Animating the narrow syntax

Wiltschko, Martina; Ritter, Elizabeth

doi:10.1515/tlr-2015-0011

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…This evidence comes from the crosslinguistic behavior and distribution of determiners and classifiers (Haspelmath , Lyons , Cowper & Hall , Ionin , Simpson, Soh & Nomoto , Cowper & Hall ); the features of indefinite pronouns (Fodor & Sag , von Heusinger ); nonscopal specific interpretations of indefinites (Fodor & Sag , von Heusinger ); and patterns of acquisition of determiners in second‐language acquisition (Ionin, Ko & Wexler , Ionin, Zubizarreta & Philippov ). There is also ample evidence for features like [ human ] and [ animate ], for example, from verbal marking in Algonquian languages (Piggott , Wiltschko & Ritter , among others); verbal prefixes in Abkhaz (Hewitt , cited by Mithun ); nominal marking in Selayarese (Finer ); and impersonal pronouns crosslinguistically (Sigurðsson & Egerland , Fenger ).…”

Section: Proposalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Licensing and Differential Object Marking: The View from Neo‐Aramaic

Kalin

2018

Syntax

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Section: Proposalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Licensing and Differential Object Marking: The View from Neo‐Aramaic

Kalin

2018

Syntax

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“…In particular, a sentience restriction in the language has been recognized to be a defining property that distinguishes nominals that carry a grammatical function -subject or primary object -from those which do not, such as adjuncts (e.g., Frantz 2009; Kim 2015a; Ritter and Rosen 2010; Wiltschko and Ritter 2015): subjects and primary objects must be sentient, unlike adjuncts. In recent studies on Blackfoot, the sentience restriction has been proposed to be a part of narrow syntax, represented as syntactic agreement (Kim 2017b;Wiltschko and Ritter 2015). 15 In light of these studies, the sentience restriction is an important criterion in Blackfoot to determine whether a given oblique nominal is a primary object or an adjunct.…”

Section: Sentience Restrictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oblique nominals, a verbal affix and late merge

Kim

2020

Linguistics

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The goal of this paper is to address the syntax of certain oblique nominals in Blackfoot (Algonquian) that are introduced by a set of verbal prefixes called linkers. In the literature, an oblique nominal introduced by a verbal affix always shows certain properties of objects, e.g., agreement. This type of affix is analyzed as forming a complex verb with the main verb via head movement, and the oblique nominal is treated as an object of the complex verb. However, this paper demonstrates that oblique nominals introduced by linkers in Blackfoot do not show certain object properties even though the linker looks like it forms a complex verb. Building on the lack of object properties, linker phrases are proposed to be adjuncts. As proposed for adjuncts generally (e.g., Stephanov, Arthur. 2001. Late adjunction and minimalist phrase structure. Syntax 4(2). 94–125), this paper proposes a late merge analysis for linker phrases. Within an Agree-based model (Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Roger Martin, David Michaels & Juan Uriagereka (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 1–52. Cambridge: The MIT Press) where the derivation proceeds by phases (Chomsky 2008), a linker phrase, as an adjunct, lacks the relevant features to participate in the derivation via Agree, and thus it merges late at the end of a given phasal derivation such as vP. When spell out applies, the linker linearizes with a [V-v] complex in the base position, i.e., vP, giving its surface appearance as a verbal affix. Under this view, a linker does not lead to formation of a complex verb as it does not undergo head movement to the verb, unlike applicative affixes, consistent with the absence of object properties.

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“…(cf. Wiltschko & Ritter 2015 for discussion). 4 Note that for morphologically intransitive verbs, the designated argument whose animacy is specified is the subject, but for morphologically transitive verbs, the designated argument is the primary object.…”

Section: Two Two-way Contrasts: the Role Of The Verbal Predicatementioning

confidence: 99%

2 + 2 = 3: Number contrasts in Blackfoot

Kim¹,

Ritter²,

Wiltschko

et al. 2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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Blackfoot nominals are singular, plural or general in number. The existence of languages with either a singular-plural opposition or a plural-general opposition is well-attested in the literature. Following Bliss (2013), we argue that Blackfoot has both systems, albeit in different contexts. We propose that the co-existence of these two systems in Blackfoot is due to the exceptional nature of plural specification in this language -it is alternatively realized as a head or modifying feature in the syntactic representation (in the sense of Wiltschko 2008). We show that regardless of whether plural is syntactically a head or a modifying feature, the semantic interpretation is the same. This is consistent with Rullmann & You's (2006) finding that plural marking has the same denotation no matter whether it contrasts with singular or with general number.

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Animating the narrow syntax

Cited by 19 publications

References 23 publications

Licensing and Differential Object Marking: The View from Neo‐Aramaic

Licensing and Differential Object Marking: The View from Neo‐Aramaic

Oblique nominals, a verbal affix and late merge

2 + 2 = 3: Number contrasts in Blackfoot

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