In this commentary, we emphasize the importance of the observations presented by Kissine (2021) in his target article for our understanding of the nonmonolithic nature of pragmatics. Our first aim is to complement Kissine's argument, discussing some critical cases of linguistic processes that demonstrate the need for a finer-grained characterization of pragmatic phenomena. In addition, we report some findings that suggest that perspective taking may emerge as atypical even in autistic individuals who appear to be able to pass the standard theory-of-mind tasks. Our second aim is thus to argue that, albeit difficult to spot in experimental settings, the atypical theory-of-mind profile of low- and high-functioning autistic individuals is mirrored in their difficulties in everyday sociocommunicative interactions. Moreover, we claim that subtle differences in perspective-taking abilities may explain the highly heterogeneous linguistic profile of autistic individuals. Ultimately, with this commentary we wish to highlight the need for an increased appreciation of the role of perspective taking in typical and atypical language acquisition. This is crucial to our understanding of the nature of language acquisition, and can shed more light on the interaction between language and other aspects of human cognition.

After many years of having a loosely structured thesis seminar for our senior majors, the Tri-College Linguistics Department recently redesigned our program to offer students a highly scaffolded environment in which to complete their capstone requirement, which has led to improved outcomes. We argue here for the benefits of asking students to write a senior thesis and to carry out original, authentic research on a topic of their choice. We describe our seminar design and its key components—frequent incremental assignments, peer and instructor feedback leading to repeated revisions, and intentional community building—and suggest how the program might be implemented, in whole or in part, at other institutions with similar pedagogical goals.

An analysis of antecedent mismatch effects under ellipsis is proposed to explain why some cases of verb phrase ellipsis exhibit a sizeable penalty when the elided target is not structurally matched to its antecedent, while other cases show little or no penalty at all. The proposal attributes the penalty in the former case to an information-structural constraint governing contrastive topics, and it is argued that previous accounts have misattributed that penalty to a licensing constraint on ellipsis. Results from four experiments (three off-line acceptability, one on-line self-paced reading) confirm that the relative size of the mismatch penalty can be reliably predicted based on the information structure of the clause containing the ellipsis and that acceptability differences associated with information structure are observable even in the absence of ellipsis.

To successfully learn language—and more specifically how to use verbs correctly—children must solve the linking problem: they must learn the mapping between the thematic roles specified by a verb's lexical semantics and the syntactic argument positions specified by a verb's syntactic frame. We use an empirically grounded and integrated quantitative framework involving corpus analysis, experimental meta-analysis, and computational modeling to implement minimally distinct versions of mapping approaches that (i) either are specified a priori or develop during language acquisition, and (ii) rely on either an absolute or a relative thematic role system. Using successful verb class learning as an evaluation metric, we embed each approach within a concrete model of the acquisition process and see which learning assumptions are able to match children's verb-learning behavior at three, four, and five years old. Our current results support a trajectory where children (i) may not have prior expectations about linking patterns between ages three and five, and (ii) begin with a relative thematic system, progressing toward optionality between a relative and an absolute system. We discuss implications of our results for both theories of syntactic representation and theories of how those representations are acquired. We also discuss the broader contribution of this study as a concrete modeling framework that can be updated with new linking theories, corpora, and experimental results.

Although the Inuit language is generally characterized as ergative, it has been observed that the ergative case patterning is relatively weaker in certain Eastern Canadian varieties, resulting in a more accusative appearance (e.g. Johns 2001, 2006, Carrier 2017). This article presents a systematic comparison of ergativity in three Inuit varieties, as a lens into the properties of case alignment and clause structure in Inuit more broadly. Building on the previous insight that ergativity in Inuit is tied to object movement to a structurally high position (Bittner 1994, Bittner & Hale 1996a,b, Woolford 2017), I demonstrate that the relative robustness of the ergative patterning across Inuit is tightly correlated with the permissibility of object movement—and not determined by the morphosyntactic properties of ERG subjects, which are uniform across Inuit. I additionally relate this correlation to another point of variation across Inuit concerning the status of object agreement as affixes vs. pronominal clitics (Yuan 2021). These connections offer testable predictions for the status of ergativity across the entire Inuit dialect continuum and yield crosslinguistic implications for the typology of case alignment, especially in how it interacts with the syntactic position of nominals.

This article scrutinizes the diachrony of relativizers and complement clause subordinators in Russian, Polish, and Czech. Historical morphology indicates a development from agreeing relative pronouns via noninflected relativizers to complement clause subordinators. This concurs with recent findings on Germanic (Axel-Tober 2017), but contradicts more traditional proposals that derive subordinators from demonstratives. The respective syntactic reanalyses are demonstrated on diachronic Slavic corpus data. Moreover, a quantitative comparison of sixteenth- to seventeenth- century East Slavic texts with and without West Slavic interference suggests that the use of kotoryj ‘which’ as a relative pronoun spread into Russian as an inner-Slavic contact-induced change.

We question the commonly accepted assumption that American Sign Language (ASL) has no overt copula. We present evidence that one of the functions of the sign Self in present-day ASL is as a copula. This sign evolved into its current function by way of a grammaticalization process called the ‘copula cycle’ (Katz 1996). The copula cycle consists of a deictic item transforming into a demonstrative pronoun and then into a copula by means of a series of syntactic reanalyses. We present corpus evidence from Old French Sign Language (LSF) in the 1850s, Old ASL in the 1910s, and present-day ASL dating to the 2000s and the late 2010s, and with these data analyze ASL examples of syntactic structures outlined by Li and Thompson (1977) that led to the increased use of Self as a copula. We also find that Self, which is not generally regarded as a pointing sign, follows the grammaticalization scheme for pointing signs outlined by Pfau and Steinbach (2006), indicating that the scheme may be used for signs that are derived from demonstratives. Ultimately, we conclude that ASL undergoes the same grammaticalization processes as spoken languages.

In this article, we report on findings from an ongoing study of graduate students in linguistics regarding the approaches they take to develop as professional educators and how faculty and programs in linguistics can better support graduate student teaching professionalization. In focus groups with current linguistics graduate students, we identified three key themes: formal institutional training, mentor relationships (i.e. instructor and TA relationships), and peer relationships. Mentor relationships provide students with a range of experiences and degrees of support across faculty, which influences how they develop as educators. Peer socialization is also a critical component of growth and well-being, providing graduate student teachers with both practical guidance and ongoing emotional support. We illustrate this point with a case study—a weekly teaching journal club for graduate students within our own Linguistics program, which became an important space for pedagogical development. While our results point to graduate student success and resilience through socialization, they also illustrate a common issue of professionalization in academia: students gain professional skills through noninstitutional mechanisms. Teaching professionalization largely falls to the ‘hidden curriculum’, which puts students at a disadvantage, especially those from minoritized backgrounds (Smith 2013). We join other scholars in our field in calling for greater institutionalized mechanisms for professionalization to promote equitable access to vital skills for graduate students (Calhoun 2020). To that end, we conclude by suggesting ways in which faculty and departments can close this gap in graduate training.

This article reports on the results of a broad crosslinguistic study on the semantics of quantity words such as many in the superlative (e.g. most). While some languages use such a form to express both a relative reading (as in Gloria has visited the most continents) and a proportional reading (as in Gloria has visited most continents), the vast majority do not allow the latter, though all allow the former. It is argued that a degree-quantifier analysis of quantity words is best suited to explain why proportional readings typically do not arise for quantity superlatives. Based on morphosyntactic evidence, two alternative diachronic pathways through which proportional quantifiers may develop from quantity superlatives are identified.

In this impressive volume, GREGORY MATOESIAN and KRISTIN ENOLA GILBERT provide the field of law-and-language studies with an important set of analytic tools, insisting that systematic study of multimodal conduct be integrated into research on legal communication. In particular, M&G focus on modes of communication such as gesture, gaze, posture, movement, and speakers' interactions with physical objects—modes that have not received as much attention within language-and-law research as has legal language in a more traditional conception. For scholars who are unfamiliar with studies of multimodal conduct, the book offers a rigorous but accessible introduction to the field, along with sophisticated analyses of legal interactions demonstrating the value of the authors' approach. For linguists, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists more generally, the volume offers an inventive entry in the growing literature integrating multimodal analysis into microanalysis of linguistic exchanges—and the macroanalysis of language within institutions. For those interested in research on legal language, this study advances the field through its comprehensive vision of how we can incorporate multimodal analysis into existing paradigms.

In response to the lack of culturally sustaining pedagogies for Black students in linguistics, we created an online Introduction to Linguistics course designed as part of a specially funded research program that serves Black undergraduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as well as Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). In recognition of the fact that conventional introductory linguistics courses often alienate Black students, the course was designed to center Black language and culture in every lesson. We describe the rationale for and implementation of the course, as well as the impact of the model on students and instructors. The course's Black-centered content as well as its online synchronous and asynchronous teaching model can be adapted for other teaching contexts as a way to recruit Black students into linguistics and to offer linguistics courses to students at universities, especially HBCUs, that do not have linguistics programs. The work is particularly relevant as linguists seek to be inclusive in their teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and work toward the greater inclusion of Black people in every aspect of linguistics due to the heightened awareness of anti-Blackness in higher education and specifically in language studies.

This article introduces a framework for systematically evaluating and comparing language rights across national contexts. We develop an index to assess the range of language freedoms, focusing on areas such as government services, education, healthcare, and media. The index compiles multiple variables into a single indicator, offering a concise measure of linguistic freedom. Our analysis shows that larger language communities typically enjoy more language rights, though this relationship is influenced by civil liberties. We argue that this index is both descriptive and normative, providing a tool for comparing language policy and advocating for linguistic justice.

Parents of small deaf children need guidance on constructing home and school environments that affect normal language acquisition. They often turn to physicians and spiritual leaders and, increasingly, the internet. These sources can be underinformed about crucial issues, such as matters of brain plasticity connected to the risk of linguistic deprivation, and delay or disruption in the development of cognitive skills interwoven with linguistic ability. We have formed a team of specialists in education, linguistics, pediatric medicine, and psychology, and at times specialists in theology and in law have joined our group. We argue that deaf children should be taught a sign language in the early years. This does not preclude oral-aural training and assistive technology. With a strong first language (a sign language), the child can become bilingual (with the written form of the ambient spoken language and, perhaps, the spoken form), accruing the benefits of bilingualism. We have published in medical journals, addressing primary care physicians, in a journal with a spiritual-leader readership, and in a health-law journal. Articles in progress address medical educators and practitioners. Team members present findings at conferences, work on lobbying and legislative efforts with the National Association of the Deaf, and spread the word at conferences of target audiences. We share our work in Word format, so that anyone can easily appropriate it for our common interests. One of our articles has been downloaded over 27,000 times (as of April 2014), and we are asked to consult with committees in other countries as they draft national policies.

In the present study we investigate the relevance of the concept of underspecified inflection markers for the processing of language in the human brain. Underspecification is recognized as the main source of syncretism in many current morphological theories. However, relatively little is known about its cognitive status. In underspecification-based theories, a competition among morphological exponents arises systematically. In order to win such a competition, an inflection marker has to meet two requirements: compatibility and specificity. If underspecification is real, these two principles should also be an inherent part of the language processing system. One should therefore be able to observe separable effects for the violation of each of the criteria. We used the event-related potential (ERP) violation paradigm to test this hypothesis in the domain of strong adjective inflection in German. We expected differences in brain potentials between two incorrect conditions whenever they represented different types of violation (of compatibility and specificity). Our findings strongly support underspecification: an ERP-component related to morphosyntactic integration (viz. left anterior negativity; LAN) was modulated by violations of specificity versus compatibility. Furthermore, the neurophysiological evidence helps to distinguish between two kinds of morphological underspecification that have been proposed: it argues for maximal rather than minimal underspecification. Finally, the observed brain responses indicate increased processing demands for highly specific markers, which suggests that LAN effects may be sensitive not only to morphosyntactic violations but also to the degree of processing effort.

Constructed languages (purposefully invented languages like Esperanto and Klingon) have long captured the human imagination. They can also be used as pedagogical tools in the linguistics classroom to enhance how certain aspects of linguistics are taught and to broaden the appeal of linguistics as a field. In this article, I discuss the history and nature of constructed languages and describe various ways I have successfully brought them into use in the classroom. I conclude from the results of my courses that linguists should take a closer look at how they might benefit from similarly enlisting this often criticized hobby into more mainstream use in the linguistics classroom.