Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse

A fundamentally new approach to the theory of phonology and its relation to syntax is developed in this book, which is the first to address the question of the relation between syntax and phonology in a systematic way.This general theory differs from its predecessors in the generative tradition in several respects. By arguing that the intonational structure of a sentence determines certain aspects of its stress pattern or rhythmic structure, and not vice versa, it provides a novel view of the intonation-stress relation. It also offers a new theory of the focus-prosody relation that solves a variety of classic puzzles and involves an appeal to the place of a focused constituent in the predicate-argument structure of the sentence. The book also includes other novel features, among them a development of the metrical grid theory of stress (including a complete treatment of English word stress in this framework), the representation of juncture in terms of "silent" positions in the metrical grid (with a treatment of sandhi in terms of this rhythmic juncture), and a "rhythmic" nonsyntactic approach to the basic phonology of function words in EnglishElisabeth 0. Selkirk is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This book is tenth in the series, Current Studies in Linguistics.

Phonology and Syntax: The Relation between Sound and Structure

A grammar of spoken Chinese = 中國話的文法

Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of "universal," we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition. Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills.

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The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science

Extensively revised and updated, this second edition provides, in an A-Z format, an analysis of the most important generalizations that have been made on the unidirectional change of grammatical forms and constructions. Based on the analysis of more than 1,000 languages, it reconstructs over 500 processes of grammatical change in the languages of the world, including East Asian languages such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Readers are provided with the tools to discover how lexical and grammatical meanings can be related to one another in a principled way, how such issues as polysemy, heterosemy, and transcategoriality are dealt with, and why certain linguistic forms have simultaneous lexical and grammatical functions. Definitions of lexical concepts are provided with examples from a broad variety of languages, and references to key relevant research literature. Linguists and other scholars will gain a better understanding of languages on a worldwide scale.

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World Lexicon of grammaticalization

This paper presents a novel analysis of Sluicing, an ellipsis construction first described by Ross (1969) and illustrated by the bracketed portion ofI want to do something, but I'm just not sure [what _]. Starting from the assumption that a sluice consists of a displaced Wh-constituent and an empty IP, we show how simple and general LF operations fill out the empty IP and thereby provide it with an interpretable Logical Form. The LF operations we appeal to rely on the influential theory of indefinites developed by Irene Heim and Hans Kamp, and are in harmony with certain aspects of Chomsky's Minimalist Program for linguistic theory. The analysis accounts directly for the familiar properties of Sluicing, as well as some facts which have not previously been observed.

Sluicing and logical form

With this study of Maori and Chamorro, Sandra Chung and William Ladusaw make a valuable contribution to the growing literature on the formal semantic analysis of non-Indo-European languages. Their ultimate focus is on how the study of these Austronesian languages can illuminate the alternatives for semantic interpretation and their interaction with syntactic structure. Revisiting the analysis of indefiniteness in terms of restricted free variables, they claim that some varieties of indefinites are better analyzed by taking restriction and saturation to be fundamental semantic operations.Chapters examine the general topic of modes of composition (including predicate restriction and syntactic versus semantic saturation), types of indefinite determiners in Maori, and object incorporation in Chamorro (including discussions of the extra object and restriction without saturation). The authors' goal is that the two case studies they offer, and their larger focus on modes of composition, will contribute to a broader account of the interaction of form, position, and semantic interpretation.

Restriction and Saturation

Government, barriers and small clauses in Modern Irish

This text shows that two distinct forms of agreement must be recognized in linguistic theory. Sandra Chung demonstrates that in addition to what she calls Feature Compatibility - the relation that lies behind morphological agreement, such as subject-verb agreement in English - there is an abstract syntactic relation, the "Associate" relation, which holds between categories in a range of syntactic constructions. The primary source of evidence is Chamorro, a language of the Austro-nesian family spoken on Guam and Saipan. Chung relates her analyses to what is known about analogous constructions in English, Italian, Irish, Japanese, Maori, and various other languages. This text is a step in the effort to uncover the fundamental building blocks that serve to organize natural language systems. The study of agreement and its connection to the rest of grammar is a striking contribution to linguistic theory.

The Design of Agreement: Evidence from Chamorro

* Preface * Abbreviations Symbols *0. Introduction *0.1. The Polynesian Languages *0.2. Phonological Morphological Features *1. An Overview of Surface Syntax *1.1. Structure of the Clause *1.2. Structure of the Verb Complex *1.3. Structure of the NP *1.4. Rules Affecting Pronouns * Notes *2. The Morphology of Case Voice *2.1. Case Marking *2.2. The -Cia Suffix: Passive, Transitive, or Perfective? * Notes *3. Case Marking Grammatical Relations *3.1. Two Positions on Case Marking Syntax *3.2. Subject-Referring Rules: Equi *3.3. Subject-Referring Rules: Raising *3.4. Direct Object-Referring Rules *3.5. Other Major Rules *3.6. Conclusion * Notes *4. Case Assignment in the Ergative Languages *4.1. Two Proposals for Case Assignment *4.2. Case Assignment in Middle Clauses *4.3. Some Rules That Are Sensitive to Case Marking *4.4. On the Role of Case Marking in Syntax * Notes *5. Previous Approaches to the History of the Case System *5.1. Pro to-Polynesian as an Accusative Language *5.2. Proto-Polynesian as an Ergative Language *5.3. Summary * Notes *6. The Passive-to-Ergative Reanalysis *6.1. A New Proposal *6.2. On Reconstruction *6.3. Proto-Polynesian *-Cia *6.4. Proto-Polynesian *i *6.5. Proto-Polynesian *e *6.6. The Proto-Polynesian Case System *6.7. The Rise of Ergative Case Marking *6.8. Conclusion * Notes *7. Reanalysis Pukapukan Syntax *7.1. The Passive-to-Ergative Reanalysis *7.2. Pukapukan *7.3. Testing the Prediction *7.4. An Account of the Facts *7.5. Two Further Examples *7.6. Conclusion * Notes * Appendix A. Orthography * Appendix B. Sources * Bibliography * Index

Sandra Chung

Papers

Sluicing and logical form

Restriction and Saturation

Government, barriers and small clauses in Modern Irish

The Design of Agreement: Evidence from Chamorro

Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian