Quantitative computational syntax: some initial results

In the computational study of human intelligence, the language sciences are in the unique position of resting both on sophisticated theories and representations and on large amounts of observational data available for many languages. In this paper, we discuss some recent results, where large-scale, data-intensive computational modelling techniques are used to address fundamental linguistic questions on the quantitative properties of abstract grammatical representations. Specifically, we present a programme of research exemplified in three case studies to identify the causes of frequency differentials. In the area of word order, we discuss work that investigates whether typological and corpus frequencies are systematically correlated to abstract syntactic structures and to higher-level structural principles of minimisation and efficiency. In the area of verb meaning, corpus-based computational models are discussed that investigate how frequencies are correlated to well-known lexical effects in causative alternations and morphological marking. The large corpus-based, cross-linguistic component of the work and the abstract grammatical hypotheses on word order and verb meaning provide new empirical and computational evidence to the important debate on language variation, its extent and its limits and illustrate how to bring corpus-based computational methodology to bear on theoretical syntactic issues. In so doing, we help reduce the current gap between theoretical and computational linguistics

The role of agreement in romance nominal projections

This dissertation investigates the phenomenon of agreement in nominal constructions in three modern Romance languages. Special attention is paid to the structural configuration required for agreement as well as to the relationship between agreement and case. Chapter one presents an overview of the data and main proposals. Chapter two reviews some of the most influential work on agreement, mainly within generative grammar but also within other frameworks, such as Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Some important generalisations regarding the nature of agreement are drawn from these studies. The internal structure of DP is investigated in chapter three; drawing on work by Cinque (1991,1992) and others, I suggest that there exists noun movement in Romance and that APs are located in Spec(NP). I also present evidence for the functional projection NumP, intermediate between D and NP. The structural mechanism at work in these nominal structures is also characterised in chapter three. I propose, following Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Programme, that this internal agreement be analysed as feature matching in a Spec-Head configuration. Finally, the last part of the dissertation explores the relationship between case and agreement and the role of agreement within Romance DPs. Basing my proposal on the study of a group of locative elements in Spanish, I argue that Romance nominal agreement is a manisfestation of case marking and that, it is only when this internal agreement is not possible that a case assignment mechanism (de/di insertion) comes into play as a less economical means of case marking. Chapter five is a summary of the main findings of the dissertatio

Cross-linguistic influence in adult multilingualism The acquisition of L3 Norwegian morphosyntax by L1 Spanish - L2 English speakers

The current thesis investigated the topic of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) at three different developmental stages of adult third language (L3) acquisition of Norwegian by sequential first language (L1) Spanish – second language (L2) English speakers (n = 18). Using a mixed methods approach consisting of a grammaticality judgment task and a closed-ended questionnaire on linguistic proximity, the study tested the acquisition of four Norwegian morphosyntactic properties: (i) post-nominal possessives gender agreement, (ii) number concord on definite articles, (iii) adjective placement, and (iv) subject pronoun expression (SPE). Based on the subtracted language groups experimental design (Westergaard et al., forthcoming), L3 learners’ performance was compared to the ones of Spanish (n = 5) and English (n = 13) L2 learners of Norwegian. The study also counted with a native group (n = 15). Predictions were grounded on five main L3A models, all which diverge in terms of the source (L1, L2, or both) and nature (holistic or property-by-property) of CLI. Altogether, results were consistent with the L1 Factor (Hermas, 2010, 2014), as findings indicated L3 learners’ performance was solely influenced by their L1 Spanish, whereas both the linguistic proximity and psychotypology were overridden. In two of the conditions, the L1 Spanish groups performed significantly different from the L1 English group, having outperformed the latter in the treatment of possessives gender agreement, indicating facilitative CLI from L1 Spanish, and being outperformed by the same in the judgement of SPE sentences, indicating nonfacilitative CLI from L1 Spanish. On the other two conditions, all learning groups performed alike, showing overall either high or low rates of accuracy. These last findings suggested the linguistic complexity and frequency of input of individual properties to be an important triggering factor of CLI. Finally, the L3 proficiency level was found to be a strong factor in CLI, as transfer effects were observed to be more salient at beginner (A1) and elementary (A2) L3 proficiency stages as compared to the pre-intermediate (B1) level

On past participle agreement in transitive clauses in French

This paper provides a Minimalist analysis of past participle agreement in French in transitive clauses. Our account posits that the head v of vP in such structures carries an (accusativeassigning) structural case feature which may apply (with or without concomitant agreement) to case-mark a clause-mate object, the subject of a defective complement clause, or an intermediate copy of a preposed subject in spec-CP. In structures where a goal is extracted from vP (e.g. via wh-movement) v also carries an edge feature, and may also carry a specificity feature and a set of (number and gender) agreement features. We show how these assumptions account for agreement of a participle with a preposed specific clausemate object or defective-clause subject, and for the absence of agreement with an embedded object, with the complement of an impersonal verb, and with the subject of an embedded (finite or nonfinite) CP complement. We also argue that the absence of agreement marking (in expected contexts) on the participles faitmade and laissélet in infinitive structures is essentially viral in nature. Finally, we claim that obligatory participle agreement with reflexive and reciprocal objects arises because the derivation of reflexives involves A-movement and concomitant agreement

Adjectival modification and multiple determiners

The present paper deals with the distribution of the definite determiner and certain related aspects of adjectival modification in Greek DPs. As (1) shows, determiners in Greek DPs precede adjectives and adjectives precede nouns. All three categories overtly agree in gender, number and case

Information structure and the referential status of linguistic expression : workshop as part of the 23th annual meetings of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft in Leipzig, Leipzig, February 28 - March 2, 2001

This volume comprises papers that were given at the workshop Information Structure and the Referential Status of Linguistic Expressions, which we organized during the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS) Conference in Leipzig in February 2001. At this workshop we discussed the connection between information structure and the referential interpretation of linguistic expressions, a topic mostly neglected in current linguistics research. One common aim of the papers is to find out to what extent the focus-background as well as the topic-comment structuring determine the referential interpretation of simple arguments like definite and indefinite NPs on the one hand and sentences on the other

Deriving null functional heads: a study on variation of functional structure

The aim of this dissertation is to develop a framework of functional structure that ensures that the representation of any phrase is only as large as necessary to capture the syntactic relations relevant to it. I argue that the success of this project requires the elimination of null functional heads from the lexicon. Rather, I propose that null functional heads and their projections are dynamically created during the derivation as an extension of the projection of lexical items (i.e. lexical heads and overt functional heads). To this end, I make two proposals. Firstly, I argue that the featural specifications of lexical items are more extensive and have a more complex structure than previously thought. Secondly, I refine Giorgi and Pianesi’s (1997) Feature Scattering operation so that it applies to entire segments of a featural specification, instead of individual features. One beneficial implication of this formulation is that it reduces head movement to the incidental scattering of the phonological features of a head due to independent syntactic factors. Hence, I present an analysis of a number of cases of head movement in support of the proposed framework of functional structure. Amongst other things, I address V-to-v movement (as in the case of English main verbs), V-to-T movement (as in the case of Romance verbs and English auxiliaries) and V-to-C movement (as in the case of Germanic V2 and English residual V2). Additionally, I extend the analysis to cases of head movement to an initial position, including the movement of the verb in verb-initial clauses and the movement of the noun in noun-initial nominal phrases in Semitic and Celtic languages, which have previously received little attention in the strand of research that adopts Feature Scattering or other similar re-projective mechanisms. Beyond head movement, I develop a uniform analysis of various subject/non-subject asymmetries, including Subject Auxiliary Inversion and do-support in English wh-questions and the that-trace effect in English embedded clauses involving wh-extraction, with the intention to bring the relevant phenomena to bear on the overarching hypothesis that functional structure is variable