This dissertation is an analysis of the morphosyntax of the Turkish causative construction within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM). It is an attempt to capture a range of different phenomena in a principled way within this framework. Important aspects of DM for the analysis herein include the syntactic derivation of words; the existence of an acategorial Root from which all words are syntactically derived; and the late (post-syntactic) insertion of Vocabulary Items (VIs) into terminal syntactic nodes. A distinction is made between two different levels of causative: Root (or inner) causatives, and productive (or outer) causatives. Root causatives are minimal structures in which a Root phrase (comprising a Root and its nominal complement) is merged with a verbalizing head, little-v (Harley 1995; Chomsky 1995, 2001; Marantz 1997). This domain is the locus of idiosyncratic allomorphy, and it is where the traditionally recognized ‘irregular’ causatives suffixes are found. In addition, another type of idiosyncratic Root-adjacent phenomenon is identified in this study: independent exponence of the verbalizing feature and of the causative feature (CAUS). This is analyzed as CAUS fission: the result of a post-syntactic operation that splits the terminal node [v, CAUS] into two positions of exponence. Productive causatives are larger structures in which a vP is merged with a CAUS head. The identification of the Root causative head as v.CAUS but the productive causative head as simply CAUS is a departure from Harley's (2008) analysis of Japanese causatives, and is a new proposal in this work. Following Pylkkänen (2002, 2008), the external argument is not introduced by either v.CAUS or CAUS, but by a higher projection, Voice. This innovation makes it possible to model syntactic differences between Japanese and Turkish productive causatives. Japanese causatives embed Voice (i.e., they are ‘phase-selecting,’ in Pylkkänen's terminology) while Turkish causatives embed little-v (i.e., they are ‘verb-selecting’). Hence, the former behave as two clauses with regard to a range of diagnostics, while the latter behave as a single clause. Furthermore, it is proposed that productive causatives do not exhibit syntactic recursion, and that cases of causative iteration are actually morphological reduplication.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den morphosyntaktischen und derivationellen Eigenschaften von Nominalisierungen im modernen Hebräisch und ihrer strukturelle Repräsentation. Eine zentrale Fragestellung im Rahmen von ‚hybriden‘ Wortbildungen wie Nominalisierungen ist die Ähnlichkeit bzw. die Unähnlichkeit zu den ihr zugrundeliegenden Verben. Unter Heranziehung des Hebräischen, einer Sprache mit reicher morphologischer Markierung, sowohl bei Verben als auch bei Nominalisierungen, werden mehrere Divergenzen zwischen Verben und entsprechenden Nominalisierungen im Bereich der Argument- und Ereignisstruktur eliminiert. Ausgehend von der einflussreichen These der Gleichsetzung von Nominalisierung und Passivierung untersucht diese Studie die syntaktische Struktur und deren Interaktion mit dem Wortbildungsprozess der Nominalisierung und zeigt, dass Eigenschaften, die für Passivformen typisch sind, in Nominalisierungen fehlen. Dabei präsentiert diese Studie mit der Untersuchung morphosyntaktischer Faktoren und deren Beziehungen zu Nominalisierungen, der Inkonsistenzen aufzeigt. Durch einen Vergleich von etwa 3000 Verben auf Basis der Verbklassenmorphologie ergibt sich eine signifikante Asymmetrie zwischen Nominalisierungen, die eine mediale/intransitive Markierung tragen, und Nominalisierungen, die als aktiv markiert sind, wobei sich die mediale Form in zwei klar definierten syntaktischen Kontexten als weniger produktiv erweist. Dies zeigt sich auch dadurch, dass alternierende Wurzeln, also Wurzeln die sowohl aktive als auch mediale Verbformen ausbilden können, bilden ihre Nominalisierungen auf Basis ihrer aktiven Form. Auf Basis der Konzepte von Konkurrenz und Markiertheit werden diese paradigmatischen Lücken nicht als grammatisch bedingte Inkompatibilitäten analysiert, sondern als eine generelle Präferenz für weniger markierte Formen (aktiv-markierte Nominalisierungen) gegenüber komplexeren (medial-markierte Nominalisierungen), wie in der Performanz häufig zu beobachten. / This study is concerned with the properties, structural representation and derivational patterns of deverbal nouns (DNs) in Modern Hebrew. A recurring question arises in the context of such ‘hybrid’ formations: precisely how similar or far-apart are these derivatives from the verbs from which they originate? Enlisting Hebrew, a language with rich morphological marking on both verbs as well as DNs, several loci of divergence between verbs and respective DNs in the domain of argument- and event-structure are eliminated. Taking as a point of reference the influential view which equates the processes of nominalization and passivization, this study scrutinizes syntactic structure and its interaction with nominalization, showing that behaviours typical of passives are absent from DNs. a finding which weakens long-standing beliefs bearing on this class. A novel area of exploration offered in this study is the examination of morpho-syntactic factors and their interaction with nominalization, a domain where inconsistencies do arise. What emerges from a comparison of some 3000 verbs based on verb-class (templatic) morphology is a significant asymmetry between DNs carrying Middle (intransitive) marking and DNs marked as Active, wherein Middle forms are found to be less productive in two well-defined syntactic contexts. Not entirely absent, however, the same roots which fail to surface with Middle morphology are perfectly licit when derived from the corresponding Active verb (in case of alternating roots). Building on the notions of competition and markedness, such paradigmatic gaps are analysed not as grammatically-determined incompatibilities, but as a consistent preference for less-marked forms (Active-marked DNs) over more complex ones (Middle-marked DNs), a trend which lies within the realm of performance. As such, Hebrew DNs constitute a case study of the interrelations between the syntactic and morphological modules, and pragmatics.