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Highlights: [•] The paper offers a Bracketed Grid account of the Italian endecasillabo meter. [•] The paper defines a single set of rules valid for each possible endecasillabo line. [•] The paper provides a brief critical overview of previous analyses of this meter. [•] A revised algorithm for Fabb and Halle's account of endecasillabo is developed. [•] RevisedF&H adopts ternary grouping rule at GL1 and a new stress maxima definition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Ourself and themself are not merely non-standard variants of ourselves/themselves. • These forms instead reflect productive expressive choices. • Other mixed number self pronouns are also attested. • Number morphologies can be combined creatively for expressive purposes. • Language users deploy signals and meanings to meet their communicative goals. Previous scholarly work on the pronouns ourself and themself describes them as variants of ourselves and themselves. In this paper, attested tokens of ourself and themself are examined, and the contexts in which they appear are analyzed. This analysis shows that these forms, and even some less frequent examples of other mixed-number self pronouns, occur where this combination of singular and plural morphology fits the communicative context. While prescriptive pressures limit their frequency, the existence of these data falsifies the claim that number morphology in self pronouns is grammatically constrained. Instead, the data show that the distribution of ourself and themself reflect expressive choices that speakers (and writers) make to facilitate communication, and provide support for a view of grammatical categories, even those commonly regarded as syntactically or semantically determined, as independent bearers of meaning. Speakers' creativity in the use of these forms reveals the nature of the linguistic system, as well as its structure as a set of signals and meanings deployed by language users to meet their communicative goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Comprehension of anglicisms by the target audience is essential. • The communicative intent of a message shapes the usage of non-catachrestic anglicisms. • Pragmatic markedness of non-catachrestic anglicisms benefits the image of adult-contemporary radio stations. • Diachronic development of non-catachrestic innovations from M- to I-implicatures does not favour their frequency. Abstract This paper explores the usage of catachrestic and non-catachrestic anglicism occurrences in radio station imaging materials. These programme elements are taken from a transcribed radio corpus and analysed by means of examining quantitative data and qualitative interviews with 19 journalists. The linguistic analysis of the station imaging content is grounded in the concept of catachrestic and non-catachrestic anglicisms developed by Onysko and Winter-Froemel (2011) , which redefines the traditional distinction of luxury and necessary loans in German. Based on a second study by Winter-Froemel et al. (2014) , which analyses reasons for the success of some non-catachrestic anglicisms over others, this study examines if the significant factors discovered in a print corpus by the above named study can also be discovered in radio language. The factors analysed in station imaging materials include word length, diachronic development, semantic reasons and lexical field. It is the intention of this research to refine and extend the approach by Winter-Froemel et al. by means of examining each anglicism occurrence in the context of its semantic and pragmatic usage in station imaging elements. The results show that while some factors can be discovered in radio language too, comprehension by the target audience is overriding for the usage of catachrestic and non-catachrestic anglicisms in station imaging language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper offers an introduction to the basic morphosyntax of the Bantu languages, in the context of issues related to the investigation of movement and word order in this large and diverse group of languages. These issues cover three major topics in syntax: agreement, information structure and wh-questions, all of which relate to the relationship between movement and word order. Data introducing the basic contrasts is provided from a wide range of Bantu languages. Furthermore, this paper offers an overview of the state-of-the-art in Bantu syntax with respect to these issues. Analyses of the Bantu languages are related to general syntactic theory, showing where the Bantu languages can make particularly valuable contributions to linguistic theory. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We analyze neologisms created by speakers of different varieties of modern Nahuatl. • Despite being an endangered language Nahuatl did not lose word-formation patterns. • For Nahuatl, the onomasiological framework proved useful but has its limitations. Nahuatl has a long history of contact with, and marginalization by, Spanish. Today the language shift maintains a steady pace, despite numerous initiatives for revitalization and revalorization. This paper deals with the lexical creativity of Nahuatl speakers. As a result of the fieldwork of our research team in six communities in Mexico, we have amassed rich data concerning neologisms that designate objects and concepts imported from European culture. Unlike most studies on language contact in Nahuatl, we choose to focus not on the morphosyntactic strategies of lexicogenesis, or on phenomena of matter and/or pattern borrowing, but on the conceptual structure of neologisms, applying the onomasiological theory of word-formation. We argue that, while language endangerment and the lack of an obvious need for lexicogenesis may cause some productivity patterns to go dormant, these do not necessarily become eradicated. Moreover, innovative patterns of word-formation may come to light when lexical creativity is triggered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experimental research presented in this paper reports on findings from the study of case (syntactic and morphological) in 16 Cypriot Greek adults diagnosed with Down syndrome (DS) and 17 typically developing children. We perform phonetic and phonological analyses alongside morphosyntactic and syntactic analyses on data collected from eight experimental tasks. Results reveal near-ceiling performance for both groups. Syntactically conditioned differences related to structural complexity, problematic use of tense and subject-verb agreement or bundling/DP effects, are not recorded. We establish that the greater majority of differences observed between the two groups are mainly conditioned by articulatory limitations related to the distinct physiology associated with DS, as well as minor differences in their phonological systems. A small residue of differences that are determined to be morphosyntactic in nature is also recorded; these exhibit a clear systematicity in choosing the default case value (nominative), instead of the targeted one. Given the close to ceiling performance with case, morphosyntactic inaccuracies are determined to be neither due to lack of knowledge of the case assignment mechanisms, nor lack of knowledge of inflectional paradigms, but rather a morphological discrepancy, during the Vocabulary Insertion stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent discussions of Mandarin phonology have appealed to various aspects of phonetic duration as support for hypotheses concerning the structure of the syllable. But the actual empirical evidence for these claims is based on early studies typically conducted with a limited number of speakers (often just one) using varied methods of data collection and analysis. This paper provides a more firm empirical foundation for various durational reflections of the Mandarin syllable based on the analysis of 960 monosyllabic words recorded by five female speakers. Our main findings are as follows. We find no statistically significant difference between CV and CVN syllables, supporting the bimoraic analysis of the former. We replicate the Tone 3 > Tone 2 > Tone 1 > Tone 4 duration hierarchy of earlier studies with a larger variety of syllable types. Relative to CV syllables, the nuclear vowel is shortened in both CGV and CVN structures suggesting that the prenuclear glide is associated to the syllable rhyme. The vowel is shortest in CGVN syllables supporting the analysis of the Cjan > Cjen low vowel raising process as motivated by phonetic undershoot. Finally, in Cuan syllables the nuclear vowel's backness is determined more by the coda than the prenuclear glide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the Pronoun Interpretation Problem in child Romance is limited to syntactic constructions in which clitics are not interpreted as bound variables. Reporting experimental data from an Act Out task administered to Italian children aged 3–6, it is shown that not only Exceptional Case Marking but also causative Faire Par constructions trigger PIP. Based on the syntactic properties of the embedded vPs in these two constructions, I argue that coreference is an option for clitic pronouns in these complex predicates. I propose that the cross-linguistic distribution of the phenomenon in light of these findings supports a unitary pragmatic account of the PIP as evidence for the modularity of binding and coreference. The account defended in this paper holds that children's early difficulty with local coreference resides in the syntax/pragmatic interface, involving mastery of a scalar opposition between pronouns and reflexives which interfaces with the syntactic knowledge of the local domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross linguistic variation in L1 clitic acquisition is limited and well-governed, and has been attributed to an underlying syntactic mechanism, such as the Unique Checking Constraint (UCC) in connection with clitic-past participle agreement ( Wexler et al., 2003 ), or a pragmatic constraint, such as Failed Referentiality ( Schaeffer, 2000 ). The present study seeks to validate the claims following from the above theories by looking at the clitic acquisition facts in child Polish in two experiments: clitic production and clitic comprehension. The paper argues that claims following from the two acquisition theories are not supported by Polish L1 data due to an initially high clitic omission rate (60%) and the evidence of early clitic comprehension which precedes clitic production. By comparing clitic production and clitic comprehension results, three developmental stages are identified. A maturational account is adopted attributing non-adult-like structures in child grammar to a discourse-linking mechanism ( Borer and Rohrbacher, 2002 ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many instances of verb-object combinations involving change of state verbs, different kinds of internal arguments seem to trigger distinct interpretations of the verb phrase. These are usually divided into literal uses, such as romper la ventana ‘break the window’ or cortar el papel ‘cut the paper’ and figurative uses such as romper el desarrollo ‘interrupt the development’ or cortar la circulación ‘cut off the circulation’. Based on an extensive manual annotation of corpus (the used corpus is the El País Corpus consisting of all the El País newspaper issues from 1976 to 2007 and is hosted at the Insitut Universitari de Linguistica Aplicada (IULA) at the University Pompeu Fabra) data involving verb-object combinations with Spanish change of state verbs, I argue that combinations like romper el desarrollo or cortar la circulación , far from representing frozen idiom chunks, exemplify very productive compositional patterns. The frequency and naturalness with which change of state verbs take both physical and abstract entities as objects raises the question of how verbs express their meaning and makes this kind of data especially relevant for a theory of the lexicon as well as of composition. I provide a clear inventory of the typical combinatorial patterns of romper and cortar and I show that their combinatorial behaviour is much more diverse than usually acknowledged. I then argue that these facts need to be addressed by the compositional system, rather than by postulating homophonic lexical entires (Dowty, 1979; Alonso Ramos, 2011) or contextualist accounts (Recanati, 2005). For a proposal I turn to Modern Type Theories, which allow me to incorporate a richer notion of lexical semantics within compositional semantics. These theories thus allow me provide an insightful compositional account of what has long been considered non-compositional, namely combinations of change of state verbs with objects denoting abstract entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of word forms in natural language are polysemous, that is, associated with several related senses (e.g., line , run , tight , etc.). While such polysemy appears to cause little difficulty in verbal communication, it poses a range of theoretical and descriptive problems. One concerns its very existence: What is it about our language systems that make them so susceptible to polysemy? In this paper I discuss two approaches to polysemy with different answers to this question: (i) A code-based approach that treats polysemy in terms of the operation of lexicon-internal generative rules, and (ii) an inference-based approach that takes polysemy to be governed by pragmatic inferential processes applying at the level of individual words. After evaluating how each of these accounts fares with respect to some empirical data, I look more broadly at their implications for the emergence and development of polysemy. I conclude that, overall, the pragmatic approach provides the most promising basis for a unified account of the role of polysemy in several domains, and for explaining what motivates its proliferation natural language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of gender agreement in three little studied Afro-Andean dialects: Chinchano Spanish (Perú), Yungueño Spanish (Bolivia) and Chota Valley Spanish (Ecuador). Data is presented showing a variety of DP gender agreement configurations significantly divergent from standard Spanish. A unified account for these phenomena is proposed combining quantitatitative methodology and several forms of data collection with a Minimalist approach to data explanation and interpretation. The provided analysis charts evolution and variation of gender agreement, arguing that the parallel development of gender agreement in these three Afro-Hispanic contact varieties can be explained by an approach in which change takes place along paths set by universal properties of grammar (feature valuation, locality of agreement, gradience of fitness in grammatical development, etc.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper offers an analysis of the three Pomak deictics, -s-, -t- and -n-, which are used for both spatial and temporal-modal reference in nominals. This analysis is based on first-hand data from Pomak, a Balkan Slavic vernacular spoken in Greece (Xanthi prefecture). Following I propose that in this Pomak vernacular the spatial set of uses is triggered when the process situation is identical to the utterance situation (Sit2=Sit0), in which case the three deictics are organized around the distance between the referent and the speaker or the addressee, as in other person oriented systems, described e.g. by . When the process situation is different (Sit2≠Sit0) or has no relation (Sit2ωSit0) to the utterance situation, the temporal-modal set of uses is triggered, with a distinction between realis (with a further past vs. future distinction) vs. irrealis. These deictics also extend to clause-combining, as they partake in the formation of relative pronouns and temporal subordinators. The extensive temporal uses in Xanthi Pomak are analyzed here as an innovative use of a possibility available in the diasystem and partially encountered in other closely-related Balkan Slavic languages. Beyond the interest these data present for Slavic studies, the rich temporal uses of the Pomak deictics also contribute to typological research on overtly tensed nominals, as addressed by , and . [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The study revisits the notion of the hortative in a typological context. • A case study examines the hortative particle -ca in spoken Korean data. • -Ca has four sub-functions, which depend on the performer of the focal action. • The hortative forms a category distinct from the adjacent category of imperative. • The two categories lie on a directive speech-act continuum. This paper revisits the hortative and its relationship with the imperative in a typological context by conducting a case study of the particle -ca in Korean from a usage-based perspective. It argues that the hortative and the imperative are functionally adjacent but clearly distinct categories on a directive speech-act continuum. Using data of modern spoken Korean from the 21st Century Sejong Corpus, we provide empirical evidence of four sub-functions of -ca , which differ by the performer of the focal action: (i) the cohortative has a first person plural subject (i.e., the speaker and the addressee(s)); (ii) the polite/accordant imperative has a second person subject (i.e., the addressee(s)); (iii) the speaker hortative has a first person subject (i.e., the speaker); and (iv) the exhortative has a third person subject. The analysis of the data shows that although the degree of directivity can vary, the core function of -ca remains the same across these sub-functions: to request participation in a joint activity of the speaker and the addressee. Cases of functional ambiguity, where -ca might fulfill more than one of the four sub-functions, are direct evidence that directive speech acts form a continuum ranging from hortative to imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]