Although Italo-Romance varieties continue to be documented, classified, and analyzed by dialectologists, many are at risk of not being recorded thoroughly and systematically before their imminent extinction. While considerable attention has been devoted to the phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon of the more archetypal Romagnol dialects spoken in the Po Valley, dialectologists have largely overlooked peripheral Romagnol varieties such as Sammarinese. The present dissertation begins to fill this lacuna in Italian dialectology by providing an historical and synchronic study of Sammarinese phonology and morphology based on the examination of old and modern texts as well as copious oral data. The main purpose of the thesis is to delineate diatopic variation within the tiny Republic through comparative analysis, while also addressing the need for a more complete and precise definition of Sammarinese‘s position in the Romagnol linguistic group. In addition to confirming Sammarinese‘s status as a Borderline Romagnol variety, the dissertation offers evidence that Sammarinese is divided geographically into two main dialectal groups: Northeastern and Southwestern. The secondary intent of the thesis is to provide systematic, comprehensive, and phonetically precise documentation of the phonology and morphology of a moribund language. iii The dissertation consists of five chapters. The Introduction includes a brief linguistic history which relates diatopic variation to geopolitical factors. The first chapter also contributes an assessment of the status of scholarship dedicated to Sammarinese dialectology. Chapter 2 examines diachronic phonetics, emphasizing the dichotomy between the traits which link Southwestern Sammarinese to Borderline Romagnol and those which join Northeastern Sammarinese with the Romagnol varieties of the Po Valley. Chapter 3 treats synchronic phonetics and proposes a generative phonology which aims to identify the diasystem underlying phonetic variation within the Republic. Chapter 4 analyzes historical declensional morphology, underscoring diatopic variation in internal flexion configurations as further evidence of the division between Northeastern and Southwestern Sammarinese. Chapter 5 examines diachronic verb morphology. The dissertation concludes with an assessment of linguistic aspects meriting further research and analysis.

This thesis is about vowel-vowel sequences across word boundaries in Québécois French (QF). QF has a number of phonological processes that seem motivated by hiatus avoidance, yet hiatus is tolerated in many instances as well. This research is about why hiatus is tolerated in QF, why it is avoided, and what grammatical models can account for the relevant processes. My work is intended as a contribution to the study of how best to account for variation and opacity within current grammatical models, and as a contribution to the study of the QF vowel system. The data are drawn from a corpus constructed from recordings of web extras for a Québécois reality television series. The data primarily come from a single speaker to ensure that any variation in the data truly represents intra-grammar variation, but data from other speakers are used as safeguard. Through the use of quantitative data as a means of investigating problems in theoretical phonology, the thesis is also meant to contribute to methodological discussions and discussions about the relationship between phonetics and phonology. I propose that the patterns of hiatus and hiatus resolution in QF are best modeled through three sets of constraints organized in a serial manner. This proposal is based on the claims that the data show evidence for an anti-hiatus constraint, for feature-based analysis, for stochastic modeling, and for multiple levels. The proposed model combines insights from Stochastic Optimality Theory (Boersma & Hayes 2001), multi-level Optimality Theory (Kiparsky 2000, 2010; Rubach 2000), and the Contrastivist Hypothesis (Dresher & Rice 2002, Dresher 2009, Hall 2007). Within the model, the first constraint set targets the smallest prosodic constituents and produces categorical outputs, the second applies to intermediate-sized constituents and can model optionality, and the third handles the largest prosodic constituents and produces complex patterns of variability.

This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on whether or not they block more general tenses (e.g., -qqau, the ‘today’ past blocks the use of the general past -lauq when the time of eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language.

In this dissertation, I explore the formal mechanisms underlying restrictive modification by nominals (RMN). The central claim is that RMN is dependent on how definiteness is encoded in a given language. In Greek, RMN is exemplified by extra definite determiners followed by bare adjectives, as shown in (1) below. These may precede or follow the matrix nominal. Syntactically, I argue that the determiner and the adjective may form either a restrictive or non-restrictive nominal depending on their structural position. Focusing on restrictive nominals, I argue that they are adjuncts to nP, which raise to FocP when focused. These adjuncts are small nominals, consisting of acategorial roots and n. A look at the structure of the matrix noun reveals that adjectives adjoin to NumP, as they are always prenominal. A look at genitives also suggests that Greek nouns move as high as NumP. Central to this thesis is the question of what licenses RMN. Previous analyses have correlated it with rich morphology (Lekakou and Szendrői, 2007, 2008, 2010). For them, the determiner is the spell-out of inflection, but is otherwise a semantic expletive. To these claims, I counter-argue that RMN is best viewed as being dependent on how definiteness is encoded and that the definite determiner is simply underspecified for definiteness. Assuming that definiteness consists of two components, familiarity and uniqueness, and based on data from Standard English and Scottish English, I propose that definite determiners spelling out one component, familiarity, are predicted to exhibit RMN. Familiarity and uniqueness can thus be mapped into two syntactic projections, FamP and ιP, respectively. I then propose a syntactico-semantic mechanism that derives these constructions. Hence, this research offers a modern cross-linguistic account of RMN, while it also provides us with new insights about how definiteness can be encoded cross-linguistically.

This thesis is about vowel-vowel sequences across word boundaries in Québécois French (QF). QF has a number of phonological processes that seem motivated by hiatus avoidance, yet hiatus is tolerated in many instances as well. This research is about why hiatus is tolerated in QF, why it is avoided, and what grammatical models can account for the relevant processes. My work is intended as a contribution to the study of how best to account for variation and opacity within current grammatical models, and as a contribution to the study of the QF vowel system. The data are drawn from a corpus constructed from recordings of web extras for a Québécois reality television series. The data primarily come from a single speaker to ensure that any variation in the data truly represents intra-grammar variation, but data from other speakers are used as safeguard. Through the use of quantitative data as a means of investigating problems in theoretical phonology, the thesis is also meant to contribute to methodological discussions and discussions about the relationship between phonetics and phonology. I propose that the patterns of hiatus and hiatus resolution in QF are best modeled through three sets of constraints organized in a serial manner. This proposal is based on the claims that the data show evidence for an anti-hiatus constraint, for feature-based analysis, for stochastic modeling, and for multiple levels. The proposed model combines insights from Stochastic Optimality Theory (Boersma & Hayes 2001), multi-level Optimality Theory (Kiparsky 2000, 2010; Rubach 2000), and the Contrastivist Hypothesis (Dresher & Rice 2002, Dresher 2009, Hall 2007). Within the model, the first constraint set targets the smallest prosodic constituents and produces categorical outputs, the second applies to intermediate-sized constituents and can model optionality, and the third handles the largest prosodic constituents and produces complex patterns of variability.

Although Italo-Romance varieties continue to be documented, classified, and analyzed by dialectologists, many are at risk of not being recorded thoroughly and systematically before their imminent extinction. While considerable attention has been devoted to the phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon of the more archetypal Romagnol dialects spoken in the Po Valley, dialectologists have largely overlooked peripheral Romagnol varieties such as Sammarinese. The present dissertation begins to fill this lacuna in Italian dialectology by providing an historical and synchronic study of Sammarinese phonology and morphology based on the examination of old and modern texts as well as copious oral data. The main purpose of the thesis is to delineate diatopic variation within the tiny Republic through comparative analysis, while also addressing the need for a more complete and precise definition of Sammarinese‘s position in the Romagnol linguistic group. In addition to confirming Sammarinese‘s status as a Borderline Romagnol variety, the dissertation offers evidence that Sammarinese is divided geographically into two main dialectal groups: Northeastern and Southwestern. The secondary intent of the thesis is to provide systematic, comprehensive, and phonetically precise documentation of the phonology and morphology of a moribund language. iii The dissertation consists of five chapters. The Introduction includes a brief linguistic history which relates diatopic variation to geopolitical factors. The first chapter also contributes an assessment of the status of scholarship dedicated to Sammarinese dialectology. Chapter 2 examines diachronic phonetics, emphasizing the dichotomy between the traits which link Southwestern Sammarinese to Borderline Romagnol and those which join Northeastern Sammarinese with the Romagnol varieties of the Po Valley. Chapter 3 treats synchronic phonetics and proposes a generative phonology which aims to identify the diasystem underlying phonetic variation within the Republic. Chapter 4 analyzes historical declensional morphology, underscoring diatopic variation in internal flexion configurations as further evidence of the division between Northeastern and Southwestern Sammarinese. Chapter 5 examines diachronic verb morphology. The dissertation concludes with an assessment of linguistic aspects meriting further research and analysis.

This thesis presents and analyzes the tense system of South Baffin Inuktitut (SB), a Canadian variety of the Inuit language. It demonstrates that, although closely related dialects are argued to be tenseless (Shaer, 2003; Bittner, 2005), SB has a complex tense system where the present, past, and future are distinguished, and the future and past are divided into more fine-grained temporal domains. I demonstrate that SB has present tense, which is indicated by the absence of a tense marker. A sentence without an overt tense marker may describe a past eventuality if it contains a punctual event predicate; otherwise, it describes an eventuality that holds at the utterance time. I argue that all zero-marked sentences have present tense and any past interpretation is aspectual. I also investigate six different past markers and demonstrate that they all instantiate grammatical tense. The analysis shows that these markers can be semantically classified into two groups, depending in part on whether or not they block more general tenses (e.g., -qqau, the ‘today’ past blocks the use of the general past -lauq when the time of eventuality falls within ‘today’). I label both the general tenses and the group which can block the general tenses as primary tense, whereas the other group which does not block more general tenses is labelled secondary tense. This distinction may have broad cross-linguistic applicability. I examine the distribution of four different future markers and argue that three of them indicate grammatical future tense. They are also grouped into two groups, in the same manner as the past tenses. Finally, I analyse the temporal interpretations of primary tenses in dependent clauses. I show that when tense is interpreted relative to the time of the superordinate eventuality, the domain of tense may not necessarily shift accordingly (e.g., the domain of hodiernal tense in a main clause is the day of utterance, and in an embedded clause the domain can still be the day of utterance). Embedded tenses with remoteness specifications have not been investigated before, and this thesis opens up a new area to our understanding of tenses in human language.

In this dissertation, I explore the formal mechanisms underlying restrictive modification by nominals (RMN). The central claim is that RMN is dependent on how definiteness is encoded in a given language. In Greek, RMN is exemplified by extra definite determiners followed by bare adjectives, as shown in (1) below. These may precede or follow the matrix nominal. Syntactically, I argue that the determiner and the adjective may form either a restrictive or non-restrictive nominal depending on their structural position. Focusing on restrictive nominals, I argue that they are adjuncts to nP, which raise to FocP when focused. These adjuncts are small nominals, consisting of acategorial roots and n. A look at the structure of the matrix noun reveals that adjectives adjoin to NumP, as they are always prenominal. A look at genitives also suggests that Greek nouns move as high as NumP. Central to this thesis is the question of what licenses RMN. Previous analyses have correlated it with rich morphology (Lekakou and Szendrői, 2007, 2008, 2010). For them, the determiner is the spell-out of inflection, but is otherwise a semantic expletive. To these claims, I counter-argue that RMN is best viewed as being dependent on how definiteness is encoded and that the definite determiner is simply underspecified for definiteness. Assuming that definiteness consists of two components, familiarity and uniqueness, and based on data from Standard English and Scottish English, I propose that definite determiners spelling out one component, familiarity, are predicted to exhibit RMN. Familiarity and uniqueness can thus be mapped into two syntactic projections, FamP and ιP, respectively. I then propose a syntactico-semantic mechanism that derives these constructions. Hence, this research offers a modern cross-linguistic account of RMN, while it also provides us with new insights about how definiteness can be encoded cross-linguistically.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the role of tasks in second language acquisition. A substantial body of research now exists investigating the effects of different task types and their accompanying instructions on learning. Less is known about how tasks affect intake and the relationship between intake and acquisition. This study investigated the effects of 1) implicit and explicit inductive instructions and 2) various task types on both intake and acquisition of two English grammatical structures. Fifty adult ESL learners enrolled in private language schools in New Zealand were pretested with the help of a timed and an untimed grammaticality judgement test for prior knowledge of negative adverbs and adverb placement and were randomly assigned to either a dictation, an individual reconstruction, or a collaborative reconstruction treatment. Treatments were accompanied by either implicit instructions (containing only practical instructions on how to perform the task) or explicit instructions (drawing participants' attention to the target structures and giving an example of them). Performance on the treatments was taken as a measure of intake, and talk-aloud reports were obtained to gauge participants' awareness during task completion. Gain scores from pretest to posttest and to delayed posttest were taken as an indication of learning effects. The results show that the explicit instructions of the inductive type used in this study were unable to affect participants' intake and acquisition in comparison with the implicit instructions. Also, the three types of treatments did not have an effect on acquisition in many cases. Where there was an effect, the treatments differentially affected intake and acquisition. Dictation led to high intake, but less acquisition, and the individual reconstruction treatment led to low intake, but greater acquisition. The collaborative reconstruction treatment was the most consistent of the three. The cognitively more demanding reconstruction treatments (i.e. those involving the retention of larger amounts of texts over longer periods of time) resulted in greater acquisition than the dictation treatment. The main theoretical implications of the results are that the type of inductive and low-level explicit instructions used in this study were not sufficient to differentially affect intake and acquisition. Other, more explicit types of treatments may be necessary. The results also indicate that task types that are relatively easy, affect intake to a greater extent than more demanding tasks, but that more demanding tasks are more likely to affect acquisition. On a methodological level, the concept of intake was found to be very difficult to operationalise, and it is suggested that additional measures be developed. Finally, the implications for teaching practice are that for relatively complex structures such as negative adverbs and adverb placement exposure to the input with minimal pedagogic intervention may not be sufficient. Teachers may also want to consider the effects of different task types on both intake and acquisition and both teachers and researchers need to be careful in drawing conclusionson the basis of immediate task performance.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the role of tasks in second language acquisition. A substantial body of research now exists investigating the effects of different task types and their accompanying instructions on learning. Less is known about how tasks affect intake and the relationship between intake and acquisition. This study investigated the effects of 1) implicit and explicit inductive instructions and 2) various task types on both intake and acquisition of two English grammatical structures. Fifty adult ESL learners enrolled in private language schools in New Zealand were pretested with the help of a timed and an untimed grammaticality judgement test for prior knowledge of negative adverbs and adverb placement and were randomly assigned to either a dictation, an individual reconstruction, or a collaborative reconstruction treatment. Treatments were accompanied by either implicit instructions (containing only practical instructions on how to perform the task) or explicit instructions (drawing participants' attention to the target structures and giving an example of them). Performance on the treatments was taken as a measure of intake, and talk-aloud reports were obtained to gauge participants' awareness during task completion. Gain scores from pretest to posttest and to delayed posttest were taken as an indication of learning effects. The results show that the explicit instructions of the inductive type used in this study were unable to affect participants' intake and acquisition in comparison with the implicit instructions. Also, the three types of treatments did not have an effect on acquisition in many cases. Where there was an effect, the treatments differentially affected intake and acquisition. Dictation led to high intake, but less acquisition, and the individual reconstruction treatment led to low intake, but greater acquisition. The collaborative reconstruction treatment was the most consistent of the three. The cognitively more demanding reconstruction treatments (i.e. those involving the retention of larger amounts of texts over longer periods of time) resulted in greater acquisition than the dictation treatment. The main theoretical implications of the results are that the type of inductive and low-level explicit instructions used in this study were not sufficient to differentially affect intake and acquisition. Other, more explicit types of treatments may be necessary. The results also indicate that task types that are relatively easy, affect intake to a greater extent than more demanding tasks, but that more demanding tasks are more likely to affect acquisition. On a methodological level, the concept of intake was found to be very difficult to operationalise, and it is suggested that additional measures be developed. Finally, the implications for teaching practice are that for relatively complex structures such as negative adverbs and adverb placement exposure to the input with minimal pedagogic intervention may not be sufficient. Teachers may also want to consider the effects of different task types on both intake and acquisition and both teachers and researchers need to be careful in drawing conclusionson the basis of immediate task performance.