While there are very clearly some structural constraints on pronoun interpretation, debate remains as to their extent and proper formulation (Bruening 2014). Since Reinhart 1976 it has commonly been reported that bound-variable pronouns are subject to a c-command requirement. This claim is not universally agreed upon and has recently been challenged by Barker (2012), who argues that bound pronouns must merely fall within the semantic scope of a binding quantifier. In the processing literature, recent results have been advanced in support of c-command (Cunnings et al. 2015, Kush et al. 2015). However, none of these studies separates semantic scope from structural c-command. In this article, we present two self-paced reading studies and one off-line judgment task which show that when we put both c-commanding and non-c-commanding quantifiers on an equal footing with regard to their ability to scope over a pronoun, we nonetheless find a processing difference between the two. Semantically legitimate but non-c-commanded bound variables do not behave like c-commanded bound variables in their search for an antecedent. The results establish that c-command, not scope alone, is relevant for the processing of bound variables. We then explore how these results, combined with other experimental findings, support a view in which the grammar distinguishes between c-commanded and non-c-commanded variable pronouns, the latter perhaps being disguised definite descriptions (Cooper 1979, Evans 1980, Heim 1990, Elbourne 2005).

I investigate patterns of preverbal fronting in Toba Batak, a predicate-initial Austronesian language of northern Sumatra. Contrary to the claims of previous work on the language, I show that multiple constituents can be simultaneously fronted, though only in limited configurations. I argue that the distinct heads C and T are present in Toba Batak, with their common division of labor, but extraction patterns are restricted by the limited means of nominal licensing (abstract Case) in the language. In addition, the features of C and T have the option of being bundled together on a single head, inheriting properties of both C and T and probing together for the joint satisfaction of their probes. This study sheds light on the relationship between western Austronesian voice system languages and the clause periphery in other language families.

Negation in Tuparí (Tupían; Brazil) is an exclusively nominal category: verbs must enter into a nominalized form to accept the negator -'om and must undergo a subsequent process of reverbalization so as to combine with tense and evidential morphology. These category-changing processes leave -'om in a low position in the clause, and scopal evidence confirms that negation is also interpreted low. In keeping with the low structural position of -'om, the same negative strategy known from finite matrix clauses appears in nonfinite embedded contexts as well.

Tuparí shows that negative phrases exhibit more crosslinguistic variation than standardly assumed: they may appear in either the nominal or verbal extended projection. This finding is not compatible with cartographic efforts to strictly circumscribe the distribution of NegP within the clause. Like nominal tense in Tupi-Guaraní and other languages, in Tuparí a grammatical category normally associated with the verbal domain instead surfaces within the nominal one. For the purpose of typological comparison, the Tuparí facts highlight the need for classifications of negation that take into account both constructional asymmetries between affirmative and negative clauses and individual negator morphemes' selectional and categorical properties.

Studies on language contact suggest that cross-language interactions in individual language use may lead to contact-induced change at the community level. We propose that the phenomenon of crosslinguistic structural priming may well drive this process. We investigated this by focusing on dative sentence production by Papiamento speakers in Aruba and in the Netherlands. In experiment 1, Papiamento speakers in Aruba and in the Netherlands described dative events. The speakers in the Netherlands produced more Dutch-like structures than the speakers in Aruba, especially younger speakers. In experiment 2, speakers from the same populations heard a Dutch prime sentence before describing a dative event in Papiamento. Syntactic choices were influenced by the Dutch prime sentences, and, again, especially younger speakers in the Netherlands produced more Dutch-like dative structures. This combination of results suggests that Papiamento syntactic preferences in the Netherlands are changing as a function of contact with Dutch, and that crosslinguistic structural priming is a likely mechanism underlying this change.

In ‘Tone: Is it different?’ (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that ‘tone is like segmental phonology in every way—only more so’, emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of phonology, morphology, and syntax, each time posing the question, ‘What else is like this outside of tone?’. A particularly interesting property that is strictly limited to tone is what I term syntagmatic relativity. I suggest that the uniqueness of tonal phenomena is due to the versatility of pitch, which can be manipulated with a wide range of linguistic functions. Given this versatility, I end by considering the question, ‘Why isn't tone universal?’.

This article discusses the diachronic development of the Chinese long passive. The diachronic analysis is built on structural analysis of the long passive and the wei … suo passive. I show that both constructions involve a highly restricted embedded clause (a vP) and that both are derived via A‘-movement. Based on their structural parallelism, I argue that the wei … suo passive, which first appeared in Late Archaic Chinese (fifth century bce ~ third century bce), is the direct ancestor of the long passive. The long passive inherits its A’ properties and biclausal structure from the wei … suo passive. I also show that the diachronic development from the wei … suo passive to the long passive took place in two steps: (i) the loss of suo following a morphophonological change in Early Middle Chinese (second century bce ~ second century ce, and (ii) the replacement of wei by bei in Middle Chinese (third century ce ~ sixth century ce).

An underlying form like /maːli/ is problematic for a stress system requiring word-final, bimoraic trochees. The grammar must sacrifice word-finality or bimoraicity, [(máː)li] or [(máːli)] (tolerating HL#); place stress on the second half of the long vowel, [ma(áli)] (breaking); or shorten the vowel, [(máli)] (trochaic shortening). This article surveys the Central Pacific language family, which hosts the most famous cases of breaking (Tongan) and trochaic shortening (Fijian), and finds that while trochaic shortening is poorly attested, breaking and tolerance are common. There are three findings of theoretical interest. First, length alternations suggest it is difficult to learn contrastive information that is absent in the core member of the morphological paradigm. Second, lexicalization of whole words is a possible response to this difficulty. Third, there is divergence between a language's root phonotactics and its alternations.

Understanding the relation between speech production and perception is foundational to phonetic theory, and is similarly central to theories of the phonetics of sound change. For sound changes that are arguably perceptually motivated, it is particularly important to establish that an individual listener's selective attention—for example, to the redundant information afforded by coarticulation—is reflected in that individual's own productions. This study reports the results of a pair of experiments designed to test the hypothesis that individuals who produce more consistent and extensive coarticulation will attend to that information especially closely in perception. The production experiment used nasal airflow to measure the time course of participants' coarticulatory vowel nasalization; the perception experiment used an eye-tracking paradigm to measure the time course of those same participants' attention to coarticulated nasality. Results showed that a speaker's coarticulatory patterns predicted, to some degree, that individual's perception, thereby supporting the hypothesis: participants who produced earlier onset of coarticulatory nasalization were, as listeners, more efficient users of nasality as that information unfolded over time. Thus, an individual's perception of coarticulated speech is made public through their productions.

In this article, we argue that the current linguistic and educational policies affecting school-age US children whose native language is American Sign Language (ASL) should be changed. Concretely, we demonstrate that ASL-English bilinguals should be eligible for classification as English Learners (EL). While this identification should remain optional in order to be responsive to individual differences and preferences, we argue that identification can result in increased educational services and access to appropriately targeted instructional support. We offer concrete programmatic and curricular solutions and articulate other consequences affecting various fields, including language policy.

To mitigate systemic culturally and linguistically rooted barriers to STEM achievement, particularly for African-American students, implementing linguistically and culturally sustaining approaches to STEM education is critically relevant. This article presents an engagement model for using sociolinguistics to enhance K–12 STEM education, drawing upon research carried out with K–12 STEM educators who attended workshops on language variation and subsequently participated in semi-structured interviews and a focus group. Findings indicate the centrality of integrating linguistics into K–12 STEM teacher preparation, in order to advance educational equity for all culturally and linguistically diverse students.

We argue that local languages, coupled with modern pedagogy and technology, are necessary, though not sufficient, ingredients for universal access to quality education. Our case study is Haiti, where French is the primary language of school instruction, though it is spoken by only a small percentage of the population, while Haitian Creole (aka ‘Kreyòl’), the language fluently spoken by all Haitians in Haiti, is mostly excluded from the formal discourse and written documents that create and transmit knowledge (and power) in schools, courts, state offices, and so forth. We first describe the historical, political, linguistic, and sociocultural backgrounds to such impediments to quality education in Haiti. Then we present and analyze data that begin to answer these two questions: (i) What does change look like in complex postcolonial contexts, especially change in educators’ attitudes toward the use of stigmatized languages (such as Kreyòl) in formal education? (ii) How can local languages such as Kreyòl serve to enhance the promotion and dissemination of modern pedagogy and technology for STEM education, and vice versa—namely, how can STEM education, in turn, serve to enhance the promotion of stigmatized languages such as Kreyòl?

A [+round] or [labial] feature is traditionally viewed as an elementary phonological unit that has different phonetic realizations depending on the height and backness of the segment that realizes it (McCarthy 1988, Clements & Hume 1995, Halle 1995, Kaun 1995, among others). In this article, I make two claims: (i) qualitatively different lip gestures are phonological in some languages, and (ii) there is more faithfulness to more extreme lip gestures.

This paper is a reply to Benjamin Bruening's article ‘The lexicalist hypothesis: Both wrong and superfluous’, which appears in this volume of Language. Bruening claims that all phenomena that have been explained with reference to the notion word should be explained with reference to the X0/XP distinction. He claims that only phrases can be extracted, which would explain the island status of words (his X0). He also claims that coordination always affects full XPs, countering an earlier argument by Steve Wechsler and me. He argues for a phrasal analysis of resultative constructions and tries to support it by the claim that all arguments of nouns are optional, and hence a lexical analysis of resultative constructions that assumes that the result predicate is selected by the verb would make wrong claims when it comes to nominalizations, since one would expect that the result predicate can be omitted like other arguments in nominalizations can be.

I argue that Bruening's X0/XP distinction cannot explain extraction differences since X0 can be extracted, that some arguments are indeed not optional in nominalizations, and that coordination may affect lexical items. I furthermore point out that morphological phenomena in languages other than English may need more machinery and different tools and that in the end it may be reasonable to assume that there is a morphology that is indeed different from syntax.

Abawiri (Indonesia: Lakes Plain) is a previously undescribed Papuan language. Two level tones (/L/ and /H/) combine into eight tone melodies on nouns (/L/, /H/, /LH/, /HL/, /LH/, /LHL/, //, and ) and five on verbs (/L/, /H/, /LH/, /LH/, and ). The default pitch of tonelessness is L. Several phonological processes involve tone. /H/ is lowered to M tone after a floating /L/. A polar (H) is linked to the final syllable of a non-/H/ word previous to an /L/-toned word. Utterance-final boundary tone L% is linked to all utterance-final syllables. /H/ spreads to the end of nouns but does not spread on verbs. A final section discusses typological characterization of the Abawiri tone system.

When a language provides multiple syntactic options for conveying the same semantic content, these options generally serve distinct discourse functions. In some cases, however, they serve the same discourse function while being in complementary distribution syntactically. This article argues that in these instances, the syntactic variants constitute Alloforms of a single, more abstract construction. Pairs of such alloforms include inversion and long passives in English and two forms of postposing in Italian. Moreover, English inversion is argued to be an alloform of both preposing and postposing. This account explains the distributional difference between alloforms of a single construction and complex structures built up of multiple distinct constructions. Finally, the report considers the ramifications of this account for linguistic theory in general and the notion of a ‘construction’ in particular.