In current linguistic theory, the theoretical status of adjunct extractions, as in for example How often do you think Robin sees Kim? is, somewhat surprisingly, an unresolved issue, with some investigators arguing that only arguments extract syntactically, entailing analyses of adverbial gaps via fundamentally different mechanisms from those posited for argument extraction. We adduce extensive evidence against such positions from a number of languages which exhibit morphological or syntactic phenomena which are sensitive to binding (extraction) domains and where this morphosyntactic flagging is present in instances of adjunct extraction as well as argument extraction. We also present language-internal arguments for the syntactic nature of adjunct extraction in English, including the coextensiveness of adjunct and argument extraction and their parallelism with respect to strong/weak crossover effects. Finally, we discuss the challenge which binding domain effects pose for accounts of adjunct extraction in various frameworks.

A comprehensive view of German syllable structure is developed based on phonetic and psycholinguistic experimental results supplemented by phonological arguments. The account is based on the interaction between universal factors (sonority/strength constraints, effects of tempo) and language-specific factors (phonotactic constraints, effects of stress). Initial, phonological syllabification reveals the distributional constraints operating in the language. This syllabification is modified by stress and rate of speech in well defined ways. The effect of a faster tempo is to maximize and thus strengthen syllable onsets within the limits predicted by sonority/strength and to minimize and thus weaken codas. This is achieved through resyllabification of stronger consonants onto following weaker ones. The effect of stress is twofold. Stress blocks faster speech resyllabification. It also modifies initial syllabification by making stressed syllables heavier through the acquisition of a branching nucleus, and in faster tempos, a branching rhyme. The effects of syllabification adjustments due to tempo and stress are interpreted as an optimization of syllable structure. The study supports a theory of syllable structure based on the arrangement of segments according to the so-called Sonority Sequencing Principle augmented by language-specific constraints which, in the absence of counteracting factors such as stress, are relaxed in faster tempos.

This paper argues that there are Modern Greek (MG) deverbal nominal predicates which take syntactic arguments. A mechanism for the derivation of these nominals requiring the existence of an ‘internal’ ([ — r]) argument is proposed which has broader coverage than the mechanism proposed in Grimshaw (1990). A small set of simple, unification-based operations is employed to model the relation between the argument structure of verb predicates and that of the corresponding deverbal nominals with an ‘ eventive’ reading. The Lexical Mapping Theory of LFG (LMT) is the theoretical framework of the present discussion.

Imperative Vs with distinctive morphology either have a distinctive syntax (Modern Greek, Spanish), or distribute like others Vs (Serbo-Croatian, Ancient Greek). The contrast follows from properties of the root C. The first type has a strong Imperative V-feature in C, and under Chomsky's Greed Principle, Imperative Vs raise overtly to check this feature. The second type is the Wackernagel language, whose C hosts no features, but V-features are in I. If no phrase fronts, Vs move to C to support second position items. V-to-C affects all Vs, is last resort, follows Lasnik's Enlightened Self-Interest, and escapes Greed.

This study examines the referential properties of a class of complex pronouns labelled M-PRONOUNS, exemplified by Old English HIMSELF, French LUI-MéME and English HISOWN. It is shown that M-pronouns exhibit some properties commonly taken as characterizing reflexive anaphors, and that they also occur as ‘intensive’ pronouns. It is shown, however, that they are not anaphors, and that labelling them ‘intensives’ does not suffice to account for their distribution. It is argued that the semantic properties of M-pronouns may be derived from their morphological structure. Their pronoun component (Old English HIM, French LUI, English HIS) is not a pronominal, in the sense of the Binding Theory, but a bindable expression unspecified for disjoint reference and locality. In the complex form created by M-adjunction, the pronoun is crucially de-stressed and, correlatively, interpreted as endophoric.

Does English have morphological case (as opposed to abstract Case)? Evidence is presented which suggests that it may be a completely case-less language like Chinese, contrary to the widely held view that the distinct pronoun forms and the ‘genitive’ 's involve morphological case. The existence of case in English has recently been accepted almost without question, but the question at least deserves serious discussion as it is easy to find alternative analyses. According to the analysis offered here, I and me are both personal pronouns whereas my, mine and 's are possessive pronouns; and the difference between I and me, like the one between my and mine, is handled by a very specific and local lexical rule which is sensitive to the syntactic structure but does not involve case.

TWO VIEWS OF GRAMMAR

For many years, many people have used the term ‘grammar’ to indicate something which represents an individual's mature linguistic capacity and which arises in the mind/brain of that individual on exposure to some relevant childhood experience. The grammar interacts with other aspects of a person's mental make-up, in a modular conception of mind. Different experiences may give rise to different grammars in different individuals, but it is a plausible initial assumption that grammars arise in everybody in the same way, subject to the same principles, parameters and learning constraints, which are common to the species. This is a biological view of grammars. Countless questions arise about these grammars, about their internal properties, about how they are represented in brains, about how they emerge in young children. Under this view there is no grammar of English, rather various grammars which exist in the minds of English speakers; grammars hold of people and not of languages. Let us distinguish terminology from reality here: proponents of the biological view of grammars sometimes use ‘the grammar of French’ to refer to the grammars of French speakers in a kind of shorthand which abstracts away from individual variation. This usage may have been misleading but, as noted in Lightfoot (1991, henceforth HSP, 162), it is comparable to references to the French liver, the American brain, or the Irish wit; nobody believes that there is such an entity but sometimes it is a convenient abstraction.