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This paper responds to in Newmeyer (2004, 2005), who gives argument defending the traditional six-way word order typology that classifies languages as SOV, SVO, etc. against arguments in Dryer (1997) in favour of an alternative typology which classifies languages according to two more basic typological parameters, VO vs. OV and VS vs. SV. The paper provides both updated and new data that is relevant to the issues. Although some of the new data actually supports some of the empirical claims made by Newmeyer, I argue that these do not provide any argument in favour of the six-way typology and that Newmeyer misconstrues the issues distinguishing the two typologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a substantial number of languages negation of non-verbal predicates diverges from standard negation. In this paper I approach this phenomenon from a typological perspective, and claim that non-standard negation of non-verbal predicates can be described through a generalization I refer to as DNA (Direct Negation Avoidance), which means that the non-verbal predicates avoid being in the direct scope of negation. DNA can be subcategorized into various DNA strategies, and in the first half of the paper I list and describe these strategies. In the second half I argue how the DNA generalization may be extended to also include languages with standard negation of their non-verbal predicates, and that further research might reveal DNA to be a language universal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of an experimental study on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora in Italian, by native Italian speakers and near-native Italian speakers whose L1 is Croatian. In a picture-selection task, the two groups of speakers had to identify the antecedents of third person null and overt subject pronouns in ambiguous forward and backward anaphora sentences and their unambiguous counterparts. In all contexts under investigation, near-natives expressed native-like antecedent preferences, indicating that they have acquired not only the syntactic, but also the discourse-pragmatic constraints on the realisation of pronominal subjects in Italian. Given that Croatian and Italian do not differ with respect to the licensing and distribution of pronominal forms, the results provide additional evidence for an account attributing the well-attested tendency of bilingual speakers of a null subject language and a non-null subject language to overuse and misinterpret overt subjects in the null subject language to crosslinguistic influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of sentence boundaries in sign language texts is approached by way of a case study in this paper. A short sample German Sign Language (DGS) text is segmented into elementary units and subjected to a functional analysis that identifies topics, predications, adjuncts and conjuncts as the constituents of textual units of a sentence or clause type, i.e. units with propositional content. Results largely agree with and partly refine the results of an earlier more intuitively based analysis. We then turn to a consideration of formal markings of sentence boundaries, reviewing a number of candidates for ‘boundary markers,’ i.e. specific manual signs, gestures, head nods, eye blinks, and dynamic features such as gaze direction, pauses, and transitions, inspecting if these co-occur with any consistency with the boundaries established on the basis of our consideration of propositional content. Results indicate that, while there is a certain correlation between sentence boundaries and the occurrence of these form elements, neither of these functions consistently or exclusively as boundary marker. Formal markings can be predicted to enter but not dominate the larger interpretative process of making sense of a signed text and recognizing its constituent sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued in this paper that equative sentences in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) conform to the general schema of (NP) NP+(PI+)NP, parenthesis marking optionality of elements. With respect to this schema, it is further argued, (a) that the function of the first NP in equative sentences is always topic; (b) that topics are marked syntactically, prosodically, and morphologically in FinSL; (c) that the preferred organisation of equative sentences in general is topic-comment; (d) that there are two structurally distinct topic-comment structures in FinSL, one having the topic at the beginning of the clause and the other having the topic in the left-detached clause-external position; (e) that the double-indexing phenomenon (cf. pronoun copy) is functionally a means to increase textual cohesion; and (f) that the sign PI in equative sentences is a certainty expressing modal device, although it may be in the process of grammaticalising into a copula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has identified several vulnerable areas in heritage language grammars, among which morphosyntax is among the most affected. In this study, we report on the morphosyntactic competence of Hindi heritage speakers living in the U.S and show that these speakers have representational problems with ergative, accusative and dative case morphology, albeit to different degrees. Hindi is a split ergative language with a complex interaction of case and agreement. Transitive predicates in perfective aspect co-occur with subjects marked with ergative case (-ne) and object agreement. Animate specific direct objects are marked with the particle -ko, and so are the indirect objects and dative subjects. 21 Hindi native speakers and 28 Hindi heritage speakers completed a sociolinguistic questionnaire, a Hindi cloze test, an oral narrative task and a bimodal acceptability judgment task. The results showed significant differences between the fluent native speakers and the heritage speakers on all measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]