Language & Linguistics Compass

Brasoveanu, Adrian

doi: 10.1002/lnc3.318pmid: N/A

The paper reviews the semantics and pragmatics of correlatives across various ontological domains (temporal, modal, individual and degree domains), focusing mostly on Indo‐European languages. Taking correlatives in the individual domain as a case study, the paper then argues that their interpretation, in particular the variability of the uniqueness effects exhibited by correlatives, is due to their mixed referential and quantificational nature. The account involves an articulated notion of quantification consisting of both (discourse) referential components and non‐referential/quantificational components – thus bringing together previous analyses that took either the referential or the quantificational route. The variable uniqueness effects emerge out of the interaction between (i) the semantics of wh‐indefinites, singular anaphors and habitual morphology and (ii) the pragmatics of quantification, which allows for the selection of different levels of ‘zoom‐in’ on the quantified‐over objects.

Barrie, Michael

doi: 10.1002/lnc3.319pmid: N/A

This paper presents an overview of the theories of Antisymmetry and Dynamic Antisymmetry. It begins with a brief history of linearization and describes the fundamental difference between parameterized word order and universal word order. It presents a technical description of Antisymmetry and Dynamic Antisymmetry followed by a less technical synopsis. It also outlines various consequences and criticisms of these two theories and describes some current research in this domain.

Sauerland, Uli

doi: 10.1002/lnc3.321pmid: N/A

I provide an overview of four current theories of scalar implicature: the pragmatic (or Gricean), the lexical, a combined pragmatic + lexical, and the grammatical theory. The empirical focus are global and local, but also intermediate implicatures. I argue that the grammatical theory is conceptually less well motivated than even the pragmatic + lexical theory, and that the grammatical theory therefore requires strong empirical support. I then focus on a novel empirical phenomenon – intermediate implicatures – which provides empirical support for the grammatical theory. I conclude that it seems necessary to adopt the grammatical theory.

Kemmerer, David

doi: 10.1002/lnc3.322pmid: N/A

Despite the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the language sciences, so far relatively little effort has been devoted to exploring potential connections between typology and neuroscience. To illustrate some of the insights that can be gained from pursuing such an integration, this paper focuses on one of the most well established and frequently cited typological generalizations, namely that in the vast majority of human languages, the basic word order is either SOV (about 48%) or SVO (about 41%). It has been suggested that these strong tendencies can be explained cognitively in terms of the prototypical transitive action scenario, in which an animate agent acts forcefully on an inanimate patient to induce a change of state. Two forms of iconicity are especially relevant: first, because the agent is at the head of the causal chain that affects the patient, subjects usually precede objects; and second, because it is the agent’s action, rather than the agent per se, that changes the state of the patient, verbs and objects are usually adjacent. The purpose of this paper is to show that this account converges with, and hence receives further support from, recent research on how actions are represented in the brain. Specifically, several lines of evidence are reviewed which suggest that Broca’s area plays a pivotal role in schematically representing the sequential and hierarchical organization of goal‐directed bodily movements, not only when they are performed and perceived in the real world, but also when they are conceptualized and symbolically expressed as transitive clauses. Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that the most cross‐linguistically prevalent word order patterns reflect the most natural ways of linearizing and nesting the core conceptual components of actions in Broca’s area.