The Morphosyntax of Clitic Doubling

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The Morphosyntax of Clitic Doubling UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title On the Mapping from Syntax to Morphophonology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/82m2c0fq Author Harizanov, Boris Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ ON THE MAPPING FROM SYNTAX TO MORPHOPHONOLOGY A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LINGUISTICS by Boris Harizanov June The Dissertation of Boris Harizanov is approved: Professor Sandra Chung, Chair Professor Jorge Hankamer Professor James McCloskey Dean Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Boris Harizanov Contents Abbreviations vi Abstract vii Dedication ix Acknowledgments x Introduction . Overview ................................. . Theoretical background ........................ . Language background ......................... . Outline .................................. Clitic doubling . Types of clitic constructions ...................... .. Clitic doubling ......................... .. CLLD and CLRD ........................ . The status of the clitic doubled associate ............... .. Islandhood ........................... .. Case assignment ........................ .. Word order ........................... .. Summary ............................ . The status of the clitic–associate relation ............... .. Binding ............................. .. Quantifier stranding ...................... .. Summary ............................ . The morphosyntax of clitic doubling ................. .. Syntactic movement ...................... iii .. Morphological merger ..................... . Analytical consequences ........................ .. Complex head formation ................... .. Multiple spell-out ........................ .. Clitic doubling and other movements ............ .. Clitic doubling vs. Object Shift ................ .. Alternatives approaches .................... . Conclusion ................................ Event nominalizations . Types of nominalization in Bulgarian ................. . The morphosyntax of -N nominalizations .............. .. Verbalizing and nominalizing morphology ......... .. Internal arguments ....................... .. Modification ........................... .. Accusative case ......................... .. External arguments ....................... .. Voice ............................... .. Aspect and tense ........................ .. Negation ............................. .. Summary and implications .................. . Argument realization in -N nominalizations ............ .. Internal arguments ....................... ... Direct objects ..................... ... Indirect objects .................... .. External arguments ....................... ... Ot-phrases ...................... ... Na-phrases and clitics ................ .. Intransitives ........................... . Conclusion ................................ Denominal adjectives . Types of thematically related adjectives ............... .. Nationality adjectives ..................... .. Prenominal possessors ..................... . The morphosyntax of denominal adjectives ............. .. Word-level properties and analysis .............. ... Nationality adjectives ................ ... Pronominal possessors ............... ... Non-pronominal possessors ............ .. The syntax-morphophonology interaction ......... iv ... Syntax ......................... ... Morphological merger ............... . Analytical consequences ........................ .. Anaphoricity .......................... ... Principle A ...................... ... Principle B ...................... ... Principle C ...................... .. Intervention ........................... ... DP-internal cliticization and clitic doubling ... ... Defective intervention ................ . An apparent paradox .......................... . Conclusion ................................ Concluding remarks . Themes and results ........................... . Future directions ............................ A The morphosyntactic status of clitics A. Feature content ............................. A. Tense (in)variance ............................ A. Person complementarity effects .................... B Definiteness marking C Unnacusativity diagnostics C. Expression as pronominal possessors ................. C. Optionality of arguments in nominalizations ............ C. Negation in nominalizations ...................... C. Impersonal passives ........................... C. Distributive po-phrases ......................... C. Locative inversion ............................ D Morphophonemic rules v Abbreviations accusative dative definiteness marker feminine genitive : imperfective (grammatical aspect) : perfective (grammatical aspect) : primary imperfective : secondary imperfective masculine nationality neuter nominalizer passove past perfective plural possessive present question particle reflexive singular vi Abstract On the Mapping from Syntax to Morphophonology by Boris Harizanov If both words and phrases are internally complex and can be decomposed into hierarchically organized constituents, what is the relation between the syn- tactically motivated constituency of phrases and the morphophonologically mo- tivated constituency of words? In particular, is the correspondence between syntactic atoms and morphophonological words one-to-one or, in other words, does syntax only manipulate objects that are as small as words? These questions have generated a long line of productive research that has identified various mismatches between syntax and morphophonology: e.g. while some syntactic atoms are realized as autonomous morphophonological words, others are real- ized as subparts of words. Such results have, in turn, motivated approaches to word construction that are syntactic in nature. In this dissertation I provide novel evidence that the atoms of syntax are smaller than morphophonological words, which leads to the conclusion words are built out of syntactic objects and, at least in part, by syntactic mechanisms. As far as the cases investigated here are concerned, what gives words their dis- tinctive character and causes them to behave differently from phrases with re- spect to morphophonology is the application of Morphological Merger. Specif- ically, syntactically independent objects become the constituent parts of mor- vii phophonological words as the result of Morphological Merger, an operation that produces complex heads as part of the mapping from syntax to mor- phophonology. The evidence I provide in this dissertation allows a particularly direct diag- nosis of the syntactic independence of various subconstituents of morphophono- logical words. More specifically, it involves, for example, the interaction of sub- words with syntactic operations (like movement), quantifier stranding, various kinds of binding, and thematic interpretation. Furthermore, while much previ- ous work on complex word formation has centered on words constructed by the combination of a head with its complement (e.g. ”incorporation”) or with the head of its complement (e.g. ”head movement”), this dissertation focuses on a less studied correspondence between syntax and morphophonology: words constructed out of a head and its specifier. The particular view of the syntax-morphophonology interface espoused in this dissertation is developed on the basis of case studies from Bulgarian, a South Slavic language. As a result, a major concern throughout is the descrip- tion and analysis of a number of important phenomena attested in Bulgarian: cliticization and clitic doubling, deverbal nominalization, and denominal adjec- tivization, among others. This dissertation provides a unified understanding of these phenomena to the extent that they all involve the syntactic construction of morphophonological words, which are produced by a mapping procedure that involves the application of Morphological Merger. viii На моите родители. To my parents. ix Acknowledgments I consider myself truly fortunate to have had Sandra Chung as my PhD ad- visor. Over the years Sandy has been incredibly generous in providing me on a daily basis with her wisdom, encouragement and unsparing support. I am grateful to her for encouraging me to pursue my ideas, for constantly remind- ing me of the tremendous richness and complexity of language as an object of study, and for inspiring me to embrace this complexity and pursue insights at the intersection of syntax, morphology, prosody, and phonology. Last but certainly not the least, I am grateful to Sandy for giving me the opportunity to participate in the Chamorro Dictionary Project—one of the most rewarding experiences of my graduate career. I am also very grateful to the other members of my dissertation commit- tee, Jorge Hankamer and Jim McCloskey, for many hours of fruitful discussion, penetrating comments, and excellent advice. I thank Jorge for always asking the right questions at exactly the right time, and for forcing me to re-examine at every step even the most basic and deeply rooted assumptions and beliefs. I thank Jim for entertaining every one of my ideas and for sharing many of his own, as well as for being an inspiration to me on how to productively combine extremely careful empirical work with rigorous analytical work.
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