•  336
    De Morgan's laws and NEG-raising: a syntactic view
    Linguistic Frontiers 1 (2): 112-121. 2018.
    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…Read more
  •  181
    In this article I consider some recent objections raised against the syntactic treatment of negation in English multiclausal structures, in particular what has been called NEGraising. I argue that the objections based on pronominalisation and ellipsis presented in the recent literature do pose a problem for syntactic accounts of the mechanisms of so-called NOT-transportation that rely on a rule of leftwards movement, as is customary in generative grammar. However, there is an alternative syntact…Read more
  •  99
    Introduction
    Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 3 (2): 123-128. 2021.
  •  84
    Mixed computation: grammar up and down the Chomsky Hierarchy
    Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 2 (3): 215-244. 2021.
    Proof-theoretic models of grammar are based on the view that an explicit characterization of a language comes in the form of the recursive enumeration of strings in that language. That recur-sive enumeration is carried out by a procedure which strongly generates a set of structural de-scriptions Σ and weakly generates a set of strings S; a grammar is thus a function that pairs an element of Σ with elements of S. Structural descriptions are obtained by means of Context-Free phrase structure rules…Read more
  •  31
    In this paper I will try to outline the basic tenets of Radical Minimalism, exploring previous ideas in further depth. I will assume orthodox Minimalism, and take that as a point of departure for new inquiries. I will test Radical Minimalism by analyzing what I consider to be the one and only generative mechanism in the human mind: the operation merge. I will review previous literature that has addressed this topic and then present our own proposal, trying to derive the conceptual necessity and …Read more
  •  19
    Implicit Learning, Bilingualism, and Dyslexia: Insights From a Study Assessing AGL With a Modified Simon Task
    with Maria Vender, Beth Phillips, Douglas Saddy, and Denis Delfitto
    Frontiers in Psychology 10. 2019.
    This paper presents an experimental study investigating artificial grammar learning (AGL) in monolingual and bilingual children, with and without dyslexia, using an original methodology. We administered a serial reaction time (SRT) 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…Read more
  •  11
    Mixed computation
    Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 3 (2): 215-244. 2021.
    Proof-theoretic models of grammar are based on the view that an explicit characterization of a language comes in the form of the recursive enumeration of strings in that language. That recursive enumeration is carried out by a procedure which strongly generates a set of structural descriptions Σ and weakly generates a set of strings S; a grammar is thus a function that pairs an element of Σ with elements of S. Structural descriptions are obtained by means of Context-Free phrase structure rules o…Read more
  •  9
    This paper argues that the theory of phrase structure a certain linguistic approach assumes implies taking a stance on the formal nature of the computational procedures that generate that phrase structure. We will proceed by critically evaluating theories of phrase structure and labeling -which implies taking a structure as a unit for the purposes of further computations-, and building on and opposing to the proposals we review, we will claim that syntactic objects are not computationally unifor…Read more
  •  4
    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 ope…Read more
  •  1
    Raising to object
    Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 5 (2): 128-161. 2023.
    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…Read more
  • Tokens vs. Copies: Displacement revisited
    Studia Linguistica 70 (3): 250-296. 2015.
    In this paper we will analyze the conceptual and computational motivations of the property of displacement in natural languages from a revisited perspective. We will account for displacement phenomena proposing our own version of displacement-as-external token Merge, as opposed to the traditional displacement-as-literal movement or, more recently, displacement-as-copy and Merge (Chomsky 1995; Kitahara 1997; Nunes 2004). As far as empirical data is concerned, we will provide a brief analysis of p…Read more