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In this paper we discuss the emergence of novel agreement patterns of the bipartite reciprocal markers (BRM) jedan drugi (Serbian) and l’un(o) l’altro (Italian), both meaning ‘each other’. In Serbian, the most conclusive evidence of an ongoing change comes from novel case agreement patterns, where the first element of the BRM no longer agrees in case with the antecedent. For Italian, the absence of agreement on the first part (l’un) is understood to be a result of grammaticalization, accompanied by other symptoms such as semantic weakening. The major problems for this view are gender agreeing plural BRMs, and the fact that agreeing BRMs in general do not seem to be ‘less reciprocal’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address the major word order patterns in Old English (OE) embedded clauses and examine to what extent it is possible to capture the motivation behind the variation observed in purely syntactic terms. As a representative of the syntacticocentric approach, we take the account by Biberauer and Roberts (2005) and critically evaluate it against the larger empirical background, while also pointing out certain theoretical challenges it faces. We then attempt to characterize the various information-structural inferences (focus, topicality, givenness, pragmatic presupposition) that arise for different word order patterns, and that must be taken into consideration in any successful analysis. We leave it open whether the IS/pragmatic effects we describe arise because notions like [+Focus] are represented in the syntax, or because languages exploit the contrasts that are independently generated by the syntax for discourse-pragmatic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between prosodic and semantic properties of Intonational Phrases, based on the facts from Serbian. The production tests and elicited judgements show that the prosodic integration of the embedded IPs (appositives, parentheticals, and the left-peripheral adverbs) has a distinct semantic effect, or is accompanied by the narrow focus interpretation within the proposition modified.

A recurring hypothesis about the agreement phenomena generalized as closest‐conjunct agreement takes this pattern to result from reduced clausal conjunction, simply displaying the agreement of the verb with the nonconjoined subject of the clause whose content survives ellipsis (Aoun, Benmamoun & Sportiche 1994, 1999; see also Wilder 1997). Closest‐conjunct agreement is the dominant agreement pattern in the South Slavic languages Slovenian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. A natural question is whether closest‐conjunct agreement in these varieties may indeed be analyzed as entirely derived from conjunction reduction. In this article, we report on two experiments conducted to test this. The results reject the hypothesis as far as these languages are concerned, thereby upholding the relevance of models developed to account for closest‐conjunct agreement within theories of agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the nature of syntactic variation in non-finite complements of modal verbs in Serbian. Specifically, we examine what factors may underlie the intra-speaker variation in the choice of infinitive over da+present, and how these differences can be represented structurally. The empirical data from a restricted corpus study confirm the observation from the literature that infinitive is often used for stylistic reasons and in impersonal contexts. What we have also found is that for the speaker infinitive is preferred with abstract or non-referential subjects, with stative complements and in the context of epistemic rather than deontic modals. We hypothesize that all the grammatical factors converge around the pivotal role of the subject in the two constructions. An account that predicts enough structural similarity between da+present and infinitive to allow virtual interchangeability, while postulating enough difference in terms of the role of the subject to accommodate the observed differences could, thus, be a good candidate to explain the observed phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical structure has been cherished as a grammatical universal. We use experimental methods to show where linear order is also a relevant syntactic relation. An identical methodology and design were used across six research sites on South Slavic languages. Experimental results show that in certain configurations, grammatical production can in fact favor linear order over hierarchical structure. However, these findings are limited to coordinate structures and distinct from the kind of production errors found with comparable configurations such as "attraction" errors. The results demonstrate that agreement morphology may be computed in a series of steps, one of which is partly independent from syntactic hierarchy., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)