View the meeting handbook - Linguistic Society of America

Brian Agbayani (California State University, Fresno) Session 39Masao Ochi (Osaka University)Split lexical insertion in parasitic gap constructionsWe propose to extend the feature movement theory (Chomsky 1995, Lasnik 1999, Agbayani 2006, Agbayani & Ochi 2006) byclaiming that the separation of formal features (FF) from the rest of a lexical item (LI) occurs not only in syntactic movement but alsoin the course of lexical insertion. Applying this hypothesis to parasitic gap (PG) constructions, we argue that the FF and the rest of theLI are merged into the PG site and the real gap site, respectively. Our analysis straightforwardly explains among other things the S-structure licensing requirement on PG and the reconstruction asymmetry found with PG.Jocelyn Ahlers (California State University, San Marcos) Session 103Borrowing in Elem PomoI explore the layers of borrowings found in Elem (Southeastern) Pomo, a Pomoan language spoken near Clear Lake, CA. Theseborrowings have come from two main linguistic sources: Southern Wintun, an unrelated language spoken in close proximity to thetraditional lands of the Elem Pomo, and Spanish. Borrowings from English into Elem are relatively rare. Each set of borrowingsshows particular phonological and semantic patterning, both of which reflect the age of the borrowings and the social setting withinwhich such borrowings occurred. Data are drawn both from current fieldwork with one of the last two speakers of the language, andfrom extant documentation.Rizwan Ahmad (University of Michigan) Session 30Old wine in a new bottle: Urdu in NagariAnalyzing data from Urdu in Devanagari, I show how speakers of Urdu, a language traditionally written in the Persian script, afteradopting Devanagari, are innovating graphemic strategies to mark Urdu in Devanagari as distinct from Hindi. I argue that theinnovation is in response to a potential threat that the adoption of Devanagari poses to the independent identity of Urdu as a languagedifferent from Hindi. I further argue that the phenomenon of writing Urdu in Devanagari both initiates and at the same time reinforcesa change in the indexical value of Nagari as emblematic of Hindu identity.Farid Alakbarli (Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences) Session 74Edwin D. Lawson (State University of New York, Fredonia, Emeritus)Richard F. Shell (State University of New York, Fredonia, Emeritus)Azeri names: Meaning & pronunciation on the webThis is a demonstration of an audio slide show on the web, featuring the language derivation, meaning, pronunciation, and frequencyof more than 400 given names from Azerbaijan. A native speaker pronounces each name clearly. The pronunciation key for eachname shows The New York Times style as well as IPA (http://www.fredonia.edu/faculty/emeritus/EdwinLawson/azerinames/).Asier Alcázar (University of Southern California) Session 20Mario Saltarelli (University of Southern California)Zanuttini's Hypothesis: Participial constructions revisitedZanuttini's hypothesis claims there exists a selectional relation between tense and sentential negation, such that if T, then Neg(Zanuttini 1996:181). This hypothesis rests on evidence from Romance command forms and absolute participial constructions.However, Italian absolutes of the Medieval and Renaissance periods admit negation (Egerland 1996:204). We report a similar patternfor Basque. Basque and Old Italian absolutes are not predicted under Zanuttini's Hypothesis because in these constructions Negmerges to v*P in lieu of TP. These facts invite further research into why certain forms of commands cannot be negated and intoselectional restrictions more generally.Daniel Altshuler (Rutgers University) Session 56Simultaneous readings in non-SOT languagesI present a novel hypothesis about the interpretation of tense: All languages have simultaneous readings in Past-under-Pastattitude/speech reports. I present data from Russian, Hebrew, and Japanese and argue that the generally held 'non-SOT' status of theselanguages is misleading. Although theories which posit a syntactic SOT rule and vacuous tense morphology can account for thesedata with a simple parameter setting, I follow Gennari (2003) in concluding that such theories overgenerate; a theory of embeddedtense must address the fact that aspect and reference/topic time specification play a crucial role in allowing simultaneous readingscross-linguistically.98