Volume 63, Issue 6

In this article empirical evidence is presented against the existence of a discourse-laden low IP in Najdi Arabic as proposed by Alshamari, Murdhy & Marwan Jarrah. (2022. The fine structure of low topics in Najdi Arabic. Linguistics 60(4). 1011–1038). In particular, we argue that right dislocation in Najdi Arabic, qua a discursive articulation rooted in topicality, is at odds with the claim that there is a low IP, proposing a clause-external analysis of low topics instead.

This article defends the hypothesis that right-dislocated elements in Najdi Arabic (NA) are IP-internal low topics, contra Alzayid's (2025) recent claims of their IP-external status (Alzayid, Ali. 2025. On low topics in Najdi Arabic: A rejoinder to Alshamari and Jarrah (2022). Linguistics 63.6). Through a critical evaluation of Alzayid’s three empirical arguments – centred on NPI licensing, subject-verb agreement in VOS configurations, and wh-focus interactions – this reply demonstrates that his conclusions rest on misinterpreted diagnostics or theoretically untenable assumptions. Drawing on the cartographic tradition and phase theory, I argue that right-dislocated constituents exhibiting clitic doubling and definiteness effects are best analysed as merged within the low periphery, between TP and vP. The Agree relations between T and the low subject remain intact without invoking pretheoretical machinery or IP-external adjunction. Moreover, I show that NPI behaviour reflects semantic indefiniteness rather than syntactic height. This analysis reinforces the view that discourse-related material in Arabic clause structure can occupy structurally encoded low positions, thus supporting a richly articulated left and low periphery.

This paper illustrates the crucial role of “internal locatives” (Maienborn, C. 2001. On the position and interpretation of locative modifiers. Natural Language Semantics 9(2). 191–240.) in the clause-internal distribution and interpretation of locative expressions headed by the stative locative morpheme zài ‘be at’ in Mandarin Chinese. Internal locatives describe spatial properties that are part of an event described by a verb, contrasting with event locative modifiers in the Davidsonian sense. I show that zài locatives occur in up to four positions in the clause: two pre-verbal and two post-verbal. Internal location is encoded in (i) a lower pre-verbal modifier position and (ii) a compounding structure I label “V- zài ”, where zài immediately follows the verb. Although both express internal location, the pre-verbal internal locative is a modifier, while V- zài forms a complex predicate with the preceding verb, implemented as set intersection and event summation respectively (Rothstein 2004. Structuring events: A study in the semantics of lexical aspect . Oxford: Blackwell). This distinction accounts for an asymmetry long-noted in the Chinese linguistics literature: with a manner of motion verb, pre-verbal zài only has a static location interpretation while V- zài allows both static and goal interpretations. Elsewhere, the outermost pre-verbal position hosts a Davidsonian event modifier, while the post-verbal complement position (following verb and object nominal) hosts locative arguments, available only with certain verb classes, e.g., verbs of putting. This work presents a finer-grained view of how locative components integrate into the clause, bringing together research on locative modification and research on the encoding of locative result, which hitherto have tended to be explored independently of each other. Finally, it highlights the crosslinguistic relevance of internal locatives, originally described in German.

In recent years there has been an increased interest in computational modeling of spatial phenomena in typology. While the main focus of most work so far has been on direct language contact, there are two different types of spatial dynamics of interest to typologists and areal linguists: language expansion, and asymmetric contact effects. In this paper we present five statistical techniques to model phylogenetic and spatial relations between languages. We illustrate these techniques with a case study on Polynesian phoneme inventory sizes, and show that there is robust evidence for asymmetric contact effects from Non-Polynesian on Polynesian, but little evidence for expansion effects within Polynesian. In other words, we do not find convincing evidence for a serial founder effect in Polynesian phoneme inventory sizes. We also argue that we are still far from having a complete understanding of how to model all spatial dynamics that can affect language contact, and that more attention should be paid to these issues.

In recent years, numerous fields of research have seen a push for increased reproducibility and transparency. As a result, specific transparency practices have emerged, such as open access publishing, preregistration, sharing data, analyses, and code, performing study replications, and declaring positionality and conflicts of interest. While many agree that open science practices represent a positive step forward in improving scientific rigor, these practices, by and large, have not been adopted in the field of linguistics (Bochynska et al. 2023. Reproducible research practices and transparency across linguistics. Glossa Psycholinguistics 2(1). 1–36). Few, if any, researchers have had explicit instruction on the practices of open science as part of their professional training. Nonetheless, today’s speech researcher is expected to be up to date on the current protocols of open science in order to incorporate the methodological practices aimed at improving reproducibility/replicability. The present work intends to help make open science practices understandable and accessible to researchers in linguistics from all backgrounds and at every stage, from students/early career researchers to senior researchers and advisors. We outline eight specific open science practices that linguists can adopt to make their research more open, transparent, inclusive, and accessible to a wider audience.

Moras play an important role in Lowland East Cushitic tone/accent assignment, but their contributions elsewhere in these languages’ grammars are not well established. This paper reports on the results of a survey of languages in this sub-group, showing two types of mora augmentation (i.e., the addition of a mora), both of which primarily involve vocalic moras. In some instances, the goal of augmentation is to satisfy the language’s overarching metrical well-formedness requirements. In others, its result is the creation of a particular template, albeit one entailed by a morpheme’s subcategorization requirements. These outcomes have a bearing on typological generalizations reported by Davis, Stuart & Isao Ueda. 2006. Prosodic vs. morphological mora augmentation. Lexicon Forum 2. 121–143 concerning expected correlations between a language’s impetus for augmentation (prosody vs. morphology) and its preferred means of implementation (via vocalic vs. consonantal moras). We argue that some augmentations in Lowland East Cushitic, despite being required by morphology, are best considered to be prosodically motivated, an outcome that bears on the predictions of the aforementioned typology. The presence of and motivations for these augmentations have further implications for our understanding of other aspects of Cushitic languages that are yet poorly understood by linguists, namely details of their prosodic and metrical structures.

In this paper, we draw upon dimensions of syntax, prosody and pragmatics to address a lacuna in current understandings of the non-restrictive (‘appositive’/‘supplementary’) relative which -clause. Contrary to its portrayal in descriptive grammars, naturally occurring data shows that this clause is commonly produced after a main clause has come to prosodic completion, that is, as a grammatical increment. Its usage therefore raises the interactional and pragmatic questions of why speakers should initially produce an utterance that is, to all intents and purposes, complete, and therefore what the subsequent production of the increment serves. By examining the production of non-restrictive relative which -increments with respect to their main (‘host’) clause, we subject the Gricean maxim of Quantity to empirical investigation, exposing both its strengths and its shortcomings. We identify two potentially conflicting pragmatic constraints to which speakers orient in the use of this grammatical object: the principle of minimization (an empirical specification of the Quantity maxim), and a principle of progressivity (an orientation to forwarding trajectories of action). This study therefore reveals the extent to which grammar serves as an interactional resource, implicated in the projects of alignment and disalignment, both of understanding and of stance. We thus see the intersection of time and grammar to interactional ends.