Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium

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03/18/2010
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  • Publication
    Mandarin 'even', `all' and the Trigger of Focus Movement
    (2010-01-01) Constant, Noah; Gu, Chloe C
    This article proposes a syntax for Mandarin even/all constructions. We show that “focus movement” under ‘even’ is not deeply connected to semantic focus or stress, since the same movement occurs in the absence of focus or prosodic triggers. Rather, these movements are mediated by a feature shared across ‘even’ and ‘all’ constructions, which we propose is the maximality feature on a potentially covert operator. This result, when placed alongside findings by Horvath (2007) and Cable (2007), supports the hypothesis that A-bar “focus movement” is always operator-driven. The syntactic similarities between ‘even’ and ‘all’ in Mandarin suggest a semantics where ‘even’ is built compositionally from a non-focus-sensitive ‘all’ (dou) plus a scalar focus operator (lian). We present a preliminary semantics of this kind, and discuss some challenges it faces. Finally, we address “partial focus movement” data that are initially unexpected on our account, and show how they can be incorporated under a framework that allows copy movement and PF deletion.
  • Publication
    Too-many-solutions and Reference to Position in Serial OT
    (2010-01-01) Staroverov, Peter
    Any OT constraint banning a phonological entity in some position predicts that two types of languages should be attested: the ones which satisfy the constraint by changing the marked element and the ones where position of a marked element is modified. Yet for most such constraints, the languages which modify the marked element are attested but the ones modifying the position are not. The paper proposes a way to principally solve this problem within the framework of Serial OT. The solution consists in replacing the relevant OT constraints with constraints that specify position in the output of the previous derivational step (PS-constraints). Modifying position does not improve on PS-constraints since position in the output is irrelevant to their violation profile and position in the previous step cannot be changed by Gen. Adopting PS-constraints makes phonological theory more restrictive in a way that is compatible with the attested typology in the domain of voicing neutralization and syncope-stress interaction. The theory of PS-constraints is grounded in a precise definition of phonological position. If a constraint C mentions the elements of prosodic hierarchy both below and above the segmental level, the elements above the segmental level constitute position.
  • Publication
    Non-Reciprocal Pluraction with -Aw in Japanese: Context Dependent Pluralization of Individuals and Events
    (2010-01-01) Yamada, Masahiro
    The Japanese verbal suffix -aw appears in reciprocal and non-reciprocal pluraction sentences. The syntax of the former instance has been studied in the literature (Ishii, 1989; Nishigauchi, 1992; Nakao, 2003; Bruening, 2004, 2006), while the semantics, especially in the latter use has not been studied (cf. Yamada, 2009). I present numerous examples of the non-reciprocal pluraction use of -aw and argue for a claim that the lexical meaning of -aw has a pluralization component over individuals and events and comes with a particular context dependent domain restriction for the event pluralization. Although I cannot discuss in detail, the present study will easily extend to the reciprocal use of -aw by adapting the idea of generalized pluralization operator n* (Sternefeld, 1999). Thus, it enhances the close connection between reciprocal and relational plural (Langendoen, 1978; Sternefeld, 1998; Sauerland, 1998; Beck, 2001, among others). Furthermore, the current study claims that -aw is a linguistic expression that gives the context dependent event/situation restriction that Beck (2001) speculates for one of the interpretations of English reciprocal sentences. Thus it also argues for the pragmatic nature of the event pluralization, in addition to the individual counterpart detailed in Schwarzschild (1998).
  • Publication
    Vocatives: A Note on Addressee-Management
    (2010-01-01) Schaden, Gerhard
    The aim of this paper is to establish a semantic characterisation of vocatives, while leaving aside pragmatic and sociolinguistic considerations as far as possible. I will defend the `IPA-hypothesis' of the meaning of vocatives, that is, the hypothesis that vocatives have three basic functions: to identify the addressee(s), to predicate something on the addressee(s), and to activate the addressee(s). It will be argued that the traditional call vs. address dichotomy is insufficient.
  • Publication
    The Temporal Indeterminacy of Nasal Gestures in Karitiana
    (2010-01-01) Everett, Caleb
    In Karitiana, word-medial nasals occurring between oral vowels may surface as circum-oralized, post-oralized, or completely oralized consonants. For example, the word for ‘thing’ may surface as [ki.'dnda], [ki~.'nda], or [ki.'da]. Interestingly, this surface variation of Karitiana nasals is due to the temporal indeterminacy of nasal gestures in the language, i.e. the duration of velic aperture varies significantly across tokens. This sort of temporal indeterminacy has not been documented for any language in the literature, and similar surface variation of nasal forms in other languages has been shown to result from asynchrony between velic oscillation and oral occlusion. The author provides acoustic data that illustrate clearly the temporal indeterminacy in question. These data were recently recorded and analyzed in the field, and demonstrate conclusively that velic aperture duration is far from constant in the language. This fact contravenes expectations based on the literature, and it remains to be seen if and how it will be handled by contemporary phonological models.
  • Publication
    The Perception of Complex Onsets in English: Universal Markedness?
    (2010-01-01) Sperbeck, Mieko; Strange, Winifred
    Second language (L2) learners of English whose native languages have relatively simple syllable structure have a strong tendency to modify complex onsets in production. Past studies have shown that such modification is often correlated with sonority-based markedness. According to this principle, the marked bi-consonantal sequences are such that the sonority distance between the first consonant and the subsequent consonant is relatively small. For instance, /pl/ is considered to be less marked than /bl/ since the former has larger sonority distance. A question of interest here is whether such “markedness” would be applicable to the perception of complex onsets by Japanese-speaking learners of English. The current study tested Japanese L2 learners and American English controls in a categorial ABX discrimination test of 8 contrasts between nonsense words with consonant cluster onsets CC(C)VCV vs. CVC(C)VCV sequences (e.g., /spani/ vs. /sepani/) and included /sp, sk, pl, bl, kl, gl, spl, skl/ clusters. Results showed that overall accuracy by Japanese listeners was significantly poorer than for the Americans (72 % and 98% correct, respectively). Certain clusters were harder for Japanese listeners (e.g., 76% correct for /pl/ but 64% for /bl/). However, in general, relative difficulty was not accurately predicted by sonority-based markedness. Alternative hypotheses for relative perceptual difficulties include the acoustic characteristics of the stimulus materials and effects of native phonological structures.
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  • Publication
    On the Categorial Status of French à/de ce que
    (2010-01-01) Authier, J. Marc; Reed, Lisa A
  • Publication
  • Publication
    The Licensing of Pronominal Features in WCO and OPC Configurations
    (2010-01-01) Falco, Michelangelo
    I argue that Weak Crossover and Overt Pronoun Constraint effects show up systematically only with non-specific wh-phrases. To account for this contrast, I propose an analysis based on the following condition for binding: features on bound pronouns must be licensed under c-command by features of their binders, therefore binders must be endowed (at least) with all the features of the pronouns they bind.