The distribution of φ-probes in the inflectional structure

Subject-verb agreement in φ-features has been treated as a relation between the subject and some functional category in the clausal spine (Infl, Agr, T). I argue that such severing of the Phi-probe from the verb is problematic for agreement patterns in Bantu languages and argue for a tighter connection between them. The crucial argument is the lack of consistent association of functional heads with agreement features, observed e.g. in compound tenses and aspectual-verb constructions in Bantu languages. The number and positions of Phi-probes in clausal structure are derived from the number and size of head-chains containing a verb.

Generalized head movement

We argue for a unified account of head movement and lowering in which lowering is in essence the covert movement counterpart of head movement. This proposal is supported by the existence of successive cyclic lowering (evidenced by relative prefix formation in Ndebele), in which complex heads built by lowering have the Mirror-Principle-obeying structure expected under a head movement derivation. It also predicts that lowering can feed head movement, giving the appearance of long head movement, which we argue is the case in Mainland Scandinavian V2

Unifying long head movement with phrasal movement : a new argument from spellout

Non UBCUnreviewedFacult