The acquisition of Japanese nominal modifying constructions by non native speakers

Esta tesis trata de la adquisición de los modificadores nominales en japonés como segunda lengua (L2) y de un fenómeno que se observa en el proceso de la adquisición en el que los aprendices de L2 ocasionalmente insertan un no entre el modificador oracional y el sustantivo núcleo. Dicho fenómeno es interesante porque se manifiesta en distintas construcciones, los hablantes que producen el no no nativo proceden de distintas lenguas maternas (L1) y porque los niños japoneses también producen un no no nativo en los mismos contextos durante una etapa de la adquisición de L1. Se ha propuesto una explicación teórica sobre el caso en L2 y se ha especulado sobre su semejanza con el caso en L1. La tesis consta de dos partes: una parte teórica y una parte experimental. En la parte teórica se han revisado los estudios previos sobre la construcción genitiva, la frase adjetival y los modificadores oracionales. Se ha identificado la “forma adnominal” como un elemento clave y se han propuesto dos hipótesis para dar cuenta de su presencia y de la distribución complementaria de la partícula no: una versión revisada de la Clasificación de Cláusulas (cf. Cheng 1991) y la formación de unidades fonológicas. En la parte experimental, se han realizado dos estudios: un análisis de datos de los aprendices de L1 inglés y L1 coreano y una prueba de producción guiada de los aprendices de L1 español. Los resultados demuestran que los modificadores oracionales se adquieren en un cierto orden. En cuanto al fenómeno de la inserción de no, se observan dos fases. Se ha atribuido la primera fase a la adquisición de la Clasificación de Cláusulas y la segunda fase a la formación de unidades fonológica

Between syntax and morphology

Synopsis: This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions in comparative morphosyntax, including the modelling of syntactic categories, relative clauses, and demonstrative systems. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in morphosyntax and morphosyntactic variation. This book is complemented by volume I available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/275 and volume III available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/277

Binominal Lexemes in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Towards a Typology of Complex Lexemes

The typological, contrastive, and descriptive studies in this volume investigate the strategies employed by the world’s languages to create complex denotations by combining two noun-like elements, together with the kinds of semantic relation they involve, and their acquisition by children. The term ‘binominal lexeme’ is employed to cover both noun-noun compounds and a range of other naming strategies, including prepositional compounds, relational compounds, construct forms, genitival constructions, and more. Overall, the volume suggests a new, cross-linguistic approach to the study of complex lexeme formation that cuts across the traditional boundaries between syntax, morphology, and lexicon

Grammatical Contact in the Sahara: Arabic, Berber, and Songhay in Tabelbala and Siwa

This thesis examines the effects of contact on the grammars of the languages of two Saharan oases, Siwa and Tabelbala. These share similar linguistic ecologies in many respects, and can be regarded as among the most extreme representatives of a language contact situation ongoing for centuries across the oases of the northern Sahara. This work identifies and argues for contact effects across a wide range of core morphology and syntax, using these both to shed new light on regional history and to test claims about the limits on, and expected outcomes of, contact. While reaffirming the ubiquity of pattern copying, the results encourage an expanded understanding of the role of material borrowing in grammatical contact, showing that the borrowing of functional morphemes and of paradigmatic sets of words or phrases containing them can lead to grammatical change. More generally, it confirms the uniformitarian principle that diachronic change arises through the long-term application of processes observable in synchronic language contact situations. The similarity of the sociolinguistic situations provides a close approximation to a natural controlled experiment, allowing us to pinpoint cases where differences in the original structure of the recipient language appear to have influenced its receptivity to external influence in those aspects of structure

Unagreement is an illusion

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9311-yThis paper proposes an analysis of unagreement, a phenomenon involving an apparent mismatch between a definite third person plural subject and first or second person plural subject agreement observed in various null subject languages (e.g. Spanish, Modern Greek and Bulgarian), but notoriously absent in others (e.g. Italian, European Portuguese). A cross-linguistic correlation between unagreement and the structure of adnominal pronoun constructions suggests that the availability of unagreement depends on whether person and definiteness are hosted by separate heads (in languages like Greek) or bundled on a single head (i.e. pronominal determiners in languages like Italian). Null spell-out of the head hosting person features high in the extended nominal projection of the subject leads to unagreement. The lack of unagreement in languages with pronominal determiners results from the interaction of their syntactic structure with the properties of the vocabulary items realising the head encoding both person and definiteness. The analysis provides a principled explanation for the cross-linguistic distribution of unagreement and suggests a unified framework for deriving unagreement, adnominal pronoun constructions, personal pronouns and pro

Syntactic architecture and its consequences II

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions in comparative morphosyntax, including the modelling of syntactic categories, relative clauses, and demonstrative systems. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in morphosyntax and morphosyntactic variation. This book is complemented by volume I available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/275 and volume III available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/277

Movement and feature-checking in Korean: relative clauses, topicalisation and case-marking

The purpose of this thesis is to consider the following phenomena in Korean, within the framework of the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995): (i) the movement of non-restrictive adnominal modifiers, (ii) topicalization, and (iii) Double Nominative Constructions (DNCs). First of all, following in essence Cinque (1992), I propose that there is a functional category, Agreement Phrase (AgrP) whose specifier position is occupied by the pre-nominal modifiers. I argue for the existence of non-restrictive adnominal modifiers (Relative Clauses (RCs) and pre-nominal adjectives) which move overtly out of the scope of the Determiner in head-final languages like Korean. I claim that the RC or the attributive adjective is base-generated in [Spec, AgrP] due to agreement features (honorific and plural in the case of Korean and Japanese). A restrictive adnominal modifier remains in [Spec, AgrP] due to a FOCUS feature. A non-restrictive modifier, having a NON-FOCUS feature moves to [Spec, DP] whose head D⁰ has a NON-FOCUS feature, to check its NON-FOCUS feature. Secondly, I attempt to unify two contradictory accounts (non-movement or movement) in topicalization in Korean within the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995). Thirdly, it is my argument that, following much of the literature on this topic, there are three kinds of DNCs in Korean and that the three types of double nominative constructions are derived from a single underlying construction, i. e. the locative construction. The first NP marked Nominative moves to [Spec, AgrsP], to check its Case feature by the corresponding Case feature in the head of Agrs, while the second NP in DNCs, which originates as the object of the verb, remains inside VP and has its inherent case feature checked by the verb without moving. In addition, I show that the derivation in the DNCs is the same as that found in English Genitive, Existential and Locative sentences. In connection with DNCs, I claim that in Double Accusative Constructions (DACs) the first NP and the second NP are base-generated independently in different positions from each other, just like in DNCs, but that the second NP in DACs is structurally case-marked in [Spec, Agr₀P], unlike the second NP in DNCs