The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical ...linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
The study focuses on the interaction between length of exposure and instruction in the L2 English acquisition process of L1 Spanish school children. Two target structures involving noun ...premodification are targeted: noun–noun (NN) compounds and adjective–noun (AN) strings. Four groups of participants have been studied for 3 years: a group that has been exposed to a specifically designed teaching program targeting NN compounds and a group that has received the regular English instruction program which does not address this structure as part of the curriculum. Two age subgroups appear in each case. The longitudinal judgment data elicited show that performance improves in the cooperation between length of exposure and the exposure to the NN instruction program. Furthermore, it is this last issue that actually takes the lead in that the NN instruction program directly impacts on not only NN compounds but also AN strings. This points to instruction being determinant in the L2 learning process; that is, a consciously and carefully directed instruction is proven to be more effective than length of exposure itself. This study on longitudinal experimental data contributes to shed light on the factors involved in instructed L2 acquisition.
Recent scholarship has confirmed earlier observations that nominalization plays a crucial role in the formation of complex constructions in the world's languages. Grammatical nominalizations are one ...of the most salient and widespread features of languages of the Americas, yet they have not been approached as foundational grammatical structures for constructions such as relative clauses and complement clauses. This is due to an imbalance in past scholarship, which has tended to focus on these constructions at the expense of the nominalization structures underlying them. The papers in this collection treat grammatical nominalizations in their own right, and as a starting point for the investigation of their uses in complex grammatical structures. A representative sample of Amerindian languages, with focus on South America, examines properties of grammatical nominalizations such as their multiple functions, their internal and external syntax, and their diachronic development. Among the far-reaching theoretical conclusions reached by the studies in this volume is that the various types of relative clauses recognized in the typological literature are actually no more than epiphenomena arising from the different uses of grammatical nominalizations.
Despite a significant increase in interest over the last two decades in the English Noun Phrase, there are still many open questions and unexplored issues. The papers collected in this volume ...contribute to this ongoing research by addressing a range of topics concerning the internal structure, use and development of English Noun Phrases.
This article investigates the nature and behavior of independent, bound and deverbal nouns at various levels of linguistic organization in Harakmbut (isolate, Peru), and assesses the explanatory ...potential of the alienability contrast for the data observed. While the distinction between bound and independent nouns is to a great extent motivated by the conceptual distinction between inalienably and alienably possessed items, the behavior of bound and independent nouns in adnominal possession is not. Whereas independent (and deverbal) nouns use a genitive-marked two-word construction, bound nouns can use the same one, when keeping their noun prefix, or they can use a genitive-marked one-word construction, in which they drop their prefix. It is thus argued that there is no alienability split in adnominal possession, that is, there is no coding split according to which bound nouns behave fully differently from independent nouns. This is supported by the finding that bound nouns (unlike independent and deverbal ones) also show the same choice between a two-word and a one-word coding strategy in non-possessive adnominal modification. In noun-noun compounding, the data merely reveal different preferences of bound and independent nouns for the N1 versus N2 position; here deverbal nouns behave identically to bound nouns in dropping their prefix in N2. In noun incorporation, finally, the relevance of the alienability contrast is similar to that for the two-way noun class system. Inalienable semantics (and morphological boundness) could be argued to determine the incorporability of nouns, but there are also exceptions.
A systematic evaluation of syntactic behavior of nouns that take as their possessor the topic of the possessive topic constructions in Mandarin Chinese calls for an understanding of the syntactic and ...semantic nature of relational nouns (RNs) and non-RNs. This evaluation leads to four empirical generalizations that divide NP possessees into four subtypes, some important differences between which are understudied in the literature. These generalizations are then explained with differences in the lexical syntactic and semantic properties of the four NP subtypes, namely, non-RNs, kinship type nouns, body-part type nouns, and whole-part nouns: whether the nouns bear a local or long-distance syntactic reflexive argument, or a pronominal argument, or no argument at all, is the determining factor of their distinctive syntactic behavior in the possessive topic construction. This study sheds light on long-standing problems concerning the nature of empty categories in connection with the topic in possessive topic constructions. Critical aspects of the nouns’ syntactic behavior are arguably orthogonal to a movement or base-generation approach to topicalization in Mandarin Chinese. Instead, this article proposes that the semantic or syntactic arguments of the nominal possessees relate to the topic via some general mechanisms other than movement or base-generation: reflexive and pronominal reference resolution. This study thus offers us a novel viewpoint on the syntax and semantics of nouns as well as their typology in the context of possession and inalienability.
The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as ...neuroscience and cognitive science. The series considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.
The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical ...linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.
It has been proposed that the part structures of denotations of plurals ‘project’ to the denotations of expressions including those plurals (e.g., Gawron & Kehler 2004, Kubota & Levine 2016, Schmitt ...2019/2020). If such a plural projection is possible, not only plural DPs but also expressions including those plural DPs denote pluralities (e.g., saw the two recipes denotes a plurality {SAW(recipe1),SAW(recipe2)} instead of a singularity {SAW({recipe1,recipe2})}). One piece of support for plural projection comes from Schmitt’s (2020) observation about ‘non-local’ cumulativity. In this paper, I further examine when cumulativity is available non-locally, and show that a source of cumulativity in the literature (e.g., Krifka 1989, Kratzer 2007, Harada 2022b) can capture all the relevant non-local cumulativity data without plural projection while an analysis with plural projection can capture only a proper subset of those data. Therefore, this paper concludes that the relevant non-local cumulativity does not support the need of plural projection.
PDF