Competence-based theories of island effects play a central role in generative grammar, yet the graded nature of many syntactic islands has never been properly accounted for. Categorical syntactic accounts of island effects have persisted in spite of a wealth of data suggesting that island effects are not categorical in nature and that…

In this article we offer up a particular linguistic phenomenon, quantifier-variable binding in Kannada ditransitives, as a proving ground upon which competing claims about learnability can be evaluated with respect to the relative abstractness of children's grammatical knowledge. We first identify one aspect of syntactic representation that…

It is proposed that syntactic processes (rules and constraints) may have a semantic basis. Evidence is presented that the constraint against backward pronominalization with indefinite antecedents derives from the semantic properties of various classes of definite noun phrases. (CK)

Deals with certain problems inherent in deriving anaphoric pronouns from bound variables. Syntactic rules applied to determine anaphora relations cannot be applied if anaphoric pronouns and their antecedents have identical underlying forms. An approach to anaphora which preserves some advantages of the bound-variable theory without the problems is…

The assumption that the active/passive relation is structural in nature and therefore best expressed by a transformation is debated. The relation can be captured in the lexicon without a passive transformation. An interpretive rule is proposed to handle the problem. Passives are shown as generated by phrase structure rules. (SC)

This paper demonstrates that a formalization of the content of X-bar theory reveals very little substance in its claims. Six conditions that encapsulate X-bar theory are discussed: lexicality, succession, uniformity, maximality, centrality, and optionality. (50 references) (JL)

Presents a theory of feature representation that accounts for feature indeterminacy and feature resolution within the lexical functional grammar (LFG) framework. The representations discussed, together with minimal extensions of LFG's description language, enable a simple and intuitive characterization of both these phenomena. (Author/VWL)

Simplification in structure and confluence between the local-language structure and the prestige-language structure are usually predicted in language death as in pidginization. For a dying Scottish Gaelic dialect, speakers were tested in the two most excessively complex morphological structures the dialect offers. (Author/NCR)

Pin-yin transcription is used for Mandarin examples. (RS)

In communicating, conversationalists constantly make decisions about their interlocutors' state of knowledge and on the basis of these decisions make lexical, grammatical, and intonational choices about how to manage the "flow" of information. This paper focuses on how such decision making affects choices in relative clause constructions…

An account of the phenomena that transformational syntax handled by means of "raising" is formulated in the context of cognitive grammar. Raising is analyzed as a special case of the metonymy that relational expressions exhibit in regard to their choice of overtly coded arguments. The transparency of these constructions is explained. (83…

Locally free reflexives in British English are analyzed as intensified nonnominative pronouns, subject to a contrastiveness requirement and a requirement that the character referred to be more central than other characters in the set. The extent to which discourse prominence marking can mimic locality marking may explain conversions of intensives…

Two aspects of definite and indefinite noun phrases in Spanish grammar are discussed here: specificity, marked by the mood of restrictive relative clauses, and existential import, deriving from the linguistic environment. Differences between referential and attributive descriptions are explained. (CK)

Discusses ergative case marking system in Anatolian branch of Indo-European in which neuters inflect ergatively and common-gender nouns inflect accusatively. Development from instrumental to ergative that occurred in prehistory of Gorokan languages of Papua New Guinea is also discussed. It is suggested that this process is a general mechanism for…