刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《语言学探究》2022年第1-2期

LINGUISTIC INQUIRY

Volume 53, Issue 1-2, 2022

LINGUISTIC INQUIRY（SSCI二区，2021IF：1.549）2022年第1-2期共发文15篇。研究论文涉及汉字编码、音韵学、俄语矛盾副词等。

目录

ARTICLES

■ Extending the Person-Case Constraint to Gender: Agreement, Locality, and the Syntax of Pronouns, by Steven Foley, Maziar Toosarvandani

■ Same Root, Different Categories: Encoding Direction in Chinese, by Xuhui Hu

■ Statistical Evidence for Learnable Lexical Subclasses in Japanese, by Takashi Morita, Timothy J. O’Donnell

■ Deriving Head-Final Order in the Peripheral Domain of Chinese, by Victor Junnan Pan

■ Outscoping the Directive Force of Imperatives, by Virginia Dawson

■ That’s a Curious Copular Construction You Have There! , by Min-Joo Kim

■ PP-Extraposition and Precedence, by Ad Neeleman, Hans van de Koot

■ Priority Union and Feature Logic in Phonology, by Charles Reiss

■ On the Event-Structural Properties of the English Get-Passive, by Alison Biggs, David Embick

■ Negative Polarity Items in Definite Superlatives, by Dylan Bumford, Yael Sharvit

■ Person of Interest: Experimental Investigations into the Learnability of Person Systems, by Mora Maldonado, Jennifer Culbertson

■ VP-Nominalization and the Final-over-Final Condition, by Johannes Hein, Andrew Murphy

■ Breton Masculine Human Plurals, Locality, and Impoverishment, by Jean-François Mondon

■ Ambivalent Adpositions and “P-Stranding” in Russian, by Tatiana Philippova

■ Why *if or not but ✓ whether or not, by Danfeng Wu

■

摘要

Extending the Person-Case Constraint to Gender: Agreement, Locality, and the Syntax of Pronouns 

Steven Foley, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Maziar Toosarvandani, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Abstract In many languages with clitic or other weak pronouns, a Person-Case Constraint (Perlmutter 1971, Bonet 1991) prohibits certain combinations of these pronouns on the basis of their person features. This article explores the crosslinguistic variation in such constraints, starting with several closely related Zapotec varieties. These restrict combinations of clitics not just on the basis of person, but also on the basis of a finely articulated, largely animacy-based gender system. Operating within a larger combinatorial space, these constraints offer a new perspective on the typology of Phi-Case Constraints (ΦCCs) more generally. This typology has an overall asymmetrical shape correlating with the underlying syntactic position of pronominal arguments. We develop a principled theory of this typology that incorporates three hypotheses: (a) ΦCCs arise from how a functional head Agrees with clitic pronouns, subject to intervention-based locality (Anagnostopoulou 2003, Béjar and Rezac 2003, 2009); (b) the variation in these constraints arises from variation in the relativization of probes (Anagnostopoulou 2005, Nevins 2007, 2011); and (c) clitic and other weak pronouns have no inherent need to be licensed via Agree with a functional head. Under this account, the crosslinguistic typology of ΦCCs has the potential to shed light on the grammatical representation of person and gender.

Key words locality, Agree, pronouns, person, gender, animacy

Same Root, Different Categories: Encoding Direction in Chinese

Xuhui Hu, Institute of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, School of Foreign Languages, Peking University

Abstract The complexity of the directional construction in Chinese involves the following factors: (a) it can take a single directional item as the predicate; (b) two directional items can cooccur to serve as the predicate; (c) one or two directional items can be attached to a matrix verb in a single clause; (d) if more than one directional item is involved, their linear order can differ. I propose that the leading factor behind this complexity is that in Chinese a single Root can take different categories when merged in different syntactic positions. Therefore, the same directional item may in fact have the phonological form of a verb, a preposition, a part of a single preposition, or even a spatial aspectual marker in different directional constructions. I then place this account within the context of parametric studies of motion event constructions, showing that two new dimensions can be added: the special property of Roots in a language and the existence of Spatial Aspect in at least some languages.

Key words directional constructions, Chinese, Root property, Spatial Aspect, parametric studies

Statistical Evidence for Learnable Lexical Subclasses in Japanese

Takashi Morita, The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University

Timothy J. O’Donnell, Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Québec Artificial Intelligence Institute (Mila), Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Mila

Abstract It has been proposed that the Japanese lexicon can be divided into etymologically defined sublexica on phonotactic and other grounds. However, the psychological reality of this sublexical analysis has been challenged by some authors, who have appealed to putative problems with the learnability of the system. In this study, we apply a commonly used clustering method to Japanese words and show that there is robust statistical evidence for the sublexica and, thereby, that such sublexica are learnable. The model is able to recover phonotactic properties of sublexica previously discussed in the literature, and also reveals hitherto unnoticed phonotactic properties that are characteristic of sublexical membership and can serve as a basis for future experimental investigations. The proposed approach is general and based purely on phonotactic information and thus can be applied to other languages.

Key words Japanese, phonotactics, lexical strata, Bayesian learning, naturalistic learnability, variational inference

Deriving Head-Final Order in the Peripheral Domain of Chinese 

Victor Junnan Pan, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Abstract This article proposes a unified analysis of the peripheral projections in Chinese, which does not rely on a head-directionality parameter. Each of these projections constitutes a phase and its head bears an EPP feature, which must be satisfied. Chinese peripheral projections demonstrate four different ways to satisfy the EPP. Importantly, sentence-final particles project phases, and their complements obligatorily move to the specifier as a last resort to satisfy the EPP. Movement of the complement to the phase edge would postpone the transfer of phrases embedded in the complement, allowing these phrases to move later. When the phase edge is not available for the moved complement, phrases embedded in the complement are not able to be extracted in the later stage, after the complement is transferred. This constitutes a strong argument in favor of the obligatory complement-to-specifier raising analysis for sentence-final particles in Chinese.

Key words sentence-final particles, left periphery, final head, phase, Chinese

Outscoping the Directive Force of Imperatives 

Virginia Dawson, Department of Linguistics, Western Washington University

Abstract Tiwa, a Tibeto-Burman language of India, has an obligatory wide scope disjunction particle that must outscope the directive force of imperatives. I argue that the behavior of wide scope disjunction in Tiwa provides evidence in favor of theories of imperative meaning that derive directive force from an operator in the semantics proper (e.g., Kaufmann 2012) over purely pragmatic theories (e.g., Portner 2004, 2007). Specifically, I argue that the disjunction must be able to outscope the imperative operator in order to capture the attested reading.

Key words imperatives, disjunction, scope, Tiwa

That’s a Curious Copular Construction You Have There! 

Min-Joo Kim, Department of English, Texas Tech University

Abstract Sentences like That’s a beautiful dress you’re wearing are commonly heard in colloquial English. These sentences have a surface form that resembles identificational copular sentences with relative clause modifiers (e.g., This is the house I mentioned) and cleft sentences with demonstrative subjects (e.g., That was John that I saw). Ever since Higgins’s (1973) seminal work, English copular sentences have received much attention, but sentences like That’s a beautiful dress you’re wearing have not been part of that discussion. In this squib, I show how these sentences are both similar and dissimilar to identificationals and clefts, and suggest a formal analysis that captures their characteristic properties.

Key words copular sentences, clefts, identificationals, demonstratives, focus, relative clauses

PP-Extraposition and Precedence

Ad Neeleman, University College London, Linguistics, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Hans van de Koot, University College London, Linguistics, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences

Abstract This squib argues that NPI-licensing and variable binding are subject to a precedence constraint. The argument is based on Dutch, which allows extraposition of PPs. There is substantial evidence that when multiple PPs appear after the verb, their order corresponds to reverse c-command (that is, postverbal PPs c-command postverbal PPs to their left). Nonetheless, variable binding and NPI-licensing in the postverbal domain are possible only when the dependent category follows its binder/licenser. We argue that this state of affairs requires (a) Quantifier Raising of the binder/licenser and (b) a precedence constraint on NPI-licensing and variable binding.

Key words PP-extraposition, precedence, NPI-licensing, variable binding

Priority Union and Feature Logic in Phonology 

Charles Reiss, Linguistics Program, Concordia University

Abstract Phonological rules built from a single operation, priority union, can model both feature-filling and feature-changing processes. The distinction is handled by specifying which argument of priority union is defeasible. Priority union should be considered as a candidate for inclusion in phonological Universal Grammar.

Key words phonology, feature logic, rules, Universal Grammar

On the Event-Structural Properties of the English Get-Passive 

Alison Biggs, Linguistics Department, Georgetown University

David Embick, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract An important discussion in theories of argument structure concerns the explanatory division of labor between thematic properties and event structure. English get-passives, analyzed in much previous work as differing thematically from be-passives, provide an interesting test case. We present an analysis of get-passives centered on the proposal that they contain additional event structure (realized as get) relative to their be counterparts. We employ by-adjuncts to identify the different event structures in passive types, and use other diagnostics to support our analysis. Further discussion considers the prominent proposal from previous studies that get-passives differ thematically from be-passives in (sometimes) assigning an Agent role to their surface subjects. We show that contrasts between get and be on this dimension are a consequence of event-structural differences between the two. The result is a unified analysis of the get-passive that has implications for the role of event structure in understanding the syntax and interpretation of arguments.

Key words get-passive, event structure, argument structure, voice alternations

Negative Polarity Items in Definite Superlatives

Dylan Bumford, Department of Linguistics UCLA

Yael Sharvit, Department of Linguistics UCLA

Abstract Ordinary superlative descriptions are well-known to provide safe harbor to negative polarity items (NPIs), as in the longest book anyone read. What is less well-known is that relative superlative descriptions also sometimes host NPIs, as in the loudest that anyone sang. We observe that this latter pattern is more general than has been previously described. In fact, relative superlatives can license NPIs outside of their own descriptions. On the one hand, we argue that this provides evidence that the superlative adjectives take sentential rather than nominal scope. But on the other, following insights in Howard 2014, we argue that traditional semantic accounts of scope-taking superlatives do not present the right monotonicity profile to account for the NPIs either. A recent, dynamic take on superlative semantics (Bumford 2017) is shown to do better.

Key words superlatives, negative polarity items, monotonicity, dynamic semantics, scope

Person of Interest: Experimental Investigations into the Learnability of Person Systems

Mora Maldonado, Centre for Language Evolution, University of Edinburgh

Jennifer Culbertson, Centre for Language Evolution, University of Edinburgh

Abstract Person systems convey the roles entities play in the context of speech (e.g., speaker, addressee). As with other linguistic category systems, not all ways of partitioning the person space are equally likely crosslinguistically. Different theories have been proposed to constrain the set of possible person partitions that humans can represent, explaining their typological distribution. This article introduces an artificial language learning methodology to investigate the existence of universal constraints on person systems. We report the results of three experiments that inform these theoretical approaches by generating behavioral evidence for the impact of constraints on the learnability of different person partitions. Our findings constitute the first experimental evidence for learnability differences in this domain.

Key words person systems, pronouns, artificial language learning, linguistic universals, semantics

VP-Nominalization and the Final-over-Final Condition

Johannes Hein, Department Linguistik, Universität Potsdam

Andrew Murphy, Department of Linguistics, The University of Chicago

Abstract The Final-over-Final Condition has emerged as a robust and explanatory generalization for a wide range of phenomena (Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts 2014, Sheehan et al. 2017). In this article, we argue that it also holds in another domain, nominalization. In languages that show overt nominalization of VPs, one word order is routinely unattested, namely, a head-initial VP with a suffixal nominalizer. This typological gap can be accounted for by the Final-over-Final Condition, if we allow it to hold within mixed extended projections. This view also makes correct predictions about agentive nominalizations and nominalized serial verb constructions.

Key words Final-over-Final Condition, nominalization, extended projections, word order, serial verb constructions, syntax

Breton Masculine Human Plurals, Locality, and Impoverishment 

Jean-François Mondon, Department of World Languages, Minot State University

Abstract This article presents an apparent locality condition violation observed in Standard Breton masculine human plurals ending in -où. It proposes a unique impoverishment rule deleting a syntacticosemantic feature conditioned by a specified phonological exponent. Adopting a specific architectural view of lenition, it forces a rethinking of the precise timing of various postsyntactic processes, including certain types of impoverishment rules as well as Agree-Copy in dissociated Agr nodes. It also lends support to the independent claims that syntacticosemantic features are not overridden during Spell-Out and that Vocabulary Insertion applies to a linearized structure, not a hierarchical one.

Key words Breton, locality, Distributed Morphology, impoverishment, dissociated morphemes, Vocabulary Insertion

Ambivalent Adpositions and “P-Stranding” in Russian

Tatiana Philippova, Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract P(reposition)-stranding is typologically rare. Nevertheless, many languages exhibit phenomena that look like P-stranding (Campos 1991, Poplack, Zentz, and Dion 2012) or involve P-stranding under common theorizing (see Philippova 2014 and references therein). These studies argue that these are not instances of P-complement movement and provide alternative analyses. This squib addresses Russian prepositions that can be postposed to and apparently stranded by their dependents. They are proposed to be PPs rather than P-heads, with dative dependents adjoined similarly to external possessors. The analysis captures all idiosyncrasies of their nominal dependents and alleviates the need to posit exceptional P-stranding in Russian.

Key words adpositions, preposition stranding, dative case, Russian

Why *if or not but ✓ whether or not 

Danfeng Wu, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT

Abstract This squib provides an account of a contrast between whether and if in English, manifested in the contrast between the grammaticality of I don’t know whether or not Pat will arrive and the ungrammaticality of *I don’t know if or not Pat will arrive. I argue that this contrast can be explained if we assume that whether can pied-pipe, but there is no pied-piping in if-questions. Strikingly, once the pied-piping parse for whether is eliminated, it behaves like if. Then I show that this contrast exists crosslinguistically: Polish alternative questions behave like whether-questions because pied-piping is possible, and Bengali alternative questions behave like if-questions because pied-piping is not possible.

Key words alternative questions, pied-piping, agreement, Polish, Bengali

期刊简介

Linguistic Inquiry leads the field in research on current topics in linguistics. This key resource explores new theoretical developments based on the latest international scholarship, capturing the excitement of contemporary debate in full-scale articles as well as shorter contributions (Squibs and Discussion) and more extensive commentary (Remarks and Replies).

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