Prosody as an argument for a layered left periphery

Van Heuven and Haan’s (2000, 2002) experimental work on the prosody of Dutch question types found that the prosodic signalling of interrogativity is stronger for declarative questions, less so for yes/no-questions and even less so for wh-questions. This paper shows how the sequence established on prosodic grounds (declarative questions > yes/no questions > wh questions > statements) is mirrored in the functional hierarchy in syntax. Prosody therefore provides an argument for a detailed left periphery (Rizzi 1997, 2001; Haegeman & Hill 2013)

Main clause external constituents and the derivation of subject-initial verb Second

This paper discusses V3-patterns with a sentence-initial adverbial clause in Standard Dutch (StD) and West-Flemish (WF), which appear to violate the V2 restriction which normally regulates word order in these languages. V3-patterns occur in both languages; they can be interpreted as complying with the V2 constraint provided they are analyzed as the result of merging a regular root clause with V2 order with an extra-sentential adverbial clause. The paper shows that the distribution of V3-patterns is slightly wider in WF than in StD: StD requires that the root clause which combines with the extra-sentential constituent either exhibits subject-verb inversion (XP-V-S) or, in the case of subject initial V2 clauses, that the subject has a distinguished information-structural status such as contrastive focus/topic; WF allows V3-structures more freely, regardless of whether they display subject-verb inversion and regardless of the informational-structural status of the subject. The analysis takes as its point of departure the earlier claim that V2-languages can be symmetric in the sense that the finite verb always leaves the TP domain and occupies the highest head position in the root clause, the complementizer position C in the traditional generative analysis, or asymmetric in the sense that the position of the finite verb varies in that it occupies the C-position when the root clause exhibits subject-verb inversion or a lower TP internal tense position (T) in root clauses without inversion. The hypothesis is that V3-patterns with a sentence-initial adverbial clause are only possible if the initial adverbial clause attains a local relation with the finite verb, and that this requires the finite verb to be in the (higher) C-position. By assuming that StD is an asymmetric V2-language while WF is a symmetric V2-language the variation with respect to the distribution of V3-patterns in these languages can be captured

West Flemish verb-based discourse markers and the articulation of the Speech Act layer

This paper focuses on the West Flemish discourse markers located at the edge of the clause. After a brief survey of the distribution of discourse markers in WF, the paper proposes a syntactic analysis of the discourse markers ne and we. Based on the distribution of these discourse markers, of vocatives and of dislocated DPs, an articulated speech act layer is elaborated which corroborates the proposals in Hill (). It is postulated that there is a syntactic relation between particles used as discourse markers and vocatives. The paper offers further support for the grammaticalization of pragmatic features at the interface between syntax and discourse and for the hypothesis that the relevant computation at the interface is of the same nature as that in Narrow Syntax

Device for removing foreign objects from anatomic organs

A device is disclosed for removing foreign objects from anatomic organs such as the ear canal or throat. It has a housing shaped like a flashlight, an electrical power source such as a battery or AC power from a wall socket, and a tip extending from the housing. The tip has at least one wire loop made from a shape-memory-effect alloy, such as Nitinol, switchably connected to the electrical power source such that when electric current flows through the wire loop the wire loop heats up and returns to a previously programmed shape such as a curet or tweezers so as to facilitate removal of the foreign object

Meta-extract: Using Existing Facts in Meta-reasoning

ACL2 has long supported user-defined simplifiers, so-called metafunctions and clause processors, which are installed when corresponding rules of class :meta or :clause-processor are proved. Historically, such simplifiers could access the logical world at execution time and could call certain built-in proof tools, but one could not assume the soundness of the proof tools or the truth of any facts extracted from the world or context when proving a simplifier correct. Starting with ACL2 Version 6.0, released in December 2012, an additional capability was added which allows the correctness proofs of simplifiers to assume the correctness of some such proof tools and extracted facts. In this paper we explain this capability and give examples that demonstrate its utility.Comment: In Proceedings ACL2Workshop 2017, arXiv:1705.0076

French adverbial clauses: rescue by ellipsis and the truncation vs. intervention debate

This paper investigates the restrictions on movement to the left periphery found in non-root environments such as French central adverbial clauses and argues that an analysis of main clause phenomena based on intervention/Relativized Minimality is to be preferred to one based on structural truncation. The empirical basis for this claim consists of an examination of some asymmetries between French infinitival TP ellipsis and infinitival TP Topicalization. Adopting Authier's (2011) approach to TP ellipsis whereby the to-be-elided TP undergoes fronting in the computational component but fails to be spelled out at PF, we argue that these asymmetries follow from the fact that in French, while a spelled out fronted TP is an intervener for wh-movement in adverbial clauses, leading to a PF crash, the ellipsis of this fronted TP leads to a convergent derivation via Boskovic's (2011) mechanism of "rescue by PF deletion." This account entails that adverbial clauses involve wh-movement (Haegeman 2006, among others) and that the landing site for TP Topicalization is available in a non-root environment, two conclusions that militate against the hypothesis that non-root clauses have an impoverished left periphery

A mód, a modalitás és az imperatív operátor viszonya a magyar felszólító mondatokban

Dolgozatomban a felszólító mondatok szórendi és szerkezeti sajátosságaival foglalkoztam, olyan elemzési javaslatot tettem, amely magyarázatot ad a lehetséges mondatszórendekre. FARKAS (1992) és HAN (1999) nyomán azt feltételeztem, hogy a felszólító jelentést egy direktív illokúciós operátor váltja ki a mondatban, amely argumentumaként egy irreális propozíciót vesz fel. A magyarban ez az operátor a generatív szakirodalom egy részével megegyezően a mondatszerkezet legtetején, a ForceP projekcióban helyezkedik el. Amellett érveltem, hogy a felszólító igealak az irodalomban tett megállapításokkal ellentétben sem nyíltan, sem fedetten nem mozog a ForcePbe, hogy ellenőrizze az [imp] jegyét. A magyar felszólító mondatokról az empirikus adatok alapján azt állapítottam meg, hogy az invertált ige a non-neutrális frázis és a PredP-ben helyet foglaló igemódosító között helyezkedik el. Azt javasoltam, hogy az ige pozíciója legyen a FinP projekció feje. Hogy a ForceP-ben levő direktív illokúciós operátor hogyan hat a FinP jegyeire, miért mozoghat oda az ige, további kutatásokat igényel

English Syntax I

This paper focuses on the description of several controversial properties of Negative Inversion (NI) in Standard English. The first topic is the fact that, according to some scholars, subject-auxiliary (subj-aux) inversion when there is preposed negative element is sometimes optional. Scholars agree that subject-auxiliary inversion is compulsory whenever the fronted negative element is an adjunct, but they differ when taking complements into account. Some state that subject-auxiliary (subj-aux) inversion is optional when the fronted negative element is a complement. However, others consider subject-auxiliary inversion to be compulsory all the time. In this paper I show that it is true that subject-auxiliary inversion is optional when the fronted negative element is a complement, as all the speakers asked accept non-inversion, and only half of them accept inversion in such environment. The next topic is whether NI behaves as a Root Phenomenon (RT) or not. Some scholars have stated that NI is in fact a RT, however, by analysing and comparing the environments where RTs and NI can appear, I get to the conclusion that, unlike Topicalization or Focalization (which are also considered RTs), NI does not follow all the requirements to be considered a RT. The last topic is the classification of Only Inversion as a subtype of NI, which I believe not to be accurate, as there are many differences between both phenomena, as the optionality of inversion and their monotonicity. I have approached all these topics from an empirical point of view, comparing what has been previously said in the literature with native English speakers’ grammaticality judgements gathered by an online survey, with the aim of getting clearer results. Keywords: Negative Inversion, Negative Preposing, Negative Constituent Preposing, Negative Adverbials, Interrogative Inversion, Subject-auxiliary inversion, Wh- questions, Focus Preposing, Topicalization, Only Inversion, Only Preposing, Only fronting, Root Phenomena