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This paper provides a unified analysis of wh-constructions in both the Spanish clausal and nominal domains. The analysis builds on recent typological research findings (cf. Cable 2010) and analyzes Spanish as a language that possesses two different Q-particles in its lexicon: a Q-particle that must agree with the wh-phrase and triggers its movement, and a Q-particle that does not agree with the wh-phrase and enters the derivation in the relevant Force (C) position. The analysis captures the distribution and locality properties of interrogative sentences in Spanish, which reveal that only wh-in-situ can appear in islands, survive blocking effects, and appear in subextraction constructions. Crucially, the only requirement for wh-in-situ in the clausal and the nominal domains (the Sentence Final Requirement) can be straightforwardly derived by the interaction of a phonological constraint, the nuclear stress assignment, and the deletion of copies of non-trivial chains created through syntactic movement at the PHON interface. Furthermore, this paper contributes to the general approach of banning optionality from the grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, it is possible to describe the location of any entity with respect to a landmark object without specifying the exact place that the locatum occupies (e.g. English at in at home). Such vocabulary items usually contrast with items that belong to the same categories but have more restricted senses (e.g. on top of in on top of the shelf). Thus, the degree of "abstractness" that such spatial case markers can convey usually depends on the organization of the lexicon and grammar of spatial terms in each language. The goal of this paper is to explore these properties across a small sample of languages and offer an account of this variation that is connected to previous theories of spatial case markers (e.g. adpositions). Our key proposal is that the morpho-syntactic structure of spatial case markers and their phrases can license a clear division of labour between functional and lexical spatial senses. However, intermediate solutions blurring categories and semantic boundaries are shown to be possible. We formalize this proposal via a fragment of Lexical Syntax, and show that degrees of distinction between 'functional' and 'lexical' sense types and categories can be modelled via a unified account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recasts Chomsky's (2007, 2008) Feature Inheritance, arguing that the syntactic relation between phase heads and non-phase heads must be regarded as that of identity: Non-phase heads are (copies of) phase heads. From this perspective, e.g., C and T are one and the very same unit in the lexicon, a unit that can (and sometimes must) undergo a process of Internal Merge (IM) during the derivation, creating a discontinuous object (i.e., a non-trivial chain) that gives rise to the - apparent - non-phase head / phase head distinction. The analysis has several consequences. Firstly, it provides an explanation for the fact that the features of phases heads are inherited by non-phase heads (under a copy-based approach, this is simply automatic). Secondly, it accounts for the functioning of phase and non-phase heads 'as a unit' in the Case-agreement systems (as argued by Chomsky 2004, Epstein et al. 2012). Thirdly, since non-phase heads are copies of phase heads, it also follows that they need not be seen as feature-less elements in the lexicon (as mere feature receptacles, cf. Richards 2007). Fourthly, this approach allows us to dispense with the idea that either C and T trigger simultaneous operations (Chomsky 2008), or that the operations triggered by T are actually driven by C (derivatively); this is welcome, since both alternatives involve a restricted (phase-based) margin of countercyclicity. Finally, the present analysis makes it possible to dispense with Feature Inheritance, understood as a brandnew, UG enriching, feature-depriving mechanism. Rejecting this commonly accepted view of Feature Inheritance takes into account the problems attributed to feature-movement in the syntax (Chomsky's 1995 Move F ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares compositional processes involved in syntax on the one hand and word formation on the other hand within the Generative Lexicon framework. It first shows how semantic types incorporated in a structured lexical entry are acted on by different compositional mechanisms in predicates headed by verbs and in modification constructions, and then analyzes non-evaluative suffixation in Spanish in order to determine how the head suffix interacts with the meaning of the base word. It is concluded that different parts of the lexical entry of the selected component (syntactic argument or morphological base) can be accessed in both phrase construction and word formation, but the mechanisms underlying complex syntactic and morphological structures differ in significant ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Modern European Portuguese the adverb sempre can have two different interpretations: a confirmative, non-temporal, and a temporal/aspectual interpretation. In the confirmative interpretation sempre means ‘after all’, and in the temporal/aspectual interpretation it means ‘always’. Each interpretation correlates with the position sempre occupies in the sentence. In this article we compare the behavior of sempre in modern varieties of Portuguese and in Medieval Portuguese (MP). Modern European Portuguese (MEP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) behave differently as to the placement and interpretation of sempre. This situation is assumed in the literature as deriving from aspects of clause structure, such as verb movement and licensing of null subjects (Brito, Clause structure, subject positions and verb movement: About the position of sempre in European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, John Benjamins, 2001; Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão, Tense, quantification and clause structure in EP and BP, John Benjamins, 2004, among others). In MP, however, sempre is always temporal/aspectual and can be placed before or after the verb. Therefore, we argue that the variation found in MP does not relate to structural differences of the kind that exist between MEP and BP, but rather to the inherent semantics of sempre. We propose that somewhere during the history of Portuguese there was a specialization of the adverb sempre, that resulted in the fact that its syntactic placement derives its meaning. In fact, we show that the first occurrences of non-temporal sempre appeared during the Classical Portuguese period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Double Negation languages like Dutch and German still exhibit constructions, such as Dutch niemand niet ‘nobody not’ or nooit geen ‘nothing no’, that seem to have a Negative Concord reading. Since these constructions normally have an emphatic reading, they are called Emphatic Multiple Negative Expressions (EMNEs). In this article I discuss the difference between so-called EMNEs and plain Negative Concord constructions. I demonstrate that EMNEs are fundamentally different from Negative Concord constructions, and that for this reason EMNEs should not be taken to be instances of Negative Concord in Double Negation languages. Instead, I argue that EMNEs are best analyzed as lexical items that consist of two semantic objects, of which only one is semantically negative. By applying overt movement, followed by partial reconstruction at the level of Logical Form both semantic objects can take scope from a different position in the tree. I argue that the single negation an EMNE consists of is the result of the disappearance of Negative Concord in Dutch: after the loss of the preverbal negative marker en/ne, strings containing two n-words or an n-word and a negative marker niet could no longer act as a cue for NC and therefore had to be stored in the lexicon. The death of Dutch NC, so to speak, led to the birth of EMNEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judgments about the grammaticality/acceptability of sentences are the most widely used data source in the syntactic literature. Typically, syntacticians rely on their own judgments, or those of a small number of colleagues. Although a number of researchers have argued that this is problematic, there is little research which systematically compares professional linguists' intuitions with those of linguistically naive speakers. This article examines linguists' and nonlinguists' judgments about one particular structure: questions with long distance dependencies. Linguists' judgments are shown to diverge from those of nonlinguists. These differences could be due to theoretical commitments (the conviction that linguistic processes apply ‘across the board’, and hence all sentences with the same syntactic structure should be equally grammatical) or to differences in exposure (the constructed examples of this structure found in the syntactic literature are very unrepresentative of ordinary usage). Whichever of these explanations turns out to be correct, it is clear that linguists' judgments are not representative of the population as a whole, and hence syntacticians should not rely on their own intuitions when testing their theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a theory of the development of lexical accents in edgemost stress systems, and their representations. It is shown that, first, the directionality of different levels of prominence at the word and above-word level, and, second, morphologization as a result of prosodic weakening work together for the development of various types of lexical accents. Our proposal makes a number of predictions with respect to: (a) whether a system will develop lexical accents, (b) their initial shape when the default stress is fossilized, and (c) their subsequent reshaping. To substantiate our predictions, we examine approximately fifty edgemost stress systems. Furthermore, we propose a two-dimensional theory of the representation of lexical accents that distinguishes between the morphological affiliation of an accent and its locus of pronunciation. The soundness of our theory is tested not only on the grounds of its explanatory power in capturing diachronic changes, but also with respect to its empirical coverage of contemporary theoretical issues concerning the representation of lexical accents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys the state of the art in the field of semantic universals. We examine potential semantic universals in three areas: (i) the lexicon, (ii) semantic “glue” (functional morphemes and composition principles), and (iii) pragmatics. At the level of the lexicon, we find remarkably few convincing semantic universals. At the level of functional morphemes and composition principles, we discuss a number of promising constraints, most of which require further empirical testing and/or refinement. In the realm of pragmatics, we predict that Gricean mechanisms are universal, but suggest that the precise nature of presuppositions may be subject to cross-linguistic variation. Finally, we follow E.L. Keenan in concluding that the overarching universal of effability or translatability between languages cannot be upheld in its strongest form. A recurring theme throughout this survey is how much work still remains to be done in the relatively young field of cross-linguistic formal semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a cluster of approaches in linguistic theory known as exemplar-based models. Such exemplar-based models are being developed in research domains as diverse as phonetics, phonology, morphology, historical linguistics, semantics, syntax, and language acquisition. This special issue brings together, for the first time, articles applying exemplarbased models to a wide range of linguistic subdisciplines. We hope that this collection will give readers a sense for the challenges and new research tools that exemplar-based models offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]