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Recent manuscripts
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Ergativity. (A survey article) | PDF
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Possessor raising. | PDF (updated 5/2/12) | Abstract
Various languages allow instances of external possession -- possessive encoding without a possessive structure in DP. The analysis of these cases has long been a battleground of raising versus control. I provide a new argument from Nez Perce in support of possessor raising of a type thematically parallel to raising to subject. The possessor phrase moves from a possessum-DP-internal position to an a-thematic A-position within vP. Like raising to subject, this movement is obligatory and does not result in the assignment of a new theta-role to the moving element. A case-driven treatment of possessor raising is proposed.
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On the argument from idioms.
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I review and critique Marantz 1984's argument from idioms as used by Kratzer 1996 to support the little v hypothesis. (squib)
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Two sketches of modality in Nez Perce: a study in semantics for mixed audiences.
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What is the best way to communicate the results of a fieldwork-based project in formal semantics to the language community hosting the fieldwork? I present a pair of sketches of semantic facts related to modality in Nez Perce: a non-technical sketch addressed to the language community, and a formal sketch addressed to linguists. This pairing is intended to stimulate discussion about ways in which formal semanticists can present results of fieldwork-based projects to communities who understand
the need for semantic inquiry in a rather different way.
Papers
- 2011. Modals without scales.
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Language 87:3, 559-585. | PDF (pre-final) | Abstract
Some natural languages do not lexically distinguish between modals of possibility and modals of necessity. From the perspective of languages like English, modals in such languages appear to do double duty: they are used both where possibility modals are expected and where necessity modals are expected.
The Nez Perce modal suffix o'qa offers an example of this behavior. I offer a simple account of the flexibility of the o'qa modal centered on the absence of scalar implicatures. O'qa is a possibility modal that does not belong to a Horn scale; its use is never associated with a scalar implicature. Accordingly, in an upward entailing environment, φ-o'qa is appropriate whenever there are accessible φ-worlds, even if indeed all accessible worlds are φ-worlds. In a downward entailing environment, the flexibility of the o'qa modal is seen no more. Here, neither o'qa nor English possibility modals are associated with scalar implicatures, and the use of o'qa exactly parallels the use of English modals of possibility.
Given that o'qa is a possibility modal that does not contrast with a modal of necessity, just how do you talk about necessities in Nez Perce? Speakers translating into Nez Perce rely on a variety of techniques to paraphrase expressions of simple necessity away. Their strategies highlight an area where Nez Perce
and English plausibly differ in the range of propositions they convey. The data cast doubt on any strong form of effability as a language universal.
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2010. Ergative case and the transitive subject: a view from Nez Perce.
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Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 28:1, 73-120. | PDF (pre-final) | Abstract
Ergative case, the special case of transitive subjects, raises questions not only for the theory of case but also for theories of subjecthood and transitivity. This paper analyzes the case system of Nez Perce, a "three-way ergative" language, with an eye towards a formalization of the category of transitive subject. I show that it is object agreement that is determinative of transitivity, and hence of ergative case, in Nez Perce. I further show that the transitivity condition on ergative case must be coupled with a criterion of subjecthood that makes reference to participation in subject agreement, not just to origin in a high argument-structural position. These two results suggest a formalization of the transitive subject as that argument uniquely accessing both high and low agreement information, the former through its (agreement-derived) connection with T and the latter through its origin in the specifier of a head associated with object agreement (v). In view of these findings, I argue that ergative case morphology should be analyzed not as the expression of a syntactic primitive but as the morphological spell-out of subject agreement and object agreement on a nominal.
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2010. The perspectival basis of fluid-S case-marking in Northern Pomo.
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[AR Deal and MC O'Connor.] Proceedings of SULA 5 | PDF
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2010. Topics in the Nez Perce verb.
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Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst | PDF
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2009. The origin and content of expletives: evidence from "selection"
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Syntax 12:4, 285-323. | PDF (pre-final) | Abstract
While expletive there has primarily been studied in the context of the existential construction, it has long been known that some but not all lexical verbs are compatible with there-insertion. This paper argues that there-insertion can be used to diagnose vPs with no external argument, ruling out transitives, unergatives, and also inchoatives, which are argued to project an event argument on the edge of vP. Based on the tight link between there-insertion and low functional structure, I build a case for low there-insertion, where the expletive is first merged in the specifier of a verbalizing head v. The low merge position is motivated by a stringently local relationship that holds between there and its associate DP; this relationship plays a crucial role in the
interaction of there with raising verbs, where local agreement rules out cases of "too
many theres" such as *There seemed there to be a man in the room. An account of
these cases in terms of phase theory is explored, in which I ultimately suggest that there
must be merged in a nonthematic phasal specifier position.
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2008. Events in space
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Proceedings of SALT 18 | PDF
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Many languages make use of verbal forms to express spatial relations and distinctions. Spatial notions are lexicalized into verb roots, as in come and go; they are
expressed by derivational morphology; and, I will argue, they are expressed by verbal inflectional morphology in Nez Perce. This verbal inflection for space shows a number of parallels with inflection for tense, which it appears immediately below. Like tense, space markers in Nez Perce are a closed-class inflectional category with a basic locative meaning; they differ in the axis along which their locative meaning is computed. The syntax and semantics of space inflection raises the question of just how tight the liaison is between verbal categories and temporal specification. I argue that in view of the presence of space inflection in languages like Nez Perce, tense marking is best captured as a device for narrowing the temporal coordinates of a spatiotemporally located sentence topic.
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2007. The asymmetry of argument structure: evidence from coercion
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Semantics and Processing (UMOP 37), to appear | PDF
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2007. Property-type objects and modal embedding
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Sinn und Bedeutung 12, Oslo | in progress (long) PDF
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2007. Antipassive and indefinite objects in Nez Perce
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Proceedings of SULA 4 | PDF
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2006. Does English have a genitive case?
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Snippets 13 | online paper
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