Acrisio Pires

• BA, MA, PhD
• Professor of Linguistics at University of Michigan

An important debate relating formal syntax and historical linguistics concerns the question whether it is possible to reconstruct the syntax of a proto-language by comparing the syntactic properties of two or more of its daughter languages. This paper addresses this question in detail, by focusing on several important empirical and methodological q...

In this paper we provide evidence for the existence of wh-in-situ in various questions with a single wh-phrase in English, beyond echo-questions. Second, we show similar properties for in-situ questions in (Brazilian) Portuguese. Third, we propose a minimalist analysis that explains the existence of wh-in-situ in these languages, taking into accoun...

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions This study investigated the acquisition of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM) by bilingual and monolingual Spanish teenagers, evaluating to which extent their knowledge of DOM can be explained by different theories of acquisition. Design/Methodology/Approach Two experiments with bilingual and m...

This paper argues that inalienable relational nouns in Mandarin Chinese, specifically kinship nouns (KNs, e.g. father , sister ) and body-part nouns (BPNs, e.g. head , face ), have an implicit reflexive argument. Based on a syntactic comparison between KNs, BPNs, locally and long-distance bound reflexives, we argue that the implicit reflexive argum...

This paper argues that inalienable relational nouns in Mandarin Chinese, specifically kinship nouns (KNs, e.g., father, sister) and body-part nouns (BPNs, e.g., head, face), have an implicit reflexive argument. Based on a syntactic comparison between KNs, BPNs, locally and long-distance bound reflexives, we argue that the implicit reflexive argumen...

This paper argues that inalienable relational nouns in Mandarin Chinese, specifically kinship nouns (e.g. father, sister) and body-part nouns (e.g. head, face), have an implicit reflexive argument. Based on a syntactic comparison between kinship nouns, body-part nouns, locally and long-distance bound reflexives, we argue that the implicit reflexive...

This paper focuses on consequences for linguistic theory of a set of experiments on the L2 acquisition of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM), with three experimental groups: a native control group, a group of L2 learners whose L1 is English, and a group of L2 learners whose L1 is Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The results of the experiments shed...

In this paper we tested the hypothesis that second language learners whose exposure to Spanish begins before puberty (i.e., before the age of 14) can attain higher competence than older learners in the acquisition of Differential Object Marking/DOM in Spanish. DOM takes place with the insertion of so-called personal a in Spanish, and it has been ar...

This paper presents an experimental study to re-evaluate the Feature Interpretability Hypothesis (see Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007; Tsimpli & Mastropavlou, 2007), a theory of learnability in adult Second Language Acquisition (SLA) that has received a substantial amount of attention in SLA research. This paper re-evaluate...

This paper investigates the acquisition of syntax in L2 grammars. We tested adult L2 speakers of Spanish (English L1) on the feature specification of T(ense), which is different in English and Spanish in so-called subject-to-subject raising structures. We present experimental results with the verb parecer “to seem/to appear” in different tenses, wi...

This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come to acquire restrictions on bare plural preverbal subjects in L2 Spanish (e.g. gatos cats vs. definite plurals such as los gatos the cats). It tests L2 knowledge of available semantic readings of bare plurals and definite plurals in Spanish, where [+speci...

Linguistics began in the 19th century as a historical science, asking how languages came to be the way they are. Almost all of the work dealt with the changing pronunciation of words and “sound change” more broadly. Much attention was paid to explaining why sounds changed the way they did, and that involved developing ideas about directionality. Wo...

This study investigates the child (L1) acquisition of properties at the interfaces of morpho-syntax, syntax-semantics and syntax-pragmatics, by focusing on inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP). Three child groups were tested, 6–7-year-olds, 9–10-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds, as well as an adult control group. The data demonstrate that...

Harrison explores causes and consequences of the loss of human languages.

This study contributes to a central debate within contemporary generative second language (L2) theorizing: the extent to which adult learners are (un)able to acquire new functional features that result in a L2 grammar that is mentally structured like the native target (see White, 2003). The adult acquisition of L2 nominal phi-features is explored,...

This study investigates the child (L1) acquisition of inflected and uninflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP). We test and contrast properties involving two interfaces, focusing on morpho-syntactic and syntax-semantics properties of inflected infinitives, in contrast with uninflected infinitives. We present experimental results from three...

This article brings to light an important variable involved in explaining a type of competence divergence in an instance of bilingual acquisition: heritage speaker (HS) bilingualism. We present results of experiments with European Portuguese (EP) heritage speakers (HSs), showing that they have full morpho-syntactic and semantic competence of inflec...

This volume brings together chapters written by specialists in North America, Europe and Brazil. It includes original research about the acquisition (L1, bilingualism) and acquisition/ learning (L2 or L3) of dialects of Brazilian and European Portuguese. In an effort to maximize volume cohesion, the emphasis has been on contributions that present s...

In this chapter, we aim to more directly integrate research in two sub-fields of linguistic inquiry: language acquisition and diachronic language change. These two fields have long and strong theoretical and empirical foundations. However, they have for the most part developed independently, without much intersection, despite compelling reasons tha...

  This paper investigates the syntax of clausal gerunds—a class of gerunds that can have either a null subject or an overt DP Case-marked with accusative or nominative. First, it addresses the difficulty of accounting for gerunds that allow both null and overt subjects in principles and parameters/minimalist approaches to Case and control. Second,...

We argue that English and Portuguese, which have been assumed to have distinct syntax for wh-in-situ, in fact share significant properties regarding this phenomenon. We present various contexts beyond echo-questions in which a wh-phrase can stay in-situ in questions with a single wh-phrase (single wh-questions) both in (Brazilian) Portuguese and En...

This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subject languages, especially within Romance. It explores syntactic and semantic properties, including resumption, ellipsis, quantifiers and scope, variable binding, ordering restrictions, pronominal distinctions, minimality violations, bare nouns and defin...

Th is book unifies the analysis of certain non-finite domains, focusing on subject licensing, agreement, Case and control. It proposes a minimalist analysis of English gerunds which allows only a null subject PRO (TP-defective gerunds), a lexical subject (gerunds as complements of perception verbs), or both types of subjects (clausal gerunds). It t...

  This paper has two goals. First, it provides a solution to an important and particularly recalcitrant problem regarding non-control infinitival complements of derived nouns, which have been argued to provide independent motivation for the retention of the EPP in T. Second, it presents an unnoted problem regarding the elimination of the EPP in inf...

This book explores a central aspect of language change: the nature and degree to which changes in morphology (inflectional word endings, for example) cause changes in syntax (for example, in word order). The twenty-two contributors consider such phenomena within the context of Chomsky's minimalist revision of his principles (of universal grammar) a...

Thesis research directed by Dept. of Linguistics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2001. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-216).

This is a minimalist analysis of clausal gerunds − V-ing constructions where the subject is either a PRO or a lexical NP marked with accusative or nominative Case. It provides a deterministic account for the occurrence of PRO and NP in exactly the same context, deriving the full range of clausal gerunds and dispensing with the notions of Government...

In this paper I explore the idea that there is a class of complement gerunds that do not project a TP, contrary to acc-ing and poss-ing gerunds. I address the consequences of this hypothesis for an approach to restructuring predicates and for theories of control. Most analyses of gerunds (e.g. Abney 1987, Kaiser 1999, Milsark 1988) have provided me...