Patterns of vowel harmony are frequently interrupted by the presence of neutral segments, segments that are obligatorily realised with only one of the harmonic values. Peripherally, neutral segments appear in two patterns, referred to as relative and absolute alignment. Medially, such neutral segments may be opaque, interrupting the transmission of harmony, or they may be transparent, skipped over by harmony. It is argued that the properties of neutrality result from the interaction of three independently motivated families of constraints: faithfulness, alignment, and grounding. No process-specific constraints distinguishing between the types of alignment or between opacity and transparency are required under the proposed account.

This article examines the conjunct order found in Algonquian languages and attempts to characterize the difference between the conjunct and the independent orders in formal terms. Most of the examples are drawn from Passamaquoddy-Maliseet and Montagnais. Specific morphological properties of the two orders are considered: the ability to take person prefixes, the richness of agreement features, and the phonological conditioning of stem-initial vowels. A weak word order effect is observed in Montagnais, and the overall distribution of the two verb paradigms is examined. All of these facts are related to the hypothesis that verbs bearing conjunct morphology move to Comp, while independent verbs remain in Infl. This operation is motivated by the dependence of a conjunct clause on a higher verb or noun, as in subordination or relativization. In some cases, the dependency may derive from the adjunct status of the conjunct clause itself. The overall picture is one of a configurational language type, with superficial differences reducible to parametric variation.

This article deals with a vexing problem in the phonology of Moroccan Arabic, the alternation between [CɨCC] and [CCɨC] nouns. It is shown that this alternation cannot be predicted in all instances from the phonetic nature of the consonants, contrary to what has been claimed in previous analyses, and that it is necessary to have recourse to an analysis based on the notion of templates. It is claimed that the difference between the two forms [CɨCC] and [CCɨC] reflects an underlying difference between the three templates /CVCC/, CVCVC/, and /(ɂa)CCVC/, which are shared by both Classical Arabic and Moroccan Arabic. The influence of sonority is secondary and only accounts for the appearance of [CCɨC] forms in nouns derived from the template /CVCC/ whose last consonant is a nasal ([jbɨn] ‘cheese), a liquid ([bħɨr] ‘sea’), or a /ʕ/ ([zrɨʕ] ‘wheat’).

The Salishan language Lushootseed shows an unusual pattern in its verbal morphology wherein its verbs are formed from intransitive, adjective-like roots via a highly productive set of suffixes, the bulk of which serve to increase the valency of their stem. These include the middle-marker, which forms intransitives, and several transitivizing affixes, which are shown here to be types of causative, their transitivizing effect being an expression of the causality inherent in the prototypical transitive event. In addition, the syntactic properties of the Lushootseed passive — formed by combining a transitivizing suffix with the middle-marker — can be analyzed as straightforward consequences of the meanings of the affixes that compose it. Treating Lushootseed causatives as subtypes of the transitive event model suggests that cross-linguistically transitive-causatives — as well as instrumentals and applicatives — may be subschematic extensions of the simple transitive clause, rather than derivations from more complex, biclausal structures.

This article reports on a small study investigating whether teaching second language learners the long-distance (LD) properties of the Japanese reflexive zibun ‘self leads to acquisition of its subject-oriented status. The study involved low intermediate level learners of Japanese who were instructed on zibun over a four-week period. The focus of the instruction was that the reflexive zibun can take long-distance antecedents. At the same time, subjects were never taught that the antecedent must be a subject. Subjects were tested using a truth-value judgment task. Results show that the learners initially rejected LD binding; they showed a significant increase in acceptance of LD antecedents after the teaching intervention. Analyses of individual learners show that about half of them successfully acquired the relevant properties of zibun. With one exception, learners did not generalize from their instruction to assume that “anything goes” as far as antecedents for zibun are concerned. Rather, they acquired grammars of reflexive binding that fall within the range permitted by Universal Grammar.

This paper discusses and expands upon various ideas concerning the structure of nominals in general (DPs) and of French nominals in particular, with the underlying idea that CP and DP have parallel argumental and functional structure. The main topics discussed are: (i) the projection of arguments in French and English; (ii) the parameterization of N-movement, which accounts for some word order differences between French and English; (iii) the distribution of adjectives in event nominals, which reflects that of adverbs in clauses in both French and English; (iv) a peculiar case of rightward movement out of DP that provides further evidence for N-movement as well as for the claim concerning the prohibition on right adjunction of genitive nominals within DP; and (v) extraction facts that are a consequence of the status of [Spec, DP] as an A′-position in French.

The aim of this article is to provide an analysis of two types of Spanish infinitival constructions headed by a determiner. In an attempt to define the categorial status of the infinitive morpheme, it is proposed that there are two homophonous infinitival morphemes which project two different structures: one of them is inflectional in nature and projects clausal configurations; the other one is derivational in nature and projects nominal structures. This latter suffix carries an activity aspect and attaches only to aspectually compatible verbal stems. This proposal explains the different properties and contexts for the two structures analysed, and, more interestingly, provides an account for a number of data that remained unexplained in previous analyses.

Nasalization in several Bantu languages skips vowels and, in some cases, also skips consonants. This process does not appear to apply in a local fashion. A solution to the locality problem has not been found so far in the conventional approaches to harmony. This article offers a novel analysis which maintains the general principle that elements related by rules or constraints are adjacent. It departs from the conventional description of harmony as a purely segmental relation and derives the effects of long distance consonant nasalization from the reconfiguration of harmony as a relation between suprasegmental units. One pattern found in Lamba is described as agreement between adjacent syllables, while another pattern found in Kikongo instantiates agreement between adjacent feet. This article recognizes a new functional foot-type, the Harmony Foot.