Actualization is traditionally seen as the process following syntactic reanalysis whereby an item's new syntactic status manifests itself in new syntactic behavior. The process is gradual in that some new uses of the reanalyzed item appear earlier or more readily than others. This article accounts for the order in which new uses appear during…

Four lexical features of a noun are relevant to agreement: semantic conditions on reference; person, number, and gender features of the referential index; concord features; and declension class. These features are correlated by a chain of binary constraints. Patterns of mixed agreement result from individual violations to the constraints. Three…

Argues for underlying tones as opposed to accentual diacritics or metrical representations in Standard Lithuanian nominals. Support for tonal representations come from analyses of (1) the general status of diacritic accents, (2) tonal stability under segment-deletion and demorification in Lithuanian, and (3) data from a Zhemayt dialect. (Contains…

Offers a detailed analysis of the English suffix "-ee" (employee, refugee, etc.) based on 1,500 naturally occurring tokens of 500 word types. Argues that certain semantic constraints, taken together, amount to a special-purpose thematic role that actively constrains productive use of derivational morphology. (Author/MSE)

Presents an analysis of the constraints on pronominal anaphora in English within the framework of cognitive grammar in terms of semantic distinctions between pronouns and full noun phrases. Semantic notions of prominence and conceptual interconnection are used to develop a model of "conceptual reference points." The analysis provides problematic…

In communicating, conversationalists constantly make decisions about their interlocutors' state of knowledge and on the basis of these decisions make lexical, grammatical, and intonational choices about how to manage the "flow" of information. This paper focuses on how such decision making affects choices in relative clause constructions…

This study argues that both Shanghai and Taiwanese have a metrical system, that compound stress is left-headed in Shanghai and right-headed in Taiwanese, and that a tonal domain is a metrical one. The article explains some asymmetries between Shanghai and Taiwanese and maintains that metrical structure can be determined when data on phonetic…

New conclusions emerge about Southern Tiwa, a Tanoan language of New Mexico, from a morphoyntactic analysis of the language, including nouns occur as serial predicates; nouns can license an argument in the role of possessor; and the verb agrees with all and only final terms. (47 references) (JL)

Provides an analysis of the syntax of Straits Salish. Main clauses consist of an initial predicate followed by a second position clitic string of inflectional elements, the subject pronoun and tense. Evidence is provided against copular verb analysis as further proof of the lack of the noun/verb distinction at the lexical level. (52 references)…

Clark's 1987 Principle of Contrast seems inconsistent with the synonymy exhibited by inflectional affixes in languages with inflection classes. But if inflection class membership identifies the inflection class of the lexemes to which it attaches, then inflection affixation complies with this principle. Grammatical implications are suggested. (76…