Deriving four generalizations about nominals in three classifier languages

This squib presents a set of facts concerning nominal structures in Bahnar, Mandarin, and Vietnamese. It proposes an account of these facts which reduces them to cross-linguistic differences with respect to the availability of particular syntactic configurations involving the bare noun and its extended projection. These differences, in turn, are derived from cross-linguistic variations with respect to the availability of items in the functional lexicon.

Polynesian Syntax and its Interfaces

This volume presents research in theoretical syntax and its interfaces with semantics and prosody within the Polynesian language family, with chapters focusing on Hawaiian, Māori, Niuean, Samoan, and Tongan. It includes in-depth analyses of issues within particular languages, as well as chapters that take a comparative-Polynesian approach. Theoretical issues addressed include ergativity and case systems, word order variations, modality and superlatives, causativization, negation, resumption and linearization, raising, the Extended Projection Principle (EPP), and the left periphery of both the sentential and nominal domains. The volume showcases the theoretical typology of Polynesian languages with their varying case systems, word orders, and isolating particle-based morphology.

VP-fronting within a movement typology

Van Urk (2015) proposes that the A/A’ distinction doesn’t follow from the landing site of the movement (e.g. Spec, CP vs. Spec, TP), but from the details of the features found in the probes. In this paper, we extend this characterization of movement typology to ‘spinal movement’ (movement of projections along the spine of the syntactic structure), in this case VP movement, proposing that there are A and A’ equivalents to VP movement. We then extend the typology to include a third type of movement, which we label C(ategorial)-movement as it is sensitive to the shared category feature of the extended projection. As expected, this movement has a distinct set of characteristics which follow from the nature of the probe. We close the paper with a discussion of word order more generally (as in Cinque (2005)) and a discussion of how head movement might fit into this typology.

The problem of hate crimes in the United States of America

The aim of this article is to draw attention to an issue that has a long history: the problem of hate crimes in the United States of America. There is no doubt that hate crimes are the type of crime that attack the very principle of individuality that is an entitlement under the equal protection of the law (in the U.S.). Bearing the foregoing in mind the above, and that the number of such crime has increased at an alarming rate, this article describes and discusses types of hate crimes such as: Racist and Religious Hate Crimes, Sexual Orientation-Based Hate Crimes and Disability Hate Crimes as an extended projection of the analysis, several solutions have been proposed to mitigate tensions and combat the prevalence and severity of hate crime in all its forms.

Disharmony and the Final-Over-Final Condition in Amahuaca

The Final-Over-Final Condition (FOFC) rules out head-final projections that immediately dominate head-initial projections. Syntactically inert particles are known to show (apparent) exceptions to FOFC. However, Biberauer (2017) argues that seemingly FOFC-violating particles are compliant with a version of FOFC that is relativized to heads within an extended projection (Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts 2014). I present novel data from Amahuaca (Panoan; Peru) in which FOFC is violated by TAM particles within the verbal extended projection. I argue that this FOFC violation cannot be explained by the mechanisms proposed by Biberauer (2017). Instead, a view of FOFC grounded in restrictions on rightward dependencies (Cecchetto 2013; Zeijlstra 2016) predicts the type of exception found in Amahuaca.

Nominalizing verbal passive

In her chapter ‘Nominalizing verbal passives: PROs and cons’, Borer argues that nominalization, and by extension many other morphological processes, must be syntactic. Borer focuses on so-called short argument structure nominals (SASNs), i.e. ASNs which are missing an overt logical (external) subject, and which do not obligatorily take a by-phrase. Borer provides evidence that SASNs embed a passive structure, with the latter showing most of the syntactic properties of clausal verbal passive, including the promotion of the internal argument. Nominalization is thus an operation which can combine a passivized verbal extended projection with a higher nominal head. Long ASNs, in turn, are nominalizations which bring together a nominalizer with an active Verbal Extended Projection, ExP[V], complete with all its arguments, including the external. ASNs (de-verbal/de-adjectival), according to Borer, therefore must contain a verbal/adjectival ExP, and the argument array in ASNs is that which is associated with the embedded ExP[V] and ExP[A] respectively, and not with the noun. This in turn means that the operation Nominalization, which brings together a verbal/adjectival stem with a nominalizing affix, must be allowed to apply to the output of syntactic operations which involve complex syntactic phrases, including passive and movement.

A minimalist approach to the syntax of p

This paper proposes a minimalist analysis of locative prepositions in Central Catalan, from a comparative perspective. Specifically, I claim that certain semantic and syntactic properties that are usually considered part of the field of the extended projection of PPs in cartographic approaches (categories like Place, Degree, K, and AxPart, for example) are in fact properties of the DP in the complement of a preposition. This claim takes the view that adpositions are a functional projection that relates two DPs, the Figure and the Ground, and not a lexical head that projects a functional domain on its own, as Ns, Vs or As (cf. den Dikken 2010; Koopman 2000). The final part of the paper proposes a model to account for the variation that locative prepositions exhibit across Romance languages following the Conjecture of Borer (1984) (known as the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture since Baker 2008). More precisely, I propose a model in which microparametric differences among Romance simple locative prepositions depend on the particular composition of features in p.

Prepositions with CP and their implications for extended projections

In some limited cases, English allows a particular preposition to combine with a certain kind of subordinate clause, as exemplified by in that in “I take the proposal seriously, in that I loathe it”. In contrast, Norwegian systematically allows prepositions to combine with subordinate clauses (as in Det resulterte i at vi vant, literally “It resulted in that we won”). I argue that the English case should be handled as the subcategorization for a certain complement class by a particular lexical entry, while the Norwegian case indicates that the extended projection of clauses can continue up to the preposition. This highlights an important difference between lexical selection and extended projection, revealing a hitherto underappreciated source of parametric variation, and sheds light on several properties of extended projections as well as of prepositions. Specifically, the extended projections of N and V may “converge” at P, challenging the notion of extended projection as being confined to a single lexical category.

On Wh-elements in Central Kurdish: A Minimalist Approach

The paper sheds light on the status of wh-elements in Central Kurdish (CK) with respect to the framework of the Minimalist Program (MP). From across the globe, there exist various types of languages whose wh-elements behave according to wh-parameter. There are languages whose wh-elements move, some others have in-situ wh-elements, and there are others in which the movement is optional. This paper aims to observe CK wh-elements in an empirical way to indicate their parametric features and their conformance to the universal principles. The notion of movement in MP is included within merge, which falls into two types: Internal merge (I-merge) and External merge (E-merge). Another important term in connection with overt movement is the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) according to which the subject position should be occupied by a phonologically expressed constituent. A fact to be known is that not all languages, among them CK, conform to this principle. The violation of certain CK wh-elements to this principle varies because they do not function in the same way. The paper consists of four sections: introduction, literature review, two basic concepts concerning wh-movement, and an empirical section observing CK wh-elements. It ends with the conclusion and references. One of the conclusions is that CK wh-elements are not considered as one inseparable set since they behave differently.

Verb Second and the Left Edge Filling Trigger

This chapter is an inquiry into the subcomponent of the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) that is relevant for second position phenomena: the Left Edge Filling Trigger (LEFT). LEFT basically amounts to a classical morphological obligatory exponence effect, except that it is instantiated at the sentence level. It cross-linguistically operates in a post-syntactic realizational morphological module. It is shown that LEFT is an active rule of Universal Grammar, providing empirical arguments from Breton, a Celtic VSO language showing an extra conspicuous V2 requirement. A radical reanalysis of language word order typology is proposed. Classic V2 languages are conspicuously V2. SVO is a subtype. So-called V1 languages are either predicate-fronting languages (Tense second), or inconspicuously V2. A cross-linguistic typology of LEFT effects is presented, with great attention paid to inconspicuous satisfiers, among them null expletives, for which evidence is presented. The chapter argues accordingly for a drastic extension of the typology of expletives.