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Full-Text Articles in Syntax

Music And Language: Exploring An Artificial Music Grammar, Erica R. Knowles Jun 2009

Music And Language: Exploring An Artificial Music Grammar, Erica R. Knowles

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Research regarding the brain mechanisms that underlie music and language processing supports two main interpretations: domain-specificity and domain-generality. Evidence from neuropsychology literature, specifically from amusia research, supports domain-specific mechanisms (Peretz & Coltheart, 2003) but recent neuroimaging and behavioral evidence supports overlapping mechanisms, especially for syntax processing (Patel, 2008). The present study used an artificial music grammar in order to test participants' ability to learn a new music grammar as well as to observe a possible interaction between music and language syntax processing. Although participants were able to learn the artificial music grammar, a language task was not affected by errors …


The Electrophysiological Manifestation Of Dutch Verb Second Violations, Dirk B. Den Ouden, Roelien Bastiaanse Mar 2009

The Electrophysiological Manifestation Of Dutch Verb Second Violations, Dirk B. Den Ouden, Roelien Bastiaanse

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

We investigated the processing of violations of the verb position in Dutch, in a group of healthy subjects, by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) through electroencephalography (EEG). In Dutch, the base position of the verb is clause final, but in matrix clauses, the finite verb is in second position, a construction known as Verb Second. In embedded clauses, the finite verb remains in its clause-final base position. The results show that ungrammatical placement of finite verbs in second position in embedded clauses yields a P600 response, which suggests that the parser treats this type of violation as a clear syntactic …


External Possession Meets Bare Nouns In Malagasy, Ileana Paul Feb 2009

External Possession Meets Bare Nouns In Malagasy, Ileana Paul

French Studies Publications

This paper examines apparent noun incorporation in Malagasy that is the result of external possession (possessor raising). It is shown that such incorporation is not derived via head movement or via compounding. Instead, it is argued that this is an instance of pseudo noun incorporation (Massam, 2001): the possessum is merged as an NP sister to the predicate. As for the structure of external possession, a non-movement analysis is proposed: the apparent possessor is generated as the specifier of a null possessive head and binds an empty argument position within the possessum. The resulting structure and meaning are shown to …


On The Presence Versus Absence Of Determiners In Malagasy, Ileana Paul Jan 2009

On The Presence Versus Absence Of Determiners In Malagasy, Ileana Paul

French Studies Publications

No abstract provided.