This article proposes a novel account of noun incorporation in NorthernIroquoian. It is proposed that there is no special mechanism for nounincorporation and that this phenomenon falls out naturally from the geometry ofthe phrase structure under Moro’s theory of Dynamic Antisymmetry. In anutshell, when the verbal head and the nominal head undergo Merge, they form apoint of symmetric c-command, which is resolved by the nominal head moving tothe specifier of the verb phrase. Further, it is proposed that, in nounincorporation constructions with a full DP double, the incorporated noun and theDP form a constituent, which is merged in theta-position.

This study examines the relationship between lexical frequency ands-lenition in Barranquillero Spanish, looking at lexicalfrequency as a scalar variable. A quantitative analysis of /s/in words of different lexical frequencies, in which productions from a readingtask were submitted to auditory acoustical analysis, reveals that the singlemost important factor in s-lenition is lexical frequency. Speakers tend towardsa full articulation of /s/ in low-frequency words, while weakening it inhigh-frequency words. This study addresses three questions: Do subtledifferences in lexical frequency influence how sounds are producedsynchronically? What are the advantages of considering lexical frequency inscalar terms as opposed to a categorical variable (high vs. low-frequency)? Whatis the relationship between lexical frequency and other linguistic factors?

This article considers the origin of distinctly“québécois” phonological traits. Using data from theAtlas linguistique de l’Est du Canada (1980), theanalysis examines the geographic distribution and history of twovariables—/t/ and /d/ affrication and high vowel laxing —establishing that both are innovations of Canadian French, spreading from theinfluential urban centre of Montreal. In addition, the supposed uniformity ofCanadian French and the robustness of the east-west dialect boundary aredisputed. Finally, the article draws from data on two additional variables— the replacement of apical [r] by posterior [R] and the diphthongizationof/ε:/ and /e:/ — to tie the nature of linguistic diffusion to thedegree of consciousness of the change in question. The findings and model arerelevant not only for the study of the origin and description of CanadianFrench, but also more broadly for the field of dialect geography.

This article examines whether L2 acquisition of morphology and syntax developsindependently (the Separation Hypothesis) or not (the Rich AgreementHypothesis), focusing on the acquisition of Number specification on certainSpanish quantifiers by French speakers. In Spanish, some quantifiers arespecified for Number and directly precede the head noun, in contrast to theirFrench counterparts where a dummy preposition de must appearinside the DP. Results from a grammaticality judgement task and a productiontask show that intermediate and advanced learners perform poorly on pluralinflection with some quantifiers, and reject the use of de.This suggests that they have acquired Number specification on these quantifiers,which allows Case marking on the following noun, but do not produce theappropriate morphology. These results support the Separation Hypothesis, but notthe Rich Agreement Hypothesis.

This article focuses on whether determiner omission by two-year-old children isconstrained at the level of the prosodic foot or whether it is a function of thedifferent levels of the prosodic hierarchy. Nine French-speaking children aged2;0 to 2;7 were asked to repeat 54 four- or five-word sentences of the form“Pronoun V NP” with three conditions: a) det + monosyllabicnoun; b) det + bisyllabic noun; c) det + monosyllabic adjective+ monosyllabic noun. The results show 1) more determiner omission incondition b than in a; 2) more determiner omission in c than in b. It is shownthat determiner omission is not accounted for by a low-level stress-alternationconstraint and that the level of prosodic structure to which the determiner isattached plays a role in determiner omission.

This study examines the L2 acquisition and LI attrition of preterite versusimperfect aspectual distinctions in Spanish among English-speaking L2 learnersand long-term Spanish-speaking immigrants. Results from an acceptabilityjudgment task and a truth value judgment task demonstrate significantly lowerlevels of target performance by both groups when compared to the controlparticipants. The L2 learners outperform the native speakers undergoingattrition in some aspectual contexts, while in others both experimental groupsshow similar difficulties. To the extent that L2 learners and adult immigrantsdemonstrate comparable difficulties, L2 learners’ deficits cannot bedirectly related to impairment reasons. LI transfer of the semantic propertiesof tense heads offers a better explanation for the difficulties L2 learnersoften show in the aspectual domain.

The postwar decades are well known for having brought dramatic change to American linguistics on many fronts. This paper explores an internally focused aspect of this change: conditions of explanation. The two questions at stake are, firstly, what counts as explanation in linguistics? and, secondly, how is this decided? I argue that transformational grammarians dominated the setting of explanatory criteria in 1960s American syntax, and that this dominance was essential to the overall success of that theory. Importantly, rival grammarians were forced to devote as much time and effort to fitting their theories to the transformational criteria as they were to advancing their own explanatory priorities. By successfully naming the conditions for explanation, transformationalists provided their own supporters with significant questions to pursue and, simultaneously, drew energy away from rivals. This monopoly over explanatory criteria was central to the dominant position transformational grammar established in the American academic linguistics community.

The aim of this paper is threefold: descriptive, methodological and theoretical. It offers a distinctive collexeme analysis of two pairs of near-synonymous complex prepositions (sous le coup de SN/sous le choc de SN; sous l’emprise de SN/sous l’empire de SN), completed by a qualitative analysis. The analysis of the statistically significant co-occurrents suggests that sous le coup de has a more abstract and general meaning than sous le choc de, while the semantics of the second pair are less differentiated. The analysis touches upon several methodological issues; thus, examination of the problem addressed allows for assessment of the method. It also shows that the collostructional analysis offers an interesting contribution to the debate on the existence of a constructional semantics by identifying repelled collexemes that may yield coercion effects.

This article reexamines the puzzling issue of where subjects, lexical and null,are located in Spanish and offers a novel explanation for the incompatibility ofpreverbal lexical subjects with fronted focussed constituents. Both SpecIP andthe left periphery appear to be potential landing sites for subjects, accordingto discourse-pragmatic factors. Assuming that pro is a clitic,it is argued that the aforementioned incompatibility can be captured by a simplerule: SpecIP must be empty for focus fronting to occur. This is the case withpro, which adjoins to Infl, or with postverbal subjectssince they remain in SpecVP. From this analysis it follows that: 1) the subjectfield in Spanish is less articulated than is generally assumed, 2) thedifferences between Spanish and other null subject languages with respect to theavailability of preverbal subjets can be reduced to this rule and a differentordering of focus and topic phrases, and 3) it is unnecessary to posit twodifferent topic positions.

This study investigates the acquisition of English (primary) word stress by native speakers of Canadian French, with focus on the trochaic foot and the alignment of its head with heavy syllables. L2 learners and native English speakers produced disyllabic and trisyllabic nonsense nouns. The participants with consistent stress patterns were grouped according to their prosodic grammar, and their productions were analyzed acoustically. The results indicate that the L2 learners who failed to align the head of the trochaic foot with the heavy syllable realized stress with higher pitch. Conversely, the L2 learners who aligned the head of the trochaic foot with the heavy syllable realized non-initial stress by lengthening the syllable. Surprisingly, the native speakers produced higher pitch on the initial syllable irrespective of stress, and they used length to realize stress oh the heavy syllable. These findings suggest that L2 learners may have reached different prosodic grammars as a result of attending to distinct acoustic cues to English stress.

Certain Peninsular Spanish varieties have two third-person plural forms in thesimple past indicative of verbs with ‘strong’ (stem-stressed)preterites. While this phenomenon is documented in large-scale linguistic atlassurveys, its current geographic distribution and diachronic origins remainunder-studied. This paper sets out to: 1) establish the geographic distributionof these variants; the differing methodologies and epochs of the data sourcesmake them particularly interesting to compare, showing that these analogicalstrong preterites have suffered a drastic decline over the last century; 2) usehistorical corpus data to show that the vernacular variant is by no means arecent phenomenon; 3) examine external history as a source of explanation inlinguistic reconstruction, showing that this process of analogical levellingtook place after the reconquest and resettlement of these regions. Thesefindings support the hypothesis of a feature which spread over the centuries bylinguistic diffusion.

The Michif language, while distinct from both Cree and French, combines a largelyFrench-based nominal complex with a largely Cree-based verbal system. The syntaxof negation cuts across these dimensions. Declarative sentences in Michif showthe Cree-based negator namô and the French-basednô interchangeably. (This is also the only contextfor pas.) Imperatives, by contrast, demand the Cree-basedêkâ (ya) exclusively.

In subordinate clauses, Michif permits either êkâor nô. In Cree, all such constructions require thedeontic negator êkâ. The integration of the twoCree-based negation types and the French-based no andpas into a single new system in Michif poses not onlyproblems of constituency and syntactic analysis. It also raises once again thethorny question of balance: Is the imbrication of Cree and French symmetrical,or is one of the two languages dominant?

This study provides the first wide-scale, apparent time, instrumental descriptionof the Canadian Shift in mainstream Toronto English. In contrast with someprevious findings, the Toronto data suggest that for the last 70 years or morethe shift has not affected the high front lax vowel (i). We observe that themovement of the nonhigh front lax vowels (ε) and (æ) involves bothlowering and retraction in Toronto English, although retraction is the primarydirection of more recent change and the shift appears to be slowing down. Ourfindings also suggest that continued retraction of the vowel resulting from thelow back merger is involved in the final stage of the shift. We do not findevidence of a chain shift but instead propose that a parallel shift is occurringand make reference to Vowel Dispersion Theory in our discussion.

This study investigates the complexity of the mapping task in children’s acquisition of the Spanish subjunctive in temporal clauses. We consider that children’s difficulty with this task arises from the interaction between mood and other elements determining the evaluation of the temporal clause, such as semantic factors, tense, and cognition. Forty monolingual Spanish-speaking children first completed a cognitive assessment test, evaluating false belief understanding; this was followed by a linguistic prerequisite test assessing understanding of temporal connectors and knowledge of subjunctive morphology, and finally a temporal clause production task. Results reveal that mood selection in temporal clauses does not simply start with indicative followed by its replacement by subjunctive. On the contrary, the use of subjunctive temporal clauses involves a complex process for children in which tense corresponds to a fundamental source of bootstrapping. These results confirm the view that the acquisition of mood selection undergoes a protracted development. Spanish subjunctive meanings are not immediately accessible to children.

Subject honorification is one well-known diagnostic for subjecthood in Japanese,and is often thought to target “subjects”. In this squib, I willprovide a little more structurally oriented characterization of subjecthonorification, and propose that subject honorification involves agreementlicensed at the level of vP: that is, subject honorification is rendered licitwhen an honorific head successfully agrees with an argument located in Spec ofvP, comprising the honorific verb. It is suggested that the target of subjecthonorification can be defined without reference to the notion of“subject”, and that the “subject” orientation ofsubject honorification emerges as a natural consequence of vP-level agreement.The proposed analysis can capture one important exception for the“subject-orientation” generalization on subject honorification,which would remain unaccounted for if subject honorification were held to targetonly subjects. The facts of subject honorification also lead to the conclusionthat when arguments undergo A-movement to TP, they need to go through all typesof vPs in the clause.