Are manner of speaking verbs truly manner?

Manner of speaking verbs (MoS) are said to induce strong island effects, in contrast with verbs of communication, which allow extraction. The main studies which tried to account for this distinction focused either on the existence of a manner component, of an added layer of meaning, or on that of a nominal element, corresponding to the resulting emitted noise. However, these intuitions according to which they simultaneously denote both manner and result would induce a violation of the Manner Result Complementarity (Levin & Rappaport 2011). What’s more, a closer look at the data shows that there are at least some cases where extraction out of the complement of MoS verbs is actually allowed. The goal of this paper is to put forth an analysis which first of all accounts for the ban on extraction, but also for the variable behaviour that these verbs evince. By postulating two structurally distinct subclasses of MoS verbs, I not only manage to reconcile the two intuitions present in the literature without violating the MRC, but also explain the syntactic behaviour of these verbs with respect to extraction from the post-verbal clause.

Review. Seizi Iwata. English Resultatives: A Force-Recipient Account

Review

Information packaging correlates of semantic information structure categories

This paper presents an Information Structure (IS) model at the information packaging (IPk) level and its usage in utterance partitioning and in explaining semantic IS category realizations at the pragmatic level. The IPk model proposes a hierarchical view of F0 contours that transforms utterances into binary contrast unit (CU) hierarchies. CUs have binary IPk partitions with two independent and overlapping structures and a nuclear element which project its IPk functions to the whole units it belongs to. Two nuclear accent identification rules are formulated in this paper in order to be used in decoding IPk partition hierarchy by F0 contour analysis. In the second part of the paper several intonational contours of English sentences, having different semantic IS events, are interpreted by correlating semantic IS analysis results with those of the IPk model-based analysis. By decoding IPk structure and functional constituents from F0 contours we can advance our knowledge about the relationship between prosody and intonational meaning.

DOM AND NON-CANONICAL WORD ORDER IN ROMANCE: THE CASE OF GALICIAN

In this article, I investigate the link between VSO-VOS orders and differential object marking (DOM) via novel data from Galician. I present an analysis that sheds light on what may be required for a language to license DOM via movement, a requirement once thought necessary for licensing DOM that has recently been discredited on the basis of an overwhelming amount of cross-linguistic data (cf. Kalin 2018). I also show evidence for the variation regarding featural specification of DPs that must be differentially marked, adding to the highly variable factors that contribute to the appearance of DOM on nominal objects in natural language. Focusing on full DP objects, I conclude that licensing DOM in Galician is predicated on both the level of animacy of postverbal nominals and object shift in VOS configurations.

The acquisition of recursively embedded noun modifiers in Romanian by Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals

The present study examines how simultaneous bilinguals acquire phenomena which are delayed in monolingual development. It compares how 5- and 7-year-old Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals and Romanian monolinguals comprehend complex DPs with recursively embedded locative Prepositional Phrase and subject relative clause modifiers. The order of acquisition is the same in L1 and in 2L1: during the early stages children assign both conjunctive and recursive readings to complex DPs with embedded modifiers and gradually reduce the number of conjunctive responses to the advantage of recursive ones. At age 7 neither the monolinguals nor the bilinguals behave adult-like. But the results reveal a significant increase in recursive responses from age 5 to age 7 only in L1. In 2L1, at this stage, there is an increase only in the number of conjunctive responses and in errors which target the lexical preposition. Our findings show that the simultaneous bilinguals follow the same acquisition path as the monolinguals but at a slower pace. We argue that when a derivationally complex structure is vulnerable in L1 acquisition, cross-linguistic interference effects may cause an even more prolonged delay in 2L1 acquisition.

Rediscovering past narrations: The oral history of the Romanian language preserved in the National Phonogram Archive

In this paper we aim to deliver a key message related to the safeguarding of the Romanian National Phonogram Archive (AFLR). The data gathered within the Archive (the richest, most inclusive and diversified collection of dialectal texts and ethno-linguistic recordings in Romania) are of immeasurable documentary value. Through the digitization and preservation of AFLR we can gain access to both individual and collective memories, aiding to a better understanding of our cultural heritage on the one hand, and, on the other hand, restoring missing or forgotten pieces of Europe’s oral history.

Causation and dispositions: Towards a semantic characterization of the French causative verb laisser

The French causative verb laisser can enter two different constructions: a monoclausal one resembling the faire-infinitive construction (Kayne 1975, Alsina 1992, Guasti 1996, Folli & Harley 2007) and a biclausal one. While differences in interpretation between these two constructions have been pointed out (Kayne 1975, Enghels & Roegiest 2012), the link between structure and conceptual representation has not been clearly defined yet. In this paper, we tackle the syntax and semantics of causative laisser adopting as a background Talmy’s (1988) force dynamics model of causation. We further show that the link to the selectional restrictions of the causative verb can be made by considering forces as dispositional causal properties (Fara 2001), that is, properties that become relevant with respect to the role of an entity in a causal chain.

Towards an RRG analysis of constructions with a morphologcal causaive in some Altaic languages

The present paper examines Bashkir and Kalmyk construction formed from transitive verbs by means of causative suffixes1. We refer to these constructions to “constructions with a morphological causative”. The paper also references other Altaic languages (Mishar Tatar, Nanai, Tuvinian, Khakas). The main focus of the paper is on the valence-increasing behavior of causatives. Primary attention is drawn to the case marking of the Causee since Altaic languages allow several options for that. The paper describes in detail the existing alternation and reviews prior explanations of this phenomenon. It then couches the explanation for the alternation within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. The analysis identifies that Altaic constructions in question are somehow peculiar compared to general trends. After discussing the advantages and drawbacks of various theoretical interpretations of this peculiarity, we conclude that it is best to link two different causative constructions to two different logical structures. We also suggest constructional schemata for Kalmyk and Bashkir to include in the Linking Algorithm.

Review. Alina Tigău. 2020. Experimental Insights into the Syntax of Romanian Ditransitives. (Reviewed by Adina Bleotu)

Review

Not all object experiencers are the same: The role of se and the argument structure of Serbian psych verbs anticausatives

The goal of this paper is to account for the observation that some Serbian object experiencer anticausatives take instrumental NPs as expressions of the causer participant whereas others take od(‘from’)- PPs. Following a number of authors (Alexiadou et al. 2013, Doron 2014, Anagnostopoulou & Samioti 2014, a. o.), I assume that differences in the licensing of expressions introducing event participants point in the direction of structural differences in terms of presence/absence of certain layers of verbal structure. The observed difference is accounted for by assuming that instrumental NPs are syntactically licensed by VoiceP while od(‘from’)-PPs are rejected by VoiceP owing to a semantic clash. Consequently, full VoiceP structure is present with psych verb anticausatives that license instrumental NPs and absent with psych verb anticauatives that license od(‘from’)-PPs. The analysis presented in the paper has implications for the syntactic and semantic status of SE as well. It is suggested that Chierchia’s (2004) reflexive approach to anticausatives can be extended to psych verb anticausatives which license instrumental NPs whereas the standard approach (Schäfer & Vivanco 2016) should be retained for typical anticausatives with inanimate internal arguments and object experiencers that license od (‘from’)-PPs. Such a “middle-ground” solution follows from the syntactic structures I propose for these two different sets of psych verb anticausatives.