Proceedings of the 40th Annual Penn Linguistics Conference
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Publication Toward the Parameter Hierarchy of Embedded Imperatives(2017-01-01) Saito, HiroakiThis paper investigates cross-linguistic variation in embedded imperatives in terms of syntactic environments in which they can(not) appear, focusing on the availability of embedded imperatives in the clausal complement of verbs and nouns, and relative clauses. I demonstrate that there are four distinct types of languages regarding the possibility of embedded imperatives. I also suggest that there is an implicational relation among these types, which is captured through a parameter hierarchy.Publication “I didn’t drink and drove a car” Neg Expresses Eccentric Triplets(2017-01-01) Yoda, Yusuke; Kobayashi, RyoichiroThis paper aims to propose an account of the scope between negation and VP-coordination in Japanese. We investigate a scope puzzle between negation and VP-coordination, which has been unexplained. We claim that VP-coordination and negation have three readings: (i) Suspended Affixation Reading (neg > VP1 > VP2); (ii) non-Suspended Affixation Reading (VP1 > neg > VP2); and (iii) the third reading (VP2 > neg > VP1), which has been unnoticed. This reading is yielded via the phase-based interpretation system, as well as De Morgan’s Law, which only applies to negation.Publication The Particle Mo in Japanese and its Roles in Numeral Indeterminate Phrases(2017-01-01) Mohri, FumioThe main purpose of this paper is to provide an appropriate explanation for the so-called numeral indeterminate (NI) constructions, in which mo is accompanied by an indeterminate pronoun+ Cl(assifier). The quirky character of this construction is that apparently mo is applied to the denotation of a numeral indeterminate nan-nin as a syntactic binder and at the same it invokes a scalar reading. The assumption that mo should be a syntactic binder can be corroborated from the fact that the NI construction is degraded without the particle mo. Also mo as a scalar particle attributes an implicit large reading. This large reading can also be observed in cases where the indeterminate is replaced by a specific numeral, e,g, yo-nin-mo ‘four-Cl-mo’. To the best of my knowledge, Kobuchi-Philip (2010) and Oda (2012) are the only works that deal with this construction. Especially Oda extensively discusses every possible means to explain this construction and works out a solution by assuming that the suffix mo functions multiply as an existential quantifier and a scalar particle. Through this paper, I will support her claim for its double functions, but I will clarify that the functions are both derived from a core semantic property of mo, namely, maximality. In other words, these functions work individually, but the component of maximality is placed in the center of the semantics of both usages.Publication Multi-Value Asymmetry in Number Agreement and Concord(2017-01-01) Shen, ZhengIn this paper I present cross-linguistic data of NRNR, TP RNR, and composed plurality to argue for the multi-value asymmetry between the N and the T domain. I propose that the asymmetry can be accounted for by assuming that T heads have multiple unvalued number features while N heads have only one. The proposal is compatible with the unified Agree analysis of concord and agreement and it is further supported by the mismatch cases of multi-valuation.Publication Preface(2017-01-01) Djärv, Kajsa; Goodwin Davies, AmyThe University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL) is an occasional series published by the Penn Graduate Linguistics Society. 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/Conference. This volume contains selected papers from the 40th Penn Linguistics Conference, held from March 18-20, 2016 in Philadelphia, PA, at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks go to Luke Adamson, Faruk Akkuş, Hezekiah Akiva Bacovcin, Ryan Budnick, Spencer Caplan, Andrea Ceolin, Nattanun Chanchaochai, Mao-Hsu Chen, Sunghye Cho, Ava Creemers, Aletheia Cui, Sabriya Fisher, Duna Gylfadottir, Ava Irani, Helen Jeoung, Jordan Kodner, Wei Lai, Ruaridh Purse, Nari Rhee, Caitlin Richter, Milena Šereikaitė, Einar Freyr Sigurðsson, Betsy Sneller, Lacey Arnold Wade, and Robert J. Wilder for their help in editing. Since Vol. 14.2, PWPL has been an internet-only publication. As of September 2014, the entire back catalog has been digitized and made available on ScholarlyCommons@Penn. 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: Akkuş, Faruk and Balkız Öztürk. 2017. On Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic. In University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 23.1, ed. Djärv, Kajsa and Amy Goodwin Davies, 1-10. Available at: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss1/2 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, Department of Linguistics, 3401-C Walnut Street, Suite 300, C Wing, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228 and working-papers@ling.upenn.edu. Kajsa Djärv and Amy Goodwin Davies, Issue EditorsPublication Speech Act Phrase, Conjectural Questions, and Hearer(2017-01-01) Oguro, TakeshiSpeech Act Phrase is proposed by Speas and Tenny (2003) as a projection hosting discourse roles such as Speaker and Hearer. Miyagawa (2012) argues for its existence by looking at Japanese WH-questions. His proposal is that the politeness marker motivates the presence of Hearer, which is necessary in information-seeking questions. In this paper, I deal with conjectural questions, which do not require the presence of Hearer, and argue for the relevance of Speaker to them. In particular, I examine the behavior of yara-conjectural questions and daroo ka-conjectural questions. I suggest that they contain a modal projection, whose Spec hosts a Point-of-View operator, whose value is determined by the closest c-commanding sentient element. In conjectural questions, Speaker is the only relevant c-commander, since they are typically uttered in soliloquy. I also consider polite versions of such questions, which involve Hearer. Despite the presence of Hearer, which is due to the presence of a politeness marker, the conjectural question interpretation is allowed in these questions. This is, I argue, because in these questions, unlike in information-seeking questions, Hearer is positioned lower than CP, which makes Speaker the only sentient c-commander of the Point-of-View operator. This analysis can be applied to cover the pattern of Jussive clauses as well.Publication Social and Structural Constraints on a Phonetically-Motivated Change in Progress: (str) Retraction in Raleigh, NC(2017-01-01) Wilbanks, EricThe current project examines the status of (str) retraction, an ongoing, phonetically-motivated sound change, in the Raleigh, NC corpus of sociolinguistic interviews (Dodsworth & Kohn, 2012). Investigating the status of this sound change in apparent time, acoustic analyses of 140 Raleigh-natives was carried out. All tokens of /s/ and /S/ were automatically extracted and the spectral characteristics of the resulting 99,150 tokens were analyzed. Results demonstrate the retracted variant in the speech of the youngest Raleigh women and it is argued that the emergence of (str) retraction in the community in the 1960s corresponds with massive demographic shifts caused by urbanization and immigration from the North. While the specific causes of (str) retraction, whether it reflects a diffusion of an externally developed change or the community-internal innovation based on clear phonetic motivation, is unclear, the variant is clearly an emergent phenomenon of Raleigh speech. Additionally, it is argued that medial word position was the locus for actuation of the sound change and remains the environment which most strongly favors the retracted variants. This structural constraint has been observed in other communities but its role as the position in which change began has previously only been hypothesized. At the level of the community, (str) retraction is still heavily restricted and its spread to other linguistic environments and into the systems of other speakers is currently unfolding. These data, in addition to improving our knowledge of the sociolinguistic characteristics of Raleigh's speech, inform our understanding of the overarching principles governing the progression of sound change.Publication Measuring Cross-Linguistic Influence in First- and Second-Generation Bilinguals: ERP vs. Acceptability Judgments(2017-01-01) Martohardjono, Gita; Phillips, Ian; Madsen, Christen N.; Otheguy, Ricardo; Schwartz, Richard G.; Shafer, Valerie L.Two types of Spanish-English bilinguals were tested in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment on a contrast in the two languages exemplified in (1) and (2) in order to investigate linguistic permeability during processing of Spanish (1a and 2a). In Spanish, but not English, absence of the complementizer que is ungrammatical. (1) a. Qué hermana confesó Inés que había comido la tarta? b. *What sister did Inés confess that had eaten the cake? (2) a. *Qué hermana confesó Inés Ø había comido la tarta? b. What sister did Inés confess Ø had eaten the cake? In a first analysis, we grouped subjects by generation and compared ERP responses to que-less vs. que-full sentences. A significant N400 effect was found for first-, but not second-generation, suggesting reduced sensitivity to missing que for the latter. However, a second analysis, using linear mixed modeling to test predictiveness of individual speaker variables revealed generation to be non-predictive of N400 amplitude. Instead, current language use, cumulative exposure to English, and socioeconomic status (SES) were significant predictors for all subjects: increased English use, exposure, and SES resulted in smaller N400 amplitude to the anomaly in Spanish shown in (2a). Our results show that a priori classification of bilinguals masks gradient cross-linguistic effects, and processing is permeable in all bilinguals depending on amount of language use. Results from an acceptability judgment task administered to the same subjects using a subset of the same stimuli show that both subject groups judge que-less and que-full to be equally natural. These results suggest that behavioral measures that rely on metalinguistic judgments may not be good indicators of processing, and that having to appeal to metalinguistic knowledge may mask intrinsic knowledge.Publication Morphosyntactic Interleaving in Vietnamese and Pacoh(2017-01-01) Shwayder, KobeyInterleaving, a surface configuration in some languages in which the parts of two adjacent words are interspersed with each other, has been argued to be a phonological phenomenon. In this paper, I investigate interleaving in Vietnamese and a related language, Pacoh (Katuic, Mon-Khmer), and argue that it is the result of morphosyntactic operations and structures and not a phonological operation. I present three pieces of evidence that interleaving is morphosyntactic in nature: (i) interleaving cannot apply to all syllables, only those in certain morphosyntactic environments; (ii) interleaving manipulates polysyllabic units and can apply to 3-part compounds, showing that it is manipulating morphosyntactic structure and not phonological structure; and (iii) interleaving creates extra syntactic-semantic force, suggesting a change in the syntax. I propose an analysis in which interleaving is the result of the structure of coordinate compounds, whose members have no precedence relation with each other, in combination with an alternate traversal of the syntactic tree during linearization.Publication Variants of Indonesian Prepositions as Intra-speaker Variability at PF(2017-01-01) Jeoung, Helen; Biggs, AlisonThis paper discusses the formal representation of morphosyntactic intra-speaker variability in a modular grammar. It presents novel data from Indonesian functional prepositions that exhibit unusual variability in form. It is shown that oleh ‘by’ and dengan ‘with’ may either (i) be phonologically unrealized (Preposition-drop), a process sensitive to syntactic structure, or (ii) may be realized as sama ‘by/with,’ a variant speakers use in an informal style. We establish that it is necessary to invoke distinct processes to formally introduce these outputs: Indonesian preposition-drop is argued to reflect a morphophonological variable deletion rule, while style-shifting is modeled as competition in use of lexical inventories. The variable realization of Indonesian prepositions indicates that it is possible to identify distinct variable processes (competition and variable rules), here operating over a single morphosyntactic item. The appeal to two variable processes follows in part from the nature of the factors (internal or external to the grammar) that condition variability, but we argue that it also follows if implementation additionally obeys constraints imposed by the grammatical architecture. Finally, we find that, in order to maintain modularity, variable processes may have distinct loci in the post-syntactic derivation.