Pons-Moll, Torres-Tamarit & I.Mascaró (2023). Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP

Autors:

Clàudia Pons-Moll, Francesc Torres-Tamarit i Ignasi Mascaró

Títol:

Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP

Editorial: Linguistics, De Gruyter Mouton
Data de publicació: Abril del 2023

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This article focuses on a case of prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization found in the Minorcan Catalan DP that has not been documented or accounted for in the previous literature. In this variety of Catalan, kinship restrictive appositive phrases show the realization of the masculine personal article if the following personal name starts with a consonant (es conco en Toni, the-def.art.m uncle the-pers.art.m Toni ‘uncle Toni’), but not if it starts with a vowel (es conco Àngel, the-def.art.m uncle Àngel ‘uncle Àngel’). This asymmetrical pattern is entirely unexpected since a preconsonantal coda is generated in the former cases (cf. es conco en Toni [əs.kòŋ.kun.tɔ́.ni]) and an onsetless syllable and a hiatus are generated in the latter (cf. es conco Àngel [əs.kòŋ.ku.án.ʒəl]). The structures obtained are indeed non-optimizing from a strictly syllabic point of view and stand as a clear case of antimarkedness. We argue that this asymmetric behavior is prosodic in nature, and is mainly driven by the need to keep the left edge of the prosodic word free of clitic material, without challenging basic syllabification constraints active in Catalan. We further justify how the cases under scrutiny shed new light on the typology of alignment constraints referred to the alignment between prosodic and lexical categories, on the nature of morpheme realization constraints, and on the morphosyntax-phonology interface.

Hamann & Torres-Tamarit (2023). Merger in Eivissan Catalan: an acoustic analysis of the vowel systems of young native speakers

Autors:

Silke Hamann & Francesc Torres-Tamarit

Títol:

Merger in Eivissan Catalan: an acoustic analysis of the vowel systems of young native speakers

Editorial: Phonetica (De Gruyter)
Data de publicació: 16 juny 2023

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The vowel system of Catalan has been the focus of many studies, though work on the varieties spoken on the island of Eivissa (Ibiza) are scarce, with a single mention of the possible merger of the mid back vowels /o, ɔ/ (Torres Torres, Marià. 1983. Aspectes del vocalisme tònic eivissenc. Eivissa 14. 22–23). The present article provides the first acoustic analysis of the vowel inventory of 25 young native speakers of Eivissan Catalan, with a focus on the realisations of stressed /ə, ɛ/, and the back mid vowels /o, ɔ/. We employed Pillai scores (Hay, Jennifer, Paul Warren & Katie Drager. 2006. Factors influencing speech perception in the context of a merger-in-progress. Journal of Phonetics 34. 458–484) to compare the possibly merged pairs /ə, ɛ/ and /o, ɔ/ to the fully-contrasting neighbouring pairs /e, ɛ/ and /o, u/. Our results show that all participants had considerable overlap of stressed /ə/ and /ɛ/, and all but one had considerable overlap of the back mid vowels, while the fully contrastive pairs (/e, ɛ/ and /o, u/) showed almost no overlap.

Tubau, Etxeberria & Espinal (2023). A new approach to Negative Concord: Catalan as a case in point

Autors:

Susagna Tubau, Urtzi Etxeberria i M.Teresa Espinal

Títol:

A new approach to Negative Concord: Catalan as a case in point

Editorial: Journal of Linguistics (Cambridge University Press)
Data de publicació: Juliol del 2023
Pàgines: 33

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In this paper, we revisit the phenomenon of Negative Concord focusing on the Strict vs. Non-Strict divide. With Catalan as a case in point, we show that Negative Concord Items (NCIs) are not negative quantifiers (NQs) or polarity items (PIs) but inherently negative indefinites by virtue of carrying a negative feature [neg] that contributes a negative semantics to the proposition and is subject to a syntax–phonology constraint that forces it to overtly c-command Tense in compliance with Jespersen’s NegFirst principle. We argue that to satisfy such constraint, [neg] can disembody from the NCI via overt Move F(eature) to adjoin at a pre-Infl(ection) position and be Spelled-Out homophonous to the negative marker. The Strict vs. Non-Strict contrast follows from whether [neg] always moves independently from the rest of the NCI via Move F (Strict Negative Concord) or predates, whenever possible, on another movement of the NCI that places [neg] in the required pre-Infl position (Non-Strict Negative Concord) thus not having to disembody.

Espinal, Puig-Mayenco, Etxeberria & Tubau (2023). On the status of NCIs: An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages

Autors:

M.Teresa Espinal, Eloi Puig-Mayenco, Urtzi Etxeberria i Susagna Tubau

Títol:

On the status of NCIs: An experimental investigation on so-called Strict NC languages

Editorial: Journal of Linguistics (Cambridge University Press)
Data de publicació: Juliol del 2023
Pàgines: 41

Més informació

This paper investigates the status of Negative Concord Items (NCIs) in three so-called Strict Negative Concord (NC) languages (namely, Greek, Romanian, and Russian). An experimental study was designed to gather evidence concerning the speakers’ acceptability and interpretation of sequences with argumental NCIs in subject, object, and both positions when dhen/nu/ne were not present. Our results show that NCIs are negative indefinites whose presence in a clausal domain is enough to assign a single negation reading to the whole sequence, thus arguing in support of the hypothesis that in NC structures the minimal semantic requirement to convey single negation is that one or more NCIs encoding a negative feature appear within a sentential domain. We argue that in these structures dhen/nu/ne are the instantiations of a negative feature [neg] disembodied from an indefinite negative NCI in order to obey a syntax–phonology interface constraint.

Margaza & Gavarró (2023). Subject position and verb class in L2 Greek and L2 Spanish

Autors:

Panagiota Margaza & Anna Gavarró

Títol:

Subject position and verb class in L2 Greek and L2 Spanish

Editorial: Second Language Research (Sage Journals)
Data de publicació: 24 de maig del 2023

Més informació

Greek and Spanish are two languages that display a similar subject distribution with unergative/unaccusative verbs, but different word orders with focused subjects (SV in Greek and VS in Spanish). Here we consider subject–verb word order in second language (L2) Greek and L2 Spanish in order to test the Interface Hypothesis (IH). To this end, we report a word-order selection task, with a Greek and a Spanish version. The two versions of the task were administered to L2 intermediate and advanced learners and native speakers of Greek and Spanish. The results show that the first language (L1) Spanish learners of Greek approximated more closely native word orders than the L1 Greek learners of Spanish. For the Spanish learners of Greek, the advanced group performed at ceiling, while the intermediate group performed native-like only with unergatives in neutral and direct interrogative subject-focused contexts. On the other hand, for the Greek learners of Spanish, the intermediate group failed in all contexts, while the advanced group performed native-like with unaccusatives in neutral contexts. This asymmetry between L2 Greek and L2 Spanish reveals that the L1–L2 combination determines the learners’ performance, and this is unexpected under the IH.