This article focusses on data from two first language learners of Québec French, Clara and Théo. In both corpora, all word-final consonants are acquired before word-medial codas, except Clara’s [ʁ], which is acquired at the same time as medial codas. The behaviour of Clara’s [ʁ] is explained through the hypothesis that it is analysed by the child as placeless and that, in the unmarked case, place-specified consonants are syllabified word-finally as onsets, while placeless consonants are syllabified as codas. Supporting cross-linguistic evidence is provided from adult languages and from the acquisition of Japanese. Finally, data on the acquisition of Spanish are discussed. Based on distributional evidence, it is suggested that these learners of Spanish posit a coda syllabification for the word-final, place-specified coronal consonants of their language. These data support the view that default options are overridden when positive evidence steers the learner toward more marked options.

1. Contrastive linguistics. This term has had some vogue in recent years as a name for the comparative description of language structures with a view to improving the quality of language teaching. A concise definition is offered by one worker in the field: “Contrastive linguistics offers hypotheses concerning identifications a learner will make between elements of his base and target systems, thus providing predictions and explanations concerning his learning behaviour of presumed high value in planning learning and teaching strategy” (Nemser 1970, forthcoming: 2-3).

In 1959 the Center for Applied Linguistics launched a Contrastive Structure Series under the editorship of Charles A. Ferguson. Six volumes have appeared so far, in which German, Spanish, and Italian phonological and grammatical structures have been compared with English for the benefit of teachers, textbook writers, and ultimately students of these languages. The Center has gone on to organize, under William Nemser’s direction, a number of Contrastive Projects in Yugoslavia, Romania, and other countries, in co-operation with local scholars in linguistics and language teaching.

This article is an essay by a modern linguist in one aspect of the history of grammar. Grammar was a compulsory subject in the curriculum of the mediaeval university, and the golden age of scholasticism produced a number of interesting theories of grammar; this article is concerned with the theory of one group in particular, i.e. the Modistae, speculative grammarians who were active in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Modistae wrote their treatises in Latin and drew upon Latin to illustrate their theories. In addition they made of Latin an idealized language, a kind of “second-order-” or metalanguage, and it was from the standpoint of this idealized language that all grammatical speculation and pedagogy were to be carried out. This is an attitude which has persisted up to the present day and one which has considerably influenced the teaching of grammar and foreign languages since the Middle Ages.

A socially stratified sample—the Toronto English Corpus—together with the construct of apparent time (with speakers aged 10–90 years) reveal that certain features are declining, including future will, deontic have got to, possessive have got, intensifier very, and the sentence tag you know. On the other hand, some features are on the rise, including future going to, deontic have to, possessive have, intensifiers really and so, and sentences tags such as whatever, so, and stuff like that. The younger generation is pushing these changes forward more rapidly. While some developments date back hundreds of years in the history of English, they are not particular to Canada, and are consistent with research on other English corpora. Other changes appear to be progressing in a unique way in Canada, including deontic and possessive have. I argue that the broader socio-historical context is a critical factor: geographic and economic mobility as well as changes in communication technology may explain the rapid acceleration of certain types of linguistic change.

“Simple generics” with bare plural subjects (e.g., dogs bark) predicate of a kind a property that the kind “inherits” from its individual members. But what does that inheritance amount to if it is not, like most dogs bark, based on how many individuals have the property. My conclusion: there is no determinate account of which (fundamentally individual-level) properties can be truly predicated of a kind: generics are not quantificational, and language users’ interests guide judgments on their truth-conditions. At the same time, even “canonical” predications of ordinary predicates of ordinary individuals are not so straightforward as they might appear. Generic claims about social groups show the indeterminacy of truth conditions for simple generics and the relation to stereotypes and sometimes conflicting interests.

It is increasingly accepted in generative phonology that phonological alternations can be caused, directly or indirectly, by phonological constraints. The Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies (TCRS) proposed by Paradis (1988a, 1988b, 1990, 1992, 1993) claims that when a constraint is violated, a repair strategy must apply which, in repairing the violation, produces a phonological alternation.

The present article argues that temporality can be computed indirectly via evidentiality, and that this is the case for Paraguayan Guaraní, a tenseless language. To model the evidential–temporal connection, we employ features from the domains of person (author, participant) and general deixis (proximate, distal). We discuss in detail the case of two evidential morphemes: indirect evidential ra'e and reportative raka'e. We argue that these particles do not have temporal semantics; rather their temporal contribution is due to the interaction of person features that determine the type of evidentiality and deictic features incorporated into the person system.

This paper develops a generalization about agreement in German copula constructions described in Coon et al. (2017), and proposes an analysis that ties it to other well-established hierarchy phenomena. Specifically, we show that “assumed-identity” copula constructions in German exibit both person and number hierarchy effects, and that these extend beyond the “non-canonical” or “inverse” agreement patterns described in previous work on copula constructions (e.g., Béjar and Kahnemuyipour 2017 and works cited there). We present experimental evidence to support this generalization, and then develop an account that unifies it with hierarchy phenomena in other languages, with a focus on PCC effects. Specifically, we propose that what German copula constructions have in common with PCC environments is that there are multiple accessible DPs in the domain of a single agreement probe, the lower of which is more featurally specified than the higher (see, e.g., Béjar and Rezac 2003, 2009; Anagnostopoulou 2005; Nevins 2007). We also offer an explanation as to why number effects are present in German copula constructions but notably absent in PCC effects. We then place our account within the broader context of constraints on predication structures.

Given its status as the social, economic, and cultural center of Quebec, the metropolitan area of Montreal plays a rather important role with respect to the sociolinguistic dynamics of the province as a whole. For instance, certain changes that have affected Quebec French over time are believed to have appeared in Montreal before having spread to other regions of the province. Such a scenario entails that Quebeckers perceive certain linguistic features as being part of Montreal French — sometimes without even being aware of it — and that these dialect markers take on social values that are prone to their further diffusion. This article aims to look further into this hypothesis by presenting the results of an exploratory dialect identification task. The perceptual test is part of a research program whose scope is to study the distribution of nasal vowels in Montreal French in general and that of the nasal vowel /ã/ in particular.

Montrealers are often categorized into three distinct groups: Anglophones, Francophones, and Allophones. However, within these groups there are individuals whose trajectories are complex, as reflected, for example, in their linguistic practices. Our interest lies in the relationship between these complex practices and the ethnolin-guistic attributions of the speakers. We concentrate on two groups of Francophones: those from Spanish-speaking families who have been in Quebec for one or two generations and those from Francophone families who have frequent English-speaking contacts. After summarizing the results of a perception test, in which Francophones from Quebec were asked to identify the ethnolinguistic affiliation of speakers of various origins based on short clips of their French, we analyze the usage of sociopho-netic variables reflecting the influence of French, Spanish, or English. The analysis indicates that phonetic variation stems from speakers’ sociosymbolic orientation, as well as certain other sociodemographic factors linked to identity construction as it relates to ethnicity.

This article proposes a solution to two unresolved issues regarding the V2 structure in the history of French: to which type of V2 languages — symmetrical or asymmetrical—does Old French belong, and why did V2 later disappear? It appears that Old French is not homogeneous with respect to V2: it is symmetric up to the 12th century and then goes through a period of grammatical competition between the two types of V2 structure. This indicates a syntactic change in progress, from a symmetrical to an asymmetrical structure. But French never completed this transition and lost V2 after the period of competition, contrary to Continental Scandinavian which underwent the same change. This contrast follows from the fact that Old French failed to meet the learnability conditions of the asymmetrical V2 structure. This analysis thus raises the issue of the relation between syntactic change and learnability.

This article examines the origins of Canadian French, focusing on it morphosyntax. This approach compares written sources, both literary and non-literary, for the 19th century, to oral sources, for the middle and end of the 20th century. While it is still possible to use oral sources from the 20th century as a baseline for written sources from the end of the 19th century, this approach is more problematic for earlier centuries. The negative adverbs pas et point are examined on the basis of a corpus of old Canadian French, and it is shown that the progression of pas with respect to point was more rapid in the context of verbal negation than in the context of argument negation in France, in New France, and in Canada. During the 18th century, even though the progression of pas, as compared to point, is parallel in France and in New France, it is nevertheless the case that certain regions of France that served as sources of immigration to Canada as well as certain social groups in New France use point more frequently. The 19th century sees a progression and a uniformization of the variant pas across all social classes in Quebec. In Ontario, the variant point was conserved until a later date in its southern border region.

This paper presents original data from Taqjmit, a secret language in Tashelhiyt Berber which is used by women in Southern Morocco. The main principle underlying word formation in this secret language can be stated as follows: to disguise a word, say it twice in one word. It is proposed that only root consonants are kept in the disguised forms, that the repetition is strict insofar as any element in the disguised form is uttered only twice, and that the way the repetition is performed (gemination and reduplication) results from the use of a fixed-shape template, containing a derivational site of the form CV. As for vowel melody, which is invariant, it follows a uniform apophonic path, found in many languages (including Tashelhiyt Berber), and used here without any grammatical motivation.

Ce texte traite de la construction des représentations linguistiques en Acadie en partant de l’analyse des articles de presse publiés dans deux journaux importants, soit L’Évangéline (1887–1982) et le Moniteur Acadien (1867–1926). L’accent est placé sur trois périodes clés de l’histoire acadienne, la première s’étalant de 1880 à 1910, la deuxième de 1950 à 1967, et la troisième de 1970 à 1973, périodes choisies en fonction de leur importance à illustrer les moments forts de la construction de l’espace social acadien. L’article décrit d’abord les principales idéologies linguistiques trouvées dans les éditoriaux et les lettres d’opinions du lecteur, puis s’attarde à la période contemporaine et montre comment les discours sur les pratiques linguistiques se sont diversifiés. Les différentes stratégies mises de l’avant par les artistes sont présentées. Ceux-ci participent à la construction de nouvelles façons d’appréhender les pratiques linguistiques qu’ils voient plurielles et polyvalentes.

In this article, an argument is made for representing theta-positions structurally through a UTAH-like mapping onto articulated VP structures. Further, an argument is made for giving these positions a distinct status. It is argued, using data from binding in Balinese and Malagasy, that binding may be sensitive to theta-positions (T-positions), which are a subset of A-positions. Specs of lexical categories must be T-positions, Specs of functional categories cannot be T-positions. It is argued further that, once it can be shown that binding may be sensitive to T-positions, one is forced to revise what can count as a T-position in order to account for raising constructions. Categories which bind event variables (such as Aspect) are seen to be non-distinct from lexical categories and from functional categories. As such, their Specs may count as T-positions, explaining why an NP in a derived position may act as an antecedent.

Optimality Theory predicts that harmonic scales can be encoded in grammar in one of two ways: either as markedeness hierarchies or else as faithfulness hierarchies. Although most current researchers assume that harmony is encoded as markedness, many investigators have argued that some harmonic relations are better captured as faithfulness hierarchies that prevent the deletion or insertion of less harmonic elements. We demonstrate that at least two perceptually-motivated harmonic scales — notably relative vowel height as well as consonant glottalisation — need to be encoded in the grammar as faithfulness hierarchies which require that more harmonic elements, which are also more perceptible, are more faithfully adhered to. Our harmony-as-faithfulness analysis captures the fact that the same elements which undergo deletion also undergo insertion.

The hypothesis that Old French was not a verb-second (V2) language, but rather a Topic-initial language, is evaluated in a corpus of verb initial (V1) and V2 matrix clauses extracted from a corpus of 12th- and 13th-century texts. It is shown that the initial constituent of V2 clauses is not always a Topic; it may be part of the informational Focus, or it could be an element that is neither Topic nor Focus. In addition, in V1 and V2 sentences with subject inversion, the postverbal subject may be an informational Topic, contrary to the hypothesis that subjects must move to the preverbal position to avoid being interpreted as part of the informational Focus. Therefore, from an Information-Structure point of view, Old French is similar to a standard V2 language like German. However, certain differences between 12th- and 13th-century texts could suggest that the use of the left periphery evolved during the period considered.

A complete text-to-speech system has been created by the authors, based on a tube resonance model of the vocal tract and a development of Carré’s “Distinctive Region Model”, which is in turn based on the formant-sensitivity findings of Fant and Pauli (1974), to control the tube. In order to achieve this goal, significant long-term linguistic research has been involved, including rhythm and intonation studies, as well as the development of low-level articulatory data and rules to drive the model, together with the necessary tools, parsers, dictionaries and so on. The tools and the current system are available under a General Public License, and are described here, with further references in the paper, including samples of the speech produced, and figures illustrating the system description.

This article examines English vowel perception by advanced Polish learners of English in a formal classroom setting (i.e., they learnt English as a foreign language in school while living in Poland). The stimuli included 11 English noncewords in bilabial (/bVb/), alveolar (/dVd/) and velar (/gVg/) contexts. The participants, 35 first-year English majors, were examined during the performance of three tasks with English vowels: a categorial discrimination oddity task, an L1 assimilation task (categorization and goodness rating) and a task involving rating the (dis-)similarities between pairs of English vowels. The results showed a variety of assimilation types according to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) and the expected performance in a discrimination task. The more difficult it was to discriminate between two given vowels, the more similar these vowels were judged to be. Vowel contrasts involving height distinctions were easier to discriminate than vowel contrasts with tongue advancement distinctions. The results also revealed that the place of articulation of neighboring consonants had little effect on the perceptibility of the tested English vowels, unlike in the case of lower-proficiency learners. Unlike previous results for naïve listeners, the present results for advanced learners showed no adherence to the principles of the Natural Referent Vowel framework. Generally, the perception of English vowels by these Polish advanced learners of English conformed with PAM's predictions, but differed from vowel perception by naïve listeners and lower-proficiency learners.

The most common mutation system of Welsh, soft mutation, affects among other elements the object of a finite verb. This is often known as direct object mutation (DOM). Objects have accusative Case in many languages. Hence, it is natural to consider the possibility that DOM is a manifestation of accusative Case, and this has been proposed by a number of people. There is evidence, however, that this idea is both too strong and too weak. It predicts soft mutation where it does not in fact occur, and there are a number of instances of soft mutation which appear to form a natural class with DOM but cannot plausibly be analyzed as a manifestation of accusative Case. A widely discussed alternative to a Case-based view of DOM is one in which DOM is triggered by a preceding phrase of some kind. This approach looks quite promising. However, it does not fit readily into the Principles and Parameters framework. It seems, then, that DOM poses a major challenge for this framework.