A note on ergativity, S\u27, and S\u27\u27 in Karitiana

From the introduction: Ergativity has long been an important topic in linguistic research, from both a typological (Comrie 1978, Dixon 1979, Plank 1979) as well as a theoretical perspective (Levin 1983, Marantz 1984). The purpose of the present study is to contribute to the discussion of this phenomenon via a study of a fragment of the grammar of Karitiana, an Amazon language, focusing especially on its ergative-absolutive marking of affirmative particles and personal pronouns. The special features of the Karitiana (henceforth K) system are: (1) only absolutive marking need be stated by rule, ergative case being a default mechanism, and (2) K\u27s ergative marking offers interesting evidence in favor of the distinction between topicalization and WH-movement, along the lines first proposed by Chomsky (1977)

Anaphoric indices and inalienable possession in Brazilian Portuguese

From the introduction: In this squib, I want to draw attention to some previously unnoticed but intriguing facts about inalienably possessed NPs (INPs) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). I argue that these differ from both pronouns and anaphors in that (i) they must always be c-commanded in their minimal Complete Functional Complex (CFC) by an argument with an independent θ-role and (ii) the Binding Theory (BT) applies to IPNPs algorithmically: first the BT attempts to treat them as anaphors; if successful, the BT is satisfied; if not, then it treats them as pronouns

Syllable Weight, Sloppy Phonemes, and Channels in Pirahã Discourse

Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1985), pp. 408-41

A beginning sketch of the Huastec noun phrase

From the introduction: The present paper proposes a preliminary analysis of nominal phrases in Huastec, a Mayan language spoken in the states of Veracruz and San Luís Potosí, Mexico. This analysis is important in that it provides one of the first discussions of phrase structure in Huastec, a language regarded by some authorities as somewhat independent in its development in the Mayan family (for one classification of Huastec, cf. Voeglin and Voeglin (1977:224ff)). While earlier studies of Huastec (cf. Walker 1983)) have claimed the basic word order to be VSO, material found in texts has adduced little evidence for this. In fact, the most frequent orders encountered in our Huastec discourse data are SVO and VOS, respectively. Sentences given in isolation by our language consultant and co-author, Abdías Pablo, are exclusively SVO. In any case, it seems that Huastec can safely be considered VO (note that it also has both prepositions and genitive-head noun orders, two statistically common correlates of this basic word order type.) Nevertheless, we leave the question open since its resolution is tangential to the question of noun phrase structure. This study is organized as follows: First, a brief outline of the noun morphology is proposed, with indications as to the semantic range and co-occurrence restrictions among the positional classes listed. The second section addresses the facts of constituent order and configuration as well as some derived orders and relative clauses. The study concludes with an overview of pronouns

A note on the relationship between grid structure and metrical structure in Banawá

The stress system of Banawa ́, an endangered Arawan language spoken in the Brazilian Amazon, constitutes a puzzling case study for metrical phonology. It has been claimed that its metrical representations violate the Syllable Integrity Principle (1) (Buller, Buller, and Everett (BBE) 1993, Everett 1996, 1997), one of the core universal principles in standard metrical theory, which bans representations where a foot dis- sects a heavy syllable (e.g., *(CV.CV ́ )(V.CV ́ ), *(CV ́ .CV)(V ́ .CV), where periods indicate syllable boundaries and parentheses, foot edges)

LBT Reveals Large Dust Particles and a High Mass Loss Rate for K2-22 b

The disintegrating planet candidate K2-22 b shows periodic and stochastic transits best explained by an escaping debris cloud. However, the mechanism that creates the debris cloud is unknown. The grain size of the debris as well as its sublimation rate can be helpful in understanding the environment that disintegrates the planet. Here, we present simultaneous photometry with the g band at 0.48 microns and KS band at 2.1 microns using the Large Binocular Telescope. During an event with very low dust activity, we put a new upper limit on the size of the planet of 0.71 earth radii or 4500 km. We also detected a medium-depth transit which can be used to constrain the dust particle sizes. We find that the median particle size must be larger than about 0.5 to 1.0 microns, depending on the composition of the debris. This leads to a high mass loss rate of about 3e8 kg/s that is consistent with hydrodynamic escape models. If they are produced by some alternate mechanism such as explosive volcanism, it would require extraordinary geological activity. Combining our upper limits on the planet size with the high mass loss rate, we find a lifetime of the planet of less than 370 Myr. This drops to just 21 Myr when adopting the 0.02 earth masses predicted from hydrodynamical models.Comment: AJ, accepted, 13 page

A Corpus Investigation of Syntactic Embedding in Piraha

The Pirahã language has been at the center of recent debates in linguistics, in large part because it is claimed not to exhibit recursion, a purported universal of human language. Here, we present an analysis of a novel corpus of natural Pirahã speech that was originally collected by Dan Everett and Steve Sheldon. We make the corpus freely available for further research. In the corpus, Pirahã sentences have been shallowly parsed and given morpheme-aligned English translations. We use the corpus to investigate the formal complexity of Pirahã syntax by searching for evidence of syntactic embedding. In particular, we search for sentences which could be analyzed as containing center-embedding, sentential complements, adverbials, complementizers, embedded possessors, conjunction or disjunction. We do not find unambiguous evidence for recursive embedding of sentences or noun phrases in the corpus. We find that the corpus is plausibly consistent with an analysis of Pirahã as a regular language, although this is not the only plausible analysis

Cultural Differences in Perceptual Reorganization in US and Pirahã Adults

Visual illusions and other perceptual phenomena can be used as tools to uncover the otherwise hidden constructive processes that give rise to perception. Although many perceptual processes are assumed to be universal, variable susceptibility to certain illusions and perceptual effects across populations suggests a role for factors that vary culturally. One striking phenomenon is seen with two-tone images—photos reduced to two tones: black and white. Deficient recognition is observed in young children under conditions that trigger automatic recognition in adults. Here we show a similar lack of cue-triggered perceptual reorganization in the Pirahã, a hunter-gatherer tribe with limited exposure to modern visual media, suggesting such recognition is experience- and culture-specific