Jackendoff (1997), whose analysis of idioms is based, in part, on work by Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994), discusses VP idioms and addresses the question of mobility. Both works identify fixed idioms, such as kick the bucket, and mobile idioms, such as spill the beans and take advantage of. Fixed idioms are ones whose NP objects are impervious to syntactic operations, as illustrated by the unacceptability, in their idiomatic sense, of sentences like *The bucket was kicked by Bill; while mobile idioms occur in sentences like The beans were spilled by Fred and Advantage was taken of Bill. Jackendoff correlates the mobility of VP idioms with a property that he refers to as metaphorical semantic composition. However, he observes that this property is not a sufficient condition for mobility.

I will argue that the property of metaphorical semantic composition be replaced by a property of thematic composition, and that this property is a sufficient condition for mobility. A closer inspection of mobile idioms that have thematic composition reveals that they fall into two subtypes: expressions that have a property of ‘transparency of interpretation’, and ones that do not have this property. I refer to members of the first subtype as METAPHORS. I will demonstrate that there are no idiosyncratic constraints on their syntactic mobility, and will conclude that they need not be encoded in lexical entries as phrasal idioms. In these respects, they are distinct from members of the second subtype, whose degree of mobility is more limited, and which must be encoded in lexical entries as phrasal idioms. Finally, I will address the question of the necessity of thematic composition for mobility. Throughout the paper, I will assume that phrasal idioms are appropriately encoded in lexical entries of the types proposed by Jackendoff for fixed and mobile expressions.

Contrary to Rivero & Terzi's (1995) claim that morphological mood and logical mood correlate one-to-one in Spanish imperatives, verbs in imperative sentences in all dialects of Spanish have obligatory non-imperative morphology more often than not. For example, the morphology of the verb in the imperative hágalo ‘do it’ is not imperative but subjunctive. A satisfactory account of semantic, syntactic, and morphological mismatches in Spanish imperatives must appeal to a Morphology module of grammar; real explanation is beyond the reach of purely syntactic analysis.

This work provides evidence that Subject Island violation effects vanish if subject-embedded gaps are made as frequent and pragmatically felicitous as non-island counterpart controls. We argue that Subject Island effects are caused by the fact that subject-embedded gaps are pragmatically unusual – as the informational focus does not usually correspond to a dependant of the subject phrase – and therefore are highly contrary to comprehenders’ expectations about the distribution of filler–gap dependencies (Chaves 2013, Hofmeister, Casasanto & Sag 2013). This not only explains why sentences with subject-embedded gaps often become more acceptable ‘parasitically’, in the presence of a second gap outside the island, but also explains why some Subject Island violations fail to exhibit any amelioration with repetition (Sprouse 2009, Crawford 2011, Goodall 2011); some ameliorate marginally (Snyder 2000, 2017) or moderately (Hiramatsu 2000, Clausen 2011, Chaves & Dery 2014), and others become fully acceptable, as in our case. This conclusion extends to self-paced reading Subject Island studies (Stowe 1986, Kurtzman & Crawford 1991, Pickering, Barton & Shillcock 1994, Phillips 2006), which sometimes find evidence of gap filling and sometimes do not.

In the present article the problem of the position of the adjectives in the noun phrase in Modern Greek is addressed. Rather than starting from their alleged ‘asymmetrical’ distribution, according to which postnominal adjectives are only allowed in indefinite DPs, I concentrate on the possible interpretations that the adjective can have relative to the noun. The differences between prenominal and apparently postnominal adjectives in indefinite DPs suggest a predicative reading of the latter. This semantic account motivates a corresponding syntactic one, according to which the noun moving upwards to a head DEF, formally distinct from D, enters a predicative relationship with the AP generated uniquely prenominally. Such a movement is precluded in definite DPs, because the DEF position is occupied by the definite article. In this way, a number of differences observed between definite and indefinite NPs, as far as ‘postnominal’ adjectives are concerned, are seen as consequences of their predicative nature and the way this interacts with the definiteness/indefiniteness of what serves as their subject.

In this paper, we develop a new typology of multiple wh-questions with coordinated wh-pronouns. We motivate the existence of three distinct structures for such questions: one mono-clausal and two bi-clausal. We use four kinds of diagnostics to determine which of the three structures is available in a particular language: the availability of both multiple wh-questions and wh-questions with coordinated wh-pronouns, coordination of two argument wh-phrases, transitivity restrictions and superiority effects.

This article is a tentative exploration of the following question. In an account of the imperative construction in English, what should be accounted for in the syntax or semantics and what in the pragmatics?1 In the literature, we find descriptions of an imperative construction with certain specific syntactic properties. For example, there is a subjectless form and also a form with a second person pronominal subject and corresponding to both there are second person pro- nominal forms in reflexive and tag counterparts. Abstract underlying structures, in this case a you subject, which subsequently may be deleted by IMPERATIVE or EQUI, are postulated to explain these properties (Postal, 1964; Katz & Postal, 1964: 75; McCawley, 1968). My question is: if we postulate a general pragmatic theory, that is, a theory of the use of utterances in context (separate from but related to theories about the syntactic or semantic properties of sentences), how many of the properties of the imperative can be explained in such terms instead of in the syntax or semantics? My conclusion is that the proposed abstract structures are syntactically and semantically unmotivated and unnecessary for pragmatic interpretation. Each property that the abstract elements explain is better explained either as a non-arbitrary property of main clause infinitives when they are used to utter commands (non-arbitrary in that the facts could not be otherwise), or inherent properties of main clause infinitives in all their uses. In the former case at least, they are facts about men in situations, not about syntax. Thus, syntax and semantics require only a single level of representation and there is no imperative transformation.

This paper provides a Distributed Morphology analysis of the paradoxical interaction of the two cases of verbal suppletion in Korean, and argues that the two suppletion types are characterized by two different types of morphological operations. The two roots found with short-form negation and honorification suggest different morphological structures: [[Neg-V] Hon] for al- ‘know’, molu- ‘not.know’, a-si- ‘know-hon’, molu-si- (not *an(i) a-si-) ‘neg know-hon’; and [Neg [V-Hon]] for iss- ‘exist’, eps- ‘not.exist’, kyey-si- ‘exist-hon’, an(i) kyey-si- (not *eps-(u)-si-) ‘neg exist-hon’. Predicate repetition constructions support the [[Neg-V] Hon] structure. In this structure, however, the negative suppletion (analyzed as fusion of negation and the root) is blocked by the honorific suffix structurally more peripheral to the root. C-command is the only requirement for context allomorphy in Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993). Since the [+hon] feature c-commands the root, the root can show honorific suppletive allomorphy in the first cycle with negation intervening between the root and [+hon]. Negation fusion occurs in the second cycle after vocabulary insertion of the root. Fusion, then, should refer to vocabulary items, not abstract features, and will be interleaved with vocabulary insertion. If the output of the root is /kyey/ due to the honorific feature, negative suppletion will not apply and the correct form an(i) kyey-si- will be derived. Therefore, both of the distinct morphological operations for suppletion, i.e., fusion and contextual allomorphy, are necessary. The revised formulation of fusion shows that certain morphological operations follow vocabulary insertion. This derivational approach to the suppletion interaction provides support for separation of phonological and nonphonological features and for late insertion of phonological features.

Case markers are thought of primarily as nominal morphemes, indicating the function of a noun phrase in a clause. In a few languages of the world case markers also appear on verbal forms. Such ‘versatile’ cases can express (i) temporal, causal and other relationships between clauses, and (ii) aspectual and modal meanings within a clause. Core cases tend to express aspectual and modal meanings, while oblique cases tend to be used as clause-linkers. The recurrent semantic differences between case morphemes as nominal markers, as clause-linking devices, and as exponents of clausal categories are rooted in the inherent polyfunctionality of these ‘chameleon’ morphemes: the specific meaning of any instance is affected by the morphosyntactic context in which it occurs. The conclusions are corroborated by a case study of Manambu, a Papuan language with extensive use of cases on nouns and on verbs, as exponents of aspectual and modal meanings and as clause-linking devices.

I. The facts about the behaviour of fricatives in Old English in relation to surrounding segments are well known; but these facts (and some others) illustrate some interesting general principles that seem not to have been thoroughly discussed. A classic formulation of the data is that of Sweet (1953: 3):

… f and s, in addition to their modern values, could represent respectively the sounds of v and z, letters which were not normally used in O.E. These three letters, f, s, p, had the sounds of f, s, and th in thin (‘breathed’ or ‘voiceless’) initially and finally in accented words; next to ‘voiceless’ consonants (such as p, t); and when double; … They had the sounds of v, z, and th in then (‘voiced’) when single between vowels, or between a vowel and another ‘voiced’ sound (such as l, r, m, n)….

To generalize this, we might say that in Old English fricatives were voiced between sonorants, and voiceless if geminate or contiguous to a major boundary, or in clusters with voiceless obstruents (of which as we will see geminates are a special case). One way of capturing these facts would be a rule which states simply that fricatives are voiced between sonorants, and voiceless elsewhere.

This paper examines the unusual case and word order behavior of objects of infinitives in Lithuanian. In addition to lexically determined case idiosyncrasy, Lithuanian exhibits syntactically determined case idiosyncrasy: with infinitives in three distinct constructions, case possibilities other than accusative obtain. These cases (dative, genitive, and nominative) depend on the general clause structure rather than on the particular infinitive. Moreover, unlike ordinary direct objects, these objects appear in a position preceding rather than following the verb. It is argued that they move to this position in order potentially to be accessible for Case assignment by some higher Case-assigning head. In this way we unify the two superficially unrelated properties of non-canonical word order and Case. This movement, however, is not feature-driven in the sense of standard minimalist Case-licensing mechanisms. We characterize it as ‘agnostic’ in that it applies to an object with unvalued Case features, if that object reaches a point in the derivation where it has no recourse but to move because failure to do so would be fatal.

The analysis of verb-particle constructions, or verb-preposition constructions, as I will call them, has-given rise to much debate in the linguistic literature over a long period of time. Traditionally, a bipartite classification of these structures has been assumed consisting of a class of ‘phrasal verbs’, such as those in (1) and (2), and a class of ‘prepositional verbs’, such as those in (3):

(1) I switched the light off.

(2) I looked the information up.

(3) Look at the prospectus: it clearly states that your admission depends on your examination results.

In this paper we investigate cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of copular clauses, focusing on agreement patterns in binominal structures [NP1 BE NP2]. Our starting point is the alternation between NP1 and NP2 agreement, which arises both within and across languages. This alternation is typically taken to be confined to specificational (i.e. inverted) clauses, and previous analyses have strongly identified NP2 agreement with the syntax of inversion. However, we show that NP2 agreement is attested in a broader range of contexts, specifically in (assumed identity) equative structures, suggesting that it should not be correlated with specificational syntax. We present contrasting data from two languages – Persian and Eastern Armenian – for which the syntax of copular clauses is understudied. Whereas in Persian we see NP2 agreement in specificational structures but NP1 agreement in assumed identity equatives, in Eastern Armenian both types of structure yield NP2 agreement. We argue that the contrast between Persian and Eastern Armenian supports an approach that takes the NP1–NP2 alternation to arise as a phi-sensitivity in the probe–goal mechanics of Agree in a minimalist framework. Under this view, NP2 agreement is independent of syntactic inversion and is the result of the probe structure being articulated in such a way that certain NPs fail to Agree.

So-called respectively readings have posed serious challenges for theories of syntax and semantics. Sentences like George and Martha respectively denounced and were denounced by the governor (McCawley 1998) show that although the conjoined verbal expressions share the same syntactic subject, they do not predicate that subject in the same way; George (not Martha) denounced the governor, and Martha (but not George) was denounced by the governor. Postal (1998: 160–163) and Gawron & Kehler (2004: 193–194) show that this phenomenon poses problems for contemporary theories of grammar and argue that it is particularly acute for theories where subcategorization and predication are linked via unification. As these authors note, the problem is even more severe in respectively readings involving filler–gap constructions. In this paper I argue that the severity of these problems has been overstated and that the data do not entail any special dissociation between predication, subcategorization, or extraction. In this paper I propose an account which is fully compatible with unification-based theories of grammar. Gawron & Kehler (2004) propose an account of respectively phenomena which covers a remarkably wide range of cases. That approach relies on a Respf operator, which it stipulated to be optionally overt. However, I argue that this analysis is problematic because there are significant semantic differences between respectively readings with and without an overt realization of ‘respectively’. Rather, the data suggest that respectively readings may be special cases of more general phenomena which happen to create interpretations that are compatible with the semantics of the adverb respectively. This explains why respectively readings can arise without the adverb, and does not require us to posit a disconnect between predication and subcategorization. In fact, a sentence with a respectively reading will not differ in syntactic or semantic structure from sentences without such a reading.

This paper is an investigation of freezing effects, that is, cases where an element (e.g. an object or a subject, or an element within it) is unable to move from a certain structural position. An account of the most prominent properties of freezing in Norwegian is followed by a comparative study of primarily English and Norwegian indirect objects, with important consequences for the general approach to indirect objects. Although recent analyses capture central properties of indirect objects, they fall short of accounting for freezing properties, seen here in terms of agreement properties, most notably Case agreement. It is shown that both subjects and indirect objects disallow sub-extraction in both English and Norwegian; however, unlike English, Norwegian allows the indirect object to A-bar move. This relates to the question of whether Case is structural or inherent. As such, this paper offers a new argument in favor of Case as a central ingredient in deriving freezing effects.

One of the most salient differences between Irish English and Standard English (in the sense of Received Pronunciation, Gimson, 1980:89 ff.) lies in the realization of coronal segments. I use this term in the standard sense of Chomsky and Halle (1968:304) and intend it to be understood as a convenient means of referring to several groups of sounds which happen to have in common that they all involve the raising of the point or blade of the tongue from a putative neutral position. In using this term I do not necessarily pledgemy support to its effectiveness in phonological description (see 3.1 below for a discussion of distinctive features with reference to Irish English). Precisely what segments are involved here will be clear from the remarks below. Before starting however, a word on the term Irish English is called for: by it I mean the variety of English spoken in the Republic of Ireland (on this see Barry, 1982:101 ff.) as the phenomena which I will be discussing are either not at all or only partially found in the variety of English spoken in Northern Ireland (consider the realizations of / t /and / d / discussed below which are unique to the Republic). Furthermore I have allowed myself the generalization Irish English although there is considerable variety in the English spoken in the Republic of Ireland. But the term Irish English is used in a fairly restricted sense here: it refers to urban middle-class speech. This excludes contact Irish English (in the areas officially designated as a ‘Gaeltacht’ (Irish-speaking area) in which both Irish and English are spoken), rural Irish English and lower class urban English. References to, and comments on these latter varieties are labelled specifically as such.

Paul M. Postal,Three investigations of extraction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. Pp. x+215.

This research investigates the morpho-syntactic behaviour of the Arabic complementizer ʔinn in a range of Arabic varieties (Modern Standard Arabic, Jordanian Arabic, and Lebanese Arabic). It essentially argues that this complementizer shares (not donates or keeps, pace Ouali 2008, 2011) its unvalued $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$-features with its complement $\text{T}^{0}$, something that makes ʔinn and $\text{T}^{0}$ separate agreeing heads. An inflectional suffix attached to ʔinn is treated as a PF reflex (i.e. an overt morphological realization) of valuation of ʔinn’s unvalued $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$-features or lack thereof. This research also argues that the occurrence of such an inflectional suffix is ruled by the postulated Agree Chain Record, an interface condition that demands an Agree relation to have a PF reflex, called a Record (i.e. an overt Case marking on the goal or, if not, a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$-affix on the probe). This way, we account for the complementary distribution of overt Case and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$-Agree in Arabic. We also show how a host of other phenomena, including word order agreement asymmetries in Modern Standard Arabic and lack of such asymmetries in Arabic vernaculars, fares well with this view.

In this paper we argue that it is possible to account for sentential stress in English in terms of the pragmatic property of Dominance, which is assigned to a constituent in discourse contexts. We have shown elsewhere (Erteschik-Shir & Lappin, 1979) that constraints on extraction from syntactic islands, and conditions on certain rules of semantic interpretation are best formulated in terms of the notion of Dominance. In the first part of the paper we review our definition of Dominance and provide operational tests for discerning its presence. In part 2 of the paper we state a rule which assigns primary stress to the constituent of the sentence which is marked for Dominance. We illustrate the operation of this rule with examples of stress patterns which it generates. In part 3 we then compare our analysis of stress with various other proposals for dealing with this phenomenon which are current in the literature. In part 4 we defend the distinction between contrastive and non-contrastive stress, while rejecting the notion of normal sentence stress. We claim that contrastive stress is, in fact, an instance of a distinct set of stress patterns which we refer to as restrictive stress. The assignment of restrictive stress is not marked, but is independently conditioned by three pragmatic features. We characterize these features and formulate rules for the prediction of restrictive stress. We also discuss the relationship between Dominant and restrictive stress. Finally, in the last section of the paper we indicate how the occurrence of primary stress on pronouns and reflexives can be analysed within the framework of our theory.