Search Results (6)

This paper presents novel evidence that particle-stranding ellipsis in Japanese is best accounted for by PF-deletion rather than by its theoretical competitor, LF-copying. I begin by examining a central prediction of the LF-copying analysis, which states that overt extraction is categorically ruled out, and show that this prediction is not supported by the empirical data. Additional evidence comes from covert across-the-board movement, as I demonstrate that particle-stranding ellipsis can occur in environments that are argued to involve this type of movement. This finding presents a serious derivational challenge to the LF-copying theory, given the widely accepted view that covert across-the-board movement is not permitted in the grammar. In addition to these syntactic observations, I present previously unreported prosodic evidence showing that particle-stranding ellipsis involving the negative polarity item -sika can exhibit focus intonation. As the LF-copying analysis cannot account for this prosodic pattern, the data provide strong support for the PF-deletion account. Finally, I show that these findings are well explained by the phonology-based deletion model that was originally proposed in the literature. Full article

The main objective in this study is to describe and offer an account of verbal non-local doubling in Patagonian Spanish (PatSp), an understudied non-standard variety of Spanish in Argentina. We focus on data in which there are duplicated verbs surrounding an XP that bears the nuclear accent of the phrase (XP^NA). First, our analysis describes the prosodic, semantic, and morphosyntactic behaviour of the data gathered. Second, we present the problems and challenges that doubling phenomena in PatSp pose for approaches that have tried to explain similar data in other Spanish varieties and other languages, such as the copy theory or prosodic cloning. Third, this work explores a biclausal analysis of verbal non-local doubling in PatSp in which each duplicate originates in a different clause, CP1 and CP2. In this approach, duplicated verbs (V1 and V2, according to their linear distribution) are not derivationally related. We also argue that the XP^NA moves to the left periphery of CP2. This movement would account for the three typical traits of verbal duplication in PatSp: the mandatory adjacency between the nuclear accent and V2, the non-locality between verbal duplicates, and the semantic value of mirativity. Full article

Within Minimalism, traces are often taken to be transparent for agreement and movement across them, which raises the question of how this could be properly accounted for within the copy theory of movement. This paper examines wh-traces in multiple wh-questions and argues that traces (lower copies) may or may not induce intervention effects depending on whether or not they are fully specified. Full article

This contribution presents an outline of the current scholarly discussion of reconstruction with wh-movement, focussing on the Lebeaux Effect (LE) and wider aspects of reconstruction with wh-movement. It presents empirical problems for both the proposals based on the LE and the novel account of movement and reconstruction based on the notion of Minimal Copy. It points out that particular copies may differ not only in size (i.e., they do or do not include the adjunct as a relative clause or PP) but also in content. It refers to an analysis, where copies left by movement are levelled with copies left by ellipsis and subject to the mechanism of Vehicle Change. An account of reconstruction including multiple copies and Vehicle Change predicts that the structural complexity of the wh-phrase and its distance from the offending c-commanding pronoun (embedding and obviation effects) should contribute to an amelioration of Condition C in addition to the LE. Full article

The terminology of cerebellar dysmetria embraces a ubiquitous symptom in motor deficits, oculomotor symptoms, and cognitive/emotional symptoms occurring in cerebellar ataxias. Patients with episodic ataxia exhibit recurrent episodes of ataxia, including motor dysmetria. Despite the consensus that cerebellar dysmetria is a cardinal symptom, there is still no agreement on its pathophysiological mechanisms to date since its first clinical description by Babinski. We argue that impairment in the predictive computation for voluntary movements explains a range of characteristics accompanied by dysmetria. Within this framework, the cerebellum acquires and maintains an internal forward model, which predicts current and future states of the body by integrating an estimate of the previous state and a given efference copy of motor commands. Two of our recent studies experimentally support the internal-forward-model hypothesis of the cerebellar circuitry. First, the cerebellar outputs (firing rates of dentate nucleus cells) contain predictive information for the future cerebellar inputs (firing rates of mossy fibers). Second, a component of movement kinematics is predictive for target motions in control subjects. In cerebellar patients, the predictive component lags behind a target motion and is compensated with a feedback component. Furthermore, a clinical analysis has examined kinematic and electromyography (EMG) features using a task of elbow flexion goal-directed movements, which mimics the finger-to-nose test. Consistent with the hypothesis of the internal forward model, the predictive activations in the triceps muscles are impaired, and the impaired predictive activations result in hypermetria (overshoot). Dysmetria stems from deficits in the predictive computation of the internal forward model in the cerebellum. Errors in this fundamental mechanism result in undershoot (hypometria) and overshoot during voluntary motor actions. The predictive computation of the forward model affords error-based motor learning, coordination of multiple degrees of freedom, and adequate timing of muscle activities. Both the timing and synergy theory fit with the internal forward model, microzones being the elemental computational unit, and the anatomical organization of converging inputs to the Purkinje neurons providing them the unique property of a perceptron in the brain. We propose that motor dysmetria observed in attacks of ataxia occurs as a result of impaired predictive computation of the internal forward model in the cerebellum. Full article

Adjectives appear predominantly postnominally in Spanish, and when prenominal, cannot be interpreted as restrictive. We explore whether heritage speakers of Spanish have the same interpretive and ordering restriction as monolinguals. Twenty-two US college-age heritage speakers and 17 college-age monolinguals from Peru completed a rating task that manipulated word order and interpretation. Items varied in word order (Adj-N/N-Adj) and interpretation (restrictive-only, color and nationality adjectives, and ambiguous adjectives, restrictive and non-restrictive), all framed within a context that favored a restrictive interpretation. Both groups judged Adj-N orders lower than N-Adj orders, and restrictive adjectives lower in prenominal position than ambiguous adjectives. Consequently, we argue that heritage speakers (HS) have the relevant knowledge regarding word order and interpretation, and the interactions among the two properties. We propose a syntactic representation involving NP-raising for both groups, and suggest that in some cases, the higher copy of the NP is deleted, resulting in the linear order Adj-N. We also argue that this analysis may explain the range of individual variation across heritage speakers. Full article