Predicate union and the syntax of Japanese passives

This paper presents a relational account of the Japanese constructions that are commonly referred to as ‘passives’. They are shown to all be multipredicate, monoclausal constructions, with the differences between them primarily attributable to optionality in the lexical argument structure of the ‘passive’ predicate. The proposed analysis explains the differences between passives and causatives, despite their sometimes identical case-marking. Further, evidence from the interaction of unaccusative verbs and passive is shown to lead to a formal revision of the 1-Advancement Exclusiveness law. Finally, the differences between Japanese and Korean with respect to passives is reduced to a simple lexical difference between the two languages

History of linguistics as a path to dissertation progress and contextualization of research

In our doctoral program (one which largely trains students in sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and L2 acquisition, rather than phonological, syntactic, and semantic theory), history of linguistics leads students to a deeper understanding of linguistics than is possible without it. Through this course, our students gain, in one semester rather than several, a broad perspective on the evolution of linguistic theories and methodologies. The course also serves as an opportunity for students to delve into the history of their own subfield and for them to frame the literature review portion of their own dissertation. The outcome of having this course is that our graduates have a broader perspective on general linguistics than they would have if they remained entirely focused on their own specialization, and that they come to understand where their own doctoral research program fits in the wider discipline of linguistics. Note: A video of the session in which this was presented and the associated slide deck are available in the foreword to this issue.

Predicate union and the syntax of Japanese causatives

This paper presents a monoclausal, multipredicate analysis of Japanese causatives, adopting the fundamental assumptions of Relational Grammar. Evidence is provided for the existence of two distinct classes of causatives, distinguished on the basis of the agentivity of the matrix subject. It is also demonstrated that the surface case marking of the causee is constrained by its relative status to the matrix subject with respect to a set of Proto-Agent entailments (as proposed in Dowty 1991)

Foreword: Special issue on teaching history of linguistics in the 21st century

This special issue of Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (PLSA) contains papers presented during an organized session on teaching history of linguistics in the 21st century at the 2024 LSA Annual Meeting. The session was organized as a session of the North American Association for the History of Language Sciences (NAAHoLS) with the aim of surveying current approaches to teaching history of linguistics and the provision of resources and insights for those who wish to do so themselves

Double Modal Syntactic Patterns as Single Modal Interactions

Double modal constructions (DMCs) such as \u27I might could get it for you\u27 are employed by speakers of Southern American and African American English. These constructions appear to counter-exemplify traditional analyses of English modal structure which typically (i) allow only one tensed element per clause and (ii) locate modal auxiliaries only in the tensed position. Previous analyses have attempted to account for these structures by treating DMs as single lexical units (Di Paolo, 1989), or by treating one of the two modals as a non-modal (Turner, 1981; Battistella, 1995; Marrano, 1998; Van Gelderen, 2003). Di Paolo’s lexicalist analysis is contraindicated by the separability of the constituent modals, while the others are contradicted by the modals’ tense-like behavior. Following observations in McDowell (1987), we claim that \u27might,\u27 \u27may,\u27 and \u27must\u27 (in their epistemic readings) are sentential polarity operators (P-modals). P-modals head a POLP (Cormack and Smith, 2002), must raise at LF to take scope over the proposition, and may also bear Tense (in which case they move to T at LF). V-modals (i.e., all other modals) head VP and behave as AUX verbs, moving to T overtly when they bear Tense. Under this account, both modals in the DMC can be analyzed as true modals, behaving exactly as they would in a single modal construction. They are, at the same time, syntactically distinct, and the properties of the DMC result from the interactions between these two modal types

Concealed passives and the syntax and semantics of need/philyo in English and Korean

Despite similar argument structure, the syntax of English need and Korean philyo contrasts, illuminating differences in lexical derivation and insertion of argument-taking elements. Verbs need, require, deserve, want, and bear take gerundive complements that are "understood passively" (Jesperson 1927/1954:112[9.23]) and called concealed passive constructions (CPCs) (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:1429). In this paper, we argue that in English, the gerund CPC object of need is a lexically passivized V that takes a nominalizing derivational -ing affix, whereas in Korean, the CPC object of philyo is a verbal noun, directly inserted as a complement of the verb without derivation

Subjacency effects on overt wh-movement in wh-in-situ languages: Evidence for nominal structure

This paper investigates whether overt wh-movement in Korean, a wh-in-situ language, triggers Subjacency violations in the same set of bounding configurations as English. Yoon (2013) and Jung (2015) showed that Korean wh-islands display Subjacency effects, and we ask whether the Complex NP and Coordinate Structure Constraints are also observed. We find that they are not. We propose that this is because Korean nominal expressions need not project DP. Our analysis supports previous accounts of Korean nominal structure (Kim et al. 2010), which suggest (based on optionality of determiners) that “Korean NP structure is non-configurational or lacks the category D.

L2 interpretation of negative polar questions: Evidence from online experiments

This paper studies Korean L2 English learners’ responses to negative polar questions (NPQs – i.e., negative yes-no questions), focusing on the differences between EFL learners (those learning English as a foreign language in Korea) and ESL learners (those learning English as US residents). The paper first considers differences in the syntax and semantics of Korean and English NPQs, differences that may lead to misinterpretations when questions are translated from one language to the other. The paper then describes a series of experiments comparing Korean EFL and ESL learners’ responses to English polar questions, focusing on measuring participants’ response times (RTs) and unexpected responses (UERs) to distinct classes of these

The effects of focus on scope relations between quantifiers and negation in Korean

This paper addresses the effects of focus-marking (i.e. nun-marking) on the scope of quantified expressions in Korean negation constructions and shows how these inform the analysis of Korean negation constructions generally. Specifically, highlighting the "Rigid Scope" properties of Korean (in contrast with English), focus-marking in Korean negation constructions eliminates quantifier/negative scope ambiguities. In all cases but one, a focus-marked element has scope over all others. The anomalous case involving contrastive focus of object universal quantifiers brings the semantics of quantifiers into opposition with the semantics of contrastive focus