Linguistics

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), founding father of the United States and general polymath, included language among his many interests as a scientist, educator, and publisher. A particularly significant work in this area is his phonetic alphabet for English, which he proposed in 1768 for a “reformed mode of spelling”. The basic principles upon which he based this alphabet are familiar to linguists, but his descriptions show a deeper understanding of the sounds of language and how they may be grouped according to articulatory principles. We report on this alphabet and his comments thereon, including his correspondence with Mary Stevenson and later with Noah Webster, and discuss other obse..

This article discusses the phonological status of diphthongs and their role in the melodic and rhythmic organization of vowel and consonant sequences. We examine the nature of rising diphthongs and th - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The paper discusses the uses of conditional and interrogative complementizers in Old High German (section 2) and Saurian (section 3). Based on empirical evidence from these varieties, we will go into - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

In this work, I argue that the natural language item part (and its translational equivalents) is the same as the mereological notion of PROPER PART, full stop. While this seems trivially true, state-o - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper introduces the Lexical Ontology Persistence (LOP) Theorem, which formalizes the idea that words are persistent semantic entities with internal structure, independent of surface form converg - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

> > > > > > > > > > This paper introduces the Lexical Ontology Persistence (LOP) Theorem, which formalizes the idea that words are persistent semantic entities with internal structure, independent of - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Predicates such as 'are extinct' or 'are widespread' have long been assumed to apply only to kinds. I present evidence that the class of predicates typically described as kind-level are 'numerous'-typ - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Much work has shown that wh-movement is subject to several kinds of locality restrictions cross-linguistically. I propose that these restrictions arise when [wh] projects past the maximal projection t - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper introduces the Lexical Ontology Persistence (LOP) Theorem, which formalizes the idea that words are persistent semantic entities with internal structure, independent of surface form converg - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The diminishing effect, a kind of norm-sensitivity, is observed in many natural language constructions: negative comparatives (e.g., He is no taller than I am), only-sentences (e.g., he is only 49 yea - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Among the foundational questions for cognition is whether perceptual systems encode sensory input as continuous values or transform it into discrete mental representations. Speech—long a model system - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

In this paper, we discuss three languages of the Americas--Ch'ol (Mayan, Mexico), Mi'gmaq (Algonquian, Canada) and Maihiki (Tukanoan, Peru)--in light of their classifier and plural marking systems. Cr - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The theory of semantic prosody posits that words acquire evaluative coloring through repeated collocation with positively or negatively charged contexts. While this usage-based framework effectively d - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper analyzes the two-place comitative in Ch’ol, a Mayan language of Chiapas, Mexico. This construction behaves like a transitive verb in some respects: it licenses two arguments, exhibits varia - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This thesis develops a structural model of argument licensing in German Sign Language (DGS) based on the formal projection of R-Loci. I introduce Locus-Checking as a licensing operation that is inform - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

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The article argues that "RED (Reverse Entailment Diagnostic)" —a bidirectional test using nominalization/possessive packaging plus noun-slot verification—does more than show “anything can be nominaliz - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This paper analyzes the FormSet operation as it has been defined and used in the literature specifically in the domain of conjunction structures. It finds that, though its use as a structure building - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This study investigates passivization errors with unaccusatives in L2 English, known as passive unaccusatives (e.g., *The apple was fallen from the table.). Two competing accounts are considered: the - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

In this paper, I revisit some puzzles about selection, and argue that they suggest principled restrictions on the content of syntactic features. I take up two guiding principles, which jointly compr - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

What is a natural (morpho)phonological alternation and what is unnatural and perhaps underivable? This question forms the backdrop for exploring exchange, whereby [F] → [G] but in this same context [G - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

The immediate goal of this paper is to reconstruct tone on nouns in the Edoid family of Nigeria, one branch within the Benue-Congo subfamily of the Niger-Congo phylum, the largest family in Africa. Af - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

We propose a formal model for dealing with what we call outlook markers, a subtype of discourse markers that govern discourse management pertaining to negotiations about ‘agreeable outlooks’ (on possi - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

Phrasal cumulativity (i.e., the assumption that predicates can be pluralized by applying Link’s star operator) faces a problem with so-called ‘intermediate’ situations: If phrasal cumulativity is avai - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive

This monograph introduces the Reverse Entailment Diagnostic (RED) as a cross-linguistic methodology for testing nounal potential, defined as the capacity of linguistic material to be stabilized as a d - lingbuzz, the linguistics archive