Topic
Complementary distribution
About: Complementary distribution is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 111 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1607 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
1 Jan 1995
TL;DR: This paper showed that for some dialects of English, condense has a full vowel under stress while the corresponding underlying /e/ in compensate (cf. comp[_I]nsatory) reduces to schwa in an unstressed syllable.
Abstract: The stress contours and gross prosodic structure of compensation and condensation are identical; yet for certain dialects of English they mysteriously contrast their second syllables as schwa versus [I] despite the fact that these two vowels are largely in complementary distribution elsewhere. The mystery vanishes once the related words in (1b) are brought into the picture; here the two words contrast in familiar ways: condense has a full vowel under stress while the corresponding underlying /e/ in compensate (cf. comp[_I]nsatory) reduces to schwa in an unstressed syllable. In the standard generative model of grammar the only way in which one word can have a systematic effect on the structure of a morphologically related word is to embed the former in the derivation of the latter. This is of course the classic SPE cycle (Chomsky & Halle 1968) illustrated in (2).
330 citations
TL;DR: New support for the theory of level-ordering is found and a formal theory of position class morphology is offered, which covers a large corpus of data — and certain phenomena — not previously discussed in the generative literature.
Abstract: The verbal morphemes in the Papuan language Nimboran are rigidly ordered; moreover, morphemes with identical ordering properties are in complementary distribution. This suggests that verbal morphemes belong to position classes, each permitting at most one member to surface. Certain morphemes belong simultaneously to more than one position class, with corresponding blocking of all morphemes in the relevant classes. A striking generalization is that position classes blocked in this joint fashion must be contiguous. The problem is that linear order and blocking diagnose two incompatible orderings for the position classes. The solution rests in reinterpreting verbalpositions as levels in a fixed morphological hierarchy; we resolve the ordering paradox by exploiting the distinction between dominance and precedence available in a hierarchical structure. This paper adduces new support for the theory of level-ordering and offers a formal theory of position class morphology, a well-known phenomenon which deserves attention in morphological theory. It also covers a large corpus of data — and certain phenomena — not previously discussed in the generative literature.
173 citations
TL;DR: This article used dual pronoun systems in Australian languages to show the pragmatic basis for a cycle of pronoun creation - reduced pronouns from free forms and free from reduced - and the motivation to maintain both types in a linguistic system.
Abstract: Data from dual pronoun systems in Australian languages is used to show the pragmatic basis for a cycle of pronoun creation - reduced pronouns from free forms and free from reduced - and the motivation to maintain both types in a linguistic system. Free pronouns become positionally restricted reduced forms by association of clause-initial position with discourse prominence (Swartz 1988, Choi 1999). The same pragmatic motivations result in the creation of new free pronouns, and the divergence of free and reduced pronouns with respect to ergative case marking. Examples of languages at different stages of the cycle include Garrwa (one set of free pronouns, with a strong preference for second position); Djambarrpuyngu and Gupapuyngu (two sets of pronouns transparently related in form and in complementary distribution); Ritharrngu, Djinang, and Djinba (two sets of pronouns transparently related in form but in which the reduced pronouns are becoming obligatory); Warlpiri (two sets of pronouns, which diverge in form, and the reduced set is obligatory); and Warumungu (one set of reduced pronouns, indicating how new free pronouns might emerge based on information-packaging principles). The creation of free pronouns from reduced pronouns argues against strict unidirectionality of change.
172 citations
TL;DR: A systematic investigation of what competent, native speakers of English, native to contemporary syntactic theory, judge to be grammatically acceptable patterns of co-reference involving names and pronouns shows that naive subjects have consistent intuitions of grammaticality that agree with some principles of contemporary binding theory.
154 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that so-called 'focus particles' are in reality 'scope particles' and that the complementary distribution of ± stressed auch follows from the modular interaction of the syntax and semantics of auch with focus structure.
Abstract: In this paper we give a modular account of the grammar of additive particles. In doing this we take issue with the standard descriptions of focus particles, which are based on just one possible pattern: the particle preceding the main stressed constituent it relates to (its RC). Additive particles, however, occur in a second, equally unmarked pattern: the RC preceding the main stressed particle. Former accounts do not only miss this complementary distribution as to position and stress pattern relative to the RC, but, as we demonstrate in detail, they misrepresent the relation between syntax, semantics and focus structure of these (and similar) particles in general. Using German auch as our prime example, we argue in particular (i) that there is just one auch underlying the ± stressed variants, and that the complementary distribution cannot be explained by a movement analysis; (ii) that the set of alternatives the auch proposition p and some contextually given proposition q induced by auch belong to, is not supplied by the focus structure of p but by comparing p and q; (iii) that the syntactic scope of auch is crucial for its semantics in that the adding operation applies to the material it contains, no matter whether it is the RC or predicative material common to p, q; (iv) that the complementary distribution of ± stressed auch follows from the modular interaction of the syntax and semantics of auch with focus structure; (v) that auch gives rise to two utterance meanings, 'in addition/furthermore' and 'likewise', directly correlating with whether or not the scope of auch contains RC material. What we argue, in short, is that so-called 'focus particles' are in reality 'scope particles'
113 citations
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| Year | Papers |
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| 2021 | 4 |
| 2020 | 3 |
| 2019 | 4 |
| 2018 | 5 |
| 2017 | 3 |
| 2016 | 3 |