Showing papers on "Antisymmetry published in 2005"

Korean (and Japanese) Morphology from a Syntactic Perspective

Abstract: This article concentrates on Sells's (1995) arguments against the syntactic view that words are built in the syntax, and it develops a syntactic account that yields a parsimonious account of the properties of “morphological units.” Inflected words in Korean (and Japanese) are derived syntactically from head-initial structures by phrasal movement. Properties of words follow from regular syntactic principles and phonological properties of affixes. Agreement can be triggered under piedpiping. Word structure interacts with scope (Lee 2004, 2005), arguing for the presence of case affixes in the narrow syntax.

CHAPTER 16 – Antisymmetry

Abstract: Publisher Summary Antisymmetry is a peculiar kind of variation whose evolutionary significance is surprisingly unappreciated, no doubt in part because the term seems odd and foreboding. Antisymmetry refers to the condition where right-sided and left-sided—or dextral and sinistral—forms are equally common within a species, as seen in the major claws of lobsters and male fiddler crabs, the side to which the upper mandible crosses in most crossbill finches, or the spiral orientation of palm-tree trunks. Antisymmetry can therefore only be confirmed by examining multiple individuals or multiple parts on an individual. Antisymmetry is a particularly important kind of phenotypic variation because, with very few exceptions, the direction of asymmetry is not inherited. In other words, although the phenotype “asymmetric” is clearly heritable, the conspicuous and readily observable phenotype “right-handed” is not. Such a claim can rarely be made for other kinds of variation. This lack of a genetic basis to a readily observable phenotype lends antisymmetry its great significance. Because direction of asymmetry is not inherited, each evolutionary transition from an antisymmetric ancestor to a directionally asymmetric descendent represents an example of the seemingly heretical, neo-Lamarckian phenomenon of genetic assimilation: a conspicuous phenotype with no heritable basis arising evolutionarily before that phenotype comes under genetic control.

Seediq – antisymmetry and final particles in a Formosan VOS language

Abstract: This paper presents data from the Austronesian language Seediq, spoken in taiwan, which has both VOS order and final particles. It will be argued that the coccurrence of these two features is unexpected under a pre-antisymmetric analysis, whereas it is easily captured under an analysis couched in Kayne's Antisymmetry model, under the assumption that VOS order is derived by raising the predicate to a position preceding the subject. An interesting contrast between Seediq final particles and Tagalog second position particles is illustrated, and argued to be the result of different mechanisms deriving verb-initial order in the two languages. An apparent problem concerning the non-interaction of Seediq final particles with what is arguably head raising in Seediq (V->C) is resolved by the proposal that syntactic heads come in two different types, labeled here simply X and Y, which do not interact with each other (in analogy with the A/A' distinction for phrasal positions). (Less)

A comparative analysis of restrictive and appositive relative clauses in Cushitic languages

Abstract: Relative clauses represent an extremely intriguing empirical domain, both because of the complexity of the data and of the theoretical relevance of the construction. In this respect, a particularly interesting area of research is the distinction between restrictive and appositive clauses, for which different analyses have been proposed in terms of adjunction sites (for a general survey cf. the Introduction in Alexiadou et al., eds. 2000, Bianchi 2002). All these analyses, however, have been challenged by Kayne’s (1994) antisymmetry hypothesis, which excludes right-hand adjunction. Kayne takes Chomsky’s (1977) approach to connectivity effects (in terms of Operator-movement of the head) to support a revised version of Vergnaud’s (1974) “Raising Analysis”, according to which the D° head selects the relative CP as its unique complement and the lexical NP is generated within the relative clause:

A cartographic approach to the romance mittelfeld

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to show that the placement of adverbs is a crucial criterion for identifying the positions of arguments and verb(s) in the domain of the clause referred to as the Mittelfeld. This domain is situated between the complementizer system (CP) and the VP-shell. We propose that the Mittelfeld be constituted of Cinque‟s (1999) adverb-related projections in addition to argument and verb-related projections. More precisely, recursive chunks of A-positions are potentially available between the adverb-related functional projections. It will be assumed that the chunks are recursive SVO structures, as required by the Strict Cyclicity on the basis of Kayne‟s (1994) antisymmetry theory (SVO order within the VP-shell). A comparative study of word order variations involving the subject, object, verb and the adverbs will be undertaken within the Romance languages with reference to English. Three configurations are relevant: (i) SVO, (ii) VSO and (iii) VOS. In function of the Information Structure they realize (in question-answer contexts), such word orders will be analysed in declarative clauses. Movement operates separately on the subject, the object and the verb and can target various positions among the adverb-related projections depending on the placement possibility of adverbs of different classes. The hypothesis running throughout the paper is that all arguments must leave the VP-shell in order to have their A-features (Case, phi) and I-features (top, foc, etc.) matched/checked. According to this hypothesis, scrambling applies not only to OV languages (German, Japanese), but also to VO languages