View the meeting handbook - Linguistic Society of America

use experimental and corpus techniques to present evidence against a dependency representation of English NPs but consistent with ahierarchical representation. The stimuli are two PPs recursively embedded under an NP, versus two PPs embedded at the same levelunder an NP. A relative clause is attached to one of the NPs. The constructions have the same dependency structure but differenthierarchical phrase structures. The data show that priming of the RC attachment height is sensitive to the hierarchical structure.Hooi Ling Soh (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities/National University of Singapore) Session 28Transition types & the Mandarin Chinese particle -leI present evidence from Mandarin Chinese for three types of transition--transitions involving propositions (P-transition), eventualities(E-transition), and values along a scale (V-transition)--and claim that the actual transition type expressed is partially determined by thesyntactic position of the transition marker, the particle -le (cf. Huang & Davis 1989). The proposal offers a new account for apersistent problem in the analysis of -le, namely the relation between the verb-final -le (verbal -le) and sentence final -le (sentential-le). I claim that sentential -le marks P-transition while verbal -le may mark E-transition or V-transition.Stephanie Solt (Graduate Center, City University of New York) Session 46A degree-based semantics for many & fewI draw on recent accounts of gradable adjectives (Kennedy 1999; Heim 2000, 2006) to propose a scalar analysis for many and few. Iargue that like adjectives such as tall, many and few can be decomposed into a gradable expression (Hackl 2000) and a null positivemorpheme that introduces a contextually determined neutral range on a given scale (von Stechow 2006). This not only capturesimportant similarities between many/few and pairs such as tall/short (particularly the existence of an intermediate range where neitherpositive nor negative term applies), but it also accounts for certain puzzles particular to many/few themselves.Usama Soltan (Middlebury College) Session 51On the individual/property contrast in Egyptian Arabic free state possessive nominalsI provide data from Egyptian Arabic free state possessive nominals showing how individual-denoting possessives and propertydenotingpossessives differ in their syntactic behavior with regard to linear order, definiteness/specificity restrictions, distribution,relativization, possessivization, anaphora, and scopal ambiguity. To account for these asymmetries, I argue, following Munn 1995and Strauss 2005, that both types of possessives occupy different syntactic positions within the structural hierarchy of DPs. Due tothis structural difference as well as a set of independently motivated principles of grammar, I provide a syntactic account for theseasymmetries.Aaron Huey Sonnenschein (California State University, Los Angeles/California State University, Northridge) Session 96The grammaticalization of dependent pronominal forms in Zoogocho ZapotecThe status of pronominal elements in Zapotec languages has been a topic of interest for over 80 years (see de Angulo 1926, Marlett1993). I discuss the particular status of the dependent pronominal forms in San Bartolomé Zoogocho Zapotec. I use textual data and aquantitative examination of a corpus of almost 2000 clauses to argue that these classes represent morphological classes in transition,and I point to the underlying discourse factors which lead to the development of agreement affixes in agglutinating verb initiallanguages like Zoogocho Zapotec.Aaron Huey Sonnenschein (California State University, Los Angeles/California State University, Northridge) Session 96Michael Galant (California State University, Dominguez Hills)Functions & morphosyntactic reflexes of Proto-Zapotec *nV[-hi] in Sierra Norte Zapotec languagesThe Proto-Zapotec morpheme *nV[-hi], originally used as a conjunction 'and', a preposition 'with', or an adverb 'also, too', can befound incorporated, synchronically or diachronically, in various phonological forms in certain verb stems in modern varieties ofZapotec, with varying function from language to language. I compare the syntactic and semantic functions of this morpheme, as wellas the morphosyntactic reflexes of its presence, in Zapotec languages spoken in the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca, building onprevious work done on these languages (e.g. Galant, Sonnenschein, Foreman). This study contributes to our knowledge ofcomparative Zapotec syntax, argument structure, and semantic roles.Barbara Soukup (Georgetown University) Session 49On the strategic use of dialect in Austrian TV political discussionsInteraction-oriented approaches towards style-shifting and code-switching focus on communicative goals and outcomes as driving164