Diagnosing Clause Structure in a Polysynthetic Language:Wh-Agreement and Parasitic Gaps in West Circassian

Abstract

This article identifies and tests a novel diagnostic for clause structure in West Circassian, a polysynthetic language with ergative alignment. The diagnostic concerns an unusual construction involving multiple wh-agreement in relative clauses. I argue that wh-agreement morphology uniformly tracks agreement with a wh-trace, and sentences with more than one instance of wh-agreement are surface manifestations of a parasitic gap dependency. Once multiple wh-agreement is understood in this theoretically familiar light, it can be used as a powerful tool for diagnosing asymmetries between various constituents in the West Circassian clause. By appealing to well-known constraints on parasitic gap licensing, the article demonstrates that the absolutive DP raises to a position c-commanding other clausemate DPs, and applied objects may undergo optional scrambling to a position above the ergative agent.

Concealed pied‐piping in Russian: On left‐branch extraction, parasitic gaps, and the nature of discontinuous nominal phrases

“…Given the generalization in the literature that only A ′ movement can license PGs, we would not expect this to be possible. If it turns out that it is, however, this would not be an unprecedented finding: a few works have argued that A movement can sometimes license PGs, such as Pylkkänen 2008, Ershova 2019, and Ershova 2021. Additionally, Nissenbaum 2000 reports examples of local scrambling licensing PGs in German, Hindi, and Icelandic.…”