Syntax-morphology Interface Research Articles

The syntax-morphology interface: a structure for infinitive nominalizations in Brazilian Portuguese

Este trabalho investiga o fenômeno de nominalização das formas infinitivas no português brasileiro (cantar – o cantar). Assumimos, a partir da perspectiva sintática de formação de palavras desenvolvida na Morfologia Distribuída (HALLE; MARANTZ, 1993; MARANTZ, 1997), que as propriedades do infinitivo nominal podem ser explicadas através da combinação dos diferentes núcleos funcionais presentes na sua estrutura sintática. A questão de base deste trabalho é, então, especificar quais são esses núcleos e em que sequência hierárquica eles são organizados na sintaxe. Para tanto, descrevemos as propriedades empíricas dos infinitivos nominais do PB e propomos que eles funcionam como os Nominais de Evento Complexo, na tipologia de Grimshaw (1990). A partir desse comportamento, argumentamos em favor da existência de três núcleos de natureza verbal na constituição do infinitivo nominal: (i) o categorizador v, responsável pela categoria verbal da base, pela leitura de evento e pela introdução do argumento interno; (ii) o núcleo Voice (KRATZER, 1996), responsável pela introdução do argumento externo e (iii) um núcleo de aspecto, que traz a leitura imperfectiva e abriga a morfologia de infinitivo. Essa sequência funcional está abaixo de núcleos de natureza nominal: o categorizador n e o núcleo D, responsáveis pelas propriedades nominais da formação. Essa estrutura sintática é capaz de abarcar as propriedades empíricas do infinitivo nominal, além de revelar uma forte interação entre morfologia e sintaxe, uma vez que os argumentos presentes na estrutura são inseridos antes mesmo que a forma nominal esteja efetivamente formada na sintaxe. Por fim, argumentamos que esses infinitivos nominais constituem uma importante evidência (contra GRIMSHAW, 1990; ALEXIADOU, 2001) de que nominalizações zero podem ter estrutura argumental obrigatória.

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 notable 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 these 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. Additionally, following Thoms (2010), I argue that C is targeted in sluicing, and as a result sluicing destroys the context that would trigger que. In this way, French sluicing provides support for the idea that ellipsis is able to bleed morphological operations (Saab & Lipták 2016; among others). The benefit of this analysis is that it is able to capture sluicing in French, while simultaneously explaining the behavior of quoi more generally.

Clause-sensitivity of Inflectional Morphology in L2 English

Abstract: The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2000) developed in line with the Minimalist theory of grammar (Chomsky, 1995 et seq.) supports the view of L2 acquisition that syntactic properties are acquired early while the acquisition of interface properties is delayed. One of the interface properties is inflectional morphology on English verbs, which involves subject-verb agreement at the syntax-morphology interface. Previous studies have revealed that for learners of L2 English, acquiring third person singular -s is harder than regular past -ed due to the absence of meaningless morphemes in L1. However, one question has been disregarded: Where in a clause are these morphemes inserted more successfully? Given that subordinate clauses are more complex than main clauses, this study examines the clause-sensitivity of L2 inflectional morphology. 44 Japanese university students learning English as L2 were asked to complete a grammaticality judgment test and write an essay about a specified topic. The learners’ inflection pattern was surveyed through the test scores and text analysis of the essays. Results show that -s tends to be omitted regardless of clause types, but -ed is omitted more frequently in complement clauses than main clauses. These are due to negative L1 transfer on L2 inflectional morphology and our findings imply the importance of clauses as meaningful units in L2 grammar instructions.
 
 Keywords: Clause-sensitivity, Inflectional morphology, L2 grammar instructions, The Interface Hypothesis.

Constraints on the argument structure of dative verbs in advanced L3 English

ABSTRACT This study investigates the acquisition of the argument structure of dative verbs in L3 English. The learners are L1 Moroccan Arabic–L2 French adults advanced in L3 English. The study considers whether the L3 learners in a formal foreign language instruction context can develop nativelike sensitivity to the semantic and morphological constraints on the distribution of double objects and prepositional phrases in dative constructions. The results of a grammaticality judgment and correction task reveal overgeneralization effects on non-alternating verbs in advanced L3 ultimate attainment. At the same time, the L3 learners show nativelike sensitivity to instances of subtle semantics, but not morphology, associated with dative constructions. The analysis of individual results provides empirical evidence supporting the claim that syntax–semantics and syntax–morphology interface properties are acquirable even if they are language-specific and previously inactive in the L1/L2. Thus, in ultimate attainment, L3 acquisition is another instance of L2 acquisition.

Word Formation at the Syntax-Morphology Interface: Denominal Adjectives in Bulgarian

A major goal in the study of the interface between syntax and morphology (understood as part of the PF component) is to understand mismatches between syntactic representations and the corresponding morphological representations. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian provide one such mismatch. In morphology, they are composed of a nominal component D adjoined to an adjectivizing head F. In syntax, however, the nominal component D behaves like a nominal phrase occupying the specifier of F. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian thus present both a structural mismatch whereby a syntactic specifier-head relation is mapped to head adjunction at PF and a mismatch between the syntactic and morphological category of denominal adjectives. I analyze these mismatches as the result of a morphological (postsyntactic) operation, which converts nominal phrases into denominal adjectives postsyntactically, as part of the word formation process that combines the nominal phrases with adjectivizing morphology. The proposal is an extension of the theory of the syntax-morphology mapping developed within Distributed Morphology ( Embick and Noyer 2001 , et seq.) on the basis of Marantz’s (1984) Morphological Merger and relies on the implementation of Morphological Merger developed by Harizanov (2014a) in the context of cliticization, itself an elaboration of Matushansky’s (2006) and Nevins’s (2011) proposals.

CLIL at the linguistic interfaces

AbstractThis study explores the effect of CLIL on the acquisition of nominal morphology (syntax-morphology interface) and article use (syntax-semantics-discourse-interface), linguistic areas that have been scarcely investigated in CLIL settings. Here we compare article omission and overuse errors in an oral production task performed by L1 Basque-Spanish learners of L3 English in two CLIL and non-CLIL groups matching in age at testing time and amount of exposure. Results indicate that as regards nominal morphology, CLIL and non-CLIL learners are equal in terms of the omission of the definite and the indefinite article, but CLIL learners learn to solve article overuse more quickly than non-CLIL learners. Taking together these results and the findings from our previous study (Martínez-Adrián & Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015a), which revealed the non-existence of CLIL benefits with respect to the acquisition of verbal morphology, we conclude that while the syntax-morphology interface seems to be unaffected by CLIL, CLIL can aid in the acquisition of features from the syntax-semantics-discourse interface.

L1 Influence and Interface Effects in L2 English Unaccusatives

The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011; Sorace & Filiaci, 2006; Sorace & Serratrice, 2009; Tsimpli & Sorace, 2006, among others) states that the grammar external interface is more vulnerable for advanced L2ers or bilinguals than the grammar internal interface, and L1 discourse influence is one factor responsible for their residual difficulty (Sorace, 2005; Sorace, Serratrice, Filiaci & Baldo, 2009). Their study, however, did not disentangle interface effects from L1 influence and it is unclear whether the residual difficulty of advanced L2ers is due to interface effects or L1 influence. The results of the present study which teases the two factors apart show that L1 influence is stronger than interface effects. The results without L1 influence show that the syntax-discourse interface is more vulnerable than the syntax-morphology interface, supporting the Interface Hypothesis. This study examines two sets of data, cross-sectional and longitudinal, on overpassivization of L2 English unaccusative verbs by Chinese and Korean speakers.

¿Gustas tú entrar? Una explicación post-sintáctica sobre el comportamiento gramatical del verbo gustar en contextos de cortesía del español hispanoamericano

This paper analyzes some issues regarding the case assignment of the verb gustar in their use in courtesy contexts such as Gustamos comprar carteras, ?Gustas tu entrar? , etc. In these constructions -practically disappeared in Iberian Spanish, but still productive in American Spanish-, the referred psychological verb does not only assign the nominative case to the experiencer and the accusative to the theme, but also shows a desiderative lexical meaning in much the same way as desear, querer, etc. I discuss its case assignment processes adopting a novel perspective, namely, m-case hierarchy and post-syntactic agreement hypothesis. Then, it is argued that the exponent /gust/ appears as a suppletive form of a garden-variety desiderative verbal root remaining in the domain of an honorific aspect head drawing on recent studies on the syntax-morphology interface.

Noun Phrase or Compound Noun? An Investigation of N + A and N + N Boundary Cases in Persian

The present study seeks to investigate the demarcation between noun phrases (NPs) and compound nouns (CNs) in Persian at the syntax-morphology interface. This objective is accomplished through the examination of two most complex nominal patterns, viz. N + A, N + N, with special focus on boundary cases, i.e. the intermediate constructs which possess some properties of both NPs and CNs simultaneously and thus demonstrate contradictory reactions to the various NP-CN demarcation criteria. The results indicate that boundary cases ensue from partial syntactic erosion of NPs through pure lexicalization, whereby NPs turn into CNs without center-switching or category change. This study also shows that almost all boundary cases have no potential for syntactic modification of their elements. It is further demonstrated that N + A and N + N boundary cases are endocentric, head-initial constructs with optional or obligatory internal inflection as well as Ezafe. Syntactic modifiability is also introduced as the most efficient NP-CN demarcation criterion in Persian since it is the first property lost in NP lexicalization process.

‘행위성 명사+이다’ 구문의 통사론적 분석

This paper presents a syntactic analysis of the constructions which consist of a verbal noun and a copular verb ‘ita’. The previous approaches can be divided into three types, depending on the level of grammar where a verbal noun, assumed as N, incorporates into a verb ita: the lexicon-formation approach, the syntax-formation approach, and the LF-formation approach. All the approaches turn out to have non-trivial theoretical problems with respect to syntax-morphology interface and hence not to be sustained. Based on Distributed morphology, this paper argues that a verbal noun projects a Root Phrase and can license its internal argument crucially without the help of ‘ita’ and that ‘ita’ is a dummy verb which is inserted to support inflectional elements. This paper supports a syntax-driven approach to morphology.

Classic problems at the syntax-morphology interface: Whose are they?

There are fascinating problems at the syntax-morphology interface which tend to be missed. I offer a brief explanation of why that may be happening, then give a Canonical Typology perspective, which brings these problems to the fore. I give examples showing that the phenomena could in principle be treated either by syntactic rules (but these would be complex) or within morphology (but this would involve redundancy). Thus ˋnon-autonomous' case values, those which have no unique form but are realized by patterns of syncretism, could be handled by a rule of syntax (one with access to other features, such as number) or by morphology (with resulting systematic syncretisms). I concentrate on one of the most striking sets of data, the issue of prepositional government in Latvian, and outline a solution within Network Morphology using structured case values.

Shipibo-Spanish: Differences in residual transfer at the syntax-morphology and the syntax-pragmatics interfaces

In this article, we present a study that tests the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace and Filiaci, 2006) at the syntax—pragmatics interface and its possible extension to the syntax—morphology interface in two groups of first language (L1) speakers of Shipibo with different levels of formal instruction in Spanish as a second language (L2). Shipibo is a mixed null subject language that only allows third person null subjects and has no person morphology on the verb. Spanish is a null subject language with rich person morphology on the verb. Evidence of acquisition of a core syntactic property (the extension of null subject licensing from third to first person subjects) was found in the speech of both groups of Shipibo speakers. No significant evidence of residual non-native patterns at the syntax—morphology interface was found (subject—verb mismatches in person) in the group with higher levels of formal instruction. At the syntax—pragmatics interface, we found non-native distribution of first person null subjects in both groups of Shipibo speakers that indicates residual transfer of discourse organization properties concerning topics from Shipibo into Spanish.

Jairo Nunes (Ed.), <b>Minimalist Essays on Brazilian Portuguese Syntax Linguistic Aktuell/Linguistics Today 142.</b> Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009, 243 pp

This book consists of a collection of ten essays on some major syntactic properties of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) considered in light of recent developments of the Minimalist program (Chomsky, 1995 et seq ). The essays are grouped around two intertwined themes: (i) Movement and empty categories and (ii) The syntax-morphology interface. The discussion offered in each essay strengthens and supports the results presented in other chapters, a feature that confers on the volume a high degree of coherence. Though the book is devoted to a series of themes in BP syntax, it will be of interest to a wide spectrum of scholars, ranging from those interested in the more empirical aspects of (micro)variation to those grappling with the theoretical or methodological issues that arise when considering linguistic phenomena from a Minimalist point of view.

Unaccusative transitives and the Person-Case Constraint effects in Kurdish

The purpose of this paper is to unravel the intricacies brought about by the eccentric pattern of agreement in Kurdish unaccusative transitive constructions. 1 1 The Kurdish dialect under discussion is called ‘ Sorani’ which is spoken in the Kurdish areas across the border of Iran and Iraq limited to Kurdistan and Azarbaijan-e Gharbi provinces in Iran and Suleymania and Erbil provinces in Iraq. We will propose that there is a strict correlation between Agree in syntax ( Chomsky, 2000, 2001) and Agreement in morphology ( Bobaljik, 2008) to the effect that the φ-features shared by the controller and the target of Agreement in PF must match the corresponding φ-features shared via Agree in narrow syntax. We will specifically argue that the φ-feature mismatch at the syntax–morphology interface is responsible for the emergence of the Person-Case Constraint (PCC) effects. Viewing the PCC from this perspective provides adequate grounds to account for the default agreement and focus movement as ways of circumventing the PCC in Kurdish. At an explanatory level this work presents corroborative evidence to conceive of the PCC as an epiphenomenon ensuing from the interplay of the more general principles at the syntax–morphology interface.

The typology of syncretisms and the status of feature structure. Verbal paradigms across 355 Dutch dialects

In this article syncretic patterning in the present indicative paradigm of the verb kloppen (‘to knock’) is described for 355 Dutch dialects taken from the morphological atlas of Dutch dialects (Van den Berg 2003). Following Baerman et al. (2005, The syntax-morphology interface. A study of syncretism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), I distinguish syncretisms driven by (universal) feature structure and language specific sources of syncretism. I present independent evidence for the role of phonology, pragmatics and amplification in the formation of syncretic patterns of Dutch. The benefit of the study of the interaction between language specific routes to syncretism and feature structure is threefold. We know language specific routes to syncretism can obscure feature structure. By distinguishing the different routes to syncretism we canalsorevealthe strength of feature structure. Secondly, distinguishing sources of syncretisms enables us to understand similarities and differences in the cross-linguistic patterning of syncretisms. Thirdly, we can link typological data to language acquisition patterns.

OV–VO in English and the role of case marking in word order

It is shown that the connection posited by Roberts (1997) between the loss of case marking and the shift from OV to VO in English is contradicted by the facts of English and the other Germanic languages. It is argued that this failure is not the result of an incorrect handling of the syntactic or morphological details, but of the way that the proposal straddles the syntax–morphology interface. Parallels are explored with research on verb raising and agreement, and it is proposed that, in order to be more than a descriptive generalization, the claim that some morphological property has a syntactic effect must be couched in terms that both the morphology and the syntax can refer to in a principled way.

Studies in Contemporary Phrase Structure Grammar (review)

Reviewed by: Studies in contemporary phrase structure grammar ed. by Robert D. Levine, Georgia M. Green Michael A. Covington Studies in contemporary phrase structure grammar. Ed. by Robert D. Levine and Georgia M. Green. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. iv, 335. This book contains seven papers on aspects of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) preceded by a fast-paced introduction by the editors to the current version of HPSG (1–38) in which a number of quite different-looking notations are reconciled. A bit more explicitness would be welcome in places, e.g. examples 2 and 3 on pp. 3–4 actually encode different, small parts of example 1, and the connection among the three is not obvious. Likewise, it was not quite obvious to me how example 13 on p. 11 encodes the whole of tree 15, as the authors seem to indicate, rather than just the root of it. The account of equi and raising on p. 14 would have benefited from a couple of example sentences. However, perhaps this introduction was not meant for newcomers. On pp. 28–35 the editors give a good overview of the rest of the volume. Two of the papers analyze Japanese causatives and reach opposite conclusions. The question is whether causatives (such as tabesase ‘cause to eat’ from tabe ‘eat’) are syntactically complex structures or single words generated in the lexicon. In favor of the lexical account are the facts that the form of -(s)ase is morphologically conditioned; verb reduplication, honorification, and other processes treat tabesase (etc.) as a unit; and some causatives have undergone semantic drift. In favor of a nonlexical analysis: Adverbs can have scope over just the inner verb in a causative; a causative verb can be used with a noncausative gerundive, which takes on a causative sense, as if one -(s)ase were modifying two verbs; and there are some signs that binding and quantifier scope can ‘see into’ causatives. Christopher D. Manning, Ivan Sag, and Masayo Iida (39–79) argue that the lexicalist hypothesis is correct and that the resulting HPSG structure is rich enough to account for the putative counterevidence. Their key tactic is to move the two-level structure of a causative into its argument list, which is visible to quantifier scope and binding. Takao Gunji (119–60) takes the opposite tack, giving causatives a two-level structure in the syntax though not in the morphology or phonology. His crucial move is to make morphology a separate structural level from syntax. The other five papers are ‘A syntax and semantics for purposive adjuncts in HPSG’ (Michael J. R. Johnston, 80–118); ‘Modal flip and partial verb phrase fronting in German’ (Kathryn L. Baker, 161–98); ‘A lexical comment on a syntactic topic’ (i.e. topicalization, Kazuhiko Fukushima, 199–222); ‘Agreement and the syntax-morphology interface in HPSG’ (Andreas Kathol, 223–74); and ‘Partial VP and split NP topicalization in German’ (Erhard W. Hinrichs and Tsuneko Nakazawa, 275–332). All of them attack linguistic problems whose significance is not confined to HPSG. Michael A. Covington University of Georgia Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America

The VP within Process Nominals: Evidence from Adverbs and the VP Anaphor Do-So

Recent accounts of process nominals postulate a VP within the nominalized structure. A verb becomes a nominal by a head raising operation to a nominal affix. This view contrasts with analyses of process nominals as (pure) nominals with partial verbal properties, originally due to Chomsky (1970). Contributing to this debate, we will argue that direct evidence indicates that English process nominals contain a VP. Our evidence comes from the distribution of adverbs on the one hand, and from the presence of the VP anaphor do so in process nominals on the other. We show that a portion of the verbal extended projection specifically excluding IP or CP is present in process nominals. An array of word order facts about process nominals falls into place when we further assume that the verb is raised from VP over the subject, the object, and adverbs, adjoining to a nominal affix. Our analysis moreover adds to the evidence for functional structure above VP and supports particular claims about the syntax-morphology interface.

Themes in Greek Linguistics II

1. Introduction 2. List of Contributors 3. Section I: Phonology 4. Breaking up is (not) Hard to Do the case of the modern greek pt/kt sequences (by Pagoni-Tetlow, Stamatia) 5. Lexical Marking and Dominance in Modern Greek (by Revithiadou, Anthi) 6. Section II: Morphology 7. On the Morphological Status of Inflectional Features evidence from modern greek (by Ralli, Angela) 8. On What Happens if a 'Heart-conqueror' Meets The Projection Principle: A Representational Approach to Compounds and Projection (by Szigeti, Imre) 9. Section III: Syntax/Semantics 10. On Derived Nominals in Greek (by Alexiadou, Artemis) 11. Wh- and Direct Object Clitics Revisited (by Androulakis, Anna) 12. The Structure of Small Clauses in Modern Greek (by Spyropoulos, Vassilios) 13. Individual and Functional Readings for Focus, Wh- and Negative Operators evidence from greek (by Tsimpli, Ianthi Maria) 14. Clause Structure and Word Order in Modern Greek (by Tzanidaki, Dimitra Irini) 15. Section IV: Diachrony 16. Cappadocian Clitics and the Syntax-Morphology Interface (by Janse, Mark) 17. To Apiepsilonrho and O Opioiotaosigmaf untangling mediaeval greek relativisation (by Nicholas, Nick) 18. Index

A core morphology for Old English verbs

A characterization of the morphology of ‘regular’ Old English verbs is offered on the basis of a ‘word-and-paradigm’ approach to morphological structure. Thus rules of expression are formulated providing for the phonological realization(s) of (combinations of) morphosyntactic categories of tense, mood, person, number etc. However, it is argued that the organization of categories (in terms of compatibility and presupposition) differs with respect to the syntax–morphology interface and the morphology–phonology interface (the rules of expression). There is therefore proposed a set of rules of category realignment which relate the function-oriented system of categories to the expression-oriented system, which (among other things) minimize syncretism in the elements introduced by the rules of expression. Analysis of the preterite-present and weak-present verbs provides further support for this distinction in systems of category organization. The expression rules themselves do not introduce or realize ‘zeros’ and ‘mutations’ are interpreted as correspondences between base and derived/inflected form. An appendix offers a description of Present-day English verb inflexions for comparison.