Quoi-sluices in French

Sluicing has traditionally been analyzed as an operation involving wh-movement and deletion (Merchant 2001). French is a language that has both fronted and wh-in situ strategies; on the surface, however, it seems that French sluices do not involve (overt) movement, in spite of this being an available option. For nearly all wh-words, the in situ and moved forms are the same; the exception is que/quoi ‘what’— que is found in fronted wh-questions alone, while quoi is found in situ. In sluicing, only quoi surfaces, suggesting that French may be a challenge for the movement-and-deletion approach (Dagnac 2019). By formalizing an analysis within a late insertion approach to the syntax-morphology interface, I argue that not only do sluices in French involve full structure, but that they involve movement as well. I assume that the wh-word is initially represented in the syntactic derivation as an abstract feature bundle. The morphological form is determined in the mapping of syntax to morphology by locality-dependent Vocabulary Insertion (VI) rules that are sensitive to C. These rules apply only after ellipsis occurs. Following Thoms (2010), I argue that C is targeted in sluicing, and as a result destroys the context that would trigger que. This analysis is able to capture sluicing in French, while explaining the behavior of quoi more generally.

The role of phonology in Vata adjectival agreement

In realizational theories of morphology, different opinions exist on the relationship between phonology and Vocabulary Insertion. On the one hand, there are separational theories like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993), which assume that Vocabulary Insertion does not interact with the phonological component of the grammar. These theories predict that the properties of a language's regular phonology never play a role when vocabulary items (VIs) are inserted. The opposite view is held by integrational theories as, for instance, proposed in Wolf (2008). These theories assume that the general phonology of a language can influence Vocabulary Insertion. Based on adjectival agreement in the language Vata, I propose an integrational model that assumes that Vocabulary Insertion applies in an Optimality-Theoretic (Prince & Smolensky 1993) phonology, where regular phonological constraints are active. I propose that the phonology consists of two levels: one level where VIs are inserted and one level for regular phonology.

Missing Elsewhere: Domain Extension in Contextual Allomorphy

Much work in Distributed Morphology ( Embick 2010 , 2015 , Bobaljik 2012 , Harley, Tubino, and Haugen 2017 , Bobaljik and Harley to appear ) holds that morphosyntactically conditioned contextual allomorphy, including suppletion, can only work in a very local fashion: two morphemes must be linearly or structurally adjacent for one to determine the morphological exponence of the other. Recently, however, the existence of nonlocal patterns has come into focus, with growing evidence that nonlocal allomorphy is an attested empirical option. 1 In this squib, I discuss the allomorphy of verb stems in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Aqusha Dargwa and argue that the choice between allomorphs in morphological causatives in that language is determined nonlocally by tense-aspect-mood (TAM), proposing that Vocabulary Insertion (VI) can be exempt from locality requirements under certain conditions.

Breton Masculine Human Plurals, Locality, and Impoverishment

This paper presents an apparent locality condition violation observed in Standard Breton masculine human plurals ending in -où. It proposes a unique impoverishment rule deleting a syntacticosemantic feature conditioned by a specified phonological exponent. Adopting a specific architectural view of lenition, it forces a rethinking of the precise timing of various post-syntactic processes, including certain types of impoverishment rules as well Agree-Copy in dissociated Agr nodes. It also lends support to the independent claims that syntacticosemantic features are not overridden during Spell-Out and that Vocabulary Insertion applies to a linearized structure, not a hierarchical one.

Ellipsis as obliteration: Evidence from Bengali negative allomorphy

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.

A principle of economy in derivation in L2 grammar: Do everything in narrow syntax

This article proposes a novel account for the overuse of free morphemes and underuse of bound morphemes in English as a second language (L2) based on the framework of Distributed Morphology. It will be argued that an Economy Principle ‘Do everything in Narrow Syntax (DENS)’ operates in the L2 learner’s computational system. Consequently, derivation in Morphology becomes as limited as possible except when applying Vocabulary Items to syntactic objects (Vocabulary Insertion). This results in non-target-like use/acceptance of certain morphemes: Bound morphemes are often omitted in early L2 grammar, and alternative free morphemes may apparently be used instead. Two types of data, namely the overuse of be reported in previous research, and the preference of to-infinitives over -ing gerunds in early L2 grammar, will be presented in support of the proposal, and the plausibility of the operation of DENS will be discussed.

Constraining long-distance allomorphy

This paper presents a cross-linguistic survey of non-local allomorphy and it develops a formal model that accounts for the observed patterns. The distance between the trigger and target of allomorphy in non-local patterns is much more conservative than expected. A model of Vocabulary Insertion is developed, where the limited distance follows from the basic linear computational properties of the PF-interface.

Exceptions to the Mirror Principle and morphophonological ‘action at a distance’

Hyman (2000, 2002) and Kiparsky (2011) have noted that Mirror-Principle-violating morpheme orders often give rise to non-local morphophonological effects. Kiparsky (2011) explicitly argues that this generalization cannot be captured in syntactic approaches to morphology, such as Distributed Morphology. This chapter shows that the generalization can be explained via the combination of two pre-existing tenets of such theories. One is the idea that Vocabulary Insertion proceeds from the most deeply embedded constituent outwards (Bobaljik 2000; Halle and Marantz 1993). The other is the proposal that violations of the Mirror Principle are to be accounted for via phrasal movement of a category containing the lexical root ‘stranding’ one or more affixes (Koopman 2005; Buell 2005; i.a.). The possibility of non-local phonological effects arises because the movements involved in deriving Mirror-Principle-violating orders lead to a disconnect between linear distance from the root and temporal order of Vocabulary Insertion.