LANGUAGE

JOURNAL OF THE LINGUISTIC

SOCIETY OF AMERICA

VOLUME 76, NUMBER 2

JUNE 2000

ARTICLES:

Grammatical acquisition: Inductive bias and coevolution of language and the language and the language acquisition device................................ Ted Briscoe	245
*I amn’t................................................................................................. Richard Hudson	297
Nasal vowels as two segments: Evidence from borrowings........................... Carole Paradis & Jean-François Prunet	324
An analysis of the German perfekt......................................................... Wolfgang Klein	358
Topic and topic-comment constructions in Mandarin Chinese..................... Dingxu Shi	383
Compositional idioms......................................................... David Pitt & Jerrold J. Katz	409

REVIEWS:

Vaux: The phonology of Armenian........................................................ A. Khatchatrian	433
Murray: American sociolinguistics: Theories and theory groups....................... C. Mills	437
Jones: Language obsolescence and revitalization: Linguistic change in two sociolinguistically contrasting Welsh communities......................... B. Spolsky	439
Campbell: Historical linguistics: An introduction................................. H. F. W. Stahlke	441
Livia & Hall (eds.): Queerly phrased: Language, gender, and sexuality................................................................. S. Trechter	444
Johannessen: Coordination............................................................................ G. Goodall	447
Olsen: The noun in Biblical Armenian: Origin and word-formation, with special emphasis on the Indo-European heritage............................... J. Greppin	449
Authier & Reed: Structure and interpretation in natural language........ J. Herschensohn	451
Salomon: Indian epigraphy: A guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages......................... G. Cardona	454
Szemerényi: Introduction to Indo-European linguistics.................................. J. F. Eska	456
Chung: The design of agreement: Evidence from Chamorro............................... S. Steele	458
Hirst & Di Cristo (eds.): Intonation systems: A survey of twenty languages........................................................... A. De Dominicis	460

Book Notices 460

Editor’s Department 500

Publications Received 504

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ABSTRACTS:

Grammatical acquisition: inductive bias and coevolution of language and the language acquisition device

Ted Briscoe

University of Cambridge

An account of grammatical acquisition is developed within the parameter setting framework applied to a generalized categorial grammar (GCG). The GCG is embedded in a default inheritance network yielding a natural partial ordering (reflecting generality) of parameters that determines a partial order for parameter setting. Computational simulation shows that several resulting acquisition procedures are effective on a parameter set expressing major typological distinctions based on constituent order, and defining 70 distinct full languages and over 200 subset languages. The effects on acquisition of inductive bias, that is, of differing initial parameter settings, are explored via computational simulation.

Computational simulation of populations of language learners and users instantiating the acquisition model shows that: (1) variant acquisition procedures, with differing inductive biases, exert differing selective pressures on the evolution of language(s); and (2) acquisition procedures will evolve towards more efficient variants in the environment of adaptation. The reciprocal evolution of language acquisition procedures and of languages creates a genuinely coevolutionary dynamic, despite the relative speed of linguistic selection for language variants compared to natural selection for variant language acquisition procedures.

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*I amn’t

Richard Hudson

University College London

In most standard dialects of English there is a gap in the paradigm of the verb be where we expect to find amn’t. But how do we know that this gap exists, since learners have no positive evidence that amn’t is ungrammatical? It is even more puzzling since there is no gap when the subject is inverted (aren’t I…?). Familiar explanations for this gap fail; in particular, it cannot be the result of conservative acquisition strategies. The explanation offered here is based crucially on a combination of multiple-default inheritance and function-based morphology, as embodied in word grammar. The gap is due to a Nixon-diamond conflict between two competing values for the same morphological function required by the categories negative and first-person. The inverted form is supplied by stipulation because of the functional pressure to supply a ‘causal’ form. Various dialect alternatives to the Standard English pattern are also considered. The success of this explanation shows that language must use default inheritance, multiple nonorthogonal inheritance, and morphological functions.

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Nasal vowels as two segments: Evidence from borrowings

Carole Paradis

Université Laval

Jean-François Prunet

Université du Québec à Montréal

We attempt to demonstrate that the substitution of a foreign segment in the borrowings of our database, which includes 14,350 segmental malformations from French and English loanwords in eight distinct languages, involves its replacement by a single native segment. This tendency is so strong in our database as to be virtually exceptionless, except where nasal vowels are concerned. These vowels are systematically adapted as an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant (VN), a process we call unpacking. We document this process and suggest that it results from the fact that contrastive nasal vowels are fundamentally biphonemic, that is they have two root nodes. The influence of orthography is refuted, and a number of apparent counterexamples where segments other than nasal vowels seem to unpack are reanalyzed in terms of independent native processes.

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An analysis of the German perfekt

Wolfgang Klein

Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik

The German Perfekt has two quite different temporal readings, as illustrated by the two possible continuations of the sentence Peter hat gearbeitet in i, ii, respectively:

(i) Peter hat gearbeitet und ist müde.

Peter has worked and is tired.

(ii) Peter hat gearbeitet und wollte nicht gestört werden.

Peter has worked and wanted not to be disturbed.

The first reading essentially corresponds to the English present perfect; the second can take a temporal adverbial with past time reference (‘yesterday at five’, ‘when the phone rang’, and so on), and an English translation would require a past tense (‘Peter worked/was working’). This article shows that the Perfekt has a uniform temporal meaning that results systematically from the interaction of its three components—finiteness marking, auxiliary and past participle—and that the two readings are the consequence of a structural ambiguity. This analysis also predicts the properties of other participle constructions, in particular the passive in German.

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Topic and topic-comment constructions in Mandarin Chinese

Dingxu Shi

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This article attempts to provide a precise definition for topic and to derive most of the properties of topic from this definition. The main assumption is that the topic-comment construction is a syntactic device employed to fulfill certain discourse functions. Topic is always related to a position inside the comment. Since topic has no independent thematic role but always depends on an element inside the comment for its thematic role, it has no syntactic function of its own. This dependence relationship is subject to locality constraints.

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Compositional idioms

David Pitt

Iowa State University

Jerrold J. Katz

CUNY Graduate Center

In this article we argue that there is a large class of expressions, typified by plastic flower, stuffed animal, and kosher bacon, that have a unique semantics combining compositional, idiomatic, and decompositional interpretation. These expressions are compositional because their constituents contribute their meanings to the meanings of the wholes; they are idiomatic because their interpretation involves assigning dictionary entries to nonterminal elements in their syntactic structure; and they are decompositional because their meanings have proper parts that are not the meanings of any of their syntactic constituents. We argue that extensionalist semantics, on which the meaning of an expression is a function from domains to extensions in those domains, cannot provide an adequate account of the semantics of these expressions, and that the supplementation with a theory of pragmatic interpretation does not improve the situation. We show how our account explains the intensionality and the productivity of these expressions.

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BOOK NOTICES:

Givón (ed.): Conversation: Cognitive, communicative and social perspectives.................................................................................. R. W. Hallett	464
Besch et. al. (eds.): Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. Vol. 1. 2^nd edn.; Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Vol. 2.......... J. M. Jeep	464
Newman (ed.): The linguistics of giving.......................................................... A. S. Kaye	465
Alexiadou & Wilder (eds.): Possessorts, predicates and movement in the determiner phrase......................................................................................... V. Lin	466
Rudanko: Linguistic analysis and text interpretation: Essays on the Bill of Rights and on Keats, Shakespeare and Dreiser............. C. Mills	467
Siewierska & Song (eds.): Case, typology and grammar: In honor of Barry J. Blake........................................................................ S. Robinson	468
Tallerman: Understanding syntax................................................................. S. Robinson	468
Klamer: A grammar of Kambera...................................................................... C. Rubino	469
O’Grady et al.: Contemporary linguistics: An introduction. 3^rd edn................ C. Rudin	470
White Hat, Sr.: Reading and writing the Lakota language….............................. C. Rudin	470
Vachek: Prolegomena k dĕjinám Pražské školy jazykovĕdné..................... Z. Salzmann	471
Squartni: Verbal periphrases in Romance: Aspect, actionality, and grammaticalization............................................ G. H. Toops	472
Muysken (ed.): Sociolingüística: Lenguas en contacto................................ G. H. Toops	472
Décsy: The Turkic protolanguage: A computational reconstruction............. E. J. Vajda	473
Maho: Few people, many tongues: The languages of Namibia...................... E. J. Vajda	474
Klimov: Etymological dictionary of the Kartvelian languages. 2^nd edn.......... E. J. Vajda	475
Matsumura (ed.): Studies in endangered languages...................................... L. J. Whaley	475
Butt & Geuder (eds.): The projection of arguments: Lexical and compositional factors................................................................ M. Dukes	476
Rojtman: Black fire on white fire: An essay on Jewish hermeneutics, From Midrash to Kabbalah........................................................................ T. L. Holm	477
Birdsong (ed.): Second language acquisition and the critical period hypothesis................................................................................. D. O. Jackson	478
Stein & Sornicola (eds.): The virtues of language: History in language, linguistics and texts.................................................... A. S. Kaye	478
Cowie (ed.): Phraseology: Theory, analysis, and applications........................ K. Kuiper	479
Julien: Syntactic word formation in Northern Sámi....................................... J. A. Nevis	480
Givón (ed.): Grammatical relations: A functionalist perspective................... M . Owens	481
Künne et al. (eds.): Direct reference, indexicality, and propositional attitudes.................................................................................................. A. Pietarinen	481
Muthmann: Reverse English dictionary: Based on phonological and morphological principles....................................... I. Plag	482
Ahekanew & Wolfart (eds. & trans.): ana kâ-pimwêwêhahk okakêskihkêmowina: The counsellng speeches of Jim Kâ-Nîpitêhtêw.............................................................................................. D. Pruett	483
Bertinetto et al. (eds.): Certamen phonologicum III: Papers from the third Cortona phonologicum meeting................................. L. Repetti	484
Vaux & Cooper: Introduction to linguistic field methods............................... T. Roberts	485
Newmark (ed.): Oxford Albanian-English dictionary...................................... C. Rubino	485
Hess: Lushootseed reader with intermediate grammar, vol. 2: Four stories from Martha Lamont............................................................. E. J. Vajda	486
Heeschen: An ethnographic grammar of the Eipo language spoken in the central mountains of Irian Jaya............................................ E. J. Vajda	487
McKnight: People, countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of classification among the Lardil of Mornington Island............. E. J. Vajda	487
Kamio (ed.): Directions in functional linguistics......................................... N. Watanabe	488
Sibata: Sociolinguistics in Japanese contexts.............................................. N. Watanabe	488
Leman: Cheyenne major constituent order................................................... B. Bruening	489
Quer: Mood at the interface........................................................................... B. Bruenig	490
Obler & Gjerlow: Language and the brain................................... A. Carstairs-McCarthy	490
Bethin: Slavic prosody: Language change and phonological theory....................................................................................................... G. T. Childs	491
Ayuninjam: A reference grammar of Mbili.................................................. G. T. Childs	492
Cabeza Pereiro: Las completivas de sujeto en español............................... T. J. Curnow	492
Coppens et al. (eds.): Aphasia in atypical populations...................................... S. Gahl	493
Lyons: Definiteness......................................................................................... A. Gianto	494
Verschueren: Understanding pragmatics.......................................................... A. Gianto	495
Heath: A grammar of Korya Chiini................................................................. A. S. Kaye	495
Heath: Dictionnaire Songhay-Anglais-Français: Vol 1: Korya Chiini; Vol. 2: Djenné Chiini; Vol. 3: Koroboro Senni.......... A. S. Kaye	496
Lamb: Pathways of the brain: The neurocognitive basis of language.............. A. S. Kaye	497
Kuipers: Language, identity and marginality in Indonesia: The changing nature of ritual speech on the island of Sumba..................... M. Klamer	498
Oguibénine: Essays on Vedic and Indo-European culture............................... J. S. Klein	499