In Part I it is proposed that two apparently syntactic phenomena in the Germanic languages are accounted for by allowing the morphological component to filter syntactic derivations. First (Chapter I), it is proposed that the parametric variation in the licensing of the specifier of TP (an intermediate functional projection) can be derived from the verbal inflectional paradigms; certain morphological patterns require fusion, a requirement which in turn places restrictions on possible syntactic derivations. In Chapter II it is proposed that verbal inflection may take place via morphological merger, which requires adjacency. Syntactic operations which would disrupt the adjacency relation in the morphology are therefore blocked.
In Part II the assumptions, common in the literature, which underlie the syntactic analyses in Part I are reconsidered. In particular it is argued in Chapter III that the base and derived positions of the principal arguments are stacked; that is, objects do not cross over subjects in moving to their derived position. In Chapter IV the view that floating quantifiers mark the positions of traces of their antecedents is challenged.
Part III attempts to salvage and extend the accounts of Part I in light of the revised assumptions proposed in Part II. In Chapter V I introduce the Free Agr Parameter, which states that languages vary with regard to the presence or absence of Agr-Phrases. The specifiers of Agr-Phrases are the derived positions for arguments as evidenced by object shift and other phenomena. It is also proposed that the presence or absence of an Agr head dominating Infl determines whether or not the verb raises out of the VP in non verb-second environments, correctly predicting a further point of parametric variation in the Germanic languages. Chapter VI investigates the possibility of pursuing these analyses while maintaining that the syntactic derivation cannot be filtered by the morphophonological component(s). It is argued that this is possible, if the grammar admits of a process determining which copy of a moved element is pronounced. The morphological procedure determining which copy is pronounced is constrained by other morphological considerations, especially the adjacency condition on morphological merger investigated in Chapter II.
Thesis Supervisors:
PART ONE - MORPHOSYNTAX
CHAPTER ONE: FITTING FUSED FUNCTIONAL HEADS 24
1. Syntax - The Spec,TP Parameter 26
2. Morphology - Fusion and complex heads 32
3. The Analysis 36
3.1 Icelandic versus English 36
3.2 The Full Paradigm 39
3.2.1 German and Dutch 41
3.2.2 Mainland Scandinavian. 42
3.2.3 Yiddish and Afrikaans 43
3.2.4 Faroese 45
3.3 Summary 48
4. Learnability and morpho-syntax tensions. 49
5. Concluding remarks. 52
CHAPTER TWO: WHAT DOES ADJACENCY DO? 53
1. Affixes and adjacency 55
2. English Inflection and Do-support 59
2.1 What Adjacency Does. 59
2.2 Beyond the obvious - other instances of do-support. 68
3. Object Shift 74
3.1 OS-1 - The SVO Languages 75
3.2 Object Shift II - The SOV languages 85
4. Extensions 87
4.1 Modern Irish Complementizers 88
4.1.1 The Problem 88
4.1.2 IP-Adjuncts 89
4.2.3 Against Syntactic Lowering - NPI Licensing 92
4.2 Bambara transitive perfectives 96
5. Conclusion 104
PART TWO - SYNTAX
CHAPTER THREE: LEAPFROGGING AND STACKING 110
1. In this corner... The arguments for leapfrogging. 117
1.1 Equidistance, Shortest Move, and Holmberg's generalization. 117
1.1.1 Object Shift in SOV Germanic is Object Shift 123
1.1.2 Parasitic gaps and pseudo-gaps 134
1.1.3 Holmberg's generalization also fails in Irish 143
1.2 Floating Quantifiers and object shift. 145
1.2.1 Painting the houses red... 146
1.2.2 FQs and double object constructions 149
The architecture of double object constructions 150
2. And in this corner... Arguments for stacking. 159
2.1 Jonas & Bobaljik 1993 162
2.2 Evidence from Mapping 166
2.3 Object Shift in Modern Irish 171
2.4 The Indirect Object Always Comes First 174
2.4.1 Higher IO pos'n is lower than the lowest S pos'n 177
2.4.2 Lower IO pos'n is higher than the highest DO pos'n 179
2.4.3 Swedish 184
3. Conclusion 187
CHAPTER FOUR: FLOATING QUANTIFIERS ARE ADVERBS 191
1. On all and similar things. 194
2. The Distribution of Floating Quantifiers 203
2.1 DP trace, not left edge of predicate = *FQ 204
2.2 Left edge of predicate, no DP trace = Ã FQ 212
2.3 PRO and event modification. 217
2.4 Another problem for [all PRO] case mismatch 221
2.5 All can't always be a part of the trace. 223
3. The adverbial nature of floating quantifiers 226
3.1 Floating quantifier ~ adverb interactions 227
3.2 Floated and prenominal chacun "each". 235
3.3 Adverbial interpretive rules, all together... 238
4. Conclusion some final remarks on c-command and agreement. 242
4.1 Antecedent must be an A-position. 243
4.2 Antecedent must precede or c-command FQ. 244
4.3 Predicted ambiguity of antecedents. 248
PART THREE - MORPHOSYNTAX REVISITED
CHAPTER FIVE: THE FREE AGR PARAMETER: NP POSITIONS, MORPHOLOGY AND VERB MOVEMENT 252
1. The Free Agr Parameter 257
2. Verb raising. An account. 267
2.1 The assumptions. 267
2.2 The simple case: I + V 272
2.3 Verb Second - CV2 276
2.4 V2 - the analysis 283
2.5 Complex IP = AgrP + IP 286
2.6 Conclusion 293
3. Extensions. Triggers for movements. 297
3.1 "Affix" is not a syntactic feature 299
3.2 Last resort 308
4. Attraction is Myopic: The mechanism of verb raising 324
5. Post Script - Auxiliaries 330
4.1 Swedish 331
4.2 Optional infinitives 333
4.3 German 334
CHAPTER SIX: OBJECT SHIFT AS A MORPHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON 337
1. Holmberg's generalization again 339
1.1 Object shift and adjacency 339
1.2 Object shift revisited 343
2. Copy Pronunciation: Single Output Syntax 348
3. Extending the system - some speculations 354
3.1 A'-movement at LF: Apparent subjacency violations 355
3.2 On Agr-phrases 361
3.3 Null affixes and pronunciation 363
REFERENCES 367