On the Nature of Syntactic Variation: Evidence from Complex Predicates and Complex Word-Formation

The Generative Approach to Sla and Its Place in Modern Second Language Studies

“…Generative approaches do better, in our view, at explaining the acquisition of subtle complexities of language that do not find direct cues in the input or even indirect cues that should lead to inductive learning. Moreover, generative approaches are better at connecting properties that are superficially unrelated but underlyingly linked to the same parameter, for example, properties that emerge at the same time in development (Snyder, 2001), precisely because the granularity of the formal theory employed can account for this and, in fact, even predicts this. There remain plenty of properties that allow a head-to-head framework comparison, see specifically Shantz (2017) and Zyzik (2017) for some good examples.…”

39. Verb classes within and across languages

“…EXAMPLES: The conative alternation is not manifested in many languages (Bohnemeyer 2007), nor is the resultative construction (Green 1973, Snyder 2001, Son & Svenonius 2008, while body-part possessor ascension (or "external possession") takes different forms across languages (e.g., König & Haspelmath 1998). See also Osam (2008) on Akan alternations, and Hirschbühler (2003), Hunter (2008), and Kim (1999) on the locative alternation.…”

Does language guide event perception? Evidence from eye movements

“…The roots of this constraint lie in the morphosyntax of telicity: Greek disallows non-verbal resultatives, or 'secondary predication', with only a few exceptions (for discussion, see Folli & Ramchand, 2002;Horrocks & Stavrou, 2007;Napoli, 1996;Snyder, 2001;Washio, 1997). In order to convey the bounded event in (1), Greek needs to either switch to a path verb and optionally encode manner in a modifier such as a present participle as in (3a), or break down the event into two separate clauses with a path and manner verb as in (3b).…”