Jeffrey Punske - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jeffrey Punske

Routledge eBooks, Jul 7, 2023

Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 2016

Carstens and all of the audiences and reviewers who have helped me refine and improve this work. ... more Carstens and all of the audiences and reviewers who have helped me refine and improve this work. All errors remain very much my own. Cyclicity versus Movement: English Nominalization and Syntactic Approaches to Morphophonological Regularity In this paper, I show that Embick's (2010) cyclic head approach to regular morphology alone cannot account for the freely available variations in the realization of nominalizers in English nominalizations involving overt verbalizers. Instead, I offer an account of the regularity effects using the technology of Local Dislocation (Embick and Noyer 2001, Embick and Marantz 2008, Embick 2007a, 2007b). Using this analysis, I derive both the variable nominalization patterns and the restrictions on particles and results in derived nominals from Sichel (2010). By treating regularity as the by-product of extant morphosyntatic operations, we can better explain the distribution of regular and irregular nominalizers and account for particle/result restrictions in English derived nominals.

This paper presents a formal account of the critical difference between standard nominalization a... more This paper presents a formal account of the critical difference between standard nominalization and "mixed nominalization" (aka. nominal gerunds) of Chomsky (1970). Using patterns of morphological/syntactic distribution, binding properties, polarity effects and lexical semantic variation, I show that nominal gerunds which have been considered to be near identical to derived nominals are in fact quite distinct. I show that "object arguments" (understood objects of the root) of nominal gerunds fail every test of argumenthood and that the structural relations within these constructions are significantly different than those of derived nominals and verb phrases.

Ampersand, 2019

(E. Butler). 1 Laycock (1969, fn. 36) contrasts the term 'ludling', introducing it with the more ... more (E. Butler). 1 Laycock (1969, fn. 36) contrasts the term 'ludling', introducing it with the more general term 'play-language', which he finds "too broad". For him, a ludling involves a "systematic deformation of ordinary language". As evidenced throughout this paper, the Doggo language game certainly falls within Laycock's definition of a ludling. A reviewer notes that playful language is generally not systematic, while language games are. As shown throughout this paper, Doggo exhibits the properties of a language game.

University of Arizona Linguistics Circle, 2010

This dissertation uses syntactic, semantic and morphological evidence from English nominalization... more This dissertation uses syntactic, semantic and morphological evidence from English nominalization to probe the interaction of event-structure and syntax, develop a typology of structural complexity within nominalization, and test hypotheses about the strict ordering of functional items. I focus on the widely assumed typology of nominalization found in Chomsky (1970). In particular, I show that derived nominals are structurally more complex than nominal gerunds; this has long been assumed to be the opposite. I provide a structural and morphological account of these forms of nominalization. In doing so, I explore a number of disparate topics such as: the importance of syncretism in apparently unrelated morphological elements for theories like Distributed Morphology; the role of prepositions in allowing or preventing binding relations and NPI-licensing, the exact nature of root-object union that allows idiomatic interpretations; the morphological reflexes of Case in the nominal system;...

Korean Syntax and Semantics, 2019

This paper explores the consequences that language change might trigger in the languages of crew ... more This paper explores the consequences that language change might trigger in the languages of crew members during a long journey in space or interplanetary settlement. Languages drift apart as communities grow more isolated from each other, so the long isolation of a traveling community may lead to enough difference to render its language unintelligible to the original community it left. This problem may compound as later vessels bring new crews with their own changed languages to mix with those from earlier crews. We discuss various aspects that contribute to language change, through comparison to historical Earthbound cases involving some of these aspects, such as the Polynesian settlement of far-flung Pacific islands, and dialect development in relatively isolated European colonies. We also weigh the effects of multilingualism amongst the crew, with or without a common lingua franca in use, as well as the effects of time and the role that children play in language change and creati...

There has been recent interest on distinguishing the generative capacity required for human langu... more There has been recent interest on distinguishing the generative capacity required for human language versus language for other animals. There has been a long history of discourse on the generative capacity of human language. For example, results involving center-embedding phenomena and cross-serial dependencies point to the fact that human language is intrinsically non-finite state and non-context-free, respectively. There has been further debate as to whether human language belongs to the class of mildly context-sensitive languages. However, given our inability to properly deconstruct utterance meanings for non-humans, there have been comparatively few results about the generative capacity of animal utterances. Nevertheless, there are observable constraints about the surface structure of non-human utterances. For example, birdsong has been analyzed as being of finite state capacity. In this talk, we will analyze the utterances of non-human primates from a formal language perspectiv...

Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy, 2020

This volume brings together multiple emerging strands of interest in language and linguistics. Fi... more This volume brings together multiple emerging strands of interest in language and linguistics. First is increasing attention on pedagogical scholarship in linguistics, signaled by the 2013 addition to the flagship journal Language of a series on Teaching Linguistics (see for example Sanders 2016) and by many recent panels and workshops on pedagogy at linguistics conferences around the world. Additionally, public outreach has gained greater prominence in the field, with linguists becoming more active and engaged with the public on social media and in podcasts. There has also been an increase in broader public interest in constructed languages (conlangs) and how to build them, indicated by the popularity of conlangs in film and television (e.g. Star Trek, Avatar, and Game of Thrones) and by the success of relevant books (e.g. Okrent 2010; Rosenfelder 2010; Peterson 2014, 2015). This volume showcases a variety of methods which instructors can use to tap into this public interest in con...

Journal of Universal Language, 2019

The narrow goal is to provide a complete account of the doubling effect (Ross 1972) within a Mini... more The narrow goal is to provide a complete account of the doubling effect (Ross 1972) within a Minimalist and Distributed Morphology § I am indebted to a number of helpful hands who have helped shape this work too many to properly thank. I would like to express special gratitude to audiences at the Arizona Linguistics Circle,

Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 2019

We explore how content-driven games may be utilized to enhance linguistics pedagogy in the classr... more We explore how content-driven games may be utilized to enhance linguistics pedagogy in the classroom. We explore three games created by the authors for in-class play. The games involve semantics: Eventuality (about aspect/Aktionsart), f(x) (lambda-calculus); and syntax: Parameters. We discuss the major skills developed by the games and the best practices for designing games for in-class use. We focus on four elements in the talk: player interaction, randomization, process training, and entertainment.

Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 2016

In this paper, I show that Embick's (2010) cyclic head approach to regular morphology alone c... more In this paper, I show that Embick's (2010) cyclic head approach to regular morphology alone cannot account for the freely available variations in the realization of nominalizers in English nominalizations involving overt verbalizers. Instead, I offer an account of the regularity effects using the technology of Local Dislocation (Embick and Noyer 2001, Embick and Marantz 2008, Embick 2007a, 2007b). Using this analysis, I derive both the variable nominalization patterns and the restrictions on particles and results in derived nominals from Sichel (2010). By treating regularity as the by-product of extant morphosyntatic operations, we can better explain the distribution of regular and irregular nominalizers and account for particle/result restrictions in English derived nominals.

Language and Linguistics Compass, 2016