Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (E-Journal)
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Role of Second Formant Frequency( F2) in Forensic Speaker Identification
Full text linkIdentification of a speaker specific feature is an almost impossible task because of the enormous number of features which can affect a single voice utterance.F2, (marker of vowel position) plays an important role in vowel identification. The present study is an statistical analysis conducted on the 16 speakers’ F2, F2- F1 and F3-F2 values for the vowels; “/a:/, /i:/ and /u:/. Vowel /a/ showed considerable height difference in Known sample (where the researcher knew the Speaker) and Unknown sample (someone else collected the sample)
Wh-movement and the Distribution of Sei and Wh in the Bangla DP
Full text linkThis paper aims to show instances of wh-movement in the DP of the Eastern Indo-Aryan language Bangla. It further discusses the licensing position of the moved wh-phrase in the Bangla DP, which happens to be not in the DP-initial position but below the position of the subject of the DP. The paper also views the relationship of the wh words and the demonstratives. In the Bangla DP the wh words do not occur with the demonstratives. However, there are certain contexts in which an anaphoric demonstrative apparently occurs with the wh words in the DP
The (in)compatibility of Anaphora and Agreement
Full text linkIn this paper, I argue that Rizzi’s anaphor agreement e?ect is in fact not universal as there are languages that show violation to this e?ect. To the question of why some languages follow anaphor agreement e?ect and why certain other languages violate it, I demonstrate that this is an independent consequence of whether in a given language the functional head that carries the agreement probe merges ?rst in the structure or the subject DP that that serves as antecedent to the anaphor merges ?rst in the structure. In the former case, the order is Agree > Binding, where the anaphor do not have any ? features to control the agreement resulting in anaphor agreement e?ect and in the later case, the order is Binding > Agree, where the anaphor will have acquired the required ? features to control the agreement resulting in violation of anaphor agreement e?ect
Pronoun Strength and Agreement Shift in Assamese
Full text linkIn this paper, an attempt has been made to show how Assamese, an IA language marks de se (conscious self-reference of the attitude holder) by using agreement shift (where first person Agreement on the embedded verb agrees with the third person subject of the matrix clause). It is seen only in the presence of the quotative complementizer buli. The paper discusses the interaction of Agreement shift with the two complementizers and the strength of pronouns which raises problems for previous analyses. The analysis is done using the LogP mechanism and we conclude that the [±LOG] feature of the pronouns is responsible for Agreement shift
The Morpho-Syntax of Polarity in Gujarati
Full text linkThis paper explores the various expressions of polarity and tense in Gujarati, focusing on the standard dialect. The expressions of negation in Gujarati provide support for the cross-linguistically possible position of the Polarity head in the functional projection. I propose that some expressions of polarity can be analyzed as portmanteau morphemes, which gives support to the idea that these morphemes are in fact realizations of spans of independent, syntactic heads. Furthermore, there is some variability in the position of these forms of negation, which sheds light on possible postsyntactic movements that languages may have, especially regarding the inversion of post-syntactic elements
Prosody-Driven Movement? Evidence from Bangla
Full text linkThis paper addresses a longstanding puzzle in Bangla syntax regarding the position of the complementizer particle je (cf. Bayer and Dasgupta 2010, Bhattacharya 2001 and Hsu 2015). Preposing of finite complement clauses is observed to be related to the position occupied by the complementizer je within the complement clause. Some earlier accounts have tried to explain the phenomenon with the help of information-structure-driven movements, while the other has been a syntax-phonology interface approach (Hsu 2015). This paper suggests a novel connection between the movement of an element to the left of the je particle and scrambling in Bangla. Finally, a syntax-phonology interface account along the lines of Hsu (2015) is suggested, where the final positioning of the complementizer and the complement clause is determined by an interaction of post-syntactic constraints
Fragment Answers in Hindi
Full text linkHolmberg (2015) and Merchant (2005) among others have argued for an analysis of fragment answers wherein they are CPs but have undergone constituent ellipsis under identity with the question; building on the proposal that questions and answer have similar syntactic structure. Focusing on yes/no fragment answers in Hindi, I provide an account for answers of the type I describe as the ‘verb stacking’ pattern and thereby extend the attested typological variations in fragment answers to yes/no questions. Yes/no questions in Hindi are answered by obligatorily repeating all the verbal elements in the order they occur in, in the question. Extending Holmberg’s (2015) analysis for optional verb stacking in Finnish to Hindi, I argue, with independent evidence that the subject in Hindi may stay in spec,?P and the verb moves outside of ?P. I posit that PolP can be IP-internal and argue for it to be the highest head in the ?P domain in Hindi. I also posit that fragment answers are obtained by elison of PolP which effectively is verb stranding ?P ellipsis
Braj in the Ergativity Hierarchy
Full text linkIn generative literature, it is often assumed that closely related varieties differ minimally due to local effects of features (Barbiers 2009, Kayne 2000, 2013), with these small-scale differences located on the lower end of the Parameter Hierarchy (Biberauer and Roberts 2012, Roberts 2012). This paper re-visits one such hierarchy on ergativity (Sheehan 2017) by presenting novel dialectal data from Braj (Indic). Specifically, we illustrate that (a) ergative micro-variations in the language ensue not from feature level variation, but from underlying syntactic structures which in turn, have consequences for a v+erg head; these structural changes, however, affect a small domain, and (b) there exist cases of intra-dialectal case alignment variation, unpredicted by the hierarchy, which we relate to a phi-complete T head that is gradually superseding the v+erg head
Reading Carefully: Verb Movement and Ellipsis in a Verb-Final Language
Full text linkVerb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis (VVPE) has been identified in a variety of languages, including Irish (McCloskey 1991), Hebrew (Doron 1991; Goldberg 2005), Russian (Gribanova 2013a, b), and Hindi-Urdu (Manetta, 2018). The present paper concerns the socalled “adverb test” for diagnosing VVPE (e.g. Oku 1998; Goldberg 2005; Simpson, Chowdhury, and Menon 2013), and in particular a solution to the puzzling failure of this test in languages which have otherwise been argued to exhibit VVPE. I propose an account which posits that the apparent failure of the adverb test in these contexts emerges due to the interaction of ellipsis, verb movement, and contrastive polarity (following insights in Gribanova 2017). I claim that in contrastive environments in which the verb moves as high as a TP-external Polarity head, MaxElide will force ellipsis of the largest possible constituent. The upshot of this claim is that the string which would appear to indicate failure of the adverb test is not a string generated by ellipsis at all, but instead by a missing internal argument. This small project contributes to the wider program of recent work investigating the nature of head movement and its role in the syntax (Chomsky 2001; Hartman 2011; LaCara 2016; McCloskey 2016; Keine and Bhatt 2016; Gribanova and Mikkelsen, 2018; Manetta, 2018)
The intonation of South Asian languages: towards a comparative analysis
Full text linkSouth Asia has long been considered a region of widespread convergence in phonology, morphology, and syntax. While these claims have not explicitly been extended to intonation in previous work, researchers such as Fe?ry (2010) have suggested that multiple South Asian languages (SALs) from different families can be covered with the same intonational description, and that prominence and weight play no role in its implementation. The current study examines what is arguably the most characteristic unit of SAL prosody, the repeated rising contour (RRC), produced in recordings of The North Wind and the Sun in six SALs to confirm the existence of some crosslinguistic similarities while also identifying areas of substantial variation. I highlight the roles played by lexical accent, vowel peripherality, and vowel length in the alignment of tones, and describe variation within and across languages. I also suggest directions in which research must be carried out to expand our typological understanding of the region and propose a model flexible enough to cover its diverse languages.