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2005 LSA Institute Linguistic Society of America
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LSA.225 | The Internal Syntax of DPs (with special reference to adjectives and relative clauses)

Guglielmo Cinque
TR 1:00-2:40
location: 32-123

A N-raising analysis of the internal syntax of Romance (vs. Germanic) DPs encounters certain problems. The foremost of these is its inability to express a fundamental generalization governing the interpretation of prenominal and postnominal adjectives in the two language families. It will be argued that N-raising as such has to be abandoned in favor of XP-movement, a conclusion supported by evidence coming from other language families. It will be suggested that adjectives have two sources: they can either be merged as specifiers of dedicated functional projections or as reduced relative clauses. It will also be suggested on the basis of comparative evidence that relative clauses are merged in prenominal position.

Prerequisites:
Guglielmo Cinque "On the Evidence for Partial N-movement in the Romance DP,” in G. Cinque, J. Koster, J.-Y. Pollock, L. Rizzi and R. Zanuttini (eds.) Paths Towards Universal Grammar. Studies in Honor of Richard S. Kayne . Georgetown University Press, 1994.

Richard Kayne The Antisymmetry of Syntax . MIT Press, 1994.

Sproat, R. and C. Shih "Prenominal Adjectival Ordering in English and Mandarin," NELS 18, 1991.