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Similarities between human languages are often taken as evidence of constraints on language learning. However, such similarities could also be the result of descent from a common ancestor. In the framework of iterated learning, language evolution converges to an equilibrium that is independent of its starting point, with the effect of shared ancestry decaying over time. Therefore, the central question is the rate of this convergence, which we formally analyze here. We show that convergence occurs in a number of generations that is O(nlogn) for Bayesian learning of the ranking of n constraints or the values of n binary parameters. We also present simulations confirming this result and indicating how convergence is affected by the entropy of the prior distribution over languages.

Abstract: Partly due to disagreement on acceptability judgments, there is little agreement on the possibility of PP-internal and DP-internal focus particles in languages such as Dutch, English and German. Our large-scale corpus investigation reveals that PP-internal focus particles are a genuine possibility, not only in English, but also in Dutch and, to a lesser extent, German. These results seem to be incompatible with a number of existing syntactic theories of bound focus in German. However, our investigation also provides evidence for a strong dispreference for focus particles to follow a preposition, although the dispreference is less strong in Dutch than in German. Qualitative analysis of the corpus data shows that the variational patterns found in English, Dutch and German are highly similar, and are influenced by lexical-semantic as well as syntactic factors. We sketch an alternative analysis, couched in the framework of stochastic Optimality Theory. Key words: corpus analysis, focus particles, optimality theory, prepositional phrases, word order

This paper argues that “Spec head” agreement, construed as agreement under left to right Merge is not only a possible agreement configuration, but probably the only agreement configuration, contra Agree (Chomsky 2001).The first part addresses DP internal agreement in Maasai and English. The attested agreement patterns within the Maasai DP fall out from Spec head agreement (Koopman 2003a, 2003b). Attested and unattested agreement patterns fall out from the syntactic hierarchy and the derivation. English long distance agreement in the DP does not support Agree, as agreement can be triggered early in the derivation. The second part of the paper discusses individual cases that have been taken to provide support for Agree. I will show how each case is in fact consistent with Spec head, where the following play an important role: agreement can be triggered under pied-piping, accounting for long distance in Tsez (Polinsky and Potsdam 2001) and agreement can be triggered low in the derivation, as in English existential constructions. A case study of nominative objects in Icelandic implements a Spec head account, and argues on the basis of morphological evidence that these constructions should be analyzed as double nominative constructions, with the verb agreeing with two nominatives. The analysis bears on the nature of inherent case (an argument is presented that inherent case must be decomposed), the structural location of nominative case, clausal structure, silent expletives, default agreement, double agreement and intervention effects. The latter are shown not to bear on Agree.

The conduct of comparative work in Germanic linguistics, as elsewhere, raises the issue of how to deal with crosslinguistic variation. A popular approach, within the generative paradigm, is the parametric approach to microvariation, which relates patterns of variation to differ settings of syntactic or other parameters. An alternative to this approach is offered by Optimality Theory,

The main goal of this dissertation is to determine the best theory of de re/de dicto intensionality. Recently, it has become apparent that the traditional scope theory of this phenomenon is inadequate, the most marked evidence for this being the scope paradoxes discussed in Fodor (1970), Bäuerle (1983), and Percus (2000). This work therefore discusses two theories designed to replace the traditional theory. The first such replacement is the situation pronoun theory, which posits covert pronouns in the syntax of natural language representing pairs of worlds and times. This theory overgenerates, though, in several areas where the scope theory does not. These are discussed in terms of several generalizations captured by the latter but not the former. First, extending work by Musan (1997), the Intersective Predicate Generalization (IPG) states that two nodes combined via Predicate Modification must be evaluated at the same world and time. To capture this generalization in the situation pronoun theory, a rule of Situation Economy is proposed, which favors natural language structures having fewer situation pronouns. However, three more generalizations

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This paper proposes a general analysis of Case alternations and other phenomena associated with nominal hierarchies of the Silverstein type. The analysis is based on the mechanism of defective probes (in the sense of Chomsky 2001), such that a defective head may value a different Case from its nondefective counterpart (cf. Rezac 2004). The resultant 'defective Case forms ' are characterized by a range of well-known interpretive restrictions on argument encoding (definiteness-, animacy- and Person-Case-Constraint effects)- examples include Icelandic nominative objects, English expletiveassociates, the Russian genitive of negation, and the absolutive in Mohawk. These interpretive restrictions, and their relation to the EPP (optional vs. obligatory), are shown to follow from the variable crosslinguistic association of the syntactic Person feature of a nominal with, for probes, the EPP-feature of Chomsky 2000, and, for goals, different degrees of prominence as defined on a referential scale. In this way, differences in form (Case-marking) have semantic consequences, with the various interpretive restrictions at the interface reducing to a single, common source: namely, formal violations of the Case Filter in the context of defective Agree. 1. Introduction: The

as evidence for linguistic variation: the classical versus the vulgar variety of ancient Greek

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