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Joan Mascaro Colloquium

Joan Mascaró
Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona

Phonological and morphological effects of asymmetrical DP concord

Friday, February 29, 3:30 pm, Machmer W-26

Abstract

I will examine several instances of asymmetrical concord within the DP that show special properties. In one case, apparent s-deletion in a variety of Central Catalan is subject to three heterogenous conditions: a phonological condition (s must be final in a complex coda and followed by a consonant), a lexical condition (s must be the plural morph), and a syntactic condition (the lexical element ending in s must be prenominal). Thus in bon-s vin-s blanc-s franceso-s 'good-pl wine-pl white-pl French-pl', the plural marker in prenominal bon-s doesn't appear, but plural markers in non-prenominal vin-s and blanc-s show up.

Another case is masculine singular allomorphy in Italian and Spanish (It. buon gioc-o - gioc-o buon-o, Sp. buen jueg-o - jueg-o buen-o 'good play). A third case is the lack of concord of prenominal elements with feminine nouns with initial[á] in Spanish, an extension of el/la allomorphy (aquel (masc.) áre-a (fem.) geogràfic-a (fem.) 'that geographical area'). Assume N is final within the DP and raising causes agreement with elements appearing to its right, but agreement with the rest takes place at PF. This forces postnominal agreement, but leaves prenominal agreement subject to PF conditions, which now can include allomorphic and phonological conditioning. In the first case, for instance, non-agreeing bon, a bare root, will be preferred to the number-inflected bon-s because it doesn't violate the marked structure CsC even if it violates (PF) Concord.