This paper discusses the four neutral vowels in Lokaa harmony, [i, u, ə, a]. Crosslinguistically, neutral segments are either transparent or opaque. Lokaa harmony is important in three crucial respects. First, languages with both transparent and opaque vowels are not common; Lokaa has both. Secondly, though Lokaa has an eight-vowel inventory the vowels [a] and [ə] have not “re-paired”. Thirdly, the historic ATR contrast found in Benue-Congo high vowels shows up when high vowel stems take mid-vowel prefixes, though the high vowels can only be [+ATR] on the surface; the ATR merger of high vowels in Lokaa is not complete. I show that the analytic framework of “headed span” theory accounts for a system with both transparent and opaque vowels. More importantly, I propose that within the headed span approach to harmony, both co-occurrence constraints and ASSOCIATEHEAD are crucial. Co-occurrence constraints control the language inventory, and the different rankings of the ASSOCIATEHEAD constraints indicate whether or not a feature will form part of an harmonic span.

This study addresses both the practical question of what forms of complementation are found with verbs expressing the notion of choice in English and the theoretical question of explaining the control and temporal effects found with these verbs. The explanation proposed is based on an approach in which syntax is taken to be driven by semantics. Semantics is defined in terms of the meaning-content associated with the linguistic forms occurring in the constructions examined, namely the to-infinitive, the gerund-participle, and the lexical content of the different verbs of choice themselves, together with the semantic value of the complement’s function with respect to the main verb. Although it does not utilize a corpus in the strict sense of the word, nor employ statistical argumentation, the study is based mainly on an examination of attested usage in Canadian English as reflected by Canadian websites accessed in the fall of 2006.

It is argued that the numerous “restrictive” lexical suffixes typifying the Wakashan languages today actually represent the result of influence from neighbouring Salishan languages. The evidence for this lies in their fluctuating status as lexical head or dependent within Wakashan as opposed to their typological normalcy in Salishan (where they simply modify the stem, the lexical head). A historical framework is suggested that would explain this and a number of other divergences from typological expectations in Wakashan, namely a development from an earlier SOV (dependent-head) stage to VSO order under areal influence. From this perspective, the “governing” suffixes of the Wakashan languages (with no counterpart in Salishan) are in the expected order vis-à-vis dependent stems. This has a bearing on the contribution to the Northwest Coast areal mix made by individual languages in — or moving into — the area in prehistoric times.

In this article, I propose a phonetically-oriented constraint-based model of speech production that differs from recent approaches in assuming preservation constraints that refer directly to articulatory gestures rather than to perceptual cues. Articulatory gesture preservation constraints interact with a constraint that penalizes the expenditure of articulatory effort. Specific constraints and rankings are projected from a static perceptual knowledge source. Before exploring the model in detail, I address evidence that has been used to argue against precisely this type of “Articulatory Phonology-inspired” approach. The evidence, used to justify the claim that lenition cannot be modeled as gestural reduction alone, is shown to be problematic.

Ce texte traite de la construction des représentations linguistiques en Acadie en partant de l’analyse des articles de presse publiés dans deux journaux importants, soit L’Évangéline (1887–1982) et le Moniteur Acadien (1867–1926). L’accent est placé sur trois périodes clés de l’histoire acadienne, la première s’étalant de 1880 à 1910, la deuxième de 1950 à 1967, et la troisième de 1970 à 1973, périodes choisies en fonction de leur importance à illustrer les moments forts de la construction de l’espace social acadien. L’article décrit d’abord les principales idéologies linguistiques trouvées dans les éditoriaux et les lettres d’opinions du lecteur, puis s’attarde à la période contemporaine et montre comment les discours sur les pratiques linguistiques se sont diversifiés. Les différentes stratégies mises de l’avant par les artistes sont présentées. Ceux-ci participent à la construction de nouvelles façons d’appréhender les pratiques linguistiques qu’ils voient plurielles et polyvalentes.

Ce travail examine la thèse de Malcah Yaeger-Dror sur l’évolution des voyelles moyennes du français voulant qu’elle soit régie par des principes généraux sur les changements en chaîne. En français, les voyelles toniques longues non hautes auraient tendance à se fermer vers les positions extrêmes [e:], [ø:] et [o:], puis, arrivées à cette étape, à renverser leur trajectoire et à s’ouvrir en direction de [a:] et de [a:]. Cette deuxième étape est retardée dans une classe de mots pour lesquels Yaeger-Dror pense que seules seraient pertinentes leurs connotations sociales, sans tenir compte de l’étymologie, de l’environnement phonétique et de la fréquence. Le présent article reprend la problématique générale de l’évolution des voyelles moyennes du français et propose une nouvelle analyse de la formation de voyelles longues et de leur évolution en français.

This paper deals with noun complements in French. I show that French has a particular kind of noun complement, regularly expressed by [de NP], that cannot be analysed as a PP or as a Possessor, but nevertheless requires a syntactic account. A detailed analysis reveals that these constituents share morphosyntactic, semantic and discourse properties with those of pseudo-incorporated nominals in various languages. I thus propose that they be analysed as pseudo-incorporated into a possessive nominal head.

This article is centred on the concept of the deictic feature embedded in demonstratives. A principled taxonomy of deictic features attested cross-linguistically is proposed, with the aim of being as comprehensive as possible. The list of deictic features previously identified is greatly expanded to include 15 features, with which 52 deictic values are associated. The morphological strategies for encoding deictic features in demonstratives are also examined. Three techniques are identified: (i) isolating; (ii) agglutinative or serial; and (iii) inflectional encoding. A number of the deictic features discussed in this article, along with their morphological realization strategies, are illustrated with data from the Miao Group of languages, spoken in the People’s Republic of China.

This paper presents original data from Taqjmit, a secret language in Tashelhiyt Berber which is used by women in Southern Morocco. The main principle underlying word formation in this secret language can be stated as follows: to disguise a word, say it twice in one word. It is proposed that only root consonants are kept in the disguised forms, that the repetition is strict insofar as any element in the disguised form is uttered only twice, and that the way the repetition is performed (gemination and reduplication) results from the use of a fixed-shape template, containing a derivational site of the form CV. As for vowel melody, which is invariant, it follows a uniform apophonic path, found in many languages (including Tashelhiyt Berber), and used here without any grammatical motivation.

To explain why English compounds generally avoid internal inflectional suffixation (e.g., key-chain rather than keys-chain), linguists have often invoked the Level Ordering Hypothesis, that is, that particular types of morphology, in this case inflectional suffixation, are derivationally ordered after compounding. However, a broad range of counter-examples and conceptual objections to Level Ordering have emerged. We propose an alternative account, based on the observation that certain English inflectional suffixes are more perceptible than others (-ing > -s > -ed), and that these suffixes are less crucial to lexical access and recovery of meaning than corresponding root-final segments. This proposal was tested in perception and production experiments. In the perception experiment, compounds with a nonsense word as modifier (e.g., dacks van, dacked van) were auditorily presented to native English speakers, who were asked to spell what they heard. The participants omitted significantly more -ed than -s or -ing. In the production experiment, native English speakers read these compounds. The speakers dropped significantly more -ed than -s or -ing. Furthermore, they dropped more of these sounds when they were spelled as affixes than as part of the root (e.g., dacked van vs. dact van). These results suggest that English speakers’ avoidance or inclusion of inflection in compounds is based not on Level Ordering but on perceptibility, as well as the status of the consonant as an affix. We further present a formal analysis capturing these factors in terms of Steriade’s Licensing-by-Cue proposal.

Le présent article décrit la constitution d’un corpus de français oral, baptisé les Récits du français québécois d’autrefois (RFQ), qui comprend des contes, des légendes et des entrevues recueillis auprès de locuteurs nés entre 1846 et 1895. Leur parler est celui du Québec rural du 19e siècle; il montre la variabilité inhérente et les structures vernaculaires caractéristiques des dialectes d’aujourd’hui. Nous examinons les avantages et les inconvénients de ces données diachroniques et montrons que, si elles sont utilisées judicieusement, elles représentent effectivement un stade antérieur du français québécois, avant son contact intense avec l’anglais. À ce titre, elles constituent un point de repère pour situer les traits linguistiques actuels. À partir d’une étude de cas de l’élision du ne, nous montrons comment une comparaison systématique entre les RFQ et le parler vernaculaire contemporain peut servir à repérer un changement linguistique, à le dater et à suivre son acheminement.

This article presents the results of a study on articulatory and acoustical correlates of contrastive focus in French in five children aged 4 and 5 and five adults. The speakers repeated the sequence [baba] in two prosodic contexts: neutral conditions and contrastive focus. The acoustic signal and the trajectories of three sensors placed on the subjects’ upper lip, lower lip, and chin were recorded using an Optotrak system. Articulatory movements were analyzed for the two syllables in the sequence, in each of the two prosodic conditions. Formant measurements, sound intensity, fundamental frequency, and acoustic duration of the segments were also extracted from the acoustic signal. The results show that the effects of contrastive focus are smaller in the children than the adult speakers. The results are interpreted in light of recent theories on the emergence of spoken language in children.

Cette étude en microvariation porte sur des constructions nominales quantifiées (Elle a pas long de jupe) impliquant des adjectifs de dimension spatiale en français québécois et examine comment elles se distinguent de celles avec le quantificateur beaucoup. Après une brève description des faits, je propose une structure sous-jacente pour ces constructions et une analyse des propriétés reférentielles des N que ces adjectifs quantifient : N de masse, N collectifs, N d’Espèces au singulier et quelquefois au pluriel avec certains adjectifs quantificateurs seulement, mais jamais des Individualités. Sont aussi abordées les restrictions sur la modification et les restrictions aspectuelles qu’elles manifestent. J’en viens à la conclusion que la microvariation observée est minime. Elle est le résultat d’une interaction entre les propriétés lexicales de ces adjectifs de dimension et les principes de la Grammaire universelle.

This article reports on a synchronic analysis in the surface variation between the conditional and the imperfect or pluperfect indicative in hypothetical clauses headed by the subordinator si. The empirical basis of the study is a corpus of French spoken in the national capital region of Canada, which comprises 120 informants. The study also has a diachronic component concerning the evolution of the variable based on a collection of published works since Early Modern French. The most interesting aspect of the results is the system wherein the morphological exponent of the verb is determined by the modal reading of the utterance. It is revealed that this grammatical trait was attested at earlier steps in the development of the language and that it helps to resolve a form-function asymmetry resulting from use of the indicative imperfect in a conditional context.

This article argues that the realization of agreement in subjunctive and imperative verbs is a consequence of the syntactic status of Tense in these two moods. Crucially, certain agreement paradigms across Romance languages show very a close resemblance: the subjunctive and imperative paradigms are identical, in most cases, to the indicative paradigms. Systematically, moods such as the subjunctive and the imperative do not show specific tense affixes or specific tense-induced allomorphy on their agreement affixes. The proposal is illustrated with Romanian verbal agreement, which is analyzed within the Distributed Morphology framework. The analysis shows that tense information is not used in subjunctive and imperative agreement morphology, unless it is exactly the same information as in another paradigm — the present indicative. It is proposed that at the syntactic level, Tense is unspecified in the subjunctive and absent in the imperative, and that the realization of agreement affixes is a consequence of this syntactic representation.

We pursue two goals in this article. The first is to examine morphosyntactic factors that promote noun ellipsis in French. The second is to show that acquisition data can help us evaluate different proposals for a given syntactic phenomenon. Using a transversal corpus of 15 French-speaking children aged 1;8 to 2; 12 years, we conclude that a cause-effect relationship between the acquisition of nominal agreement and noun-drop is difficult to establish. We propose rather that it is the presence of a determiner and its properties that license noun-drop. Our analysis rests on the concepts of partitivity and atomisation and thus supports Bouchard’s (2002) semantic analysis of noun drop while rejecting the notion that noun-drop is linked to pro drop.