Working Papers in Linguistics - 2018

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    Production and Comprehension of Malay Relative Clauses by L1 Children
    (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics, 2018-12-01) Chong, Peter
    Malay and related languages such as Indonesian are regarded as having a subject relativization advantage in terms of acquisition (Tjung 2009; Bakar, Razak, and Woan 2016). The present study investigates whether there is a preference for agent or patient relative clauses in production and comprehension in child Malay. Twelve Malaysian Malay-speaking children aged 3;9-8;6 (mean: 6;6) participated in an experiment involving an elicited-production task and a picture-selection task. From the overall responses, the children were found not to have any agent or patient preference in terms of production. However, the children performed better for agent relative clauses in terms of comprehension.
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    The Kapampangan Case-Marking System from a Diachronic Perspective
    (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics, 2018-11-01) Baetscher, Kevin
    This paper presents a detailed description of the morphology involved in the Kapampangan case-marking system, investigating its history through internal reconstruction and cross-linguistic comparison. Eventually, this paper suggests that the traditional paradigm of Philippine case markers is not entirely appropriate for Kapampangan, as this language combines a small number of grammatical markers fairly transparently to cover every syntactic function necessary for an Austronesian-type alignment system, with the help of systematic head marking. The re-analysis presented in the paper raises the question to what degree Kapampangan reduced its case-marking morphology, and to what degree the case-marking system reconstructed for Proto-Philippines, or even Proto-Austronesian, consisted of a smaller number of independent elements that freely combined with each other, rather than a full-fledged paradigm. The Kapampangan system may be a key in the larger question of why Austronesian languages differ so greatly in their case-marking paradigms.
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    Revisiting Relativization Asymmetries in Philippine-Type Symmetrical Voice Languages
    (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics, 2018-09-01) Bondoc, Ivan
    This paper proposes an accessibility hierarchy for relativization via the gap strategy in languages with a Philippine-type symmetrical voice system. A signature property of the Philippine-type symmetrical voice system is the presence of voice morphology on the verb that selects one of the elements as syntactically prominent. Using a grammaticality judgment task, native speakers of five languages exhibiting Philippine-type symmetrical voice (Pangasinan, Western Subanon, Blaan, Tagalog, and Cebuano) were consulted on the acceptability of relativization of various arguments in the different voice types. The findings showed that in all five languages, the pivot argument is the most accessible element for relativization using the gap strategy. Yet, two of the languages surveyed also allowed the relativization of the non-pivot agent. The preliminary findings suggest a Pivot > Non-Pivot Agent accessibility hierarchy for symmetrical voice languages. The implications of these findings are discussed.
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    Voice and Alignment in Ampenan Sasak Ditransitive Constructions
    (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics, 2018-08-01) Henke, Ryan
    This study presents the first systematic typological assessment and syntactic evaluation of the behavior of monotransitive and ditransitive arguments in a variety of Sasak, an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Lombok in Indonesia. It finds that three prototypical arguments—the monotransitive Patient (P) and the ditransitive Recipient (R) and Theme (T)—are syntactically equivalent and pattern together across voice constructions in word/argument order, passivization, and relativization. These findings are contrary to common typological expectations as well as formal theoretical assumptions that hold R and T to be asymmetrical syntactic objects.
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    A Revised Analysis of the Tense-Aspect Markers in Jejueo, An Endangered Language of Korea
    (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics, 2018-06-01) Yang, Sejung
    Jejueo pedagogical materials reflect previous misanalyses of the language’s verbal morphology. The current study proposes a new analysis of this morphology, noting that the traditional one was strongly influenced by syllable structure. I also discuss a revised system of tense and aspect that consists of three types of grammat.ical markers – perfective (-eos and -eon), continuative (-eoms), and non-past (-(eu)neun, and -eun), whose distribution is based on a new view of morpheme segmentation.