Asymmetries in Scrambling and Distinctness of Copies

This paper is an investigation of LF-copies created by scrambling in the context of FNQ-constructions. It demonstrates that movement leaves a copy at LF only when it targets a position within the next search space; it does not leave an LF copy if move-ment takes place too close within a single domain of search space. By characterizing this in terms of “Distinctness of Copies, ” this paper provides a prin-cipled account to all structural variations that have posed substantial problems in previous approaches.

Determiner removal in Balinese nonpivot agents

Patient‐voice clauses within the symmetric voice system of Balinese disallow any extraction from the external‐argument position, while definite external arguments are blocked from occurring altogether. The former fact is traditionally taken as evidence for syntactic ergativity in Austronesian. The latter fact has recently been argued to provide evidence for postsyntactic case licensing via adjacency with the verb. In this article, we offer a simple alternative explanation for the in‐situ properties of patient‐voice agents in Balinese—one that does not make reference to case. We argue that patient‐voice heads come with a feature that triggers removal of the external argument's DP shell, resulting in the loss of a determiner and a category‐D feature that would otherwise enable extraction.German Research Foundation (funding for graduate program Interaction of Grammatical Building Blocks and for Reinhart Koselleck project MU1444/14‐1) http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Hans Böckler Foundation (Maria Weber Grant) http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007440Peer Reviewe

Between syntax and morphology

Synopsis: This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions in comparative morphosyntax, including the modelling of syntactic categories, relative clauses, and demonstrative systems. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in morphosyntax and morphosyntactic variation. This book is complemented by volume I available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/275 and volume III available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/277

The Landscape of Applicatives

The present thesis is concerned with the syntax of constructions variously referred to as 'applicative', 'ditransitive', or 'multiple object' constructions: constructions that contain arguments that transcend the traditional subject-object characterization. The present thesis is also concerned with how the syntax of such constructions yields the interpretive effects that previous research has identified. In this thesis I try to remedy the inadequacies and limitations of previous accounts. As far as the syntax of applicatives is concerned, my analysis necessitates the rejection of phase-based derivation, and requires an emphasis on anti-locality, a rethinking of the phenomenon of successive cyclicity, and a renewed appreciation for the relevance of case and category in the context of multiple object constructions. The system I end up with is more relativized than previous accounts, as it makes use of more factors to capture the syntax of applicatives. In addition to providing a more adequate chracterization of the syntax of applicative constructions, I develop a semantic analysis of double-object/low applicative constructions. Specifically, I argue that such constructions involve object-sharing, captured via theta-driven movement, a derivational process that they share with serial verbs and resultative constructions. If correct, the present thesis offers empirical arguments for various theoretical options currently entertained in the minimalist program, among which movement into theta-position, multiple agree, anti-locality, and early successive cyclic movement (i.e., movement taking place before the final landing site is introduced into the structure)

Syntactic architecture and its consequences II

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions in comparative morphosyntax, including the modelling of syntactic categories, relative clauses, and demonstrative systems. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in morphosyntax and morphosyntactic variation. This book is complemented by volume I available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/275 and volume III available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/277

The size of things I

This book focuses on the role size plays in grammar. Under the umbrella term size fall the size of syntactic projections, the size of feature content, and the size of reference sets. The contributions in this first volume discuss size and structure building. The most productive research program in syntax where size plays a central role revolves around clausal complements. Part 1 of Volume I contributes to this program with papers that argue for particular structures of clausal complements, as well as papers that employ sizes of clausal complements to account for other phenomena. The papers in Part 2 of this volume explore the interaction between size and structure building beyond clausal complements, including phenomena in CP, vP, and NP domains. The contributions cover a variety of languages, many of which are understudied. The book is complemented by Volume II which discusses size effects in movement, agreement, and interpretation

CLiFF Notes: Research In Natural Language Processing at the University of Pennsylvania

The Computational Linguistics Feedback Forum (CLIFF) is a group of students and faculty who gather once a week to discuss the members\u27 current research. As the word feedback suggests, the group\u27s purpose is the sharing of ideas. The group also promotes interdisciplinary contacts between researchers who share an interest in Cognitive Science. There is no single theme describing the research in Natural Language Processing at Penn. There is work done in CCG, Tree adjoining grammars, intonation, statistical methods, plan inference, instruction understanding, incremental interpretation, language acquisition, syntactic parsing, causal reasoning, free word order languages, ... and many other areas. With this in mind, rather than trying to summarize the varied work currently underway here at Penn, we suggest reading the following abstracts to see how the students and faculty themselves describe their work. Their abstracts illustrate the diversity of interests among the researchers, explain the areas of common interest, and describe some very interesting work in Cognitive Science. This report is a collection of abstracts from both faculty and graduate students in Computer Science, Psychology and Linguistics. We pride ourselves on the close working relations between these groups, as we believe that the communication among the different departments and the ongoing inter-departmental research not only improves the quality of our work, but makes much of that work possible

The size of things I

This book focuses on the role size plays in grammar. Under the umbrella term size fall the size of syntactic projections, the size of feature content, and the size of reference sets. The contributions in this first volume discuss size and structure building. The most productive research program in syntax where size plays a central role revolves around clausal complements. Part 1 of Volume I contributes to this program with papers that argue for particular structures of clausal complements, as well as papers that employ sizes of clausal complements to account for other phenomena. The papers in Part 2 of this volume explore the interaction between size and structure building beyond clausal complements, including phenomena in CP, vP, and NP domains. The contributions cover a variety of languages, many of which are understudied. The book is complemented by Volume II which discusses size effects in movement, agreement, and interpretation

Syntactic edges and linearization

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-267).In this thesis, I investigate the question of how the units of a linguistic expression are linearly ordered in syntax. In particular, I examine interactions between locality conditions on movement and the mapping between syntax and phonology. I show that Cyclic Linearization of syntactic structure and constraints on domain-internal movement of multiple specifiers predict unique ordering restrictions at the edges of syntactic domains. As a consequence of cyclic Spell-out and conditions on syntactic agreement, elements externally merged as a constituent at the edge of a Spell-out domain cannot be separated by a domain-internal element. This proposal provides a unified account of a variety of types of ordering restrictions in scrambling - in particular, floating quantifier and possessor constructions in Korean and Japanese. Evidence is drawn from interactions among various factors, which include: scrambling, the scope and syntactic position of adverbs, depictive and resultative predicates, possessor constructions, and varieties of floating quantifiers, among others. It is argued that the domain of cyclic Spell-out must include the edge as well as the complement of a Spell-out domain.(cont.) This challenges the view that edges are designated escape hatches in syntax. Other results include arguments that scrambling is feature-driven movement, support for the view that syntactic agreement is feature sharing, as well as a particular repertoire of phases (including VP and well as vP).by Heejeong Ko.Ph.D