Augmented and non-augmented HAVE

Interactie tussen syntaxis en semantie

Linguistic explanation and domain specialization: a case study in bound variable anaphora

The core question behind this Frontiers research topic is whether explaining linguistic phenomena requires appeal to properties of human cognition that are specialised to language. We argue here that investigating this issue requires taking linguistic research results seriously, and evaluating these for domain-specificity. We present a particular empirical phenomenon, bound variable interpretations of pronouns dependent on a quantifier phrase, and argue for a particular theory of this empirical domain that is couched at a level of theoretical depth which allows its principles to be evaluated for domain-specialisation. We argue that the relevant principles are specialised when they apply in the domain of language, even if analogues of them are plausibly at work elsewhere in cognition or the natural world more generally. So certain principles may be specialised to language, though not, ultimately, unique to it. Such specialisation is underpinned by ultimately biological factors, hence part of UG

The nanosyntax of spatial deixis

This paper provides a fine-grained morphosyntactic analysis of spatial deixis. We propose that the universal core of spatial deixis is a three-way contrast: Proximal close to speaker', Medial close to hearer', and Distal far from speaker and hearer'. This system arises from three features merged as heads in a single universal functional sequence: Dx(3) > Dx(2) > Dx(1). The hierarchy is understood in terms of superset-subset relations, such that Proximal [Dx(1)] is a subset of Medial [Dx(2) [Dx(1)]], which in turn is a subset of Distal [Dx(3) [Dx(2) [Dx(1)]]]. Evidence comes from patterns of syncretism and morphological containment in the demonstrative systems of a number of genetically diverse languages. Regarding syncretisms, languages can show a transparent three-way morphological contrast, or some sort of syncretism: Medial/Proximal vs. Distal, Distal/Medial vs. Proximal, or a totally syncretic Distal/Medial/Proximal (i.e. a neutral demonstrative). These syncretisms entail that the features responsible for the Proximal and Medial readings be adjacent and that the features responsible for the Distal and Medial readings be adjacent in the fseq. Regarding containment, we show that Proximal can be structurally contained within Medial and that Medial can be structurally contained within Distal, meaning that Medial structures are larger than Proximal structures, and that Distal structures are larger than Medial structures, confirming our hierarchy. We show that these facts are naturally accounted for by nanosyntactic principles of spellout. We end the paper by accounting for potential counterexamples and other issues

On the New Passive

The so-called New Passive in Icelandic takes the form 'it was elected us' (or, e.g., 'then was elected us', without an expletive), instead of the standard passive form 'we were elected'. It has neither A-movement to subject nor acc-to-nom conversion, which are otherwise diagnostic of the canonical passive in Icelandic and related languages. Some researchers have argued that "passive" is in fact a misnomer and that the construction should instead be analyzed as an active one, with a nominative pro. This paper argues instead in favor of a minimalist analysis, where the New Passive is closely related to the impersonal P passive (with a PP, type 'then was shouted at us'), which is highly common and productive in Icelandic. On the approach pursued, acc-to-nom conversion involves case-star deletion, absent from the New Passive (much as from so-called psych and fate (un)accusatives in standard Icelandic). Additionally, the New Passive has a strong vP phase edge, blocking A-movement, in contrast to the defective vP edge in the canonical passive. The paper argues that A-grounding or "freezing" is brought about by phi-minimality, A-islands thus arising in a parallel fashion with A'-islands