Cyclicity and Connectivity in Nez Perce Relative Clauses

This article studies two aspects of movement in relative clauses, focusing on evidence from Nez Perce. First, I argue that relativization involves cyclic Ā-movement, even in monoclausal relatives: the relative operator moves to Spec, CP via an intermediate position in an Ā outer specifier of TP. The core arguments draw on word order, complementizer choice, and a pattern of case attraction for relative pronouns. Ā cyclicity of this type suggests that the TP sister of relative C constitutes a phase—a result whose implications extend to an ill-understood corner of the English that-trace effect. Second, I argue that Nez Perce relativization provides new evidence for an ambiguity thesis for relative clauses, according to which some but not all relatives are derived by head raising. The argument comes from connectivity and anticonnectivity in morphological case. A crucial role is played by a pattern of inverse case attraction, wherein the head noun surfaces in a case determined internal to the relative clause. These new data complement the range of existing arguments concerning head raising, which draw primarily on connectivity effects at the syntax-semantics interface

Coptic second tenses and Hausa relative aspects: a comparative view

No description supplie

Syntactic anchoring in Hausa and Coptic wh-constructions

Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Afroasiatic Languages (2001

[Review] Philip J. Jaggar (2001) Hausa

Review of Jagger, P.J., 2001. 'Hausa'. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN: 9027238073

Syntactic conditions on special inflection: evidence from Hausa and Coptic Egyptian

This comparative study examines the morphosyntactic parameters governing the distribution of ‘special inflection’ in constituent interrogatives and focus constructions in Hausa and Coptic Egyptian. In these languages, ‘relative’ tense-aspect-mood (TAM) markers occur in relative clauses, constituent interrogatives and declarative focus constructions. However, special inflection is not a clause-typing device but is governed by syntactic conditions, since both languages also have focus/wh-constructions lacking relative TAMs: both languages allow in situ and ex situ focus/wh-constructions, but while Hausa special inflection occurs in ex situ constructions, Coptic special inflection occurs in in situ constructions. A transformational copy theory analysis reduces the parametric differences between Hausa and Coptic to different pronunciation sites of the displaced focus/wh-phrase: either the ‘top copy’ in its displaced position in the specifier of Focus Phrase (FP), or the ‘lower copy’ in its thematic position. An additional parameter reminiscent of the Doubly-filled Comp Filter is set for Hausa to allow both specifier and head of FP to be spelt out (pronounced) at once, resulting in the coincidence of fronting and special inflection, while the same parameter in Coptic is set to prohibit both the head and the specifier of FP spelling out at once, ruling out the coincidence of special inflection and fronting