here - Linguistic Society of America

Ed Cormany (Cornell University) Session 17Left-peripheral interactions in English imperativesAn independently motivated, three-level structure of the English left periphery both accommodates imperatives and predictssyntactic interactions in imperatives. Collocation of clause typing and topic features on a single head (the complementizer) isresponsible for the unacceptability of non-contrastive topics in imperatives. Contrastive topics, hosted in FocusP, are acceptable.Negation may also be associated with Focus, and the fact that imperative subjects must appear right of negation locates them inFinP. This general framework also explains the ban on Wh-extraction from embedded imperatives and variations in topicacceptability in languages with different left-peripheral structure.Micah Corum (Universität Hamburg/LiMA) Session 82Meanings and functions of for in West African English-lexifier pidgincreolesThis paper discusses meanings and functions of for in Nigerian Pidgin and Ghanaian Pidgin English. The paper frames for interms of a multipurpose construction whose basic-level meaning is motivated by gestalt perception, mental imagery, and motormovements. Similar constructions are found in certain West African and Pacific languages that influenced English-lexifierAtlantic and Pacific creole languages.The study also discusses the most productive uses of for when it co-occurs with the locative copula de. In addition to its locativefunctions, the discussion focuses on associative and relational functions that are rendered by the collocation de for.Marie-Hélène Côté (Université d’Ottawa) Session 20Toward a definition of contexts in French liaison: configurations or constructions?This paper explores the factors determining the productivity of liaison in French (e.g. [trɛ]+[ytil][trɛzytil]), in the context of thecurrent debate between structural and lexical approaches, involving abstract syntactic/prosodic configurations or liaison-specificlexicalized constructions. The analysis of a conversational corpus establishes the lexically specific nature of liaison contexts andthe fundamental role of transitional probabilities: Liaison remains productive only after words that systematically appear in thesame syntactic construction, as opposed to words that surface in more varied contexts, without consideration of general syntacticconfigurations or grammatical categories. This supports a constructionist perspective, but one that differs from current models.Rebecca T. Cover (The Ohio State University) Session 8Two kinds of pluractionality in BadiarankeBadiaranke employs two cross-linguistically common strategies for marking pluractionality (verbal plurality): reduplication andsuffixation. I argue that reduplication, but not the suffix (-ra:n-), encodes eventuality multiplication: repetitiveness or repetitionfor events, and intensification for states. Of Lasersohn’s (1995) three types of distributive pluractionality – temporal, spatial, andparticipant non-overlap – reduplication can express only the first. In contrast, -ra:n- encodes meanings not involvingmultiplication: it can convey distributivity across space or participants, as well as non-distributive readings, including unexpectedevent realization and inchoativity. Although such readings seem distant from event plurality, they are common readings ofpluractional markers cross-linguistically (Cusic 1981:74-81).Megan Crowhurst (University of Texas at Austin) Session 97Amador Teodocio Olivares (CEDELIO)An experimental study of rhythmic grouping among speakers of Betaza ZapotecBased on early psychoacoustic studies of listeners¹ rhythmic grouping preferences (Bolton 1894), Hayes (1995) identifies twoprinciples, known collectively as the Iambic-Trochaic Law (ITL): elements contrasting in intensity naturally form prominenceinitialgroupings, whereas elements contrasting in duration naturally form prominence-final groupings. Hayes invokes the ITL insupport of his restrictive prosodic foot typology, imputing broad validity to these principles. However, recent experimental studieshave provided only limited crosslinguistic support for the ITL. We report on a experimental study of the influence of duration andintensity on the subjective grouping of rhythmically alternating speech-like sequences among native speakers of Betaza Zapotec.144