Relative nominals and event nominals in Hiaki

In ‘Relative nominals and event nominals in Hiaki’, Harley discusses an interesting formal overlap between nominalizations which create relative-clause like structures and nominalizations which create event nominals in Hiaki (Yaqui). The nominalizer which usually derives a subject relative nominal, when applied to an argumentless predicate such as a weather verb or an impersonal passive, also derives an event nominal. Harley argues that this is because the event argument IS the ‘subject’ of an argumentless predicate, the only accessible argument for the nominalizer to reify. In the process of proposing a uniform semantics for the relative nominalizers and the event nominalizer, a detailed analysis of both is provided. The nominalizers are argued to select an AspP complement. In entity-referring relative nominals, null operator movement is involved; in the event-referring event nominals, no operator is needed or possible. The syntax and morphology of the relative nominalizers is worked out in detail, with particular attention to the genitive-marked subjects of object, oblique, and locative relative nominals. <163>

Resumptive Pronouns in Chinese Passives

This paper accounts for the following puzzle: In Chinese long passives resumptive pronouns are allowed as long as the predicate under bei is modified by a post-verbal modifier. This follows from Huang’s (1999) analysis that Chinese long passives involve null operator movement. Surprisingly, resumptive pronouns cannot be licensed if the predicate under bei is bare. I argue that this exception follows from a PF constraint: Resumptive pronouns cannot occur in a position which receives stress. Without a postverbal modifier of the predicate, the neutral stress automatically falls on the resumptive pronoun, which violates the PF constraint.

Spelling-Out Scrambling

This paper offers a new analysis of Japanese scrambling, under which some instances of scrambling phenomena are derived from the process of linearization. It is specifically proposed that the absence of formal agreement in Japanese enables Spell-Out to apply solely to an argument of the verb. The spelled out argument is “dislocated” at PF by the mechanisms of linearization of spelled out syntactic objects. Radical reconstruction effects, along with various other properties of Japanese scrambling such as the proper binding effects, are captured as a natural consequence of the proposed analysis, because the scrambled constituent actually does not undergo any syntactic movement but rather stays in the base-generated position. It is also argued that an analysis of scrambling ought to be eclectic in the sense that another strategy, which employs null operator movement to establish the relation between the dislocated element and the gap, is also available in Japanese, as originally proposed by Ueyama (2002). Thus, the optionality of Japanese scrambling is shifted under the proposed analysis to the optional application of Spell-Out (made possible by the absence of formal agreement) and the optional selection of a null operator in the numeration. The paper is concluded with the speculation that the availability of the latter strategy is due to the rich use of predication in Japanese.

(Mis)construing null prepositions in L2 intergrammars: a commentary and proposal

This article discusses the ‘null prep phenomenon’ reported in several studies of the second language (L2) development of extraction constructions (e.g. Klein, 1993a, 1993b; Klein, 1995a, 1995b). In these studies, L2 learners of English who show subcategorization knowledge of verbs for their prepositional complements, often leave out the required preposition in corresponding interrogatives (and relative clauses as well). We review the theoretical and acquisition issues related to null prep and summarize a proposal by Dekydtspotter, Sprouse and Anderson (DSA, 1998) which posits that null prep grammars represent a generalized procedure in L2 development, that of early reliance on A-bar binding construals when the target grammar requires wh-movement. In a commentary, we argue against some of the evidence offered in support of the DSA’s proposal and offer an alternative analysis. Our proposal suggests that many L2 learners exhibit an interim stage of null operator movement in the development of interrogatives before undertaking obligatory overt wh-movement. This analysis sheds light on why null prep grammars occur among second although not first language learners of English.