In the past thirty years, a variety of approaches to linguistic analysis have emerged under the name of “functionalism,” including construction grammar, cognitive linguistics, typology and universals research, the usage-based model, and evolutionary approaches to language change. All of these approaches have shed new light of the relationship between grammatical form and meaning in language. In the twenty-first century, these seemingly diverse approaches to language can be integrated into the study of language as a complex adaptive system.

This paper presents hitherto unnoticed contrasts between Locative Inversion and Quotative Inversion relating to the realization of pronouns in tag questions, the distribution of post-nominal alone, and intervention effects induced by experiencer arguments. To account for these differences, I argue that Locative Inversion and Quotative Inversion are derived in different fashions. In the former, post-verbal DPs stay in their original position, with locative prepositional phrases occupying [Spec, TP]. On the other hand, post-verbal DPs in Quotative Inversion are moved ‘covertly’ to [Spec, TP]. I show that the possibility of ‘covert’ movement to [Spec, TP] arises as a consequence of the proposal that Number-features originate in T heads, whereas Person-features and Tense-features originate in C heads.

Japanese has two ways to indicate reciprocity between plural subjects: one makes use of a reciprocal anaphor otagai and the other makes use of a special type of V-V compound in which a reciprocal verb au ‘meet’ resides in the second position, which we call the au-construction. Furthermore, otagai and au can co-occur in a single sentence. I will show that otagai has a peculiar binding nature: it basically does not allow split antecedents but exceptionally allows split antecedents in the au-construction. Based ondetailed observations regarding this fact, I will propose a new syntactic analysis of the au-construction. I will also show some semantic differences between otagai and the au-construction and propose that au unifies plural events into a single coextensive event.

This study pays attention to the fairly recent development of the construction the point is especially from Late Modern through Present-Day periods in the history of American English. The main clause type (i.e. the point is that …) and the DM type (i.e. the point is, …) have been in rivalry since the mid-nineteenth century when they emerged, though the latter became dominant in the 2000s. The whole grammaticalization process of the point is rendered a variety of meso- and micro-constructions, however, not all of which have equally been entrenched: the determiner-modified the point is construction is no doubt a highly frequent construction, while the development of the first person singular possessive construction, i.e., my point is, can be considered a reflection of syntactic subjectivity.

In this paper, I will argue against the feature “copying” mechanism proposed by Ohtaka (2013). She argues that the embedded subject in the RTO (Raising-to-Object) construction in Japanese moves to the embedded SpecTP to obtain a subject “status.” However, following Saito (2009, 2011), I will argue that the subject can obtain a subject “status” at SpecvP. Furthermore, following Goto (2010), I will argue that, when feature inheritance does not take place, the [EPP] feature on T become inactive. Thus, there is no reason to move to the embedded SpecTP, so we need no feature “copying” mechanism. Instead, I will account for the RTO construction by the “goal”-driven movement proposed by Bošković (2007, 2011), and argue that the embedded subject moves to the matrix SpecVP via the embedded SpecCP, skipping the embedded SpecTP.

This paper investigates the properties of Irish embedded topicalization, and argues (i) that lowering of COMP to INFL does not take place in Irish, (ii) that the Highest Subject Restriction does not apply to resumptive pronouns involved in Irish embedded topicalization, (iii) that the head positions in charge of embedded topicalization are parameterized among languages, (iv) that the difference in the head positions in charge of embedded topicalization lies in the relationship between the COMP and the INFL, and (v) that the ban against adjunction to adjuncts only disallows adjunction to adjuncts by way of internal merge.

Contrary to the traditionally accepted view that asymmetric relations are the core relations of the language faculty (Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2008), Kayne (1994), Moro (2000), Di Sciullo (2002, 2005)), Citko’s Symmetry in Syntax: Merge, Move, and Labels investigates three fundamental syntactic mechanisms, i.e. Merge, Move, and Labeling, arguing that all three can also be symmetric under well-defined circumstances. After providing an overview of each chapter of the book, this article explicates puzzling dual selections in CP layers of Japanese, Korean, and Spanish, and presents a way of accommodating them under Citko’s theory of symmetric labeling.

This paper discusses the theory of event structure proposed in Croft (2012), which integrates aspectual and force-dynamic representations. Aspectual structure, which is represented two-dimensionally according to the time dimension and the qualitative state dimension, is integrated with a force-dynamic (and causal) representation, forming a three-dimensional representation. The three-dimensional event structure is then applied to the analysis of resultatives, along with many other linguistic phenomena.

While prototypical resultatives may be characterizable in aspectual terms as Croft maintains, a closer inspection reveals that some resultatives resist a unified, aspectual characterization. If anything, some characteristics of resultatives may be better approached in terms of force-transmission. For the proposed theory to be truly explanatory, it remains to work out which characteristics of resultatives are to be accounted for in aspectual terms and which in force-dynamic terms.