http://hdl.handle.net/10150/248011 Fri, 15 May 2026 12:59:51 GMT 2026-05-15T12:59:51Z http://hdl.handle.net/10150/271019 Can Idioms Be Passivized?: Evidence from Online Processing Stone, Megan Schildmier This paper presents the results of an experiment designed to access native speakers’ underlying grammatical knowledge concerning the passivizability of English Verb-Object (VO) idioms. Although it has long been noted that some VO idioms retain their idiomatic meaning in the passive while others do not (Katz & Postal 1964, et seq.), the source of this variation is unclear, and native speaker intuitions on a large number of idioms are not as clear cut as previous accounts might suggest. Taking as a starting point Folli and Harley’s (2007) hypothesis that there is a structural distinction between passivizable and nonpassivizable idioms, the current study tests one prediction of this hypothesis, namely that there should be a categorical distinction between the two types of idioms in the grammars of native speakers. The experimental results contradict this hypothesis, as evidenced by a normal distribution of response times to passive idioms. However, it is hypothesized that this online task is not appropriate to access the fine-tuned syntactico-semantic judgments underlying native speaker intuitions of idiom passivizability, due to the fact that the methodology employed here—a self-paced reading task—does not yield the expected results even for canonically passivizable and nonpassivizable idioms. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10150/271019 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10150/271018 On Semantic Agreement with Quantified Subjects in Russian Glushan, Zhanna A. Quantified numeral subjects in Russian may famously trigger plural or singular verb agreement. Generative accounts (Pesetsky (1982), Franks (1995), Bošković (2006)) tie the variation to Case and the DP/QP distinction. Corpus-based accounts (Revzin (1978), Corbett (2000), Robblee (1993)), in addition to precedence and definiteness/specificity, note a strong correlation between agreement choice and the animacy of a QNP subject. In this paper, I attempt to reconcile the original generalizations in both linguistic traditions by proposing an account whereby (i) the animacy condition on agreement is an argument structure effect (ii) the connection between Nom case and agreement with QNP subjects is captured by Case as accessibility condition for agreement (Marantz (1991), Bobaljik (2008), Baker (2010) Baker and Vinokurova (2011) but contra Chomsky (2000), (2001)) (iii) definiteness/specificity effects with agreement follow from Diesing’s (1992) Mapping Hypothesis and a locality condition on semantic agreement. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10150/271018 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10150/270993 Situational Demonstratives in Blackfoot Schupbach, S. Scott Previous analyses of Blackfoot’s demonstrative system by Uhlenbeck (1938), Taylor (1969), and Frantz (1971, 2009) share the same tendency to conflate the meanings of different functions of demonstratives into one overly broad meaning. I address this problem by analyzing only the situational uses of demonstratives in 25 stories from Uhlenbeck (1912) and additional data from Uhlenbeck (1938). My solution is built upon the framework outlined in Imai’s (2003) cross-linguistic study of spatial deixis and informed by the typological demonstrative studies of Dixon (2003) and Diessel (1999). I argue that Blackfoot’s demonstrative system encodes features of Imai’s four parameters: anchor, spatial demarcation, referent/region configuration and function. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10150/270993 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10150/271017 Preposition Stranding in Heritage Speakers of Spanish Depiante, Marcela; Thompson, Ellen In this research, we explore the linguistic structure of the Spanish of Heritage Speakers, those who have acquired Spanish as the home language in a minority language context (Iverson, 2010). We contribute to the discussion of the properties of Heritage Languages here by examining Preposition Stranding in Heritage Speakers versus native monolingual speakers of Spanish. We claim that the distinct behavior of Heritage Speakers of Spanish supports the claim that Heritage Languages may differ from native monolingual language in the narrow syntax, affecting uninterpretable features of the grammar. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10150/271017 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z