Carolina Working Papers in Linguistics

Table of Contents:
 

Reviewers:
On behalf of the contributers to the Carolina Working Papers, we wish to thank the following individuals who took their valuable time to review the submissions:

Steve Gross, University of South Carolina
Rick Hallett, University of South Carolina
Barbara Hancin-Bhatt, University of South Carolina
D. Eric Holt, University of South Carolina
Melanie Moll, University of South Carolina
Michael Montgomery, University of South Carolina
Gert Webelhuth, University of North Carolina

Author:

Title: Optimal Syllabification of  First Grade Diminutives in Yiddish
Author: Hans Christian Boas
Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bio of the Author:

Hans C. Boas is a graduate student in linguistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His main interests include the syntax/semantics interface, computational lexicography, discourse analysis, phonology, and language variation. He is currently completing his dissertation research (title: "Resultative Constructions in English and German" at the University of California at Berkeley.

Author:

Title: Reranking Stages in OT Analysis of the Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language
Author: Rachel Lee Hayes
Affiliation: University of Arizona
Bio of the Author:

Rachel Lee Hayes has a MA in linguistics from the University of South Carolina and is currently working for a Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on developmental stages in second language acquisition.

Author:

Title: Telling truths or Titanic tales: The interrelatedness of Gricean maxims
Author: Larry LaFond
Affiliation: University of South Carolina
Bio of the Author:

Larry LaFond is a Ph.D. student in linguistics at the University of South Carolina, where he also serves as Asst. Director of the Center for Business Communication.  He completed an M.A. in Applied Linguistics at Old Dominion University in 1997.  His main research interests are in the areas of discourse analysis, interlanguage pragmatics and second language acquisition.

Author:

Title: On the Semantics of Manner Adverbs
Author: University of Arizona Julia B. St. John
Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bio of the Author:

Julia St. John  is a doctoral candidate in linguistics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a visiting instructor in the English department at the College of William and Mary. I am writing my dissertation on event structure and the contribution of verbal modifiers to the semantics of verbal predicates.

Abstract:

Title: Optimal Syllabification of  First Grade Diminutives in Yiddish
Author: Hans Christian Boas, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(Click on the relevant type of file to download the whole paper: pdf )

This paper examines the syllabification of first-grade diminutives in standard Yiddish. Besides the regular diminutive formation, there are different diminutives which epenthesize a ‘d’ between the right edge of the stem and the left edge of the diminutive suffix. Epenthesis in these forms is argued to be due to a language-specific constraint which requires an epenthetic consonant to appear before the diminutive suffix. The analysis is cast in terms of Optimality Theory and has important implications in several domains. First, the phonetic information associated with individual segments is not always sufficient to predict the full range of possible phonological processes. That is, in some cases, syntactic and/or semantic information is needed to predict the distribution of segments. Second, not all constraints which appear in a language’s hierarchy are universal. Thus, there is a need for language specific constraints.

Abstract:

Title: Reranking Stages in OT Analysis of the Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language
Author: Rachel Lee Hayes, University of Arizona
(Click on the relevant type of files to download the paper:  pdf )

This investigation has two goals: (1) to identify developmental stages in the acquisition of Japanese as a second language by native speakers of English and (2) to account for these stages in the Optimality Theoretic framework (Prince & Smolensky, 1993) and to test the predictions of the Robust Interpretive Parsing/Constraint Demotion Algorithm (RIP/CDA) language learning mechanism proposed by Tesar & Smolensky (1996), to account for the findings. The study explores the syllable structure of Japanese productions of native speakers of English learning Japanese as a second language in order to isolate and characterize acquisitional stages in the learners’ developing interlanguage (IL) grammars. The data support the prediction that these acquisitional stages can be neatly characterized as the reranking of constraints as the learner’s grammar reorganizes to conform to the second language input. However, the utility of the RIP/CDA to account for this development is challenged as it cannot account for what motivates the IL reorganization stages apparent in the subjects’ development.
 

Abstract:

Title: Telling truths or Titanic tales: The interrelatedness of Gricean maxims
Author: Larry LaFond, University of South Carolina
(Click on the relevant type of files to download the paper: pdf )

This paper argues that when inexperienced writers flout Grice's (1975) quality maxim, the result is a destabilization of the maxims of quantity, relation and manner.  It also argues that evaluators use these maxims to make judgments about the veracity of writing.  In a cross-sectional study, university students (n=43) wrote essays on "The night I saw the movie, 'Titanic.'"  Students who had seen the movie were engaged in truth-telling, and those who had not were attempting to deceive. Evaluators read the essays to predict which stories were true and which were false.  The study examined whether there were quantifiable differences between falsified and factual accounts (in length, relevance, and manner) and whether correlation existed between those measures and judgments of veracity. Results show that inexperienced writers portraying a non-factual event as true violate the remaining Gricean maxims more than writers of similar abilities attempting to faithfully portray a factual account. Results also show that writers who are better at genre management display fewer violations of the maxims of quantity, relation, and manner than inexperienced writers.  This paper also confirms that evaluators judge writing according to adherence to Gricean maxims.  Evaluators consistently regarded essays as falsifications when violations of two or more of the maxim types occurred, and they regarded essays as factual when they contained fewer than two types of maxim violations.  These findings have important theoretical implications for researchers in the fields of interpersonal deception or discourse analysis.  The findings here should also interest those engaged in writing instruction.

Abstract:

Title: On the Semantics of Manner Adverbs
Author: Julia B. St. John, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(Click on the relevant type of files to download the paper: pdf )

In this paper I propose a representation of the semantics of both verbs and manner adverbs.  The proposal adopts the verbal classification of Dik (1989) and integrates this information into the unification-based theory of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar.  The representation of the semantic information of verbs and manner adverbs proposed in this study allows the prediction of a number of properties of manner adverbs and their interactions with verbal semantics.  Among these properties are the factivity of manner adverbs, their inability to modify statives or to take scope over negation and their noniterability, many of which follow from the inclusion of an event variable in the representation of both verbal and manner adverbial semantics. I also propose a hierarchy of verbal and semantic relations based on these representations and on the acceptability of certain adverb-verb combinations and suggest that the acceptable combinations support the notion of telicity as a separate aspect of verbal semantics.  The proposed hierarchy does, however, reflect the importance of the notions of stativity and control for modification by manner adverbs.  While the proposal accounts for a number of  unacceptable combinations of verbs and manner adverbs, I conclude by noting a number of unacceptable combinations not predicted by the current account.