This study constitutes a detailed analysis of the verbal morphology and syntax of the Maskilic Hebrew prose fiction written in Eastern Europe between 1857 and 1881. It is based on an extensive corpus of short stories and novels by prominent authors such as Peretz Smolenskin, Yehudah Leib Gordon, Abraham Mapu, and Shalom Jacob Abramowitz. The chief findings are that, although the maskilic authors expressly attempted to utilise only Biblical Hebrew, their Writing exhibits considerable influence from Rabbinic Hebrew, traces of Medieval Hebrew, certain resemblances to their native Yiddish, and similarities with Israeli Hebrew, as well as numerous innovative features and unprecedented uses of biblical and rabbinic forms. The authors' deviation from biblical norms may occasionally serve conscious semantic purposes such as the representation of vernacular speech; however, it often appears to be unintentional. These characteristics appear regularly throughout the corpus, making the maskilic verbal system a reasonably homogeneous entity that can be considered independent from other forms of Hebrew. The first section of the thesis offers a selective examination of maskilic verbal morphology, which is composed of biblical features including the 2fp and 3fp yiqtol forms, rabbinic elements such as the nitpa'el and masculine plural qotel ending in nun, paytanic forms including the 3ms object suffix ה -in conjunction with the infinitive construct, and biblical/rabbinic forms such as yiqtolu used in original contexts. The second section constitutes a thorough analysis of the functions of the maskilic qatal, yiqtol, qotel, periphrastic constructions, wayyiqtol, weqatal, cohortative, imperative, jussive, infinitive absolute, and infinitive construct. The third section surveys selected features of maskilic verbal syntax, including the use of the qatal and wayyiqtol in narrative sequences, the role of the yiqtol and weqatal in the presentation of successive future actions, the negation of qotels and infinitives construct, imperative chains, and imperatives suffixed by נא.

The overall aim of the thesis is to argue that important aspects of language are best understood by a 'phenomenological' approach and to assess the contribution this makes to philosophical understanding of language. The principal task is to develop a tenable view of the role language plays in understanding the world, i.e. linguistic articulation, by drawing on three paradigmatic conceptions of language, each of which is 'phenomenological' in the sense of aspiring to describe accurately our experience of language. Since each paradigm accentuates certain aspects of linguistic phenomena, so that none is satisfactory by itself, the three are critically integrated to yield a more balanced overall picture. The first paradigm, the early Heidegger's, is taken to set out a general framework for thinking of language and to identify two poles: language is understood to be grounded in everyday practice, yet ideally its forms serve to present features of the world as they in themselves are. The two further paradigms allow these poles to be filled out in greater detail. Thus Merleau-Ponty's conception of language, which centres on creative expression and incorporates Saussure's idea of language as a 'system of differences', is used to explain the way language presents its objects. Conversely, the later Wittgenstein's view of language as interwoven with day-to-day human practice(s) is used to explicate the practical grounding of language. The thesis then seeks to highlight and assess the broader philosophical implications of the resultant combined phenomenological approach. Focusing on Heidegger's idea of 'prepredicative' founding, it first examines the relationship between the presentational and practical feats identified by this approach and more standard Neo-Fregean semantics-based conceptions of language. Finally, it is considered whether this combined phenomenological view, in particular the ways it sees language use as constituting awareness of its objects, has realist or nonrealist implications.

This thesis provides an analysis of QNP scope which naturally explains the characteristic tensed-clause locality constraint. Linguistically, I argue that QNP scope is not explained by A-bar movement or A-movement. A-bar movement is different from QNP scope in terms of the locality constraints and A-movement is not flexible enough to explain scope ambiguity. Instead of reducing QNP scope to A-bar or A-movement phenomena, I argue that scope ambiguity is a result of an independent operation that allows us to merge QNPs as syntactic arguments of the local functors even though they are semantically operators. To instantiate this idea, I reformulate Hendriks' argument raising as a special rule (called Argument Slot Raising or ASR) in a non-associative grammar NL. ASR only affects the local functor of the QNP in question. Thus, the QNP's scope is predicted to stay within the final output of this functor. For control/auxiliary/raising constructions, I extend NL by introducing an association rule that is restricted by a pair of merge modes in Moortgat's (1997) Multi-Modal grammar. This structural rule may postpone the saturation of NP argument slots, allowing a complex predicate to be formed. Application of ASR to such complex predicates may switch QNP scope within each finite TP. Structural rules for A-bar movement are introduced in terms of introduction and discharge of modally marked hypothetical categories, which explains the longer distance nature of A-bar extraction in comparison to QNP scope. Finally, I explain the apparent 'exceptional scope' of indefinites in terms of their domain restriction and anaphoric dependency on other operators. This maintains the uniform locality of QNP scope. The underlying claim is that the QNP scope switch mechanism itself does not involve structural ambiguity. The thesis considers the implications for natural language grammar of implementing this idea.

Much of current generative research into non-native language (L2) acquisition of morphosyntax has focused on L1 transfer and access to Universal Grammar. Subject-Verb agreement (1) has figured more prominently than nominal agreement ((1 )-(2)) in this debate, but empirical findings remain inconclusive. For instance, Hawkins & Franceschina (2004) conclude that UG features (e.g. [GENDER]) not realised in the L1 cannot be acquired, whereas White et al. (2001) argue the opposite. The present study examines the acquisition of nominal and verbal agreement marking in L2 Spanish through acceptability judgement, comprehension and production tasks carried out amongst adult L2 acquirers matched for at least two levels of proficiency, with L1s which vary in terms of the realisation of nominal and/or verbal agreement: I demonstrate that the fact that L2ers can produce or recognise agreeing morphological markers is not sufficient to ascribe to them knowledge of syntactic agreement (and hence of the relevant functional features). The experiments address this issue by examining (non)agreement in non-contiguous ('long' distance) contexts with a complex sentential subject consisting of a head noun and an intervener (as illustrated in (3a-b) for nominal gender marking). Such test items systematically contrast contexts where the head noun and intervener have matching (3a) versus opposite (3b) agreement features L2ers at lower proficiency level perform significantly better at contexts with matching than opposite gender agreement features, suggesting that they rely more on linear word order and hence general cognitive learning strategies. The most advanced L2ers, however, demonstrate native-like 'long' distanceagreement in all contexts, suggesting (hierarchical) structure dependency and hence acquisition that is specific to Language (contra Hawkins & Chan's (1997) Failed Functional Features Hypothesis, but supporting access to UG as defined by Schwartz & Sprouse's (1996) Full Transfer/Full Access Theory). The data also reveal that not all types of morphosyntactic agreement are equally acquirable. For all L2ers regardless of their L1, nominal and verbal [NUMBER] are less problematic than [PERSON] and [GENDER]. These L2A findings differ from the results of studies into the L 1A of Spanish agreement morphology. L1 children master gender agreement before they start producing nominal number agreement (Marrero & Aguirre 2003, Hernandez Pina 1984) and produce distinctions between different verbal persons (1st and 3rd)before plural verb forms emerge (Bel2002, Grinstead 2000, López Ornat 1997).The L2ers' L1 does play a role, however, in the initial stages of L2A, particularly in the field of L2 morphology. Problems with remapping syntactic features onto surface morphology cause difficulties for L2ers whose L1 operates a different morphological system to L2 Spanish. L 1 French speakers, for instance, have fewer problems with the acquisition of separate morphemes for nominal gender and nominal number agreement in L2 Spanish than Dutch and Swedish L2ers whose L1 uses a portmanteau morpheme to realise both features. These problems in the field of 'morphological competence' (Lardiere 2005) appear more relevant than issues of syntactic transfer as predicted by Schwartz & Sprouse (1996). Indeed, L 1 English learners of Spanish do not seem to experience more problems building up a morphosyntactic system for nominal agreement from scratch than the Swedish and Dutch L2ers who need to 'remap' (i.e. disentangle and reassemble - Lardiere 2005) syntactic features to agreement morphemes. The finding that mapping problems between syntactic features and lexical forms prevent some L2ers from producing concording agreement morphology is also confirmed by the discrepancy between L2ers' ability to interpret and judge agreement marking, as reflected in the acceptability judgement and comprehension tasks, and the L2ers' more limited ability to produce agreement marking. Moreover, the least marked features often act as defaults, as demonstrated by the overgeneralization of [+MASC], [+3P] and [+SG] markings.

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