Expletive negation in exclamatives – Evidence from Hungarian

This paper examines expletive negation in root clauses (surprise negation sentences and wh-exclamatives) in Hungarian. We argue that Hungarian has three distinct negation positions, each corresponding to a truth-reversal operation on a different level. When the negator nem ‘no’ is merged in the CP layer (in the head position of the Speaker Deixis Phrase), this yields surprise negation sentences, corresponding to negation at the level of presuppositions (expletive negation). The negator being merged as the head of NegP within the extended TP yields standard negation (at the propositional level). In wh-exclamatives, the negator is head-adjoined to T0, which results in negation at the level of implicatures (expletive negation). In addition to pointing out this mapping between syntactic position and semantic-pragmatic interpretation, we also argue that the data from Hungarian present a strong case against a raising analysis of expletive negation.

The role of phonology in Vata adjectival agreement

In realizational theories of morphology, different opinions exist on the relationship between phonology and Vocabulary Insertion. On the one hand, there are separational theories like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993), which assume that Vocabulary Insertion does not interact with the phonological component of the grammar. These theories predict that the properties of a language's regular phonology never play a role when vocabulary items (VIs) are inserted. The opposite view is held by integrational theories as, for instance, proposed in Wolf (2008). These theories assume that the general phonology of a language can influence Vocabulary Insertion. Based on adjectival agreement in the language Vata, I propose an integrational model that assumes that Vocabulary Insertion applies in an Optimality-Theoretic (Prince & Smolensky 1993) phonology, where regular phonological constraints are active. I propose that the phonology consists of two levels: one level where VIs are inserted and one level for regular phonology.

Gender agreement with exclusive disjunction in Slovenian

This paper addresses two issues: 1. Empirically, we report novel experimental data on agreement with exclusively disjoined subjects in Slovenian; 2. Theoretically, we look into the nature of attested agreement strategies with coordinated NPs. In particular, we investigate how these strategies behave under coordinators with different semantics, i.e. exclusive disjunction and conjunction. Based on the elicitation results, we argue that closest conjunct agreement, resolved agreement, and highest conjunct agreement are all present under exclusive disjunction to different extents, which suggests a uniform set of agreement strategies under disjunction and conjunction despite the semantic difference. Further, we argue against the presence of default agreement under both disjunction and conjunction in Slovenian, and argue for a particular set of gender resolution rules.

Complex simplex numerals

It is commonly assumed that basic cardinal numerals such as English three are simplex expressions whose primary function is to quantify over entities denoted by the modified NP (e.g., Kennedy 2015; Rothstein 2017; Ionin & Matushansky 2018). In this paper, we explore cross-linguistic marking patterns suggesting that cardinals in fact lexicalize complex syntactic and semantic structures derived from the primitive notion of the number scale. The evidence we will investigate comes from various morphological shapes of cardinal numerals when used to count objects and when used for abstract arithmetical counting.

Evaluativity of degree achievements and verbal prefixes: Evidence from Czech morphology

The telicity behavior of degree achievements has been a puzzling problem to many linguists. The most successful and currently standard theory (Kennedy & Levin 2008) treats them as degree expressions lexicalizing different types of scales, which in turn influence the resulting evaluative or non-evaluative interpretation. While it may account for English, this theory does not hold up cross-linguistically. We challenge the scalar theory with new Slavic data and show that verbal prefixes influence the (non-)evaluative interpretation of degree achievements more than their underlying scales do. This proposal is formalised as an addition of two type shifters, morphosyntactically realised as prefixes, which, in result, have an evaluative/non-evaluative effect on the given degree achievement.

Tonal peaks in the spontaneous speech of vantage level Hungarian learners of Spanish

This paper reports on a two-part research project, conducted in order to see how Hungarian learners with at least vantage level of Spanish realize melodic peaks in their Spanish utterances. First, we are focusing on the tonal and distributional characteristics of melodic peaks, taking into consideration the proportion of the rise in f0 with respect to the previous syllable and examining if the affected syllable is lexically stressed. Second, the range of the tonal rise until the first peak of the utterance is analyzed. The method applied in both cases is Cantero Serena’s Prosodic Analysis of Speech (2019), which represents intonation by objectively comparable standardized melodic curves. The differences found in the speech of Hungarian learners as compared to native Spanish speakers have not proved to be significant in the aspects analyzed here. The main finding of the research is that native Spanish speakers tend to realize the first peak of their declarative sentences as the highest f0 point of the utterance, whereas this is less typical in the oral production of Hungarian learners of Spanish.

Mora-timed, stress-timed, and syllable-timed rhythm classes: Clues in English speech production by bilingual speakers

A growing body of literature suggests that the world's languages can be classified into three rhythm classes: mora-timed languages, stress-timed languages, and syllable-timed languages. However, scholars cannot agree on which rhythmic measures discriminate rhythm classes most satisfactorily and whether the speech rate factor should be considered. In this study, we analyze speech production by bilingual speakers, and compare their production with that of monolingual speakers and ESL speakers. Our rhythmic metric measure results show that when speech rate is taken into consideration, a combination of the two metric measures for vowels, Varco∆V and vocalic nPVI, is most reliable in discriminating different rhythm classes, while consonants do not seem effective, whether the speech rate factor is included or not.

A comparative study of possessive construction in Kurdish and Hungarian from a cognitive perspective

The present paper seeks to investigate the characteristics of possessive constructions in Kurdish (the Central variety also known as Sorani) and Hungarian from a cognitive viewpoint. Starting with nominal possessive constructions, which include attenuated possessors and nominal possessees, we will argue that both Kurdish and Hungarian make use of essentially similar typological strategies to encode the possessive relationship. Moreover, the defining characteristics of nominal possessive constructions in both languages will be justifiably accounted for through the same lines of cognitive argumentation in terms of Langacker's reference-point model (2008, 2009). However, a different cognitive treatment is proposed for cases in which the possessor and the possessee are nominal and linked to each other via an Ezafe. We will argue that Ezafe, which links the nominal head to its dependents in a Noun Phrase (Qharib et al. 1971; Moiin 1984; Ghomeshi 1997; Lotfi 2014), evokes an intrinsic asymmetric relationship between the possessor as the landmark and the possessee as the trajector. As the second major type of possessive constructions elaborated on in this paper, the predicative possessive is first classified into topic-possessive and be-possessive categories. Despite their subtle structural differences, it is again shown that both Kurdish and Hungarian employ almost similar clausal patterns to form both categories of predicative possessives, and the same cognitive models can be brought into play to account for their underlying characteristics. The final section of the present paper is devoted to the so-called ergative constructions in Kurdish. Seeking to propose a new cognitive approach to account for the peculiarities of the non-accusative alignment, we will argue that the so-called ergative constructions in Kurdish are conceptually linked to predicative possessive constructions.