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This review article examines some of the claims recently made in a book and article by Vyvyan Evans, which argue that the generative approach to syntax is flawed. It exposes a number of misrepresentations, misunderstandings and mistakes in these works and argues that the general case has not been made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denison distinguishes three main NP constructions with type nouns such as sort/kind/type of in Present-day English, namely the head, postdeterminer and qualifier constructions. The latter two developed from the binominal construction in which lexically full sort/kind/type is the head followed by a second noun designating a superordinate class. In the chronology he posits the postdeterminer construction as an early reanalysis of the binominal construction (c.1390 for all kind of and c.1550 for kind and sort of), whereas the qualifying constructions developed later from it (c.1580 for kind of and c.1710 for sort of), via the mediation of the postdeterminer construction. However, in recent synchronic corpus studies we have distinguished two additional NP constructions with type nouns, namely quantifier and descriptive modifier, on the basis of syntactic, semantic and collocational features. In the present article we consider the diachronic import of these newly distinguished constructions and argue that they are key pivots in the developmental paths that have led from the head construction to constructions in which the type noun is not the head. By thus refining Denison's proposed chronology, we argue that new constructions emerge as the result of complex interlocking paths in which the quantifier and descriptive modifier constructions pre-dated, and helped facilitate and entrench, the postdeterminer and qualifying constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of adjectival diathesis alternations lags behind the study of verbal diathesis and nominalization. This paper aims to diminish the gap by applying to the adjectival domain theoretical tools with proven success elsewhere. We focus on evaluative adjectives, which display a systematic alternation between a basic variant (John was rude) and a derived one (That was rude of John). The alternation brings about a cluster of syntactic and semantic changes - in the semantic type of the predicate, its valency and the mode of argument projection. We argue that the adjectival variants are related by the joint application of two operators: a lexical SATURATION operator (also seen in verbal passive) and a syntactic REIFICATION operator (also seen in nominalization). The analysis straightforwardly extends to similar alternations with Subject- and Object-Experiencer adjectives (proud, irritating). Among its important implications are (i) lexical saturation is not restricted to external arguments (internal ones may also be saturated), and (ii) ' referential ' (R) roles are not restricted to nominal predicates (adjectives may assign them as well). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adger (2006) claims that the Minimalist Program provides a suitable theoretical framework for analysing at least one example of inherent variability: the variation between was and were after you and we in the Scottish town of Buckie. Drawing on the feature analysis of pronouns and the assumption that lexical items normally have equal probabilities, his analysis provides two 'routes' to we/you was, but only one to we/you were, thereby explaining why the former is on average twice as common as the latter. This comment points out four serious flaws in his argument: it ignores important interactions among sex, age and subject pronoun; hardly any social groups actually show the predicted average 2:1 ratio; there is no general tendency for lexical items to have equal probability of being used; the effects of the subject may be better stated in terms of the lexemes you and we rather than as semantic features. The conclusion is that inherent variability supports a usage-based theory rather than Minimalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of subject in human language has a privileged status relative to other arguments. This special status is manifested in the behavior of subjects at the morphological, syntactic, semantic and discourse levels. Here we present evidence that subjects have a privileged status at the lexical level as well, by analyzing lexicalization patterns of verbs in three different sign languages. Our analysis shows that the sub-lexical structure of iconic signs denoting states of affairs in these languages manifests an inherent pattern of form-meaning correspondence: the signer's body consistently represents one argument of the verb, the subject. The hands, moving in relation to the body, represent all other components of the event - including all other arguments. This analysis shows that sign languages provide novel evidence in support of the centrality of the notion of subject in human language. It also solves a typo-logical puzzle about the apparent primacy of object in sign language verb agreement, a primacy not usually found in spoken languages, in which subject agreement generally ranks higher. Our analysis suggests that the subject argument is represented by the body and is part of the lexical structure of the verb. Because it is always inherently represented in the structure of the sign, the subject is more basic than the object, and tolerates the omission of agreement morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the semantically parenthetical use of clause-embedding verbs such as see, hear, think, believe, discover and know. When embedding verbs are used in this way, the embedded clause carries the main point of the utterance, while the main clause serves some discourse function. Frequently, this function is evidential, with the parenthetical verb carrying information about the source and reliability of the embedded claim, or about the speaker's emotional orientation to it. Other functions of parenthetical uses of verbs are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the parenthetical uses of verbs which are standardly assumed to require their complements to be presupposed. It is demonstrated that when so used, these verbs are in no way presuppositional; that is, there is no presumption, or even pretense, that their complements have common ground status. It is further demonstrated that this loss of presuppositionality is not accompanied by a lack of commitment on the part of the speaker to the truth of the complement, as in the standard cases of non-presuppositional uses of these predicates. It is argued that this non-presuppositional use of factive verbs provides support for the (minority) view that presupposition is not a conventional property of lexical items. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: The two versions of the connectionist model of Dell and colleagues offer alternative explanations of aphasic naming disorders (Dell, Schwartz, Martin, Saffran, & Gagnon, 1997; Foygel & Dell, 2000). The semantic-phonological (SP) model hypothesises impairments in lexical-semantic or lexical-phonological connections, and the weight-decay (WD) model assumes global impairments in either connection weights or activation decay. In each version, a patient's error pattern in picture naming is simulated to assess the underlying disorder (connectionist "diagnosis"). A systematic comparison of both model versions in model-oriented naming therapy has not yet been performed. Moreover, if the normalisation of the error pattern during recovery is lesion-specific, as suggested in the SP model (Schwartz, Dell, Martin, Gahl, & Sobel, 2006), this should be observable in the patient data. Aims: Predictions were made and tested regarding the relation between (1) connectionist diagnosis and therapy outcome, and (2) connectionist diagnosis and error pattern development. For example, patients with phonological disorders in the SP model should (1) benefit more from phonological as compared to semantic therapy, and (2) present a decrease of nonwords in their naming responses. Methods & Procedures: The connectionist diagnosis and a 4-week therapy with cueing hierarchies (Howard, 2000; Wambaugh et al., 2001) were administered to 10 German-speaking aphasic patients with naming disorders. Six patients, who had been diagnosed by the SP model, received semantic and phonological therapy. The other four patients, diagnosed by the WD model, received increasing and vanishing therapy (Abel, Schultz, Radermacher, Willmes, & Huber, 2005). Outcomes & Results: Cueing therapy was generally effective for 9 of 10 patients. The trend of improvement was always found in the direction predicted by the connectionist diagnosis, except for two patients diagnosed by the SP model who presented a numerical trend in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, the SP model offered a more plausible explanation of lesion-specific therapy outcomes, and it properly predicted the error pattern development. Moreover, the errorless learning procedure applied in vanishing therapy was favourable for patients with phonological (SP model) or weight (WD model) lesions, and this may be attributed to their characteristic error types and an impairment of editorial processes. Conclusions: Models can be informative about the effectiveness of potential therapies and error pattern developments. Data from therapy studies can test competing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses phonologically motivated gaps in inflectional paradigms. A model is offered in which the appearance of gaps is based on a tension between markedness constraints, faithfulness constraints, and constraints which require the expression of morphological categories. After presenting the model, additional implications are analyzed. Situations in which the same problem has different solutions in different morphological contexts are predicted insofar as constraints requiring the expression of different categories can vary in their ranking relative to some faithfulness constraint. Hence, the same phonotactic problem can yield a gap in one situation and a repair in another. This prediction is illustrated and further details of the prediction are explored, including the identification of a situation requiring a more restrictive version of the model. This is achieved by drawing on Smith's (2001) proposal that faithfulness constraints can be indexed to lexical categories to model this situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how the parser employs thematic and contextual information in resolving temporary ambiguities during sentence processing. We report results from a sentence-completion task and from a self-paced reading experiment with native speakers of Greek examining two constructions under different referential context conditions: relative clauses (RCs) preceded by complex noun phrases with genitives, [NP1 +NP2Gen], and RCs preceded by complex noun phrases containing prepositional phrases, [NP1 + PP[P NP2]]. We found different attachment preferences for these two constructions, a high (NP1) preference for RCs with genitive antecedents and a low (NP2) preference for RCs with PP antecedents. Moreover, referential context information was found to modulate RC attachment differently in the two experimental tasks. We interpret these findings from the perspective of modular theories of sentence processing and argue that on-line ambiguity resolution relies primarily on grammatical and lexical-thematic information, and makes use of referential context information only as a secondary resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Booij (1994, 1996) it has become increasingly clear that inflectional morphology can take part in lexeme formation and compounding. Booij (1994) recognized the need for substantive constraints on the ways inflection can feed derivation, and restricted its derivational use to deictic categories, including Number. Pursuing this search for constraints, I propose that Number is a single morphological category covering two abstract functions (cf Beard 1995), and that it can be inherent only when it expresses the more ‘lexical’ of those functions, and thus means more than the grammatical feature would. This ‘lexical’ Number expresses properties of the lexeme but stands halfway between the lexical core and the properly inflectional categories. It encodes mereological (part-whole) properties of the noun's interpretation, thus paralleling the role of Aspect in the verbal domain, and like Aspect it can be integrated to different degrees in the grammatical system of a language. In some languages, this type of information has a specific morphological expression (so-called collective affixes). In others, it appears only as non-canonical semantics (and sometimes form) for Number inflection. Inherent Number, both as a component of lexeme-formation and as fixed Number value on certain nouns, consists in the expression of Nominal Aspect through the morphology of Number. Morphology is not ‘split’, but its uses are. Inherent inflection, specifically Number, arises in certain languages as a by-product of the separation of (morphological) form and meaning. The article develops these views by presenting first a relatively detailed exemplification from several sources (section 1), followed by some critical reflections on the peculiarities of these constructions, to the effect that inherent Number must be qualitatively different from inflectional Number (section 2). Section 3 sets out in detail the hypothesis that inherent Number is the inflectional expression of Nominal Aspect, and section 4 concludes the argument by hypothesizing that Number not only can, but must have a distinct interpretation as a lexicalized property than as a regular inflectional one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the relationship between (proper) names and word structure, and specifically with the classification of names and with the role of (classes of) names in lexical derivation. The major source of exemplification is English. §1 outlines the categorization of names proposed in a sister study devoted to syntax of names (Anderson in preparation), as well as other relevant parts of the syntactic description given there. In §2.1 different kinds of personal and place names are differentiated and their more salient morphosyntactic characteristics commented upon. This is followed in §2.1 by a consideration both of the historic sources of names and of some of the properties and functions of systems of naming; and there is noted the typical de-semanticisation of names compared with the common words that are their typical historical source, such that the synchronic role of common (descriptive) elements in name systems tends to be restricted. These discussions are relatively informal, but § offers a more (lexical) derivational processes that can form names and with the role of names in derivational processes forming other names or items of other categories, and the light these throw on the semantics of (classes of) names and naming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of the relative "naturalness" of affixation and stein change as the expression of morphological categories. According to some accounts, affixation involves symbolic rules that are stored separately from lexically represented morphemes to which they are applied, and that thus enjoy a processing and acquisition advantage over stem changes. By a lexical account, inflected words are stored as lexical units, regardless of whether the inflection is by affixation or stem change, nicking the two morphological processes equally easy to acquire and generalize. We argue that the reason stein changes are less common in the languages of the world is that the grammaticization process by which morphological processes are created forms affixes more readily than stein changes. Stem changes are more difficult for children to acquire because they typically have lower type frequency. When type and token frequency were controlled in an experiment in which subjects learned plural morphology in an artificial language, we found that while type frequency affected the likelihood that suffixes would be generalized to new instances, overall suffixes and stein changes were equivalent in generalizability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article talks about universal semantic primitives as a basis for lexical semantics. It notes that the semantic system of a language is like a set of Lego blocks, of different shapes and sizes. The meanings of words are like objects constructed out of various Lego blocks. The purpose of lexical semantics is to study such objects, to deconstruct them into their constitutive building blocks, and to seek generalizations about the different types of building blocks and different ways of putting them together. The main difficulty of lexical semantics is that while it needs a solid foundation in the form of well justified semantic primitives, no set of such primitives is given at the outset, rather, the primitives themselves must be found through large-scale lexicographic investigations, both monolingual and cross-linguistic. This double task of finding the primitives via lexicographic description and basing lexicographic description on the primitives may seem self-contradictory and thus impossible to accomplish.