Malagasy Existentials: A Syntactic Account of Specificity

Some syntactic and semantic properties of the existential construction in Malagasy

“…First, placement of the yes/no question particle ve and the NPI intsony in (35) shows that the DP-pivot EC has the structure in which the bare DP pivot is internal to the VP, and the ny DP pivot may lie outside the VP, 10 The adverb placement facts discussed here are mostly consistent with Paul's (2000) small clause analysis of the EC and with Polinsky's (2007) account in which the thematic predicate sitting next to the predicate -isy is part of a free, i.e., headless, RC. For reason of space, I will not demonstrate it here.…”

“…The contrast between (40c) and (42b) casts some doubts on the analysis according to which the complement of the predicate -isy can be an SC (Paul, 2000). In sum, a range of facts regarding adverb placement, coordination and movement supports the structure in (6) for the DP-pivot EC.…”

“…The examples in (2) (Paul, 2000) are very much like the declaratives in (3) except for the presence of the predicate -isy:…”

Malagasy Control and Its Theoretical Implications

“…a topic) in Malagasy is well-known (see for example Keenan 1976, Pearson 1996, 2001, and Paul 2000. This view of Malagasy grammar is most recently and forcefully defended in Pearson, to appear and the existence of passive control may further support this position.…”

More concealed pseudoclefts in Malagasy and the Clausal Typing Hypothesis

“…I assume that Malagasy clauses are projected from an I 8 head whose complement is a predicate phrase (Bowers, 1993;Chomsky, 1995) which embeds the lexical phrase and whose right-hand specifier is the DP subject (Guilfoyle et al, 1992) This ban on subject wh-in-situ has an independent explanation in the grammar, first articulated in Sabel (2002). It is widely cited that Malagasy has an inviolable restriction that subject DPs be formally and semantically specific (Keenan, 1976;Paul, 2000b;Pearson, 1996Pearson, , 2001):…”