Current syntactic accounts of English resultatives are based on the assumption that result XPs are predicated of underlying direct objects. This assumption has helped to explain the presence of reflexive pronouns with some intransitive verbs but not others and the apparent lack of result XPs predicated of subjects of transitive verbs. We present problems for and counterexamples to some of the basic assumptions of the syntactic approach, which undermine its explanatory power. We develop an alternative account that appeals to principles governing the well-formedness of event structure and the event structure-to-syntax mapping. This account covers the data on intransitive verbs and predicts the distribution of subject-predicated result XPs with transitive verbs.

This article offers a DE SE THEORY of person indexicals, wherein first- and second-person indexical pronouns indicate REFERENCE DE SE (also called SELF-ASCRIPTION). Long observed for first-person pronouns (Castañeda 1977, Kaplan 1977, Perry 1979, inter alia), self-ascription is extended here to second person as well. The person feature of a pronoun specifies the speech-act roles that must be played by the self-ascribers: the speakers (uttering a first-person pronoun), the addressees (interpreting a second-person pronoun), or both (for first-person inclusive). Other agents who are not among the designated self-ascribers for a given pronoun interpret the pronoun indirectly by inferring the self-ascriber's interpretation, a process requiring THEORY OF MIND, that is, the cognitive ability to impute mental states to others (Premack & Woodruff 1978). This de se theory is supported by convergent evidence from multiple domains: (i) It explains a typological universal: first- and second-person plurals always allow associative semantics (‘speaker(s) plus others’, 'addressee(s) plus others') rather than requiring regular plural semantics ('speakers only', ‘addressees only‘) (Greenberg 1988, Noyer 1992, Cysouw 2003, Bobaljik 2008). (ii) It belongs to a family of approaches that solve the problem of the essential indexical (Perry 1979). (iii) It correctly predicts observed patterns of indexical pronoun production and comprehension by two populations lacking a fully developed theory of mind: typically developing children in the stage before theory of mind has developed, and children with autism. (iv) It correctly predicts the interpretation of second-person pronouns in utterances with multiple addressees.

Moribund dialects threatened by the encroachment of healthy varieties of the same language have been overlooked in establishing the language endangerment canon. Endangered varieties of languages as safe as even English exhibit structures not found in mainstream language varieties and so are an invaluable resource to scholars of language variation—and, indeed, of language patterning in general. Further, the insights into language variation and change that we gain from studying moribund dialects inform our study of the types of changes that characterize endangered and dying languages. Our arguments are based on the examination of Ocracoke English, a dialect of American English which is spoken on Ocracoke Island, located off the coast of North Carolina and inhabited by about 600 year-round residents. This dialect developed in relative isolation from mainstream varieties of American English but is now threatened by encroachment from mainland dialects as the island becomes more accessible to the outside world. Using the case of the Ocracoke production of the /ay/ diphthong as , we present linguistic and sociolinguistic evidence that Ocracoke English is indeed an endangered dialect. We also describe the development of a community-based preservation program that parallels the type of proactive programs that have been implemented thus far only for endangered language situations.

How different is the phonology and morphology of nontemplatic (concatenative) word formation from that of templatic (nonconcatenative) word formation? In this article, I focus on the Arabic verbal system, the prototypical example of templatic morphology, with the aim of deriving some of its distinctly special traits from basic principles. The key novel aspect of the approach is its focus on paradigms. The main result is that the paradigm coupled with general phonotactic constraints sets limits on the theoretically possible diversity of stems within that paradigm. As a consequence of its generality, the proposed approach obviates a range of highly specific tools and postulates. Broader implications are developed for the phonological and morphological prerequisites of templatic (nonconcatenative) word formation.

Most processual theories of morphology propose that inflectional operations apply to a pair involving a phonological form and a fully specified morphosyntactic feature array. This interpretation of inflectional operations denies the existence of any structure intervening between a stem and a word. Drawing on insights developed in information-based syntactic theories, this paper proposes an alternative processual theory. Articulated Morphology, which requires that inflectional operations apply to informationally impoverished representations and increase information. An analysis of Potawatomi verb morphology within this theory, contrasted with Anderson's 1992 analysis, shows that positing intervening structure has clear benefits.