Department of Linguistics

Sometimes it is the oddest facts that provide the best clues to significant properties of language, because their very oddity limits the space in which we are likely to search for possible explanations. In this talk, I argue that the strange behavior of Russian nominal phrases with paucal numerals ('two', 'three' and 'four') provide clues of just this type concerning the syntactic side of morphological case. When a nominal phrase like the Russian counterpart of 'these last two beautiful tables' occupies a nominative environment, the pre-numeral demonstrative and adjective ('these last') bear nominative plural morphology, and the numeral itself is nominative. The post-numeral adjective ('beautfiul'), however, is often genitive plural; and the noun ('table') is genitive singular -- a situation that the illustrious Russian grammarian Peshkovsky (1956) characterized as "a typical example of the degree to which grammatical and logical thinking may diverge". I suggest that the behavior of these phrases is actually entirely logical -- once one adopts a particular structural analysis of the Russian DP. and a particular view of the nature of case morphology. Developing ideas by Richards (2007), I propose that Russian is a covert case-stacking language in which the realization of out case morphemes suppresses the pronunciation of inner morphemes -- with this process restricted, however, by the phonological freezing effect of phase spell-out (Chomsky 1995; 2001). The case affixes themselves — traditionally classified using case-specific sui generis terminology (nominative, genitive, etc.) — are actually instantiations of the various syntactic categories: N, P and V. The interaction of this proposal with the theory of phases and spellout raises at least the possibility that there is no special theory of morphological case.

In this talk, I will discuss work with Lanko Marusic and Bill Badecker that looks at verbal agreement with conjoined noun phrase subjects, such as /erasers-fem.pl and pens-neuter.pl were sold/, in Slovenian, a language with three genders and three numbers. The research consists of four parts: Experiment 1: Effects of Mixing Genders Experiment 2: Effects of Directionality Experiment 3: Effects of Mixing Numbers Experiment 4: The Curious Case of 5&Ups I demonstrate that the grammatical option of agreeing with only a single conjunct -- even in preverbal position -- is robustly attested, and propose that it arises (ontogenetically and phylogentically, so to speak) due to the ambiguity in the paradigm created by syncretisms. This single-conjunct agreement is usually optional, but is (a) impossible when inconsistent with the number of the conjunction as a whole, and (b) forced when the conjunction as a whole has no number, due to the presence of numerically quantified noun phrases, such as "5 cars".

Phonological variation is conditioned by both grammatical and non-grammatical factors. Nearly all models of variation in phonological theory are exclusively grammatical, and do not account for the influence of non-grammatical factors. In this talk, I argue that an adequate theory of phonological variation should account for both grammatical and non-grammatical influences on variation, and I develop a noisy Harmonic Grammar model of variation that can do this. I focus on t/d-deletion in English as an example of a variable phenomenon influenced by both grammatical and non-grammatical factors, and use the influence of usage frequency on this process as an example of a non-grammatical factor impacting variation. The proposal developed in this talk is compared to existing models of phonological variation both form the theoretical phonology tradition, and from variationist sociolinguistics.

Distributed Agreement in Archi and Other Languages

Alice C. Harris and Andrei Antonenko

Baker (2008) proposes a theory of agreement, including the Agreement parameter, given below in (1):

(1) a. The Direction of Agreement Parameter (preliminary) F agrees with DP/NP only if DP/NP asymmetrically c-commands F.

b. The Case-Dependency of Agreement Parameter F agrees with DP/NP only if F values the case feature of DP/NP or vice versa. (Baker 2008: 15)

According to Baker, in languages with a positive setting for Parameter 1, if a certain Thead agrees with some NP X, it must necessarily assign a (nominative) case to it. Therefore, agreement on both auxiliary and main verb with the same NP X is impossible, since that would result in multiple case assignment to the same NP, which is impossible. If, however, agreement does not depend on case, distributed agreement (agreement of a single type, such as subject-verb agreement, found on two or more words within a clause) is possible, as it does not require assignment of multiple case values to the same NP. Thus, these parameters make the strong prediction that distributed agreement is found only in languages that do not value the case feature of DP/NP, as in some Bantu languages. For example, in Kinande, a Bantu language, agreement is not with the nominative nominal, but with the sentence-initial nominal, as in (2).

(2) Omo-mulongo mw-a-hik-a mukali. (Kinande, Baker 2008:158) loc.18-village.3 18S-t-arrive-fv woman.1 ‘At the village arrived a woman.’

On the basis of recent fieldwork on Archi, a language of the Nakh-Daghestanian (Northwest Caucasian) language family, we show that this prediction is not borne out. We show first that in Archi verbs agree in gender (class) and number with the absolutive nominal (subject of an intransitive or direct object of a transitive), regardless of word order. Thus, Archi has a negative setting for parameter 1a and a positive setting for parameter 1b, similar in these respects to Indo-European languages. This means that Baker’s theory predicts that Archi could not have distributed agreement.

(3) shows that, in fact, Archi does have distributed agreement.

(3) Mohamad-li Rasul c-w-arši w-i (Fieldwork 2007) Mohamed-ERG Rasul.ABSL praise-I I-AUX ‘Mohamad praises Rasul.’ (Roman numerals represent the gender-classes of Archi, and –w- is the marker of genderclass I.)

The fact that agreement shows up in both the lexical verb, ‘praise’, and the auxiliary indicates that Archi has distributed agreement.

We show that Archi also demonstrates distributed agreement with modal auxiliaries, with agreeing adverbs, with ‘seem’, and with emphatic pronouns. We show that similar facts are found in Chechen, another language of the Nakh-Daghestanian family; in Daga, an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea; and in a number of other languages on which we have only secondary data.

We suggest that within Baker’s hypothesis agreement such as that in (3) can be treated as concord, which lies outside the paramters stated in (1). On the other hand, if this approach is taken, it raises the issue of whether (1) really makes testable predictions.

References

Baker, Mark. 2008. The Syntax of Agreement and Concord. Cambridge University Press

The lecture involves extensive research and data on V2 and wh- in a number of Germanic languages and dialects, as well as original fieldwork, related to theoretical questions about the left-periphery and Phase theory.

A gathering of all the department members, including faculty, students, visitors and staff, to be introduced to each other and take a group photo.