This book provides a pioneering introduction to heritage languages and their speakers, written by one of the founders of this new field Using examples from a wide range of languages, it covers all the main components of grammar, including phonetics and phonology, morphology and morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics, and shows easy familiarity with approaches ranging from formal grammar to typology, from sociolinguistics to child language acquisition and other relevant aspects of psycholinguistics The book offers analysis of resilient and vulnerable domains in heritage languages, with a special emphasis on recurrent structural properties that occur across multiple heritage languages It is explicit about instances where, based on our current knowledge, we are unable to reach a clear decision on a particular claim or analytical point, and therefore provides a much-needed resource for future research

Heritage Languages and their Speakers

On the basis of a number of cases where the status of X with respect to phasehood changes depending on the syntactic context in which X occurs, I argue for a contextual approach to phasehood whereby the highest phrase in the extended projection of all lexical categories—N, P, A, and V (passive and active)—functions as a phase. The relevant arguments concern extraction and ellipsis. I argue that ellipsis is phase-constrained: only phases and complements of phase heads can in principle undergo ellipsis. I show that Ā-extraction out of an ellipsis site is possible only if the ellipsis site corresponds to a phasal complement. I also provide evidence for the existence of several AspectPs, all of which have morphological manifestations, in the VP domain of English and show that they crucially affect the phasehood of this domain. The article provides a uniform account of a number of superficially different constructions involving extraction and ellipsis from Serbo-Croatian, Japanese, Turkish, and English.

Now I'm a Phase, Now I'm Not a Phase: On the Variability of Phases with Extraction and Ellipsis

With a growing interest in heritage languages from researchers of bilingualism and linguistic theory, the field of heritage-language studies has begun to build on its empirical foundations, moving toward a deeper understanding of the nature of language competence under unbalanced bilingualism. In furtherance of this trend, the current work synthesizes pertinent empirical observations and theoretical claims about vulnerable and robust areas of heritage language competence into early steps toward a model of heritage-language grammar. We highlight two key triggers for deviation from the relevant baseline: the quantity and quality of the input from which the heritage grammar is acquired, and the economy of online resources when operating in a less dominant language. In response to these triggers, we identify three outcomes of deviation in the heritage grammar: an avoidance of ambiguity, a resistance to irregularity, and a shrinking of structure. While we are still a ways away from a level of understanding that allows us to predict those aspects of heritage grammar that will be robust and those that will deviate from the relevant baselines, our hope is that the current work will spur the continued development of a predictive model of heritage language competence.

Understanding heritage languages

I show that negative concord involves checking of the neg-features prompted by the uninterpretable focus feature of concord items, recasting Haegeman and Zanuttini's (1991, 1996) original account in the general theory of feature checking. A key theoretical mechanism is feature copying, which derives the core part of Neg-Factorization and is also shown to provide the foundation for the notion of chains defined in terms of occurrences. The proposed analysis of negative concord supports Merchant's (2001) theory of ellipsis, according to which ellipsis is PF deletion and requires semantic identity. I also discuss in detail how morphology interacts with properties of negative concord, taking into account wide-ranging crosslinguistic patterns.

The Genesis of Negative Concord: Syntax and Morphology of Negative Doubling

It has been widely assumed since Kitagawa and Ross (Linguist Anal 9: 19–53, 1982) that noun phrases in Chinese and Japanese are quite similar in structure. They are N-final in surface word order, they employ “modifying markers” (de in Chinese and no in Japanese) extensively, and they require classifiers for numeral expressions. In this paper, we argue that, contrary to appearance, they have quite distinct structures. We examine N'-ellipsis in the two languages and present supporting evidence for the hypothesis argued for by Simpson (in: Tang and Liu (eds.) On the formal way to Chinese languages, 2003), among others, that Chinese noun phrases are head-initial. According to this hypothesis, de is D, and a classifier heads another projection within DP. Japanese noun phrases, on the other hand, are head-final. No is a contextual Case marker, as proposed by Kitagawa and Ross (Linguist Anal 9: 19–53, 1982), and classifier phrases are adjuncts modifying nominal projections. Our discussion shows that Kayne’s (The antisymmetry of syntax, 1994) analysis of N-final relatives applies elegantly to Chinese but not to Japanese. It thus suggests that Japanese relative clauses are head-final throughout the derivation.

https://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/download/6150/3139

N'-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in Chinese and Japanese

Japanese allows the numeral + classifier combination to appear in a variety of positions in relation to the head noun. This paper argues that it is necessary to posit at least four functional projections above NP (#P, CaseP, QP, and DP) and massive phrasal movement of such functional projections in order to provide a principled account for the structural diversity of the numeral + classifier combination in Japanese. New evidence from minimizer expressions and pseudopartitives, which have not been systematically investigated before, is brought to bear on details of the analysis. Japanese is an excellent testing ground for exploring the nature of the noun-related functional projections, because some of them, such as #° and Case°, are argued to be overtly realized (#° as a classifier and Case° as a case particle

Functional Projections of Nominals in Japanese: Syntax of Classifiers*

This paper investigates ellipsis within nominals in Japanese with reference to a wider range of data than that considered by Saito et al. (JEAL 17: 247– 271, 2008). It is shown that the interaction with ellipsis reveals two types of no, a genitive case particle and a linking element inserted morphologically. To accommodate the additional ellipsis data, the analysis that treats the numeral-classifier sequence as an adjunct to NP must be rejected.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/40607862

Notes on nominal ellipsis and the nature of no and classifiers in Japanese

The Structure of DP

. This paper proposes that numerals are licensed by the feature [±augmented]. This proposal accommodates the dissociation of numerals from the plural morphology and accounts for the phenomenon of 1-deletion. The [±augmented] feature is located in the # head and selects a numeral in its specifier. In contrast to numerals and measure phrases accompanied by numerals, vague-quantity expressions are shown to be placed in a position higher than #P.

Vague Quantity, Numerals, and Natural Numbers

This paper shows that a measure phrase and pos are not necessarily incompatible, contrary to the conclusion reached from the study of English. I propose that a measure phrase appears in a projection lower than the one that hosts pos, on the basis of the detailed investigation into Japanese adjectival structures featuring a measure phrase, structures that have not received proper attention in the past. I also provide compositional semantics that allows the co-occurrence of a measure phrase and pos, together with an account of why English and Japanese differ in this particular respect. Furthermore, the analysis proposed in this paper alters the view on the morphological profile of adjectives in Japanese. The new perspective presented is supported by cross-linguistic data.

Akira Watanabe

Papers

Functional Projections of Nominals in Japanese: Syntax of Classifiers*

Notes on nominal ellipsis and the nature of no and classifiers in Japanese

The Structure of DP

Vague Quantity, Numerals, and Natural Numbers

Non-neutral interpretation of adjectives under measure phrase modification