This paper provides a novel Optimality Theoretic analysis of the 19th century French secret language Largonji. While Largonji is a reversal game, we show that it is a type not previously described, in which the first onset that is not an /l/ reverses, even if it is not at an edge. Thus, traditional approaches to reversal games, such as cross-anchoring, do not work for Largonji. However, our account does not require direct reference to onsets. Instead, it is based on preservation of moraic structure, combined with alignment of a Largonji-specific prefix. Though suprasegmental faithfulness has been noted previously in language games, the present account implements it in Optimality Theory for the first time. Further, in analyzing the Largonji affix as a prefix that is sometimes realized as an infix, we suggest that Largonji provides additional evidence that language games can reflect cross-linguistic patterns not present in the base language.

In this article, two approaches to schwa representation are evaluated using data from four German children (aged 1;3 to 3;1). The first, the No Mora account, claims that schwa is segmentally but not prosodically specified, whereas the second, the Projection account, proposes that schwa is prosodically but only minimally segmentally specified, as [-cons]. The data reveal several stages in acquisition: an early phase characterised by vowel reduplication or deletion; a middle phase characterised by production of a full vowel (and consonant); and a final phase characterised by production of a central vowel, schwa, or syllabic consonant. In addition, the data show that children produce syllabic consonants earlier than schwa, and that they often produce filler schwas even when they substitute target schwas with full vowels. It is argued that these findings, in particular the different timeline observed for schwa versus syllabic consonants and the presence of filler schwas, can be best accounted for by the Projection account.

The postulation of diachronic universals derives from certain conclusions reached in the investigation of synchronic universals, i.e., that there are natural (universal) phonological subsystems in languages or dialects, and that there are natural (universal) structural relationships between the elements in these subsystems. In essence, a hypothesis about a particular diachronic universal is a claim that a shared natural state in various languages or dialects is the product of the same diachronic process (a sound change, series of linked sound changes, etc.). A counterproposal to this hypothesis would specify that there are multiple diachronic routes which can link two parallel states in the history of two or more innovating languages or dialects. If the latter view is correct, and I believe that it is, then the theory of diachronic universals will require refinement if it is to retain theoretical value.

The application of linguistics to legal issues—what some have labelled “forensic linguistics”—has become increasingly common, varied and consequential (see Brackenridge 1981 for a brief overview). Recently, we three served as language experts in Toronto’s first bilingual jury trial (Regina vs. Lapointe and Sicotte, 1981). Since each of us was assigned a different linguistic problem and since our roles were partially adversary ones (two of us worked for the defence and the other for the prosecution), we were able to draw upon a variety of linguistic concepts and analyses as well as to assess their effectiveness when applied to legal issues. The present paper reports not only on the nature of our involvement but, more importantly, on our joint perception of disturbing language-related problems in the legal process and of equally disturbing inadequacies in the responses that linguistics can currently offer to many of these problems.

This article reexamines the puzzling issue of where subjects, lexical and null,are located in Spanish and offers a novel explanation for the incompatibility ofpreverbal lexical subjects with fronted focussed constituents. Both SpecIP andthe left periphery appear to be potential landing sites for subjects, accordingto discourse-pragmatic factors. Assuming that pro is a clitic,it is argued that the aforementioned incompatibility can be captured by a simplerule: SpecIP must be empty for focus fronting to occur. This is the case withpro, which adjoins to Infl, or with postverbal subjectssince they remain in SpecVP. From this analysis it follows that: 1) the subjectfield in Spanish is less articulated than is generally assumed, 2) thedifferences between Spanish and other null subject languages with respect to theavailability of preverbal subjets can be reduced to this rule and a differentordering of focus and topic phrases, and 3) it is unnecessary to posit twodifferent topic positions.

Years ago, Piaget (1926:121) reported the fact that children, in their spoken language, show little concern for identifying the appropriate antecedents of their pronouns. In the texts he presented, they would typically introduce one or more antecedents followed by a series of pronouns. Such examples show a simple rule of linear order whereby a pronoun needs to refer to an antecedent somewhere preceding it. Further, this rule appeared to characterize the productive language of older children in the years five to ten, when much of the structure of language has already been acquired.

The prospects of a cognitive neuroscience of syntax are considered with respect to functional neuroanatomy of two seemingly independent systems: Working Memory and syntactic representation and processing. It is proposed that these two systems are more closely related than previously supposed. In particular, it is claimed that a sentence with anaphoric dependencies involves several Working Memories, each entrusted with a different linguistic function. Components of Working Memory reside in the Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus, which is associated with Broca’s region. When lesioned, this area manifests comprehension disruptions in the ability to analyze intra-sentential dependencies, suggesting that Working Memory spans over syntactic computations. The unification of considerations regarding Working Memory with a purely syntactic approach to Broca’s regions leads to the conclusion that mechanisms that compute transformations—and no other syntactic relations—reside in this area.

This article addresses locality conditions on Negative Concord (NC) in Russian. We examine long-distance licensing of “negative” ni-pronouns in subject- and object-control infinitives. Existing theories of negative concord rely in one way or another on the movement of negative concord items (NCI): either as a direct licensing condition, or as a prerequisite for entering a local configuration with the licensor. Consequently, theories predict that ni-pronoun movement to the matrix clause (i.e., the local domain of the matrix licensor) would increase acceptability of ni-licensing. Using experimental data, we explore various linear positions available for ni-pronouns in the matrix clause and in embedded infinitival clauses. We show that movement is not required for long-distance licensing, and that derived positions of ni-pronouns are independent of ni-licensing. We argue that although ni-licensing and movement both obey locality constraints, they differ as to the type of locality required. This article presents evidence for recent proposals that movement and agreement have different properties with respect to locality constraints.

The ambivalence of Canadian English spelling, which recognizes both British orthodoxy and Noah Webster’s innovations, is one of the many indicators of Canada’s role as a half-way house between Europe and the United States. Unlike the latter, which cut itself off from its European roots and has not infrequently drifted towards isolationism, Canada has maintained strong links with both Britain and France. This situation is reflected in the study and teaching of linguistics in Canadian universities. Stemming from the British, French, and American traditions, there is considerable diversity of theoretical position, which can be a great strength insofar as it leads to a dialectic, to a tolerance of others’ prejudices and a willingness to smile at one’s own. The dialectic—the push and pull of argument between different points of view—can also lead to a better understanding of the various schools of linguistics (including one’s own), and how they differ.

This paper deals with noun complements in French. I show that French has a particular kind of noun complement, regularly expressed by [de NP], that cannot be analysed as a PP or as a Possessor, but nevertheless requires a syntactic account. A detailed analysis reveals that these constituents share morphosyntactic, semantic and discourse properties with those of pseudo-incorporated nominals in various languages. I thus propose that they be analysed as pseudo-incorporated into a possessive nominal head.

This article is a reanalysis of cluster simplification in Quebec French (QF) in terms of government-licensing, a condition which requires non-nuclear governing heads to be licensed by a following vowel. It is suggested, contra Côté (1997, 1998), that simplification is triggered by a structural constraint rather than a constraint on sonority. It is shown that in QF, simplification does not apply to word internal clusters such as appartement and vendredi because the following vowel is realized, but applies to forms like table and casque, and converts them into [tab] and [kas] respectively at the surface level due to the lack of a final vowel. However, cluster reduction does not apply to final clusters such as barbe, gorge, and solde in which the first member is a liquid. To account for why simplification applies in one case and not in the other, it is suggested that the two types of final clusters differ with respect to syllabification: liquids are within branching nuclei, whereas the first member of other clusters is within a branching rhyme. The case of word-final cluster simplification attested in Haitian Creole is also examined.

Dans cet article, je propose une analyse de la voyelle initiale des noms en kabyle. Je proposerai dans cette contribution une représentation dans le cadre CVCV (Lowenstamm 1996, Scheer 2004) qui montre que la phonologie peut rendre compte de l'alternance de l'initiale des noms sans recourir à la computation syntaxique. Je propose que la voyelle initiale instable qui caractérise l’état libre (EL) s'associe à son propre CV, et que le w- à l’état d'annexion (EA) est associé à un CV- initial. Je montrerai également pourquoi, devant #_CV à l’état d'annexion, si le mot est précédé d'un autre mot à finale consonantique, les glides w/j sont réalisés comme des voyelles pleines u/i. Cet article propose une analyse qui prend en compte cette alternance, contrôlée à la fois par le contexte droit (__CV vs __CC) et le contexte gauche (mot précédent à finale vocalique vs consonantique).

Similarities between varieties of the same languages can be explained in terms of shared retentions or innovations. Conversely, differences can be explained in terms of new vocabulary items, divergent changes, language contact, and dialect contact. The latter has been challenged by proponents of monogenetic theories. Evidence for and against monogenetic hypotheses are considered on the basis of two case studies. First, I demonstrate that the dialect enclave of Lunenberg County, Nova Scotia, is a mixed colonial dialect. Second, I argue that the phenomenon of Canadian Raising is the result of dialect mixture. The Canadian English data provide evidence for a connection between dialect contact, mixture, and genesis. The data support the idea that there is a deterministic outcome in situations where the target language is not spoken by a prior-existing population, which in turn accounts for why widely separated varieties of English are similar.

This article proposes a novel account of noun incorporation in NorthernIroquoian. It is proposed that there is no special mechanism for nounincorporation and that this phenomenon falls out naturally from the geometry ofthe phrase structure under Moro’s theory of Dynamic Antisymmetry. In anutshell, when the verbal head and the nominal head undergo Merge, they form apoint of symmetric c-command, which is resolved by the nominal head moving tothe specifier of the verb phrase. Further, it is proposed that, in nounincorporation constructions with a full DP double, the incorporated noun and theDP form a constituent, which is merged in theta-position.

Focusing on the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), we investigated the extent to which adult native speakers of French are sensitive to sonority-related constraints compared to lexical attestedness. In a non-word acceptability task, participants were asked to rate the acceptability of three types of non-words using a 6-point scale: non-words with attested sonority rising onset, non-words with unattested sonority rising onset, and non-words with unattested sonority falling onset. Data analysis was done using the signal detection theory approach to measure sensitivity of participants to lexical attestedness and to phonological well-formedness (i.e., respecting or violating the SSP). The results showed that speakers distinguished well-formed and ill-formed forms even when lexical attestedness was controlled for. This is consistent with previous findings on sonority projection effects. Participants were more sensitive to lexical attestedness than phonological well-formedness. Future research using computational models should investigate mechanisms that could account for these findings, namely whether a similar result would be obtained without including any assumption about the SSP in these models.

This paper should be considered a sequel to the paper read at the meetings of the Canadian Linguistic Association at Kingston in June 1960 and to be published in the Proceedings of the Learned Societies of Canada; in the first paper, the linguistic theories of J. R. Firth (and which are summarised in section 1.0. 1.1, and 1.11 of this paper) were outlined, and in this article the procedures at the different levels (Firth himself has used the term “spectrum analysis”) of the analysis of a text are described and copiously illustrated from the works of Firth and his associates. These methods have been developed by Professor Firth and his colleagues in London on the lines of the linguistic theory promulgated by Professor Firth and adumbrated in the original paper. This article concludes with a detailed bibliography of the writings of Firth and his colleagues; reference is also made to the work of other scholars who have discussed Firth’s linguistic theories.

In this article, we consider legal notices of various forms, including imperative, indicative, and non-sentential. We argue that these convey various illocutionary forces depending on their particular content. In particular, those that prohibit actions — unlike laws that do so — typically have “directive” illocutionary force, with different linguistic classes of legal notices achieving this force through different means, given their distinct linguistic properties. We propose a “bare phrase” treatment of non-sentential notices, whereby these are underlyingly and not just superficially non-sentential; and a semantic treatment in terms of Discourse Representation Theory, which perspicuously describes their contribution to interpretation. Finally, we argue that assigning such sparse syntactic and semantic representations to non-sentential notices has conceptual and empirical advantages over analyses that posit richer underlying structure, capturing a broader range of data, including patterns involving default case and the absence of articles, and minimizing the need to posit linguistic ambiguity.