Papers by Diego Gabriel Krivochen
Different and Proud of It: A TAG Perspective on the Coordination of Unlike Categories
Studia Linguistica, 2025
This paper presents an analysis of sentences featuring superficial coordinations of unlike catego... more This paper presents an analysis of sentences featuring superficial coordinations of unlike categories in English, such as 'John is a Republican and proud of it' (NP and AP) and 'Pat is stupid and a liar' (AP and NP). We argue that, despite the fact that examples like these have been grouped in the literature on coordination of unlikes, there are significant syntactic differences that justify distinguishing between them representationally and derivationally. We propose two categories of coordination of unlikes: anaphoric and intersective coordinations. In particular, we will focus on how to formulate a structural description that gets the right reference for it in a Republican and proud of it, a point unexplored in existing proposals.
Isogloss 11(1)/7, 2025
In this paper we provide an analysis of meteorological verbs that allows us to account for their ... more In this paper we provide an analysis of meteorological verbs that allows us to account for their distribution in coordinated structures with a non-overt subject in the second conjunct, of the kind it snowed and covered the tracks, focusing on Spanish data. We argue that verbs like rain and snow, in their pure meteorological uses share with unergatives such as laugh the property of being denominal, and that in Spanish they appear in defective structural configurations that do not license a specifier for vP/VP or TP. We propose that (i) the nominal in the lexical derivation of meteorological predicates remains accessible for a limited range of syntactic processes and (ii) Spanish meteorological sentences are subject-less. Under these assumptions, we provide a novel analysis of apparent 'subject' omission in coordinated structures with meteorological predicates.
Biolinguistics, Mar 1, 2023
This paper examines Minimal Search, an operation that is at the core of current Minimalist inquir... more This paper examines Minimal Search, an operation that is at the core of current Minimalist inquiry. We argue that, given Minimalist assumptions about structure building consisting of unordered setformation, there are serious difficulties in defining Minimal Search as a search algorithm. Furthermore, some problematic configurations for Minimal Search (namely, {XP, YP} and {X, Y}) are argued to be an artefact of these set-theoretic commitments. However, if unordered sets are given up as the format of structural descriptions in favour of directed graphs such that Merge(X, Y) creates an arc from X to Y, Minimal Search can be straightforwardly characterised as a sequential deterministic search algorithm: the total order required to define MS as a sequential search algorithm is provided by structure building.
Folia Linguistica, 2024
Generative syntax was built on the foundations of Immediate Constituent (IC) analysis, and IC met... more Generative syntax was built on the foundations of Immediate Constituent (IC) analysis, and IC methods and heuristics were an important tool in the early days of the generative enterprise. However, developments in the theory entailed a departure from some fundamental IC assumptions: we will argue that structural descriptions in contemporary generative grammar (transformational and non-transformational) define not constituents, but strictly ordered sequences closer to arrays. We therefore define and characterise IC approaches to syntax as opposed to what we will call Array-Based (AB) approaches. IC grammars define distributional generalisations, and proper containment and is-a relations between indexed distributionally defined categories. AB grammars, in contrast, define strictly ordered sequences of categories. In this paper we introduce and define the fundamental properties of IC grammar, and the changes in the generative theory that introduced arrays in phrase structure. We argue that it is crucial to distinguish between IC and AB grammars when evaluating the empirical adequacy of structural descriptions used in current syntactic theorising, as structures in AB and IC grammars represent different relations between expressions and may be better suited for different purposes.
A method for the comparison of general sequences via type-token ratio
John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks, Dec 15, 2021
Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 5(2), 2024
In this paper we provide an introduction to a set of tools for syntactic analysis based on graph ... more In this paper we provide an introduction to a set of tools for syntactic analysis based on graph theory, and apply them to the study of some properties of English accusativus cum infinitivo constructions, more commonly known as 'raising to object' or' exceptional case marking' structures. We focus on puzzling extraction asymmetries between base-generated objects and ‘raised’ objects and on the interaction between raising to object and Right Wrap. We argue that a lexicalised derivational grammar with grammatical functions as primitives delivers empirically adequate analyses.
Aahus University Library eBooks, 2019
To appear in Oxford Handbook of Iconicity, 2024
In this paper we analyse the place of iconicity in the architecture of a generative grammar, in r... more In this paper we analyse the place of iconicity in the architecture of a generative grammar, in relation to the notion of diagrammatic iconicity. We will present the fundamental assumptions of current generative grammar about the relations between syntax, morpho-phonology, and semantics, and discuss the problems that arise when attempting to include a semiotic dimension in the generative architecture.
The Linguistic Review
Recent work on structure building and mapping in Minimalist syntax makes explicit reference to wo... more Recent work on structure building and mapping in Minimalist syntax makes explicit reference to workspaces; however, it is still an underexplored area. This paper is an attempt to (a) analyse the notion of ‘workspace’ as used in current Minimalist syntax and (b) provide a definition of ‘syntactic workspace’ that can help us capture interesting empirical phenomena. In doing this, we confront set-theoretic and graph-theoretic approaches to syntactic structure in terms of the operations that can affect syntactic objects and how their properties are related to the definition of workspace. We analyse the consequences of conceptualising ‘syntax’ as a set of operations that affect local regions of the workspace, defining directed graphs.
Borealis: An international journal of Hispanic linguistics, 2022
En este trabajo examinaremos análisis existentes de las oraciones de relativo
(principalmente re... more En este trabajo examinaremos análisis existentes de las oraciones de relativo
(principalmente restrictivas), y propondremos un análisis para las relativas españolas desde la perspectiva de una gramática de adjunción (TAG) lexicalizada. Presentaremos un panorama de las principales propuestas existentes y examinaremos las preguntas a las que todo análisis de las oraciones de relativo debe responder. La propuesta que desarrollamos aquí sintetiza las ventajas descriptivas y teóricas de los modelos existentes (el análisis de núcleo externo, el análisis de ascenso, y el análisis de correspondencia), y ofrece una solución a algunos de los principales problemas que
han sido observados anteriormente en la bibliografía. Nos ocuparemos de la configuración interna de las oraciones de relativo, de su posición estructural, y de la categoría de la expresión 'que' en español.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019
This paper presents an experimental study investigating artificial grammar learning in monolingua... more This paper presents an experimental study investigating artificial grammar learning in monolingual and bilingual children, with and without dyslexia, using an original methodology. We administered a serial reaction time task, in the form of a modified Simon task, in which the sequence of the stimuli was manipulated according to the rules of a simple Lindenmayer grammar (more specifically, a Fibonacci grammar). By ensuring that the subjects focused on the correct response execution at the motor stage in presence of congruent or incongruent visual stimuli, we could meet the two fundamental criteria for implicit learning: the absence of an intention to learn and the lack of awareness at the level of resulting knowledge. The participants of our studies were four groups of 10-year-old children: 30 Italian monolingual typically developing children, 30 bilingual typically developing children with Italian L2, 24 Italian monolingual dyslexic children, and 24 bilingual dyslexic children with Italian L2. Participants were administered the modified Simon task developed according to the rules of the Fibonacci grammar and tested with respect to the implicit learning of three regularities: (i) a red is followed by a blue, (ii) a sequence of two blues is followed by a red, and (iii) a blue can be followed either by a red or by a blue. Results clearly support the hypothesis that learning took place, since participants of all groups became increasingly sensitive to the structure of the input, implicitly learning the sequence of the trials and thus appropriately predicting the occurrence of the relevant items, as manifested by faster reaction times in predictable trials. Moreover, group differences were found, with bilinguals being overall faster than monolinguals and dyslexics less accurate than controls. Finally, an advantage of bilingualism in dyslexia was found, with bilingual dyslexics performing consistently better than monolingual dyslexics and, in some conditions, at the level of the two control groups. These results are taken to suggest that bilingualism should be supported also among linguistically impaired individuals.
Isogloss, 2022
Spanish auxiliary sequences as in 'Juan puede haber tenido que estar empezando a trabajar hasta t... more Spanish auxiliary sequences as in 'Juan puede haber tenido que estar empezando a trabajar hasta tarde' 'Juan may have had to be starting to work until late', traditionally termed auxiliary chains, have two properties that are not naturally captured in phrasestructure approaches to syntax: (i) they follow no a priori fixed order; auxiliary permutations have different meanings, none of which is any more basic than any other (cf. 'Juan puede estar trabajando' 'Juan may be working' and 'Juan está pudiendo trabajar' 'Juan is currently able to work'); and (ii) the syntactic and semantic relations established within a chain go beyond strict monotonicity or cumulative influence; rather, they present different kinds of syntactic relations in distinct local domains. We show that an alternative to syntax grounded in a modification of the categorial grammar introduced in Ajdukiewicz (1935) that closely follows Montague (1973), Dowty (1978, 1979, 2003), and Schmerling (1983a, b, 2019) provides effective tools for subsuming Spanish auxiliary chains in an explicit and explanatory grammar.
This paper examines English sentences with go, up, or take as an apparent first conjunct, which w... more This paper examines English sentences with go, up, or take as an apparent first conjunct, which we term pivots, and demonstrates that they fail all tests for involving either true-or pseudo-coordination. Semantically, each generates a conventional implicature specific to it: Go and sentences implicate a lack of 7 concern on the part of the subject for consequences of the event expressed in 8 the apparent second conjunct, up and sentences implicate that the event expressed in the apparent second conjunct is both sudden and unexpected, and take and sentences, the most complex of the three types, implicate that the 11 subject plays an active role in coercion towards an accomplishment interpretation of the apparent second conjunct. Syntactically, pivot-and sequences are modifiers of the verb in the apparent second conjunct.
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, 2019
This paper deals with the syntactic and semantic properties of a specific kind of anaphoric devic... more This paper deals with the syntactic and semantic properties of a specific kind of anaphoric device (AD) in English, instantiated by Prn+SELF lexical items (himself/herself/itself…; ‘SELF’ henceforth), which do not behave like anaphors in the sense of Binding Theory either syntactically or semantically. These devices have received the name of intensives in the grammatical literature (Leskosky 1972; Siemund 2000, among many others). We will look at the syntactic behaviour of so-called intensives in different syntactic contexts, and refine the classification of these ADs taking into consideration (a) how each type of intensive is derived, (b) the kinds of syntactic rules that can affect them, and (c) their meaning.
Revista Española de Lingüística, 2019
Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2019
Chains of auxiliary verbs in Spanish allow for the reconceptualization of well-known grammatical ... more Chains of auxiliary verbs in Spanish allow for the reconceptualization of well-known grammatical problems under the light of understudied structures. In this paper we will deal with issues regarding the position of subjects in declarative and interrogative sentences featuring auxiliary chains. It will become immediately evident that the dichotomy between pre- and post-verbal subjects results inadequate to provide adequate characterisations for the Spanish cases, in contrast to the situation in English. This is so because post-verbal subjects may appear, a priori, to the right of each auxiliary in a chain. These new data, which have received little attention, constitute a challenge for standard hypotheses about the position of subjects in Spanish.
On Coordination and Clitic Climbing in Spanish Auxiliary Verb Constructions
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 2022
In this work we analyse some aspects of the interaction between coordination and clitic climbing ... more In this work we analyse some aspects of the interaction between coordination and clitic climbing in Spanish sentences with auxiliary verbs. We aim at shedding light on three kinds of structures, or ‘scenarios’: (1) those in which we find coordinated auxiliaries taking a single lexical verb as complement (Puede y debe hacerlo); (2) those in which a single auxiliary takes coordinated lexical verbs as complement (estás molestándonos y mirándonos), and (3) those in which coordinated
auxiliaries take coordinated lexical verbs as complement (puede y debe
terminarlo y entregarlo). Our proposal will involve a combination of Gapping and Across-the-Board rule application for Scenarios (1) and (2) and Right Node Raising for Scenario (3). We will argue that well-known syntactic constraints on long distance dependencies, such as those proposed in Ross (1967), can account for the facts without the need for ad hoc machinery.
Plos One, 2020
In this paper we probe the interaction between sequential and hierarchical learning by investigat... more In this paper we probe the interaction between sequential and hierarchical learning by investigating implicit learning in a group of school-aged children. We administered a serial reaction time task, in the form of a modified Simon Task in which the stimuli were organised following the rules of two distinct artificial grammars, specifically Lindenmayer systems: the Fibonacci grammar (Fib) and the Skip grammar (a modification of the former). The choice of grammars is determined by the goal of this study, which is to investigate how sensitivity to structure emerges in the course of exposure to an input whose surface transitional properties (by hypothesis) bootstrap structure. The studies conducted to date have been mainly designed to investigate low-level superficial regularities, learnable in purely statistical terms, whereas hierarchical learning has not been effectively investigated yet. The possibility to directly pinpoint the interplay between sequential and hierarchical learning is instead at the core of our study: we presented children with two grammars, Fib and Skip, which share the same transitional regularities, thus providing identical opportunities for sequential learning, while crucially differing in their hierarchical structure. More particularly, there are specific points in the sequence (k-points), which, despite giving rise to the same transitional regularities in the two grammars, support hierarchical reconstruction in Fib but not in Skip. In our protocol, children were simply asked to perform a traditional Simon Task, and they were completely unaware of the real purposes of the task. Results indicate that sequential learning occurred in both grammars, as shown by the decrease in reaction times throughout the task, while differences were found in the sensitivity to k-points: these, we contend, play a role in hierarchical reconstruction in Fib, whereas they are devoid of structural significance in Skip. More particularly, we found that children were faster in correspondence to k-points in sequences produced by Fib, thus providing an entirely new kind of evidence for the hypothesis that implicit learning involves an early activation of strategies of hierarchical reconstruction, based on a straightforward interplay with the statistically-based computation of transitional regularities on the sequences of symbols.
Philosophies, 2021
Contemporary generative grammar assumes that syntactic structure is best described in terms of se... more Contemporary generative grammar assumes that syntactic structure is best described in terms of sets, and that locality conditions, as well as cross-linguistic variation, is determined at the level of designated functional heads. Syntactic operations (merge, MERGE, etc.) build a structure by deriving sets from lexical atoms and recursively (and monotonically) yielding sets of sets. Additional restrictions over the format of structural descriptions limit the number of elements involved in each operation to two at each derivational step, a head and a non-head. In this paper, we will explore an alternative direction for minimalist inquiry based on previous work, e.g., Frank (2002, 2006), albeit under novel assumptions. We propose a view of syntactic structure as a specification of relations in graphs, which correspond to the extended projection of lexical heads; these are elementary trees in Tree Adjoining Grammars. We present empirical motivation for a lexicalised approach to structure building, where the units of the grammar are elementary trees. Our proposal will be based on cross-linguistic evidence; we will consider the structure of elementary trees in Spanish, English and German. We will also explore the consequences of assuming that nodes in elementary trees are addresses for purposes of tree composition operations, substitution and adjunction.
Linguistic Frontiers
In this paper, we will motivate the application of specific rules of inference from the propositi... more In this paper, we will motivate the application of specific rules of inference from the propositional calculus to natural language sentences. Specifically, we will analyse De Morgan’s laws, which pertain to the interaction of two central topics in syntactic research: negation and coordination. We will argue that the applicability of De Morgan’s laws to natural language structures can be derived from independently motivated operations of grammar and principles restricting the application of these operations. This has direct empirical consequences for the hypothesised relations between natural language and logic.
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Papers by Diego Gabriel Krivochen
(principalmente restrictivas), y propondremos un análisis para las relativas españolas desde la perspectiva de una gramática de adjunción (TAG) lexicalizada. Presentaremos un panorama de las principales propuestas existentes y examinaremos las preguntas a las que todo análisis de las oraciones de relativo debe responder. La propuesta que desarrollamos aquí sintetiza las ventajas descriptivas y teóricas de los modelos existentes (el análisis de núcleo externo, el análisis de ascenso, y el análisis de correspondencia), y ofrece una solución a algunos de los principales problemas que
han sido observados anteriormente en la bibliografía. Nos ocuparemos de la configuración interna de las oraciones de relativo, de su posición estructural, y de la categoría de la expresión 'que' en español.
auxiliaries take coordinated lexical verbs as complement (puede y debe
terminarlo y entregarlo). Our proposal will involve a combination of Gapping and Across-the-Board rule application for Scenarios (1) and (2) and Right Node Raising for Scenario (3). We will argue that well-known syntactic constraints on long distance dependencies, such as those proposed in Ross (1967), can account for the facts without the need for ad hoc machinery.