Research

This paper argues that bare determiners, as in the sentence "Many sat down", should be analyzed as involving the elision of a partitive phrase, as opposed to a noun phrase, as is commonly assumed (Lobeck 1991, 1995; Bernstein 1993; Panagiotidis 2003; Alexiadou & Gengel 2011; Corver and van Koppen 2009, 2011). This analysis is supported by: (i) the anaphoric interpretation of the bare determiners in context; (ii) the syntax of bare determiners; and (iii) deep event anaphora. Further, the adoption of partitive ellipsis comes with the suggestion that partitive DPs do not involve null intermediary noun phrases (cf. Jackendoff 1977, Sauerland and Yatsushiro 2004, and Ionin, Matushansky & Ruys 2006), but rather that determiners can take partitive phrases as internal arguments (Matthewson 2001). The existence of such a phenomenon also militates in favor of a meaning isomorphy approach to the licensing of ellipsis (Merchant 2001), rather than structural isomorphy (Fiengo & May 1994).

Three types of nominal anaphors are investigated: (i) pronouns, (ii) partitive ellipsis and (iii) the contrastive anaphor 'one'. I argue that in each case, the representational basis for anaphora is the same, a semantic variable ranging over singular or plural entities, rather than syntactic as previous approaches have suggested.In the case of pronouns, I argue against syntactic D-type approaches (Elbourne 2005) and semantic D-type approaches (Cooper 1979). Instead, I present arguments in favor of the set variable representation assumed under Nouwen (2003)’s approach. Following this, I consider a number of cases usually taken to involve the elision of a noun phrase, and argue that instead they involve the deletion of a partitive phrase containing an anaphoric plural pronoun. Third, I turn to the contrastive anaphor ‘one’ and its null counterpart in French. Here again, I argue that the basis for anaphora is a semantic set variable, where this anaphor differs from pronouns in being of category N rather than D, and in having a pragmatic requirement for contrast. This analysis differs from previous ones which hold that this expression is a syntactic substitute of category N′, or the spell-out of the head of a number phrase followed by ellipsis of a noun phrase. Finally, I discuss the phenomenon of event anaphora. Given the phenomenon’s interaction with the anaphors discussed prior in this dissertation, I argue that it is better seen as a case of deferred reference to an event on the basis of anaphoric reference to a discourse segment, following Webber (1991). This contrasts with what I call metaphysical approaches, which hold that the anaphor directly resumes an event introduced to the context by a previous clause (Asher 1993; Moltmann 1997).

The goal of language comprehension for humans is not just to decode the semantic content of sentences, but rather to grasp what speakers intend to communicate. To infer speaker meaning, listeners must at minimum assess whether and how the literal meaning of an utterance addresses a question under discussion in the conversation. In cases of implicature, where the speaker intends to communicate more than just the literal meaning, listeners must access additional relevant information in order to understand the intended contribution of the utterance. I argue that the primary challenge for inferring speaker meaning is in identifying and accessing this relevant contextual information. In this dissertation, I integrate evidence from several different types of implicature to argue that both adults and children are able to execute complex pragmatic inferences relatively efficiently, but encounter some difficulty finding what is relevant in context. I argue that the variability observed in processing costs associated with adults’ computation of scalar implicatures can be better understood by examining how the critical contextual information is presented in the discourse context. I show that children’s oft-cited hyper-literal interpretation style is limited to scalar quantifiers. Even 3-year-olds are adept at understanding indirect requests and “parenthetical” readings of belief reports. Their ability to infer speaker meanings is limited only by their relative inexperience in conversation and lack of world knowledge.

This dissertation deals with the theory of the phonetic component of grammar in a formal probabilistic inference framework: (1) it has been recognized since the beginning of generative phonology that some language-specific phonetic implementation is actually context-dependent, and thus it can be said that there are gradient “phonetic processes” in grammar in addition to categorical “phonological processes.” However, no explicit theory has been developed to characterize these processes. Meanwhile, (2) it is understood that language acquisition and perception are both really informed guesswork: the result of both types of inference can be reasonably thought to be a less-than-perfect committment, with multiple candidate grammars or parses considered and each associated with some degree of credence. Previous research has used probability theory to formalize these inferences in implemented computational models, especially in phonetics and phonology. In this role, computational models serve to demonstrate the existence of working learning/perception/parsing systems assuming a faithful implementation of one particular theory of human language, and are not intended to adjudicate whether that theory is correct. The current dissertation (1) develops a theory of the phonetic component of grammar and how it relates to the greater phonological system and (2) uses a formal Bayesian treatment of learning to evaluate this theory of the phonological architecture and for making predictions about how the resulting grammars will be organized. The coarse description of the consequence for linguistic theory is that the processes we think of as “allophonic” are actually language-specific, gradient phonetic processes, assigned to the phonetic component of grammar; strict allophones have no representation in the output of the categorical phonological grammar.

Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty producing and perceiving non-native phonological contrasts. Even highly proficient bilinguals, who have been exposed to an L2 for long periods of time, struggle with difficult contrasts, such as /r/-/l/ for Japanese learners of English. To account for the relative ease or diffculty with which L2 learners perceive and acquire non-native contrasts, theories of (L2) speech perception often appeal to notions of similarity. But how is similarity best determined? In this dissertation I explored the predictions of two theoretical approaches to similarity comparison in the second language, and asked: [1] How should L2 sound similarity be measured? [2] What is the nature of the representations that guide sound similarity? [3] To what extent can the influence of the native language be overcome? In Chapter 2, I tested a ‘legos’ (featural) approach to sound similarity. Given a distinctive feature analysis of Spanish and English vowels, I investigated the hypoth- esis that feature availability in the L1 grammar constrains which target language segments will be accurately perceived and acquired by L2 learners (Brown [1998], Brown [2000]). Our results suggest that second language acquisition of phonology is not limited by the phonological features used by the native language grammar, nor is the presence/use of a particular phonological feature in the native language grammar sufficient to trigger redeployment. I take these findings to imply that feature availability is neither a necessary, nor a sufficient condition to predict learning outcomes. In Chapter 3, I extended a computational model proposed by Feldman et al. [2009] to nonnative speech perception, in order to investigate whether a sophisticated ‘rulers’ (spatial) approach to sound similarity can better explain existing interlingual identification and discrimination data from Spanish monolinguals and advanced L1 Spanish late-learners of English, respectively. The model assumes that acoustic distributions of sounds control listeners’ ability to discriminate a given contrast. I found that, while the model succeeded in emulating certain aspects of human behavior, the model at present is incomplete and would have to be extended in various ways to capture several aspects of nonnative and L2 speech perception. In Chapter 4 I explored whether the phonological relatedness among sounds in the listeners native language impacts the perceived similarity of those sounds in the target language. Listeners were expected to be more sensitive to the contrast between sound pairs which are allophones of different phonemes than to sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Moreover, I hypothesized that L2 learners would experience difficulty perceiving and acquiring target language contrasts between sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Our results suggest that phonological relatedness may influence perceived similarity on some tasks, but does not seem to cause long-lasting perceptual difficulty in advanced L2 learners. On the basis of those findings, I argue that existing models have not been adequately explicit about the nature of the representations and processes involved in similarity-based comparisons of L1 and L2 sounds. More generally, I describe what I see as a desirable target for an explanatorily adequate theory of cross-language influence in L2 phonology.

In this dissertation I explore the nature of interpretive dependencies in human language. In particular I investigate the limits of syntactically mediated interpretive dependencies as well as non-syntactic ones. Broadly speaking I investigate the limits of grammatical dependencies and note that current theory cannot possibly handle certain dependencies. That certain dependencies evade grammatical explanation requires a rethinking of the representations of those dependencies.The results of this investigation concern the primacy and the purview of the syntax component of the grammar. In short, the purview of syntactic relations is limited to c-command and if a c-command relation holds between two related elements, a syntactic relation must hold between them, either directly or indirectly. When c-command does not hold between the related elements, a syntactic dependency is not possible and the dependency must hold at a subsequent level of representation. To show this, I explore interpretive dependencies that I argue only superficially resemble standard, syntactically-mediated relations (such as Wh-gap dependencies). I show that these dependencies are not amenable to analysis as syntactically-mediated relations. These include Coordinated-Wh Questions like those explored in Gracanin-Yuksek 2007, Right Node Raising constructions like those explored in Postal 1974, and Across-the-board constructions like those explored in Williams 1978. Each of these involves an interpretive dependency that I claim cannot be derived syntactically. The above constructions evade explanation via traditional syntactic tools as well as semantic and pragmatic means of analysis. If the above constructions involve dependencies that cannot be construed as syntactically-, semantically-, or pragmatically-mediated, it must be the case that these otherwise normal dependencies are captured via other means, whatever that may be.

This thesis explores how predictions about upcoming language inputs are computed during real-time language comprehension. Previous research has demonstrated humans’ ability to use rich contextual information to compute linguistic prediction during real-time language comprehension, and it has been widely assumed that contextual information can impact linguistic prediction as soon as it arises in the input. This thesis questions this key assumption and explores how linguistic predictions develop in real- time. I provide event-related potential (ERP) and reading eye-movement (EM) evidence from studies in Mandarin Chinese and English that even prominent and unambiguous information about preverbal arguments’ structural roles cannot immediately impact comprehenders’ verb prediction. I demonstrate that the N400, an ERP response that is modulated by a word’s predictability, becomes sensitive to argument role-reversals only when the time interval for prediction is widened. Further, I provide initial evidence that different sources of contextual information, namely, information about preverbal arguments’ lexical identity vs. their structural roles, may impact linguistic prediction on different time scales. I put forth a research framework that aims to characterize the mental computations underlying linguistic prediction along a temporal dimension.

Boskovic 2005, 2008 outlines a phase-based analysis of adjunct extraction in determinerless languages like Serbo-Croation (SC). The analysis is modeled on recent phase based analyses of P-stranding (cf. Abels 2003, 2012) wherein the richness of the functional structure of the PP determines whether extraction is possible. This squib identifies a problem for a unified analysis of these two phenomena. Prohibitions of adjunct extraction are obviated under sluicing while prohibitions of p-stranding are not.

This thesis examines reflexive pronouns, such as Icelandic sig (Cf. Thráinsson 2007), which may be bound from outside of an infinitive clause (which I call MD “medium distance” binding) in addition to being bound locally. I propose that such reflexives are linked to their antecedents via sisterhood followed by movement: the reflexive and antecedent are first merged together as sisters, and the antecedent subsequently moves to receive its first theta-role, as schematized below: 1. He ordered Harold to shave he+sig This links the properties of bound simplex reflexives to the properties of movement. I argue that reflexives such as sig must be bound within the first finite clause because finite CP is a spell-out domain and its escape hatch is inaccessible to A-movement. Furthermore, I derive the subject-orientation of sig and other simplex reflexives from merge-over-move, combined with a numeration divided into phases including vP. Since the antecedent is moving into its first theta-role, and merge is preferable to move, the antecedent will end up in the highest position in the phase: that is, the subject. I then examine long-distance (LD) uses of sig as well as Chinese ziji, Japanese zibun, and Kannada tannu. I propose that in such cases the reflexive still has a double, which is not the antecedent but a null element, possibly an operator. It undergoes A’ movement to a position in the left periphery of a finite clause, associated with point-of- view (with a divided left periphery as in Speas 2004)—and this operator is in turn associated with an antecedent either outside the finite clause, or outside the sentence entirely. This accounts for the observation that LD reflexives often must refer to POV holders (Sells 1987). Evidence for LD reflexives being mediated by an A’ position comes from the interaction of binding with wh-movement in Kannada (Lidz 2008), and is one way of describing where blocking effects do and do not occur in Chinese (Anand 2006). Furthermore, in Japanese there are sometimes overt morphemes, potentially left- periphery heads, that indicate POV and can co-occur with the use of LD reflexives (Nishigauchi 2005, 2010).

Comparative correlatives, like the longer you stay out in the rain, the colder you’ll get, are prolific in the world’s languages (i.e., there is no evidence of a language that lacks comparative correlatives). Despite this observation, the data do not present a readily apparent syntax. What is the relationship between the two clauses? What is the main verb? What is English’s the which obligatorily appears at the start of each clause? This thesis reviews prior analyses of comparative correlatives, both syntactic and semantic (Fillmore, 1987; McCawley, 1988; McCawley, 1998; Beck, 1997; Culicover & Jackendoff, 1999; Borsley, 2003; Borsley, 2004; den Dikken, 2005; Abeillé, Borsley & Espinal, 2007; Lin, 2007). A formal syntactic analysis of comparative correlatives is presented which accounts for its syntactic behaviors across several languages. Most notably, it challenges the assumption that constructions are essential primitives for the successful derivation and interpretation of the data (Fillmore, 1987; McCawley, 1988; Culicover & Jackendoff, 1999; Borsley, 2003; Borsley, 2004; Abeillé, Borsley & Espinal, 2007). The analysis is framed within the goals of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993, 1995a), specifically with respect to endocentricity and Bare Phrase Structure (Chomsky 1995b). Crosslingustically, the first clause is subordinate to the second clause, the main clause. A’-movement (e.g., Topicalization, wh-movement, Focus) out of each clause proceeds successive-cyclically and, in the case of the subordinate clause, via sideward movement (Nunes 1995, 2004; Hornstein, 2001). In English, the word the which obligatorily appears at the start of each clause in English is a Force0. This provides an explanation for the ban on Subject-Aux Inversion (SAI) in the entire expression. The degree phrases which are present in each clause of a comparative correlative crosslinguistically contain a quantifier phrase in Spec,DegP; this quantifier is phonetically null in English. This thesis concludes by presenting conceptual arguments against constructions as primitives in the grammar. Bare Phrase Structure (BPS) (Chomsky, 1995b) is included in the system by virtue of virtual conceptual necessity (VCN). Since constructions do not meet the criteria of VCN, their existence would compromise the principles of BPS. Further, when applied carefully, BPS renders constructions unable to be defined.