Joshua Viau - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Joshua Viau

Research paper thumbnail of Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds

Proceedings of 28th …, Jan 1, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Possession and Spatial Motion in the Acquisition of Ditransitives

Language Acquisition, 2008

What is the nature of the relation between a verb and its arguments? In this dissertation, I look... more What is the nature of the relation between a verb and its arguments? In this dissertation, I look to evidence from language acquisition for answers, focusing on a class of constructions commonly used to express possession transfer and spatial motion. Any theory of argument ...

Research paper thumbnail of Quantifier Raising In 4-Year-Olds

Proceedings of 28th …, 2004

Several studies on the acquisition of quantification (Musolino 1998, Musolino, Crain and Thornton... more Several studies on the acquisition of quantification (Musolino 1998, Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2001, Lidz and Musolino 2001) have shown that 4-to 6-year-old children differ systematically from adults in their ability to assign inverse scope to ambiguous sentences ...

Research paper thumbnail of Introducing English (IZ)-Infixation: Snoop Dogg and bey(IZ)-ond

  1. "…The surgeon is Dr. Dr[IZ]e (Dre) / so l[IZ]ay (lay) and pl[IZ]ay (play) / with D O double G[... more 1) "…The surgeon is Dr. Dr[IZ]e (Dre) / so l[IZ]ay (lay) and pl[IZ]ay (play) / with D O double G[IZ]ee (G) / the fly human being…" Snoop Doggy Dogg; Tha Shiznit: Doggystyle (1993) (2) "I drink a Boost for breakfast, a Ensure for dizzert / Somebody order pancakes, I just sip the s[IZ]yrup (syrup) / That right there could drive a sane man bizzerk / Not to worry, Mr. H to the [IZ]O (O)'s back to w[IZ]ork (work)…" Kanye West; Through the Wire: College Dropout (2004) Goals: • A. Introduce English [IZ]-infixation • B. Describe data set o Infixation of monosyllable: Between onset and nucleus, e.g. dream → ′dr[I.Z]eam o Infixation of bisyllable: [IZ] aligns with stressed vowel, e.g. s[IZ]oldiers vs. eff[IZ]ect o Bisyllabic tokens: Subsequent stress shift for iambs (sur.′pr[I.Z]ise) but not trochees (b[IZ.′N]o.ttle) • C. Discuss points of theoretical interest (focus on Optimality Theory (OT)) • D. Situate [IZ]-infixation within the landscape of infixation in English and crosslinguistically A. The phenomenon NB: Not to be discussed in this talk (though commonly lumped together with [IZ]-infixation): truncation + suffixation of "-izzle" or "-eezy," e.g. for sure → for shizzle / for sheezy Possible early sightings of English [IZ]-infixation gleaned from ADS-L archives and elsewhere: o "Carnie" talk involving [i:əz] infix, e.g. carnie → c[i:əz]arnie (Wendalyn Nichols) o Radio broadcasts by 1960s-era NY deejay Murray the K involving the same infix (Mark A. Mandel) o Citation in 1972 glossary of NY drug slang (Jesse Sheidlower, OED) o Slang popular among members of "Cuzz" branch of L.A.-based Crips gang (Parvaz 2002) o Rhymes popular in Philadelphia among children jumping rope double-dutch style

Research paper thumbnail of Give = CAUSE + HAVE / GO: Evidence for Early Semantic Decomposition of Dative Verbs in English Child Corpora

Several recent analyses of alternating dative verbs such as give, send, and throw posit that the ... more Several recent analyses of alternating dative verbs such as give, send, and throw posit that the frames in which their two internal arguments can appear are syntactically and semantically independent rather than transformationally related

Research paper thumbnail of Priming of Abstract Logical Representations in 4-Year-Olds

Language Acquisition, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds

Several studies on the acquisition of quantification , Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2001, Lidz a... more Several studies on the acquisition of quantification , Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2001, Lidz and Musolino 2001 have shown that 4-to 6-year-old children differ systematically from adults in their ability to assign inverse scope to ambiguous sentences like (1) and (2). 1 Throughout this paper, the symbol ">" should be interpreted as "takes scope over".

Research paper thumbnail of Selective learning in the acquisition of Kannada ditransitives

Language, 2011

In this paper we bring evidence from language acquisition to bear on the debate over the relative... more In this paper we bring evidence from language acquisition to bear on the debate over the relative abstractness of children's grammatical knowledge. We first identify one aspect of syntactic representation that exhibits a range of syntactic, morphological and semantic consequences both within and across languages, namely the hierarchical structure of ditransitive verb phrases. While the semantic consequences of this structure are parallel in English, Kannada, and Spanish, the word order and morphological reflexes of this structure diverge. Next we demonstrate that children learning Kannada have command of the relation between morphological form and semantic interpretation in ditransitives with respect to quantifier-variable binding. Finally, we offer a proposal on how a selective learning mechanism might succeed in identifying the appropriate structures in this domain despite the variability in surface expression.

Research paper thumbnail of Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds

Proceedings of 28th …, Jan 1, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Possession and Spatial Motion in the Acquisition of Ditransitives

Language Acquisition, 2008

What is the nature of the relation between a verb and its arguments? In this dissertation, I look... more What is the nature of the relation between a verb and its arguments? In this dissertation, I look to evidence from language acquisition for answers, focusing on a class of constructions commonly used to express possession transfer and spatial motion. Any theory of argument ...

Research paper thumbnail of Quantifier Raising In 4-Year-Olds

Proceedings of 28th …, 2004

Several studies on the acquisition of quantification (Musolino 1998, Musolino, Crain and Thornton... more Several studies on the acquisition of quantification (Musolino 1998, Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2001, Lidz and Musolino 2001) have shown that 4-to 6-year-old children differ systematically from adults in their ability to assign inverse scope to ambiguous sentences ...

Research paper thumbnail of Introducing English (IZ)-Infixation: Snoop Dogg and bey(IZ)-ond

  1. "…The surgeon is Dr. Dr[IZ]e (Dre) / so l[IZ]ay (lay) and pl[IZ]ay (play) / with D O double G[... more 1) "…The surgeon is Dr. Dr[IZ]e (Dre) / so l[IZ]ay (lay) and pl[IZ]ay (play) / with D O double G[IZ]ee (G) / the fly human being…" Snoop Doggy Dogg; Tha Shiznit: Doggystyle (1993) (2) "I drink a Boost for breakfast, a Ensure for dizzert / Somebody order pancakes, I just sip the s[IZ]yrup (syrup) / That right there could drive a sane man bizzerk / Not to worry, Mr. H to the [IZ]O (O)'s back to w[IZ]ork (work)…" Kanye West; Through the Wire: College Dropout (2004) Goals: • A. Introduce English [IZ]-infixation • B. Describe data set o Infixation of monosyllable: Between onset and nucleus, e.g. dream → ′dr[I.Z]eam o Infixation of bisyllable: [IZ] aligns with stressed vowel, e.g. s[IZ]oldiers vs. eff[IZ]ect o Bisyllabic tokens: Subsequent stress shift for iambs (sur.′pr[I.Z]ise) but not trochees (b[IZ.′N]o.ttle) • C. Discuss points of theoretical interest (focus on Optimality Theory (OT)) • D. Situate [IZ]-infixation within the landscape of infixation in English and crosslinguistically A. The phenomenon NB: Not to be discussed in this talk (though commonly lumped together with [IZ]-infixation): truncation + suffixation of "-izzle" or "-eezy," e.g. for sure → for shizzle / for sheezy Possible early sightings of English [IZ]-infixation gleaned from ADS-L archives and elsewhere: o "Carnie" talk involving [i:əz] infix, e.g. carnie → c[i:əz]arnie (Wendalyn Nichols) o Radio broadcasts by 1960s-era NY deejay Murray the K involving the same infix (Mark A. Mandel) o Citation in 1972 glossary of NY drug slang (Jesse Sheidlower, OED) o Slang popular among members of "Cuzz" branch of L.A.-based Crips gang (Parvaz 2002) o Rhymes popular in Philadelphia among children jumping rope double-dutch style

Research paper thumbnail of Give = CAUSE + HAVE / GO: Evidence for Early Semantic Decomposition of Dative Verbs in English Child Corpora

Several recent analyses of alternating dative verbs such as give, send, and throw posit that the ... more Several recent analyses of alternating dative verbs such as give, send, and throw posit that the frames in which their two internal arguments can appear are syntactically and semantically independent rather than transformationally related

Research paper thumbnail of Priming of Abstract Logical Representations in 4-Year-Olds

Language Acquisition, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds

Several studies on the acquisition of quantification , Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2001, Lidz a... more Several studies on the acquisition of quantification , Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2001, Lidz and Musolino 2001 have shown that 4-to 6-year-old children differ systematically from adults in their ability to assign inverse scope to ambiguous sentences like (1) and (2). 1 Throughout this paper, the symbol ">" should be interpreted as "takes scope over".

Research paper thumbnail of Selective learning in the acquisition of Kannada ditransitives

Language, 2011

In this paper we bring evidence from language acquisition to bear on the debate over the relative... more In this paper we bring evidence from language acquisition to bear on the debate over the relative abstractness of children's grammatical knowledge. We first identify one aspect of syntactic representation that exhibits a range of syntactic, morphological and semantic consequences both within and across languages, namely the hierarchical structure of ditransitive verb phrases. While the semantic consequences of this structure are parallel in English, Kannada, and Spanish, the word order and morphological reflexes of this structure diverge. Next we demonstrate that children learning Kannada have command of the relation between morphological form and semantic interpretation in ditransitives with respect to quantifier-variable binding. Finally, we offer a proposal on how a selective learning mechanism might succeed in identifying the appropriate structures in this domain despite the variability in surface expression.