Actualization is traditionally seen as the process following syntactic reanalysis whereby an item's new syntactic status manifests itself in new syntactic behavior. The process is gradual in that some new uses of the reanalyzed item appear earlier or more readily than others. This article accounts for the order in which new uses appear during…

Much recent work argues that lexical frequency plays a central explanatory role in linguistic theory, but the status, predicted effects, and methodological treatment of frequency are controversial, especially so in the less-investigated area of syntactic variation. This article addresses these issues in a case study of lexical frequency effects on…

Collins et al. 2008 offers a principles-and-parameters-based analysis of an AAVE construction first described in Spears 1998, in which nominal phrases such as "John's ass" appear to have exactly the same denotation, and behavior with respect to familiar conditions on anaphora, as the possessor ["John," and similarly for pronominal possessors.…

Backward control is an obligatory interpretational dependency between an overt controller and a nonovert controllee in which the controllee is structurally superior to the controller: "Meg persuaded [Delta]i" ["Roni to give up"]. It contrasts with ordinary forward control, in which the controller is structurally higher: "Meg persuaded Roni"…

Semantic and paradigmatic analyses are employed to show that deixis of the lexical content is the differentiating factor between pre- and post-position of the attributive adjective in French. The nature of modification in general is also discussed. (DB)

A number of syntactic constructions in Mandarin Chinese are analyzed which, synchronically, are unrelated and highly irregular. However, all reflect a diachronic drift which has been operating in Mandarin Chinese, in the light of which the syntactic constructions can be viewed as structures in transition. (Author/RM)

This article discusses the syntactic behavior of the word "that," usually classified as a relative pronoun but seen here as a conjunction. Data from standard and non-standard English, Yoruba, and Persian are used. (CLK)

This article discusses the discourse functions of relativization. Relativization is seen as an instance of the application of "bracketing" devices used in the organization of information. Syntactic structure is thus seen as a component of, and derivative from, discourse structure. (CLK)

Argues that forms represented orthographically as "wanna,""hafta,""gonna,""gotta,""usta," and "sposta" are linked to "want to,""have to," for example, by derivational morphology. Also argues that these to-derivatives inflect on their heads, not their edges, and that they are synonymous with their bases but have different subcategories and more…