Thesis: Ph. D. in Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-351). / This thesis deals with a number of puzzles related to word order, in which the co-occurence of two elements in the same clause imposes a restriction on the distribution of these elements. I suggest that elements involved in Agree relationships [Chomsky (2000, 2001)] are subject to a requirement that they be aligned with the left or right edge of a prosodic phrase, following work done in Richards (2016). I argue that there is a restriction on the opaque satisfaction of this requirement, and show that this provides a unified solution to these word order puzzles. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with movement phenomena, primarily in left-headed languages. In chapter 1, I show that some languages allow A-movement of subjects across other DPs, whereas others do not. I note that this appears to be determined by which edge of a prosodic phrase they require phrases in Agree relationships to be aligned with, and show that this is a consequence of the proposed restriction on opaque satisfaction of the alignment requirement. Chapter 2 builds on the results of chapter 1. I show that A-movement of a subject may cross another nominal in all languages, but only if there is a phase boundary between the launch site and landing site, and show how this falls out from the proposed restriction on opacity. I show also that languages that do not allow A-movement of subjects across other DPs display a similar restriction in wh-questions, and argue that this too is a result of the proposed restriction on opacity. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the distribution of wh-phrases in languages that allow them to remain in-situ. Chapter 3 deals with co-occurance restrictions between foci and wh-phrases. I argue that these restrictions emerge as a result of a conflict between a prosodic strategy that languages might use to satisfy the alignment requirement, called Grouping, and the proposed restriction on opaque satisfaction of this requirement. Chapter 4 deals with Grouping more generally. I show that languages with Grouping have a particular prosodic signature which marks phonological phrases that contain wh-phrases, whereas languages that lack Grouping do not, and explore the consequences of this for the architecture developed in this thesis. / by Kenyon Garrett Branan. / Ph. D. in Linguistics
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/120671 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Branan, Kenyon Garrett |
| Contributors | Norvin W. Richards., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. |
| Publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 351 pages, application/pdf |
| Rights | MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 |
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