Little Words: Their History, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, and Acquisition

259 Pages·2009·8.41 MB·English

by  Ronald P. Leow

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Little Words
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Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics series
Selected Titles
Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics:
Negation Tense and Clausal Architecture
RAFFAELLA ZANUTTINI, HÉCTOR CAMPOS, ELENA HERBURGER,
AND PAUL H. PORTNER, EDITORS
Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis
PHILIP LEVINE AND RON SCOLLON, EDITORS
Educating for Advanced Foreign Language Capacities
HEIDI BYRNES, HEATHER D. WEGER-GUNTHARP, KATHERINE SPRANG, EDITORS
Language in Our Time: Bilingual Education and Official English, Ebonics
and Standard English, Immigration and Unz Initiative
JAMES E. ALATIS AND AI-HUI TAN, EDITORS
Language in Use: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives
on Language and Language Learning
ANDREA E. TYLER, MARI TAKADA, YIYOUNG KIM, AND
DIANA MARINOVA, EDITORS
Linguistics, Language, and the Professions: Education, Journalism,
Law, Medicine, and Technology
JAMES E. ALATIS, HEIDI E. HAMILTON, AND AI-HUI TAN, EDITORS
Linguistics, Language, and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond
DEBORAH TANNEN AND JAMES E. ALATIS, EDITORS
Little Words: Their History, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics,
Pragmatics, and Acquisition
RONALD P. LEOW, HÉCTOR CAMPOS, AND DONNA LARDIERE, EDITORS
Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages
and Language Varieties
KENDALL A. KING, NATALIE SCHILLING-ESTES, LYN FOGLE, JIA JACKIE LOU,
AND BARBARA SOUKOUP, EDITORS
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LITTLE WORDS
Their History, Phonology, Syntax,
Semantics, Pragmatics, and Acquisition
Ronald P. Leow, Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere, Editors
Georgetown University Press
Washington, D.C.
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Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. www.press.georgetown.edu
© 2009 by Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Little words : their history, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and acquisition /
Ronald P. Leow, Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere, editors.
p. cm.—(Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistics series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58901-254-7 (alk. paper)
1. Grammar, Comparative and general. 2. Lexicology. I. Leow, Ronald P. (Ronald Philip),
1954– II. Campos, Héctor. III. Lardiere, Donna.
P201.L557 2009
415—dc22 2008029496
(cid:1)(cid:1) This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
First printing
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
Ronald P. Leow, Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere, Georgetown University
PART I: HISTORY
Chapter 2. From “Two” to “Both”: Historical Changes in the Syntax
and Meaning of Obain Slavic 9
Agnieszka ¯Lazorczyk and Roumyana Pancheva,
University of Southern California
Chapter 3. When Small Words Collide: Morphological Reduction
and Phonological Compensation in Old Leonese Contractions 21
Minta Elsman and D. Eric Holt, University of South Carolina
PART II: PHONOLOGY
Chapter 4. Distinguishing Function Words from Content Words in
Children’s Oral Reading 37
Carol Lord, Robert Berdan and Michael Fender, California State University,
Long Beach
Chapter 5. Motivating Floating Quantifiers 47
Lisa Rochman, Ben Gurion University
PART III: SYNTAX
Chapter 6. Applicative Phrases Hosting Accusative Clitics 61
Luis Sáez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Chapter 7. The Little DEof Degree Constructions 75
Remus Gergel, Universität Tübingen
Chapter 8. The Complementizer The 87
Heather Lee Taylor, University of Maryland
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vi Contents
Chapter 9. What Is There When Little Words Are Not There?:
Possible Implications for Evolutionary Studies 99
Ljiljana Progovac, Wayne State University
Chapter 10. Spanish Personal aand the Antidative 109
Omar Velázquez-Mendoza and Raúl Aranovich, University of California, Davis
PART IV: SEMANTICS
Chapter 11. Predicting Argument Realization from Oblique
Marker Semantics 121
John Beavers, The University of Texas at Austin
Chapter 12. Aspect Selectors, Scales, and Contextual Operators:
An Analysis of byTemporal Adjuncts 131
Michael F. Thomas and Laura A. Michaelis, University of Colorado at Boulder
Chapter 13. Distributive Effects of the Plural Marker –tulin Korean 143
Jong Un Park, Georgetown University
PART V: PRAGMATICS
Chapter 14. The Pragmatics of the French Discourse Markers
doncand alors 159
Stéphanie Pellet, Wake Forest University
Chapter 15. “Little Words” in Small Talk:Some Considerations on
the Use of the Pragmatic Markers manin English and macho/tíoin
Peninsular Spanish 171
Laura Alba-Juez, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Chapter 16. Little Words That Could Impact One’s Impression on Others:
Greetings and Closings in Institutional E-mails 183
Sigrun Biesenbach-Lucas, Georgetown University
PART VI: ACQUISITION
Chapter 17. Instructed L2 Acquisition of Differential Object Marking
in Spanish 199
Melissa Bowles and Silvina Montrul, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Chapter 18. The Role of Pedagogical Tasks and Focus on Form in
Acquisition of Discourse Markers by Advanced Language Learners 211
María José de la Fuente, George Washington University
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Contents vii
Chapter 19. Article Acquisition in English, German, Norwegian,
and Swedish 223
Tanja Kupisch, University of Calgary; Merete Anderssen, University of Tromsø;
Ute Bohnacker, Uppsala University; and Neil Snape, Hokkaido University
Chapter 20. A Continuum in French Children’s Surface Realization
of Auxiliaries 237
Cristina D. Dye, Georgetown University
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Illustrations
Tables
3.1 “Palatalizing” Leonese 22
3.2 “Nonpalatalizing” Leonese 22
4.1 Mean Vowel Duration by Word Class and Group 40
4.2 Mean Vowel Intensity by Word Class and Group 41
4.3 Mean Standardized Peak Pitch by Word Class and Group 42
4.4 Vowel Quality in Infinitival to,by Group 43
14.1 Distribution of alorsand doncwith Respect to Turn 161
14.2 Distribution of alorsand doncper Participant 161
15.1 Examples of the Different Markers in Initial, Middle, and
Final Position 173
15.2 Use of the Marker manAccording to Gender (%) 174
15.3 Use of the Different Markers in Spanish according to Gender (%) 175
15.4 Frequency of Use of the Different Markers according to
Discourse Function (%) 177
18.1 Assessment Task 1: ttest Between-Group Comparisons 215
18.2 Assessment Task 2: ttest Between-Group Comparisons 215
19.1 Number of Recordings Analyzed and Total of Noun Phrases
Requiring Articles (in brackets) 228
19.2 Noun Phrases with a Definite Article versus Noun Phrases with
an Indefinite Article in the Input (%) 231
19.3 Bare Nouns from the Total of Noun Phrases in the Input (%) 231
Figures
3.1 Structural Representation of Nasals, Laterals, and Rhotics 23
3.2 Structural Blending of con (cid:2)la (cid:3)colla 25
3.3 Structural Blending of con (cid:2)la (cid:3)conna 25
3.4 Structural Blending of por (cid:2)la (cid:3)polla 27
3.5 Structural Blending of por (cid:2)la (cid:3)*porraDisallowed 27
3.6 Structural Simplification of con (cid:2)la(cid:3)cona 29
3.7 Structural Simplification of con (cid:2)la(cid:3)*colaDisallowed 29
3.8 Structural Blending of por (cid:2)la(cid:3)pola 30
3.9 Structural Simplification of por (cid:2)la(cid:3)*poraDisallowed 30