Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches

Producción CientíficaPrevious code-switching literature argues that no switch takes place between a pronoun and a verb, while Determiner Phrases (DPs) do code-switch. This paper uses code-switching acceptability judgment data elicited from three groups of English–Spanish bilinguals (2L1 children, L2 English children and L2 English adults) to test: (i) van Gelderen & MacSwan’s (2008) PF disjunction theorem intended to account for the DP/pronoun divide; and (ii) an agreement version of the analogical criterion (Liceras et al. 2008) which is based on Pesetsky & Torrego’s (2001) double-feature valuation mechanism intended to account for the different status of third person versus first and second person pronominal subjects. We show that the PF disjunction theorem is clearly rooted in the mind of the bilingual and that the Spanish dominant bilinguals can ‘relax’ its requirements to value person agreement features as predicted by the double-feature valuation mechanism.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación - FEDER (HUM2007-62213 and BFF2002-00442)Faculty of Arts of the University of Ottawa - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2004-2034)International Council for Canadian Studies - Department of Foreign Affairs (10-CEA-A

The subject-in-situ generalization revisited

The goal of this paper is to re-examine the status of the condition in (1) proposed in Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (2001; henceforth A&A 2001), in view of recent developments in syntactic theory. (1) The subject-in-situ generalization (SSG) By Spell-Out, vP can contain only one argument with a structural Case feature. We argue that (1) is a more general condition than previously recognized, and that the domain of its application is parametrized. More specifically, based on a comparison between Indo-European (IE) and Khoisan languages, we argue that (1) supports an interpretation of the EPP as a general principle, and not as a property of T. Viewed this way, the SSG is a condition that forces dislocation of arguments as a consequence of a constraint on Case checking

In search of syntactic symmetry : on the parallels between clausal and nominal hierarchical structure.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DX190378 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

A preliminary bibliography on focus

[I]n its present form, the bibliography contains approximately 1100 entries. Bibliographical work is never complete, and the present one is still modest in a number of respects. It is not annotated, and it still contains a lot of mistakes and inconsistencies. It has nevertheless reached a stage which justifies considering the possibility of making it available to the public. The first step towards this is its pre-publication in the form of this working paper. […] The bibliography is less complete for earlier years. For works before 1970, the bibliographies of Firbas and Golkova 1975 and Tyl 1970 may be consulted, which have not been included here

The Noun Phrase: Diversity in Dutch DP Design (DiDDD)

In this paper we discuss our project: Diversity in Dutch DP Design. This project investigates the variation found in the Dutch DP. Not only the variation concerning contemporary dialects is taken into account, also the variation between contemorary Dutch and older variants of the language are investigated. By looking into variation, the project aims to provide an answer to two questions: (i) what is the locus of variation, (ii) what is the structure of the DP-domain

Cliticization as Unselective Attract

The purpose of this article is to provide an explanatory account of the divide between enclisis and proclisis in pronominal clitic constructions in Romance and Semitic languages. The analysis is based on two fundamental assumptions: (i) clitics do not target designated prelabelled positions, but take maximal advantage of the available categorial structure; (ii) cliticization patterns are tightly dependent on the inflectional properties of the language, more specifically, on the feature content of the two functional categories, Infl and v. We show that the various asymmetries in clitic behavior can elegantly be explained in terms of the minimalist theory of movement, combined with certain formal hypotheses about the building of phrase structure and about the relation of morphology to syntax. Relying on certain ideas about uninterpretable features, Attract and Agree, we argue that cliticization patterns can be made to follow from the strategies made available by U.G. to check the uninterpretable feature of the category Infl and from the derivational origin of the tense and person-number features. A principle, the Unselective Attract Principle, is introduced according to which an uninterpretable feature is a potential attractor for all the features which are of the same type as the one which it selectively attracts. In Romance and in Semitic, clitic phi-sets are unselectively attracted by Infl. Two additional principles, the Priority Principle and the Single Licensing Condition, insure that at some point in the derivation a clitic can incorporate into Infl only if Infl doesn't already host an attracted inflectional morpheme. This idea holds the key for the enclisis/proclisis divide. Enclisis, i.e. clitic incorporation into Infl, is disallowed in Romance finite clauses where the uninterpretable feature of Infl selectively attracts the person-number agreement phi-set; it is legitimate in Semitic and European Portuguese finite clauses in which the same feature is checked through Agree.L'objectiu d'aquest article és donar compte de manera explicativa de la divisió entre enclisi i proclisi en construccions amb pronoms clítics en llengües romàniques i semítiques. L'anàlisi es basa en dos supòsits fonamentals: (i) els clítics no es traslladen a posicions específiques preestablertes, sinó que aprofiten màximament l'estructura categorial existent; (ii) els patrons de cliticització depenen estretament de les propietats flexives de la llengua, més concretament, del contingut de trets de les dues categories funcionals, Flex i v. Mostrem com les diverses asimetries en el comportament dels clítics es poden explicar elegantment en termes de la teoria minimista del trasllat, combinada amb certes hipòtesis formals sobre la construcció de l'estructura sintagmàtica i sobre la relació entre la morfologia i la sintaxi. Basant-nos en algunes idees sobre els trets pretables, i sobre Atraieu i Concordeu, defensem que els patrons de cliticització es poden derivar de les estratègies que permet la GU per comprovar els trets no interpretables de la categoria Flex, així com de l'origen derivacional de dels trets de temps i de persona i nombre. Proposem un principi, el Principi de l'Atraieu No Selectiu, segons el qual un tret no interpretable és un atractor potencial per a tots els trets que són de mateix tipus que el tret que atreu selectivament. En llengües romàniques i semítiques, els conjunts de trets dels clítics són atrets no selectivament per Flex. Hi ha dos principis més, el Principi de Prioritat i la Condició de Legitimació Única, que garanteixen que en algun moment de la derivació un clític es pot incorporar a Flex només si Flex no té ja un morfema flexiu adjuntat. Aquesta idea és la clau de la divisió entre enclisi i proclisi. L'enclisi, és a dir, la incorporació dels clítics a Flex, no és permesa en les oracions finites de les llengües romàniques en què el tret no interpretable de Flex atreu selectivament el conjunt de trets de persona i nombre; en canvi, és permesa en llengües semítiques i en portuguès europeu, en què els mateixos trets es comproven per Concordeu

Who is what and what is who: the morpho-syntax of Arabic WH

PhDThis thesis advances a micro-parametric analysis for the variation in wh-dependencies in a number of modern Arabic dialects, especially, Iraqi, Lebanese and Jordanian. It will be shown that although these dialects have much in common, there are certain differences in the strategies used in the formation of wh-questions. At a narrower level, it will also be shown that argument wh-phrases such as ‘who’ and ‘what’ in these dialects display asymmetric behaviour in the various wh-questions. In this thesis, I argue that cross-linguistic variation can only be accounted for in terms of morpho-syntactic properties of individual wh-phrases. As far as the Arabic dialects investigated here are concerned, I propose that wh-expressions such as Iraqi meno ‘who’ and Lebanese ˇsu ‘what’, unlike what has been assumed, are copular wh-phrases and, as such, have internally complex structures. It is this internal complexity, I argue, that directly affects their external syntax. To put the findings in perspective, this thesis examines the possibilities that Universal Grammar offers languages in terms of building wh-dependencies ranging from topicalisation and variable binding to relativisation and equation. The thesis, departs away, however, from mainstream approaches to cross-linguistics variation couched in the P&P framework (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 1995), such as LF-movement and binding, on the grounds that they are too rigid to capture the variation observed here. Instead, the thesis supports, and makes a contribution to, novel approaches to cross-linguistic variation, such as the Nanosyntax framework (Starke 2010, 2011), which take syntax to operate on (sub)-morphemic levels. Overall, the analysis has implications for the syntax of wh-constructions in general and the interaction at the morphology-syntax interface in particular

Programme minimaliste et ses améliorations fondamentales de la théorie syntaxique: leçons à tirer accord asymétrie dans l'arabe standard

The Minimalist Program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside Generative Grammar since the early nineties, when it was proposed by Chomsky (1993, 1995). At the outset, Chomsky (1998: 5) presented Minimalist Program as a program, not as a theory, but today, the Minimalist Program lays out a very specific view of the basis of syntactic grammar that, when compared to other formalisms, is often taken to look very much like a theory. The prime concern of this paper, however, is to provide a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the art of the minimalist approach to show its fundamental improvements in syntactic theory. And in order to evidence the significance of these fundamental improvements, the current paper provides a minimalist analysis to account for agreement and word-order asymmetry in Standard Arabic. This fresh minimalist account meets the challenges (to the basic tenets of syntactic theory) posed by pre-minimalist analyses.El Programa Minimalista constituye una de las líneas fundamentales de investigación de la Gramática Generativa que ha evolucionado desde que fuera propuesta por Chomsky (1993, 1995). Si bien en su día, Chomsky (1998 : 5) lo presentó como programa y no como teoría, en la actualidad el Programa Minimalista representa una visión muy específica de las bases de la sintaxis que con frecuencia se interpreta como teoría cuando se la compara con otros formalismos. Este artículo tiene como objetivo proporcionar una introducción al arte del enfoque minimalista detallada y a su vez accesible, para mostrar las mejoras que ha efectuado en el campo de la teoría sintáctica. Para demostrar la importancia de dichos avances, este artículo presenta un análisis minimalista de la concordancia y de la asimetría en el árabe estándar. Este nuevo análisis proporciona respuestas a las preguntas que, en relación con los pilares de la teoría sintáctica, quedaban sin contestar en análisis previos al enfoque minimalista.Le programme minimaliste est une ligne de recherche majeure élaborée par chomsky (1993. 1995), elle s’est développée au sein de la grammaire générative depuis les années 90 . N. Chomsky présente le Pogramme minimaliste comme un programme et non une théorie; mais aujourd’hui, le Pogramme minimaliste qui jette un regard spécifique sur les fondements de la structure de la grammaire, et comparé à d’autres formalismes, est considéré comme une théorie . Néanmoins le souci primordial de cet article est de présenter une introduction compréhensive et accessible de la littérature minimaliste pour montrer ses apports fondamentaux pour la théorie syntaxique. Et pour faire ressortir la signification de ces apports le présent article présente une approche minimaliste pour rendre compte de l’accord et de l’asymétrie de l’ordre des mots en arabe standard . Cette nouvelle analyse minimaliste embrasse les défis (aux concepts cardinaux de la théorie syntaxique) rencontrés dans les analyses préminimalistes