No abstract

This article proposes that plural marking on nouns in Persian is licensed only if those nouns are contained within D/QPs. This proposal accounts for why plural-marked nouns are construed as definite unless an overt marker of indefiniteness appears, and why plural marking does not cooccur with numerals unless the noun phrase is definite. It is also shown that the indefinite marker in Persian is quantitative rather than cardinal and is thus associated with higher functional structure within the noun phrase than in English. In English, on the other hand, number marking, the indefinite article, and the grammatical distinction between count and mass nouns, are all realized at the level of NumP. Differences in the interpretation of bare noun phrases in English and Persian are therefore explained by the claim that argument noun phrases must minimally be NumPs in English while Persian lacks this projection altogether.

No abstract

In this article it is shown that Persian has core control constructions in which the obligatorily empty subject of an embedded clause takes its reference from an antecedent in the next higher clause. Evidence is provided that these embedded clauses are relatively transparent for scrambling and lack independent tense. It is therefore argued that core control verbs in Persian take complements that lack CP, TP, and a Case position for their subjects. Control complements do manifest subject agreement, however, suggesting that agreement checking takes place within vP. The implications of this view are explored with respect to the periphrastic progressive construction, in which both the auxiliary and the main verb bear subject agreement, and raising constructions, in which preposed subjects do not trigger agreement on the matrix verb. The relevant contrast is presented in minimalist terms as the idea that agreement in Persian is checked within a strong phase (CP or vP).

No abstract

Current research on the nominal spine (1a) supports the idea that number can be associated with different positions. Much of the work on nominal number contrasts a "high" position in Num that hosts grammatical number and a "low" position in n that hosts idiosyncratic, adjunct, or lexical number. 1 Comparatively little research has examined where number is located in pronouns. While it is clear that pronouns involve -features that typically include person () and number (#) as a bundle, it is not clear where these features occur in relation to other nominal projections, 2 nor whether pronouns have the full complement of nominal projections that nominals have. 3 A possible This squib was first presented at the Workshop on Contrast in Syntax in honor of Elizabeth Cowper at the University of Toronto in April 2015 and then at the Gender, Class, and Determination conference in Ottawa in September 2015. We thank the audiences at both events, as well as the reviewers and editors who provided us with invaluable feedback. Grateful thanks also go to Malotele Kumitau Polata and Lynsey Talagi for generously sharing their expertise in Vagahau Niue (Niuean).1 On the view that number in common noun phrases (henceforth nominals)

No abstract

No abstract