It is a familiar observation that phonological processes frequently fail to apply to geminates. A number of previous proposals attempted to account for these geminate inalterability effects in terms of a distinction between singly and multiply linked autosegments. Subsequent research, however, has observed that geminate inalterability is inviolable only in the domain of lenition processes. In this article, an account of this generalization is couched within a general optimality theoretic treatment of lenition, in which a scalar effort minimization constraint interacts with a set of lenition-blocking constraints. The geminate inalterability generalization follows from this effort-based approach to lenition, coupled with certain assumptions concerning the effort involved in geminates and their lenited counterparts.

A second-occurrence (SO) focus is the semantic focus of a focus-sensitive operator (e.g. only), but is a repeat of an earlier focused occurrence. We report on the first systematic production and perception experiments to show that SO foci occurring after a nuclear accent are, as Rooth (1996b) has claimed, prosodically marked. We find that (i) there is no mean pitch rise on SO foci, (ii) SO foci are marked by longer duration and greater energy, and (iii) listeners are able to detect the difference between SO foci and nonfoci. On the basis of these results, we argue that SO focus is compatible with theories of focus interpretation that it has been claimed to contradict.

The reduction of anthropogenic methane emissions is a priority due to its potent global warming potential. Radiocarbon (14C) can distinguish between methane from natural biogenic and fossil fuel sources, however, the analysis of methane 14C by conventional accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) techniques is demanding. At SUERC, a prototype positive ion mass spectrometer (PIMS) is set up to directly analyze 14C in methane with minimal sample preparation. Methane gas was mixed with a stoichiometric amount of oxygen in an open split and admitted directly into the source. A series of modern, blank and unknown methane samples were clearly distinguishable by their 14C/13C raw ratios. The collision cell gas flowrate was then increased to lower the limit of detection. We obtained a corrected 14C/13C raw ratio of less than 2 × 10–13 for blank fossil methane which corresponds to a radiocarbon age greater than 50 kyr. Modern biogenic methane had a measured 14C/13C raw ratio approaching 1 × 10–10 which is consistent with the nominal value of contemporary atmospheric methane. These first results indicate that PIMS has the potential to be a valuable new analytical technique for screening the 14C content of biogas and in climate research studies.

This article focuses on the grammatical properties of a Madurese structure in which an argument of a complement clause appears to occur in a nonthematic position in its dominating clause. RAISING-TO-OBJECT (or its analogue in nonderivational theories) has been proposed over the past thirty years or so for the corresponding construction in the closely related Austronesian languages of Balinese, Indonesian/Malay, and Javanese. Close examination of the Madurese data reveals that a proleptic NP analysis, in which the matrix NP is generated in the matrix clause, proves superior to the raising analysis and shares virtually all of the same properties as the parallel English construction (I believe about Marlena that she left for Jakarta on Wednesday). Enumeration of these properties and comparison with both RAISING and COPY RAISING provide the initial step in identifying the hallmarks of each construction and how they might differ typologically.