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With the rise of minimalism, many concepts related to the geometrical relations of phrase structure held fast to in earlier approaches have been reconsidered. This article deals with distinguishing (relational and technical) properties of specifiers and adjuncts in a Bare Phrase Structure framework (X'-Theory). I extend specific aspects of X-structure relevant to the discussion of specifiers vs. adjuncts. I argue that unique specifiers can be derived from the system and that adjunction, possibly multiple, results from Direct Merge only. The final product is a series of relationships in line with recent thoughts and minimalist premises, but formally more similar to earlier conceptions of the X'-schema.
I address conceptual, empirical and theoretical arguments against multiple specifiers and related issues next, that is beyond the predictions immediately following from the tripartitional view of clause structure proposed in Grohmann (2000). After laying out my motivations to critically consider the issue, I present a set of data that casts serious doubt over the justifications offered to replace Agr with v as the accusative casemarker. Having conceptual and empirical back-up, I then tackle the theoretical validity of specifiers, and ways to distinguish unique specifiers from (multiple) adjuncts. I introduce a version of Bare Phrase Structure that does so, yet keeps the spirit of defining structural identification over relational rather than categorial properties.
Focus theories distinguish different types of focus according to the pragmatic conditions or communicative point on the one side and different scopes of focus on the other side. The assertion in term focus constructions (Dik 1989), called by others argument focus constructions or identificational sentences (Lambrecht 1994), has the purpose of establishing a relation between an argument and an open proposition. Kar, a north-eastern Senufo language of Burkina Faso, which has the basic word order S-Aux-O-V-other, has at its disposal different strategies to mark argument focus, among them fronting of the focused item. In many West African languages the displacement of the focused argument involves other devices, such as the use of special verb forms. In Kar fronting of a focused argument requires the use of special pronouns in the out-of-focus part of the sentence, called background subject pronouns. They are used in other backgrounded contexts, too, for example in relative clauses, adverbial clauses and constituent questions. Their inconsistent use is attributed to a particular sociolinguistic situation in which the data has been collected. The use of the same focus strategies for completive and contrastive focus suggests that Kar does not distinguish pragmatic conditions on the level of sentence grammar.
Many analyses of existential sentences have focused attention on determining which of its elements constitutes the logical subject and predicate, and this has proven to be a not uncontroversial topic of research. Some, from both syntactic and semantic points of view, have argued that there is a subject (cf. Williams 1994) others that it is a predicate (cf. Moro 1997). Similarly, some have argued that the associate NP is a logical subject, others that it is apredicate (Higginbotham 1987).
One logical possibility that has not (to my knowledge) been pursued in the linguistics literature is that these statements are not of the form subject-predicate, a possibility that has been taken up in the philosophical literature by P.F. Strawson (1959). He claims that there are such statements and that their form is simpler than that of subject-predicate statements because it does not, and cannot, involve an expression that makes reference to an individual. Not involving reference to an individual, these sentences are therefore are made true by different means than a subject-predicate statement whose truth, in the simplest cases, depends on the denotation of the subject being a member of the denotation of the predicate. Of interest from the point of view of the present discussion is his claim that existential statements are examples of this kind of statement, which he calls a feature-placing statement. The truth of a statement of the form feature-placer requires that something with the set of features denoted by the associate NP exist at the location or coordinates expressed by the placer. In an existential sentence we can take the associate NP as the feature-denoting expression and the coda-XP as the placer.
The goal of this paper is to investigate cases of apparent noun-incorporation in Malagasy, a western Austronesian language spoken in Madagascar. Looking at examples [...], one may ask whether or not Malagasy has nounincorporation. [...] The organization of this paper is as follows: I begin with a general discussion of the distribution of nominals in Malagasy - with and without determiners. In section 3 I turn to […] two constructions […] and compare and contrast them. Section 4 details the analyses of the two constructions and I conclude the paper in section 5.
In this work, I provide an analysis of adjectival depictive constructions which accounts for most of their fundamental properties. First, I focus on the restrictions having to do with the integration of the depictive and the verbal predicate: they are based on aspectual compatibility between the two predicates, which, in turn, will depend on the ability, on the part of the depictive, to make reference to some (sub)event in the event structure of the verbal predicate. Facts not captured by previous approaches in the literature will be straightforwardly accounted for, among them the possibility to have I-L depictive constructions, and the impossibility to combine a depictive with some non-stative verbal predicates. Second, it will be shown that the informational import of the depictive in the sentence can be equivalent to that of the verbal predicate: both can be the primary lexical basis of predication. This is reflected in the sentence in various ways, having to do with aspectual modifiers, and in the properties of the sentential subject. In this connection, we will reconsider the notion of subject, arguing that no subject-predicate relation takes place in the lexical domain of sentences, and hence that the argument the depictive is oriented to, the common argument, cannot be a subject of the depictive. Finally, a minimalist analysis is proposed for the syntax of the construction, in terms of direct syntactic merge of predicative constituents and sidewards (q-to-q) movement for the common argument, from the lexical domain of the depictive to the lexical domain of the verb. As to morphosyntactic properties, a syntactic Double Agree relation is assumed to hold between T/v, as probes, on the one hand, and the common argument and depictive, as simultaneous goals, on the other, which would allow for the deletion of Case features on both goals. The assumed presence of Structural Case on the adjectival depictive will be responsible for the well-known restriction on the orientation of depictives to the sentential subject or object.
In this paper I put forward and justify a syntactic configuration that I call Complex Small Clause-structure. I show that this single syntactic structure can explain both the semantic value and the syntactic behavior of a range of constructions that up to now have been explored separately and, hence, proposed divergent analyses among them.
Even if we can generate a logical form, principles of use may limit the ways in which we can use it. In this paper, I motivate one such principle of use, and explore its effects. Much of the discussion involves kinds of sentences that have received attention in the literature on "individual-level predicates".
While the perilinguistic child is endowed with predispositions for the categorical perception of phonetic features, their adaptation to the native language results from a long evolution from the end of the first year of age up to the adolescence. This evolution entails both a better discrimination between phonological categories, a concomitant reduction of the discrimination between within-category variants, and a higher precision of perceptual boundaries between categories. The first objective of the present study was to assess the relative importance of these modifications by comparing the perceptual performances of a group of 11 children, aged from 8 to 11 years, with those of their mothers. Our second objective was to explore the functional implications of categorical perception by comparing the performances of a group of 8 deaf children, equipped with a cochlear implant, with normal-hearing chronological age controls. The results showed that the categorical boundary was slightly more precise and that categorical perception was consistently larger in adults vs. normal-hearing children. Those among the deaf children who were able to discriminate minimal distinctions between syllables displayed categorical perception performances equivalent to those of normal-hearing controls. In conclusion, the late effect of age on the categorical perception of speech seems to be anchored in a fairly mature phonological system, as evidenced the fairly high precision of categorical boundaries in pre-adolescents. These late developments have functional implications for speech perception in difficult conditions as suggested by the relationship between categorical perception and speech intelligibility in cochlear implant children.
This paper describes the processing of MRI and CT images needed for developing a 3D linear articulatory model of velum. The 3D surface that defines each organ constitutive of the vocal and nasal tracts is extracted from MRI and CT images recorded on a subject uttering a corpus of artificially sustained French vowels and consonants. First, the 2D contours of the organs have been manually extracted from the corresponding images, expanded into 3D contours, and aligned in a common 3D coordinate system. Then, for each organ, a generic mesh has been chosen and fitted by elastic deformation to each of the 46 3D shapes of the corpus. This has finally resulted in a set of organ surfaces sampled with the same number of 3D vertices for each articulation, which is appropriate for Principal Component Analysis or linear decomposition. The analysis of these data has uncovered two main uncorrelated articulatory degrees of freedom for the velum's movement. The associated parameters are used to control the model. We have in particular investigated the question of a possible correlation between jaw / tongue and velum's movement and have not find more correlation than the one found in the corpus.
This paper contributes to the understanding of vocal folds oscillation during phonation. In order to test theoretical models of phonation, a new experimental set-up using a deformable vocal folds replica is presented. The replica is shown to be able to produce self sustained oscillations under controlled experimental conditions. Therefore different parameters, such as those related to elasticity, to acoustical coupling or to the subglottal pressure can be quantitatively studied. In this work we focused on the oscillation fundamental frequency and the upstream pressure in order to start (on-set threshold) either end (off-set threshold) oscillations in presence of a downstream acoustical resonator. As an example, it is shown how this data can be used in order to test the theoretical predictions of a simple one-mass model.
A visual articulatory model and its application to therapy
of speech disorders : a pilot study
(2005)
A visual articulatory model based on static MRI-data of isolated sounds and its application in therapy of speech disorders is described. The model is capable of generating video sequences of articulatory movements or still images of articulatory target positions within the midsagittal plane. On the basis of this model (1) a visual stimulation technique for the therapy of patients suffering from speech disorders and (2) a rating test for visual recognition of speech movements was developed. Results indicate that patients produce recognition rates above level of chance already without any training and that patients are capable of increasing their recognition rate over the time course of therapy significantly.
In order to investigate the articulatory processes of the hasty and mumbled speech of clutterers, the kinematic variability was analysed by means of electromagnetic midsagittal articulography (EMMA). In contrast to stutterers, clutterers improve their intelligibility by concentrating on their speech task. Variability is an important criterion in comparable studies of stuttering and is discussed in terms of the stability of the speech motor system. The aim of the current study was to analyse the spatial and temporal variability in the speech of three clutterers and three control speakers. All speakers were native speakers of German. The speech material consisted of repetitive CV-syllables and foreign words, because clutterers have the most severe problems with long words which have a complex syllable structure. The results showed a higher quotient of variation for clutterers in the foreign word production. For the syllable repetition task, no significant differences between clutterers and controls were found. The extremely large and variable displacements were interpreted as a strategy that helps clutterers to improve the intelligibility of their speech.
This paper summarizes our research efforts in functional modelling of the relationship between the acoustic properties of vowels and perceived vowel quality. Our model is trained on 164 short steady-state stimuli. We measured F1, F2, and additionally F0 since the effect of F0 on perceptual vowel height is evident. 40 phonetically skilled subjects judged vowel quality using the Cardinal Vowel diagram. The main focus is on refining the model and describing its transformation properties between the F1/F2 formant chart and the Cardinal Vowel diagram. An evaluation of the model based on 48 additional vowels showed the generalizability of the model and confirmed that it predicts perceived vowel quality with sufficient accuracy.
We measure face deformations during speech production using a motion capture system, which provides 3D coordinate data of about 60 markers glued on the speaker's face. An arbitrary orthogonal factor analysis followed by a principal component analysis (together called a guided PCA) of the data has showed that the first 6 factors explain about 90% of the variance, for each of our 3 speakers. The 6 derived factors, therefore, allow us to efficiently analyze or to reconstruct with a reasonable accuracy the observed face deformations. Since these factors can be interpreted in articulatory terms, they can reveal underlying articulatory organizations. The comparison of lip gestures in terms of data derived factors suggests that these speakers differently maneuver the lips to achieve contrast between /s/ and /R/. Such inter-speaker variability can occur because the acoustic contrast of these fricatives is shaped not only by the lip tube but also by cavities inside the mouth such as the sublingual cavity. In other words, these tube and cavity can acoustically compensate each other to produce their required acoustic properties.
The contribution of von Kempelen's "Mechanism of Speech" to the 'phonetic sciences' will be analyzed with respect to his theoretical reasoning on speech and speech production on the one hand and on the other in connection with his practical insights during his struggle in constructing a speaking machine. Whereas in his theoretical considerations von Kempelen's view is focussed on the natural functioning of the speech organs – cf. his membraneous glottis model – in constructing his speaking machine he clearly orientates himself towards the auditory result – cf. the bag pipe model for the sound generator used for the speaking machine instead. Concerning vowel production his theoretical description remains questionable, but his practical insight that vowels and speech sounds in general are only perceived correctly in connection with their surrounding sounds – i.e. the discovery of coarticulation – is clearly a milestone in the development of the phonetic sciences: He therefore dispenses with the Kratzenstein tubes, although they might have been based on more thorough acoustic modelling.
Finally, von Kempelen's model of speech production will be discussed in relation to the discussion of the acoustic nature of vowels afterwards [Willis and Wheatstone as well as von Helmholtz and Hermann in the 19th century and Stumpf, Chiba & Kajiyama as well as Fant and Ungeheuer in the 20th century].
In order to understand the functional morphology of the human voice producing system, we are in need of data on the vocal tract anatomy of other mammalian species. The larynges and vocal tracts of four species of Artiodactyla were investigated in combination with acoustic analyses of their respective calls. Different evolutionary specializations of laryngeal characters may lead to similar effects on sound production. In the investigated species, such specializations are: the elongation and mass increase of the vocal folds, the volume increase of the laryngeal vestibulum by an enlarged thyroid cartilage and the formation of laryngeal ventricles. Both the elongation of the vocal folds and the increase of the oscillating masses lower the fundamental frequency. The influence of an increased volume of the laryngeal vestibulum on sound production remains unclear. The anatomical and acoustic results are presented together with considerations about the habitats and the mating systems of the respective species.
Four speakers repeated 8 times 15 sentences containing 'pVp' syllables (V being /a/, /i/ and /u/). The 'pVp' syllables were located in final, penultimate and antepenultimate position relatively to the Intonational Phrase (IP) boundary. They were embedded in lexical words of 1-3 syllables and were either word-initial or word-final. Results show that the closer the vowel in word-final position is to the IP boundary, the longer the duration and the higher the fundamental frequency of the vowel; it is also characterised by larger lip opening gestures. The potential reduction or coarticulation of vowels in wordinitial position compared to their counterparts in word-final position is discussed.
This paper employs empirical methods to examine verbs such as seem, for which the traditional raising to subject analysis relates pairs of sentences which differ by taking an infinitival or sentential complement. A corpus-driven investigation of the verbs seem and appear demonstrates that information structure and evidentiality both play a determinate role in the choice between infinitival or sentential complementation. The second half of the paper builds upon the corpus results and examines the implications for the standard claims concerning these constructions. First, pairs of sentences related by the subject-to-subject raising analysis of verbs are often viewed as equivalent. New evidence from indefinite generic subjects shows that whether an indefinite generic subject occurs in the infinitival or sentential complement construction leads to truth-conditional differences. Further implications are explored for the claim that subjects of the infinitival variant may take narrow-scope: once various confounds are controlled for, the subject of the infinitival construction is shown to most naturally take wide-scope.
This paper focuses on different subtypes of constructions involving temporally bounded quantification, e.g. sequences like David visited Rome three times followed by temporal phrases as different as (i) last year, which defines a time interval; (ii) in less that two months, which defines an amount of time; and (iii) per month, which refers to a time unit. As for the first two types of temporal phrases, data will be presented which shows that they have specific linguistic properties in these quantifying contexts, and do not behave exactly as the locating or duration adverbials they are superficially identical with. The third type of phrases will receive special attention. Structures with frequency adverbials like n times per month will be analysed compositionally, separating the quantified component n times from the temporally binding phrase per month (whose role is comparable to that of adverbials (i) and (ii) in the relevant constructions). The data presented is mainly from Portuguese, although the issues at stake – the linguistic properties of temporally bounded quantification – are obviously relevant to parallel constructions in other languages.
This paper looks at sentences with "quantificational indefinites," discussed by Diesing (1992) and others. I propose that these sentences generate sets of alternatives of the form {p, not p and it's possible that p}, which restrict the quantification by an extension of familiar focus principles. For example, in the sentence "I usually read a book about slugs" (on the relevant reading), "usually" quantifies over pairs <x,t> such that x is a book about slugs, t is a time interval, and one alternative is true from the set {I read x at t, I can but do not read x at t}. In addition to accounting for a well-known contrast between creation and non-creation verbs, this also explains a second contrast that Diesing’s analysis cannot account for.