LANGUAGE

JOURNAL OF THE LINGUISTIC

SOCIETY OF AMERICA

 

 

VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1

MARCH 2000

 

 

Articles:

Adult and child understanding of simple                                William Philip                                    1

         reciprocal sentences

Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of                                  Jennifer E. Arnold,                          28

         structural complexity and discourse                             Thomas Wasow,

         status on constituent ordering                                      Anthony Losongco,

                                                                                              & Ryan Ginstrom

Linking as constraints on word classes                                 Anthony R. Davis &                 56

         in a hierarchical lexicon                                                Jean-Pierre Koenig

Spanish stress assignment within the                                   David Eddington                            92

         analogical modeling of language

The successful introductory course:                                    Cari L. Spring, Michael                     110

         Bringing the gap for the nonmajor                               Flynn, Brian Joseph, Rae

                                                                                              Moses, Susan Steele, &

                                                                                             Charlotte Webb

The characterization of exclamative                                     Raffaella Zanuttini &                         123

         clauses in Paduan                                                         Paul Portner

Discussion Note:

         Scope, structure, and expert systems:                        Joseph Aoun & Yenhui                    133

                  A reply to Kuno et al.                                       Audrey Li

 

 

Reviews:

Slobin (ed.): The crosslinguistic study of                               M. Thomas                                        156

         language acquisition, vol. 4;

         The crosslinguistic study of language

         acquisition, vol. 5: Expanding the contexts

Escure: Creole and dialect continua                                             C. Clements                                      158

Van Kemenade & Vincent (eds.): Parameters                    S. Frisch                                             161

         of morphosyntactic change

Lapointe et al. (eds.): Morphology and its                             M. Maxwell                                      164

         relation to phonology and syntax

Newmeyer: Language form and language function         E. Moravcsik                                   168

O’Grady: Syntactic development                                                   S. Dubinsky                                      171

Hamano: The sound-symbolic system of Japanese          M. U. Fidler                                    174

McDaniel et al. (eds.): Methods for assessing                    M. B. Olsen                                      177

         children’s syntax

Giorgi & Pianesi: Tense and aspect:                                           C. Tenny                                             180

         From semantics to morphology

McGregor: Semiotic grammar                                                          Y. Tobin                                               182

Lee: Talking heads: Language, metalanguage,                  W. Frawley                                       186

         and the semiotics of subjectivity

Russom: Beowulf and Old Germanic metre                           C. B. McCully                                188

Collins & Mees: The real Professor Higgins:                      P. Ladefoged                                   191

         The life and career of Daniel Jones

Wolfram & Schilling-Estes: American English:               J. Algeo                                               194

         Dialects and variation

 

 

Book Notices                                                                                                                                                                    197

Publications Received                                                                                                                                              238

 

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Abstracts:

 

Adult and child understanding of simple reciprocal sentences

 

William Philip

         Utrecht University

 

         According to a standard view, the reciprocal pronoun has a fixed semantic value that defines a relation of weak reciprocity, and any stronger readings it may appear to have are pragmatic or lexical interactive effects (Fiengo & Lasnik 1973, Langendoen 1978).  Darymple et al. 1995 counterproposes that the reciprocal pronoun has a flexible semantic value defining a range of readings of varying logical strength and that a semantic principle determines the reading required for a given reciprocal sentence on the basis of the meaning of its predicate.  This article presents psycholinguistic evidence from adult speakers of English, Norwegian, and Dutch, and from child speakers of Dutch and Norwegian, which supports Darymple et al.’s analysis of the lexical content of the reciprocal pronoun but which also strongly suggests that the interpretive principle they posit is pragmatic rather than semantic in nature.

 

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Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of structural complexity and discourse status on constituent ordering

 

Jennifer E. Arnold

         University of Pennsylvania

Thomas Wasow

         Stanford University

Anthony Losongco

         Yale University

Ryan Ginstrom

         Ohio State University

 

         Variations in postverbal constituent ordering have been attributed to both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (newness), although few studies compare the two factors explicitly. Through corpus analysis and experimentation, we demonstrate that both factors simultaneously and independently influence word order in two English constructions.  While past investigations of these factors have focused on their effects in language comprehension, we argue that postponing heavy and new constituents facilitates processes of planning and production.

 

 

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Linking as constraints on word classes in a hierarchical lexicon

 

Anthony R. Davis

         University of California , Santa Barbara

Jean-Pierre Koenig

         SUNY at Buffalo

 

         We propose an account of linking patterns that does away with intermediary mechanisms such as thematic or actor/undergoer hierarchies.  Instead, constraints on word classes, defined by both syntactic and semantic criteria, encode generalizations between semantic roles and syntactic arguments.  We show that the generalizations a linking theory needs to capture can be modeled via the same mechanisms as other lexical generalizations, using conditions specified within the hierarchy of word classes.  Each condition provides a partial specification of the mapping between semantic roles and syntactic arguments.  We argue that this constraint-based, verb-class-based view of linking offers several empirical advantages: partial regularities and exceptions are easily accommodated, fine-grained semantic distinctions relevant to linking are countenanced, and cross-cutting similarities between semantic and syntactic verb classes are economically captured.

 

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Spanish stress assignment within the analogical modeling of language

 

David Eddington

         Mississippi State University

 

         The advent of nonlinear phonology has resulted in an explosion of studies relating to Spanish syllable structure and stress placement, but most of these studies claim to represent linguistic competence and language structure, not actual mechanisms used by speakers in speech production and comprehension.

         The present study is couched within Skousen’s analogical modeling of language (AML) (1989, 1992, 1995).  AML attempts to reflect how speakers determine linguistic behaviors such as stress placement.  According to AML, when an unfamiliar word needs to be stressed, speakers access their mental lexicon, search for words similar to the word in question, then apply the stress of the word(s) found to the word in question.

         The 4,970 most common Spanish words served as a database for the study.  AML correctly assigned stress to about 94% of these words.  The errors it made closely reflect the pattern of errors made by Spanish-speaking children in a study by Hochberg (1988). Moreover, Aske’s nonce word probe (1990) showed that native speakers are sensitive to a certain subpattern in Spanish stress assignment—a subpattern which does not receive representation in rule models.  The analogical model of Spanish stress mirrors Aske’s findings.

 

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The successful introductory course: Bringing the gap for the nonmajor

 

Cari L. Spring

         University of Arizona

Michael Flynn

         Carleton College

Brian Joseph

         The Ohio State University

Rae Moses

         Northwestern University

Susan Steele

         University of Connecticut

Charlotte Webb

         San Diego State University

 

         The introductory linguistics course is the primary antidote that academic linguistics can offer to commonly held, yet basically wrong-headed, views about language.  It is essential, therefore, that this course be meaningful to the nonmajor student.  Through a series of five vignettes, each by a different author and representing a variety of institutional types, we explore options other than ‘baby’ theoretical linguistics to the introductory linguistics course.  A fundamental conclusion to these vignettes is that success in reaching the nonmajor turns on taking account of the institutional context and the student population and tailoring courses to be sensitive to these variables.  This conclusion is driven home with an administrative view as to why every academic linguist and linguistics program should find the search for a successful introductory course compelling.

 

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The characterization of exclamative clauses in Paduan

 

Raffaella Zanuttini

         Georgetown University

Paul Portner

         Georgetown University

 

         In this descriptive report we outline the structural pattern of exclamative clauses in Paduan.  Because of the close similarity between the exclamative and interrogative clauses in this language, we begin by developing a number of tests which allow us to distinguish these two clause types.  We then present the range of exclamative structures.  A variety of factors interact to mark a clause as an exclamative, yielding a quite complex array of facts.  We view this work as the basis for future study in the syntax and semantics of exclamatives.

 

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BOOK NOTICES IN THIS ISSUE

 

Lojenga: Ngiti: A Central-Sudanic language of Zaire.......................................................... B. Wald

197

Neukom: Description grammaticale du nateni (Bénin):

Système verbal, classification nominale, phrases complexes, textes................. J. Banks

 

197

Hübler: The expressivity of grammar:

Grammatical devices expressing emotion across time............................................... A. Bruflat

 

198

Bunt & Tomita (eds.): Recent advances in parsing technology................ M. A. Covington

198

Fludernik: Towards a ‘natural’ narratology........................................................................... D. Herman

199

Forget et al. (eds.): Negation and polarity: Syntax and semantics................. A. Pietarinen

200

Romaine: Communicating gender.............................................................................................. Z. Salzmann

201

Talbot: Language and gender: An introduction............................................................... Z. Salzmann

201

Calvet: Language wars and linguistic politics................................................................... Z. Salzmann

202

Fisiak (ed.): Studies in Middle English linguistics............................................................. J. Skaffari

203

Ambrazas (ed.): Lithuanian grammar......................................................................................... E. J. Vajda

203

McArthur: The English languages...................................................................................................... M. Aceto

204

Stassen: Intransitive predication................................................................................................. T. J. Curnow

205

Koerner (ed.): First person singular III: Autobiographies by

North American scholars in the language sciences........................................................ J. S. Falk

 

205

Coleman: Phonological representations: Their names, forms, and powers........ S. Frisch

206

Berg: Linguistic structure and linguistic change:

Explanation from language processing.................................................................................. D. E. Holt

 

207

Maynard: Principles of Japanese discourse: A handbook............................... D. R. McCreary

208

Nerbonne (ed.): Linguistic databases............................................................................................... B. Rempt

209

Gussenhoven & Jacobs: Understanding phonology...................................................... A. Thériault

209

Clark (ed.): The proceedings of the twenty-eighth annual

child language research forum............................................................................................... E. Thompson

 

210

Dik: The theory of functional grammar:

Part 1: The structure of the clause (2nd edn.)

Part 2: Complex and derived constructions............................................................ J-C. Verstraete

 

 

210

Røyneland (ed.): Language contact and language conflict.................................. E. G. Winkler

212

Floyd: La estructura categorial de los evidenciales

en el quechua wanka............................................................................................................. A. Y. Aikhenvald

 

212

Nordlinger: Constructive case: Evidence from Australian languages................ C. Bowern

213

Varile et al. (eds.): Survey of the state of the art in human language

technology............................................................................................................................................... K. B. Cohen

 

214

Véronique (ed.): Matériaux pour l’étude des classes grammaticales

dans les langages créoles............................................................................................................... A. P. Grant

 

214

Downes: Language and society (2nd edn.)................................................................................ A. S. Kaye

215

Gass et al.: Second language learning: Data analysis (2nd edn.)............................. A. S. Kaye

216

Gillis & de Houwer (eds.): The acquisition of Dutch.............................................. M. L. Louden

217

Himmelmann: Deiktikon, Artikel, Nominalphrase:

Zur Emergenz syntaktischer Struktur.............................................................................. M. L. Louden

 

217

Maumann: The syntax of subordination............................................................................. M. L. Louden

218

Birner & Ward: Information status and noncanonical word order

in English............................................................................................................................................................ D. Noël

 

219

Giannakidou: Polarity sensitivity as (non)veridical dependency................... A. Pereltsvaig

219

Schmid et al. (eds.): Historical linguistics 1997.................................................................... M. Pierce

220

Cherubim et al. (eds.): Sprache und bürgerliche Nation:

Beiträge zure deutschen und europäischen Sprachgeschichte

Des 19. Jahrhunderts............................................................................................................................. M. Pierce

 

 

221

Bækken: Word order patterns in Early Modern English............................................. E. Potsdam

222

Alexiadou: Adverb placement: A case study in antisymmetric syntax........... E. Potsdam

222

Augst et al.: Rechtschreibwörterbücher im Test:  Subjective

Einschätzungen, Benutzungserfolge und alternative Konzepte...................... I. U. Pufahl

 

223

Paltridge: Genre, frames and writing in research settings........................................ I. U. Pufahl

223

Haegeman (ed.): The new comparative syntax................................................................. S. Robinson

224

Akatsuka et al. (eds.): Japanese/Korean linguistics, vol. 7........................................... J. J. Song

225

Carpenter: Type-logical semantics................................................................................................ S. Vasishth

226

Paradis: Degree modifiers of adjectives in spoken British English................. W. S. M. Yiu

227

Kent: The speech sciences.............................................................................................................. G. S. Nathan

227

Laenzlinger: Comparative studies in word order variation:

Adverbs, pronouns and clause structure in Romance and Germanic.... J. D. Bobaljik

 

228

Dahlgren: Word order in Arabic................................................................................................... B. Bruening

229

Bubenik: A historical syntax of late Middle Indo-Aryan (Apaphraṃśa).. B. Bruening

229

Regan (ed.): Contemporary approaches to second language acquisition

in social context: Crosslinguistic perspectives................................................................ S. M. Burt

 

230

Yu: The contemporary theory of metaphor: A perspective from Chinese.. K. S. Chung

231

Brown & Miller (eds.): Concise encyclopedia of syntactic theories;

Lamarque (ed.): Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language....... M. A. Covington

 

231

Bunt & Van Horck (eds.): Discontinuous constituency.................................. M. A. Covington

232

Bache & Davidsen-Nielsen: Mastering English: An advanced

Grammar for non-native and native speakers;

Klinge: Mastering English: A student’s workbook and guide............................ D. Deterding

 

 

232

Burquest: Phonological analysis: A functional approach (2nd edn.)................ P. D. Fallon

233

Ratcliffe: The ‘broken’ plural problem in Arabic and comparative Semitic:

Allomorphy and analogy in non-concatenative morphology................................. A. Gianto

 

234

Joseph et. al. (eds.): Themes in Greek linguistics II......................................... K. K. Grohmann

235

Hall: The phonology of coronals....................................................................... A. Carstairs-McCarthy

236

Bennis et al. (eds.): Atomism and binding................................................................ K. K. Grohmann

236