Journal Issue: Proceedings of the 46th Annual Penn Linguistics Conference
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2023
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Publication How Abstract is the Abstract Noun? Gender Agreement in Russian Restrictive Relative Clauses(2023-01-01) Bikina, DariaMixed gender agreement has been widely discussed in Russian linguistics. Most work on this topic considers hybrid nouns - animate nouns that can refer to both male and female individuals and can bear the agreement patterns reflecting either the initial gender value of these nouns or the gender value of their context referent (Wechsler and Zlati ́c 2003, Pereltsvaig 2006, Matushansky 2013, Pesetsky 2013, Rappaport 2013, Landau 2015). However, agreement with other elements that can refer to both male and female individuals, such as non-gendered pronouns, has not received much theoretical attention. This paper analyses mixed agreement in constructions involving the interrogative/relative pronoun kto ‘who’. Although in most cases, kto ‘who’ triggers default masculine agreement, sometimes the agreement target reflects the initial gender of the referent of the pronoun.Publication Gèng: A Coercive Comparative Marker in Mandarin Chinese(2023-01-01) Chen, ZhuangMandarin Chinese geng is often translated as “even more” in the literature. Previous studies mainly concentrate on cases where geng combines with a gradable predicate, under which circumstance geng has been long observed to trigger an evaluative inference that both the comparison standard and the comparison target are above the norm on the scale associated with the gradable predicate. To account for this observation, geng has been variously argued to be a degree intensifier, a modifier for gradable adjectives that carries a presupposed comparison, or a comparative morpheme with an evaluative presupposition. These accounts all assume, covertly or overtly, the presence of a gradable predicate for geng to combine with in the syntax. Liu (2010) notes that geng, puzzlingly, can also combine with non-gradable predicates, which poses a challenge to all such accounts. We pick up this puzzle and make two follow-up observations that (a) geng operates on a context-dependent scale when combining with predicates that are non-gradable and non-scalar and (b) geng, in such cases, is norm-sensitive in that it requires both its hosting proposition and the contextually salient, preceding proposition to indicate a degree above the norm on that relevant scale. To account for all the observations, we adopt Liu’s (2010) suggestion that geng has a comparative component and a presupposed evaluative component as its semantics, but more than that, we suggest that geng is uniformly a coercive and thus super flexible comparative marker that forcibly establishes an ordering relation between compared items. To meet its drive of imposing the ordering relation, geng manipulates different elements in its semantic core but is subject to an economy-driven semantic principle, so no over-generation occurs. This study contributes to our understanding of Mandarin comparatives and has some comparatives-related implications regarding e.g. degree abstraction in general.Publication L1 Influence of Initial Stop Consonants in Malaysian English(2023-01-01) Ng, Bee Kee; Chiew, Poh ShinL1 Influence on Initial Stop Consonants in Malaysian English As many postcolonial countries retain English for internal use following their independence, a 'new' English is formed with the influence of local varieties. Malaysian English is one of the Southeast Asian Englishes that has experienced long-term language contact and linguistic integration. Nevertheless, a lack of contribution in the phonological aspect of Southeast Asian Englishes is noticed. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the L1 influence on the English initial stop consonants produced by the three major ethnic groups in Malaysia and the extent of cross-linguistic influence. Voice onset time (VOT) and closure duration are investigated in four groups: Malay-English bilinguals (n=10), Mandarin-English bilinguals (n=10), Tamil-English bilinguals (n=10) and British monolinguals (n=9). The bilinguals' English results are compared with their L1s and British English. Findings show the data distribution of English initial stop consonants produced by the bilingual groups lie at an intermediate position between L1s and British English, indicating cross-linguistic influence. While all bilingual groups reflect weaker voicing contrast in the English initial stop production, Malay-English bilinguals and Tamil-English bilinguals show smaller data variability and greater resemblance to respective L1s whereas Mandarin-English bilinguals display greater data variability and greater resemblance to L2. A linear mixed effects model analysis confirms the findings. However, the contrast of closure duration between two voicing categories is observed in all bilingual groups except for the British monolinguals. Hence, this leads us to question the role and weight of VOT and closure duration as an acoustic cue or perceptual cue for voicing discrimination among the Malaysian English bilingual speakers.Publication What Morphological Form Can Tell us about Syntactic Structure: Two Analyses of Associative Plurals(2023-01-01) Lewis, BeccyThis paper is concerned with the syntactic structure of associative plurals (APs) and in particular APs in those languages that use the ordinary plural marker as the associative marker, dubbed plural pattern languages (e.g. Turkish -lAr functions as both ordinary plural and associative plural on proper names; Ahmet-ler is ambigious between 'multiple Ahmets' and 'Ahmet and his associates'). A novel typological generalization about plural pattern languages is established: they either have affixal definite articles or lack definite articles. In light of this, a new analysis of APs in plural pattern languages is proposed whereby this pattern is derived via movement of the Number head. It is shown that a movement-based approach to the plural pattern both deduces the novel typological generalization and solves a long-standing puzzle regarding a restriction against plural possessor agreement with APs in plural pattern languages.Publication Linguistic Landscape of Howrah: A Comparative Study of Two Regions in a Multilingual City(2023-01-01) Kole, TanyaThis paper aims to study the linguistic landscape of multilingual Howrah, comparing two regions specifically, in order to analyse the variations between areas speaking different languages. The two regions have been chosen such that one is occupied by speakers of the majority language Bangla, while the other is inhabited by non-Bangla communities. These minorities exist in the face of extreme linguistic nationalism by the majority Bengali community. For the linguistic landscape study, all posters, billboards, advertisements, shop names, graffiti on walls, official signboards, traffic signs, address plates, building names, and all other static text were considered, regardless of size. It was assumed that Bangla and English would be the most frequently sighted languages in both the areas, with lower presence of Bangla in the non-Bangla region. The study confirmed this idea, wherein Bangla, English, Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit were found in the study areas, with the predominance of English and Bangla. The non-Bangla area had an overwhelmingly high number of English signs, which also points towards the significance of English in contemporary Indian society.Publication ATB Movement and Parasitic Gaps: From the Perspective of Head Movement(2023-01-01) Lee, Tommy Tsz-MingThis paper explores a less discussed aspect of head movement by examining two constructions, namely, Across-the-board (ATB) movement and Parasitic Gaps. I reveal an asymmetry between the two configurations: ATB head movement of verbs is attested in Cantonese, but Parasitic Gaps for verbal heads are not. I propose that the unavailability of PGs for verbal heads is not due to the head status of the moving elements: they are ruled out because the possible types for operators are independently restricted. The findings suggest (i) that there is no substantial counter evidence for the unity of movement from PG constructions, and (ii) that ATB movement and PG constructions should receive non-uniform treatment.Publication Encoding Causation and Aspect into Inflectional Domain: Syntax of Causation and Backward Control in Burmese(2023-01-01) Ishii, KeitaThis paper investigates syntax of causation in Burmese, an understudied language spoken in Myanmar, with a special focus on one type of causative construction in Burmese. It largely resembles English object control verb force, but shows two interesting properties which differ from English force: (i) it involves an infinitival clause marker which causation and aspect are encoded in, and (ii) it displays a property of backward control. This paper documents and analyzes the causative construction in Burmese, aiming to provide new data and perspectives to develop formal syntactic theory of causation and control.Publication Non-agreeing Resumptive Pronouns and Partial Copy Deletion(2023-01-01) Yip, Ka-Fai; Ahenkorah, ComfortThis paper investigates how Copy Deletion may apply partially through the lens of non-agreeing resumptive pronouns in two typologically unrelated languages Cantonese and Akan (Asante Twi). We show that there are two types of resumptive pronouns in both languages, agreeing and non-agreeing resumptive pronouns (RPs). Their morphological forms correlate with syntactic properties: non-agreeing RPs resemble movement traces, whereas agreeing RPs behave like base-generated pronouns. Assuming Late Insertion of Vocabulary Items in Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993 et seq.), we propose that Copy Deletion applies partially to lower copies of movement chains, whose residue is realized as a default, non-agreeing RP (on a par with recent discoveries in van Urk 2018, Scott 2021, Georgi & Amaechi 2022). The findings not only shed light on how movement chains may be linearized (cf. Nunes 2004), but also suggests that resumption should receive a non-uniform treatment.Publication Reflexivization, Intransitivity, and Voice(2023-01-01) Paparounas, LefterisFor languages like Greek, where `affixal’ reflexives share their verbal morphology with passives, unaccusatives, middles, and experiencer verbs, a long-standing intuition holds that these reflexives are unaccusative. I provide novel evidence supporting this generalization, showing that the single overt argument in Greek reflexives is a) a deep object and b) the only argument in the structure. I argue that the morphosyntax of reflexives, their interpretive properties, and restrictions on reflexivization all follow from the fact that reflexivity is tied to the agent-introducing head Voice in Greek.Publication How Various Frame Setters Restrict Interpretations of Contextual Comparisons(2023-01-01) Oda, ToshikoThis study focuses on contextual comparisons that have received much less attention than standard more-than-comparisons. The purpose of this study is to expand the scope of Hohaus’ (2015) framework and enrich it by adding various types of frame phrases that bring different types of degree relations in presuppositions. It is demonstrated that the relations between frame phrases and their main clauses are rule-governed as predicted by Hohaus’ (2015) framework; an asserted degree relation holds only when it satisfies the degree relation in the presupposition brought by its frame phrase(s). Relevant data will be provided in English and Japanese.
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