Variation in acceptability of neologistic English pronouns

This acceptability-judgment survey of English neopronouns, including xe, fae, ey, and ze, shows that while neopronouns are not fully ungrammatical for most English speakers, they are rated as less grammatical than canonical third-person singular pronouns like she, he, and they. We found that several social variables correlated with ratings of neopronouns in sentences, including age, gender, and sexual orientation. The neopronouns that bear orthographic resemblance to canonical pronouns were rated highest, and metalinguistic comments from participants identified that analogy was an important factor in whether they found neopronouns grammatical

Rigor and accessibility: Attitudes towards syntax pedagogy in higher education

We report on early stages of a large study on syntax pedagogy, and particularly on perceptions of “gatekeeping”. We present the results of a pilot study to explore this theme and others that arose, such as inequality and discrimination in the classroom, as well as the results of an ongoing program survey. Together, these results show that there are widespread experiences of bias in syntax classrooms, that syntax occupies a privileged space within linguistics, and that syntax is perceived to be a particularly difficult subject which some people have an innate talent for and others do not. The findings, especially in the context of current work on social justice in linguistics, have serious implications for inclusivity in the field and on how we as syntax educators can make changes for the benefit of future syntax scholars

A Genetic Animal Model of Alcoholism for Screening Medications to Treat Addiction

The purpose of this review is to present up-to-date pharmacological, genetic, and behavioral findings from the alcohol-preferring P rat and summarize similar past work. Behaviorally, the focus will be on how the P rat meets criteria put forth for a valid animal model of alcoholism with a highlight on its use as an animal model of polysubstance abuse, including alcohol, nicotine, and psychostimulants. Pharmacologically and genetically, the focus will be on the neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems that have received the most attention: cholinergic, dopaminergic, GABAergic, glutamatergic, serotonergic, noradrenergic, corticotrophin releasing hormone, opioid, and neuropeptide Y. Herein, we sought to place the P rat's behavioral and neurochemical phenotypes, and to some extent its genotype, in the context of the clinical literature. After reviewing the findings thus far, this chapter discusses future directions for expanding the use of this genetic animal model of alcoholism to identify molecular targets for treating drug addiction in general

Pronouns Raising and Emerging

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2019This dissertation revisits the question of the syntactic and semantic status of pronouns, incorporating new syntactic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic data to support an analysis of n-to-D head movement in the nominal domain. The support for pronouns originating in n comes from predicative pronouns, including pronominal relative clauses (1) and depronominalizations (2). (1) he who is without sin (2) That person is a she. I compare predicative pronouns with variable grammatical restrictions on singular 'they' using data from two sociolinguistic studies that I conducted. I show that there is an effect of speaker age on production and perception of definite, specific uses of singular 'they' (dsT) as in (3), while definite generic (4) and epicene uses (5) are more broadly accepted. (3) Jayden forgot their homework. (4) The ideal student never forgets their homework. (5) Every student should do their homework. I take the sociolinguistic variability in singular 'they', particularly the differences related to age, as evidence of an ongoing change in the grammar of English towards increasing use and acceptance of the type shown in (3). The inclusion of dsT in the grammar predicts intraspeaker sociopragmatic variation in pronoun use, and this prediction is borne out. Through variable rankings of pragmatic constraints I show that dsT enables speakers to include or exclude gender features from pronominal choices in order to achieve strategic discourse goals in various contexts. The n-to-D head movement analysis that I propose accounts for predicative pronouns, as well as differences in grammaticality of dsT and its related discourse-sensitivity, by separating pronouns into sub-classes depending on how far head raising proceeds. For predicative pronouns, external determiners (overt or covert) block head movement completely, and pronouns stay in n. For epicene pronouns like (5) and definite generic antecedents like (4), the pronoun raises from n to an intermediate functional projection (Num) but is merged with a variable D. Finally, referential (specific) pronouns like (3) are formed through movement from n through Num to D, where the pronoun combines with a phase head D that is linked to a discourse referent. Because phase edges are sensitive to discourse context, it is only when a pronoun moves to D that it is evaluated for context-appropriateness relative to the referent picked out by D. This system of context-appropriateness necessitates analyzing the natural gender features of pronouns as less like noun classes and more like honorifics, in that they signify social relationships rather than grammar-internal categories. An honorific analysis of gendered pronouns more robustly explains the sociopragmatic variation found in natural language use, and is more generalizable cross-linguistically

Pronouns and Gender in Language

preprint version of chapter in Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexualit

NWAV50-neopronouns

Acceptability of English Neopronoun