Abstract External arguments have long been argued to hold a special status in the literature on argument structure. Recent works have converged on the view that their thematic interpretations are post-syntactic derivatives. However, most of these studies focus exclusively on arguments serving as the highest arguments within certain domains, leaving the thematic interpretations of intermediate external arguments understudied. This study aims to address this research gap by exploring the different causee interpretations in the Teochew mue -causative and kə -causative. I demonstrate that, like other external arguments, intermediate ones also have their thematic interpretations contextualized through syntactically-oriented event structural interpretation as post-syntactic derivatives. However, intermediate external arguments, such as causees, require a more complex two-step contextualization mechanism. In this mechanism, the complement-oriented approach, widely adopted to analyze the highest external arguments, provides only the initial interpretation, which is further modified during subsequent syntactico-semantic derivations.
Abstract This paper examines Mandarin nominal headless relatives, with a focus on how they obtain their lexical categories. I argue that Mandarin headless relatives represent a distinct subtype of [−wh] headless relatives, characterized by two key properties: (i) relativization involves movement, akin to their [+wh] counterparts, and (ii) an additional nominalizer is required, distinguishing them from their [+wh] counterparts. Building on the (re)labeling analysis of headless relatives, I propose that, because dislocated null-operators do not move along with their categorial feature [N], Mandarin [−wh] nominal headless relatives obtain their lexical categories through an external nominalizer that supplies the [N] feature. This contrasts with [+wh] nominal headless relatives, where the overtly fronted wh-word directly provides the [N] feature to the headless-relative node. Besides, I explore how the semantic asymmetries between [+wh] and [−wh] nominal headless relatives can be explained under the proposed analysis.
This paper defines the necessary and sufficient conditions for the licitness of indefinite subjects in Mandarin Chinese. The primary thesis is that their distribution is governed by two distinct but interacting principles. First, we posit, drawing upon Chierchia (1995. Individual-level predicates as inherent generics. In G. N. Carlson & F. J. Pelletier (eds.), The generic book, 176-223. University of Chicago Press), that Davidsonian arguments - both in stage-level and individual-level predicates, can be formally constrained to function as existential stage topics or generic situation topics. The presence of such a topic can license an indefinite subject, satisfying the discourse requirement for a sentence to have a topic as its starting point. Second, we further argue that the felicity of a Chinese indefinite subject also depends on a legitimate topic-comment structure, as defined by the topic- licensing condition from Pan and Hu (2008. A semantic-pragmatic interface account of (dangling) topics in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 40(11)). This condition requires a non-null intersection between the sets denoted by the topic and the comment. The well-formedness of a Chinese indefinite subject is thus shown to be contingent not only upon the availability of a suitable discourse topic but also upon the licit semantic integration of the topic-comment structure itself.
This study employs Large Language Model (LLM)-based translation as a diagnostic probe for generative predictions regarding Agree and phi-feature valuation in the context of discourse-driven underspecification. The translation direction from Korean - a topic-prominent, radical pro-drop language lacking overt gender marking - to Spanish - a language requiring morpho-syntactically explicit realization of person, number, and gender - compels a process of feature reconstruction rather than direct transfer. Using controlled context-window probes on a 22,800-sentence parallel corpus, the study analyzes how non-biological learners reconstruct missing features. The results show that expanding the discourse context significantly mitigates person mismatches via antecedent accessibility, yet fails to eliminate gender mismatches. This asymmetry reflects the structural scarcity of gender cues in the Korean input, consistent with Minimalist expectations: discourse context facilitates antecedent selection, yet the reliable valuation of specific lexical phi-features necessitates richer formal specification than the source provides. Furthermore, model architecture crucially determines the reconstruction strategy, ranging from conservative non-commitment to the over-generation of spurious feature values. By treating LLMs as learners devoid of Universal Grammar (UG) but shaped by architectural biases - including the attention mechanisms, positional encoding schemes, and fine-tuning objectives that constrain how each model integrates contextual information - this study demonstrates how computational probes can test whether grammatical generalizations depend on structurally specified input or can be recovered from distributional context alone.
Taking Chung's (2001. The structure and tense interpretation of tenseless -ko coordination. Studies in Generative Grammar 11. 41-68, 2005. What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean? Lingua 115. 549-568) discussion as a point of departure, I discuss the phenomenon of tenseless clausal coordination in Korean. I investigate the phenomenon from a broader perspective concerning the system of tense marking and temporal interpretation of the language. Showing that there are many environments where a null tense marker is used in Korean, I suggest that the null tense marker is the default realization of the tense head for both past and non-past tenses in the language. To capture the allomorphic alternation between overt and null tense markers, I propose two postsyntactic insertion rules for past and non-past tenses. Concerning how the tense head bears past or non-past specification in the first place, I adopt Stowell's (1982. The tense of infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry 13. 561-570, 1996. The phrase structure of tense. In Johan Rooryck & Laurie Zaring (eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon, 277-291. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2007. The syntactic expression of tense. Lingua 117. 437-463) analysis and reformulate it in terms of Agree relations involving the categories C, T, and Z and their tense features, the result of which feeds the aforementioned insertion rules. Based on this, I argue that tenseless clausal coordination involves a multiple feature-valuing configuration under TP-coordination. The current analysis not only explains tenseless clausal coordination in a way that is not construction-specific, but it also provides a novel account of the system of morphological tense marking in Korean. It is also suggested, albeit tentatively, that phases and spell-out domains may be relevant to determining how tense is morphologically marked. The current analysis is in line with the cartographic approach to clause structure - especially, that the traditional CP consists of a series of functional projections (Cinque 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Restructuring and functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Rizzi 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar, 281-337. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers).
In this paper we study Mandarin nominals formed with more than one morpheme, which are ambiguous between words and phrases due to the lack of morphological evidence. The proposed analysis is based on the exocentric labelling model in Adger (2013. A syntax of substance. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), which focuses on categorial labels and their transition relations. We propose that any item from the lexicon which is not a label enters the syntactic derivation as a category-less root, and nominals are those which get a label N via Merge as the derivation continues. A root can Merge with itself and get the label N through Root Labelling. Alternatively, a structure can be assigned the label N when the Label Transition Functions allow both of its daughters to change its current label to N. These two operations decide the legitimate pairs in Merge. The analysis shows that we have only three types of complex nominals in Mandarin: [A-N] and [N-N], which are complex in syntactic structure, and the non-compositional ones, which are complex only in syllabic structure. Finally, there are no [V-N] nominals in Mandarin, as those which appear to be so are all non-compositional.
A recurrent issue about restructuring verbs has been whether they obligatorily merge in a monoclausal configuration with their non-finite complements. A traditional hypothesis is that they can be ambiguous, legitimating both monoclausal and biclausal structures. In more recent times, the alternative view that they can only enter monoclausal structures has gained increasing support in the literature. No broad consensus has yet been reached on which of these two mutually incompatible positions is the correct one. Another open question is whether all restructuring verbs are alike in this respect, since differences might potentially be identified among the various subclasses of predicates. These are all long-standing points of contention, especially in Romance linguistics, and answering them has major consequences also for a general theory of non-finite complementation. The main conclusion attained in this work, grounded chiefly in Italian evidence, is that both empirical and theoretical considerations point to abandoning a generalized monoclausal approach to restructuring and its corollaries, namely the concept of pseudocontrol and the dyadic conceptualization of raising (-to-subject) that it brings along. An argument will be made for a strict separation between strategies of infinitival complementation, necessarily operating with biclausal structures, and restructured configurations, which are always and only monoclausal. The underlying mechanism of the latter should thus be conceptualized as distinct from both raising and control. Such results are purported to be of interest to scholars of all theoretical persuasion, be they more formalist- or more functionalist-oriented.
Phases have a 25-year-old tradition in minimalist thinking. Importantly, from the perspective of the Strong Minimalist Thesis, the concept phase has received extra-linguistic motivation by laws of nature leading to computational efficiency in the linguistic system. The most recent theoretical development called Miracle Creed (MC), has brought phases back into focus. Phases are theta-related, cyclic units and phase heads determine access points to interpretation and externalization. We explore the MC-system (Chomsky, N. 2024. The miracle creed and SMT. In M. Grecco & D. Mocci (eds.), A cartesian dream: A geometrical account of syntax: In honor of Andrea Moro, 17-39. Lingbuzz Press) and how it is crucially simplified by Kitahara and Seely (Kitahara, H. & T. D. Seely. 2023. The Role of 3rd Factor in the Form of Merge talk given in G & ouml;ttingen December 2023. Kitahara, H. & T. D. Seely. 2024a. Merge and Minimal Search: A Preliminary Sketch from GK to MC and Beyond. 2024. Handout GIA March 2024. Kitahara, H. & Seely, T. D. 2024b. Simplification and extensions of the miracle creed. Linguistic Variation. John Benjamins 2025) before we propose a revision on how to determine the external theta position. The resulting system allows us to systematically analyze the infinitival clauses traditionally classified as Raising, Control (OC, NOC and arbitrary control) and Tough-Movement, in terms of phases. We keep the insights of the MC-system but avoid the indeterminacy of the EA-positon.
The variety of Arabic spoken by the Jews of Aden (Yemen) exhibits three noteworthy charcteristics, all remarkable and distinctive in the Arabic dialectal space. First, it expresses its default final stress as duration, in a way that blurs the difference between phonemically long and short vowels under stress. The difference is nevertheless revealed as stress shifts away when a suffix is added. Second, older stem vocalizations are preserved for some verbs, yet only upon the addition of object suffixes. Synchronically, these cases illustrate non-optimizing allomorphy, in which a form with an object suffix is not necessarily based on the same form without that suffix. Finally, as in Old Arabic, the 3rd masculine singular perfect form has the suffix /-a/, yet its distribution is exclusive to two environments: (i) before /h/-initial object suffixes, and (ii) word-finally after geminate verbs of measure I. The motivation for the emergence of final /-a/ in both cases is strictly phonological.
Much of the debate in the morphosyntactic literature has been concerned with the syntax of language formations known as complex event nominals (CENs), a term coined by Grimshaw (1990. Argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). The attention of language researchers has so far been almost exclusively focused on CENs based on lexical verbs (e.g. destruction, formation, demolition). This paper shows that CENs can be derived not only from verbal roots (i.e. roots that can be categorized as verbs) but also from bound stems (e.g. nutrition, partition, requisition). The aim of the study is to determine what the existence of such nominals means for the morphosyntactic theory in light of what is already known about the syntax of CENs. The research specifically focuses on the question of whether it is justifiable to refer to event nominals as 'deverbal', that is, as constructs whose internal structure projects the cyclic vP layer. The paper argues that such a verbal layer is absent in the structure of CENs (whose structure nevertheless contains a head labelled EventP that introduces event implications) and included only the representation of -ing gerunds.
Locative Inversion (LI) disallows subject-auxiliary inversion, sentential negation, sentential emphasis, and VP-ellipsis. This study argues that these distinctive properties stem from the weakness of T with respect to labelability. Chomsky (2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130. 33-49, 2015. Problems of projection. In Elisa Di Domenico, Cornelia Hamann & Simona Matteini (eds.), Structures, strategies, and beyond: Studies in honour of Adriana Belletti, 1-16. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins Publishing Company) suggests that DP-raising can resolve this weakness. I propose that T-movement provides an alternative resolution, and that the peculiar properties of LI constructions follow from the fact that only T-movement is available. Raising a DP to Spec-T allows T to be properly labeled, whereas T-movement removes the need for T to be labeled. If T fails to project a label, its uninterpretable feature cannot be deleted. Consequently, LI is incompatible with operations that depend on the deletion of this uninterpretable feature. Sentential negation, sentential emphasis, VP-ellipsis, and T-to-C movement all involve such deletion and are therefore incompatible with LI. This study extends the T-movement analysis to specificational copular constructions, the here-construction, and the so-aux-subject construction - all of which, like LI, disallow operations that require deletion of the uninterpretable feature on T. These constructions are topic-comment in nature, derived through T-to-Topic movement, and are more restricted than subject-predicate constructions, since the uninterpretable feature on T cannot be deleted in this configuration.
Landau (2023a. Argument ellipsis as external merge after transfer. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 41(2). 793-845) argues against Tomioka (2003. The semantics of Japanese null pronouns and its cross-linguistic implications. In Kerstin Schwabe & Susanne Winkler (eds.), The interfaces: Deriving and interpreting omitted structures, 321-339. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) and Bo & scaron;kovi & cacute; (2018. On pronouns, clitic doubling, and argument ellipsis: Argument ellipsis as predicate ellipsis. English Linguistics 35(1). 1-37) regarding their claim that argument ellipsis (AE) sites denote properties, namely something of semantic type , by demonstrating that they denote individuals, something of semantic type . In this article, I defend Tomioka (2003. The semantics of Japanese null pronouns and its cross-linguistic implications. In Kerstin Schwabe & Susanne Winkler (eds.), The interfaces: Deriving and interpreting omitted structures, 321-339. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) and Bo & scaron;kovi & cacute; (2018. On pronouns, clitic doubling, and argument ellipsis: Argument ellipsis as predicate ellipsis. English Linguistics 35(1). 1-37) by arguing that Landau's (2023a. Argument ellipsis as external merge after transfer. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 41(2). 793-845) observation that null arguments must denote individuals is explained by positing pro as occupying the head of DP and functioning as a type-shifting operator that applies to the material copied onto its null NP complement and returns an entity of semantic type . I further address the question raised by Landau (2025. Type-restricted argument ellipsis and generalized quantifiers. Linguistic Inquiry 56(1). 97-129) whether generalized quantifiers can serve as antecedents for AE. Demonstrating that this is possible in Japanese, in contrast with languages like Hebrew, I suggest that when the antecedents of null arguments include strong determiners, they involve DP ellipsis rather than NP ellipsis and that the availability of DP ellipsis should be parametrized. At the same time, I argue that there is a seemingly universal constraint that applies to both Japanese and Hebrew, which prohibits a null argument taking a quantificational phrase as its antecedent from interacting scopally with other scope-bearing elements.
This study argues that force-endowed (FE) that-clauses form a syntactically and semantically distinct class and offers an analysis focused on cases where their licensing is not attributable to pragmatic control. I show that speech-reporting verbs employ two different mechanisms to license FE that-clauses: manner-of-speaking verbs can select them directly, whereas proffering verbs cannot, as they select propositional complements. In the latter case, a type-mismatch arises, which is repaired by internal Merge. The analysis integrates Krifka's conception of FE clauses as index actualizers with event-like denotation and Kratzer's view of that-clauses as predicates of content-bearing individuals and events. Within this framework, the distribution and interpretation of FE that-clauses receive a unified explanation, thereby supporting the existence of a dedicated class of speech-act-selecting verbs and illuminating the puzzling embedding of FE that-clauses under verbs that select propositional types. Empirically, the account predicts the embedded distribution of force-related main clause phenomena, such as speaker-reduced parentheticals and biscuit conditionals, and explains several characteristic properties of FE that-clauses, including their contrast with propositional that-clauses, their distinct entailment patterns across embeddings, their achievement-coercing effects, and their ability to give rise to reporting interpretations even with unergative verbs.
This study presents an analysis of variation and stability in International Sign Language (IntSL). IntSL exhibits linguistic properties at all levels including the lexicon. The lexicon presents variation for several reasons, such as previous sign language knowledge (L1 effects on L2 sign language), cultural influences, and iconicity motivation. At the same time, it presents lexical stability. Phonetic-phonological realization of the signs in IntSL is susceptible to variation as has been found in other signed languages (see e.g. Xavier and P. Barbosa (2014. Diferentes pronúncias em uma língua não sonora? Um estudo da variação na produção de sinais da Libras. D.E.L.T.A 30(2). 371–413); Xavier and F. Barbosa (2017. Variabilidade e estabilidade na produção de sinais da Libras. Domínios de Linguagem Uberlândia 11(3). 903–1006); Lucas et al. (2001. Sociolinguistic variation. In C. Lucas (ed.), The sociolinguistic of sign languages , 61–111. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press); Johnston and Schembri (2010. Variation, lexicalization and grammaticalization in signed languages. Langage et Societe 131(1)); Battison (1974. Phonological deletion in American sign language. Sign Language Studies 5. 1–19); Jordan and Battison (1976. A referential communication experiment with foreign sign languages. Sign Language Studies 10(Spring). 69–80); Battison and Jordan (1976. Cross-cultural communication with foreign signers: Fact and fancy. Sign Language Studies 10(Spring). 53–68). This paper investigates lexical properties – with focus on variation – and lexical stability in IntSL. The data analysis follows the methodology of Xavier and F. Barbosa (2017. Variabilidade e estabilidade na produção de sinais da Libras. Domínios de Linguagem Uberlândia 11(3). 903–1006) in their work on lexical variation and stability in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) as well as the work of Nieto-Castanon et al. (2005. A modeling investigation of articulatory variability and acoustic stability during American English/r/production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117(5)) on the functional relationship between articulatory variability and stability of acoustic cues during American English/r/production. The findings reveal that despite within-signer and across-signer lexical variation, phonetic-phonological parameters in lexical signs have been stabilized and preserved. As a result, these signs have been entered in the lexicon of IntSL.
In Iranian Armenian, certain verbal suffixes display allomorphy or morphophonological alternations that are conditioned by the location of another word. These alternations are a phonosyntactic process, i.e., a syntax-sensitive morphophonological process. The choice of surface form for the perfective converb suffix depends on the location of an auxiliary. If the auxiliary is to the right of the suffix (with possible interveners), then the suffix uses the default form [-e]. If the auxiliary is to the left of the suffix, then the marked form [-e] is used. The alternation cannot be reduced to phonology, and the verb and auxiliary must be part of same clause. Long-distance conditioning is also possible. The alternation can be analyzed as either a morphophonological process (floating segments) or as suppletion. Each analysis requires elaboration to pre-existing models of the phonology-syntax interface. The process-based analysis requires a traditional Direct Reference model, while the allomorphy analysis falsifies locality restrictions on allomorphy.
The goal of this paper is to account for the polysemy of Italian simple prepositions (a, da, di, in) via the integration of two distinct theoretical perspectives: Semantic Maps and Syntactic Cartography. We show that these prepositions can coexpress several spatial and non-spatial senses, via a detailed study of their distribution in web corpora. We then argue that these senses share a common semantic feature: they all introduce 'general parthood relations' between two or more referents in discourse; verbs and complement DPs specify the content of these relations. We propose a cartographic analysis of their structure in which each preposition acts as a single exponent for a cluster of heads and distinct combinations of semantic values. We then offer a semantic maps analysis of these prepositions as coexpressing senses forming a coherent semantic domain, but partitioning this domain via different patterns. We analyse these principles by connecting the maps approach with a compact model-theoretic discussion. We conclude by proposing some considerations on the empirical reach of this integrated method for theories of adpositions and their multi-dimensional polysemy.
Once an event occurs, it can never be cancelled by its very nature. This paper, based on examination of the aspectual and modal properties of the completion marker -čih in Mongolian, shows that uncancelledness, a hitherto undocumented aspect of semantics, plays significant roles in aspectual and modal properties of verbs. It is argued that uncancelledness is an semantic primitive, which leads to the thorough completion of (the commencement of) events as well as a resultant state and causes modal effect by the virtue of the information available in the presupposition, say, contradiction.
Recent studies (e.g. Kupisch, Tanja & Maria Polinsky. 2022. Language history on fast forward: Innovations in heritage languages and diachronic change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 25. 1–12) have rekindled an old debate concerning whether language change in contact (CIC) and language change in diachrony (CID) proceed along the same developmental path, or whether they diverge from one another in fundamental and predictable ways. This paper contributes to this ongoing debate; we propose a new heuristic to determine similarities and differences in syntactic change in CIC and CID. We postulate that the primary distinction boils down to the type of features related to the domain of syntax under investigation, i.e., situations involving (formal) ϕ -features lead to similar trajectories of change in both CIC and CID, while those driven by discourse-features show divergence. We test our hypothesis on a host of different empirical data, e.g., indexicals, (subject) clitics, and differential object marking (DOM) as evidence for our claim.
The interest in such diverse topics such as agreement and ellipsis, and their interaction with several components of the language system (syntax, pragmatics, phonology & mldr;) has increased in the last decades, as new approaches emerge to enable more precise analyses of the mechanisms underlying agreement relations and elliptical constructions. This special issue gathers a selection of six papers from the 32nd Colloquium on Generative Grammar and from the Workshop on Case, Agreement and Ellipsis immediately following the 32CGG (University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, April 2023) which focus on two main topics: (i) agreement and related notions, such as feature specification (or underspecification) on heads, the nature of phi-feature valuation and the agreement mechanism itself, or a case of predicate ellipsis where a clitic appears to participate in agreement licensing; and (ii) prima facie elliptical phenomena, such as Righ-Node Raising (analysed through the lenses of discourse), an LF-copying approach to ellipsis, where ellipsis in the main clause is licensed by an adverbial clause, and a syntactic approach to symmetric predicates under VP-ellipsis. This introductory paper serves as a state of the art as well as guide for the readers of this special collection and offers an overview of the topics dealt with in each contribution.
This paper documents and analyzes a predicate ellipsis alternation found in contemporary Spanish, addressing some challenges it poses for current theories of ellipsis licensing with the Minimalist Program. Spanish predicate ellipsis occurs in two variants: (i) lo-insertion, where an overt proform (the neuter clitic lo) attaches to the auxiliary preceding the silent gap, and (ii) lo-omission, where predicate ellipsis is licensed under polarity focus (typically marked on the stranded auxiliary). Both variants arise from ellipsis of the main predicate - and its arguments - and are licensed by the same restricted class of auxiliaries. To account for their shared distribution, this paper argues that predicate ellipsis stems from a single [E]-feature, in both the lo-insertion and the lo-omission context. Concretely, the presence of a clitic (in lo-insertion) and its absence under polarity focus (in lo-omission) are analyzed as two alternative strategies to satisfy the semantic requirements of a single [E]-feature, without encoding these contexts for ellipsis directly in [E]'s syntax. This analysis is further extended to predicate ellipsis constructions in Germanic languages, which employ strategies for predicate anaphora akin to both lo-insertion and lo-omission, albeit with a different distribution.
