Contexte. L’aphasie est un trouble langagier causé par une atteinte cérébrale, affectant la capacité à parler, à comprendre, à lire ou à écrire. L’anomie, définie comme une difficulté d’accès lexical, en constitue l’une des manifestations les plus fréquentes. Plusieurs travaux ont exploré le langage intérieur (ou endophasie), défini comme la production langagière sans articulation ni émission sonore, afin de déterminer si les difficultés observées à voix haute se retrouvent également en modalité intériorisée. De nombreux patients avec aphasie rapportent pouvoir générer intérieurement la forme correcte du mot cible malgré un échec en production externalisée, ce qui a conduit à envisager l’intérêt d’évaluer et d’entraîner l’endophasie dans l’aphasie. Bien que des études récentes aient confirmé l’efficacité de tels entraînements chez des patients francophones, peu de travaux se sont attachés à évaluer systématiquement l’endophasie dans ce contexte. Objectif. Cette étude visait à comparer les productions langagières internalisées et externalisées chez des patients présentant une aphasie anomique, afin d’examiner le lien entre leurs capacités de production lexicale externalisée et intérieure. Les capacités de mémoire de travail verbale ont été analysées au regard des performances obtenues aux épreuves de langage intérieur. L’objectif était de mieux comprendre les mécanismes sous-jacents à l’anomie et d’orienter plus finement les choix thérapeutiques. Méthode. Quinze participants présentant une aphasie avec anomie ont été évalués à l’aide de tests cliniques usuels, de tâches comportementales ciblant le langage intérieur et d’un questionnaire subjectif recueillant leur expérience de l’endophasie. Les performances ont été analysées de manière intra- et inter-individuelle afin d’identifier les profils d’atteinte en modalité intériorisée et externalisée. Résultats. Les résultats confirment que, chez certains patients, l’endophasie peut être préservée malgré une altération de la production de parole à voix haute, suggérant que seule la programmation motrice serait déficitaire. D’autres patients présentent toutefois un profil différent, avec une atteinte spécifique du langage intérieur qui pourrait être liée à des difficultés de maintien des formes phonologiques internes. Par ailleurs, les performances en endophasie apparaissent corrélées aux capacités de mémoire de travail verbale, suggérant le recrutement de processus communs lors des tâches de jugement phonologique interne. Conclusion. Ces résultats soulignent l’importance d’intégrer l’évaluation de l’endophasie dans les bilans aphasiologiques. Des études complémentaires, avec un échantillon plus large et une normalisation des outils expérimentaux, sont nécessaires pour affiner ces observations et faciliter le transfert vers la pratique clinique.
Clause-embedding predicates alternating between a complement expressing a belief and a complement expressing an intention seem to be quite widespread both inside and across languages. The two different meanings are expressed by different morphosyntactic types of complement clauses, in line with the more general observation that the semantic distinction between representational and preferential attitudes tends to be reflected by certain morphosyntactic differences between the complement clauses used. While this association between form and meaning generally holds in Basque, too, it is not completely strict: both indicative clauses and absolutive verbal nouns can be found expressing not only one, but marginally also the other meaning, raising the question whether in these cases other disambiguating factors play a role, possibly resulting from the different semantic properties of beliefs and intentions. The results of an online questionnaire show that, with very few exceptions, the type of complement clause is decisive in determining the meaning of a complement, corroborating the morphosyntactic split between representational and preferential attitudes. While indicative clauses in intent contexts seem in fact to express beliefs rather than intentions, verbal noun complements in belief contexts are in general either interpreted as intentions or judged ungrammatical. However, it seems that the use of a verbal noun complement in a belief context can become more acceptable when it is past tense, discourse-given or does not have an overt subject. Thus, while there are canonical associations between the type of attitude and the type of complement clause, under certain conditions they may be neutralized.
Adpositions may govern case, and there is dramatic variation in the case values found. Different adpositions often govern different cases, which means that we need to partition (or split) the adpositions according to the case(s) they take, as in German. But this is just one possibility. The typological point of interest here is that the items governed (the governees) may also be a determining factor, as when nouns and pronouns require different cases, in Mari for instance. Furthermore, we may need to specify both the adposition and the governee (Russian). And then, rather than one fixed outcome, there may be alternating outcomes, for each of the three types of partition (adposition-based, governee-based, and splits based on both). At the extreme, even when we have specified a particular adposition, and an individual noun, we may still need further conditions. Here corpus work reveals the interesting interaction of determining factors, notably in Finnish. Our exploratory canonical typology lays out the possibilities, providing clear differentiation of the attested systems and subsystems. The specific example of adpositions can then be used as an entry point to approach unresolved issues in the more general area of differential marking.
This paper examines binominal predicational copular clauses (PCCs) in Igbo, a Benue-Congo language, which exhibits a distinction between two copulas, bu and di. By exploring the syntactic and interpretational behaviour of these constructions, the paper proposes that Igbo PCCs provide evidence for two types of small clauses: nominal and prepositional. A three-way semantic classification of PCCs-defining, characterizing, and situation-descriptive-is adapted from Roy (2013) and applied to Igbo, showcasing its alignment with broader typological patterns and theoretical implications. The paper argues that bu corresponds to defining clauses, while di spans both characterizing and situation-descriptive interpretations, marked by a silent prepositional head.
Inalienable possessors that are internal to an NP headed by a possessed noun show evidence in support of FEATURE SHARING through agreement between a possessor controller and a possessed target in the Arawan language Jarawara. The data indicate that, contrary to the standard view of agreement in Minimalism and LFG, agreement features can be visible in the syntactic locus of the target, as well as that of the controller under certain conditions. As a consequence of feature sharing, an inalienably possessed noun that is otherwise underspecified for gender and number can control subsequent agreement processes. This gives rise to clauses in which internal inalienable possessors superficially appear to control agreement on the verbal predicate. Morphomic structures within the agreement paradigms of Jarawara inalienably possessed nouns partly obscure which features participate in possessor agreement. Combining a morphological analysis that accommodates morphomes with a feature sharing account of agreement in inalienable possession constructions provides a robust explanation for the distribution of inalienably possessed nouns in recursive structures, a problem that was unresolved by Dixon's (2000; 2004) original analysis of the data and Adamson's specialIntscript recent treatment in Distributed Morphology.
Natural language sometimes expresses negation in rather puzzlingly different forms. Different from Standard Negation (SN), Expletive Negation (EN) involves a negative marker that does not affect the truth conditions of a sentence. The theoretical literature debates whether EN is a semantically empty element or a negative operator. This paper addresses this question by investigating the processing of EN and SN against affirmative sentences through an eye-tracking while reading experiment. EN is presented in Italian temporal clauses (It. Rimarr & ograve; qui finch & eacute; Gianni non.EN verr & agrave; alla festa; Eng. 'I will stay here until Gianni comes to the party.') and SN in Italian causal clauses (It. Chiara & egrave; rimasta in casa perch & eacute; Marco non.SN ha chiamato la pizzeria; Eng. 'Chiara remained in the house because Marco did not call the pizzeria'). The results reveal distinct processing profiles for EN and SN: (i) both types of negation showed increased processing costs in early measures (gaze duration) on the verb under negation scope; (ii) however, EN differed from SN in late measures, showing no additional processing cost in total reading time compared to affirmative sentences, while SN maintained elevated processing demands. These findings suggest that EN, though not truth-functional, implies early processing cost, which may suggest its lexical non-emptiness and its integration as a syntactic negative operator. Meanwhile, its lack of impact on later measures confirms that the difference from SN emerges at the level of propositional meaning. The study offers empirical evidence on EN and novel insights into the cognitive processing of negation.
Icelandic nominal declension show (acc = dat) not equal gen syncretisms which go against Caha's (2009) cross-linguistic pattern of of acc > gen > dat and hence seemingly violate the *ABA generalisation (Har & eth;arson 2016; Starke 2017). Proposals to overcome this problem have needed to either allow variation in the fseq (Har & eth;arson 2016), or enrich the fseq (Starke 2017). Here we show that the Icelandic *ABA problem can be solved while keeping to Caha's (2009) fseq, and without adding mechanisms to the standard theory of Nanosyntax. The key to the solution lies in the phonology of Icelandic, together with a recent reformulation of the nanosyntactic algorithm in terms of pied-piping.
CPs can be coordinated with DPs in positions where only DPs are selected. Recent analyses attribute this either to an effect of linear order or processing. I show experimental data from German that are incompatible with either explanation: speakers prefer the order of conjuncts that is predicted to be bad in both analyses. The results are compatible with bottom-up derivations and asymmetric coordination structures.
Liquids (e.g. oil, wine) are considered to be examples of canonical non-count nouns. Yet nouns referring to cocktails and coffee drinks (e.g. margarita, cappuccino) display strongly count behavior, which raises questions about the semantics of countability and the relationship between nouns and the things to which they refer. This paper investigates these mixed drink nouns and proposes the source of their countability lies in their possessing a MEASURED PART which provides a unit for individuation. This part, in connection with the ratio relationship between the drink's ingredient parts, is the source of countability for these nouns.
With initial native speaker judgments suggesting an exclusive plural morpheme in downward entailing contexts in Akan, as reported by Ahenkorah (2022), this research seeks to test these claims through experimental means and to provide a more comprehensive picture of Akan's plural semantics. The current literature on exclusive and inclusive plurals focuses mainly on English, with some investigation of Western Armenian, Turkish, and Korean (Bale & Khanjian 2008; Renans et al. 2017; Kang 1994: a.o.). These languages have drawn intrigue due to their unmarked form behaving number neutrally, while English's unmarked form is specified for atomicity. Akan, which marks both singulars and plurals morphologically, makes for an interesting addition to this discussion. Ahenkorah (2022) claims that the plural circumfix, used to mark kinship terms, is inclusive, similarly to English, but that the prefix, which is used for most nominals, is exclusive. The present experiments test these two plural morphemes in multiple downward entailing contexts to obtain the full picture of their meanings. The results of the two experiments show that both the plural prefix and plural circumfix have an inclusive reading in downward entailing contexts. Furthermore, this provides evidence that the plural circumfix is not a circumfix at all but is two separate morphemes: a plural prefix and kinship suffix.
A central question in research on grammatical gender is whether it is semantically meaningful. This paper employs an auditory lexical decision task to investigate the role of noun class (NC) semantic coherence in judgments of novel NC marker + noun stem combinations in isiXhosa. Ninety participants made lexical decisions to pseudowords created by placing an NC prefix from a more (NC4) and less (NC10) semantically coherent NC on noun stems belonging to another class (“semantic violation items”). Responses to these pseudowords were compared to another condition in which the NC prefix was placed on a verb stem (“syntactic violation items”). While NC4 pseudowords were rejected equally robustly in the syntactic and semantic violation conditions, responses in the two conditions differed significantly for NC10, where rejection rates were lower for putative semantic violation items than syntactic violation items. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that some noun classes are associated with semantic generalisations while others are not.
Constraints on movement are of central concern to syntactic theory. Recent work has focused on the relationship between the height of the landing site and locality restrictions. Keine (2020) argues that the higher the landing site the fewer locality Pestrictions are imposed on the movement ("higher is freer"). In contrast Deal (2017) argues that a lower landing site can lead to movement being less restricted due to Delayed Opacity, i.e "lower is freer". In this paper we argue that, in Kalaallisut (Inuit, Greenland), it is not the height of the landing site that determines whether movement across a finite clause boundary is possible, rather it is the nature of the features driving the movement. In particular, hyperraising is driven by a composite Phi+D probe, which means that the embedded CP does not act as an intervener for Agree with a goal inside the embedded clause (Halpert 2019). In focus fronting, on the other hand, the embedded CP does Intervene for Agree with a focused element inside the embedded clause, which accounts for the clause-bounded nature of focus fronting. In addition to deriving the differing locality profiles of hyperraising and focus fronting, the analysis of focus fronting generalizes to wh-movement and also accounts for apparent long-distance A-bar movement. The final segment of the paper lays out a broader cross-linguistic typology of locality profiles for A and A-bar movement and suggests that it arises from variation in probe specifications and in the featural content of C.
Dutch location and change-of-location verbs exhibit seemingly contradictory properties, with characteristics of transitives and unaccusatives mixed. While base verbs like vallen ‘fall’ are unaccusative, some of their particle and prepositional derivatives (binnen+vallen ‘invade’, aan+vallen ‘attack’, over+vallen ‘raid’) are transitive, licensing direct objects and forming personal passives. These derivatives, however, do not form a homogeneous group: binnenvallen and aanvallen display mixed transitive-unaccusative properties, including variation in auxiliary selection, while overvallen behaves as a fully transitive verb. To account for these patterns, we propose a novel syntactic analysis relying on separate functional heads v and Voice. We argue that some structures contain both transitive vP and VoiceP, while others contain only VoiceP. This structural variation accounts for the observed transitivity contrasts, including auxiliary selection patterns and participial formation. The Dutch evidence offers support for a split approach to vP-VoiceP architecture and challenges theories that require the simultaneous presence of both projections.
In contemporary colloquial Hebrew, unaccusative verbs may fail to exhibit-agreement with their subject when the latter appears postverbally, but not when it appears preverbally. To resolve disagreements regarding the role that intervention may play in licensing this lack of agreement, we conducted two acceptability judgment experiments, whose design and results we report. The findings indicate that intervention is not the factor licensing lack of agreement, contra Preminger's (2009; 2014) claim, which means the phenomenon does not corroborate his approach to grammaticality. Further, we provide evidence that this lack of-agreement with a postverbal internal subject results from the reanalysis of the subject as caseless. This is liable to occur in languages that do not morphologically mark nominative. Hebrew existential and possessive constructions had undergone a parallel process in the beginning of the past century.
In this paper, I investigate the properties of an elliptical construction in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Muira Dargwa, in which only part of a complex predicate goes missing. I show that this process has a number of common features with Verb Phrase Ellipsis in English and related phenomena in other languages. Under an analysis of complex predicates where the light verb is the realization of the v head, the deleted constituent can be associated with the complement of v. Thus, the process diverges from similar phenomena in that the size of the ellipsis is smaller, allowing for a larger number of mismatches between antecedent and elliptical clauses.
This paper re-examines the unusual ‘marked absolutive’ argument marking pattern in Nias Selatan. While previous works propose that Nias instantiates a ‘marked absolutive’ case pattern (Brown 2001; 2005; Baker 2015), this paper argues against this approach. Instead, Nias’ argument marking system is shown to be a morpho-phonological process, which is unrelated to case, and that Nias’ ‘marked absolutive’ pattern is due to a conspiracy of this process’ sensitivity to syntactic domains (i.e. phases) interacting with independently active syntactic operations unrelated to case. Moreover, it is shown that this analysis is consequential in regards to the typology of attested case patterns. In addition, it is shown that Nias’ argument marking system is an instance of a class of cross-linguistically attested morpho-phonological processes that are sensitive to syntactic domains in the same manner.
Consonant cluster simplification in Basque depends on the prosodic domain. Simplification across morpheme boundaries is obligatory while simplification across word boundaries is optional. Moreover, strident-affricate clusters inside words are simplified by deaffrication, while phrase-internally such a mapping is not observed. Depending on the variety, clusters may be avoided by simplification or vowel epenthesis. Previous OT-based analyses of Basque clusters posited that the aforementioned phenomena are triggered by an output requirement that stops must be followed by vowels (C & ocirc;t & eacute; 1999; 2000). The empirical argument in favor of this view is that stops and affricates before a pause are also avoided. Importantly, a repair strategy is less likely to be applied phrase-finally than phrase-internally. In order to account for the aforementioned asymmetries, positional markedness constraints relativized to prosodic boundaries were invoked. The goal of this paper is to construct a uniform OT grammar that accounts for stop deletion, affricate spirantization, deaffrication, spirant coalescence, voiced stop lenition as well as voice assimilation. Two conspiracies are identified: against non-prevocalic stops and against adjacent stridents. It is argued that prosodic anchoring as the locus of the asymmetries in the application of the listed processes is superior to the positional markedness approach. In a probabilistic grammar, the former yields satisfactory results while the lattergenerates unattested outputs. From the theoretical side, the anchoring model posits one driver for each conspiracy. The positional markedness model, on the other hand, has no formal device of expressing the conspiracies since a different markedness constraint triggers simplification word-internally, phrase-internally and phrase-finally.
This study focuses on the relationship between the semantic features of nouns and the prenominal vs. postnominal demonstrative construction in European Spanish. Saying este hombre or el hombre este may convey different meanings, with the latter hypothesised to reflect negative emotional valence and derogatory information. Across two studies, we used the Demonstrative Choice Task (DCT) to investigate which semantic features promote postnominal choice and whether it increases for referents with negative valence. In Study 1, 106 European Spanish speakers matched 150 nouns with one of the 6 demonstrative options provided (3 prenominal and 3 postnominal). In Study 2, we replicated the results from study 1 in a sample of 61 participants, using 150 new nouns. Across both studies, we replicated previously observed semantic factors influencing the choice of demonstratives in the DCT, including emotional valence and manipulability. Prenominal constructions were preferred to postnominal, but an interaction was observed with proximal demonstratives being relatively dispreferred in postnominal position while the distal demonstrative was dispreferred in the prenominal position. Words relating to the self/body increased the choice of postnominal position, while no semantic factors were found across both studies to decrease the choice of postnominal demonstratives. We did not observe the expected effect of emotional valence. We discuss these finding in the light of qualitative follow-up interviews of native speakers' own intuitions about their use of the postnominal construction.
When used as complements in prepositional phrases, French (and to a certain extent also Spanish) strong and null pronouns seem to differ in animacy: Typically, strong pronouns have human antecedents and null pronouns inanimate ones. This raises the question of whether animacy features are part of the feature content of French and Spanish pronouns. We address this question in two steps: We first present gradient acceptability data from two experiments (one on French and one on Spanish) in which we scrutinize the effect of the availability of an alternative null pronoun on the animacy restrictions of the strong pronoun and we show that there is indeed such a competition effect. We then introduce two potential analyses of the data, one relying on the strong pronoun's gender features, the other assuming animacy features on the pronouns. We assess these analyses on conceptual grounds and by developing a Stochastic Optimality-Theoretic analysis. We show that the gender-based analysis is preferable to the animacy-based one as the former is more economical and better captures the gradient acceptability data. The observed animacy restrictions thus do not result from animacy features. Since the two analyses also make different predictions concerning the type of competition effect, evaluating the gender- and the animacy-based analysis allows us to determine the exact nature of the competition effect. We argue that in the empirical domain investigated, competition manifests itself as blocking (the availability of one expression blocks another) and not as boosting (the unavailability of one expression boosts another).
This paper argues for the existence of multiple mechanisms in the grammar that can give rise to resumption in syntactic movement. Empirical motivation for this split comes from extraction patterns in Atchan (Kwa, C & ocirc;te d'Ivoire), where PP subextraction and subject extraction behave differently: all PP subextraction requires resumption, while subject extraction results in resumption only when a pronoun is extracted. I argue that the first pattern is best captured via a pronunciation requirement or stranding, while cliticization best captures the subject extraction pattern. I thus argue that these resumptive mechanisms are not incompatible, and that they have different empirical coverage.
