Causativization in Hupa

Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Role of Learnability in Grammatical Theory (1996

Morphological Alternations at the Intonational Phrase Edge

This article develops an analysis of a pair of morphological alternations in K\u27ichee\u27 (Mayan) that are conditioned at the right edge of intonational phrase boundaries. I propose a syntax-prosody mapping algorithm that derives intonational phrase boundaries from the surface syntax, and then argue that each alternation can be understood in terms of output optimization. The important fact is that a prominence peak is always rightmost in the intonational phrase, and so the morphological alternations occur in order to ensure an optimal host for this prominence peak. Finally, I consider the wider implications of the analysis for the architecture of the syntax-phonology interface, especially as it concerns late-insertion theories of morphology

Unagreement is an illusion

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9311-yThis paper proposes an analysis of unagreement, a phenomenon involving an apparent mismatch between a definite third person plural subject and first or second person plural subject agreement observed in various null subject languages (e.g. Spanish, Modern Greek and Bulgarian), but notoriously absent in others (e.g. Italian, European Portuguese). A cross-linguistic correlation between unagreement and the structure of adnominal pronoun constructions suggests that the availability of unagreement depends on whether person and definiteness are hosted by separate heads (in languages like Greek) or bundled on a single head (i.e. pronominal determiners in languages like Italian). Null spell-out of the head hosting person features high in the extended nominal projection of the subject leads to unagreement. The lack of unagreement in languages with pronominal determiners results from the interaction of their syntactic structure with the properties of the vocabulary items realising the head encoding both person and definiteness. The analysis provides a principled explanation for the cross-linguistic distribution of unagreement and suggests a unified framework for deriving unagreement, adnominal pronoun constructions, personal pronouns and pro

Voice and the interfaces of syntax

This thesis is a study of grammatical voice. Specifically, I focus on how the syntax of voice alternations relates to the morphological and (and to some extent the interpretive) components of the grammar. Based on an analysis of voice syncretisms, cases in which the verb appearing in distinct syntactic alternations is realized with the same morphology, I argue that voice morphology does not bring about syntactic changes, but instead reflects syntactic configurations. Voice morphology is dissociated. I also address the syntax of participles and the English passive. I show that the key to understanding the syntax of the English passive lies in understanding the constituent parts of which it is composed, namely be and participial phrase. All passives are treated as predicative structures like those found with be elsewhere, with the participial phrase being a sort of adjective with possible eventive and agentive semantics. I discuss further implications of this approach for voice morphology in languages with synthetic passives. The third chapter investigates deponent verbs, verbs which only appear with \u27passive\u27 morphology. I show verbal classes of this type provide important evidence for a theory in which morphology interprets the output of syntax. I analyze these verbs as possessing a morphological feature inherently; verbs in syntactic alternations also appear with the identical feature, leading to an abstract morphological identity. In addition, I present an analysis which characterizes the possible types of deponent verbal classes, and which shows that the interactions of morphological voice features are tightly constrained. In addition, I that understanding the properties of deponent verbs leads to important results in analyzing the various kinds of features involved in the grammar