Acrisio Pires
Biographic Data
| ID | 3694063 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Acrisio Pires |
| GIVEN NAMES | Acrisio |
| FAMILY NAME | Pires |
| SIGNATURE | PIRES A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3528-8027 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Navigating Ambiguity: Scope Interpretations in Spanish/English Heritage Bilinguals
This study investigates how Mexican Spanish/U.S. English heritage bilinguals process scope ambiguities in sentences containing the existential quantifiers a/una and the universal quantifiers every/cada in English and Spanish. Sentences like ‘A person bought every book’ are syntactically ambiguous in both languages, allowing for multiple possible interpretations. Research suggests that one interpretation is often preferred due to lower cognitive d…
Bilingual knowledge of wh-in situ and island violations
Research on bilingual sentence processing has argued that structures which fully overlap in surface word order across two languages do not distinctly belong to either one of a bilingual’s languages but are instead shared across both. However, it is unclear to what extent the derivational properties of these structures play a role in this sharedness. In this paper we investigate bilinguals’ sensitivity to two structures that ultimately result in o…
Feature Acquisition: Object Drop in L2 Spanish
This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of Spanish object drop by advanced learners whose L1s are English and Brazilian Portuguese, in order to assess effects on their knowledge of the interpretable and uninterpretable features conditioning the realization of object drop in their L2 Spanish. Object drop in Spanish is subject to semantic restrictions related to definiteness and specificity, as well as syntactic restrictions related to subjacenc…
Second Language Acquisition of Constraints on WH-Movement by L2 English Speakers: Evidence for Full-Access to Syntactic Features
This paper presents results from two experiments on the L2 acquisition of wh-features and relevant constraints (Superiority and Subjacency) by L1 Sinhala-L2 English speakers. Our results from a Truth Value Judgment Task and a Grammaticality Judgment Task with 31 English native controls and 38 Sinhala/English bilinguals show that the advanced adult L2 speakers of English we tested have successfully acquired the uninterpretable wh-Q feature and rel…
A parameter-free underspecification approach to complementizer agreement
The issue of linguistic variation, corresponding to parametric variation in syntax, has not been explored comprehensively in the minimalist approach (but see e.g. ROBERTS, 2019 and references in). Two partially distinct, central views of linguistic variation in this framework are (i) variation comes from the lexicon (the so-called Borer-Chomsky conjecture, see BAKER, 2008) and (ii) variation is spelled out through externalization (or the Berwick-…
Local versus long-distance bound implicit arguments of inalienable relational nouns in Chinese
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 arguments of BPNs must be locally bound, whereas that of KNs can either be locally or long-distance bound…
Bilingualism and language change: The case of pronominal clitics in Catalan and Spanish
This study investigates the knowledge of bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish regarding the production of object pronominal clitics (excluding non-reflexive third-person clitics), with a focus on: (i) their morphology, considering the variants that coexist for each form, and (ii) their syntactic placement (proclitic or enclitic) with respect to the verb. We present results from a study of thirty-nine simultaneous bilingual Catalan-Spanish sp…
Integrating Linguistic Theory and Experimentation in L2 Acquisition: Learning of Spanish Differential Object Marking by Portuguese and English speakers
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 light on two questions of theoretical import: (a) how best to characterize the syntax of Spanish DO…
On the Implicit Anaphoric Argument of Relational Nouns in Mandarin Chinese
The Quantificational Domain of dou: An Experimental Study
Which NP does all associate with in e.g. "The pandas, the children all saw"-the pandas, the children, or both? The intuition of adult Mandarin Chinese native speakers regarding the interpretation of the adverbial quantifier dou 'all' remains unclear and controversial, and various incommensurate theories of domain selection have been proposed. These studies may have failed to yield clear results because they used testing materials in which the int…
Gerundive Nominalizations
The properties of gerunds, formed with the morpheme ‐ ing in English, have been the object of significant interest in generative linguistics, largely because they seem to be hybrid categories, in that their projections can exhibit sentential or verbal internal structure but are found in positions normally occupied by nominal projections. There have been proposals for the existence of two types of structures broadly referred to as gerundive nomina…
Delay in the acquisition of Differential Object Marking by Spanish monolingual and bilingual teenagers
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 monolingual Spanish teenagers (ages 10 to 15) were conducted. The experiments included an Elicited P…
The emergence of Brazilian Portuguese: Earlier evidence for the development of a partial null subject Grammar
Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP) is currently analyzed as a partial null subject language (NSL). This work shows the earliest attested changes in the properties of null subjects in the Goiás dialect of BP. We analyze original data from colonial period manuscripts written in Goiás, a state located in Brazil's center-west region, and provide empirical evidence of the loss of null subjects in BP grammars in historical data between the 18th and …
Complex Tenses, Agreement and Wh-extraction
0. Introduction In this paper we provide an analysis of the syntax of tense in Berber and investigate the interaction between complex tenses and the Anti-Agreement Effect (AAE), which was first discussed by Ouhalla (1993). Our analysis attempts to unify the tense system of Berber and make an accurate distinction between tense and aspect in this language. In our analysis of complex tenses we propose that complex tense clauses are bi-clausal, i.e. …
The syntax-semantics of bare and definite plural subjects in the L2 Spanish of English natives
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 [+specific] and [+generic] interpretations are syntactically represented differently from English. Assu…
An integrated perspective on comparative bilingual differences: Beyond the Interface problem
Preview this article: An integrated perspective on comparative bilingual differences: Beyond the Interface problem?, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.1.1.11pir-1.gif
L1 acquisition across Portuguese dialects: Modular and interdisciplinary interfaces as sources of explanation
Disentangling sources of incomplete acquisition: An explanation for competence divergence across heritage grammars
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 inflected infinitives, similar to EP monolinguals. We show this constitutes clear evidence of competence m…
The Derivation of Clausal Gerunds
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, the paper explores the existence of a common structure for the two clausal gerunds, supported by the a…
The subject, it is here! The varying structural positions of preverbal subjects
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 definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argume…
EPP in T: More Controversial Subjects
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 infinitival complements of underived nouns, proposing an analysis for them that need not appeal to the EP…
EPP in T: More Controversial Subjects
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 infinitival complements of underived nouns, proposing an analysis for them that need not appeal to the EP…
The Derivation of Clausal Gerunds
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, the paper explores the existence of a common structure for the two clausal gerunds, supported by the a…
Local versus long-distance bound implicit arguments of inalienable relational nouns in Chinese
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 arguments of BPNs must be locally bound, whereas that of KNs can either be locally or long-distance bound…
The Quantificational Domain of dou: An Experimental Study
Which NP does all associate with in e.g. "The pandas, the children all saw"-the pandas, the children, or both? The intuition of adult Mandarin Chinese native speakers regarding the interpretation of the adverbial quantifier dou 'all' remains unclear and controversial, and various incommensurate theories of domain selection have been proposed. These studies may have failed to yield clear results because they used testing materials in which the int…
The subject, it is here! The varying structural positions of preverbal subjects
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 definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argume…
EPP in T: More Controversial Subjects
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 infinitival complements of underived nouns, proposing an analysis for them that need not appeal to the EP…
The Derivation of Clausal Gerunds
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, the paper explores the existence of a common structure for the two clausal gerunds, supported by the a…
The subject, it is here! The varying structural positions of preverbal subjects
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 definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argume…
Disentangling sources of incomplete acquisition: An explanation for competence divergence across heritage grammars
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 inflected infinitives, similar to EP monolinguals. We show this constitutes clear evidence of competence m…
L1 acquisition across Portuguese dialects: Modular and interdisciplinary interfaces as sources of explanation
An integrated perspective on comparative bilingual differences: Beyond the Interface problem
Preview this article: An integrated perspective on comparative bilingual differences: Beyond the Interface problem?, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.1.1.11pir-1.gif
The syntax-semantics of bare and definite plural subjects in the L2 Spanish of English natives
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 [+specific] and [+generic] interpretations are syntactically represented differently from English. Assu…
Complex Tenses, Agreement and Wh-extraction
0. Introduction In this paper we provide an analysis of the syntax of tense in Berber and investigate the interaction between complex tenses and the Anti-Agreement Effect (AAE), which was first discussed by Ouhalla (1993). Our analysis attempts to unify the tense system of Berber and make an accurate distinction between tense and aspect in this language. In our analysis of complex tenses we propose that complex tense clauses are bi-clausal, i.e. …
Gerundive Nominalizations
The properties of gerunds, formed with the morpheme ‐ ing in English, have been the object of significant interest in generative linguistics, largely because they seem to be hybrid categories, in that their projections can exhibit sentential or verbal internal structure but are found in positions normally occupied by nominal projections. There have been proposals for the existence of two types of structures broadly referred to as gerundive nomina…
Delay in the acquisition of Differential Object Marking by Spanish monolingual and bilingual teenagers
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 monolingual Spanish teenagers (ages 10 to 15) were conducted. The experiments included an Elicited P…
The emergence of Brazilian Portuguese: Earlier evidence for the development of a partial null subject Grammar
Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP) is currently analyzed as a partial null subject language (NSL). This work shows the earliest attested changes in the properties of null subjects in the Goiás dialect of BP. We analyze original data from colonial period manuscripts written in Goiás, a state located in Brazil's center-west region, and provide empirical evidence of the loss of null subjects in BP grammars in historical data between the 18th and …
The Quantificational Domain of dou: An Experimental Study
Which NP does all associate with in e.g. "The pandas, the children all saw"-the pandas, the children, or both? The intuition of adult Mandarin Chinese native speakers regarding the interpretation of the adverbial quantifier dou 'all' remains unclear and controversial, and various incommensurate theories of domain selection have been proposed. These studies may have failed to yield clear results because they used testing materials in which the int…
Integrating Linguistic Theory and Experimentation in L2 Acquisition: Learning of Spanish Differential Object Marking by Portuguese and English speakers
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 light on two questions of theoretical import: (a) how best to characterize the syntax of Spanish DO…
On the Implicit Anaphoric Argument of Relational Nouns in Mandarin Chinese
Bilingualism and language change: The case of pronominal clitics in Catalan and Spanish
This study investigates the knowledge of bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish regarding the production of object pronominal clitics (excluding non-reflexive third-person clitics), with a focus on: (i) their morphology, considering the variants that coexist for each form, and (ii) their syntactic placement (proclitic or enclitic) with respect to the verb. We present results from a study of thirty-nine simultaneous bilingual Catalan-Spanish sp…
Local versus long-distance bound implicit arguments of inalienable relational nouns in Chinese
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 arguments of BPNs must be locally bound, whereas that of KNs can either be locally or long-distance bound…
Second Language Acquisition of Constraints on WH-Movement by L2 English Speakers: Evidence for Full-Access to Syntactic Features
This paper presents results from two experiments on the L2 acquisition of wh-features and relevant constraints (Superiority and Subjacency) by L1 Sinhala-L2 English speakers. Our results from a Truth Value Judgment Task and a Grammaticality Judgment Task with 31 English native controls and 38 Sinhala/English bilinguals show that the advanced adult L2 speakers of English we tested have successfully acquired the uninterpretable wh-Q feature and rel…
A parameter-free underspecification approach to complementizer agreement
The issue of linguistic variation, corresponding to parametric variation in syntax, has not been explored comprehensively in the minimalist approach (but see e.g. ROBERTS, 2019 and references in). Two partially distinct, central views of linguistic variation in this framework are (i) variation comes from the lexicon (the so-called Borer-Chomsky conjecture, see BAKER, 2008) and (ii) variation is spelled out through externalization (or the Berwick-…
Feature Acquisition: Object Drop in L2 Spanish
This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of Spanish object drop by advanced learners whose L1s are English and Brazilian Portuguese, in order to assess effects on their knowledge of the interpretable and uninterpretable features conditioning the realization of object drop in their L2 Spanish. Object drop in Spanish is subject to semantic restrictions related to definiteness and specificity, as well as syntactic restrictions related to subjacenc…
Bilingual knowledge of wh-in situ and island violations
Research on bilingual sentence processing has argued that structures which fully overlap in surface word order across two languages do not distinctly belong to either one of a bilingual’s languages but are instead shared across both. However, it is unclear to what extent the derivational properties of these structures play a role in this sharedness. In this paper we investigate bilinguals’ sensitivity to two structures that ultimately result in o…
Navigating Ambiguity: Scope Interpretations in Spanish/English Heritage Bilinguals
This study investigates how Mexican Spanish/U.S. English heritage bilinguals process scope ambiguities in sentences containing the existential quantifiers a/una and the universal quantifiers every/cada in English and Spanish. Sentences like ‘A person bought every book’ are syntactically ambiguous in both languages, allowing for multiple possible interpretations. Research suggests that one interpretation is often preferred due to lower cognitive d…
Linguistics (19 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (18 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Computer Science (15 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (9 works) · Syntax (9 works) · Natural language processing (8 works) · Artificial Intelligence (7 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (6 works)