Examines use of modal auxiliary "should" when used to express probability as a weaker equivalent of "must." Study shows that in order to account for restrictions on use of "must" and "should," a theory must go beyond the syntactic and semantic characteristics and take into account semantic relations between…

Argues that the polysemy view can not give a unified account of the meanings of can, may, must, and should, whereas the unitary meaning view does not encounter the problem. Unitary meanings are proposed that account both for the range of interpretations these modals can have and for why they get these interpretations. (21 references) (JL)

Examines some of the rules of atomic phonology so as to elucidate just what the theory is and is not capable of. The theory of atomic phonology maintains that all linguistic variation requiring distinctly varied formulations of phonological rules is predictable from a set of "atomic rules" and universal principles of grammar. (SED)

Outlines an analysis that seeks to show that the differences between English restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses can be analyzed within the Government-Binding Theory, argues against the assumption that only nominals can be subjects, and argues that the assumption that Spec-Head agreement applies within CP, which plays an important role in one…

Argues that transportality of sentential and predicate adverbials can be handled by the Generalized Binding theory; discusses how adverbials are represented in phrase markers of perfect sentences, how those representations help Binding theory account for transportability of adverbials in perfect sentences; takes up transportation of adverbs…

Responds to criticisms raised in John Coleman's critique of Charm Theory in "Charm Theory Defines Strange Vowel Sets." (GLR)

A continuation of the controversy concerning Charm Theory reexamines the theory through further critical analysis in the areas of right-branching expressions, elements vs. binary features, combination of charmless segments, charm and syllabic position, and unmarked vowels and vowel systems. (GLR)

This article presents an analysis and review of Ljiljana Progovac's "Negative and Positive Polarity: A Binding Approach" (1994). It concludes that by pushing a syntactic analysis of polarity to, if not beyond, its limits, Progovac has focused attention on the work that remains for any approach to polarity to resolve. Contains 59…

Argues that the contribution of pragmatics to anaphora is much more fundamental than has been commonly believed, at least with respect to languages such as Chinese. A pragmatic theory is presented of anaphora within the neo-Gricean framework of conversational implicature, and an overview is provided of the latest developments of Grice's theory of…

A brief overview is presented of previous theoretical treatments of the verb-preposition construction, concentrating on three Government Binding Theory treatments. Arguments are outlined that support a different analysis of this type of construction. (24 references) (Author/VWL)

"Properties, Types and Meaning (Vol. I, Fundamental Issues and Vol. II, Semantic Issues)," by Gennaro Chiercia et al., is reviewed. The book contains revisions of essays originally presented at a 1986 meeting at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A critique and application of Richard Montogue's Intensional Logic unites the two volumes.…

Masayoshi Shibatani's "The Languages of Japan" is reviewed, with reference to the chapters on the syntax and morphology of Ainu as well as the book's massive study of Japanese. (Contains 18 references.) (LB)

Discusses allomorphic relationships, easily stated phonologically, but obscured when not stated as morpholexical rules. Rules belonging to the phonological component sometimes must be regarded as lexical redundancy rules that capture generalizations about morphological selection. (CB)

Argues that referring expressions in all languages are specialized as to the degree of accessibility they mark. The treatment of referring expressions should not be separate from expressions which serve as antecedents as opposed to those which are always anaphoric. (CB)

Argues that the case-filter, essentially a morphological condition which determines the distribution of noun phrases, should be replaced. This new principle would relate morphological dependency of maximal lexical projections to a certain type of semantic dependency. (CB)