In this article we offer up a particular linguistic phenomenon, quantifier-variable binding in Kannada ditransitives, as a proving ground upon which competing claims about learnability can be evaluated with respect to the relative abstractness of children's grammatical knowledge. We first identify one aspect of syntactic representation that…

Proposes that the theory of focus not only accounts for the definiteness restriction with respect to material extraposed from the noun phrase, but also contributes crucially to an explanation for the variable acceptability of sentences containing extractions from extraposed prepositional phrases. (58 references) (JL)

Simplification in structure and confluence between the local-language structure and the prestige-language structure are usually predicted in language death as in pidginization. For a dying Scottish Gaelic dialect, speakers were tested in the two most excessively complex morphological structures the dialect offers. (Author/NCR)

It is argued here that English contains a distinct class of relative clauses called amount relatives. On the surface, these are much like restrictive relative clauses, but they have a syntax and semantics that align them more with comparatives than with restrictive relatives. (Author/KM)