Research Interests

The Origins of A'-Movement

More information available on request.

Austronesian Voice and High Absolutive Syntax

Many Western Austronesian languages show a clausal syntax that implicates two interlocking systems: alternations in verbal ``voice'' and movement of one argument per clause to a subject-like position. In a paper in the Journal of East Asian Linguistics, I deconstruct the clausal syntax of Mandar, an Austronesian language of Sulawesi, and show that these two systems reduce to (1) transitivity alternations that determine patterns of Object Shift and Case-Licensing, and (2) A-movement of the highest unlicensed argument in the voiceP to Spec,TP. This analysis opens up a theoretical bridge from Western Austronesian to the High Absolutive systems outside this region, and in doing so, uncovers decisive parallels between Mandar and certain Mayan langauges in the domain of Agent Focus.

Prosodic Investigation of the Syntax

Phonological strings are organanized into a hierarchical prosodic constituent structure that roughly reflects the syntax beneath them. In a paper accepted to Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, I document phonotactic diagnostics for high-level prosodic constituents in Mandar and leverage them to build phonological cases for two language-internal syntactic results: (1) VSO strings are built from a descending series of functional projections, and (2) VOS strings are derived by rightward A'-scrambling which adjoins the S to the TP. Beyond informing the larger theoies of linear order, A'-scrambling, and adjunction, these results extend and refine the emerging analytical toolkit that will allow us to mobilize prosody to investigate the most fundamental questions in syntactic theory.

Suppletion at the Morphology-Phonology Interface

A central question of research at the interfaces surrounds visibily: what can the morphology and phonology see at the derivational moments where they operate? In a paper accepted to Linguistic Inquiry, I show that mechanism that handles allomorph selection-vocabulary insertion-must have access to high-level phonological information about prosodic constituent structure to handle eight patterns of suppletion in Mandar. In tandem with this result, I argue that vocabulary insertion must operate in an output-oriented phonological calculus in order to capture a systematic symmetry between these suppletive alternations and a larger conspiracy of repairs in the phrasal phonology: one which implicates a type of phonological displacement and suspends suppletion in the positions where it is expected when the global phonological context allows the driving constraint to be resolved through a more optimal repair.

Movement in Cross-Modular Perspective

Mandar has two locative adverbs that are routinely generated within DPs but systematically moved to the right edge of the clause. In a submitted paper, I argue that these adverbs move in the phonology, escaping islands and violating relativized minimality constraints on the way, and show that their distribution is keyed to the edge of the intonational phrase. In tandem with this result, I demonstrate that these adverbs move in response to an internal phonological tension that can only be resolved in their landing site- a conclusion which suggests that movement in the phonology, and thus possibly movement in the syntax, may be driven by the principle of Greed.

Reflexive Anaphors and High Absolutive Syntax

Ergative languages systematically ban reflexive anaphors from appearing in the position of the external argument. In a submitted paper, Justin Royer and I demonstrate that this restriction persists when the absolutive argument raises above the external argument to a high clause-internal A-position in Mandar and Chuj (Mayan). Building a common analysis of the clausal syntax of Mandar and Chuj, we show that the Ban on Ergative Anaphors falls out naturally from contemporary approaches to the distribution of reflexive anaphors even in contexts that show High Absolutive Syntax. We then argue that certain differences between Mandar and Chuj in the domain of Condition A can be readily derived by positing that their reflexive anaphors are built and bound through distinct derivational routes.