published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

Towards a Unified Treatment of Modality (abstract) Sumayya Racy, Ph.D. The primary claim of this thesis is that despite the numerous forms modality may take, both within and across languages, there are relatively few features, structures and operations which give rise to these numerous forms. For example, in English the modal notion of obligation may be expressed by a verb (He must go), but an adverb (He obligatorily goes), by an adjective (He is obliged), by a noun (He has an obligation), and even by a preposition (It's on him to go) or by no clear modal marker (He is to go). In other languages, we find still more ways in which modality may be expressed, such as through affixes (Garo), through evidentials (Tuyuca), through modal particles (Norwegian), and through mood (Latin). It is shown in this thesis that by adopting Cinque's (1999) hierarchy of functional projections, Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993), the semantics of Kratzer (1991) and Hacquard (2006) and a limited feature set, we may account for many of these expressions of modality within a single unified framework. In particular, it is argued that modal roots are acategorial (accounting for the many parts of speech we find in modal expressions) and it is proposed that head movement and fusion may take place among modal functional heads (accounting for the fact that modality may be expressed through other categories like evidentiality). Along the way, several interesting facets of modality are pointed out, including the fact that modal nouns may only be used with unusual abilities, and the fact that in English intonation and ASL repeated movement we may find phonological correlates of epistimicity.

Coeur d'Alene, also known as Snchitsu'umshtsn, is a Southern Interior Salishan language no longer learned by children. Descriptive work on the language has been carried out since the early nineteenth-century (Tiet 1904 through 1909 in Boaz and Tiet 1930; Reichard 1927-29, 1938, 1939; Doak 1997); however, a formal account of the basic clause structure of this polysynthetic language has until now not been proposed. This thesis presents such a formal analysis within the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001a, 2001b; Lasnik 1999a, 1999b, 2000; among others), employing the tenets of Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993; Harley and Noyer 1999; among others). Demonstrating that an analysis of person marking morphemes as bound pronouns (Jelinek 1984) is more "economical" in terms of Chomsky's (1995:367)Elementary Principles of Economy, the thesis goes on to account for the phenomena of lexical affixation (Carlson 1990; Kinkade 1998; Gerdts 2003; among others), in Coeur d'Alene as incorporation. Appealing to Hale and Keyser's (2002) theory of conflation as Head-movement (Harley 2004), an approach to incorporation is proposed which captures Chomsky's (1995) claim that head-movement is phonological while at the same time illustrating that lexical affixes in Coeur d'Alene serve as incorporated arguments. The thesis concludes with an articulation of the left periphery (material above vP here), based on the strict ordering of a series of mood, adverbial, model, and aspectual particles. It is shown that this articulation in Coeur d'Alene patterns with Cinque's (1999) proposed universal hierarchy of functional and adverbial heads. In this way, the basic clause structure of Coeur d'Alene is formally presented

This dissertation explores the mechanisms behind the linguistic expression of causation in English, Hiaki (Uto-Aztecan) and Spanish. Pylkkänen's (2002, 2008) analysis of causatives as dependent on the parameterization of the functional head v(CAUSE) is chosen as a point of departure. The studies conducted in this dissertation confirm Pylkkänen's claim that all causatives involve the presence of vCAUSE. They further confirm that variation is conditioned by both the selectional and 'Voice-bundling' properties of the causative head. I show that this pattern triggers differences across languages, although other factors are also responsible for the existence of multiple causative configurations within languages. In some languages (e.g. English), causatives require the obligatory presence of an external argument (i.e., Causer). I provide additional data supporting Pylkkänen's proposal that causation (in certain languages) may also exist in the absence of a syntactic Causer. In particular, I offer data from Hiaki indirect causatives and Spanish desiderative causatives (e.g., .Te hace salir? '2sg.dat (expl)makes go.out, Do you feel like going out?’), and weather/temporal constructions (e.g., Hace mucho calor '(expl) makes much heat, It’s very hot') in support of this hypothesis. The results of this research, however, question Pylkkänen's claim that certain languages may allow the Root-causativization of transitives and unergatives. I show that this is not possible even in languages that exhibit Causer-less causatives (e.g., Hiaki). Moreover, certain unaccusatives (e.g., arrive) also resist (Root) causativization crosslinguistically, regardless of the 'Voice-bundling' properties inherent to the causativizing head. I claim that this happens in contexts in which unaccusative verbs exhibit 'unergative' behavior (i.e., whenever they involve syntactic elements that are base-generated in positions higher than the root). Cross-linguistic variation in the expression of causation is not always a direct consequence of the internal properties of the causative predicate. Because of language-internal requirements, different languages impose specific limitations on the syntactic realization of causative structures. For instance, English and Spanish heavily rely on Agreement relations among their constituents. The consequence of this is that it is difficult in these languages to discern what elements really are part of causation and what elements are not, as well as the nature of the elements involved in causatives (e.g., whether the dative in Spanish productive causatives is an external argument or an applicative). This dissertation addresses all these questions.

The structural complexity and the typological universals associated with relative clauses (RCs) have made the structure particularly interesting to linguists and second language acquisition (SLA) researchers. Currently, much controversy is found in RCs in East Asian Languages. This dissertation tests the syntactic status of "relative clauses" in Chinese and explores second language (L2) learners' processing and production of different types of Chinese RCs.In the theoretical part of the dissertation, I test whether Comrie (2002)'s proposal of analyzing putative relative clauses in East Asian languages as "attributive clauses" can be applicable to Chinese. From a review of syntactic literature and movement test, I argue that there are crucial differences between Chinese RCs and attributive clauses. Further, reconstruction effect suggests that A-bar movement takes place within gapped Chinese RCs. More specifically, following Sauerland (2000)'s proposal, I suggest that the derivation of Chinese RCs involves the movement of an operator taking a complex NP as its complement to the Spec of CP, and that complex NP matches with an external head outside the RC.Further, I examine the possibility of analyzing AdjP+DE structure as relative clauses, and examine the flexibility and effect of demonstrative and numeral-classifier positions and their relation with relative clauses.In the experiment chapter, I discuss results from three experiments that tested the relative degrees of difficulty for L2 learners among different types of RCs including Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object and Object of Preposition relative clauses, I seek plausible linguistic and psycholinguistic proposals in explaining the performance data. The experiments include a self-paced word order judgment task, a written sentence completion task, and a written sentence combination task. It was found that the L2 acquisition of Chinese RCs is generally consistent with the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie, 1977), a typological generalization based on natural languages and a hierarchy that was found to be predictive of learners' order of acquisition in SLA studies of many other languages.

This thesis provides an analysis of wh-questions in Nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree). The study is done within the Principles and Parameters framework (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 1995). I argue that Nêhiyawêwin wh-words like awfna 'who' are not generated in argument position and do not undergo A-bar movement to Spec CP (Chapter 3). Rather, they are licensed as the predicate of a nominal clause, and respect the same syntactic constraints as other nominal clauses: they are strictly predicatê-initial; obey a referentiality hierarchy; and display agreement for number, animacy and obviation (chapter 4). I analyze Nêhiyawêwin nominal clauses as IP with a null Infl head in which the predicate fronts to Spec CP. The clausê-initial position of the wh-word is thus part of a more general process of predicatefronting. The nominal clause analysis of wh-words accounts for the absence of wh-movement per se in the language, as well as for the absence of wh in situ. However, based on their interpretive properties, wh-questions must contain an operator-variable chain. I argue that the operator-variable relation arises when the subject of the nominal clause links to an A-position in a subordinate clause. This occurs in one of two ways: by means of the kâ-complementizer or the ê-complementizer (Chapter 5). If the subordinate clause has kâ-, the resulting structure is a relative clause which restricts the reference of the subject. This yields a cleft construction: Who is it[sub i] that Mary likes t[sub i] ? If the subordinate clause has ê-, the clauses are conjoined, and null-operator movement in the subordinate clause forces an anaphoric relation between the wh-word and the A-position in the ê- clause: Who is he[sub i] & OP[sub i] Mary likes him[sub i]. Having shown how Nêhiyawêwin wh-words are associated with an operator-variable chain, I then consider the consequences of the proposed analysis (Chapter 6). A defining property of wh-chains is their sensitivity to island effects. Consistent with this, there is an argument/adjunct asymmetry in Nêhiyawêwin, which in turn bears on the question of where overt arguments are positioned in a polysynthetic language. I argue that complement clauses are basê-generated in an A-position, unlike overt DPs which are in an A'-position (adjoined to IP). This explains why long-distance extraction is possible from complement clauses, while extraction from adjunct clauses is ungrammatical. Another property of wh-chains is their sensitivity to Weak Crossover (WCO). WCO effects are absent in Nêhiyawêwin wh-questions. I argue that WCO may be avoided because there is no movement of a truly quantificational operator in the sense of Lasnik and Stowell (1991), but rather movement of a null operator. I then propose a Weakest Crossover analysis for the absence of WCO, following Demirdache (1997).

This thesis investigates chain formation processes in syntax within the general framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993, 1994, 1995), where comparison among derivations plays a central role. It is primarily concerned with interactions between Grammatical Function changing (Baker 1988a) and wh-movement. Constructions such as antipassive, applicative, and Object Preposing: (special "passive") from typologically different languages are examined together with their implications for extraction. On a theoretical level this thesis proposes a modification of the notion of reference set (Chomsky 1994, 1995), which fixes the domain of comparison for the purpose of economy. In particular, the notion of reference set is defined in terms of non-distinctness of numerations; this in turn is sensitive to the Interpretability of features (Chomsky 1995). It is also argued that the Minimal Link Condition is an economy condition that elects among convergent derivations on the basis of the notion of chain link comparability. The system advanced here, in combination with some independently motivated Minimalist assumptions, explains phenomena which have so far defied a unified account, thereby providing important empirical support for the leading ideas of the Minimalist Program.

This dissertation explores the question of whether Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, is an ergative language. It is claimed that Tagalog is best characterized as neither accusative nor ergative but rather as a language that is a hybrid of these two language types. Tagalog's hybrid nature is neatly captured structurally within Principle and Parameters theory using VP internal subjects. In terms of Case, Tagalog not only has nominative-absolutive Case checking and ergative Case checking but it also makes extensive use of inherent accusative Case assignment. As a result, Tagalog has both a (NOM ACC) basic transitive sentence type, like accusative languages, and a (ERG ABS) basic transitive sentence type, like ergative languages. A specific structural analysis is given for these basic sentences under an Economy approach. This analysis is extended to account for complex sentences including sentences involving morphological causatives, conjunction reduction and raising.