Among the most fascinating data for phonology are those showing how speakers incorporate new words and foreign words into their language system, since these data provide cues to the actual principles underlying language. In this article, we address how speakers deal with neutralized obstruents in new words. We formulate four hypotheses and test them on the basis of Dutch word-final obstruents, which are neutral for [voice]. Our experiments show that speakers predict the characteristics of neutralized segments on the basis of phonologically similar morphemes stored in the mental lexicon. This effect of the similar morphemes can be modeled in several ways. We compare five models, among them stochastic optimality theory and analogical modeling of language; all perform approximately equally well, but they differ in their complexity, with analogical modeling of language providing the most economical explanation.

A central issue in the theory of clause types is whether force is represented in the syntax. Based on data from English, Italian, and Paduan, we examine this question focusing on a less well-studied clause type, exclamatives. We argue that there is no particular element in syntax responsible for introducing force. Rather, there are two fundamental syntactic components which identify a clause as exclamative, a factive and a wh-operator. These are crucial because they are responsible for two fundamental semantic properties characteristic of exclamatives, namely that they are factive and denote a set of alternative propositions. The force of exclamatives, which we characterize as widening, is derived indirectly, based on the semantic properties.

The semantics of simple (i.e. two-term) systems of demonstratives have in general hitherto been treated as inherently spatial and as marking a symmetrical opposition of distance (‘proximal’ versus 'distal'), assuming the speaker as a point of origin. More complex systems are known to add further distinctions, such as visibility or elevation, but are assumed to build on basic distinctions of distance. Despite their inherently context-dependent nature, little previous work has based the analysis of demonstratives on evidence of their use in real interactional situations. In this article, video recordings of spontaneous interaction among speakers of Lao (Southwestern Tai, Laos) are examined in an analysis of the two Lao demonstrative determiners nii4 and nan4. A hypothesis of minimal encoded semantics is tested against rich contextual information, and the hypothesis is shown to be consistent with the data. Encoded conventional meanings must be kept distinct from contingent contextual information and context-dependent pragmatic implicatures. Based on examples of the two Lao demonstrative determiners in exophoric uses, the following claims are made. The term nii4 is a semantically general demonstrative, lacking specification of any spatial property (such as location or distance). The term nan4 specifies that the referent is 'not here' (encoding ‘location’ but not 'distance'). Anchoring the semantic specification in a deictic primitive 'here' allows a strictly discrete intensional distinction to be mapped onto an extensional range of endless elasticity. A common ‘proximal’ spatial interpretation for the semantically more general term nii4 arises from the paradigmatic opposition of the two demonstrative determiners. This kind of analysis suggests a reappraisal of our general understanding of the semantics of demonstrative systems universally. To investigate the question in sufficient detail, however, rich contextual data (preferably collected on video) is necessary.

We present and discuss the results of a sociolinguistic historical study of variable deletion of the preverbal negative particle ne ‘not’, a phenomenon observable in many contemporary varieties of spoken French, but which has not yet made its way into standard written French. Our study's two main goals are (i) to contribute to the resolution of a debate over the point in time when ne deletion became a prevalent feature of nonstandard spoken French, and (ii) to assess the role of the affixal status of subject clitic pronouns in the rise of ne deletion.

Our study is based on the analysis of an extensive database comprising a wide range of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early twentieth-century sources providing information on the typical features of nonstandard spoken European and Quebec French. It reveals that ne deletion became widespread in nonstandard spoken French only in the nineteenth century and leads us to hypothesize that the affixal status of subject clitic pronouns contributed to the rise of ne deletion.

This article presents a test of the proposal that a subgroup of children with GRAMMATICAL-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT (G-SLI) have optional movement (the REPRESENTATIONAL DEFICIT FOR DEPENDENT RELATIONS (RDDR) account, van der Lely 1998) by investigating WH-movement in fifteen G-SLI subjects and twenty-four younger children matched on language abilities (LA controls). The RDDR/optional movement account predicts that G-SLI subjects would have deficits with both WH-operator and Q-feature movement and therefore would have particular problems producing object questions. We elicited 36 questions balanced for subject and object questions and WH-words (who, which, what). The G-SLI subjects were significantly impaired in producing WH-questions, showing particular difficulties with object questions in relation to the control children. The majority of G-SLI subjects (80%) evinced both WH-operator and T/Q-feature movement errors whereas only one control child (4%) did so, yet on occasion all the G-SLI subjects used appropriate movement operations to satisfy the WH-criterion. We conclude that the RDDR account whereby movement is optional is consistent with the findings of correct and incorrect WH-question formation. Thus, this first test of the RDDR account of G-SLI is supported by the findings. We discuss the possible underlying nature of a grammar that could cause such optionality, the implications for normal and impaired language acquisition, and the generalizability of the findings to other groups of children with SLI. We propose that in the face of no movement, the WH-word and, on occasion, do are merged in situ in the CP, and function as an interrogative adjunct.