The complex phonology of Slovak syllabic nuclei is studied from the twin perspectives of three-dimensional representation theory and Lexical Phonology. A variety of evidence is adduced to show the necessity of recognizing a distinct nucleus node in the internal structure of the syllable. It is also argued that Slovak syllabic nuclei are right-headed metrical structures. The well-known Slovak Rhythmic Law, shortening the first of two successive long syllables, is demonstrated to be a cyclic rule. It is argued that its cyclicity follows necessarily from the Lexical Phonology model.

The organization and structure of the lexicon in a linguistic performance model is here examined, using data elicited from dyslexic patients suffering from focal brain lesions. It is argued that phonological, semantic, and orthographic representations, in separate sub-lexicons, are needed to account for the selective reading and writing disorders. The role of such data and their relevance to linguistic theory are discussed. Linguistic concepts provide the framework for investigating both normal and abnormal (e.g. aphasic) speech production and comprehension. In turn, data from aphasia may provide new insights into the nature of the mental grammar.

This paper presents a theory of surface case which bears a strong formal similarity to autosegmental theory in phonology and morphology. We suggest that surface case forms a tier which is autonomous of phrase structure—and which is associated with NP's of the PS tier by general principles analogous to those which associate tones with segments, or phonemic melodies with CV skeleta. We show that this theory permits parameterization of a variety of case systems, and thus provides some insight into how case might be characterized in Universal Grammar. The theory permits, most strikingly, a unification of Accusative and Ergative systems under one simple parameter, and explanation of the mysterious appearance of postverbal nominative case in the passives of certain Icelandic ditransitive verbs.

This paper proposes principles to revise the strict ‘double articulation’ of standard linguistic theory, and define a class of optional rules of postlexical phonology whose output bears meaning. The class includes prosody-modifying processes of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo (CAY)—which, when applied to a word or prosodic phrase, add linguistically significant expressive or other pragmatic meaning. Their postlexical rule status is suggested by their phonological form, their gradience and dependence (in some cases) on above-word prosodic phrasing, and above all by their intricate inter-ordering among the obligatory prosody rules of CAY postlexical phonology. The phonological treatment prescribed by the proposed principles is shown to handle such features naturally and easily, whereas treatments in keeping with strict double articulation do not. The proposed revision of the double articulation principle promises to preserve modularity in a way which simplifies individual grammars, and which makes testable empirical predictions about universal grammar.

The principles of sentence grammar involved in the interpretation of the Korean anaphor caki ‘self’ are largely insensitive to the command-type relations which form a crucial part of binding theory for English and related languages. The principles required for Korean make reference to grammatical relations such as subject and object; to linear precedence; and to syntactic categories like NP, VP, and S. It is argued here that grammatical relations are defined structurally in Korean: complement phrases (e.g. direct and indirect objects) occur within VP, while subject phrases occur outside this phrasal category. This structural encoding of grammatical relations is maintained even in surface structure, with the consequence that Korean syntactic representations can include discontinuous constituents.

The relationship of morphological structure to syntactic functions has received much recent attention (e.g. Anderson 1982, McCloskey & Hale 1984, Stump 1984, Sadock 1985, Bresnan & Mchombo 1987). The behavior of possessive suffixes (Px's) in Finnish sheds light on this issue. These are important syntactically; yet phonological, morphological, and semantic evidence shows them to be suffixes rather than clitics (i.e. elements found on words but not placed there exclusively by the morphology). They stand in striking contrast to the Finnish clitics, which by similar evidence must be word-external. The contrast is interpreted as a consequence of the integrity of the morphological word. To violate this integrity in analysing elements like the Finnish possessive suffixes would gravely weaken linguistic theory.

This study offers a theory of agreement within the framework of lexical-functional grammar. In this theory, verbal affixes may mark either grammatical or anaphoric agreement. In grammatical agreement, a NP bears an argument relation to the verb, while the verbal affix expresses redundantly the person, number, and gender class of the NP. In anaphoric agreement, the verbal affix is an incorporated pronominal argument of the verb, and the coreferential NP has a non-argument function—either as an adjunct of the pronominal argument, or as a topic or focus of the clause or discourse structure. Grammatical topics have syntactic properties deriving from a theory of discourse functions. The minimal difference between an incorporated pronoun and a grammatical agreement marker is the presence or absence of a semantic attribute in the lexical content of the affix. Likewise, the minimal difference between a subject NP and a topic NP is the function, rather than the phrase structure attributes of dominance, precedence, and category. This theory offers an explanation for the close relation between grammatical and anaphoric agreement, as well as clear criteria for distinguishing anaphoric and grammatical agreement by their discourse, syntactic, and even phonological effects. The Chicheŵa language (Bantu) has both grammatical agreement with the subject and anaphoric agreement with the object, and related languages show various distributions of these two agreement types.

The comprehensive theory of predication developed by Williams (1980, 1982, 1983) subsumes a wide range of phenomena, but contains some internal problems. An alternative account is presented here which does not postulate a distinct level of Predicate Structure, but assumes that pro may be governed. This entails new analyses of small clauses and control phenomena, and leads to a revision of the conditions under which empty elements may occur.

In previous accounts, the word order of Papago (Uto-Aztecan, Arizona) has been described—in terms of syntactic roles—as SOV, SVO, and VSO. However, discourse data show that (surface) order is most insightfully accounted for by strong pragmatic principles. Information preceding the verb is either pragmatically marked, or is information for which the hearer is instructed to ‘open a new active discourse file’. Other information follows the verb. Syntactic role correlates highly with the discourse-pragmatic and semantic status of the information encoded, but has almost no correlation with order. Therefore, in terms of the typological tradition represented by J. Greenberg, J. Hawkins, and others, no particular order of syntactic roles should be taken as basic. Rather, languages in which order is not based on syntactic role should simply not be forced into an order typology based on syntactic role.

This paper addresses the question of the syntactic analysis of aspectual verbs in French from the point of view of two contrasting complementation structures: raising and control. Data generally overlooked in syntactic studies are given to show that specific constraints exist between aspectual verbs and the embedded predicate. It is argued that these constraints are relevant for the contrast between raising and control, and that they are complementary with the well-known contrasting properties of the matrix subject.

The paper also attempts to give a satisfactory account of the apparently unrelated syntactic and semantic characteristics of aspectual verbs. It is claimed that implicational universals, which are generally invoked to explain the semantics of these verbs, can also be used to account for their particular status from the viewpoint of syntactic complementation.

A fundamental goal of linguistic theory is to account for language acquisition. At the heart of the problem is the poverty of the stimulus, which underdetermines the hypotheses that children formulate. Generative grammar proposes that the form for expressing rules is innately constrained, and one putative constraint is structure-dependence. The present study subjected this proposal to an empirical test. In the first experiment, yes/no questions—amenable in principle to both structure-dependent and structure-independent analyses—were elicited from thirty 3- to 5-year-old children. A second experiment explored the nature of children's errors in Experiment 1. A third experiment contrasted a structurally-based account of the acquisition of interrogatives with one based on semantic generalization. The results of these experiments support Chomsky's contention that children unerringly hypothesize structure-dependent rules. Moreover, it was found that the rules which children invoke are formally insensitive to the semantic properties of noun phrases—a finding that supports the developmental autonomy of syntax.

The universal grammatical categories noun and verb are held susceptible to notional characterization. The traditional objections to this claim are overcome by an appropriate view of linguistic semantics, one based on cognitive processing and the structuring of conceptual content. Reasonably precise semantic descriptions of the noun and verb categories are proposed in the context of the cognitive grammar framework. The distinction between count and mass nouns is explicated, and is shown to be a direct analog of the fundamental aspectual distinction between verbs that designate perfective and imperfective processes. The analysis permits the elucidation of subtle semantic contrasts and the explanation of various grammatical phenomena.

Colloquial ‘tautologies’ such as War is war or A promise is a promise have often been adduced in support of a ‘Gricean’ account of language use. The present article shows, however, that ‘tautological constructions’ are partly conventional and language-specific, and that each such construction has a specific meaning which cannot be fully predicted in terms of any universal pragmatic maxims. It is argued that the attitudinal meanings conveyed by various tautological constructions and by similar linguistic devices should be stated in rigorous and yet self-explanatory semantic formulae. ‘Radical pragmatics’ is rejected as a blind alley, and an integrated approach to language structure and language use is proposed, based on a coherent semantic theory which is capable of representing ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ aspects of meaning in a unified framework.

This paper examines the phenomenon of ergativity and its relation to patterns of surface grammar and information flow in discourse. Corresponding to the grammatical pattern of ergativity (exemplified in the A vs. S/O distribution of verbal cross-referencing morphology in Sacapultec Maya) there is an isomorphic pattern of information flow: information distribution among argument positions in clauses of spoken discourse is not random, but grammatically skewed toward an ergative pattern. Arguments comprising new information appear preferentially in the S or O roles, but not in the A role—which leads to formulation of a Given A Constraint. Evidence from other languages suggests that the ergative patterning of discourse extends beyond the ergative type to encompass accusative languages as well. Given the linguistic consequences of a type-independent Preferred Argument Structure, it is argued that language-internal phenomena as fundamental as the structuring of grammatical relations can be shaped by forces arising out of discourse, viewed as the aggregate of instances of language use.

P[ossessive] A[djective]s in Slavonic, formed from nouns via suffixation, show unusual syntactic behavior. In Upper Sorbían, the form of attributive modifiers, relative pronouns, and personal pronouns can be controlled by the syntactic features of the noun underlying the PA. Control of attributive modifiers gives rise to phrases in which word structure and phrase structure do not match. The fact that the underlying noun is available for syntactic purposes suggests that PA formation is an inflectional process, while other factors (such as change of word-class membership) point just as clearly to a derivational process. It thus appears that any sharp differentiation between inflectional and derivational morphology must be abandoned. Data presented from all thirteen Slavonic languages, based on extensive work with native speakers, show that the control possibilities of the PA vary considerably. However, control of the attributive modifier is possible only if control of the relative pronoun is also possible, and that in turn only if control of the personal pronoun is possible. This result is subsumed under the constraints of the Agreement Hierarchy.

Do native and native-like non-native (i.e. near-native) speakers develop essentially identical underlying grammars of the same language? Results of extensive interviews indicate that native and near-native speakers of French have strikingly different intuitions on French sentences. In particular, the two groups have markedly divergent interpretations of sentences involving basic grammatical contrasts such as the two past tenses (imparfait and passé composé), the 3rd person pronouns il and ce, and the placement of the adjective before or after the noun. This is so in spite of the fact that the two groups appear to be equivalent at the level of language use and proficiency. These results provide a clear illustration of the relative independence of the two levels of language: on the one hand, language use, and on the other hand, underlying grammar as reflected by speakers' intuitions. It is suggested that the specific nature of the divergences between native and near-native speakers' underlying grammars also provides clues to the internal organization of language: in particular, the data indicate that near-native speakers diverge less from native speakers in formal features, such as those currently covered by studies in Universal Grammar, than in ‘functional’ or ‘cognitive’ aspects of grammar.

Had he not died suddenly on 26 August 1984, in his eightieth year, Stanley Newman would have been President of the Society in 1986, and his Presidential Address might well appear in this issue. In its stead, we memorialize the character of his achievements as one of the most gifted of Sapir's successors, whose career in a way typifies the experience of a whole group of that academic generation.

The aim of this paper is to re-examine constraints on relative clause formation in languages of the world. The main tasks of the study are thus two-fold: to present a new formulation of one of the main constraints on relativization, and to challenge an assumption of the most robust typological interpretation of relative clause constraints to date—the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy.

All language is, to a varying extent, poetic. Investigating the relationship between conversational and literary discourse illuminates the workings of conversation. Past research suggests the pervasiveness of repetition, and its significance in questioning prior theoretical and methodological assumptions. Repetition functions in production, comprehension, connection, and interaction. The congruence of these levels provides a fourth, over-arching function in coherence, which builds on and creates interpersonal involvement. Examples illustrate the pervasiveness, functions, and automatic nature of repetition in taped, transcribed conversation—supporting a view of discourse as relatively pre-patterned, rather than generated. Repetition is a resource by which speakers create a discourse, a relationship, and a world.