Clitic Climbing from Finite Clauses and Long Head Movement

Un cert nombre d'explicacions de la pujada de clític l'han considerada un fenomen que es correlaciona exclusivament amb l'infinitiu. Aquest article mostra que aquesta correlació no s'hauria d'entendre en el sentit que les configuracions de reestructuració hagin de ser necessàriament monoclausals. Mitjançant la presentació de casos de pujada de clític des de clàusules subordinades finites, també demostra que les propostes que l'associen amb la manca de Temps (o amb elevació de Temps) tampoc no són satisfactòries. Jo sostinc que, si bé la pujada del clític és un cas de trasllat de nucli, i està sotmesa, per tant, a HMC/ECP, també està restringida pel requeriment que els nuclis a través dels quals es trasllada el clític estiguin coindexats. Aquest requeriment l'atribueixo al fet que la pujada de clític és seguida per un trasllat de sintagma a la FL, que es produeix a través de les posicions d'especificador respectives. Aquesta coindexació en contextos finits fa que la pujada de clític sigui possible en llengües romàniques amb una estructura de la frase pròpia de les llengües balcàniques; en les altres llengües romàniques, on el control i l'elevació es limiten als infinitius, el fenomen és inexistent

Locative prepositions, predicate inversion and Full Interpretation*

This paper studies the relation between the two structures in which Greek locative Prepositions participate. I investigate the possibility that Complex Preposition structures derive from the structure in which the locative is followed by a genitive clitic via Predicate Inversion, and reject it in view of the fact that the locative can appear stranded. I consider it more possible for the genitive clitic structure to derive from the Complex Preposition structure via omission of the light P. Support for this idea is offered by the fact that the former structure is not available when the light P of the corresponding Complex Preposition is not ‘light’

Syntax and its interfaces at the low and high ends of the autistic spectrum

Studies on the language abilities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have tended to include individuals across the spectrum, with the consequence that the ensuing picture is rarely clear. Most recent studies setting apart individuals at the lower end of the autism spectrum have discovered severe problems in certain areas of grammar. Investigation of grammatical abilities at the higher end of the spectrum has not identified severe problems so far, in an interesting contrast with the lower end. Here we report on current research on pronominal object clitics and their counterpart DPs, which demonstrates that, in some syntactic environments, high-functioning children with ASD fall behind typically developing children. We claim that this behavior does not reflect problems with syntax proper, but is a consequence of pragmatic shortcomings with consequences for the syntax-pragmatics interface. Errors of substitution of clitics with their corresponding DPs are likely to be caused by difficulties in detecting prominence in the discourse. Difficulties with Focused DPs are likely to be caused by problems in distinguishing old from new information and its mapping to prosody. Future research needs to investigate pragmatics, syntax and prosody independently, in order to reach solid conclusions regarding their interaction with respect to specific phenomena in autism, which, in turn, provides an ideal condition to test the contribution of each domain to these phenomena

On the Acquisition of Prepositions*

This work studies the acquisition of Greek Prepositional Phrases. We focus on locative prepositions, because they may combine a lexical and a functional element, hence, can offer insights for both the acquisition and the syntactic status of prepositions from this perspective. We found that both, se and apo, appear after the lexical part of complex prepositions, and fully develop after age three. We compare se and apo when part of complex prepositions and when conveying location/direction alone and conclude that the former may be acquired after the latter. Apo is also encountered much earlier alone, but only preceding locative adverbials

On null spatial Ps and their arguments

This paper investigates the phenomenon of null spatial Ps, focusing primarily on Greek where these are most widely attested. It is demonstrated that only locatives (of the type that do not denote containment), as well as directional goal Ps, are able to surface without phonetic content when their nominal arguments are determinerless. It is suggested that the presence of null spatial Ps is contingent on nominals of special status, namely, on elements which, although similar in phonetic content to common nouns, are in fact closer to adverbials. In particular, it is suggested that the arguments of silent spatial Ps either instantiate or modify the silent noun PLACE. The latter raises to the specifier position the associated spatial P, with the consequence that P may appear without phonetic content - by virtue of the fact that its lexicalization requirements may (also) be satisfied in this manner.Aquest article investiga el fenomen de les Ps espacials nul·les, centrant-se sobretot en el grec, on es manifesten de manera més àmplia. Es mostra que només les Ps locatives (del tipus que no denoten conteniment), així com les de meta direccionals, són capaces de manifestar-se sense con- tingut fonètic quan els seu argument nominal no té determinant. Se suggereix que la presència de Ps espacials nu·les depèn d'un cert tipus de nominals, concretament, elements que, tot i que són similars en contingut fonètic als noms comuns, són, de fet, més propers als adverbis. Concretament, se suggereix que els arguments de les Ps espacials nul·les o be instancien o bé modifiquen el nom nul LLOC. Aquest nom s'eleva a la posició d'especificador de la P espacial corresponent, amb la qual cosa la P pot aparèixer sense contingut fonètic - pel fet que els seus requeriments de lexicalització es poden satisfer (també) d'aquesta manera

THE ROLE OF BROCA’S AREA IN SYNTAX: A TMS STUDY ON WRITTEN GREEK LANGUAGE

A number of recent papers have addressed the potential of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to interfere with linguistic processes or speech production. In this paper we present an experiment with TMS to clarify the role of Broca’s area in syntactic processing. An experimental paradigm contrasted sentences that require syntactic and semantic decisions on written Greek language. We found a clue of selective priming effects on syntactic decisions but not on semantic decisions. Our results provide evidence of the involvement of Broca’s area in syntax

The interface of syntax with pragmatics and prosody in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

In order to study problems of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) with morphosyntax, we investigated twenty high-functioning Greek-speaking children (mean age:6;11) and twenty age- and language-matched typically developing children on environments that allow or forbid object clitics or their corresponding noun phrase. Children with ASD fell behind typically developing in comprehending and producing simple clitics and producing noun phrases in focus structures. The two groups performed similarly in comprehending and producing clitics in clitic left dislocation and in producing noun phrases in non-focus structures. We argue that children with ASD have difficulties at the interface of(morpho)syntax with pragmatics and prosody, namely, distinguishing a discourse prominent element, and considering intonation relevant for a particular interpretation that excludes clitics

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