The incorporation of empirical and theoretical knowledge from the language acquisition literature into formal diachronic syntax has been largely exiguous despite the growth of the latter as a subfield in formal linguistics over the past thirty years. In this dissertation, it is shown that a greater knowledge of diachronic phenomena, particularly…

Among the Altaic languages, Turkic and Mongolian have a lot of similarities due to their prolonged contact and a common lineage. The two languages share several parallels in vocabulary, sound correspondence, phonotactic rules, and grammar. This study aimed to explore the comparative-historical aspects of Turkic-Mongolian language parallels in…

This article focuses on claims about the origin and evolution of language from the point of view of the formalist-functionalist debate in linguistics. In linguistics, an account of a grammatical phenomenon is considered "formal" if it accords center stage to the structural properties of that phenomenon, and "functional" if it…

This dissertation examines complementizer agreement (CA) phenomena in which phi-features appear on a complementizer, clause-linking marker, or otherwise, syntactically speaking, at the C[superscript 0] position. This dissertation will argue that CA is in fact a straightforward output of the syntax module under standard Minimalist assumptions, and…

The paper examines the preverbal markers in Mengrelian as the possible loci of post-syntactic phonological rules that affect the allomorphy of these preverbs. The goal of the paper is to pinpoint the series of these rules and the extent to which the final form of the derived material changes as a result of their application. The phonological rules…

This project seeks to answer the question whether it is possible to locate sense in language. I suggest that two theories seemingly unrelated to each other, one belonging to Ancient thought, and the other to modern Continental philosophy, give positive answer to the question. I focus on the concepts of "lekton" and "inner form"…

Depending on the demands of a particular communicative situation, bilingual or multilingual speakers ("bilingualism-multilingualism") will switch between language varieties. Code-switching is the practice of moving between variations of languages in different contexts. In an educational context, code-switching is defined as the practice…

The oldest form of Sanskrit has a class of expressions that are in some respects like asyndetically coordinated syntactic phrases, in other respects like single compound words. I propose to resolve the conflicting evidence by drawing on prosodic phonology, stratal optimality theory, and the lexicalist approach to morphological blocking. I then…

For the most part, my study is a descriptive analysis of infinitival complement clauses and the corresponding subjunctive clauses in Romanian, that is, obligatory control (OC) structures. OC is a relation of obligatory coreferentiality between a matrix argument (controller) and the null subject of the subordinate (controlee) of the same sentence.…

The reconstruction of genealogical relationships between languages is traditionally performed through lexical comparison and the establishment of regular sound changes. The historical analysis of other aspects of linguistic structure, like syntactic patterns or the function of grammatical elements, is normally understood to depend on a previously…

This dissertation takes a Minimalist approach to phonology, treating the phonological module as a system of abstract symbolic computation, divorced from phonetic content. I investigate the position of the phonological module within the architecture of grammar and the evolutionary scenario developed by Hauser et al. (2002a) and Fitch et al. (2005).…

Highlights the costly losses that scholars may incur in discussing questions of language evolution outside the framework of a shared, well-articulated linguistic ontology. (Author/VWL)

This review article focuses on Derek Bickerton's book "Language and Species." The question of language origins are divided into two questions: (1) how did arbitrary elements acquire reference, and (2) how did syntax develop? It is suggested that the book is a closely reasoned attempt to fit linguistic theory into the framework of…

Responds to a previous article suggesting that the grammatical mode of communication arose via natural selection. The response focuses on the emergence of why the subjacency condition of Universal Grammar emerged. (JL)

Responds positively to an earlier article that attempts to resolve the formalist-functionalist conflict in current linguistic theory. Concern is expressed, however, over the use of two terms, including genetic encoding and communication. (JL)