To explain seemingly idiosyncratic restrictions on long passivization of causative/perception verbs in English and Brazilian Portuguese, we show that (a) long passives are blocked wherever the complement of a causative/perception verb constitutes a Voi…
Through analyses of Russian voicing assimilation and German dorsal fricative assimilation, this article argues for a restricted version of structure preservation and a stratal model of Optimality Theory. Structure preservation (Kiparsky 1985) prohibits…
This article develops a formal definition of Minimal Search to evaluate the idea that Agree and Labeling can be reduced to Minimal Search. Different aspects of the search algorithm used in Minimal Search (i.e., breadth-first vs. depth-first search, par…
English VP-preposing allows VP modifiers to remain on the right (John said he would arrive on Tuesday, and arrive he did, on Tuesday). The classic analysis of this invokes VP constituency, claiming that the modifiers are right-adjoined to VP and strand…
Abstract: This squib makes the observation that inverse linking readings are dependent on extraposition of the embedded quantifier to a higher position within the nominal. Evidence comes from cases where there is an additional modifier in the nominal, …
We studied the learnability of English filler-gap dependencies and the “island” constraints on them by assessing the generalizations made by autoregressive (incremental) language models that use deep learning to predict the next word given preceding co…
Abstract: This squib presents three new arguments that the matrix subject in English tough-constructions cannot reconstruct into the embedded gap. The first two arguments reexamine data in the literature purported to show such reconstruction. Upon clos…
Languages with applicative morphology vary in whether their applied arguments can stack, or “recurse.” Focusing primarily on Bantu languages, I argue that the availability of applicative recursion in a given language depends on abstract nominal licensi…
Whether Neg-raising should be handled in syntax or semantics/pragmatics has been hotly debated in the literature; one crucial difference between the two analyses is the presence/absence of syntactic Neg-extraction out of an embedded clause. This squib …
I argue that certain binding facts from Serbo-Croatian, analyzed as Condition B violations by Despić (2011, 2013), are best captured in terms of specific discourse constraints on coreferential pronouns and that such cases have no bearing on the categor…