This paper investigates the contribution of lexical spreads (or type counts) of English comparative more and -er constructions to an understanding of comparative alternation in the $y$-adjectives, that is adjectives ending in an orthographic ${<}\text{y}>$ and an /i/ sound, e.g. lazy. Comparative $y$-adjective constructions from seven corpora of stage plays spanning from the 17th to the 20th century were analysed with mixed-effects modelling and correlations drawn between the comparatives of $y$-adjectives and those of other adjectives. The findings indicate that while morphological complexity in $y$-adjectives biases them towards more, more occurrences with $y$-adjectives may also be related to the lexical spread of more in disyllabic adjectives that are not $y$-ones. The findings suggest moreover that predictions of comparative forms based on the syntactic positioning of $y$-adjectives and the [±voiced] nature of their penultimate segments may make sense only with respect to the lexical spread of more in other English adjectives. To understand why $y$-adjectives seem divided between -er regularisation and adherence to the trend in English comparisons of a more bias, this paper proposes a need to supplement accounts of comparative alternation focused on the characteristics of $y$-adjectives with considerations related to the lexical spread of comparative constructions.

This article analyzes the process that I call Liquid Lowering which turns high vowels $i$ and ɨ  into $e$ before liquids, schematically iɨ → e/ – rl. The process began to operate in Polish in the 16th century. I look at the modern reflexes of Liquid Lowering in Standard Polish and in Kurpian, a dialect of Polish that dates back to the 17th century, and argue that the rule is dead in Standard Polish but not in Kurpian, where it is productive in derived environments. The modeling of Liquid Lowering as a phonological process has implications for phonological theory. In particular, it calls for the recognition of derivational levels, as envisaged by Derivational Optimality Theory. It is argued that Standard Optimality Theory, with its principle of strict parallelism, cannot account for the data because it runs into insoluble ranking paradoxes. Furthermore, the analysis bears on the issue of abstractness by positing vowels that never occur phonetically. The abstract vowels are exchanged for the actually occurring vowels before reaching the surface representation. I term this type of shift change virement.

This paper provides evidence for a kind of nominal licensing (Vergnaud licensing) in a number of morphologically caseless languages. Recent work on Bantu languages has suggested that abstract Case or nominal licensing should be parameterised (Diercks 2012, Van der Wal 2015a). With this is mind, we critically discuss the status of Vergnaud licensing in six languages lacking morphological case. While Luganda appears to systematically lack a Vergnaud licensing requirement, Makhuwa more consistently displays evidence in favour of it, as do all of the analytic languages that we survey (Mandarin, Yoruba, Jamaican Creole and Thai). We conclude that, while it seems increasingly problematic to characterise nominal licensing in terms of uninterpretable/abstract Case features, we nonetheless need to retain a (possibly universal) notion of nominal licensing, the explanation for which remains opaque.

Phonology is a rapidly changing and increasingly varied field, having traveled quite some distance from its original structuralist and generative underpinnings. In this overview I address the status of underlying representations (URs) in phonology, which have been rejected by a number of researchers working in different frameworks. After briefly discussing the current state of phonology, I survey the arguments in favor of vs. against URs, considering recent surface-oriented critiques and alternatives. I contrast three straightforward abstract tonal analyses against the potential arguments which accuse URs of being (i) wrong, (ii) redundant, (iii) indeterminate, (iv) insufficient, or (v) uninteresting. Identifying two distinct goals in linguistics which I refer to as determining ‘what’s in the head?’ vs. ‘what’s in the language?’, I suggest, responding to some rather strong opinions to the contrary, that URs are an indispensable and welcome tool offering important insights into the typology of phonological systems, if not beyond.

In a number of languages, agreement in specificational copular sentences can or must be with the second of the two nominals, even when it is the first that occupies the canonical subject position. Béjar & Kahnemuyipour (2017) show that Persian and Eastern Armenian are two such languages. They then argue that ‘NP2 agreement’ occurs because the nominal in subject position (NP1) is not accessible to an external probe. It follows that actual agreement with NP1 should never be possible: the alternative to NP2 agreement should be ‘default’ agreement. We show that this prediction is false. In addition to showing that English has NP1, not default, agreement, we present new data from Icelandic, a language with rich agreement morphology, including cases that involve ‘plurale tantum’ nominals as NP1. These allow us to control for any confound from the fact that typically in a specificational sentence with two nominals differing in number, it is NP2 that is plural. We show that even in this case, the alternative to agreement with NP2 is agreement with NP1, not a default. Hence, we conclude that whatever the correct analysis of specificational sentences turns out to be, it must not predict obligatory failure of NP1 agreement.