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This book presents an analysis of Spanish prepositional clauses (< P + CP >) - complement and adverbial clauses. The goal is to examine the syntax and evolution of those clauses and their components in Spanish, contrasting them with other European languages. Prepositional argument and adjunct clauses are grammatical in present-day Spanish. However, Medieval Spanish only attests the latter; the former were not frequent until the 16th/17th centuries. Both types are examined in their syntactic evolution and properties, including clausal nominality, argumenthood, nature of prepositions, and optionality. Latin and Portuguese, French, and Italian - both in their present-day and past forms - are studied and compared to Spanish. Likewise, several Germanic languages are surveyed. These languages show variable grammatical degrees of < P + CP >. The comparison reveals aspects which challenge the commonly accepted conclusions about the clausal patterns of each language. This study offers a novel approach to the analysis of Spanish prepositional clauses by looking at its properties and formation not only from within but also in contrast with other languages. It argues for cross-linguistically valid categories and explanations in order to comprehend the properties of human language.

This paper investigates the acquisition of prepositional relative clauses in L2 Spanish by English and Arabic speakers to understand the role of previous linguistic knowledge and Universal Grammar on the one hand, and the relationship between grammatical knowledge and its use in real-time, on the other. An oral production task and an on-line self-paced grammaticality judgment task were analyzed. Results indicated that the acquisition of oblique relative clauses is a problematic area for L2 learners. Divergent results compared to native speakers in production and grammatical intuitions were found; however, L2 reading time data showed the same real-time effects that native speakers had, suggesting that the problems with this construction are not necessarily linked to processing deficits. These results are interpreted as evidence for the ability to apply universal processing principles in a second language, and the relative independence of the processing domain and the production system.

Studies of L2 writing development usually measure T‐units and clausal subordination to assess grammatical complexity, assuming that increased subordination is typical of advanced writing. In this article we challenge this practice by showing that these measures are much more characteristic of conversation than academic writing. The article begins with a critical evaluation of T‐units and clausal subordination as measures of writing development, arguing that they have not proven to be effective discriminators of language proficiency differences. These shortcomings lead to the question of whether these measures actually capture the complexities of professional academic writing, and if not, what alternative measures are better suited? Corpus‐based analyses are undertaken to answer these questions, investigating 28 grammatical features in research articles contrasted with conversation. The results are surprising, showing that most clausal subordination measures are actually more common in conversation than academic writing. In contrast, fundamentally different kinds of grammatical complexity are common in academic writing: complex noun phrase constituents (rather than clause constituents) and complex phrases (rather than clauses). Based on these findings, we hypothesize a sequence of developmental stages for student writing, proposing a radically new approach for the study of complexity in student writing development.

It is well-known that native English speakers sometimes erroneously accept subject-verb agreement violations when there is a number-matching attractor (e.g., *The key to the cabinets were…). Whether bilinguals whose L1 lacks number agreement are prone to such interference is unclear, given previous studies that report conflicting findings using different structures, participant groups, and experimental designs. To resolve the conflict, we examined highly proficient Korean–English bilinguals’ susceptibility to agreement attraction, comparing prepositional phrase (PP) and relative clause (RC) modifiers in a speeded acceptability judgment task and a speeded forced-choice comprehension task. The bilinguals’ judgments revealed attraction with RCs but not with PPs, while reaction times indicated attraction with both structures. The results therefore showed L2 attraction in all measures, with the consistent exception of judgments for PPs. We argue that this supports an overall native-like agreement processing mechanism, augmented by an additional monitoring mechanism that filters explicit judgments in simple structures.

While adjuncts like adverbs (AdvPs) and prepositional phrases (PPs) have been shown to be hierarchically merged in a fixed, universal order along the clausal spine (Cinque 1999, 2006), the external syntax of adverbial clauses (Adv-CPs) remains rather underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on a specific subset of Italian Adv-CPs, Central Adverbial Clauses (CACs), i.e., adjunct clauses that structure the event with which they are related (Haegeman 2003). We aim for a twofold goal: (a) to establish which is the first-merge position of CACs and whether they are hierarchically ordered similarly to AdvPs/PPs and, consequently, (b) to provide a comprehensive architecture of adjuncts and, more broadly, to refine that of the (Italian) clausal spine. We argue that CACs are merged at the vP/VP level, below the functional projections hosting postverbal subjects, and then we propose a derivational approach in which their surface order is determined by hierarchical merge and VP-movement plus, eventually, pied-piping (Cinque 2005). Thus, our work ultimately offers new empirical support for Cinque’s (2023) theory of linearization in the verbal extended projection.

The Tseltalan (Mayan) languages, Tsotsil and Tseltal, have two options for extracting the possessor in wh-questions. Wh-movement can either move the entire possessive phrase (‘pied piping’) or it can move the possessor alone, stranding the possessum. Each option is associated with restrictions related to the specificity of the possessum: stranding is possible only when the possessum is non-specific, pied-piping only when it is specific. We focus primarily on the former restriction. Earlier work on Tsotsil, and the related language, Ch’ol, analyzed the derivation with stranding as involving subextraction, i.e., extraction of an internal possessor. We argue that subextraction is not possible at all in Tseltalan and that therefore only an external possessor can be extracted without pied-piping. It is fairly clear that in transitive clauses, possessors of the internal argument are extracted as external possessors, not internal ones, as they extract only as applied objects in an applicative construction. We extend this analysis to unaccusative clauses, arguing that the possessor of the internal argument in an unaccusative clause, as well as to the possessor within certain prepositional phrases, extracts from an external position. We identify this position as Specifier of TP and propose that the phrase which occupies it is interpreted as the subject of a categorical judgment (Kuroda 1972, among others). This analysis accounts for specificity effects in possessor extraction and illuminates issues related to word order, predicative possession, experiential collocations, and the nature of ’topic’ positions in Mayan.

As a key component of fluent linguistic production, multi-word sequences called lexical bundles are considered an important distinguishing feature of discourse in different registers, genres, and disciplines. They are also an important aspect of empirically correct and proficient language use in a corpus of natural language because they enable writers to establish membership in a specific discourse community. Given the significant role of lexical bundles in academic writing, the comparison of master’s theses, written by L1 English and L2 English master’s students, offers significant insight into the ways in which lexical bundles are utilized, both structurally and functionally. Based on the assumption, we built a 1,282,700-word English corpus of master’s theses to compare the convergent and divergent usage of four-word lexical bundles in the academic texts of L1 English and L1 Chinese of L2-English writers. Findings showed that Chinese students use lexical bundles more frequently but with less variety than L1 English writers. Shared bundles, which exhibit a grammatically compressed discourse style dominated by prepositional phrases, were used by the two groups of writers in different ways and with significantly different frequencies. The analysis of divergent bundles revealed that Chinese writers frequently use clausal bundles while L1 English students employ more phrasal bundles. With regard to students’ ability to write convincingly in various functional categories, the two groups exhibited remarkable differences. Chinese writers also demonstrated some uniqueness of lexical bundles usage and weak awareness of register in the academic writing. The pedagogical implications and further areas of the study are discussed. Plain language summary Comparing How Chinese and Native English Writers Use Lexical Phrases in Master’s Theses This study examines how multi-word sequences, known as lexical bundles, are used in master’s theses written by both native English speakers and Chinese students studying in English. By analyzing a corpus of 1,282,700 words, we compare how these bundles are employed structurally and functionally. Results indicate that Chinese students use lexical bundles more frequently but with less variety compared to native English writers. Both groups also use shared bundles differently, with Chinese students favoring clausal bundles and native English speakers preferring phrasal ones. These differences highlight distinct writing styles and functional abilities between the two groups, with Chinese writers showing some unique usage patterns and a weaker grasp of academic register. The study discusses implications for teaching academic writing and suggests areas for further research.

Linguistic complexity can be analyzed from two perspectives: group complexity and clause complexity. Complex nominal groups (NGs) are widely recognized as a defining characteristic of English academic writing. This study investigates the relationship between NG complexity and clause complexity across three disciplinary groups— Social Sciences (SS), Humanities and Natural Sciences (NS)—through the lens of dependency distance (DD). The results show that participant NGs are most complex in NS texts, whereas clauses exhibit the greatest complexity in Humanities texts. In general, there is a tendency to minimize the insertion of other clausal constituents between the verbal group and its object NG. Among the few inserted constituents, those with shorter DDs from the head verbs (HVs) to the object NGs are more frequent in Humanities texts, while those with longer DDs are more common in NS texts. Shorter in-between constituents typically form phrasal verbs with the HVs, while longer ones are mostly prepositional phrases functioning as circumstantial adjuncts. These findings suggest that NG complexity and clause complexity are not necessarily negatively correlated, both contributing to the overall linguistic complexity of English academic writing, and that adverbial groups functioning as comment adjuncts or intensifiers are not encouraged in English academic writing.

Some version of the following claim is almost universally assumed: a quantifier must c-command any pronoun that it binds. Yet as I show, the evidence motivating this claim is not particularly strong. In addition, I gather here a wide variety of systematic counterexamples, some well-known, others new. I conclude that c-command is not relevant for quantificational binding in English (nor is any refinement or extension of c-command).