
poissards, new ed. from original ed., [s.n.], Paris, 116 p.
References cited
Ambar, Manuela. 2003. “Wh-asymmetries”, in A. M. Di Sciullo (ed.), Asymmetry in Grammar,
Vol 1: Syntax and semantics, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 209-249.
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon & Norhaida Aman. 1999. “Clefted Questions in Malay”, in D. Gil
and J. Collins (eds.), Malay/Indonesian linguistics. London: Curzon Press.
Coveney, Aidan. 2002. Variability in Spoken French; A Sociolinguistic Study of Interrogation
and Negation, Portland, Elm Bank.
Elsig, Martin. 2009. Grammatical variation across space and time: the French interrogative
system, John Benjamins, Studies in Language Variation.
King, Ruth. 1991. “Wh-Words, Wh-Questions and Relative Clauses in Prince Edward Island
Acadian French”, in Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 36, 1, pp. 65-85.
Rouquier, Magali. 2002. “Les interrogatives en ‘qui/qu’est-ce qui/que’ en ancien français et en
moyen français”, in Cahiers de Grammaire, 27, pp. 97-120.
Starets, Moses. 2002. “The complementizer C with the WH-word quo in a Franco-Ontarian
vernacular of south-western Ontario”, in French Language Studies, 12, pp. 55-71.
Tuaillon, Gaston. 1975. « Analyse syntaxique d’une carte linguistique : ALF 25 : « Où vastu? » », in Revue de linguistique romane, 38, pp. 79-96.
123
A Processing Account of Cross-Language Influence in Late (L2) Bilingualism
Danielle Thomas (University of Toronto)
Previous analyses of bilingual speech production have identified cross-language influences
operating at the level of lexical activation (see Costa 2006). Target-language non-specific
processing has also been seen for domains of morphosyntax with evidence from bilingual
priming experiments. Meijer & Fox Tree (2003) examined grammatical domains in Spanish for
which there are optional word orders—negation and the use of object pronouns (clitics) with
complex infinitival predicates (clitic-climbing contexts). The authors identified two conditions
that may lead to cross-language priming effects for these variable domains of grammar in the
Spanish of bilingual speakers: 1) one of the word order variants of the response Language A
(Spanish) must overlap with a word order for the same domain in non-response Language B
(here, English); and 2) the word order variants of Language A must not carry interpretational
differences. As such, bilinguals in their study did not exhibit priming effects for negation as in
(1) (for which there are interpretational consequences), but did for clitic-climbing contexts, as in
(2) (for which there are no interpretational consequences). They proposed that bilinguals pool
syntactic resources, and where the grammar in one language permits more than one structural
variant for the same expression, bilinguals maintain higher levels of activation on the structure
common to both languages.
/ Juan nunca va al cine.
(1)
Juan no va nunca al cine.
John NEVER-emph. goes to the movies. / John never goes to the movies.
/ Juan va a verla mañana.
(2)
Juan la va a ver mañana.
John is going to see it tomorrow. / John is going to see it tomorrow.
Traditional analyses of the word order variability in (2) describes the variation of pronominal
objects (clitics) as a transparency effect of underlying clause structure: a mono-clausal structure
for the language-specific order (Spanish only) where pronominal clitics surface in the pre-verbal
position (proclisis), and a bi-clausal structure (common to Spanish and English) where
pronominal clitics surface in the post-verbal position (enclisis) (Aissen & Perlmutter 1976; Rizzi
1978; Moore 1996; Masullo 2004).
Following the processing proposal of Meijer & Fox Tree (2008), therefore, Spanish-English
bilinguals might be expected to use enclisis more than Spanish monolinguals, due to both the
pooling of syntax and the higher activation of the bi-clausal structure for bilinguals as compared
to monolinguals.
Further to the issue of cross-language influence in the speech of bilingual speakers, acquiring
clitic-climbing contexts in Spanish also implies acquiring a variety of constraints that limit the
variability seen in (2). In a large-scale corpus study of Spanish monolingual speech, Davies
(1995) identified lexical factors—the matrix verb of the complex predicate—as the predominant
factor limiting the use of the language-specific word order (proclisis). For example, monolingual
speakers used proclisis in spontaneous speech at an average rate of 86% with the verb ir a (“to be
going to”, illustrated in (2)), 48% with the verb querer (“to want to”) and 15% with the verb
preferir (“to prefer to”).
The current study, therefore, pursues the following research questions: 1) Do bilingual speakers
use proclisis at lower rates than that of monolingual speakers?; 2) Are bilingual speakers as
sensitive to the lexical constraints limiting the use of proclisis as monolingual speakers?; and 3)
If there is an apparent bilingual effect in production, does it appear to be a processing issue, or do
124
bilinguals exhibit a representational deficit in relation to their knowledge of the language-specific
syntactic variant (proclisis) for this grammatical domain?
Three possible outcomes were predicted: 1) Language-Specific Processing Approach—late
bilinguals would exhibit target knowledge and use of proclisis by verb type; 2) Language NonSpecific Processing Approach—late bilinguals would exhibit target knowledge of proclisis by
verb type, but would use enclisis more overall by verb type as compared to monolingual Spanish
speakers; and 3) Representational Deficit Approach—late bilinguals would not have acquired the
language-specific structure for Spanish, and thus, exhibit an enclisis bias more significantly than
monolinguals in both receptive and productive tasks. Further, given their late exposure to the L2,
it was expected that late bilinguals would exhibit less sensitivity to the lexical constraints that
limit the use of proclisis variably by verb type than monolinguals.
An aural Acceptability Task and a Picture Elicitation Task were administered to Spanish
monolingual speakers (n=16) and late bilingual speakers (adult L2) of advanced Spanish
proficiency (n=18) to test their knowledge and use of proclisis for the three verbs mentioned
above: ir a, querer and preferir. To be included in the late bilingual group, L2 speakers of
Spanish were assessed according to a multi-variable approach to proficiency including subjective,
non-linguistic and linguistic criteria: self-rating overall and by modality, tester rating of
communicative fluency, age of exposure to L2, context of exposure, length of residence in
Spanish community, and inter-rater assessment of narrative data.
Overall results favour the Language Non-Specific Processing Approach for this domain. In the
receptive task (aural Acceptability) both Spanish monolinguals and late bilinguals accepted
proclisis as an acceptable word order variant for sentences employing the matrix verbs ir a,
querer and preferir with infinitival predicates at rates over 70%. One-way ANOVAs were
conducted for each verb type and there were no significant differences between these groups for
the average rate of acceptability of proclisis for any of the three verb types (p > .05, all verbs).
Results were also analyzed with a repeated-measures ANOVA and there was no group by verb
type interaction effect (F(2,37) = 2.829, p = .184).
In the productive task (Picture Elicitation), however, monolinguals exhibited greater average
rates of proclisis across verb types, except for preferir (where very low rates of proclisis were
expected) as compared to late bilinguals: 64% ir a > 33% querer > 0% preferir for monolinguals
and 43% ir a > 19% querer > 4 % preferir for bilinguals. These results point to bilinguals
utilizing a bi-clausal analysis of complex predicate structure more than monolinguals;
nevertheless, given that late bilinguals did exhibit sensitivity to the lexical factors limiting the use
of proclisis across verb types, there was no group by verb type interaction effect for this task
(F(4,42) = .367, p = .831).
These results are discussed in terms of the Full Transfer/Full Access account (Schwartz &
Sprouse 1994) of L2 acquisition as well as the variety of accounts that place selective and local
variability in advanced L2 grammars as a processing limitation (Lardiere 2007; Prévost & White
2000).
References
Aissen, J. and D. Perlmutter (1976). Clause Reduction in Spanish. In: Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of
the Berkeley Linguistics Society, H. Thompson et al. (eds.), 1-30.
Costa, A. (2006) Speech Production in Bilinguals. In: The Handbook of Bilingualism. T.K Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie
(eds.), 201-223. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Davies, M. (1995). Analyzing syntactic variation with computer-based corpora. Hispania, 78, 360-403.
Lardiere, D. (2007). Ultimate Attainment in Second Language Acquisition: A Case Study. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence
Ehrlbaum Associates.
Masullo, P. J. (2004). Clitics aren’t Climbers! University of Pittsburg, ms.
125
The right path towards underapplication in Harmonic Serialism: evidence from glide
strengthening in Spanish
Francesc Torres-Tamarit (Centre de Lingüística Teòrica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
This paper provides an HS account of the underapplication of glide strengthening in Spanish,
using the idea that prosodification is serial and responsible for morph linearization. As can be
seen in (1a,b), Spanish has an allophonic alternation between [j], which surfaces in coda position,
and [ʝ], which is restricted to onset position in derived and inflected forms. However, this
generalization is non-surface-true in (1c). In a rule-based approach, this case of counter-feeding
opacity, where the glide consonantization rule underapplies at the phrasal level, was accounted
for by restricting that rule to the lexical module, that is, before post-lexical resyllabification
(Hualde 1989, Harris & Kaisse 1999). Within a constraint-based model, Colina’s 1998 parallel
OT analysis relies on constraints of the output-output faithfulness type (BASE-IDENTITY and
UNIFORM EXPONENCE) to capture the underapplication pattern. Martínez-Gil & Zampaulo 2010
proposes a Stratal OT account that solves the opacity problem by reversing hierarchies between
the word-level phonology (*j/Onset » IDENT[consonantal]) and the phrase-level phonology
(IDENT[consonantal] » *j/Onset). The HS analysis developed in this paper explores the following
three hypotheses: (a) the input to the phonology is a set of unlinearized morphs— not
phonologically contiguous —, the precedence relations between which have nevertheless been
determined by morphosyntax; (b) the prosodically-driven linearization hypothesis, defined in (2),
whereby a root and an affix are linearized when they are parsed into a prosodic word that
dominates both the root and the affix, and two different morphosyntactic words are linearized
when they are parsed into a phonological phrase; and (c) the gradualness requirement on GEN is
operationally based, in that prosodic-structure building operations represent a one-step operation
(Jesney to appear, Pater to appear, Elfner 2009). As can be seen in (3), the HS derivations for the
inputs leyes ‘law.pl’ and ley es ‘law is’ start applying the syllable formation operations one-stepat-a-time. This is so because of the high ranking of PARSE-SEGMENT. In these first steps, the last
segment of the root cannot be syllabified as the onset of the following affix or the following
morphosyntactic word because all morphs are unlinearized. They become contiguous once they
are parsed into a prosodic word (3a) or a phonological phrase (3b), enforced by PARSE-SYLLABLE
and PARSE-PROSODICWORD, respectively. Once the morphs are linearized, resyllabification
applies because of ONSET, and, at the next step of the derivation, the glide undergoes the
strengthening process, satisfying *j/Onset. The fact that the strengthening process is blocked in
(3b), as opposed to (3a), follows from the activity of a positional faithfulness constraint that
penalizes feature-changing operations at the left edge of a prosodic word, IDENT(F)Left-PWd. The
evaluation of this constraint crucially depends on HS, as only HS allows grammatically
determined prosodic structure in inputs. The present analysis is consistent with the ROTB
hypothesis, as (3c) and (3d) illustrate. If the input contains a palatal fricative, this is turned into a
glide before projecting the Prosodic Word nodes, because of the ranking *ʝ/Coda » PARSESYLLABLE. This fact guarantees that when IDENT(F)Left-PWd is active later in the derivation, the
126
segment in coda position is a glide. Although counterfeeding interactions have been said to be
problematic for HS, this analysis demonstrates that a particular case of counterfeeding opacity,
namely, that between resyllabification and glide strengthening, can be easily accounted for in HS
given a theory of GEN in which syllabification is serial and applies in a cyclic fashion, and morph
linearization follows directly from prosodification. This analysis will be extended to other opaque
phenomena, namely –s aspiration and –n velarization in Spanish, in which the application of
these phonological processes interacts with cyclic syllabification at different morphological
levels.
(1) data from Martínez-Gil & Zampaulo 2010
a.
lej
‘law’
b. le.ʝes
‘law.pl’
le.ʝe.θi.ta
‘law.dim’
rej
‘king’
re.ʝes
‘king.pl’
re.ʝe.θwe.lo
‘king.dim’
c.
a.ʝu.no ‘fast(ing)’
d. a.ju.no
‘there is one.masc.sg’
a.ʝa.ðas ‘found.fem.pl’
a.ja.ðas ‘they are fairies’
(2) Prosodically-driven linearization hypothesis:
If x and y are two different morphs, and x precedes y in the input, then y is linearized after x if there is a prosodic
category P that dominates both x and y. (After Wolf 2008)
(3a) ‘law.pl’: /lej,es/>(le)j,es>(lej),es>(lej),(e)s>(lej),(es)>[(lej)(es)]>[(le)(jes)]>[(le)(ʝes)]
(3b) ‘law is’: /lej,es/>(le)j,es>(lej),es>(lej),(e)s>(lej),(es)>[(lej)],(es)>[(lej)],[(es)]>{[(lej)][(es)]}>{[(le)][(jes)]}
(3c) ‘law.pl’: /leʝ,es/>(le)ʝ,es>(leʝ),es>(leʝ),(e)s>(leʝ),(es)>(lej),(es)>[(lej)(es)]>[(le)(jes)]>[(le)(ʝes)]
(3d) ‘law is’: /leʝ,es/>(le)ʝ,es>(leʝ),es> (leʝ),(e)s>(leʝ),(es)>(lej),(es)>[(lej)],(es)>[(lej)],[(es)]>{[(lej)(es)]}>
{[(le)(jes)]}
[Notation: a comma separates unlinearized morphs, ( ) mark syllable boundaries, [ ] mark prosodic word
boundaries, { } mark phonological phrase boundaries]
(4) Harmonic-improvement tableau for ley es ‘law is’: underapplication of glide strengthening
PARSE- *ʝ/
ONSET ID(F)Left- PARSE- *j/
PARSE- ID(F)
Operations
SEG
S
YLL
Onset
PWD
Coda
PWd
original
input
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
convergence
/lej,es/
is less harmonic than
(le)j,es
(lej),es
(lej),(e)s
(lej),(es)
[(lej)],(es)
[(lej)],[(es)]
{[(lej)][(es)]}
{[(le)][(jes)]}
is as harmonic as
{[(le)][(jes)]}
*****
***
*
core σ
**
*
coda adjunction
*
**
project σ
*
**
coda adjunction
*
*
*
*
*
*
project PWd
**
project PWd
project PPh
127
*
resyllabification
*
Ø
On the relation between functional architecture and patterns of change
in Romance object clitic syntax
Christina Tortora (CUNY, College of Staten Island and The Grad Center)
1. Introduction. Various scholars have observed the fact that complement clitic pronouns
(OCLs) are not all created equal, in that gradual diachronic change in OCL syntax can at first
affect some clitic forms, but not others. In this talk I examine the following cases of variation and
change in OCL syntax from three different Romance varieties: (i) the change in progress in OCLinfinitive order in Fassano (Rasom 2005), (ii) the historical change from proclisis to enclisis in
Piedmontese compound tenses (Parry 1991), and (iii) the current variation regarding which OCLs
may participate in a non-standard imperative construction in Spanish (Kayne 2009). I show that
in all of these apparently unrelated cases, the syntactic variation and change over time affects the
different OCLs in a predictable way. I aim to unify these cases by adopting two independently
established hypotheses regarding OCL syntax, as described below.
2. Cases (i) and (iii). In Rasom’s (2006) description of change in OCL syntax in Fassano (a
group of Ladin dialects spoken in the Val di Fassa in Trentino, Northern Italy), she notes that
while the order has traditionally been OCL-infinitive (e.g. zenza l sciudèr, from the Cazet variety
spoken in Campitello), the order infinitive-OCL in certain Fassano varieties is beginning to
emerge (e.g. l’é miec beverlo, from the Brach variety). The fact that the order infinitive-OCL is
found more frequently among younger speakers suggests to Rasom that this is a change in
progress; this is corroborated by two other facts: (a) the change is occurring in different Fassano
varieties at different rates, and (b) the change is not affecting all OCLs at once. In this latter
regard, she notes that the OCLs most likely to be enclitic on the infinitive are the 3rd acc. forms;
the next most likely to participate in this change are the 1st & 2nd person forms, while obliques
and clusters occur very rarely in this “new” configuration. Reflexives in contrast are never
enclitic, and always appear in the “conservative” OCL-infinitive order.
The key to understanding this pattern of change, I argue, finds itself both in Rasom’s own
characterization of the phenomenon, as well as in Kayne’s (2009) analysis of an apparently
unrelated phenomenon in some Spanish dialects. Rasom describes the syntactic change in
Fassano in terms of verb movement; if she is correct, then it follows that the verb is most likely to
move past the 3rd acc. clitics, and least likely to move past the reflexive. Note that we can make
further sense of this if we adopt the hypothesis (independently argued for by many authors, e.g.
Manzini & Savoia 2005) that the different OCLs occupy distinct functional heads within the
rigidly ordered functional hierarchy of the clause, within the stretch of functional architecture
which we could term the “clitic placement domain” (let us call this the Functional Hierarchy
Hypothesis, FHH). Since verb movement is upward, and since the 3rd acc. forms are the “first to
be jumped over” (Rasom 2005:112), we must conclude that 3rd acc. OCLs occupy the lowest
head in this domain; similarly, since reflexives never exhibit enclisis in this context, we must
conclude that reflexive OCLs occupy the highest head (which the verb never reaches). The
pattern of change in Fassano would thus predict the following order of OCLs within the
functional hierarchy of this dialect: refl. > obliques > 1/2acc > 3acc. Although the precise hierarchy
for Fassano has yet to be independently established, the appeal of this approach is its ability to
make precise predictions, which entail a correlation between the OCL hierarchy and the variation
and change in progress seen with Fassano OCL syntax. It is further encouraging that the basic
facts of Fassano are readily relatable to Kayne’s (2009) analysis of an apparently independent
phenomenon found in some Spanish dialects, described by Harris & Halle (2005), whereby the
128
OCL can precede the inflectional suffix -n in (formally 3rd pl.) imperatives, as in the example
sirva-se-n [serve-self-n] ‘serve yourselves.’ What is of prime importance to Kayne is the fact
most varieties which exhibit this non-standard construction only do so with the reflexive clitic;
less common are the varieties that allow it also with 1st & 2nd person clitics, and less common still
are those which allow it also with datives; finally, it is most rare with 3rd acc. clitics. Importantly,
there is an entailment whereby if a variety allows this construction with a 3rd acc. clitic, it
necessarily allows it with all the others. These facts of cross-dialectal variation suggest to Kayne
a syntactic analysis exactly as described above for Fassano, whereby the reflexive clitic occupies
the highest head within the rigidly ordered functional hierarchy of the clitic placement domain,
while the 3rd acc. OCL occupies the lowest position. Also significant here is the fact that the
hierarchy suggested by these Spanish variation phenomena is exactly that which is independently
established by examining clitic ordering in Spanish (cf. Perlmutter 1971).
3. Variation and change in OCL syntax in Piedmontese. Consider a third case of change in
OCL syntax, which took place in Piedmontese (and which first began to be recorded in 14th
century texts), as described by e.g. Parry (1991). Specifically, OCLs in Piedmontese went from
being proclitic on the auxiliary (as in Italian le ho viste [OCL I-have seen] ‘I have seen them’) to
being enclitic on the past participle (as in Borgomanerese jò vüsta-la [I-have seen-OCL]).
Literature on the topic suggests that this change did not affect all OCLs at once (v. e.g. Parry
1991, Tuttle 1992), with some authors arguing that the first OCLs affected were the 3rd acc.
forms. Also noteworthy is the behavior of the reflexive clitic in modern Torinese (as described in
Parry 1995), which suggests that the reflexive was the last clitic to finalize this transition from
pro- to enclitic in the compound tenses. Note that these facts are consistent with the “outlying”
behavior of both these clitic-types in Fassano and non-standard Spanish. I show that expectedly,
the FHH can provide a (partial) explanation for the differential behavior of the various OCLs;
however, I argue in this talk that a full understanding of the change rests squarely on the question
of why this change from proclisis to enclisis in the compound tenses took place in the first place.
And the answer, I propose, is not to be found with verb movement, as Rasom suggests for
Fassano, or with OCL movement, as Kayne argues for Spanish, but rather with the hypothesis
independently put forth in Tortora (2009), which I will call here the Feature Content Hypothesis
(FCH). The FCH was intended to account for an apparently unrelated unidirectional entailment,
whereby dialects which exhibit low OCL placement in simple tense clauses necessarily exhibit
enclisis on the past participle in the compound tenses (v. e.g. Borgomanerese (Piedmontese)). An
integral part of the FCH is that a functional head can only serve as an OCL host if it does not
contain the feature [finite]. Whether a particular head below T[finite] has this feature is in turn a
function of how far down the clause this feature can spread. Putting aside the ability of this
hypothesis to account for the above unidirectional entailment, I show in this talk that, in tandem
with the FHH, it allows us to make very precise (and correct) predictions regarding which OCLs
were the first to be affected by the diachronic change in Piedmontese described above. We are
thus able to unify our three independent cases of variation and change in OCL syntax.
References
Kayne, R. 2009. “Toward a Syntactic Reinterpretation of Harris & Halle (2005),” Ms., NYU. Parry, M. 1991.
“Posizione dei clitici complemento nelle costruzioni verbali perifrastiche del piemontese,”RASLLP VIII:
247-259.
Parry, M. 1995. “Some observations on the syntax of clitic pronouns in Piedmontese. In M. Maiden & J.C. Smith
(eds.), pp. 133-160.
Rasom, S. 2006. “La posizione del pronome clitico oggetto con le forme verbali ‘non-finite’. Differenze areali e
generazionali nel fassano,” In G. Marcato (ed.).
Tuttle, E. 1992. “Del pronome d’oggetto suffisso al sintagma verbale,” L’Italia Dialettale 55:
13-63.
129
On the Non-Uniformity of Secondary Predication: Evidence from the History of French
Michelle Troberg (University of Toronto), Heather Burnett (University of California, LA) Mireille
Tremblay (Université de Montréal)
1. Introduction. This paper investigates the syntactic structure of secondary predication from a
quantitative diachronic perspective. In particular, we make an empirical contribution to the
current debate surrounding the unification of the complex predication structures associated with
the double object construction (DOC) (1a) and the prepositional resultative (i.e verb-particle)
construction (VPC) (1b) by studying the evolution of these structures in the history French.
(1) a. John gave Mary a book
b. The sea brought the ship back
It has been noticed since Kayne (1984) that the Germanic DOC and VPC constructions display
many syntactic and semantic similarities, which strongly suggests that a common underlying
structural analysis is called for. In addition to requiring the presence of a direct object (*John
gave Mary/*The sea brought back), both constructions obey a number of non-trivial syntactic and
semantic constraints: for example, subextraction from the direct object in both DOCs and VPCs
is impossible (2), as is nominalization of these structures (3).
(2) a. *Who did they give the brother of _ an idea?
b. *What did they look the information about _ up?
(3) a. *our giving of John's brother an idea
b. *our looking of the information up
Parallels such as these have led a large number of researchers to propose that the DOC and the
VPC have the same syntax: in both cases, the secondary predicate is introduced by either an
additional verbal or small-clause structure (Tenny 1987; Hoekstra 1988; Larson 1990; Snyder
2001, Harley 2007, among others). Some analyses make the prediction that the constructions
should cluster together in the typology and in acquisition. Indeed, it has been observed that
grammars with both DOC and VPC structures emerge roughly at the same stage in both first
language (Snyder & Stromswold 1997) and second language acquisition (Slabakova 2001).
At first blush, the history of French appears to support a strong unified analysis of the syntax of
the DOC and the VPC, as the grammar of Old French allows both while that of Modern French
does not. However, a closer look is much less definitive. A corpus-based study of the loss of
these constructions show that the time-courses of the two changes are radically different: the
frequency of the DOC begins to dramatically decline in the 13th century and is extinct by the end
of the 14th, whereas the VPC only begins its decline at the beginning of the 14th century,
continuing through the 15th. We conclude that the syntax of the DOC in French is likely not as
tightly correlated with the VPC and other resultative constructions as some have suggested.
2. Secondary Predication in Medieval French. In line with what we might expect from a
unified analysis, the grammar of Old French contained the full paradigm of secondary predication
structures normally associated with Germanic languages: adjectival resultatives (4a), directed
motion constructions (4b), and both DOCs (4c) and VPCs (4d).
(4) a. a terre t’ abatrai tout plat
to ground you beat
all flat
‘I will beat you flat to the ground’ (Roman de Renart, branche 10, 7)
b. le chevallier se
leva […], et marcha hors de son pavillon
the knight
himself raised
and walked out of his
tent
‘the knight got up […] and walked out of his tent’ (de la Marche, Mémoires t. 2, 183)
c. Et la gent
de la terre envoierent Johannis la teste
and the people of the land sent
Johannis the head (Villehardouin, 373)
130
d. le mers reportoit le nef arriere
the sea brought the ship back (Clari, Li estoires… Coustantinoble, 74)
All of these constructions have since disappeared from the French language: their counterparts
are ungrammatical in Modern French:
(5) a. *Je t'abatrai plat à terre
b. * le chevalier se leva et marcha hors de sa tente (directed motion reading)
c. *Les gens du pays ont envoyé Johannis la tête
d. *La mer a porté le navire arrière
Interestingly, however, a unified analysis of these structures is not entirely supported by the
diachronic facts. While the loss of adjectival resultatives and directed motion constructions
appear to lose currency at the same time as the VPC, the loss of the DOC takes place at a much
earlier stage in the language. The difference in the time-courses of change suggests
heterogeneous structures: one for the DOC and at least another for the VPC.
3. Methodology. For the Old French data, we use the Textes de francais ancien corpus, and for
the Middle French data, we use the Dictionnaire de moyen francais corpus. The evolution of the
DOC is studied by tracking the replacement of the DOC by its oblique variant with four verbs:
bailler ‘give’, donner ‘give’, envoyer ‘send’, and offrir ‘offer’. We study the loss of prepositional
resultatives across four directional particles: sus ‘up’, jus ‘down’, ens ‘in’, and hors ‘out’.
Concretely, we track the replacement of the complex predicate monter sus ‘to rise up’ by monter
‘to rise’, descendre jus ‘to descend down’ by descendre ‘to descend’, entrer ens ‘to enter in’ by
entrer ‘to enter’, and issir hors ‘to exit out’ by issir ‘exit’.
4. Results (Sample)
5. Discussion. Rather than supporting a strong unified analysis of the DOC and VPC, the history
of French tends to favour an approach whereby the syntax of the DOC may be quite unrelated to
that of the VPC and other secondary predicates like adjectival resultatives and directed motion
constructions. In this sense, our analysis is in line with a micro-parametric approach to crosslinguistic variation such as that proposed in Son & Svenonius (2008)
6. References.
Harley, H. 2007. The bipartite structure of verbs cross-linguistically. Talk given at the 2007
ABRALIN Congress in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Hoekstra, T. 1988. ‘Small clause’ result. Lingua 7:4. Kayne, R. 1984. Connectedness and
binary branching. Foris.
Larson, R. 1988. On the double object construction. LI 19.335-391.
Slabakova, R. 2001. Telicity in the second language, Benjamins.
Snyder, W. 2001. Language acquisition and language variation. Language 77:2.324-342.
Son, M. & P. Svenonius. 2008. Micro-parameters of cross-linguistic variation: Directed motion
and resultatives. WCCFL 27, 388-396, Cascadilla.
Tenny, C.L. 1987. Grammaticalizing aspect and affectedness. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.
131
Using experimental methods to investigate Spanish-English code-switching: Eye-tracking as
a window into on-line comprehension
Jorge Valdés Kroff, Paola Dussias, Chip Gerfen, Rosa Guzzardo Tamargo, Jason Gullifer &
Donna Coffman (Pennsylvania State University)
Bilinguals in the presence of other known bilinguals engage in code-switching, broadly defined
as the fluid alternation between languages in bilingual discourse (Poplack, 1980). Although the
specific factors that influence code-switching are varied, bilingual members of a community of
code-switchers are more likely to engage in intra-sentential code-switches (e.g. El niño caught
his friend a punto de tocar el blender, “The boy caught his friend about to touch the blender”) as
compared to bilinguals who maintain a functional separation between their two languages. The
current mode of linguistic research on code-switching stipulates that it respects the grammatical
constraints operant in the bilingual’s separate languages (MacSwan, 2004), yet provide no clear
on-line experimental data supporting this stance.
In parallel, psycholinguistic studies on bilingualism increasingly support the hypothesis that a
bilingual’s two languages are simultaneously active to varying degrees and that lexical access is
primarily non-selective (Schwartz & Kroll, 2006). Thus, the ability to code-switch suggests that
the cognitive architecture that supports production and comprehension in the bilingual mind is
remarkably flexible. We therefore ask the question: will bilinguals who engage in code-switching
exhibit differential patterns of sentence processing from bilinguals who do not code-switch?
To examine this question, we focus on grammatical gender. In Spanish, speakers use grammatical
gender to facilitate sentence processing when it is informative (Lew-Williams & Fernald, 2007).
Alternatively, corpus studies (e.g. Jake et al., 2002) highlight an article asymmetry in codeswitching whereby the Spanish masculine article ‘el’ combines with English nouns regardless of
the gender of the Spanish translation equivalent (el juice, el blender, Sp. el jugo [masc.], la
licuadora [fem.]). However, Spanish ‘la’ surfaces only with English words whose Spanish
translation equivalents are feminine (*la juice, la blender).
We examined the consequences of this asymmetry on comprehension by employing a
comparative approach between two groups of Spanish (L1) – English (L2) bilinguals using the
visual world paradigm (Tanenhaus et al, 1995). Both groups are native speakers of Spanish, yet
their current environmental profiles differ. One group lives in the U.S. (N = 24) and is exposed to
Spanish-English code-switches. The other group (N = 28) lives in Granada (Spain) and maintains
a strict separation between the two languages.
We tested participants in a single block of 60 pre-recorded intra-sentential code-switched
sentences. While listening to these sentences and examining a 2-object visual scene displayed on
a computer monitor, participants’ eye movements were recorded. We analyze the proportion of
fixations to target items in real-time speech using a multiphase mixed-effects model (Cudeck &
Klebe, 2002).
Results reveal key differences between bilingual groups. Specifically, U.S. bilinguals
demonstrate differential processing of grammatical gender in code-switching that reflects the
documented production asymmetry. However, Granada bilinguals do not show this differential
132
processing pattern. Rather, they incur a large processing cost to integrating code-switched
speech. Furthermore, in a separate block of Spanish-only sentences, U.S. Spanish-English
bilinguals maintained differential processing of grammatical gender whereby the masculine
article did not facilitate sentence processing in contrast to Spanish monolinguals (N = 16). We
interpret these results as revealing dynamic changes to the comprehension system due to use of
code-switching as a linguistic variety amongst a community of speakers.
References
Cudeck, R., & Klebe, K. J. (2002). Multiphase mixed-effects models for repeated measures data.
Psychological Methods, 7 (1), 41-63.
Jake, J., Myers-Scotton, C., & Gross, S. (2002). Making a minimalist approach to code-switching
work: Adding the matrix language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5 (1), 69-91.
Lew-Williams, C. & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of
grammatical gender in spoken word recogntion. Psychological Science, 18 (3), 193-198.
MacSwann, J. (2004). Code switching and grammatical theory. In T. K. Bhatia & W. C. Ritchie
(Eds.), The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 283-311). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Poplack, S. (1980). “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español”:
Toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics, 18 (7/8), 581-618.
Schwartz, A. I. & Kroll, J. F. (2006). Language comprehension in bilngual speakers. In M.
Traxler & M. A. Gernsbacher (Eds.), Handbook of Pyscholinguistics, 2nd Edition (pp.
967-999). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M. & Sedivey, J. C. (1995). Integration
of visual and spatial information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268
(5217), 1632-1634.
133
On the Spanish Clausal Left Edge―In Defense of a TopicP Account of Recomplementation
Julio Villa-García (University of Connecticut)
This paper provides evidence for a TopicP analysis of Spanish double-que constructions and shows that
the TopicP account has considerably wider empirical coverage than the competing proposals. Spoken
Modern Iberian Spanish displays recomplementation (cf. 1), which is characterized by dislocated phrases
sandwiched between homophonous complementizers, the second of which is optional (Campos 1992;
Demonte & Fernández-Soriano (D&FS) 2007, 2009; Escribano 1991; Etxepare 2010; Fontana 1993, 1997;
López 2009; Ron 1998; Uriagereka 1988, 1995; among others).
b. Repitió
que a mi prima (que) la echaron
(1) a. Dijo que, cuando lleguen, (que) me llaman
said that when arrive
that cl. call
‘S/he told me they’ll call me when they arrive.’
repeated that my cousin that cl. threw
‘S/he said they fired my cousin.’
The arguments we provide in favor of a TopicP analysis of recomplementation include (i) the possibility
of multiple lower complementizers and (ii) the option of placing left-dislocated material below secondary
que, which follow from the recursive character of Rizzi’s 1997 et seq. TopicP; (iii) the observation that
foci, (negative) quantified phrases, wh-items, and interrogative complementizers can follow but not
precede secondary que; (iv) the close connection between secondary que and the sandwiched dislocated
phrase (LD), on whose occurrence the appearance of secondary que is contingent; (v) the observation that
secondary que and the dislocate establish a Spec,Head-agreement relationship; and (vi) the different
behavior of secondary que and the homophonous que found in imperative clauses, which is regarded as
being the lexical realization of the subjunctive mood. Existing accounts of the phenomenon of
recomplementation in Romance include, a.o., Uriagereka 1995, who argues that secondary que heads FP
(encoding Point of View), which is situated between CP and TP. Within the split-CP analysis of Rizzi
1997 et seq. (i.e., [ForceP (TopicP), (IntP), (FocusP), FinitenessP]), Brovetto 2002, D&FS 2007, 2009,
and López 2009 (mutatis mutandis), a.o., claim that secondary que in (1) heads FinitenessP, the lowest
left-peripheral projection in the split CP, as shown in (2). Martín-González 2002, for his part, argues that
secondary que is located in Spec,(Doubled)Force, as illustrated in (3). Lastly, the account championed by
Rodríguez-Ramalle 2003, a.o., assumes that secondary que heads TopicP, whose specifier is occupied by
the sandwiched left-dislocated phrase (cf. 4). It is this last analysis (cf. 4) that the current paper argues for
(cf. i-vi).
(2) SECONDARY-QUE IN FINITENESSP (Brovetto 2002, Fernández-Rubiera 2009, a.o.)
[ForceP [Force’ que [TopicP LD [Top’ … [FinitenessP [Fin’ que [TP …]]]]]]]
(3) SECONDARY-QUE IN (DOUBLED)FORCEP (Martín-González 2002, Poole 2006, a.o.)
[ForceP [Force’ que [TopicP LD [Top’ [(Doubled)ForceP [(Doubled)Force’ que … [FinitenessP [Fin’ [TP …]]]]]]]]]
(4) SECONDARY-QUE IN TOPICP (Mascarenhas 2007, Paoli 2006, Rodríguez-Ramalle 2003, a.o.)
[ForceP [Force’ que [TopicP LD [Top’ que … [FinitenessP [Fin’ [TP …]]]]]]]
Regarding (i), overt complementizers can separate multiple left-dislocated constituents (cf. 5), as argued,
e.g., by Etxepare 2010, who acknowledges that examples like (5) pose a problem for (2) and for
Uriagereka’s FP account, the reason being that it would be necessary to assume that FinitenessP and FP
can be recursive; however, (5) is predicted by the analysis in (4), given TopicP, which Rizzi 1997 claims
is recursive. Similarly, secondary que can be followed by dislocated material (cf. ii), in accordance with
the judgments reported in Martín-Glez. 2002 and contra D&FS (cf. 6). Sentences like (6) are difficult to
handle under the account in (2), which places secondary que in FinitenessP, but they follow
straightforwardly under the TopicP analysis in (4), given recursive TopicP.
(5)
(6)
Dijo que, el dinero, que a Juan, que se lo mandaban por correo
said that the money
that to John
that cl. cl. send
for mail
‘S/he said they will send John the money through the mail.’
[Escribano (1991:139)]
Me dijeron que el billete que entonces a tu
padre no se lo van a dar
cl. told that the ticket that then
to your father not cl. cl. go to give
134
‘They told me that as a result they are not giving your father the ticket.’
As is known, secondary complementizers can be followed, but not preceded, by wh-phrases, foci, and
(negative) quantified phrases (cf. iii), as illustrated by the contrast between (7a) and (7b).
(7)
a. Preguntó que a él
que cuándo lo llamaban
asked
that
him that when cl. call
‘S/he asked when they were going to call him.’
b. *Preguntó que cuándo que lo llamaban a él
asked that when that cl. call
him
The grammaticality contrast between (7a) and (7b) strongly argues for an analysis that places secondary
que in a projection higher than FinitenessP, since the system in (2) falls short of capturing the data in (7),
on the assumption that the phrases at issue (e.g., wh-items and foci) occupy FocusP. In much the same
way, unlike the analysis in (4), (2) cannot account for sentences like those in (8), which show that
secondary que must precede the interrogative complementizer (located in IntP in Rizzi 2001), since it is
uncontroversial that si ‘if/whether’ is a complementizer in the CP domain.
(8)
a. Me preguntó que a él que si lo van a llamar
b. *Me preguntó que a él
si que lo van a llamar
cl. asked
that him that if cl. go to call
cl. asked
that him if that cl. go to call
‘S/he asked me whether they are going to call him.’
Furthermore, the occurrence of a secondary complementizer is conditional on the presence of dislocated
material (cf. iv; see D&FS 2007, 2009 and Paoli 2006). This fact raises a problem for the accounts in (2)
and (3), where the LD and the secondary complementizer que are in separate, unrelated projections. By
contrast, the connection between the dislocate and secondary que is captured by the analysis in (4),
whereby secondary que heads TopicP, which hosts the left-dislocated phrase in its specifier. Additionally,
Paoli 2006 suggests that recomplementation in Romance involves Spec,Head agreement between the
dislocate and secondary que (i.e., the two constituents are in the same projection). Paoli’s conclusion is
based on (iv). In this connection, we provide a novel argument for a Spec,Head configuration in light of
ellipsis facts (cf. v). Lobeck 1990, Saito and Murasugi 1990, and Bošković 2008, a.o., observe that
functional heads can only license ellipsis of their complement when they undergo Spec-Head agreement
(i.e., feature-checking). If secondary que and the sandwiched dislocate enter into a Spec-Head featurechecking relationship, then we predict that it should be possible to elide the complement of secondary que.
This prediction is borne out by the data in (9), which supports the analysis in (4), to the detriment of the
accounts in (2) and (3).
(9)
Me dijeron que si llueve que no salen de casa, y
que si nieva que tampoco
cl. said
that if rains that not exit of house and
that if snows that neither
‘They told me that they will not get out of the house if it rains or snows.’
… y [… Force’ que
[ TopicP si nieva [Top’ que no
salen de casa tampoco]]] (cf. 4)
Note that the Spec,Head agreement relation between the LD and secondary que can explain why phrases
such as wh-items and foci cannot appear above secondary que (cf. iii/7b). We submit that there is a
featural mismatch between the two entities; the features of secondary que only match those of leftdislocated phrases, hence its incompatibility with constituents including wh-phrases, as noted by
Uriagereka 1995. This is consistent with analysis (4), which ties together the dislocate and secondary que,
but remains unexplained under (2) and (3). Finally, unlike the analysis in (2), (4) makes it possible to draw
a distinction between secondary que (cf. 1) and the que found in imperative sentences with subjunctive
mood (cf. 10-11/vi). In the latter construction, que is mandatory, does not depend on the presence of a
dislocate (10), and must follow dislocated phrases (11a vs. 11b); hence it heads FinitenessP, the locus of
mood and finiteness features in Rizzi 1997 (cf. D&FS 2009).
(10) ¡Que se vaya!
that cl. goSubjunctive
‘I demand that s/he go.’
(11) a. ¡Con ella que no cuenten!
b. *¡Que con ella no cuenten!
with her that not countSubjuncti
that with her not countSubjunctive
‘I demand that they not count on her.’
Under the analysis currently pursued (cf. 4), the different behavior of secondary que (the head of
TopicP) and “imperative-subjunctive” que (the head of FinitenessP) (cf. 10/11) is explained
straightforwardly, which provides further support for the account adopted in this paper.
135
A minority language leaving its trace in French : the influence of Picard on Vimeu French
Anne-José Villeneuve (Indiana University)
Since it was adopted in 1992, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, aimed
at protecting non-official linguistic varieties, has created a heated debate in France. To this day,
it remains to be ratified by the French government. Despite a recent effort to recognize the
contribution of regional languages to France’s heritage by the addition of Article 75-1 to the
Constitution, i.e. “les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France” [regional
languages are part of France’s heritage], Article 2 still states that “la langue de la République est
le français” [the language of the French Republic is French].
It is well known that regional languages – Breton, Flemish and Corsican among others – are
losing ground to French, due to lack of generational transmission (Héran, Filhon & Deprez
2002). Among the Gallo-Romance languages of northern France, traditionally referred to as
langues d’oïl, Picard is no exception to this trend. Yet, even after decades of efforts towards
linguistic unification by the education system, what we hear today in many areas of France is not
the standard of the Parisian middle-class, but rather regional varieties which have presumably
emerged from or been influenced by the obsolescent regional languages.
Based on a corpus of French interviews I collected in 2006-2007 in Vimeu, an area of
northwestern France where the Picard language still enjoys a relative vitality, this study
demonstrates that several linguistic features of Picard have seeped into French as it is spoken in
the area, by both Picard-French bilinguals and French monolinguals. Because some non-standard
Vimeu French tendencies – for instance, word-final consonant cluster simplification in words like
autre [ot] ‘other’ and the reduction of the relative pronoun qui ‘who/which’ into [k] –are
prevalent in other varieties of colloquial French, their Picard origin may be debated, despite
differences in patterns between older adults, who were exposed to Picard during their formative
years, and younger adults who lacked that constant contact (Villeneuve 2010).
I argue that other linguistic features have a much clearer source in the regional language, since
they exist in Vimeu Picard and remain virtually absent from other varieties of French; see (1)-(4).
While constructions in (1) and (2) are somewhat rare, even in Vimeu Picard, the type of vowel
epenthesis shown in (3) and (4) is well attested for both Picard (Auger 2000) and Picardie French
(Emrik 1958). A quantitative study of linguistic variation in some of these Vimeu French
phenomena offers further evidence that Picard features are surviving in the community, even in
the mouths of French speakers who do not speak Picard at all.
By examining linguistic features that differentiate a local French variety from standard French
while linking it to its regional language, this study offers a contribution to the neglected field
(Straka 1977; Tamine 1993; Baggioni 1995) of regional French studies.
136
EXAMPLES:
pour ‘for’ + accusative + infinitive’:
Picard:
a. étoait suffisant pour li vive! (Dulphy 45/46:61)
‘for him to live’
b. Cha sro pour vous casser la croute (Dufrêne 22:8)
‘for you to have a bite’
Vimeu French:
a. on a des... des jours pour nous arracher des betteraves (Guy D., 124-235)
‘for us to pull out beets’
b. des pois verts qui sont mis pour euh pour les gens manger (Guy D., 271)
‘for people to eat’
Schwa epenthesis in monosyllables:
Picard:
a. ène poaire éd jones pingeons (Crimbillie: 19)
‘a couple of young pigeons’
b. I
n’feut point éte éd Dérgnies (Crimbillie: 75)
‘One must not be from Dargnies’
Vimeu French:
a. Et alors, e-d’quoi j'aurais l'air (Fabrice D., 774)
‘And then (of) what would I look like’
b. C’est pour ça qu’on m’a envoyée au catéchisme e-d’bonne heure. (Colette V., 766)
‘they sent me
to catechism early’
References
Auger, Julie (2000). Phonological variation and Optimality Theory: Evidence from word-initial
vowel epenthesis in Picard. In Julie Auger and Andrea Word-Allbritton (eds.), The CVC
of sociolinguistics: Contact, variation, and culture 1-20. Bloomington, IN: IULC
Publications.
Baggioni, Daniel (1995). Variante géographique du français: Remarques sur les présupposés
théoriques et la grille de classement de C. Poirier. In Michel Francard and Danièle Latin
(eds.), Le régionalisme lexical 67-77. Louvain-la-Neuve: Duculot.
Emrik, Robert (1958). Le français d'Amiens et de sa région. Le français moderne 26, 285-296.
Héran, François, Filhon, Alexandra and Deprez, Christine (2002). La dynamique des langues en
France au fil du XXe siècle. Population et sociétés 376, 1-4.
Straka, Georges (1977). Les français régionaux. Conclusions et résultats du colloque de Dijon. In
Gérard Taverdet and Georges Straka (eds.), Les français régionaux : colloque sur le
français parlé dans les villages de vignerons 227-242. Paris: Klincksieck.
Tamine, Michel (1993). Dictionnaire du français régional de Champagne. Paris: Bonneton.
Villeneuve, Anne-José (2010). Word-final cluster simplification in Vimeu French: A preliminary
analysis. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics article 15.
137
TRANSPORTATION
GETTING AROUND OTTAWA

Most of Ottawa’s main tourist attractions (Parliament, the National Gallery of
Canada, the ByWard Market, the National Arts Centre etc.) are within walking
distance of the University of Ottawa campus and most of the conference hotels.

Taxis can often be flagged down on the street, but you may call to request a pick-up:
o Blue Line Taxi Co Ltd – 613-238-1111
o Capital Taxi – 613-744-3333
o West-Way Taxi – 613-727-0101
o Crystal Taxi – 613-842-4111
o DJs Taxi – 613-829-9900

OC Transpo provides extensive service throughout the Ottawa area. For information
on their routes and schedules, please consult their website www.octranspo.com (click
on Travel Planner for detailed instructions on getting to your destination from your
point of origin) or visit the sales and information centre located at the Rideau Centre
(near the Mackenzie King Bridge entrance to the shopping mall.)
LEAVING OTTAWA
BY TAXI
While taxis can usually be found outside the lobby of most hotels, to arrange for a pickup, simply call one of the taxi companies listed above; in the downtown area, they will
usually provide a pick-up with fifteen minutes. While the total fare will depend on your
pick-up location, the approximate cost to go from the downtown area to the airport is $30,
to the train station is $15 and to the main bus terminal on Catherine St. is $10 (plus tip.)
For a fare check, call the cab company directly or ask the concierge at your hotel.
BY AIRPORT SHUTTLE
The Airport Shuttle has scheduled pick-up times at the following hotels: Novotel, Les
Suites, The Westin Ottawa, Fairmount Chateau Laurier, Lord Elgin, Sheraton, Crowne
Plaza, Ottawa Marriott, Delta Ottawa Hotel and Suites, Minto Suite. The scheduled pickup times at these hotels can be found at: http://www.yowshuttle.com/schedules.htm
For pick-up at other hotels (including the Quality Hotel) please consult your hotel
concierge or call 613-260-2359 one day in advance to schedule a pick-up time.
One way fares: 1 adult - $14.00; 2 adults-$11 each; 3 or more adults- $8 each.
For further information, please consult their website www.yowshuttle.com or call 613260-2359.
138
BY PUBLIC TRANSIT
For complete information on all OC Transpo routes and timetables, please consult their
website at www.octranspo.com. For detailed instructions on getting from your point of
origin to your destination, click on the Travel Planner. Or, visit the OC Transpo sales and
information centre located at the Rideau Centre (near the Mackenzie King Bridge
entrance to the shopping mall) to pick up maps and timetables and/or speak to an OC
Transpo representative.
If you are heading to the airport, be sure to board Route 97(Airport) and NOT Route
97X (South Keys), as the latter does not go to the airport.
If you are heading to the VIA Rail Station, you may take either Route 94(Millennium)
or Route 95(Orleans).
If you are heading to the main Greyhound bus terminal at 265 Catherine Street, you
must take Route 4(Hurdman).
Bus fare for one trip is $3.25 CAD or two tickets (tickets are $1.25 each.) Tickets can be
purchased at the OC Transpo sales and information centre located at the Rideau Centre
and at various convenience stores throughout the city. On campus, tickets can usually be
purchased at Pivik, located in the University Centre. Cash payments can be made directly
to the driver (exact change only).
When you board and provide payment, make sure to request a transfer, called a Proof of
Payment (POP). This allows you unlimited travel during the time printed on the transfer
ticket (usually within 90 minutes of your boarding time) and is your proof of payment in
case of fare inspection by OC Transpo Operators or Transit Enforcement Officers.
Anyone unable to provide proof of payment may be fined $150.00.
139
PRINTING AND PHOTOCOPYING
ON-CAMPUS:
FULL-SERVICE PHOTOCOPYING
University Centre
Room 0024
613-562-5876
repro@uOttawa.ca
Open: Mon. – Thurs. 8:00 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.; Fri. from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.; Sat.
from 12:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Services:
 Black & white photocopying at $0.047 each
 Colour photocopying at $0.39 each
 Printing documents from CDs, USB drives and documents submitted by email
 Fax
SELF-SERVE PHOTOCOPIERS
The university has several self-serve photocopiers at various locations on campus,
including at:



Morisset Hall (Level 0 and in the library on the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th floor)
Simard Hall (Level 0, near 043 )
Tabaret Hall (in waiting area L143, near InfoService (Rm. 129) under the large
TV monitor; 3rd floor in the rotunda)
(Note that Morisset Library’s hours are Mon. – Fri. from 7:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m. and
Sat. & Sun. from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m.)
To use the self-serve photocopiers, it is necessary to buy a copy card. The copy card
costs $3.00 and can be purchased at the University Centre reprography centre or using the
automated distributors in the Morisset Library on the 1st floor (Rm. 142, just past the
Second Cup) or in Tabaret Hall near InfoService (in waiting area L143, near InfoService
(Rm. 129), under the large TV monitor) Copies made with the copy card are $0.047 each.
Prior to using your copy card, you must load money onto it. This can be done at the same
place where you purchased the card (University Centre reprography centre and automated
distributors in Morrisset Library and Tabaret Hall.)
140
OFF-CAMPUS:
Rytec Printing
404 Dalhousie Street
613-241-COPY (2679)
www.rytec.ca
info@enviro.ca
Open: Mon. – Thurs. from 8:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.; Fri. from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Closed Saturday and Sunday




Poster printing: Usually next day service; same day service *may* be possible
Black & white (50 copies) are 0.10¢ per page
Colour (50 copies) are 0.76¢ per page
It is possible to print the document you wish to photocopy from your USB drive
on-site; there is no extra charge for this service beyond the photocopying charge
Merriam Print
252 Laurier Ave. East
613-567-5050
www.merriamprint.com
pprint252@gmail.com
Open: Mon. – Fri. from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.
Closed Saturday and Sunday
Extended service hours available – please email or call for more information





Poster printing: Next day service may be possible
Black & white photocopies are 0.08¢ per page
Colour photocopies are 0.49¢ per page
Document printing (from USB drive): same as photocopying rates, with a
minimum charge of $1.00
Fax
Laurier Office Mart
613-744-7409
www.lomonline.ca
sales@lomonline.ca
Open: Mon. – Fri. from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.; Sat. from 12:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m.
Closed Sunday



Black & white photocopies (99 copies or less) are 0.08¢ per page; 100+ copies are
0.07¢ per page
Colour photocopies (99 copies or less) are 0.59¢ per page; 100+ copies are 0.49¢
per page
Document printing (from USB drive): same as photocopying rates
141
WHERE TO EAT
Main dish prices: $ = < $15.00; $$ = $15.00-30.00; $$$ = $30.00+
ON/CLOSE TO CAMPUS
Vendors in the University Centre:
 Upper Crust (sandwiches) (Level 0)
 Cafeteria (Level 1)
 Jazzy Restaurant (Level 1)
Le Bac à frites, $
Near the parking lot beside Simard
PerfectionsSatisfactionPromise
(Vegetarian), $
167 Laurier Ave. E.; 613-234-7299
Café Nostalgica (Canadian), $
603 Cumberland St.
On campus
Royal Oak (British Pub), $
161 Laurier Ave. E.; 613-230-9223
Subway, $
50 Laurier Ave. E.
Across from Desmarais
Freshii, $
50 Laurier Ave. E.
Across from Desmarais
Urban Well (Canadian), $
244 Laurier Ave. E.;613-234-2914
Novotel Trio Restaurant
(international/tasting menu), $-$$
33 Nicholas St.; 613-760-4771
Rideau Centre Food Court (various), $
BYWARD MARKET AND RIDEAU STREET AREA
Zak’s Diner, $ (open 24 hrs.)
14 Byward Market Sq.; 613-241-2401
Ahora (Tex/Mex), $
307, Dalhousie; 613-562-2081
Dunn’s Famous Deli, $ (open 24 hrs.)
355 Dalhousie St.; 613-562-4966
Courtyard (Steakhouse), $$
21 George; 613-241-1516
Mamma Grazzi’s (Italian), $-$$
25 George St.; 613-241-8656
The Keg Steakhouse, $$
75 York St.; 613-241-8514
Nate’s (Deli), $
316 Rideau; 613-789-9191
Blue Cactus (Tex/Mex), $$
2 Byward Market; 613-241-7061
Mexicali Rosa’s (Mexican), $
33 Clarence St.; 613-789-1578
Empire Grill (Steakhouse), $$
47 Clarence St.; 613-241-3049
Play food & wine (tasting menu), $
1 York St.; 613-667-9207
The Cornerstone Bar and Grill, $$
92 Clarence St.; 613-241-6835
Chez Lucien (Bar and Grill), $$
37 Murray Street; 613-241-3533
Vittoria Trattoria (Italian), $$
35 William St.; 613-789-8959
Kinki (Japanese), $$
41 York St; 613-789-7559
Fish Market Restaurant, $$-$$$
54 York St.; 613-241-3474
142
DOWNTOWN/ELGIN STREET AREA
Dunn’s Famous Deli, $ (open 24 hrs.)
220 Elgin St.; 613-230-6444
Full House Restaurant ( Steakhouse), $$
337 Somerset W.; 613-238-6734
Johnny Farina (Italian), $$
216 Elgin; 613-565-5155
Som Tum (Thai)
260 Nepean Street; 613-781-8424
Carmello’s Italian, $$
300 Sparks; 613-563-4349
Peace Garden Café (Vegetarian), $$
47 Clarence ; 613-562-2434
Mama Theresa Ristorante (Italian), $$
300 Somerset St. W.; 613-236-3023
Japanese Village (teppenyaki, steakhouse)
170 Laurier Ave. W.; 613-236-9519
D’Arcy McGees (Irish Pub), $$
44 Sparks St.; 613-230-4433
Al’s Steakhouse (Steakhouse), $$$
327 Elgin St.; 613-233-7111
Friday’s Roast Beef House (Steakhouse), $$
150 Elgin St.; 613-237-5353
CULINARY “EXPERIENCES” IN THE VICINITY OF UOFO ($$$+)
A’roma Meze
239 Nepean St.; 613-232-1377
www.aromameze.com
Fraser Café
7 Springfield Rd.; 613-749-1444
www.frasercafe.ca
Atelier
540 Rochester St.; 613-321-3537
www.atelierrestaurant.ca
Murray Street
110 Murray Street; 613-562-7244
www.murraystreet.ca
Beckta dining & wine
226 Nepean St.; 613-238-7063
www.beckta.com
Navarra
93 Murray St.; 613-241-5500
www.navarrarestaurant.com
Daly’s Restaurant (at the Westin)
11 Colonel By Dr.; 613-560-7333
Social restaurant + lounge
537 Sussex Dr.; 613-789-7355
www.social.ca
Domus Café
85 Murray St.; 613-241-6007
www.domuscafe.ca
Sweetgrass Aboriginal Bistro
108 Murray St.; 613-562-3683
www.sweetgrassbistro.ca
E18hteen
18 York St.; 613-244-1188
www.restaurant18.com
COFFEE SHOPS
Second Cup:
 Morisset Library
 153 Laurier Ave. E.
 171 Rideau St.
Starbucks:
 Desmarais Building
 Rideau Centre
 Chapters bookstore
(47 Rideau St.)
 81 Metcalfe St.
143
Tim Horton’s:
 Rideau Centre
OTHER LOCAL INFORMATION
INTERNET
Off campus, internet service is available at The Agora Bookstore and Internet Café
located at 145 Besserer Street (across from Novotel; 613-562-4672) and at a number of
coffee shops (Starbucks, Second Cup etc.)
FOREIGN EXCHANGE, ATMS AND BANKS
Calforex Foreign Exchange Services is located at the Rideau Centre on the third level.
ATMs on campus can be found at:
Tabaret Hall (Scotia Bank)
550 Cumberland, (in the waiting area, room L143, near InfoService (Rm. 129))
University Centre (85 Université)
Scotia Bank 85 - 2nd floor (close to the Tim Horton’s)
CIBC - ground floor (close to the Bookstore and Alumni Auditorium)
National Bank - 1st floor (across from the Jazzy Restaurant)
New Residence (Alterna Savings)
90 Université, 1st floor (close to the reception)
Campus Pharmacy (Royal Bank)
100 Marie Curie, 1st floor (in the main entrance)
Full service branches located in the downtown area are:
TD Canada Trust (www.tdcanadatrust.com)
400 Rideau St.; 613-783-6230
263 Elgin St.; 613-783-6260
170 Laurier Ave. W.; 613-598-4707
National Bank of Canada (www.nbc.ca)
242 Rideau St.; 613-241-9110
50 O’Connor St. 613-236-7966
144
CIBC (www.cibc.com)
41 Rideau St.; 613-564-8750
119 Sparks St.; 613-564-8600
84 Bank St.; 613-564-8713
POST OFFICES
The Bay (lower level in the drug store)
73 Rideau St; 1-866-607-6301
Hours of operation:
Thurs. & Fri. 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Saturday
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Sunday
11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Desjardins Pharmacie Ltee
298 Dalhousie St; 1-866-607-6301
Hours of operation:
Thurs. & Fri. 8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Friday
8:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday
11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Pharmacie Rideau Pharmacy
390 Rideau Street E.; 1-866-607-6301
Hours of operation:
Thurs. & Fri.
9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Saturday
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Sunday
Closed
Ottawa B PO
59 Sparks St. (at Elgin); 613-844-1545
Hours of operation:
Thurs. & Fri.
8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Sat. & Sun.
Closed
Mail boxes can also be found on campus in front of the Music Building (Perez Hall, 50
University) and at the corner of Laurier and Nelson.
WALK-IN CLINICS
Appletree Medical Clinic
225 Preston St at Balsam St
613-288-0279
Hours: Mon-Thu 8am-8pm; Fri 8am-4pm;
Sat-Sun 10am-4pm
University of Ottawa Health Services
100 Marie-Curie Private
613-564-3950
Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-8pm; Sat 10:00am2:30pm
Rideau Friel Medical Clinic
421 Rideau St at Chapel St
613-789-7707
Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-8pm; Sat 10am-4pm;
Sun 12pm-4pm
Appletree Medical Centre
368 Slater St at Kent St
613-236-9441
Hours: Mon-Thurs 7am-7pm; Fri 7am5pm; Sat 9am-2pm
PHARMACIES
Pharmacie Campus Pharmacy
100 Marie Curie Private
613-563-4000
Hours of operation:
Thursday
8:30 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Friday
8:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Saturday
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Rexall Pharma Plus
200 Rideau Street, Ottawa, ON
Pharmacy 613-789-7884
Hours of operation
Thurs.-Sat. 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Sunday
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
145
LIBRARIES
Morisset Library (on-campus)
Morisset Hall, 65 University
Hours of operation
Thurs. & Fri 7:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.
Sat. & Sun. 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.
Ottawa Public Library- Main Library
120 Metcalfe; 613-580-2945
Hours of operation:
Thursday
10:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Friday
10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
SHOPPING
The Rideau Centre is located a short walk north-east of the University of Ottawa
campus, with main entrances off the Mackenzie King bridge and off Rideau St. The
Rideau Centre is a typical shopping mall, and also contains a foreign exchange office,
several ATMs, an OCTranspo information centre and a food court. For more
information, visit their website at rideaucentre.net or call (613) 236-6565.
The ByWard Market is located just north of Rideau St. (several blocks north of the
University of Ottawa campus), between Sussex (to the west) and Cumberland (to the
east.) In the Market you will find a variety of shops, boutiques, street vendors, food
retailers, restaurants, cafés, nightlife and entertainment venues, health and beauty salons,
arts and cultural facilities etc. For more information, visit their website at www.bywardmarket.com
DRY CLEANERS/COIN LAUNDRY
Betty Brite Cleaners
613-235-6501
Rideau Coinwash
436 Rideau Street
613 -789-4400
Wilbrod Coin Laundry
315 Wilbrod Street
For general information on what to do and see while visiting Ottawa, consult
www.ottawatourism.ca and www.canadascapital.ca
146
PARTICIPANT LIST
(As of 2 May, 2011)
Alcazar, Asier
alcazara@missouri.edu
University of Missouri at Columbia
Amaral, Patrícia
pamaral@liv.ac.uk
University of Liverpool
Andueza, Patricia
andueza.1@buckeyemail.osu.edu
The Ohio State University
Authier, Marc
jma11@psu.edu
The Pennsylvania State University
Balasch, Sonia
sbalasch@unm.edu
University of New Mexico
Balukas, Colleen
colleenb@anixcorp.com
Bandecchi, Valeria
valeria.bandecchi@ucd.ie
University College of Dublin
Baunaz, Lena
lena.baunaz@gmail.com
University of Geneva
Biezma, Maria
maria@linguist.umass.edu
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Brook, Marisa
marisa.brook@utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Bruhn de Garavito, Joyce
joycebg@uwo.ca
The University of Western Ontario
Burnett, Heather
heather.susan.burnett@gmail.com
University of California, LA
Cabrera-Callís, Maria
mcabrera.callis@gmail.com
Universitat de Barcelona
Campos-Astorkiza, Rebeka
campos-astorkiza.1@osu.edu
Chamorro, Pilar
chamorro.3@osu.edu
Chiasson, Mélissa
mchia067@uottawa.ca
Coffman, Donna
dlc30@psu.edu
Colantoni, Laura
laura.colantoni@utoronto.ca
Colina, Sonia
scolina@email.arizona.edu
University of Arizona
Costa, João
jcosta@fcsh.unl.pt
CLUNL/FCSH/Universidade Nova
de Lisboa
Côté, Marie-Hélène
mhcote@uottawa.ca
Cuervo, María Cristina
mc.cuervo@utoronto.ca
Cuza, Alejandro
acuza@purdue.edu
Purdue University
D'Alessandro, Roberta
r.dalessandro@hum.leidenuniv.nl
LUCL Leiden University
Dalton, Will
wdalt017@uottawa.ca
de Prada Pérez, Ana
aprada@ufl.edu
University of Florida
Del Prete, Fabio
fabio_del_prete@hotmail.com
University of Milan
Delicado-Cantero, Manuel
Manuel.Delicado@anu.edu.au
Australian National University
Dietrich, Amelia J.
ameliajdietrich@gmail.com
147
Dussias, Paola E. Giuli
pdussias@psu.edu
Fălăuş, Anamaria
anamariafalaus@gmail.com
University of the Basque Country,
UPV-EHU
Friesner, Michael
friesner.michael@uqam.ca
Université du Québec à Montréal
Gallego, Ángel J.
angel.gallego@uab.es
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Gauthier, Jacqueline
jmg551@psu.edu
Gavarró, Anna
anna.gavarro@uab.cat
Gerfen, Chip
gerfen@psu.edu,
Giurgea, Ion Tudor
ion.giurgea@uni-konstanz.de
University of Konstanz & the “Iorgu-Iordan
- Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics of the
Romanian Academy
González, Carolina
cgonzalez3@fsu.edu
Florida State University
González-Rivera, Melvin
mgonzalez-rivera@wooster.edu
College of Wooster
Guilliot, Nicolas
nicolas.guilliot@univ-nantes.fr
University of Nantes - LLING
Gullifer, Jason
jwg20@psu.edu
Gutierrez-Rexach, Javier
gutierrez-rexach.1@osu.edu
Guzzardo-Tamargo, Rosa
reg195@psu.edu
Hauser, Caroline
cth5032@psu.edu
Hsin, Lisa
hsin@cogsci.jhu.edu
The Johns Hopkins University
Iordachioaia, Gianina
gianina@ifla.uni-stuttgart.de
University of Stuttgart
Irimia, Monica-Alexandrina
monica.irimia@utoronto.ca
Kato, Mary Aizawa
mary.kato@gmail.com
State University of Campinas, UNICAMP
Kochetov, Alexei
al.kochetov@utoronto.ca
Leroux, Martine
mlero048@uottawa.ca
Liceras, Juana M.
jliceras@uottawa.ca
Lipski, John
jlipski@psu.edu
Lobo, Maria
maria.lobo@fcsh.unl.pt
CLUNL/FCSH/Universidade Nova
de Lisboa
Lonsdale, Deryle
lonz@byu.edu
Brigham Young University
Lopes, Ruth E. Vasconcellos
ruthevlopes@gmail.com
University of Campinas/CNPq, Brazil
MacLeod, Bethany
beth.macleod@utoronto.ca
Marchis, Mihaela
mihaela.marchis@uni-hamburg.de
Hamburg Universität
Marinescu, Irina
irina.marinescu@utoronto.ca
148
Martínez-Gil, Fernando
martinez-gil.1@osu.edu
Mathieu, Éric
emathieu@uottawa.ca
Mayoral Hernández, Roberto
mayoralh@uab.edu
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Mazzaro, Natalia
natalia.mazzaro@utoronto.ca
Mazzola, Michael L.
mlm131@msn.com
Northern Illinois University
Millard, Benjamin
ben.millard@byu.edu
Brigham Young University
Nuñez-Cedeño, Rafael
rnunez@uic.edu
University of Illinois at Chicago
Oiry, Magda
moiry@linguist.umass.edu
University of Massachusetts
Parramon, Xavier
fxparramon@hotmail.com
Pascual y Cabo, Diego
dpascual@ufl.edu
Patino, Lorenzo
lpati039@uottawa.ca
Pérez-Leroux, Ana Teresa
at.perez.leroux@utoronto.ca
Perpiñán, Silvia
sperpina@uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario
Petersen, Carol
carolina.petersen@gmail.com
Universidade de São Paulo / University
of Maryland
Pirvulescu, Mihaela
ma.pirvulescu@utoronto.ca
Poplack, Shana
spoplack@uottawa.ca
Puskas, Genoveva
genoveva.puskas@unige.ch
University of Geneva
Rahimpour, Mitra
mrahimpo@connect.carleton.ca
Carleton University
Reed, Lisa A.
lar13@psu.edu
Remberger, Eva-Maria
eva.remberger@uni-konstanz.de
University of Konstanz
Roberge, Yves
yves.roberge@utoronto.ca
Rothman, Jason
jrothman@ufl.edu
Roy, Joseph
jroy042@uottawa.ca
Runić, Jelena
jelena.runic@uconn.edu
University of Connecticut
Sabourin, Laura
Laura.Sabourin@uOttawa.ca
Sagarra, Nuria
sagarra@psu.edu
Sánchez López, Cristina
csanchez@filol.ucm.es
Universidad Complutense de Madrid/
Harvard University
Sanchez, Liliana
lsanchez@rutgers.edu
Rutgers University
Scarpace, Daniel
scarpac1@illinois.edu
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
149
Scheer, Tobias
scheer@unice.fr
Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis
Seibert Hanson, Aroline
aes284@psu.edu
Simonet, Miquel
simonet@email.arizona.edu
University of Arizona
Smith, Jason
jasonsmith1@suu.edu
The Southern Utah University
Snyder, William
william.snyder@uconn.edu
Soare, Elena
elena.soare@univ-paris8.fr
University of Paris 8
Strik, Nelleke
nelleke.strik@utoronto.ca
Sunara, Simona
simona.sunara@utoronto.ca
Tailleur, Sandrine
sandrine.tailleur@utoronto.ca
Theberge, Christine
mwt5073@psu.edu
Thomas, Danielle
dthomas60@yahoo.com
Torres Cacoullos, Rena
rena@psu.edu
Torres-Tamarit, Francesc
francescjosep.torres@uab.cat
Centre de Lingüística Teòrica, Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona
Tortora, Christina
ctortora@gc.cuny.edu
CUNY, College of Staten Island and
the Grad Center
Tremblay, Mireille
mireille.tremblay.4@umontreal.ca
Université de Montréal
Troberg, Michelle
michelle.troberg@utoronto.ca
Valdés Kroff, Jorge
jrv147@psu.edu
Villa-García, Julio
julio.villa@uconn.edu
Villeneuve, Anne-José
avillene@indiana.edu
Indiana University
Yoshizumi, Yukiko
yyosh089@uottawa.ca
Zamuner, Tania
tzamuner@uottawa.ca
150

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