This article reports on the results of a broad crosslinguistic study on the semantics of quantity words such as many in the superlative (e.g. most). While some languages use such a form to express both a relative reading (as in Gloria has visited the most continents) and a proportional reading (as in Gloria has visited most continents), the vast majority do not allow the latter, though all allow the former. It is argued that a degree-quantifier analysis of quantity words is best suited to explain why proportional readings typically do not arise for quantity superlatives. Based on morphosyntactic evidence, two alternative diachronic pathways through which proportional quantifiers may develop from quantity superlatives are identified.

This article presents the first experimental evidence on nominal tense. Data are from Pomak, a Slavic variety that makes use of a deictic suffix for referents in the interlocutor's sphere and for past-modal reference. Forty L1-Pomak participants completed an acceptability judgment task (in Pomak) and two reaction-time experiments using auditory stimuli (in L1 Pomak and in L2 Greek). In the Pomak reaction-time experiment, in particular, participants listened to NPs with temporal reference marked either purely grammatically, with a deictic suffix, or grammatically and semantically/pragmatically. As predicted, responses were accurate and fast in grammatical-only items even though success rates improved for nominals that had additional semantic and pragmatic temporal reference. To conclude, our study confirms that Pomak deictic suffixes provide temporal information at the level of the NP and introduces a method that could be used to test the existence of nominal tense in other languages.

Adjectives have the logical options of being used predicatively or attributively as well as being conjoined syndetically or asyndetically. Moreover, attributive adjectives may occur prenominally and/or postnominally. On the basis of a sample of fifty-three languages, an analysis is performed of the interaction of syntactic function/position and type of linkage. While predicative adjectives generally prefer syndetic linkage, attributive adjectives are more open to juxtaposition. Further, postnominal attributive adjectives are more likely to be syndetically linked than prenominal ones are. The following adjective use types can be arranged from left to right on a scale of increasing sentence-likeness, which is termed ‘syntacticity’: prenominal attributive > postnominal attributive > predicative. An implicational universal is formulated to the effect that if two left-hand adjectives are syndetically linked, two adjectives to their right on the scale will be also. An attraction model is proposed which is based on the notion that like attracts like. The relevant dimension of similarity is syntacticity. The more similar the syntacticity values, the higher the probability of attraction. Because syndetic linkage is more syntactic than the asyndetic type, predicative adjectives are most likely, postnominal attributive adjectives less likely, and prenominal attributive adjectives least likely to be syndetically linked.

A field-based ultrasound and acoustic study of Iwaidja, an endangered Australian Aboriginal language, investigates the phonetic identity of nonnasal velar consonants in intervocalic position, where past work has proposed a [+continuant] vs. [-continuant] phonemic contrast. We analyze the putative contrast within a continuous phonetic space, defined by both acoustic and articulatory parameters, and find gradient variation: from more consonantal realizations, such as [ɰ], to more vocalic realizations, such as [a]. The distribution of realizations across lexical items and speakers does not support the proposed phonemic contrast. This case illustrates how lenition that is both phonetically gradient and variable across speakers and words can give the illusion of a contextually restricted phonemic contrast.

This article proposes that the possible word orders for any natural language construction composed of n elements, each of which selects for the category headed by the next, are universally limited both across and within languages to a subclass of permutations on the ‘universal order of command’ 1, …, n, as determined by their selectional restrictions. The permitted subclass is known as the ‘separable’ permutations, and grows in n as the large Schröder series {1, 2, 6, 22, 90, 394, 1806, … }. This universal is identified as formal because it follows directly from the assumptions of COMBINATORY CATEGORIAL GRAMMAR (CCG)—in particular, from the fact that all CCG syntactic rules are subject to a combinatory projection principle that limits them to binary rules applying to contiguous nonempty categories.

The article presents quantitative empirical evidence in support of this claim from the linguistically attested orders of the four elements Dem(onstrative), Num(erator), A(djective), N(oun), which have been examined in connection with various versions of Greenberg's putative 20th universal concerning their order. A universal restriction to separable permutation is also supported by word-order variation in the Germanic verb cluster and in the Hungarian verb complex, among other constructions.

This article investigates how children learn an infinitely expanding ‘universal’ system of classificatory kinship terms. We report on a series of experiments designed to elicit acquisitional data on (i) nominal kinterms and (ii) sibling-inflected polysynthetic morphology in the Australian language Murrinhpatha. Photographs of the participants' own relatives are used as stimuli to assess knowledge of kinterms, kin-based grammatical contrasts, and kinship principles, across different age groups. The results show that genealogically distant kin are more difficult to classify than close kin, that children's comprehension and production of kinterms are streamlined by abstract merging principles, and that sibling-inflection is learned in tandem with number and person marking in the verbal morphology, although it is not fully mastered until mid to late childhood. We discuss how the unlimited nature of Australian kinship systems presents unusual challenges to the language learner, but suggest that, as everywhere, patterns of language acquisition are closely intertwined with children's experience of their sociocultural environment.

The world's languages exhibit striking diversity. At the same time, recurring linguistic patterns suggest the possibility that this diversity is shaped by features of human cognition. One well-studied example is word order in complex noun phrases (like these two red vases). While many orders of these elements are possible, a subset appear to be preferred. It has been argued that this ordering reflects a single underlying representation of noun phrase structure, from which preferred orders are straightforwardly derived (e.g. Cinque 2005). Building on previous experimental evidence using artificial language learning (Culbertson & Adger 2014), we show that these preferred orders arise not only in existing languages, but also in improvised sequences of gestures produced by English speakers. We then use corpus data from a wide range of languages to argue that the hypothesized underlying structure of the noun phrase might be learnable from statistical features relating objects and their properties conceptually. Using an information-theoretic measure of strength of association, we find that adjectival properties (e.g. red) are on average more closely related to the objects they modify (e.g. wine) than numerosities are (e.g. two), which are in turn more closely related to the objects they modify than demonstratives are (e.g. this). It is exactly those orders which transparently reflect this—by placing adjectives closest to the noun, and demonstratives farthest away—that are more common across languages and preferred in our silent gesture experiments. These results suggest that our experience with objects in the world, combined with a preference for transparent mappings from conceptual structure to linear order, can explain constraints on noun phrase order.

This research report examines crosslinguistic variation in cooccurrence among nonarticle determiners (demonstratives, proper names, pronouns, possessors) and its implications for understanding nominal (DP) structure and its variation. We present data from several language families and show that languages vary in both the number and permitted combinations of nonarticle determiners within a nominal phrase. These patterns provide new evidence that the primary semantic components of nominal reference—PERSON, DEIXIS, and INCLUSIVENESS—correspond to syntactic features in a universal hierarchy. Languages vary in how these features are bundled on functional heads; nonarticle determiners can cooccur only if their corresponding features are on separate heads.

It is well known that floating tones can associate both within a word and across a word boundary. In relation to floating quantity, however, there is extensive evidence for association within a word, but not across a word boundary. This research report presents evidence for the latter configuration in Shilluk, a West Nilotic language. Shilluk noun forms may end in floating quantity, and this quantity is realized only on following vocalic prefixes, that is, across a word boundary. The investigation includes a descriptive analysis of the phenomenon and a production study based on data from ten Shilluk speakers.

This research report discusses a set of Indonesian predicates exemplified by mau ‘want’ and suka ‘like’. I demonstrate with several diagnostics that these morphemes occur as either auxiliary or verb, and note that the availability of the auxiliary reading has been overlooked in recent literature. Since mau and suka belong to the set of so-called crossed control predicates, the lexical ambiguity discussed here has implications for potential analyses of crossed control sentences. I suggest that the auxiliary reading for mau, suka, and other predicates must be carefully ruled out before the existence of a crossed reading can be established.

Historiographers of linguistics have typically claimed that by the 1970s, generative grammarians were organizationally dominant in the field of linguistics in the United States. I demonstrate that such is not true. To support my assertion, I present evidence based on who held LSA offices in the 1970s and 1980s, on what was published in the journal Language, on presentations at LSA meetings, on the composition of summer Linguistics Institutes, on grants awarded to linguists, and on jobs advertised in the field. My explanation for the lack of generative dominance is based on various factors, including the immaturity and diversity of the field of linguistics, on generative grammar not being a grant-dependent enterprise, and on the attitude toward the LSA exhibited by Chomsky and many of his closest co-thinkers.