Recent bling_formal_linguistics items

Formalizing two types of mixed A/Ā movement

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Many scholars have argued that some instances of Ā movement include an interaction with some A feature, e.g., D (Aldridge 2004, 2008; Bossi and Diercks 2019; Coon, Baier, and Levin 2021; Branan and Erlewine 2024) or ϕ (van Urk 2015, Colley and Privoznov 2020). However, the interaction between the A and Ā features is not the same in every case. Assuming that Ā movement is predicated on an Agree relationship, I analyze two types of mixed A/Ā Agreement. In the first type, one probe searches for the A and Ā features conjunctively, such that both features must be found together. With novel fieldwork data, I illustrate that this pattern is found in Ndengeleko (Bantu). The conjunctive pattern is challenging to capture from a standard, two-probe perspective on mixed positions (following Chomsky 2001). Building on work on probes’ satisfaction conditions (Deal 2015, 2021), I show that the Ndengeleko pattern is best captured by a probe with a conjunctive...

Latent High Tones in Limba (Thɔnkɔ Dialect), Sierra Leone

Wed, 3 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents an analysis of the rather unusual tone system of the almost totally undocumented Thɔnkɔ /t̪ɔŋkɔ/ dialect of Limba, a Niger-Congo language of Sierra Leone (and slight overlap into Guinée). As we will show, most words are all low tone in their citation form, but exhibit a wide range of tonal contrasts with different high tones popping up when words occur in context. We will illustrate, step by step, how the observed facts justify the proposed contrastive underlying forms and reveal tonal alternations which are best treated with such abstract representations. To show the opaqueness of the widespread tonal neutralization within the system which results from Final High Lowering (FHL), we begin with the interaction of nouns and their adnominal modifiers and then turn to the verb phrase and the clause. We show that the L% boundary tone triggering FHL occurs at the end of declarative and imperative utterances as well as yes-no questions but, interestingly, not at...

Current models of Agree

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is an opinionated survey of issues and perspectives in current models of Agree, understood as a single abstract grammatical operation common to all syntactic long-distance dependencies. I begin with a brief introduction to Chomsky's 2000, 2001 foundational work on Agree. I then review three strands of literature that have in notable ways chipped away at the conceptual foundations of that work in the course of improving the cross-linguistic empirical adequacy of the theory. These center on valuation and relativized probing, in section 3; defaults and failure to value, in section 4; and the question of whether goals must be made “active” by uninterpretable features, in section 5. In section 6, I review an ongoing debate about the directionality of Agree in light of the issues raised for uninterpretable features in sections 3-5. The paper concludes with a presentation of what I see as a way forward for the theory of Agree: the interaction/satisfaction theory, which...

Pragmatic Influences on Argument Word Order in Karuk Narrative Texts

Mon, 17 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Karuk is a non-configurational, polysynthetic, headmarking language spoken near the Klamath River in Northern California (Davis et al., 2020). This paper seeks to answer the following question about Karuk word order: what factors significantly influence the order in which nominal arguments appear with respect to their verbs? Specifically, I examine whether or not the following factors have a significant effect on word order: referential distance, topic persistence, thematic continuity, predicate transitivity, and animacy. Using a logistic regression model, I found that referential distance was a significant predictor of subject position (p < 0.05) and that animacy was a significant predictor of object position (p < 0.05). My findings indicate that for subjects, lower values of referential distance are correlated with a greater frequency of postverbal realizations. In addition, I found that animate objects are more likely than inanimate ones to appear postverbally....

Plural Classifier xie and Grammatical Number in Mandarin Chinese

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents an analysis of Mandarin Chinese as having both singular classifiers and a plural classifier, xie. The Num head is the cross-linguistic locus for number marking, hosting both plural suffixes (such as English -s) and classifiers. As Mandarin bare nouns are general number (inclusive plural), singular classifiers create a singular reading while plural classifier xie creates a plural (exclusive plural) reading; thus Mandarin makes a three-way grammatical number distinction.

Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Kampa Consonants

Thu, 6 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This article reconstructs the Proto-Kampa (Arawakan: Peru) consonant inventory using lexical data from Nomatsigenga, Ashéninka, Pajonal Ashéninka, Asháninka, Kakinte, and Matsigenka. Cognate set and correspondence set construction was partly automated by the use of LingPy, Edictor, and Lingrex—computational tools developed by Johann Mattis-List. I agree with Michael (2010) in reconstructing an inventory of /m, n, N, p, b, t, k, g, ts, tʃ, s, ʃ, h, ɾ, j/. Sound changes that affected these Proto-Kampa consonants in the daughter varieties include palatalization, the development of contrastive aspiration in Ashéninka and Pajonal, *Np > m and *Nk > ŋ in Nomatsigenga, lenition and loss of *g, and loss of *h.

The First Person Singular Subject Negative Portmanteau in Luganda and Lusoga

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A number of studies have provided analyses of Swahili si-, a portmanteau morpheme that conflates and replaces the first person singular subject and negative prefixes. In this short paper I present the corresponding facts from Luganda and Lusoga, two closely related Bantu languages spoken in Uganda. While the Luganda portmanteau si- bears a clear resemblance to Swahili si-, three analyses are considered for corresponding ti- in Lusoga. Although ti- looks like the main clause negative prefix occurring without a first singular subject, i.e. ti-Ø-, I argue that, despite differences, it has to treated in the same portmanteau terms as the other cases. Interestingly, while Luganda si- replaces the otherwise expected ti-n- and n-ta- sequences in main vs. relative clauses, respectively, Lusoga ti- only replaces the former.

Grammatical tone: Typology and theory

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The topic of this study is grammatical tone (GT), which I define as a tonological operation that is not general across the phonological grammar, and is restricted to the context of a specific morpheme or construction. In typologizing grammatical tone, I frame it in terms of dominance effects (Kiparsky & Halle 1977, Kiparsky 1984), and divide GT into two types. Dominant GT systemically deletes the underlying tone of the target, while non-dominant GT does not systemically delete it. From a survey of GT, I develop a typological principle called the dominant GT asymmetry, which states that within a multi-morphemic constituent, the dominant trigger is a dependent (e.g. a modifier of affix), and the target is a lexical head or a dependent structurally closer to the lexical head. In this way, dominance is always directed ‘inward’ within morphological hierarchical structure, supporting earlier statements such as Alderete’s (2001a, 2001b) ‘Strict Base Mutation’. For any theoretical...

The Semantics of Kwak'wala Object Case

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In this dissertation, I investigate factors underlying the distribution of object case in Kʷak̓ʷala, an endangered Northern Wakashan language of British Columbia, Canada. Kʷak̓ʷala has two types of objects, instrumental (=s) and accusative (=x̌). To account for their distribution, I develop a semantic theory of object case that is grounded in event structure. The first central claim of this theory is that instrumental case marks internal arguments which participate in initiating subevents (Co-initiators), while accusative case marks internal arguments which participate in non-initiating subevents (Non-initiators). Concomitantly, any internal argument which participates in both the initiating and non-initiating subevents of an event can undergo instrumental/accusative case alternation. The second central claim of this theory is that instrumental case adds semantic value, while accusative case is a meaningless default.

Supporting evidence for these claims comes from...

Overt versus Zero Pronouns in Mandarin Chinese

Sun, 20 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The distribution of Mandarin overt and zero pronouns in donkey sentences is compatible with what has been found in Japanese. Most cases can be accounted for by a distinction of binding methods: specifically, overt pronouns must be dynamically bound, and zero pronouns could be either dynamically bound or interpreted via the E-type strategy. However, in both languages, the classic “every farmer who owns a donkey beats it” sentence behaves unexpectedly. To resolve this inconsistency, an additional criterion, unique versus anaphoric definites, is introduced. This approach also sheds light on the syntactic representation of pronouns in Mandarin.

Spell-out, Chains, and Long Distance Wh-movement in Seereer

Fri, 11 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In this paper, I examine novel data from long distance wh-dependencies in Seereer, an Atlantic language of Senegal. Seereer long distance wh-questions are characterized by (a) the presence of an obligatory pronoun at the edge of each embedded clause and (b) the presence of special morphology on each verb along the path of the extraction. Thus, Seereer provides striking evidence that long distance wh-movement proceeds successive cyclically through the edge of each clause. I argue that this verbal morphology spells out a valued wh-probe on C, which triggers the movement of a wh-phrase to its Spec. I show that the pronouns present at the edge of each embedded clause have the properties of copies and not of resumptive pronouns, and argue that they are in fact spelled out intermediate copies of the moved wh-phrase. I propose that such multiple copy spell out is possible precisely because they enter into a feature valuation relationship with C. Speciﬁcally, I propose that valuation...

Contrastive topic in Eastern Cham

Fri, 11 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This paper claims that the form hu marks contrastive topic in Eastern Cham (Austronesian: Vietnam) by means of its other uses as an existential closure and verum focus marker. The existential closure use closely tracks with the form described in Bura (Chadic: Nigeria) by Zimmermann (2007). The verum focus use is largely parallel to the form có in Vietnamese (e.g. Tran 2016). It is proposed that an extension of verum focus semantics adapted to the syntactic distribution of the existential marker gives rise to contrastive topic marking. Finally, it is noted that contrastive topics remain in situ, unlike non-contrastive topics, which undergo topicalization to the left periphery.

Definite Spans and Blocking in Classifier Languages

Thu, 5 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents a novel analysis of definite noun phrases in numeral classifier languages without definite articles. The motivation for this analysis comes from the classifier-modifier construction (CMC) in Thai, in which a predicative modifier can license a bare classifier, resulting in a definite interpretation. I argue that the definite readings are due to a null choice-functional determiner (Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997), which takes the modifier as its complement (Kayne 1994). I propose that the modifier licenses the bare classifier, otherwise prohibited, because head raising relative clause structures bleed the environment for a D-Clf-N span to be realized as a bare noun (Brody 2000, Svenonius 2012, a.o.). I argue that this coalescence-based account of definite noun phrases, specifically definite bare nouns, is an improvement on accounts based on head movement (Cheng and Sybesma 1999) or semantic type-shifting (Chierchia 1998). This analysis correctly derives the generalization...

The Syntax of Matsigenka Object-Marking

Thu, 5 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I analyze Matsigenka (Arawak, Peru) verbal object markers as clitic determiners that incorporate syntactically due to requirements of Infl. Person-case constraint effects are observed, with two repair strategies depending on the configuration, a clitic /=ni/ and an inflectable element /ashi/. I analyze both as adpositions, as well as an instrumental applicative /-ant/, which exhibits similar PCC effects, as the head of a high ApplP that participates in roll-up head movement. I derive PCC effects via a relativized probe on v.