Strict CV without government

In this paper, I aim to unify the Empty Category Principle of Government Phonology with another (more general) principle: the Obligatory Contour Principle. I show that these principles share numerous structural properties: (i) they prevent sequences of identical entities, and (ii) they trigger the same repair mechanisms. The main difference is substantial: ECP handles empty syllabic components, when OCP handles phonological features. I propose to broaden the definition of OCP in including all phonological entities and I show to what extent this definition can account for the effects of ECP. Finally, I point out that this analysis can also account for some specificities of word-edges

Constructing Languages to Explore Theoretical Principles

The construction of languages has always been related to linguistics. Most of these initiatives address real scientific questions but from a non-academic point of view. The fact that Ferdinand de Saussure's own brother, René de Saussure, wrote a theoretical essay on the construction of the Esperanto word (de Saussure 1914) is an amusing illustration of this. In this paper, we propose a method inspired by experimental archaeology. The experiment consists in trying to obtain an artifact similar to the one observed using this or that construction method. An equivalent approach in linguistics would be the generation of linguistic systems based on explicitly formulated principles. Trying to generate similar systems pushes the linguist to explicitly define the principles that are needed and to explore all their consequences. In this context, we show that the use of notions induced by the observation of natural languages leads to a certain degree of circularity and that it is therefore more interesting to explore a priori principles based on very general assumptions

A note on the strength of vowels

International audienceAbstract This paper is a modest contribution to the understanding of vocalic strength. Our aim is to show that the strength of consonants and the strength of vowels can be unified. For this, we propose that the only factor of strength is length. More precisely: branching segments are stronger and segments sharing their positions with other segments are weaker. We discuss several examples of phenomena related to vowels which illustrate this strength hierarchy

The English “Arab Rule” without feet

International audienceThis paper deals with English vowel reduction and focuses on what is generally referred to as the Arab Rule (Ross 1972 i.a.). Vowels tend to reduce if the preceding syllable is light, whereas they do not reduce if the preceding syllable is heavy. Our purpose is twofold: first, based on the scrutiny of Wells (2008), we evaluate the efficiency of the Arab Rule and show that is empirically verified. Second, we propose an analysis of blocking contexts couched within CVCV phonology (Lowenstamm 1996). We use two central notions such as Government and Licensing, and show that vowel reduction only applies to "governing-and-governable" vowels

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2016

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2016 initiates a new series of collective volumes on formal Slavic linguistics. It presents a selection of high quality papers authored by young and senior linguists from around the world and contains both empirically oriented work, underpinned by up-to-date experimental methods, as well as more theoretically grounded contributions. The volume covers all major linguistic areas, including morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and their mutual interfaces. The particular topics discussed include argument structure, word order, case, agreement, tense, aspect, clausal left periphery, or segmental phonology. The topical breadth and analytical depth of the contributions reflect the vitality of the field of formal Slavic linguistics and prove its relevance to the global linguistic endeavour. Early versions of the papers included in this volume were presented at the conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12 or at the satellite Workshop on Formal and Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, which were held on December 7-10, 2016 in Berlin

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2016

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2016 initiates a new series of collective volumes on formal Slavic linguistics. It presents a selection of high quality papers authored by young and senior linguists from around the world and contains both empirically oriented work, underpinned by up-to-date experimental methods, as well as more theoretically grounded contributions. The volume covers all major linguistic areas, including morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and their mutual interfaces. The particular topics discussed include argument structure, word order, case, agreement, tense, aspect, clausal left periphery, or segmental phonology. The topical breadth and analytical depth of the contributions reflect the vitality of the field of formal Slavic linguistics and prove its relevance to the global linguistic endeavour. Early versions of the papers included in this volume were presented at the conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12 or at the satellite Workshop on Formal and Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, which were held on December 7-10, 2016 in Berlin

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2016

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2016 initiates a new series of collective volumes on formal Slavic linguistics. It presents a selection of high quality papers authored by young and senior linguists from around the world and contains both empirically oriented work, underpinned by up-to-date experimental methods, as well as more theoretically grounded contributions. The volume covers all major linguistic areas, including morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and their mutual interfaces. The particular topics discussed include argument structure, word order, case, agreement, tense, aspect, clausal left periphery, or segmental phonology. The topical breadth and analytical depth of the contributions reflect the vitality of the field of formal Slavic linguistics and prove its relevance to the global linguistic endeavour. Early versions of the papers included in this volume were presented at the conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12 or at the satellite Workshop on Formal and Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, which were held on December 7-10, 2016 in Berlin

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2016

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2016 initiates a new series of collective volumes on formal Slavic linguistics. It presents a selection of high quality papers authored by young and senior linguists from around the world and contains both empirically oriented work, underpinned by up-to-date experimental methods, as well as more theoretically grounded contributions. The volume covers all major linguistic areas, including morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and their mutual interfaces. The particular topics discussed include argument structure, word order, case, agreement, tense, aspect, clausal left periphery, or segmental phonology. The topical breadth and analytical depth of the contributions reflect the vitality of the field of formal Slavic linguistics and prove its relevance to the global linguistic endeavour. Early versions of the papers included in this volume were presented at the conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12 or at the satellite Workshop on Formal and Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, which were held on December 7-10, 2016 in Berlin

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2016

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2016 initiates a new series of collective volumes on formal Slavic linguistics. It presents a selection of high quality papers authored by young and senior linguists from around the world and contains both empirically oriented work, underpinned by up-to-date experimental methods, as well as more theoretically grounded contributions. The volume covers all major linguistic areas, including morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and their mutual interfaces. The particular topics discussed include argument structure, word order, case, agreement, tense, aspect, clausal left periphery, or segmental phonology. The topical breadth and analytical depth of the contributions reflect the vitality of the field of formal Slavic linguistics and prove its relevance to the global linguistic endeavour. Early versions of the papers included in this volume were presented at the conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12 or at the satellite Workshop on Formal and Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, which were held on December 7-10, 2016 in Berlin

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2016

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2016 initiates a new series of collective volumes on formal Slavic linguistics. It presents a selection of high quality papers authored by young and senior linguists from around the world and contains both empirically oriented work, underpinned by up-to-date experimental methods, as well as more theoretically grounded contributions. The volume covers all major linguistic areas, including morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and their mutual interfaces. The particular topics discussed include argument structure, word order, case, agreement, tense, aspect, clausal left periphery, or segmental phonology. The topical breadth and analytical depth of the contributions reflect the vitality of the field of formal Slavic linguistics and prove its relevance to the global linguistic endeavour. Early versions of the papers included in this volume were presented at the conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages 12 or at the satellite Workshop on Formal and Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics, which were held on December 7-10, 2016 in Berlin