4 setembre, 2023
Autors:
Susagna Tubau, Urtzi Etxeberria i M.Teresa Espinal
Títol:
A new approach to Negative Concord: Catalan as a case in pointEditorial: Journal of Linguistics (Cambridge University Press)
Data de publicació: Juliol del 2023
Pàgines: 33 Més informacióIn 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.
19 juny, 2023
Autors:
Silke Hamann & Francesc Torres-Tamarit
Títol:
Merger in Eivissan Catalan: an acoustic analysis of the vowel systems of young native speakersEditorial: Phonetica (De Gruyter)
Data de publicació: 16 juny 2023
Més informacióThe 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.
28 abril, 2025
Autors:
Espinal & Cyrino
Títol:
Experiencers at the syntax-pragmatics interface. The case of the jo ‘I’ – construction in CatalanEditorial: Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
Data de publicació: 18-04-2025
Pàgines: 33 Més informació
Text completThis paper aims to support the thesis that Speech Act related operators have landing sites in syntax, specifically at the syntax-pragmatics interface. In order to attain this goal, it presents the first formal analysis of a construction, dubbed the jo ‘I’ – construction, that shows an overt first person strong pronoun sitting in sentence-initial position of declarative sentences both in pro-drop and partial pro-drop languages of the Romance family. Taking Catalan as a case in point, it is shown that, prosodically, this first person strong pronoun has a particular intonation (a rising pitch accent followed by a high boundary tone). Syntactically, it corresponds not to a subject but to a (kind of) hanging topic that requires a resumptive element in the clause, while semantically it introduces a reference to the speaker who at the time of uttering the sentence is performing a subjective declaration speech act.
14 setembre, 2026
Autors:
Natalia Moskvina, Raquel Montero, Masaya Yoshida, Ferdy Hubers, Paolo Morosi, Walid Irhaymi, Jin Yan, Tamara Serrano, Elena Pagliarini, Fritz Günther & Evelina Leivada
Títol:
Multilingual large language models do not comprehend all natural languages to equal degrees.Editorial: Scientific Reports
Data de publicació: 5-9-2026
Més informació
Text complet
13 juliol, 2026
Autors:
Pagliarini, Elena, Anna Lorenzoni & Eduardo Navarrete.
Títol:
The sociolinguistics of Venetan: Examining dialect vitality, identity, and language use in a bilingual communityEditorial: Topics in Linguistics
Data de publicació: 2026
Més informació
Text complet
Keywords:
Venetan, Italian, bilingualism, dialect, identity, language vitality, language documentation, minority languages
Abstract
Research on understudied dialects holds significant importance in unraveling the complexities of bilingual and multilingual environments that often remain overlooked in sociolinguistic inquiry. Dialects can serve as windows into linguistic diversity, shedding light on unique language interactions and sociocultural dynamics. This study focuses on Venetan, a dialect spoken in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. Employing established bilingualism research methodologies, we examine Venetan use in relation to Italian, analyzing demographic, socio-political, and sociolinguistic factors that influence patterns of dialect use. Our findings reveal that while older individuals still utilize Venetan, the younger population favor Italian, leading to a decline in the dialect's prevalence, despite a strong sense of local pride and community membership. Parents predominantly communicate with their children in Italian, thereby limiting their exposure to the dialect. Additionally, gender disparities emerged, with women exhibiting a greater shift toward Italian than men. These findings contribute to understanding the evolving status of Venetan and underscore the broader sociolinguistic processes shaping language maintenance and shift. We conclude by discussing the implications of these patterns for cognitive science, noting that recent research on Venetan offers valuable insights into the interplay between cognitive mechanisms and language use.
