University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics
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Linguistics
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The University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) are published by the Penn Graduate Linguistics Society, the organization of linguistics graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. PWPL publishes two volumes per year: * Proceedings of the annual Penn Linguistics Conference (PLC) * Selected Papers from New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) In addition, we publish an occasional volume of working papers written by students and faculty in the department.
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Publication Almost everyone in New York is raising PRICEs(2018-10-15) Newman, Michael; Haddican, Bill; Tan, Zi Zi GinaUsing the data from the new CUNY Corpus of New York City English, we explore a phonological analysis by Kaye (2012) that argues that the New York City English (NYCE) PALM shares an underlying 'stem vowel' with PRIZE. Kaye's proposal is based on two observations: (i) the phonetic similarities of PALM and the nucleus of PRIZE and (ii) the conditioning factors that have led to the historical relexicalization of many Middle English short-o words from LOT to PALM are the same as those that have led relexicalization PRICE words to PRIZE. However, it has previously been observed that PALM is merging with LOT in NYCE. Consequently, it would be likely that if that vowel shares an underlying identity with PRIZE, PRIZE too should be merging. In fact, our data show a complex pattern. First, although PRIZE is backer than PRICE, there is considerable overlap. Also, the PRIZE nucleus tends to coincide with LOT more than PALM. Second, more younger speakers, who have a merged PALM-LOT, do not show a merged PRIZE-PRICE, but a new form of distinction, in which PRICE and PRIZE are now in a Canadian Raising pattern. In this way, NYCE loses a locally distinctive vowel configuration to match a widespread northeastern US regional pattern with a two-vowel low back system and Canadian Raising involving PRICE and PRIZE. In sum, the data show the complexity of the relationship between vowels in subsystems and that reconfigurations may involve multiple elements.Publication On the Interaction of Reflexives and Periphrastic Causatives in Icelandic(2021-07-09) Wood, Jim; Sigurðsson, Einar FreyrCross-linguistically, reflexive verbs frequently show puzzling behavior when they are embedded under causatives. We focus on two ways that this pattern manifests itself in Icelandic Indirect Causatives, formed with the light verb láta ‘let/make/have’: (i) verbs that normally cannot be embedded are allowed with reflexives, and (ii) a pleonastic use of the causative verb becomes available in imperatives with oblique subjects. We propose that these facts follow from the syntax of long-distance reflexives (which involves a “point-of-view” operator OPPOV), and a Voice-stacking analysis of indirect causatives, where two Voice heads are added on top of a single vP. The claim is that there is a limited set of ways to interpret the Voice-stacking structure, and reflexives provide one particular way to do this that is not otherwise available. Assuming that either Voice head can introduce a thematic interpretation or be expletive, we propose that in principle, there are four ways to interpret the Voice-stacking structure. Our analysis supports the view that the syntax and semantics of causatives is derived from the interaction of more basic primitives and mechanisms, and is not encoded with a dedicated functional head in the grammar.Publication Processing presupposition: Verifying sentences with ‘only’(2008-04-23) Kim, ChristinaWith respect to how comprehenders process presupposition and handle presupposition failure when verifying sentences, at least two hypotheses are possible: (1) presuppositions are treated like preconditions for evaluating the truth or falsity of a sentence, and are systematically verified before the assertion, and (2) presuppositions are 'backgrounded' and therefore taken for granted—meaning that assertions are systematically evaluated first. Three sentence-picture verification experiments are presented which suggest some version of the latter view; the results are compatible with there being no explicit step of presupposition verification. Instead, presupposition failure arises only accidentally, or in cases where the content of the presupposition is made especially salient in the discourse context by some external means.Publication Listeners' sensitivity to the frequency of sociolinguistic variables(2006-01-01) Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Baranowski, Maciej; Nagy, Naomi; Ravindranath, Maya; Weldon, TraceyPublication A Study of Rhythm in London: Is Syllable-timing a Feature of Multicultural London English?(2011-01-01) Torgersen, Eivind; Szakay, AnitaRecent work on London English has found innovation in inner city areas, most likely as the outcome of dialect contact. These innovations are shared by speakers of different ethnic backgrounds, and have been identified as features of Multicultural London English (MLE). This study examines whether syllable timing is a feature of MLE, as work on rhythm shows that dialect and language contact may lead to varieties of English becoming more syllable-timed. We hypothesized that MLE speakers would also show suprasegmental innovations, having more syllable-timed rhythm than what has been reported for British English. Narratives as told by teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds, elderly speakers born between 1920 and 1935 and speakers born between 1874 and 1895 were extracted from interviews. The speech was segmented into consonantal and vocalic elements by forced phonemic alignment. Measurements of vocalic nPVI, as an indicator of rhythmic patterns, were calculated. Overall, the inner-London speakers were more syllable-timed than what has been found for British English. The results revealed that young speakers of non-Anglo background were significantly more syllable-timed than young Anglo speakers. The relatively low nPVI for all inner-London speaker groups may indicate the capital’s status as a centre of linguistic innovation and long-standing migration. The results of the present study combined with work on other varieties reinforces the idea that the tendency for English to become more syllable-timed is a global phenomenon fuelled by language and dialect contact.Publication Post-Lexical Tone 3 Sandhi Domain-Building in Huai’an Mandarin: Multiple Domain Types and Free Application(2021-07-09) Du, Naiyan; Lin, Yen-HweiBased on the production and acceptability data of tone sandhi patterns of the Huai’an dialect of Jianghuai Mandarin (Huai’an, hereafter) at the syntactic level, this paper argues that (i) both disyllabic and trisyllabic tone sandhi domains are basic domains in Huai’an, which differs from the traditional analysis where only disyllabic domain exists in the Mandarin language family and trisyllabic domain is derived, and (ii) as a consequence, both types of domains can be built freely at the post-lexical level as long as all the syllables are exhaustively incorporated. By positing both disyllabic and trisyllabic domains, the current proposal gives a succinct analysis of Tone 3 Sandhi in Huai’an, and removes the parameter of directionality. Furthermore, a lapse-based analysis (Elenbaas & Kager, 1999) involving a binary tone sandhi domain with an unparsed syllable is unlikely because it cannot produce the surface representation “(2 2 3)” (parenthesis indicates tone sandhi domain boundary and number indicates tone) where all three syllables must be included into one tone sandhi domain to generate the correct surface form in Huai’an. This study suggests more generally that ternary prosodic units, including ternary stress feet (Prince, 1980), can be independent domains in phonology.Publication Learnability of a Phonetically Null Segment(2021-07-09) Nyman, AlexandraThis paper investigates why two classes of French words, both of which contain words that in isolation are phonetically realized as vowel-initial, vary with respect to elision when pronounced right-adjacent to a definite article: one class does not trigger the deletion of the expendable vowel, while the other class does. It is argued that these two classes differ in that one contains underlyingly vowel-initial words, while the other class consists of words whose underlying representations contain an underspecified consonant segment (termed a ghost consonant; Kiparsky, 2003). The paper also addresses how a learner could posit a ghost consonant in the underlying representation of this second class of words given that the ghost consonant is phonetically null. Through Inconsistency Detection (Tesar, 2004) and Presence Feature setting (Nyman & Tesar, 2019) the learner is able to posit a phonetically null segment, resulting in the resolution of a ranking paradox that would otherwise obtain.Publication Exclusive (Dis)harmonies in Mandarin Chinese(2016-01-01) Liu, MingmingThe paper discusses two types of exclusive (dis)harmonies in Mandarin. Exclusive-(dis)harmony-A—only is compatible with few but not many, and exclusive-(dis)harmony-B—only is compatible with less than n but not more than n. We suggest Exclusive-(dis)harmony-A can be explained along the lines of Chen 2005. We further propose that Exclusive-disharmony-B can be ex- plained by Maximization failure (Fox 2007). But Maximization failure rules out Exclusive-harmony-B as well. We then propose to use a scalar presupposition of jiu/zhi/only to restrict the standard Rooth-style focus alternative set. This presupposition achieves two things: it captures the scalar meaning of only, and it allows maximization to work with less than n, by filtering out problematic alternatives.Publication Language Change in Apparent and Real Time: The Community and the Individual(2005-01-01) Schilling-Estes, NataliePublication Preface(2014-03-27) Kwon, SoohyunThe University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) is an occasional series published by the Penn Linguistics Club. The series has included volumes of previously unpublished work, or work in progress, by linguists with an ongoing affiliation with the Department, as well as volumes of papers from NWAV and the Penn Linguistics Colloquium. This volume contains selected papers from the 37th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, held from March 22nd-24th, 2013 in Philadelphia, PA at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks go to the editorial board, in alphabetical order: Hezekiah Akiva Bacovcin, Haitao Cai, Mao-Hsu Chen, Eric Doty, Aaron Ecay, Sabriya Fisher, Amy Goodwin Davies, Guðrún Björg Gylfadóttir, Anton Karl Ingason, Helen Jeoung, Yong-Cheol Lee, Kobey Shwayder, Einar Freyr Sigurðsson, Elizabeth Sneller, Karen Tseng, Robert Wilder and David Wilson. Since Vol. 14.2, PWPL has been an internet-only publication. Since Vol. 13.2, PWPL has been published both in print and online gratis via ScholarlyCommons@Penn. Due to the large number of hits these online papers have received, and the time and expense of managing a back catalog of PWPL volumes, the editorial committee decided in 2008 to cease print publication in favor of wider-scale free online dissemination. Please continue citing PWPL papers or issues as you would a print journal article, though you may also provide the URL of the manuscript. An example is below: Ahern, Chris. 2014. Mergers, Migration, and Signaling. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 20.1: Proceedings of PLC 37, ed. S. Kwon, 1-10. http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol20/iss1/2 The entire back catalog has been digitized and will be available on ScholarlyCommons@Penn soon. Publication in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) does not preclude submission of papers elsewhere; copyright is retained by the author(s) of individual papers. The PWPL editors can be contacted at: U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 619 Williams Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104–6305 working-papers@ling.upenn.edu http://ling.upenn.edu/papers/pwpl.html Soohyun Kwon Issue Editor