The paper provides evidence for a more articulated structure of the comparative as compared with the one in Bobaljik (2012). We propose to split up Bobaljik's cmpr head into two distinct heads, C1 and C2. Looking at Czech, Old Church Slavonic and English, we show that this proposal explains a range of facts about suppletion and allomorphy. A crucial ingredient of our analysis is the claim that adjectival roots are not a‐categorial, but spell out adjectival functional structure. Specifically, we argue that adjectival roots come in various types, differing in the amount of functional structure they spell out. In order to correctly model the competition between roots, we further introduce a Faithfulness Restriction on Cyclic Override, which allows us to dispense with the Elsewhere Principle.

The goal of our paper is to provide a description of an apparent V3 pattern which is salient with some speakers of the Ghent dialect, illustrated in (1), from Vanacker (1980).Vroeger, die bakten wij vier soorten brood     formerly die baked  we four sorts    bread     “We used to bake four kinds of bread.” (Gijzenzele 0.28) (Vanacker, 1980, p. 76)In such examples, what would be an initial adverbial constituent in the root clause vroeger, (“formerly”) is separated from the finite verb by what Vanacker (1980) labels a “pleonastic” element, die, in effect leading to a superficial V3 order. At first sight, this element die is optional and it has no impact on the truth conditions of the proposition that it introduces. (2) is also acceptable in the dialect.(2) Vroeger bakten wij vier soorten brood.      formerly baked we four sorts    bread      “We used to bake four kinds of bread.”In the first part of the paper, we will provide a description of the distribution of die. We will also compare its distribution with that of the more widely distributed resumptive adverbs dan (“then”) and daar (“there”), which are typical of the Germanic V2 languages (Salvesen, 2016). Our account will be based both on authentic data drawn from corpora and from anecdotal observations as well as on the results of elicitations with 10 native speakers of the dialect. In the second part of the paper we provide an analysis in terms of Wolfe's (2016) typology of the syntax of V2. Adopting the articulated structure of CP as elaborated in the cartographic framework, we will propose that die is an overt spell out of the head Force and as such a root complementiser.

We present a novel account of root suppletion in comparatives and superlatives, and show how it accounts for the presence of ABB and ABC patterns, as well as the absence of ABA patterns. The account assumes that suppletive roots, despite appearances to the contrary, are not contextual allomorphs, but portmanteaus spelling out two distinct features, one belonging to the lexical root, and another one belonging to the comparative. The regular comparative affix then spells out an additional feature relating to the comparative domain. In other words, we show that the comparative (cmpr) head that enters into the morphological makeup of the comparative (Bobaljik 2012) is to be split up into two distinct heads, C1 and C2 (see also Caha 2016). We extend this idea to sprl, which we show is likewise to be split up into S1 and S2, in order to account for suppletive ABC patterns. These four distinct heads receive empirical support from facts of the degree morphology in Czech and Latin. The new account of root suppletion allows a straightforward way of deriving the attested and unattested patterns of (root) suppletion in degree comparison. The analysis developed supports the hypothesis that the absence of AAB patterns in degree comparison is due to a constraint of a different nature altogether.

In this paper, we discuss a cross-linguistically rare pattern of comparative formation found in Slovak. This pattern is theoretically interesting, because it violates a candidate universal on the relationship between the positive and the comparative degree. The universal, discussed in Grano & Davis (2018), says that the comparative is always either identical to, or derived from, the positive degree. This universal is violated by a number of adjectives in Slovak. These adjectives have a suffix -k in the positive degree, which is absent in the comparative. We capture this pattern in terms of a non-containment structure of the positive and the comparative degrees and the nanosyntax model of spellout (Starke 2009 et seq.).