Band 19, Heft 1

In this article we propose that relational adjectives are amenable to a configurational morphological analysis where form and meaning are isomorphic. We argue that relational adjectives are, in fact, nouns which contain in their internal syntactic structure a semantically defective matrix of features which is spelled out as an adjectival affix. This proposal allows us to explain many of the morphological, semantic and syntactic properties of relational adjectives, among them the existence of bracketing paradoxes, the iteration of suffixes or their combination with prefixes that denote groups of individuals, such as bi-, mono- or poly- .

This paper reconsiders the complementiser and the tense-mood-aspect systems of the Papiamentu clause within the framework of the split CP (Rizzi 1997) and the split INFL (Pollock 1989) hypotheses, providing new evidence for the left periphery heads. It provides a detailed account of the Papiamentu morphemes involved that unifies syntactic and interpretive properties. Of particular interest is the proposal that di – which introduces infinitives – and lo – traditionally considered a future marker – both head FinP, and that pa , when functioning as a marker of necessity, heads MoodP. Contra certain claims in the literature, this paper argues that the order of preverbal material is not different from that of other Caribbean creoles.

French admits two types of pronominal subjects with weather verbs: il (‘it’) and ça (‘that’). Some eminent authors such as Dauzat et al. (1964: 118), Picoche (1983: 99) and Grevisse (1993: 1024) assume that the centripetal locative adverb çà has in some way influenced the development of the pronominal form ça . In this paper, it is argued that the weather ça is provided with a centripetal locative feature like the adverb çà and that this feature is compatible only with the directional interpretation of weather verbs. Given that the weather ça can enter an unaccusative structure where the argumental subject of the verb occurs in a post-verbal position, it is claimed that the locative weather ça is generated in a specific syntactic position as the predicate of a small clause complement to the verb. In contrast to French weather verbs, which are unaccusative (Ruwet 1989) and which take only the auxiliary avoir (‘to have’), Italian weather verbs can take both the auxiliary essere (‘to be’) and the auxiliary avere (‘to have’) – that is they can take both an unaccusative and an unergative structure (Benincà and Cinque 1992). From an analysis comparing French and Italian, it is shown that French weather verbs taking ça as subject correspond to the unaccusative-directional version of Italian weather verbs using the auxiliary essere . It is also shown that French weather verbs which take il as subject and which do not manifest an explicit unaccusative syntax are ambiguous between an unaccusative and an unergative interpretation.

The past two decades have seen many attempts to provide an explanation for the intriguing fact that Spanish – a language whose infinitives are traditionally believed to be [–TNS]/[–AGR] – has specified subjects in infinitivals in several context types and with specific dialect-sensitive positional restrictions (preverbal vs. postverbal position of the DP). The first part of the present paper is a critical reevaluation of the proposals made so far in the literature. We show that none of them is powerful enough to account for the ill-formedness of infinitivals containing certain instances of nominative arb se . In the second part of the article we claim that these infinitivals have abstract agreement which is not fully grammaticalized: infinitival clauses – irrespective of their structural position (subject or adjunct) – need a trigger that induces a reanalysis of PRO (the standard subject in these infinitivals) as pro (or PRO arb ) and the subsequent checking of nominative Case of the overt postverbal DP. In addition, Aux-to-Comp seems to be a possible Case provider in some clauses. Concerning preverbal subjects in Caribbean Spanish, their legitimacy could be explained by analogy with finite clauses, if we admit that this dialect has developed some kind of personal infinitive. For other varieties it could tentatively be argued that the well-formedness of these structures is a result of reduced normative pressure, with the effects of syntactic independence playing a role in some clauses.

This paper examines the trajectory of a spectacular change in the development of future temporal reference in Brazilian Portuguese over five centuries. Focusing on four competing exponents of futurity, we show how the incoming form gradually expropriates the preferred contexts of the older variants, prior to ousting them from the sector. These results confirm that the transition period in linguistic change is not abrupt, but proceeds as a series of small adjustments, as incoming and outgoing variants jockey for position in the system. As a variant recedes, constraints on its selection do not remain constant, though the distinctions it conveyed may be transferred to another exponent. These findings challenge some widely-held assumptions (i.e., that change affects all contexts simultaneously, or that the grammar remains invariant during the course of change).