Syntax and Semantics

Same but different

Daniel Hardt

Line Mikkelsen

2015

In this paper, we argue that same is fundamentally different from different, in thatsame imposes a discourse condition on eventualities, while different compares individuals. This difference has not been noted in previous literature. Furthermore, in the literature on same, there has been a persistent puzzle about the contribution of the definite article with whichsame must co-occur. We show that this puzzle is resolved once the contribution of same is adjusted to apply to eventualities: then the definite article can be interpreted in the usual way, as generating a presupposition about...

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VP anaphora and verb-second order in Danish

Line Mikkelsen

2015

This paper argues that Danish verb-second clauses have two structural instantiations and that each structure is associated with distinct information-structural properties. Information-structurally undifferentiated V2 clauses are realized as TPs, whereas information-structurally differentiated V2 clauses are CPs. The evidence for this correlation comes from the behavior of the overt VP anaphor det, which exhibits a complex, but principled, positioning pattern in V2 clauses. I develop a feature-driven analysis of V2 clauses that accounts for previously unnoticed...

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Plural exponence in the Nez Perce DP: a DM analysis

Amy Rose Deal

2016

This paper analyzes two patterns of number marking in the DP in Nez Perce (Sahaptian) within the framework of Distributed Morphology. The first involves under-realization of plural on nouns. Number has classically been understood as a feature inherent to nouns, rather than to adjectives that modify them. In Nez Perce, however, only a small set of nouns show number morphology, whereas number morphology is highly productive on adjectival modifiers. Adjectives in fact may realize the plural more than once per word—an instance of multiple exponence. I show that the puzzle of under-...

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Syntactic Ergativity: Analysis and Identification

Amy Rose Deal

2016

Some languages showing morphological ergativity in case and/or agreement also show ergative patterns in core syntactic domains — syntactic ergativity. The most-studied type of syntactic ergativity is a ban on the A-bar movement of ergative subjects; an additional type concerns the distribution of absolutives in nonfinite clauses. This article first presents the standard view of syntactic ergativity, which is closely connected to the treatment of ergative as an inherent case. Evidence from Shipibo suggests that a ban on ergative A-bar extraction does not require inherent ergative....