Contains table of contents for Section 4, an introduction and abstracts on eight doctoral dissertations

Bao, Zhiming

Chomsky, A. Noam

Duanmu, San

Halle, Morris

Kipka, Peter Francis

Li, Yafei

Mahajan, Anoop Kumar

Melvold, Janis Leanne

Meredith, Scott

Mugarza, Miren Itziar Laka

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p -s-:; ~p pn~~l~ii~-: PPPPp ~ ~PP P P PPlPPd I-P PIi-----7P "gII {P p p-~5P~rppp~'E- PP -PP p~iPPP-p~~-p1332 RLE Progress Report Number 133Chapter 1. LinguisticsChapter 1. LinguisticsAcademic and Research StaffProfessor Morris Halle, Professor Noam A. Chomsky1.1 IntroductionThe work of the Linguistics group is directedtowards a better understanding of the mentalcapacities of human beings through the study ofthe nature, acquisition and use of language. Lan-guage is a uniquely human faculty: only humansappear to be capable of learning and using a lan-guage, and every normal human acquires know-ledge of one or more languages.We are trying to understand how this linguisticknowledge is represented in the speaker's mind.The central issues of linguistics research are:1. What is the nature of linguistic knowledge?What do speakers of a particular languagesuch as Latvian, Spanish or Walpiri know, andhow does knowledge of one languageressemble or differ from that of another lan-guage?2. How do speakers acquire this knowledge?3. How do speakers put this knowledge to use inproducing and understanding utterances?4. What are the physiological mechanisms thatprovide the material basis for storage, acquisi-tion and utilization of linguistic knowledge?Our ability to answer these questions differs con-siderably, and our research reflects these differ-ences. At present, we have progressed furtherwith regard to answering the questions posed byitem one and have made less progress with itemfour. Currently, our research is heavily concen-trated on issues concerned with the nature of theknowledge that characterizes fluent speakers ofvarious languages. However, we are making a sig-nificant effort to solve the other questions also.We are studying these topics along a number ofparallel lines. Linguists have investigated the prin-ciples by which words are concatenated to formmeaningful sentences. These principles have beenthe primary domain of inquiry into the disciplinesof syntax and semantics. Phonology studies thesound structure of words while morphology exam-ines the manner in which different languagescombine different meaning-bearing units (specif-ically, stems, prefixes, suffixes and infixes) to formwords. The latter topic has attracted increasinginterest in recentmore prominentfuture.years and will probably becomein our research efforts in the1.2 Abstracts of DoctoralDissertationsThe following are abstracts of dissertations sub-mitted to the Department of Linguistics and Phi-losophy in partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguis-tics.1.2.1 On the Nature of ToneZhiming BaoAbstractThis thesis addresses two issues: the featuregeometry of tone and the formal relation of tonewith respect to other aspects of phonological rep-resentation.The tonal geometry I propose can be stated simply:tone (t) consists of register (r) and contour (c):tr Cr is specified by the laryngeal feature [stiff], and cby the laryngeal feature [slack]. In addition, c isallowed to branch. The structures of r and c arebelow.r[stiff] [aslack] W[slack]Since tone is phonetically executed by the VCnode, it is claimed that the geometry of tone is asubstructure of the geometry of laryngeal features.The geometry of laryngeal features is shown below(CT=cricothyriod; VOC =vocalis):333Chapter 1. LinguisticsLARYNGEALVOCAL CORDS GLOTTALCT VOC[/ constricted glottis]stiff 3 [slack ] [spread glottis]It is speculated that register is executed by thearticulator CT; and contour by the articulator VOCover time.I argue against a tone plane. The mapping oftones to tone bearing units (TBU) is an adjunctionprocess: tone is adjoined to the tone bearing unit.Given that the rime is the TBU, tone mappingcreates the structure below:R'R tThus, tones form a tier on the syllable plane, ratherthan an independent plane. This accounts forstructure-dependency of tone stability.After tone sandhi rules have been applied, t islinked to the laryngeal node of the head of TBUthrough the process of segmentalization. Thisallows tone to be phonetically realized on vowelsor other segments which may be the head of tonebearing units.1.2.2 A Formal Study of Syllable,Tone, Stress and Domain in ChineseLanguagesSan DuanmuAbstractThis thesis makes a close examination of syllable,tone and stress in Chinese languages to find outgeneral properties that are shared by all naturallanguages. It offers the following related claims:1. All Chinese syllables have the followinguniform underlying structure:O RX X X2. The general tonal model is as follows:Laryngeal/ \V/R Pitch(st] [SI] [above] [below]RootLaryn ...where the tonal structure is part of the featuregeometry under a Root node. The V/R noderepresents both consonant voicing and tonalregister. The Pitch node is specified for tone-bearing segments only.3. The tone bearing unit is the moraic segment,or equivalently, the segment in the rime,whether it is a vowel or any consonant. Ageminate has two Roots and may serve as twotone bearing units.4. Contour segments do not exist. Their absenceis attributed to a universal principle called theNo Contour Principle (NCP), which is givenas follows:*X[aF] [-oF]5. The tonal domain is the stress domain. Mostsyntax-phonology mismatches are due to lackof stress in some constituents.334 ,RLE Progress Repcrt Number 133Chapter 1. Linguistics1.2.3 Slavic Aspect and ItsImplicationsPeter Francis KipkaAbstractThe goal of this thesis is to explore a new theoryof verbal aspect. The theory is motivated primarilyby a consideration of morphological andsyntactico-semantic data from Slavic, but as amodule of Universal Grammar it can be shown tobe of much more general applicability. Thus Slavicaspect is contrasted with what can be found in avariety of other languages. The proposed systemof representation is derivational in character: Finalaspectual structures are built up by a small numberof operations from lexical representations. Thetheory posits only two aspectual primitives (thepoint and the box, yielding perfectivity andimperfectivity in Slavic in a direct fashion).Chapter 1 begins with an overview of much of therelevant data from the Slavic language Polish.Morphological and syntactico-semantic reflexes ofaspect are identified and correlated. This leadsdirectly to a formulation of the theory. Theworkings of the latter are demonstrated withrespect to Polish verbs of motion. Its applicabilityto other languages (including English) is also dis-cussed; some of the key factors contributing tolanguage differences are the different means oflexical underspecification of aspectual structures.Chapter 2 examines further data from Slavic. It isshown how double-aspect phenomena, inherentperfectivity, and habituals can be construed asproviding support for a theory of the type envis-aged here. The proposed theory (its primitives,operations, and conditions) is summarized in thischapter.Chapter 3 is an exploration of the connectionbetween aspect and prepositional notions. Coreprepositions (or their equivalents) are taken to beinteraction-denoting categories, a view that is con-trasted with locationist hypotheses. Someaspectual consequences of this view are devel-oped.Finally, Chapter 4 continues the study of extra-Slavic and prima facie extra-aspectural impli-cations of the theory here proposed. The dativealternation in English is examined, as are theEnglish locative alternation, Georgian medial verbs,and restrictions on English 're-' prefixation. Lightis shed on these phenomena, which at the sametime provide empirical support for such theoreticaldevices as aspectual zerohood, box-layering, andlexical underspecification.1.2.4 Conditions on XO-MovementYafei LiAbstractXo-movement is subject not only to the EmptyCategory Principle (ECP), as is widely accepted bynow, but also to such principles as Binding Condi-tion C (BCC) and the Subjacency Condition (SC).This multiprinciple constraining on Xo-movementfurther supports the similarity between it andXP-movement, which is also constrained by allthese principles of the Universal Grammar. Empir-ically, it enables us not only to explain certain datanot explained in a theory based solely on the ECP,but also to provide a unified analysis to suchdiverse phenomena as verb-incorporation (VI),clitic-climbing (CC), and predicate-clefing (PC).Theoretical background is laid out in Chapter 1, inwhich the notion of variables is modified to coverXo-traces resulting from moving a lexical head to afunctional head. This, in turn, makes such an Xo-trace fall into the domain of BCC. In Chapter 2, itis shown that since cross-linguistically only asmall set of verbs can trigger VI, a problem arises ifXo-movement is constrained only by the ECP, butcan be readily explained by BCC plus the modifieddefinition of variables. The environments in whichCC takes place constitute a highly limited supersetof those for VI. Chapter 3 argues that the similarrequirements of the two phenomena on their struc-tural environments results from BCC, while the dif-ference derives from applying the SC andintermediate trace deletion in CC but not in VI.Chapter 4 studies PC, which requires an evenlooser restriction on the environments. Again,BCC and SC play crucial roles in determiningwhen PC is possible, with the looser constraintattributed to the presence of a resumptive verbfilling the D-structure position of the clefted one.335Chapter 1. Linguistics1.2.5 The A/A-bar Distinction andMovement TheoryAnoop Kumar Mahajan1.2.6 Structure and Stress in thePhonology of RussianJanis Leanne MelvoldAbstract AbstractThis thesis argues for a reformulation of theA/A-bar distinction in the theory of syntax. In thefirst part of this thesis, it is shown that this refor-mulation is forced by both theoretical consider-ations raised by VP internal subject theories andalso certain empirical considerations relating toscrambling operations in Hindi. Evidence for thereformulation includes locality constraints onmovement, weak crossover phenomena, recon-struction effects and binding properties associatedwith movement. This evidence also leads to a newapproach to the study of scrambling phenomena.It is suggested that scrambling operations thatmove NPs may belong to two different kinds ofsyntactic operations-an operation of a functionalprojection internal to IP (with properties similar toa rule lie Passive) and an operation that adjoinsthe scrambled NP to a maximal projection (withproperties similar to a rule like QR). The approachdeveloped here yields a framework that seems tobe promising for the study of variation found withrespect to scrambling phenomena in natural lan-guages.The second part of this thesis argues that a lan-guage that does not have overt wh-movement ats-structure may not have wh-movement to SPECCP at LF either. It is argued that in a language likeHindi, the wh-phrases simply undergo QR at LF.This operation adjoins a wh-phrase to the nearestIP. We show that this approach yields a numberof consequences that are desirable in Hindi, a lan-guage that at first glance seems to be mixedbetween a language with overt wh-movement insyntax as well as wh-in-situ. We discuss someaspects of wide scope quantification in Hindi andsome other languages and show that the absenceof sh-movemnet ot SPEC CP at LF yields certaineffects that would be surprising under theapproaches that permit wh-movement to SPEC CPat LF.This thesis investigates the interaction betweenphonology and morphology in the stress system ofRussian. Russian has an accent-based stresssystem, in which morphemes are characterized bytwo accentural properties: [+accented,+dominant] Dominant morphemes triggerdeaccentuation of the stem to which they attach.Works surface with one stress, regardless ofwhether they contain zero or several lexicallyaccented morphemes. I show that the stress rulein Russian applies cyclically, assigning stress tothe leftmost accented vowel. Words with anaccented root have stress fixed on the root. In theinflectional paradigm of work with unaccentedroots, stress alternated between the initial and finalvowels, depending on the accentural property ofthe inflectional suffix. I refer to this as mobilestress.In Chapter 1, I observe an important correlationbetween stress and the derivational status ofwords. The generalization is the following:mobile stress occurs only in nonderived word orwords derived from a nonsyllabic derivationalsuffix. To account for this fact, I show that it iscrucial to assume not only that the stress rule iscyclic, but that all suffixes are cyclic. My analysisposes a challenge to theories which argue thatmorphemes which delete previously assigned met-rical structure are necessarily cyclic while thoseswhich preserve previously assigned structure arenoncyclic.I adopt the framework of autosegmentalphonology, whereby segmental, syllabification,and metrical processes operate on independentplanes linked to a series of timing slots. Sincevowels are the only stressable elements in Russian,they are the only elements represented on thestress plane. This allows us to explain the fact thata nonsyllabic morpheme which triggers a cyclicrule on the segmental plane fails to trigger thecyclic stress rule, which operates on the stressplane.In Chapter 2, I introduce a class of apparentcounterexamples to the claim that mobile stresscan only occur in words derived from a nonsyllabicsuffix. All of the problematic cases involve mor-phemes which exhibit vowel-zero alternations. Iargue that these morphemes contain abstractvowels which consist of a floating feature matrix.Furthermore, I present both segmental and metrical336 RLE Progress Report Number 133Chapter 1. Linguisticsevidence to show that there are three distinctabstract vowels in Russian.Chapter 3 addresses certain complexities in theadjectival system, which involve rules of post-accentuation and retraction.Verbs exhibit stress alternations not found amongother lexical categories. These alternations resultfrom vowel sequences which are unique to derivedverb stems. In Chapter Four, I show that stressassignment in these verbs involves a complexinteraction between the stress rule, syllabification,and vowel truncation rules.The thesis thus provides strong evidence forcurrent theories of abstract elements in phonologyand suggests a different view of cyclicity than theone recently proposed by Halle and Vergnaud(1987) and Halle and Kenstowicz (1989). Theseauthors have argued that only the dominant(stress-deleting) morphemes are cyclic. Thisthesis shows that both dominant and nondominantmorphemes consitute cyclic domains, but thestructural properties of a morpheme may preventapplication of a cyclic rule on a particular plane.1.2.7 Issues in the Phonology ofProminenceScott MeredithAbstractA theory of the interaction of phonology and pho-netics in the prosodic domains of fundamental fre-quency, duration, and intensity is developed.Metrical constituent structure in the framework ofHalle and Vergnaud 1987 is shown to be the fun-damental representation of information of theseprosodic domains, integrating phonological cate-gories of tone and syllable weight with phoneticparameters of pitch, duration, and intensity.The theory is illustrated by reference to threedetailed case studies in the prosody of Tibetan,Beijing Mandarin Chinese, and English. ForTibetan, it is shown that the status of syllablenuclei in abstract metrical structure correlates withcomplexity of surface tonal realization. For BeijingMandarin Chinese, it is shown that abstract met-rical structure describing the location of stress ispartially dependent on lexical tone quality of sylla-bles. For English, it is argued that tonologicalprimitives are not interposed between abstractmetrical structure and surface fundamental fre-quency generation.1.2.8 Negation in Syntax: On theNature of Functional Categories andProjectionsMiren Itziar Laka MugarzaThe central concern of this work is the syntacticnature of negation in Universal Grammar, and itsrelation to other functional elements in the Syntax.The study argues that negation is not a syntacticcategory on its own; rather, it is one of the valuesof a more abstract syntactic category, nate 1,which includes other sentence operators, such asaffirmation and emphasis (Chapter 2). It is alsoargued that the syntactic feature (negation) sur-faces in other syntactic categories besides 1. Inparticular, the existence of (N) (negative).Complementizers is defended; this accounts for arange of phenomena in various languages: across-the-clause licensing of Negative Polarity Items inEnglish, the distribution of the -nikcomplementizer in Basque, and the nature ofDubitative Subjunctive in Romance (Chapter 3).Chapter 1 argues for the existence of a universalrequirement that inflectional heads such asnegation (_) must be c-commanded by the syn-tactic head Tense at S-structure. Assuming thisrequirement, a unified account is provided forapparently unrelated phenomena induced bynegation in English and Basque.Chapter 2 also presents an account of the phe-nomenon of "double negation" in Romance, interms of the category E and its projection EP. It isargued that preverbal instance of the elements thatinduce "double negation," such as nadie, nadaningun etc., involve movement of the item in ques-tion to the specifier of IP, which is headed by aphonologically non-overt negative element. Also,"yes" and "no" answers are discussed in relation tothe E Projection. It is argued that such answersmake crucial use of this syntactic category, andparametric differences between the three lan-guages under study (English, Spanish andBasque) are considered in support of the hypoth-esis.The structure of Inflection in Spanish is consideredin Chapter 3. The nature of Subjunctive and itsrelation to Negation and Imperative Mood is dis-cussed. A proposal is made concerning theinflectional structure of Spanish, this proposal isshown to generate exhaustively the entire verbalparadigm of this language, and it predicts anumber of language-particular properties ofSpanish.337338 RLE Progress Report Number 133

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