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Volume 60 - Issue 4 - November 2024

Journal of Linguistics Volume 60 - Issue 4 -
Contents

Research Article

  • On the status of NCIs: An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages

  • M. TERESA ESPINAL, ELOI PUIG-MAYENCO, URTZI ETXEBERRIA, SUSAGNA TUBAU
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    25 August 2023, pp. 715-755
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  • This paper investigates the status of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) in three so-called Strict Negative Concord (NC) languages (namely, Greek, Romanian, and Russian). An experimental study was designed to gather evidence concerning the speakers’ acceptability and interpretation of sequences with argumental NCIs in subject, object, and both positions when dhen/nu/ne were not present. Our results show that NCIs are negative indefinites whose presence in a clausal domain is enough to assign a single negation reading to the whole sequence, thus arguing in support of the hypothesis that in NC structures the minimal semantic requirement to convey single negation is that one or more NCIs encoding a negative feature appear within a sentential domain. We argue that in these structures dhen/nu/ne are the instantiations of a negative feature [neg] disembodied from an indefinite negative NCI in order to obey a syntax–phonology interface constraint.

  • A new approach to Negative Concord: Catalan as a case in point

  • SUSAGNA TUBAU, URTZI ETXEBERRIA, M. TERESA ESPINAL
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    25 August 2023, pp. 757-789
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  • In this paper, we revisit the phenomenon of Negative Concord focusing on the Strict vs. Non-Strict divide. With Catalan as a case in point, we show that Negative Concord Items (NCIs) are not negative quantifiers (NQs) or polarity items (PIs) but inherently negative indefinites by virtue of carrying a negative feature [neg] that contributes a negative semantics to the proposition and is subject to a syntax–phonology constraint that forces it to overtly c-command Tense in compliance with Jespersen’s NegFirst principle. We argue that to satisfy such constraint, [neg] can disembody from the NCI via overt Move F(eature) to adjoin at a pre-Infl(ection) position and be Spelled-Out homophonous to the negative marker. The Strict vs. Non-Strict contrast follows from whether [neg] always moves independently from the rest of the NCI via Move F (Strict Negative Concord) or predates, whenever possible, on another movement of the NCI that places [neg] in the required pre-Infl position (Non-Strict Negative Concord) thus not having to disembody.

  • Processing and production of affixes in Georgian and English: Testing a processing account of the suffixing preference

  • Alice C. Harris, Arthur G. Samuel
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 May 2024, pp. 791-824
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  • The hypothesis that affixes following a stem are easier to process than ones preceding has not been tested in a straightforward manner in any language, as far as we know. Cutler, Hawkins & Gilligan (1985) and Hawkins & Cutler (1988) adduce some evidence that supports this hypothesis indirectly, but they do not conduct experiments to test it directly. They use this hypothesis to explain in part the suffixing preference. Some others, such as Asao (2015), continue to assume the correctness of the hypothesis. We do not aim to explain the suffixing preference at all but to test the hypothesis that affixes preceding the stem (informally, prefixes) disrupt the comprehension of a word more than affixes that follow (informally, suffixes) do. In this paper we test this hypothesis (henceforth the ‘Cutler--Hawkins hypothesis’) on Georgian, because it has a wide variety of prefixes and suffixes, and in a single experiment on English. In Georgian we test a prefix and a suffix that mark the person of the subject in a verb, a circumfix and a suffix that mark derivation in nouns, and a prefix and a suffix that form intransitive verbs (usually called ‘passives’ in Georgian). Across the set of experiments, we find little support for the Cutler--Hawkins hypothesis.

  • Processing and production of clitics in Udi and European Portuguese: Testing a processing account of an extension of the suffixing preference

  • Alice C. Harris, Arthur G. Samuel
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 May 2024, pp. 825-857
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  • In our paper testing the Cutler–Hawkins hypothesis that suffixes are easier to process than prefixes (Harris & Samuel 2025), we report little experimental support for the hypothesis. Several sources treat clitics as being similar to affixes (e.g. Himmelmann 2014, Asao 2015), and some argue that there is a parallel preference for enclitics over proclitics (Cysouw 2005, Dryer 2017). On this basis, we test an extension of the Cutler–Hawkins hypothesis to clitics because if true, that too could explain the suffixing preference (as well as the putative enclitic preference). Cutler et al. (1985) also state a hypothesis about the processing of infixes. Udi provides an excellent language for testing both hypotheses, since each person clitic in this language can occur before the verb, after the verb, between morphemes of the verb or inside the verbal root, under certain circumstances (Harris 2002). Although European Portuguese does not place clitics inside roots, it utilizes the other three placements. We have conducted three experiments on each language. The results demonstrate that an explanation for either the suffixing preference or the putative enclitic preference is unlikely to be grounded in the processing factors suggested by Cutler & Hawkins.

  • Theme-vowel minimal pairs show argument structure alternations

  • Predrag Kovačević, Stefan Milosavljević, Marko Simonović
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 April 2024, pp. 859-888
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  • This paper investigates correlations between theme vowels and argument structure in Serbo-Croatian. Specifically, we focus on two different theme vowels, -i- and -ova-, isolating ‘minimal pairs’, that is cases where the same base combines with the two theme vowels to derive different verbs. Starting from two online corpora of Serbo-Croatian, we created a comprehensive list of -i-/-ova- minimal pairs. For all pairs in the list whose both members were attested at least 50 times in the corpora, we randomly selected 50 tokens per verb and annotated them for transitivity. A statistical comparison of -i- and -ova- verbs according to the proportions of transitive uses was carried out. The findings show that -i- verbs are much more likely to be used transitively than -ova- verbs. This finding corroborates the view that theme vowels are associated with argument structure properties and challenges the idea that they are universally ‘ornamental’ pieces of morphology without syntactic/semantic import. Based on these and supplementary (non-corpus) data, we claim that -i- derives transitives and unaccusatives, while -ova- derives unergatives. We propose a model couched in Distributed Morphology whereby these two theme vowels are treated as instantiations of different ‘flavors of v’.

  • Distributive numerals in Albanian

  • BUJAR RUSHITI, CARMEN DOBROVIE-SORIN
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    23 November 2023, pp. 889-919
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  • This paper investigates nga-marked numerals in Albanian. They qualify as distributive numerals, since the presence of nga on the numeral yields a distributive reading of the sentences they belong to. Beyond their differences, most of the previous accounts rely on the hypothesis that distributive numerals introduce some kind of semantic feature, e.g. a covariation feature; an evaluation plurality requirement, also called a post-suppositional plurality requirement; or a distributivity force. Our main claim goes against this trend of thinking. We propose that distributive numerals do not carry any semantic feature but only a formal syntactic feature that needs to enter a syntactic dependency relation with a distributivity feature. The analysis is implemented in terms of Zeijlstra’s (2004) upward agree.

Book Review

Editorial Note

  • Editorial Note

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 February 2025, pp. 935-937
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Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • LIN volume 60 issue 4 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 February 2025, pp. f1-f2
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Back Cover (OBC, IBC) and matter

  • LIN volume 60 issue 4 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 February 2025, pp. b1-b2
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