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. 

This fall, Catherine Fortin (dissertation: Indonesian Sluicing and Verb Phrase Ellipsis: Description and Explanation in a Minimalist Framework, defended summer 2007) began a two-year appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Carleton College Linguistics Program. She will be teaching several different courses in syntax and related subfields of linguistics (semantics, morphology, intro, acquisition, and ‘field methods’). This term she is teaching Introduction to the Theory of Syntax and First Language Acquisition. With only one other full-time faculty member in Linguistics, Catherine constitutes about half of the program!

Catherine will also be presenting a paper at the upcoming Western Conference of Linguistics (WECOL) at UCSD in November, on some of her dissertation research, Verb Phrase Ellipsis in Indonesian.

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.

Foundations of Generative Grammar, and Beyond: A student-faculty interactive

Tonight, Tuesday Oct 9 several UM syntacticians will take part in an interactive discussion at Eastern Michigan University to discuss foundational issues in generative grammar.

Speakers include:

Marlyse Baptista (Ph.D, Harvard)
http://www.ling.lsa.umich.edu/fac/

Sam Epstein (Ph.D, UCONN):
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ling/epstein/

John Hale (Ph.D, Johns Hopkins University)
http://www.msu.edu/~jthale/

Hisa Kitahara (PhD, Harvard)
Dr. Kitahara will be visiting the Department of Linguistics at the Unviersity of
Michigan for two years beginning Fall 2007 from Keio University, Japan.

Acrisio Pires (Ph.D, U. of Maryland)
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ling/pires/

Hisatsugu Kitahara is a visiting scholar from the Institute of Cultural and Linguistic
Studies at Keio University, Japan. His research area is minimalist syntax, specifically
a derivational approach to phrase structure (initially outlined in Epstein et al. 1998
and advanced in Epstein and Seely 2006). He is also interested in foundational
issues concerning the field of generative grammar.

Professor Kitahara will be visiting the department for AY 2007-2009.

The (MSU) Linguistics Department Colloquium Series 2007

Dr. Acrisio Pires
University of Michigan

Thursday, September 27th
4:30 PM in Wells 607

The Syntax of Wh-in-situ and Common Ground

In this talk I will present the results of collaborative work showing that single-question wh-in-situ occurs in English under specific discourse-pragmatics (1)-(2). I will argue these questions are possible only when the information being requested is part of the Common Ground (CG) (Stalnaker 1978). The same analysis constrains wh-in-situ in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) (1c)-(2c), restricting the optionality of wh-in-situ. It will then be proposed that both languages display a [+wh] complementizer that does not trigger wh-movement. This is supported by the fact that wh-in-situ in both languages is not subject to the same locality conditions associated with wh-in- situ in a language such as French, and is also not an instance of head-movement.

(1) a. A: I made desserts.
b. B: You made what kind of desserts?
c. B: Você fez que tipo de sobremesa?

(2) a. B. Attorney: Tell me what happened on January 1, 2005 at 4 pm
A. Defendant: I was driving along Andrews Avenue.
b. B. Attorney: And the police officer said you were traveling about how fast?
c. B: E o policial disse que você estava dirigindo em que velocidade?

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.

Epstein, Sam. 2007. Physiological Linguistics, and Some Implications Regarding Disciplinary Autonomy and Unification. Mind and Language 22.1

Abstract
Chomsky’s current Biolinguistic (Minimalist) methodology is shown to comport with what might be called ‘established’ aspects of biological method, thereby raising, in the biolinguistic domain, issues concerning biological autonomy from the physical sciences. At least current irreducibility of biology, including biolinguistics, stems in at least some cases from the very nature of what I will claim is physiological, or inter-organ/inter-component, macro-levels of explanation which play a new and central explanatory role in Chomsky’s inter-componential (interface-based) explanation of certain (anatomical) properties of the syntactic component of Universal Grammar. Under this new mode of explanation, certain physiological functions of cognitive mental organs are hypothesized, in an attempt to explain aspects of their internal anatomy. Thus, the internal anatomy of the syntactic component exhibits features that enable it to effectively interface with (i.e. function in a coordinated fashion with) other ‘adjacent’ organs, such as the Conceptual-Intensional (C-I) (‘meaning’) system and the Sensory- Motor (SM) (‘sound’) system. These two interface systems take as their inputs the assembled outputs of the syntactic component and, as a result of the very syntactic structure imposed by the syntax (as opposed to countless imaginable alternatives) are then able to assign their (linearized) sound and (compositional) meaning interpretations. If this is an accurate characterization, Chomsky’s long-standing postulation of mental organs, and I will argue, the advancement of new hypotheses concerning physiological inter-organ functions, has attained in current biolinguistic Minimalist method a significant unification with foundational aspects of physiological explanation in other areas of biology.