The existence of both morphological templates (Hyman 2003) and Mirror Principle (Baker 1985) compliant behaviour in the same language presents an interesting case of grammatical principles at odds. The two principles sometimes predict opposite orderings for the surface form of valency-changing derivational morphology in Bantu languages. In Kinyarwanda, this tension is unresolved, leading to certain forms being unavailable, rather than favouring one principle over the other. Independently available periphrastic forms are used to convey the problematic meanings. This paper presents an alternative to syntactic movement or Optimality Theoretic analyses for templatic morphology that have been proposed in the literature. It argues that syntactic selection by heads can better derive the facts of Kinyarwanda. Independent syntactic properties of the heads that underlie the derivational morphology suggest a particular set of selectional properties for these heads in Kinyarwanda, independent of the data showing their ordering. An analysis based on syntactic selection is sufficient to account both for the orders of the morphemes and their syntactic properties. This result suggests, in line with recent work, that syntactic selection is an alternative mechanism by which seemingly templatic behaviour in the morphology can be realised (
Bengali has two negative markers: ni with perfects, and na everywhere else. When a perfect is elided, however, only the elsewhere form is permissible. Hence, in Bengali, ellipsis bleeds allomorphy. Ellipsis in Bengali is analysed as PF deletion, since differential object marking and quirky case are preserved out of ellipsis sites. Given these facts, this paper argues that in a Distributed Morphology framework, ellipsis in Bengali is implemented as terminal obliteration prior to Vocabulary Insertion. This contrasts with Irish, where it appears stress placement bleeds ellipsis. Some implications for the timing of ellipsis cross-linguistically are discussed.
Bengali negation forms a portmanteau in two cases: with present tense existential copulas and with all perfects. However, ellipsis of the complement of negation treats these two portmanteaux differently. While the negative perfect can be separated by ellipsis into sentential negation and a silenced perfect, the negative present existential cannot be likewise split, even though ellipsis of copulas is generally permitted. This project proposes the existence of two different ways to form portmanteaux and shows that ellipsis deletion is derivationally timed differently with respect to each in order to capture the patterns of elliptical divisibility.
This paper examines a type of existential there sentence found in Middle English that has been argued to have a structure similar to transitive expletive constructions (TECs) in other Germanic languages, or to follow from the presence of NegP below T during the relevant period. Based on an exhaustive analysis of the 74 examples of this construction found in the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English (out of a total of over six thousand sentences from 1125 to 1913 containing there coded as expletive), we observe that 67 contain both a modal verb and clausal negation licensing a negative associate, unlike TECs found in other Germanic languages, and that the construction is found only between 1390 and 1600. We argue that the availability of this construction was due to a transitory alignment of three syntactic properties in this stage of the language: (i) modals were still main verbs merged within vP, but took a reduced complement consisting of only an inner clausal phase, and did not take a thematic external argument; (ii) English still had negative concord;(iii) Voice and viewpoint Aspect shared a single syntactic projection. The confluence of these three factors provided a non-thematic specifier position, [Spec,vP], into which there could merge. Before the late 14th century, modals were full verbs taking a thematic external argument and full clausal complements, and after about 1600, they were merged directly in T, occurring in a monoclausal rather than a (reduced) biclausal structure. At no point did the English monoclausal spine have the structural room to accommodate a true Germanic TEC.
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