In this thesis, I attempt to provide a linguistic solution to the problem of failure of substitutivity in intensional contexts, with specific emphasis on sentences containing verbs of propositional attitude, for example, "believe", "say", "think", "realize", etc. Many solutions to this problem have been proposed in the philosophical literature (the major ones will be reviewed in this thesis) and most of the linguistic analyses to date have been based upon the logical concepts invoked in the former. Using the pragmatic notion of "point of view" as defined by Reinhart (1975), I provide an alternate solution that takes into account the intuitions of speakers of natural language. My solution is based on the fact that different points of view can result in different referents for an expression, and that this difference is essential to the semantic interpretation and truth value of intensional sentences. I also discuss so-called identity statements of the form 'a = b' (where 'a' and 'b' stand for coreferential expressions), arguing that there is both semantic and syntactic evidence for the claim that natural language utterances of this form do not express identity.

This dissertation describes and evaluates a thesis about the means of identifying verbs early in learning a language, and a first language in particular. The thesis is presented briefly in the first section. The second section provides a critical review of theories about children's early part-of-speech identifications. Section 3 presents a new theory of verb identification. I argue that learners initially identify members of a category, predicator, that subsumes verbs and adjectives. Predicators have argument structures. Learners identify a predicator through an inference that the word must take noun-phrase arguments because the phrase containing the word is interpreted into a nonseparable phenomenon--a property or relation that exists or occurs only by virtue of one or more individuals (i.e., the bearers of the property, or the participants in the relation), the referent(s) of the argument(s). Actions are prototypical of that which is nonseparable (being dependent for their realisation upon one or more participants), and so words for actions will usually be identified as predicators. This tendency will be augmented when an unfamiliar predicator appears in an utterance with its one or more noun-phrase arguments, and the noun phrases are interpretable (by the learner) into the one or more individuals that are the participants in an ongoing action (or other nonseparable phenomenon); under these conditions, the learner should readily divine that the novel word is a predicator and the noun phrases are its arguments. These conjectures form the nonseparability hypothesis. To identify verbs in particular, a learner must first discover a distinction between verbs and adjectives, where it exists in a language, through distributional analyses within phrases. Subsequently, details of syntax and morphology will reveal to the learner a predicator's subcategory (verb or adjective). Section 4 contains reviews of literatures that provide support, in varying degree, for the theor

This thesis investigates chain formation processes in syntax within the general framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993, 1994, 1995), where comparison among derivations plays a central role. It is primarily concerned with interactions between Grammatical Function changing (Baker 1988a) and wh-movement. Constructions such as antipassive, applicative, and Object Preposing: (special "passive") from typologically different languages are examined together with their implications for extraction. On a theoretical level this thesis proposes a modification of the notion of reference set (Chomsky 1994, 1995), which fixes the domain of comparison for the purpose of economy. In particular, the notion of reference set is defined in terms of non-distinctness of numerations; this in turn is sensitive to the Interpretability of features (Chomsky 1995). It is also argued that the Minimal Link Condition is an economy condition that elects among convergent derivations on the basis of the notion of chain link comparability. The system advanced here, in combination with some independently motivated Minimalist assumptions, explains phenomena which have so far defied a unified account, thereby providing important empirical support for the leading ideas of the Minimalist Program.

In this dissertation, I investigate the structural representation of mood in a Minimalist framework. This investigation is based on the study of mood particles in Modern Standard Arabic and the way they interact with (i) the verb and (ii) negation. Arabic subjunctive particles are compared to subjunctive Balkan particles. / The main suggestion is that Arabic clause structure involves an inflectional projection Modal Phrase (ModP) that hosts the subjunctive particle ?an as well as other mood particles all of which check verbal mood morphology through the operation Agree. / The subjunctive particle ?an is compared to Balkan subjunctive particles and is argued to be an inflectional element rather than a lower complementizer in the sense of Rizzi (1997). In particular, it is suggested that Arabic and Balkan subjunctive particles fall into two types: (i) Type 1 inflectional particles that check a mood feature with the verb and that may occur in clauses lacking the CP layer. These include Arabic ?an and Romanian sǎ, and (ii) Type 2 lower Comp particles that do not check any verbal feature and that require the projection of the CP layer. These include Greek na and Bulgarian da. / As far as the interaction of mood particles with negation, it is suggested that some mood particles including subjunctive ?an may select NegP and check verbal mood across negation. Other particles, however, may not select NegP and are incompatible with negation.

This thesis examines the behaviour of sentential complements in Mohawk within the framework of Government and Binding Theory. Past proposals concerning the syntactic structure of sentential complements in Romance languages (and English) are explored in Mohawk. It is claimed that Mohawk only has full CP complements and no distinct types of embedded clauses (such as a subjunctive or infinitival). This is due to a morphological requirement (specified by the Minimal Word Constraint) on Mohawk verbs which dictates the need for obligatory agreement morphology. Tense/aspect co-occurrence restrictions are given to show what type of CP complements a verb can take. The evidence indicates that selection of complements is due to semantic and not syntactic reasons.

Typical experiments investigating the accessibility and/or role of principles of Universal Grammar (UG) in adult second language acquisition (SLA) use a written grammaticality judgment (GJ) task to infer knowledge of principles of UG. The present investigation examined whether subjects would judge sentences differently in the aural modality than the visual. It was hypothesized that subjects in the aural condition would be less accurate and slower at judging sentences violating the subjacency principle than subjects in the visual condition. Four language groups were tested: ESL (English second-language) FSL (French second-language), L1.E (English first language) and L1.F (French first language). Subjects were assigned to either an aural or a visual condition; the same sentences were presented via computer. The target sentences presented to the subjects were declarative sentences involving embedded questions, as well as ungrammatical wh-questions which violated subjacency. The presentation times for all sentences were matched across conditions. Accuracy and reaction time to grammaticality judgment were measured. The hypothesis that subjects would be slower and less accurate in the aural condition than the visual one was supported. Furthermore, subjects were less accurate and slower to judge violations of subjacency than other sentences, in both modalities. The detrimental effects of the auditory task on judgments was most pronounced for the L2 learners. These results are discussed in the context of the informativeness and validity of outcomes derived from GJ tasks, and the ways in which they are presented.

This study examines the forms and meanings of tensed and non-tensed clauses in English, and proposes an analysis of them that is 'Reichenbachian' in spirit and syntactic in orientation. The study considers tensed verb forms in simple sentences, focussing on 'present', 'future', and 'perfect' forms and their interaction with adverbials of temporal location; and those in complement, relative, and temporal clause constructions. It also considers three types of non-tensed verb forms--infinitives, gerunds, and 'bare infinitives'--in verb complements. / The study demonstrates that the interpretation of tensed and non-tensed forms can be described in terms of Reichenbach's (1947) temporal schemata, which express relations between 'S' ('speech time'), 'R' ('reference time'), and 'E' ('situation time'). However, its central claim is that the tensed forms themselves are 'temporally underspecified', encoding relations between 'S' and 'R', and leaving the relation between 'R' and 'E' and the location and duration of both of these intervals to be determined by lexical properties of the verb and its arguments, temporal adverbials, and context. Non-tensed verbs forms have a similar syntactic representation, differing primarily in not fully encoding a relation between 'S' and 'R'. This claim is cashed out in terms of two devices: a feature system that expresses tenses as particular values of the feature matrix (Anterior, Posterior); and a device of 'tense linking', based on Higginbotham's (e.g. 1983) proposal for binding theory, which associates verbs with temporal adverbials or tensed Infl, and one (tensed or non-tensed) Infl with a higher one.

In comparison with the fields of phonology, syntax, and semantics, there is a distinct lack of a comprehensive and critical study of morphological theory, particularly modern trends in this sub-branch of linguistic theory. There is also a marked lack of interest in the underlying methodological and epistemological foundations of morphological theory, though this situation also holds for the three other areas of core-linguistics mentioned above. The present thesis has a modest aim: it is to give a critical and fairly comprehensive study of five modern morphological approaches, with particular reference, whenever possible, to their underlying methodological and epistemological principles. This thesis contains six chapters and a short Introduction. The Introduction deals with the place and state of morphological studies in modern linguistic theory. It also sets out the 'reasons' behind the restriction of the scope of the thesis to the following five approaches: (1) stratificational grammar, (2) transformational generative grammar, (3) word and paradigm I (Robins), (4) word and paradigm II (Matthews), and (5) axiomatic functionalism. A brief explanation of the format of the approach adopted in studying these different trends is also given here. [Only transcribed in part due to abstract length].

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A basic principle of object individuation--that predicables (or adjectival, verbal, or prepositional expressions) do not individuate--gives rise to a competence theory related to their interpretation. It is that we interpret predicables as sub-kinds of the kinds that type them. Evidence of children's competence in this matter is reviewed. Two experiments are presented, exploring the sensitivity of 20 children, aged 2;11 to 3;11 (mean 3;6), to changes in adjective interpretation across unrelated and related kinds. For instance, children were tested on their understanding that a nonsense adjective picked out sub-kinds of toy bears and balls on the basis of unrelated attributes. They were also tested on their understanding that the opposites "big" and "little" could describe the same individual object when typed by basic level and superordinate level kinds (e.g. that a little bat could be a big toy). Children's responses were near perfect, indicating that the basic logical framework for predicable interpretation used by adults is in place by age three.