Qiushi Chen had a very successful two months with getting two papers published in NLLT and LI respectively.

 

The first article “Scrambling in the nominal domain: Evidence from the Chichewa DP” has appeared online in February ahead of its print publication in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. The online version can be found here.

Abstract: Chichewa DPs are noun-initial and the modifiers following the noun may occur in any order. Assuming that Chichewa nouns invariably undergo N-to-D movement and that a universal structural hierarchy of the modifiers maps into left-to-right linear order (e.g., Dem ≫ Num ≫ Adj), this paper argues that the order flexibility of nominal modifiers in Chichewa involves scrambling of the modifiers, whose landing site is a position that does not involve a canonical Spec-head featural relation. Two data patterns are discussed: (i) Novel ellipsis data show that while a structurally higher modifier may license the ellipsis of a lower modifier, the reverse does not hold, even though the relative linear order between the modifiers is free; (ii) an asymmetry is attested regarding hybrid concord, in that a structurally higher modifier of a hybrid noun may show semantic concord while a lower modifier shows morphological concord, whereas the reverse pattern is not possible. After a brief comparison with two alternative analyses of the order flexibility, namely Cinque 2005 and Carstens 2008, 2017, the paper concludes that the Chichewa facts are overall best captured by the scrambling account. It thus confirms that scrambling is not just a clause-level phenomenon; it also exists in the nominal domain.

 

The second article “Discontinuous DPs, Wh-in-Situ, and Lower Copy Pronunciation in Chichewa” appeared online in March ahead of its print publication in Linguistic Inquiry. The online version can be found here.

Abstract: This paper offers a lower copy pronunciation account of two underexplored issues in Chichewa: wh-in-situ and discontinuous DPs. First, it is shown that Chichewa wh-in-situ is island-sensitive, and thus is best analyzed as a hidden case of wh-movement in narrow syntax, with the lower, postverbal copy of the wh-element pronounced. Second, discontinuous object DPs involve total dislocation of the entire object in syntax; at PF, the phonological features of its copies are deleted in a distributed manner, resulting in surface discontinuity. The study provides novel empirical evidence that supports the conceptually desirable idea that, for reasons of modularity, lower copy pronunciation is conditioned solely by PF factors, since it is shown that lower copy pronunciation in Chichewa, which is identified in both wh-in-situ and DP splits, results from a PF requirement. The requirement in question is further suggested to be associated with the residual conjoint/disjoint alternation in Chichewa syntax, which is not easy to see since the disjoint marker got lost morphologically, as a result of a diachronic change.

 

Double congratulations Qiushi!

Shuyan Wang (PhD 2022, now a post-doc at UConn) has published an article co-authored with Shaohua Fang in the journal Language and Cognition, titled “L2 Interpretation of Quantifier Scope: Influence of Individual Difference Factors“. Congratulations Shuyan!

Abstract: This study investigated L2 learners’ interpretation of quantifier scope, focusing on the influence of individual differences, including L2 proficiency, working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC). A picture selection task using the covered-box paradigm (CBP) was conducted with 70 Chinese-speaking learners of English and a control group of 40 native English speakers. The results revealed that inverse scope (IS) posed particular challenges for L2 learners, leading to reduced, non-target-like access. We attribute this difficulty to factors such as negative L1 transfer, limited L2 input and increased processing demands associated with IS compared to surface scope (SS). More importantly, WM and IC significantly influenced L2 learners’ interpretation patterns, with their effects mediated by L2 proficiency. We also observed individual variation in scope interpretations among native speakers, particularly with negatively quantified (NQ) sentences. This variation provides valuable evidence of individual differences in native speakers’ grammatical knowledge and was partly driven by cognitive factors. Altogether, the findings contribute novel evidence for both domain-general and domain-specific mechanisms underlying quantifier scope interpretation in L2 learners as well as in native speakers.

Ryuta Ono has published an article in the journal Languages, titled “Revisiting Particle-Stranding Ellipsis: A Critical Comparison of Two Analyses” (link to article). Congratulations Ryuta!

Abstract: This paper presents novel evidence that particle-stranding ellipsis in Japanese is best accounted for by PF-deletion rather than by its theoretical competitor, LF-copying. I begin by examining a central prediction of the LF-copying analysis, which states that overt extraction is categorically ruled out, and show that this prediction is not supported by the empirical data. Additional evidence comes from covert across-the-board movement, as I demonstrate that particle-stranding ellipsis can occur in environments that are argued to involve this type of movement. This finding presents a serious derivational challenge to the LF-copying theory, given the widely accepted view that covert across-the-board movement is not permitted in the grammar. In addition to these syntactic observations, I present previously unreported prosodic evidence showing that particle-stranding ellipsis involving the negative polarity item -sika can exhibit focus intonation. As the LF-copying analysis cannot account for this prosodic pattern, the data provide strong support for the PF-deletion account. Finally, I show that these findings are well explained by the phonology-based deletion model that was originally proposed in the literature.

Ting Xu (PhD 2016, now at Tsinghua University) and Shuyan Wang (PhD 2022, now a post-doc at UConn) have published an article in the journal Languages, titled “On the Acquisition of English Complex Predicates and Complex Word Formation: Revisiting the Parametric Approach”. Congratulations Ting and Shuyan!

Abstract: Languages vary in their availability of productive endocentric bare-stem compounds (e.g., flower hat) and a range of complex predicates (separable verb-particles, double object datives, adjectival resultatives, put-locatives, make-causatives, and perceptual reports). To account for these cross-linguistic variations, two parameters have been proposed: the Compounding Parameter (TCP), which governs the formation of bare-stem compounds, separable verb-particles, and adjectival resultatives, and the Small Clause Parameter (SCP), which determines whether a verb can take a small clause complement. These parameters make testable predictions about children’s acquisition. If TCP and SCP are on the right track, we would expect correlations in the acquisition of structures governed by each parameter. This study examines these predictions by analyzing longitudinal corpora from 23 English-speaking children, assessing both the correlation between the acquisition of different structures and their acquisitional ordering. Our findings support both TCP and SCP, confirming that the acquisition of bare-stem compounds is closely associated with that of separable verb-particles, while the acquisition of (some) complex predicates is related. In addition, our results offer new insights into the potential triggers that children use to set each parameter. These findings contribute to our understanding of language variation and the role of parameter setting in first language acquisition.

The paper “Argument ellipsis as topic deletion” by our alumnus Teruyuki Mizuno (PhD 2023, now at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo) has just been published online in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory ahead of the print version. Congratulations Teru! The paper can be accessed here.

Abstract: In recent syntactic literature, argument ellipsis has become a productive perspective of investigation for null arguments in natural language. Focusing on Japanese as the primary object of study, this paper aims to deepen our understanding of the underlying syntactic mechanism behind the derivation of argument ellipsis. The main empirical observation is that argument ellipsis and topicalization exhibit a striking parallelism with respect to the way they interact with wh-dependencies. Building on this observation, I argue that argument ellipsis is an instance of topic deletion, which involves movement of arguments to Spec,TopicP, and phonological deletion of the arguments under the identity of the topic in discourse. I show that the topic-deletion account of argument ellipsis offers a principled explanation for a variety of restrictions concerning what types of argument can or cannot undergo ellipsis. I also suggest that the proposed account enables a unified perspective on argument ellipsis and discourse pro-drop by analyzing them uniformly as instances of topic deletion, thereby shedding new light on the deep typological correlation that has been observed between them.