Iberia: An International Journal of Theoretical Linguistics - 2009 - Vol. 1 - Nº 1

URI permanente para esta colecciónhttps://hdl.handle.net/11441/72118

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  • Acceso AbiertoArtículo
    Language Quarks
    (Universidad de Sevilla, 2009) Sigurdsson, Halldór Ármann
    This paper very briefly summarizes the results of recent research into the nature of grammatical features and relations (Sigurðsson 2004 et seq.). While morphology operates with discrete (albeit abstract) features and feature values, syntax builds and operates on relations. Many, perhaps all syntactic relations involve silent active heads, language quarks. Quarks cannot be materialized or absolutely located in linguistic ‘space’, and hence there can be no one-to-one correlations between them and ‘concrete material’, such as discrete morphological features. Minimalist syntax is a partly successful theory of I-language, but a plausible theory of language externalization remains to be developed.
  • Acceso AbiertoArtículo
    Merge over move and the Extended Projection Principle: MOM and the EPP Revisited
    (Universidad de Sevilla, 2009) Castillo, Juan Carlos; Drury, John E.; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.
    A class of proposals are examined that aim to avoid problems that arise in various instantiations of the ‘Merge over Move’ (MOM) cost-ofoperation distinction. It is concluded that while the mechanisms introduced there exhibit independently interesting features, they subtract substantially from the interest of the MOM economy of derivation explanations. The removal of an assumption will then be considered that makes the core cases involving there-constructions a problem to begin with: that non-finite T must host a specifier position (checking an EPP/D-feature). Denying the existence of such features removes the problem that the MOM distinction was introduced to solve, allowing the core cases of associate-movement vs. expletive-insertion to arise as a case of true optionality. Consequences for other phenomena are examined and the proposal is found to be consistent with much recent research investigating these phenomena.
  • Acceso AbiertoArtículo
    On Long-Distance Agree
    (Universidad de Sevilla, 2009) Boeckx, Cedric
    The present work examines the empirical reach of the minimalist operation Agree responsible for feature-licensing. I focus on patterns of socalled long-distance agreement and show that although not all instances of long-distance agreement that have been identified in the literature are unambiguous instances of ‘pure’ Agree (at a distance), at least some are. For these, an operation like Agree appears empirically necessary.
  • Acceso AbiertoArtículo
    The Problem of Fragment Answers
    (Universidad de Sevilla, 2009) Santos, Ana Lúcia
    In this paper, I discuss the status of fragment answers to yes-no questions, based on facts from European Portuguese. I argue, along the lines of argumentation in Merchant (2004), that there is reason to believe that at least some of these fragments are derived through deletion. However, I show that data from EP does not support Merchant's analysis of fragments as constituents moved to the left periphery before deletion. This leaves us with the problem of non-constituent deletion, which I argue is not a problem for a phonological deletion theory of ellipsis.
  • Acceso AbiertoArtículo
    On Freezing Effects
    (Universidad de Sevilla, 2009) Gallego de Nova, Ángel
    This paper discusses the nature of Rizzi’s (2006, 2007) Criterial Freezing, a mechanism yielding island effects on XPs moving into edge positions within the Left Periphery to satisfy dedicated ‚criteria‛. Contrary to Rizzi’s (2006) feature checking implementation, it is claimed that freezing, as originally outlined in Chomsky (2000, 2001) Probe-Goal framework, is restricted to purely formal features of the Case/agreement systems, criterial formatives (e.g., [topic], [focus], [wh]) being irrelevant for minimality purposes. Consequently, it is argued that Criterial Freezing is best regarded as an interface constraint precluding XPs from being assigned multiple interpretations of the same type, for legibility/convergence reasons ultimately related to the Principle of Full Interpretation.
  • Acceso AbiertoArtículo
    The internal structure of compounds: a phase account of aphasia
    (Universidad de Sevilla, 2009) Ulfsbjorninn, Shanti
    This study uses aphasia to support a phase-based derivation of compounds. Our research is nestled within the overarching and truly foundational debate between holists (Butterworth 1983, Bybee 2001, Starosta to appear) and atomists (Taft and Forster 1975, Rastle et al. 2004, Fiorentino and Poeppel 2007). The former camp maintains that compounds are stored devoid of any internal morphological structure; while the latter insist that compounds are derived by concatenation of constituent parts. Morphophonological analysis of the contrasting behaviour of simplex and compound words in Dinka and English (based on Kaye 1995) bears a striking similarity to the derivation by phase (Chomsky 2001) (cf. Newell and Piggott 2006, Newell and Scheer 2008, Scheer 2008, forth.). To confirm this novel phase-based account, contra the holists’ null-hypothesis, we ran an experiment. We tested an aphasic patient (RC), who produced high error rates with trisyllabic simplex words and negligible error rates with disyllabic simplex words. The divisive question: What would trisyllabic compounds pattern with? The surface inclined holists predict they should pattern with the long simplex words; conversely, the atomist, for whom a trisyllabic compound will be processed either [[σ σ] [σ]] or [[σ] [σ σ]], predict they should pattern with the short simplex words. The latter turns out to be correct. Our experiment shows a compound is derived by independently sending its constituent parts to spell out, once there the constituent parts are no longer accessible to grammatical operations.