Ross (1967) observed that the coordinate structure constraint can be violated in certain semantically asymmetric structures. In this article we consider one of these structures, namely type A coordination, in detail (the terminology is from Lakoff 1986; an example is Here's the whisky I went to the store and bought). We present experimental evidence showing that the pattern of argument and adjunct extraction from type A coordinate structures matches the pattern of argument and adjunct extraction from structures containing rationale clauses in all crucial respects. This near-perfect parallel behavior suggests that, like rationale clauses, the second conjunct in a type A coordination is an adjunct (see also Brown 2017). We explore the consequences of this finding for both interpretive and syntactic analyses of asymmetric coordination.

The phenomenon of phrasal nominalization, as exemplified by the English gerund, raises a challenge for the assumption that a phrase XP is headed by a word of category X. Many proposals have been made to deal with phrasal nominalization, in both multistratal and monostratal frameworks. Some seek to fit it in the endocentric mold; others are plainly exocentric. Comparative evaluations tend to be made along partisan lines (multistratal vs. monostratal) or on the basis of methodological principles (discarding vs. allowing exocentricity). This article aims for a less aprioristic approach, taking generalizability as a criterion for evaluation. More specifically, it investigates three types of phrasal nominalization as they manifest themselves in Dutch, that is, the nominalization of infinitives, adjectives, and participles, providing first a theory-neutral description of the data and then an analysis I call ‘factorial’ in the sense that it captures both what the three types have in common and what differentiates them. It is cast in the framework of constructional head-driven phrase structure grammar, since the latter's hierarchy of phrase types provides a natural starting point for a factorial analysis. The resulting treatment is exocentric. In a final step I compare it to a number of endocentric alternatives, showing that it scores higher on the scale of generalizability.

Previous studies have proposed that the lexicalization of perception verbs is constrained by a biologically grounded hierarchy of the senses. Other research traditions emphasize conceptual and communicative factors instead. Drawing on a balanced sample of perception verb lexicons in 100 languages, we found that vision tends to be lexicalized with a dedicated verb, but that nonvisual modalities do not conform to the predictions of the sense-modality hierarchy. We also found strong asymmetries in which sensory meanings colexify. Rather than a universal hierarchy of the senses, we suggest that two domain-general constraints—conceptual similarity and communicative need—interact to shape lexicalization patterns.

Inspired by Beddor 2009, this article explores whether and how trading relations between coarticulatory source and effect may serve as a precursor for sound change. It aims at extending the case of vowel nasalization examined by Beddor to the relationship between closure voicing (source) and co-intrinsic pitch (effect). Through four production and perception studies, we show that the inverse source-effect relation observed for vowel nasalization is not found in the voicing contrast of French, a true-voicing language. Instead, we propose that the phonologization of co-intrinsic pitch (a.k.a. tonogenesis) originates from spontaneous devoicing (a production bias), which subsequently triggers an upweighting of pitch (a perceptual adaptation strategy).

Students of language do not need to ask Why a linguistic society? but many laymen have asked this question. The answer, to be sure, lies really in our work and in its results; but, for this very reason, it is desirable that our motives be understood.

The year 2024 marks the Linguistic Society of America's centennial, dating from the founding of the Society at its first meeting, 28 December 1924, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Work on the LSA's journal, Language, began in 1924 as well, since a Committee on Publications was constituted at that meeting, with the express purpose, as reported in the Proceedings of that meeting, of overseeing ‘a regular independent publication, either quarterly or annually’. Thus, although the first issue of the journal appeared in March of 1925, it is appropriate to also celebrate the journal's centennial in 2024. Accordingly, the LSA's Centennial Planning Committee decided to do something special with the journal's 100th and 101st volumes: those eight issues of Language will include, in addition to the usual mix of original articles and book reviews, important articles from the past, one (or two, in some instances) from each decade since 1924—the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and so on, excluding the current still-emerging decade. Each reprinted article will be accompanied by a commentary that situates the paper in its own time and place and assesses its significance then and (in many cases) now. To fit all of the decades into eight issues of the journal, a few issues will have more than one reprinted article. Moreover, the first decade has more than one entry: the present issue, 100(1), contains, in addition to a reprinted research article from the 1920s (Boas 1929), Leonard Bloomfield's 1925 article ‘Why a linguistic society?‘, which appeared in Language 1(1).1–5. This article, the journal's very first, is included because of its status as the Society's foundational publication.

The author points out cases in which contiguous languages, though different in structure and vocabulary, exhibit in common striking morphologic peculiarities that must have spread by borrowing from language to language. A simple genealogical classification cannot therefore adequately represent the development, but ‘hybridization’ must also be taken into account.

So far as I know the actual process of a transfer of grammatical categories from one language to another [or hybridization] has never been observed, although minor changes, like the adoption of a form here and there, and syntactic influences are known to occur. ... The question in which we are interested is not that of the theoretical definition of relation of languages as defined by Meillet ..., but merely a question of historical development. (Franz Boas 1929:2, 7)

The challenge of supporting literacy among deaf children is as much linguistic as educational, since a major stumbling block can be the lack of a firm first language foundation. It is critical to meet this challenge, given the range of serious negative correlates to illiteracy. Students on the campuses of Gallaudet University and Swarthmore College collaborate to address this issue in an inter-institutional course in which we make bimodal-bilingual videobooks designed for enjoyable shared reading activities between deaf children and their caretakers. These videobooks bring a good signing model into the home and help develop a range of essential preliteracy skills.