This dissertation is an empirical and theoretical study of sentence-level prosody in Conamara (Connemara) Irish. It addresses the architecture of the syntax-phonology interface and the relation between syntactic constituent structure and prosodic structure formation. It argues for a fully interactional view of the interface, in which the phonological form may be influenced by a number of competing factors, including constraints governing syntax-prosody correspondence, linearization, and prosodic well-formedness. The specific proposal is set within the framework of Match Theory (Selkirk 2009, 2011), an indirect-reference theory of the syntax-prosody interface in which correspondence between syntactic and prosodic constituents is governed by a family of violable Match constraints. These constraints call for a one-to-one correspondence between syntactic and prosodic structure, to the extent that prosodic structure may be recursive under pressure from the recursive nature of syntactic phrases. However, this direct correspondence can be overruled by other interacting constraints, including prosodic markedness constraints and, as proposed here, other correspondence relations, as on the linearization of hierarchical syntactic structures. This dissertation argues that the distribution of pitch accents in Conamara Irish provides direct evidence for Match Theory. It is proposed that two phrasal pitch accents, L-H and H-L, demarcate the edges of phonological phrases, where L-H accents specifically target only those phrases which are recursive. Using the distribution of these pitch accents as indicators for the presence of prosodic boundaries, the dissertation investigates a variety of syntactic structures in both the clausal and nominal domain. It is argued that there is a close correspondence between syntactic and prosodic structure in default cases, but that this direct correspondence may be subverted in favour of a structure which better satisfies higher-ranked prosodic markedness constraints. Finally, this dissertation addresses pronoun postposing, a process pervasive in Irish dialects in word order appears to be sensitive to prosodic structure. This dissertation proposes to account for this phenomenon using the theoretical framework developed in the dissertation, in which the main patterns are accounted for through the interaction of Match constraints, prosodic markedness constraints, and a proposed violable constraint on the linearization of syntactic structure.

I argue that the shift of explanatory burden from the generator to the evaluator in OT syntax – together with the difficulties that arise when we try to formulate a working theory of the interfaces of syntax – leads to a number of assumptions about syntactic structures in OT which are quite different from those typical of minimalist syntax: formal features, as driving forces behind syntactic movement, are useless, and derivational and representational economy are problematic for both empirical and conceptual reasons. The notion of markedness, central in Optimality Theory, is not fully compatible with the idea of synactic economy. Even more so, seemingly obvious cases of blocking by structural economy do not seem to result from grammar proper, but reflect (economical) aspects of language use.

This dissertation explores, within the general framework of Distributed Morphology, the licensing conditions of empty nouns in Persian, a Western Iranian language, and the issues that arise within this context for the distribution of plural marking and the insertion of the Ezafe vowel. With respect to the licensing of the empty noun, the proposal made in this thesis is along the lines of those that link ellipsis to information structure (e.g. Rooth 1992a, 1992b; Gengel 2007, among others). It is suggested that the Empty Noun Construction (ENC) is derived through the interaction between the following two information-structural features: (i) the E(llipsis)-feature, which ensures that the head noun is identical with its counterpart in the antecedent and specifies the head noun for non-pronunciation; (ii) the F(ocus)-feature, which specifies the remnant modifier as an element which is in some kind of contrastive relationship with its corresponding element in the antecedent. The interaction between these two features is implemented in the syntax in a phase-based derivation. Plural marking and Ezafe insertion in the ENC are accounted for within an articulated derivational model of PF (Embick & Noyer 2001; Embick 2003 et seq.; Pak 2008). It is proposed that the displacement of the plural marker in the ENC is motivated by the non-pronunciation of the head noun and is handled early in the PF derivation by Local Dislocation operation. Adopting Pak's (2008) model of syntax-phonology interface, the rule responsible for the insertion of the Ezafe linker -e is argued to be a phonological rule that applies at the Late-Linearization stage to connect [+N] heads to their following modifiers/complements.

This dissertation explores, within the general framework of Distributed Morphology, the licensing conditions of empty nouns in Persian, a Western Iranian language, and the issues that arise within this context for the distribution of plural marking and the insertion of the Ezafe vowel. With respect to the licensing of the empty noun, the proposal made in this thesis is along the lines of those that link ellipsis to information structure (e.g. Rooth 1992a, 1992b; Gengel 2007, among others). It is suggested that the Empty Noun Construction (ENC) is derived through the interaction between the following two information-structural features: (i) the E(llipsis)-feature, which ensures that the head noun is identical with its counterpart in the antecedent and specifies the head noun for non-pronunciation; (ii) the F(ocus)-feature, which specifies the remnant modifier as an element which is in some kind of contrastive relationship with its corresponding element in the antecedent. The interaction between these two features is implemented in the syntax in a phase-based derivation. Plural marking and Ezafe insertion in the ENC are accounted for within an articulated derivational model of PF (Embick & Noyer 2001; Embick 2003 et seq.; Pak 2008). It is proposed that the displacement of the plural marker in the ENC is motivated by the non-pronunciation of the head noun and is handled early in the PF derivation by Local Dislocation operation. Adopting Pak's (2008) model of syntax-phonology interface, the rule responsible for the insertion of the Ezafe linker -e is argued to be a phonological rule that applies at the Late-Linearization stage to connect [+N] heads to their following modifiers/complements.

I investigate the phonology of prosodic clitics--independent syntactic words not parsed as independent prosodic words--in Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. I ask, first, how clitics are organized into prosodic structures, and second, how this is determined by the grammar. Following Zec (1997, 2005), I look at several clitic categories, including negation, prepositions, complementizers, conjunctions, and second-position clitics. Based on a reanalysis of word accent (Browne and McCawley 1965, Inkelas and Zec 1988, Zec 1999), I argue that in some cases where a preposition, complementizer, or conjunction fails to realize accent determined by a following word, it is not a proclitic-- that is, prosodified with the following word--but rather a free clitic parsed directly by a phonological phrase. Conversely, the second-position clitics are not always enclitic--that is, prosodified with a preceding word--but are sometimes free. Their second-position word order results not from enclisis, but from the avoidance of free clitics at phrase edges, where they would interfere with the alignment of phonological phrases to prosodic words. Regarding the determination of clisis by the grammar, I argue for an interface constraint approach (Selkirk 1995, Truckenbrodt 1995), whereby prosodic structures are built according to general constraints on their well-formedness, and on their interface to syntactic structures. I contrast this with the subcategorization approach , which sees clisis as specified for each clitic (Klavans 1982, Radanovic-Kocic 1988, Zec and Inkelas 1990). The comparison across clitic categories provides key support for the interface constraint approach, showing that their prosody depends on their syntactic configurations and phonological shapes, rather than on arbitrary subcategorizations. Prosodic differences across categories are a derivative effect of their configuration in the clause, and of the division of the clause into phonological phrases. The relevance of phonological phrases consists in how their edges discourage some kinds of clisis, blocking, for example, proclisis of complementizers and conjunctions to their complements. Free clisis is disfavored at phrase edges, producing the second-position effect. Thus, the interface constraint approach leads to a unified account of word, phrase, and clitic prosody.

This study describes the verse design of Old English poetry in terms of modern phonological theory, developing an analysis which allows all OE verse lines to be described in terms of single metrical design. Old English poetry is typified by a single type of line of variable length, characterised by four metrical peaks. The variation evident in the lengths of OE metrical units has caused previous models to overgenerate acceptable verse forms or to develop complex typologies of dozens of acceptable forms. In this study, Metrical phonology and Optimality theory are used to highlight some aspects of the relationship between syntax, phonology and verse metrics in determining how sentences and phrases interact with the verse structure to create variation. The main part of the study is a metrical model based on the results of a corpus analysis. The corpus is centred on the OE poems Genesis and Andreas, complemented by selected shorter poems. A template of a prototypical line is described based on a verse foot which contains three vocalic moras, and which can vary between 2 and 4 vocalic moras distributed across 1 to 4 syllables. Each standard line is shown to consist of four of these verse feet, leading to a line length which can vary between 8 and 16 vocalic moras. It is shown that the limited variation within the length of the verse foot causes the greater variation in the length of lines. The rare, longer ‘hypermetric’ line is also accounted for with a modified analysis. The study disentangles the verse foot, which is an abstract metrical structure, from the prosodic word, which is a phonological object upon which the verse foot is based, and with which it is often congruent. Separate sets of constraints are elaborated for creating prosodic words in OE, and for fitting them into verse feet and lines. The metrical model developed as a result of this analysis is supported by three smaller focused studies. The constraints for creating prosodic words are defended with reference to compounds and derivational nouns, and are supported by a smaller study focusing on the metrical realisation of non-Germanic personal names in OE verse. Names of biblical origin are often longer than the OE prosodic word can accommodate. The supporting study on non-Germanic names demonstrates how long words with no obvious internal morphology in OE are adapted first to OE prosody and then to the verse structure. The solution for the metrical realisation of these names is shown to be patterned on derivational nouns. The supporting study on compound numerals describes how phrases longer than a verse are accommodated by the verse design. It is shown that compound numerals, which consist of two or more numeral words (e.g. 777 – seofonhund and seofon and hundseofontig) are habitually rearranged within the text to meet the requirements of verse length and alliteration. A further supporting study discusses the difference between the line length constraints controlling OE verse design and those for Old Norse and Old Saxon verse. Previous studies have often conflated these three closely related traditions into a single system. It is shown that despite their common characteristics, the verse design described in this study applies to all OE verse, but not to ON or OS.