WORKSHOP

University of Vienna, 11-12 June 2005

The Role of Morphology in Argument Expression and Interpretation

Morphology is undeniably involved in argument realization and interpretation. For instance, across languages unaccusatives in the standard sense systematically involve morphological marking that is shared by reflexive and/or passive predicates, involving among others a pronoun, a clitic or a verbal inflection. Syncretisms of this type, in which different syntactic constructions exhibit identical morphology, are essential to the understanding of the way in which syntax and morphology relate amongst themselves and to other components of the grammar. Under one influential proposal (Marantz 1984) the identical morphological expression of unaccusatives, passives and reflexives is taken to be symptomatic of a structural factor, namely the lack of an external argument. However, the reverse construal of the role of morphology is also plausible: unaccusative/intransitivizing (and/or other) morphology suppresses an (external) argument or argument position (depending on the theory), as in various accounts of so-called "suppression" phenomena involving special morphology. The issue is important since it may have an impact on the architecture of grammar. For instance, it is not clear whether and how the conception of morphology as an argument suppression operation in the syntax could be made compatible with a framework such as Distributed Morphology, since here morphology simply reads off the output of syntactic derivations by (among other things) supplying phonological content to positions in a tree structure. However, if derivation proceeds by phase then possibly morphology in one phase could influence syntax in the next phase. This workshop aims at addressing the issue of how exactly the role of morphological elements relating to argument expression and interpretation should be defined. We welcome insights on phenomena including but not limited to transitive-anticausative and/or other alternations, the passive, middle and reflexive formations, case alternations and their semantic effects, Burzio's generalization, etc.

SPEAKERS:

Hamida Demirdache University of Nantes
Hubert Haider University of Salzburg
Dalina Kallulli University of Vienna
Hilda Koopman and Dominique Sportiche UCLA
Alec Marantz MIT
Gillian Ramchand CASTL
Maria-Luisa Rivero University of Ottawa
Peter Svenonius CASTL
Jochen Trommer University of Leipzig
Edwin Williams Princeton University

PROGRAM


ABSTRACTS (in alphabetical order)

[To download in PDF, please click here.]

Hamida Demirdache

What do Pieces of Words "Name"?

In my talk, I will be providing strong arguments for a semantically causative analysis of both unaccusatives and unergatives - in particular, the implications of reflexive morphology in deriving both unaccusatives and unergatives in Salish. I will also discuss the role of morphology when it does not mirror the direction of the semantic derivation form causative > unaccusative - i.e. causativizing/transitivizing morphology.

Hubert Haider

Quirky Subjects - but only in VO with Morphological Case

Premise: directionality of identification of a head is the parametric factor for head-final vs. head-initial merger. Corollary: A head-initial projection ('VO') requires a functional identifier for the pre-head argument in the VP. In this case, The pre-head phrase moves to the spec of a functional projection. If nominative checking is not structurally implemented (i.e. not restricted to spec-head agreement of a specific functional projection), quirky subjects result from raising-to-spec of the DP merged last if that DP is not nominative (see Icelandic). Theorem 1: OV-languages cannot have quirky subject constructions Theorem 2: Languages without morphological case cannot have quirky subject constructions. 'Proof': to be presented in the presentation.

Dalina Kallulli

Yet another Syntactic Account of Unaccusativity

In this talk, I will attempt to provide a formal and uniform analysis of constructions with unaccusatives broadly conceived (i.e., including passives, reflexives, anticausatives and other non-alternating unaccusatives, etc.). The main claim that I will put forward is that all these construction types differ only in terms of the respective building blocks that enter syntactic computation but all arise through the same operation, namely suppression of a feature in v. In particular, I will argue that the distinction between passive and the anticausative formation is due to a feature in v that encodes the ontological event type of the (verbal) root.

Hilda Koopman and Dominique Sportiche

On the Form of Mirror Order Violations

Morphology is often argued to obey the Mirror Principle (Baker, 1985), with 1 >2 >3 corresponding to 3-2-1- order (inner affixes are hierarchally closer to the root than outer affixes). I will discuss cases where morphology does not mirror the syntax, and where we find linear orders that we also find in syntax (3-1-2), or (4-1-2-3). These violations are frequent in African languages which show extensive verbal morphology, and raise the question how they should be analyzed. I will present one case study from Wolof and show that the properties of these morphological objects follow from general syntactic principles and independently motivated syntactic hierachies.

Alec Marantz

Objects out of the Lexicon: Objects as Events

The empirical core of the paper will be the demonstration that incremental theme objects, including objects of VPs of creation, are not arguments of the lexical verb. Rather, as sisters to an activity little v, these objects are interpreted as subevents caused by the activity. A correlation between the distribution of re-prefixation in English and benefactive double object constructions proves key here. The analysis holds strong implications for the roles of overt and covert morphology at the syntax/semantics interface. Crucially, overt morphemes glossed as "causative" in the world's languages would be reanalyzed as realizations of an activity little v.

Gillian Ramchand

Morphological Causativization/Anticausativization in Hindi/Urdu

Maria-Luisa Rivero

On Quirky Person Restrictions in Spanish and the Morphology-Syntax Interface

Keywords: dative logical subjects, nominative logical objects, 3rd person restrictions on nominatives, Spanish, Icelandic.

Peter Svenonius

Deconstructing Quirky Case

Icelandic has causative-inchoative alternating verbs in which a dative or accusative theme in the causative version appears as nominative in the inchoative version; I call these "normal" unaccusatives. In addition, Icelandic has a number of transitive dative or accusative-taking verbs which show up with dative or accusative subjects (respectively) in monoargumental uses. I call these "quirky" unaccusatives. Passives of dative-taking verbs are always "quirky" in the sense that dative case is always preserved, and passives of accusative-taking verbs are never quirky in the sense that accusative case is never preserved. I show how these apparently idiosyncratic facts about Icelandic case correlate strongly with event-structural meaning, leading to a deconstructivist account of Icelandic case and event structure.

Jochen Trommer

Closest c-command in Albanian Non-active Constructions

Edwin Williams

Double Object Scope Fixity


DIRECTIONS

Map of Workshop Venue

The workshop venue is: Department of Linguistics, Berggasse 11, 1090 Wien (marked by red circle in the map), ground floor, Hörsaal.


ACCOMMODATION

ARCOTEL Boltzmann
Boltzmanngasse 8
A-1090 Vienna
Phone: +43-1-316120

Hotel Goldener Bär
Türkenstrasse 27
A-1090 Vienna
Phone: +43-1-3175111


CONTACT

Dalina Kallulli
Department of Linguistics
University of Vienna
dalina.kallulli@univie.ac.at