Andries Coetzee has published a new paper in Language, the Journal of the Linguistic Society of America.

Coetzee, Andries W.  2008.  Grammaticality and ungrammaticality in
phonology.  Language, 84(2):218-257.

Abstract

In this paper, I make two theoretical claims: (i) For some form to be
grammatical in language L, it is not necessary that the form satisfy
all constraints that are active in L – i.e. even grammatical forms can
violate constraints. (ii) There are degrees of ungrammaticality – i.e.
not all ungrammatical forms are equally ungrammatical. I first show
that these claims follow straightforwardly from the basic architecture
of an Optimality Theoretic grammar. I then show that the surface sound
patterns used most widely in formal phonology cannot be used to test
the truth of these two claims, but argue that results from speech
processing experiments can. Finally, I discuss three experiments on
the processing of non-words of the form [stVt], [skVk] and [spVp] in
English that were designed to test these claims, and show that both
claims are confirmed by the results of the experiments.

Jeff Heath has published a grammar of Jamsay, a Dogon language spoken in Mali. Jeff is continuing work on the Dogon languages with support from the National Science Foundation and plans to produce grammars of all 20 Dogon languages.

Information
A Grammar of Jamsay
May 2008. 24 x 16 cm. XXII, 735 pages.
ISBN 978-3-11-020113-0
Series: Mouton Grammar Library [MGL] 45
MOUTON DE GRUYTER

From the publisher

Jamsay is the largest-population language among some twenty Dogon languages in Mali, West Africa. This is the first comprehensive grammar of any Dogon language, including a full tonology. The language is verb-final, with subject agreement on the verb and with no other case-marking. Its most striking feature is the morphosyntactically triggered use of stem-wide tone-contour overlays on nouns, verbs, and adjectives. All stems have a lexical tone contour such as H[igh], L[ow]-H, HL, or LHL with at least one H-tone. An exam of tone overlay is tone-dropping to stem-wide all-L. This is used for Perfective verbs (in the presence of a focalized constituent), and for a noun or adjective before an adjective. It is also used to mark the head NP in a relative clause (the head NP is not extracted, so this is the only direct indication of head NP status). The verb in a relative clause is morphologically a participle, agreeing with the head NP in humanness and number, rather than with the subject. “Intonation” is used grammatically. For example, NP conjunction ‘X and Y’ is expressed as X Y, without a conjunction, but with “dying-quail” intonation on both conjuncts.

Libu Lakhi, Brook Hefright and Kevin Stuard (20007).  ”The Namuyi:  Linguistic and Cultural Features.” Asian Folklore Studies 66, 233-253. 

Abstract:  The Namuyi live in southern Sichuan Province, the People’s Republic of China, and form part of the officially recognized Tibetan ethnic group. This paper first introduces the Namuyi in terms of location, population, and ethnonym. It then provides brief background on the Namuyi language, including comparisons of the dʐə¹¹ qu¹¹ and Luóguōdǐ varieties and a 207-item Swadesh list of English words with their dʐə¹¹ qu¹¹ Namuyi equivalents. Finally, it discusses Namuyi religion and provides a transcription of the ka¹¹ ju¹¹ bu⁴ ritual. 

“At a Loss for Words“, on endangered languages in general and Sally Thomason’s fieldwork on the Salish-Pend d’Oreille language in particular, has just appeared in the December 2007/January 2008 issue of Natural History magazine.  The article discusses reasons for the imminent demise of this language and of 50% or more of the world’s other 6,000 (or so) languages, and reasons why even non-linguists should care about this disastrous situation.

Noun Phrases in Creole Languages:  A Multi-faceted Approach 

Edited by Marlyse Baptista and Jacqueline Guéron

Creole Language Library 31

John Benjamins 

From the publisher

This volume offers a thorough examination of the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse properties of noun phrases in a wide variety of creole (and non-creole) languages including Cape Verdean Creole, Santome, Papiamentu, Guinea-Bissau Creole, Mindanao Chabacano, Réunionnais Creole, Lesser Antillean, Haitian Creole, Mauritian Creole, Seychellois, Sranan, Jamaican Creole, Berbice Dutch Creole and African American English. Comparative studies also consider the determiner systems of Middle and Modern French, European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Ewe, Fon and Gun. This compilation of 16 chapters brings together descriptive, theoretical, diachronic and synchronic studies that focus on the structure and interpretation of bare nouns in creoles. The contributions demonstrate the variety and complex nature of determiner systems in creoles and their widespread use of bare nouns in comparison to their source languages. This volume is evidence of the relevance of creole languages to theories of language creation, language change and linguistic theory in general. 

Abney, Steven. 2007. Semi-supervised Learning for Computational Linguistics. Chapman & Hall/CRC Computer Science & Data Analysis Volume: 8

From the publisher:
-Offers applications in information extraction, parsing, and word senses, such as WordNet
-Provides background material in machine learning that includes the areas of classification and clustering
-Covers a variety of methods, including co-boosting, transductive SVMs, McLachlan’s algorithm, and the EM algorithm
-Examines in detail the concept of label propagation in a graph
-Discusses spectral methods, including the definition of harmonics, the eigenvectors of matrices and graphs, spectral clustering, and the connection to label propagation
-Introduces the necessary mathematics in a just-in-time manner

The rapid advancement in the theoretical understanding of statistical and machine learning methods for semisupervised learning has made it difficult for nonspecialists to keep up to date in the field. Providing a broad, accessible treatment of the theory as well as linguistic applications, Semisupervised Learning for Computational Linguistics offers self-contained coverage of semisupervised methods that includes background material on supervised and unsupervised learning.

The book presents a brief history of semisupervised learning and its place in the spectrum of learning methods before moving on to discuss well-known natural language processing methods, such as self-training and co-training. It then centers on machine learning techniques, including the boundary-oriented methods of perceptrons, boosting, support vector machines (SVMs), and the null-category noise model. In addition, the book covers clustering, the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm, related generative methods, and agreement methods. It concludes with the graph-based method of label propagation as well as a detailed discussion of spectral methods.

Taking an intuitive approach to the material, this lucid book facilitates the application of semisupervised learning methods to natural language processing and provides the framework and motivation for a more systematic study of machine learning.

E. Hoff & M. Shatz (eds.) Blackwell Handbook of Language Development. It includes chapters from people in linguistics, psych, speech & hearing, and communications.

From the publisher:
The Blackwell Handbook of Language Development provides a comprehensive treatment of the major topics and current concerns in the field. Covering new academic terrain in areas such as brain development, computational skills, bilingualism, education, and cross-linguistic comparisons, this volume explores the progress of twenty-first century research in language development while considering its precursors and looking towards promising research topics for the future. This balanced and accessible volume collects the work of a generation of researchers who are enlarging the field to consider internal and external bases for language development and to address a wide range of language development outcomes.

Presenting recent research in the traditional topics of language development from infancy through early childhood, this book also expands upon those topics to include work on older children, exploring how linguistic knowledge develops with experiences such as learning a second language and acquiring writing skills. The expansive coverage of foundational and emerging topics makes this book an excellent resource for researchers, instructors, and graduate students in developmental psychology, linguistics, and education.

Title: Control in Greek: It’s another good move
Authors: Konstantia Kapetangianni (U of Michigan) & T. Daniel Seely (Eastern Michigan U).
Published in: New Horizons in the Analysis of Control and Raising
Series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory , Vol. 71 (Publisher: Springer)
Davies, William D.; Dubinsky, Stanley (Eds.)

Abstract:

In this paper we attempt an exercise in explanation by deduction relative to subjunctive clauses in Greek. We argue that the standardly noted properties of OC vs. NOC subjunctive clauses, along with a range of (unnoticed) properties problematic to previous accounts, can be “explained” within a reductivist minimalist framework. We start with the question: what is the least we can say? We answer that we can go a surprisingly long way with just this: in some cases, the abstract Agr(eement) element associated with the subjunctive verb form is phi-defective (i.e. does not have the full set of abstract phi features); elsewhere the Agr element associated with subjunctive is phi-complete. With respect to their surface morphology the subjunctive clauses are identical, with respect to underlying abstract phi features, they are not. It is an irreducible property of certain verbs that they select defective Agr in the subjunctive clause. Phi complete Agr occurs elsewhere. We argue that this simple featural distinction goes a surprisingly long way in deducing, and hence explaining, the properties of subjunctive clauses; and has consequences beyond.

Heath, Jeffrey. 2007. Bidirectional case-marking and linear adjacency. Nat Lang Linguist Theory (2007) 25:83–101

Abstract
Bidirectional case markers in West African languages, including those of
the Songhay family, are morphemes inserted between subject and object NPs that
would otherwise be adjacent. They therefore specify both that the NP to the left is
a subject, and that the NP to the right is an object, and they cannot be bracketed
uniquely with either. This is shown by the fact that these morphemes are absent when
either subject or object position is (structurally and phonologically) absent, for exam-
ple due to extraction. This is the only morphological case-marking in the relevant
languages. The operation inserting such morphemes must have reference to constit-
uent structure (NP), abstract case (subject, object), and linear adjacency. These data
increase the evidence that complex case-marking operations can apply in a centrally
located morphology component that has simultaneous access to categorial and linear
relations. The idea is questionable that such morphological operations take place at a
syntax/PF interface, where syntactic categories are first aligned with prosodic phrases,
since actual prosodic (e.g. accentual) bracketings do not always coincide with the
bracketings relevant to case morphology. This point is made with data from Tam-
ashek (Berber) nominal prefix alternations, preceding the main section on Songhay
case marking.

Pires, Acrisio. 2006. Minimalist Syntax of Defective Domains: Gerunds and Infinitives. John Benjamins.

From the publisher
This book unifies the analysis of certain non-finite domains, focusing on subject licensing, agreement, and Case and control. It proposes a minimalist analysis of English gerunds which allows only a null subject PRO (TP-defective gerunds), a lexical subject (gerunds as complements of perception verbs), or both types of subjects (clausal gerunds). It then analyzes Portuguese infinitives, showing that the morphosyntactic properties of non-inflected and inflected infinitives correlate with distinct treatments of obligatory and non-obligatory control. It explores these and other phenomena to show that tense and event binding do not correlate with the contrast between control and raising/exceptional case marking (ECM), against null Case theories of control. A Probe-Goal approach to Case and agreement is adopted in combination with a movement analysis of control. The book then investigates diachronic morphosyntactic phenomena involving infinitives, verb movement and cliticization in Portuguese, exploring a cue-based theory of syntactic change grounded in language acquisition.