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Coyote Papers is a publication of the Linguistics Circle, the Graduate Student Organization of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.

ISSN: 2770-1662 (Online)
ISSN: 0894-4539 (Print)

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Recent Submissions

  • Preface (Coyote Papers 8, 1992)

    University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992
  • LF Subjacency Condition in Japanese

    Yoshimura, Kyoko (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    Japanese is one of the languages which do not have syntactic wh-movement, i.e., all wh-movement takes place in the LF component. The issue of whether or not the Subjacency Condition holds in such a language has been somewhat controversial in the literature: some linguists claim that there are no Subjacency effects in LF in Japanese (Huang (1982), Saito (1985), Lasnik and Saito (1984, 1989)); while others argue that Japanese actually shows LF Subjacency effects (Fukui (1988), Hasegawa (1985), Nishigauchi (1986, 1990), Pesetsky (1987)). In this paper, we will look at their claims and certain problems for their analyses, and argue that we need something like Subjacency effects to explain data which show incremental grammatical judgements (Section 1). Also, the status of the Subjacency Condition itself seems far from being settled. It has been widely assumed to be a condition on movement (Chomsky (1973, 1977, 1981), Huang (1982), Pesetsky (1982), Lasnik & Saito (1984, 1989), among others); others have argued it is a condition on representations (Freidin (1978), Freidin & Lasnik (1981), McDaniel (1989), Browning (1991)); and the question is left open in Chomsky (1986). We will address this issue briefly and give some data which might support the claim that the Subjacency Condition is a condition on representations at LF as well as at S-Structure (Section 2).
  • Gradient Sonority and Harmonic Foot Repair in English Syncope

    Pérez, Patricia E. (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    The interaction between the syllabification and the footing of a word is a very interdependent one. It has generally been thought that syllables are built from segments and feet are built from syllables. So, the foot structure of a word is dependent on its syllable structure. In turn, since stress is assigned through feet, syllables not only affect a word's feet-they affect it's stress pattern. What would happen, then, if a word was syllabified incorrectly? Undoubtedly, this could alter the representation of the word's footing. Stress assignment would then be affected resulting in a possibly ungrammatical representation of the word. Any theory that describes the syllabification and footing processes of a language must make sure that ungrammatical representations are not generated. In this paper, I will describe the syncopation process in English in terms of syllabification and footing. Here, 'syncopated' refers to words that have had a medial vowel deleted (postlexically) from them resulting in shorter words.1 I will only consider words in which the vowel is deleted in casual speech (from careful speech forms) as opposed to words whose vowels are deleted as a result of morphological affixation. For example, the word "separate" is [sEpərət] in careful speech, but [sEprət] in casual and fast speech. In the first part of the paper, I will show that syllabification of these forms follows a rule that is similar, but not equal, to the rule that applies to unsyncopated forms. This rule focuses on the consonant clusters that are created by the medial vowel deletion. While governed by some version of the sonority hierarchy, the consonants that can make up the syncopated clusters can combine more freely than their underlying counterparts. However, as a result of this syllabification process, the footing of these words is altered. I begin this discussion by laying out the syncope facts of English and focusing on their stress and segmental environments (sections 2.1-2.2). Then, I will describe the sonority relationships between the medial consonants (sections 3.1-3.3). I will then present my first claim - that syllabification as a result of derivation,2 applies differently than that of syllabification on underived forms (section 3.4). The second half of this paper deals with the footing of the syncopated words. According to Prince's (1990) theory of Rhythmic Harmony, the feet created by syncopation are much "worse" than the feet of the careful speech forms of the words. This judgement is based on his idea that there are "Optimal" forms of certain linguistic structures, such as syllables and feet. He also claims that languages will "repair" these structures in order to preserve or strive for the Optimal forms. Here, I will show that syncopated forms of English do, in fact, repair their syllable structures in order to maintain more stable foot structures. As a result of this, the stress patterns of the words are preserved. I will begin this part of the discussion with a review of foot structure and Prince's theory (sections 4. -4.2) Then, I will show that the syncopated forms syllabically repair themselves to create the "best" forms of feet possible (section 4.3).
  • A Unified Theory of Final Consonant Deletion in Early Child Speech

    Ohala, Diane (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
  • Bimoricity in Northern Greenlandic Eskimo

    Meador, D. (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    Multiple strong stresses on heavy syllables within words in Northern Greenlandic Eskimo indicate the absence of word trees in the metrical grid. That final light syllables also selectively receive stress in the absence of a word tree presents a challenge to available mechanisms which attempt to account for such alternations. These include destressing (Hammond 1989; Halle and Kenstowicz 1990) and extrametricality (Halle and Kenstowicz 1990). The problems presented by these mechanisms are avoided in an analysis based on bimoricity. The analysis proposed here presents a modification of the iambic template in Hayes' (1987) typology.
  • Eurhythmy or Clash in the English Rhythm Rule

    Hammond, Michael (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    In this paper, I argue that the rhythm rule phenomenon in English is best treated in terms of a theory incorporating the notion "stress clash" (Hammond, 1988), rather than the notion "eurhythmy" (Hayes, 1984). There are three central arguments. First, it is argued that the eurhythmy theory is intrinsically undesirable as it requires a theory of universal grammar that countenances arbitrary counting. Second, it is shown that the eurhythmy theory makes incorrect predictions about the behavior of words with initial stressless syllables. Third, it is shown that the clash -based theory, as opposed to the eurhythmy theory, generalizes nicely to account for the Montana cowboy phenomenon. The organization of this paper is as follows. First, I review the traditional clash -based account of Liberman and Prince (1977). I go on to review the eurhythmy account of Hayes (1984). This includes three central claims /effects: the quadrisyllabic rule, the disyllabic rule, and the phrasal rule. It is next shown that each of these effects can be achieved with independently required principles and machinery and that there is no need for a specific theory of eurhythmy. The following notation will be used in this paper. An acute accent will denote the strongest stress in a domain; a circumflex marks an intermediate stress; a grave indicates less stress; and an unmarked vowel indicates even less or no stress.
  • The Prosodic Hierarchy as a Form of Meter

    Golston, Chris (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    This paper has two goals. First, it seeks to establish that Middle English Alliterative Verse (MEAV) is a meter based on hierarchically organized prosodic constituents above the foot. In particular, I claim that MEAV is based straightforwardly on the Prosodic Hierarchy, as conceived of in work by Selkirk (1978, 1980, 1984, 1986), Hayes (1989) and others. Second, the account of MEAV advanced here requires reference to the notion of branching in prosodic structure above the foot, suggesting that branching may be a relevant property of prosodic constituent above the level of the syllable and foot2. Discussion proceeds as follows. In section 2 I outline the facts about Middle English Alliterative verse in general and in the poem Cleanness in particular, following recent work by Cable (1991). Section 3 presents a brief overview of work on the Prosodic Hierarchy and Section 4 proposes an analysis of MEAV in terms of it. In section 5 I discuss the relation of this proposal to Cable's work and extend the analysis to metrical structure above the line in Cleanness. A brief conclusion follows in section 6.
  • Reciprocity in Spanish: Two Puzzles of Scope

    Gerfen, Chip (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    Heim, Lasnik, and May (1991a, henceforth HLMa) note an interesting contrast in the behavior of the following sentences in English (their 78a -b): 1.a) They look like each other. b) They look alike. As HLMa point out, when embedded, the two sentences have distinct properties (their 79a -b): 2.a) John and Mary think they look like each other. b) John and Mary think they look alike. Sentence (2a) is ambiguous between broad and narrow scope interpretations. Thus, (2a) can either mean 'John thinks he looks like Mary, and Mary thinks that she looks like John' (the broad reading) or 'John and Mary think they (John and Mary) look like each other' (the narrow reading). In contrast, (2b) can only be construed with narrow scope. For HLMa the ambiguity of (2a) receives an explanation in terms of the morphological complexity of the reciprocal expression each other. Specifically, the quantificational distribution element each is adjoined to an antecedent, which is then subject to QR via the rule move-α at logical form (see May 1977, 1985). Put simply, this allows for different scope interpretations, depending on how far up the phrase marker each is moved. In contrast, the morphologically simplex alike contains no detachable distribution element, and, as a result, only the narrow scope reading is available. Of interest here is the fact that HLMa base their argument on the distinction between reciprocal meaning that is incorporated within a morphologically simplex versus a morphologically complex item. In support of this claim, they offer the following minimal pair of sentences from Italian (attributed to Luigi Rizzi): 3.a) I due pensano [di essersi battuti] (contradictory); the two thought be-each other-clitic beaten b) I due pensano [di avere prevalso l'uno sull'altro] (ambiguous); the two thought have prevailed the one over the other HLMa note that when taken by themselves, the embedded clauses in (3a -b) are both contradictory, but that only (3b) receives a non -contradictory reading in the embedded construction. In a manner analogous to their treatment of the English data in (1 -2), HLMa claim that this distinction is attributable to the fact that the clitic in (3a) forms a morphological unit with the verb to which it is attached and, thus, cannot be moved at LF. In contrast, they follow Belletti (1982) in arguing that the full form of the Italian reciprocal l'uno...l'altro includes a distributor l'uno which can be detached and moved at LF. Though no specific analysis is provided, it is assumed that the broad scope, and hence non -contradictory, construal of (3b) is attributable to the adjunction of the distributor l'uno to the antecedent I due. With these facts in mind, I consider the question of scope in Spanish reciprocal constructions. In sections 2 and 3, I present a surprising scope asymmetry between non -full (clitic) and full reciprocal constructions, which indicates that unlike English, the full reciprocal el uno al otro in Spanish does not allow for broad scope interpretations when embedded. In section 4, I argue that el uno al otro in Spanish is best analyzed as an adjunct, rather than as the subcategorized argument of the verb. And in section 5, I explore HLM's (1991b) "each-binding" variant of the movement analysis proposed in HLMa, showing that the asymmetry between full and non -full reciprocals can be accounted for in terms of the obligatory local A'-binding of the variable el uno of the adjoined full form. In section 6, I expand the data, providing evidence of another scope asymmetry. Specifically, I show that in contrast to the el uno al otro adjunct of the clitic doubled construction, VP adjuncts such as prepositional phrases with a reciprocal object do allow broad construals from embedded clauses. I argue that this asymmetry motivates the need to formally distinguish between at least two types of adjuncts, appositional adjuncts such as the doubled el uno al otro construction, and standard adjuncts such as PPs. I suggest that a profitable way of making this distinction can be found in restricting the assignment of referential indexes in the Relativized Minimality framework (Rizzi 1990). This approach both preserves the account of the asymmetry between non-full or clitic reciprocals and their doubled counterparts, as allows for broad construals from standard adjuncts.
  • "Y" Defends Cyclicity

    Denham, Kristin (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    In this paper, I show that there are necessarily cyclic strata in English, using data from a Southeastern United States dialect (hereafter SUS) in which there are special rules of yinsertion and y-deletion. Cole (1990) argues that cyclic rules are unnecessary, and offers alternative proposals for others' cyclic analyses of a variety of problems in several languages. The analysis presented here, however, requires cyclic rule application, thus refuting Cole's claim that cyclicity may be eliminated.
  • Prosodic Templates in Tigre Verb Morphology: A Phonologically Informed Analysis of Causative

    Conway, Laura (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    Mansac Tigre, a semitic language of Ethiopia, has a rich templatic system in its verb morphology. Templates interact with underlying roots of two, three and four consonants (radicals) to give a variety of surface forms. In the imperfective aspect, two interesting behaviors are to be found. First, in this aspect, but not in the perfective aspect, inflectional morphology is templatic in nature, so that the type of inflection (e.g. 3rd person, feminine, singular) determines the template instantiated. Second, I will argue, in the imperfective aspect, the appearance of causative is characterized by an operation applied after the template to be instantiated is selected and filled. Thus, it seems, data from Tigre provide an instance of a morphological process operating on the argument structure of a lexical item ("derivation" for those who subscribe to a distinction) which applies after inflectional processes. In particular, I contend that this behavior runs counter to a typology of morphological operations recently proposed in Steele (in prep). Steele's model, Articulated Morphology (AM), makes status differentiations within lexical objects (signs) and explicit claims about the types of operations which can operate on the various levels of lexical object. I claim that the Tigre data provide evidence that this typology is too restrictive and must be extended to accommodate behaviors I cite. The organization of this note is as follows: First I will give background of both the basic templatic system of Tigre and the formal models I will employ. Section 2 gives the Tigre background while section 3 introduces Articulated Morphology and Prosodic Morphology (McCarthy & Prince(1986, 1990)) with a focus to how ideas from these two models are utilized. Section 4 presents the data to be considered and formulates the generalizations which the analysis is to capture. In section 5, I give an analysis of the cited data. Section 6 is a discussion of the implications this analysis has for the Articulated Morphology model. Section 7 contains some concluding remarks.
  • IP-Structure and pro in Polish

    Ciszewska-Wilkens, Anna (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1992)
    In this paper I am going to argue that the morphosyntactic phenomenon of Inflected COMP in Polish provides evidence for separate Agr and Tense projections, and that the IP structure developed here licenses pro in Polish. An example of the inflected COMP sentence is the following: (1) a. Dopiero-śmy wsta - ły.; just-1PL get up-PAST/F/PL; 'We just got up.' Although usually the person marker is affixed to the main Verb, it is quite common for speakers to cliticize the person marker onto the first "word" of the sentence while the main Verb is inflected for past tense. This kind of a regular behaviour of the person marker against the past tense marker requires their separation in the tree. Another issue I am going to discuss here is the ordering of the Tense and Agr projections in the tree. I am going to take the position of Belletti (1988) and Chomsky (1988), and argue that the Agr projection is higher than Tense. This is supported by the morphological evidence of the ordering of the Tense and Agr markers on the Verb. (1) b. Dopiero wsta-ły-śmy.; just get up-PAST/F/PL-1PL; 'We just got up.' The assumption that the main Verb moves from V⁰ through Tense up to Agr and that this movement is reflected in the order of the markers on the Verb is consistent with the Mirror Principle which requires morphological derivations to directly reflect syntactic derivations (Baker (1985)). In order to account for the second position phenomena of the person marker with categories other than Verb I will propose that the Agr features adjoin to the C⁰ node and the person inflection on the first position in the sentence is a reflection of movement to COMP rather than movement to Agr. I am also going to use the adjunction of Agr to C⁰ as a quite natural explanation for pro in Polish. I will argue that after adjunction Agr is governing pro from Left to Right and since Agr is uniform (in the sense of Jaeggli and Safir (1989)) it can license pro in Polish.