Restructuring and verb‐initial order in chamorro

Abstract

Abstract. The Austronesian language Chamorro has a restructuring construction in which the embedded clause‐like constituent looks like a finite realis clause. Following Bhatt's (2002) minimalist analysis of Hindi‐Urdu, I argue that Chamorro restructuring permits long‐distance Agree but not long‐distance licensing of objective Case. I then bring the word order of restructuring to bear on the larger issue of how verb‐initial order is derived. Along the way, an account is developed in which some of the distinctive characteristics of restructuring are determined in the syntax, but others are the result of post‐Spell‐Out operations.