Abstract

Latin verbs appear to both obey and disobey the Mirror Generalization (Baker 1985), albeit in different inflectional forms (Cinque 1999). Given the importance of the Mirror Generalization to morphosyntactic theorizing, this situation deserves scrutiny. We develop an analysis on which all Latin finite verbs, whether mirroring or anti-mirroring, share a single, simple, virtually invariant derivation, involving one step of head movement (Asp to T) and one step of phrasal movement (vP to [Spec,TP]). On this analysis, the Mirror Generalization is valid for Latin, despite appearances, but it is crucially about structures formed by operations on heads: phrasal movement can give rise to apparent violations of it (Myler 2017). The analysis extends readily to nonfinite forms, solving an anti-mirroring paradox arising among the participles. It also makes correct syntactic predictions. When the verb word is a constituent, it is a TP, and the analysis correctly predicts that it should move as a phrase, not as a head. The analysis also makes correct predictions about the positions of vP-adjuncts, and is fully compatible with what is known about leftward argument movement out of vP. Finally, unlike two competing analyses (Embick 2000; Calabrese 2019), it accounts for anti-mirroring in Latin without any stipulations placing passive Voice in an unexpectedly peripheral position within the verb word. The larger picture that emerges is one in which phonological words need not correspond to syntactic constituents, but can instead be reflexes of linearly contiguous series of morphemes suspended across potentially vast regions of syntactic space (Julien 2002).

Highlights

  • We develop an analysis on which all Latin finite verbs, whether mirroring or anti-mirroring, share a single, simple, virtually invariant derivation, involving one step of head movement (Asp to T) and one step of phrasal movement

  • On the analysis developed below, mirroring and anti-mirroring verb forms have the same derivation—which involves one step of XP-movement and one step of head movement (Asp to T)

  • The Mirror Generalization (MG) is valid for Latin—contrary to initial appearances—but it must crucially be understood as a generalization about structures formed by operations

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Summary

Introduction

A great deal of crosslinguistic evidence (see especially Cinque 1999) suggests that something like (1) holds:. (2) If a root and some functional heads in its extended projection (Grimshaw 1991) are assembled into a single “morphological word,” ceteris paribus, the higher that one of those functional heads is syntactically, the farther away from the root it should be in the morphological word (and vice versa) This diagnostic, which makes it possible to infer the composition of portions of clause structure from that of complex words, has been put to use very fruitfully in contemporary work on morphosyntax. It develops an analysis (the XP/X0 Analysis) on which all synthetic finite verb forms in Latin, whether they appear to obey the MG or not, have the same derivation, which involves one step of head movement (Asp to T) and one step of phrasal movement (vP-movement to [Spec,TP]).

The puzzle
Anti-mirroring verb forms
Deriving the mirroring forms Consider the following mirroring form:
Deriving the anti-mirroring forms
Extension
Deriving the Perfect Passive Participle
A note on the φ-lessness of Voice in nonfinite forms
Prediction A
Prediction B
Conclusion
Full Text
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