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A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts And THE MORPHOSYNTAX OF PRONOMINAL POSSESSORS AND DIMINUTIVES IN MEHRI A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics By Morgan Rood, B.A. Washington, DC July 26, 2017 Copyright 2017 by Morgan Rood All Rights Reserved ii THE MORPHOSYNTAX OF PRONOMINAL POSSESSORS AND DIMINUTIVES IN MEHRI Morgan Rood, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Ruth Kramer, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the morphology and syntax of the noun phrase in Mehri, a Modern South Arabian (Semitic) language spoken in Yemen and Oman. Using the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM), I focus on pronominal possessors and diminutive constructions while addressing themes of syncretism, concord, contextual allomorphy and morphophonological wellformedness. These themes are tied together post-syntactically as the grammar, using a universal set of operations, manipulates the syntactic output to derive the observed empirical phenomena. Additionally, the theoretical analyses in this project are supported by novel data collected from the Mehri-speaking Yemeni immigrant community in Abu Dhabi. This fieldwork adds an empirical component to the dissertation, contributing to the modest body of descriptive literature on the Modern South Arabian languages. Pronominal possessors in Mehri consist of the possessed noun followed by a possessive suffix. For these constructions, I argue that a combination of contextual allomorphy and possessor concord result in the observed data. I also propose a Mehri-specific morphophonological rule to account for odd patterns in the data in which plural suffixes are iii absent in unexpected contexts. This morphophonological rule, the Only One Suffix Generalization, unifies data from both the nominal and verbal domains in Mehri. In the second half of the project, I present a comprehensive picture of diminutives in Mehri. I begin by critically reviewing previous diagnostics for determining the syntax of diminutives and propose a modified set of diagnostics supported by cross-linguistic data. Using these diagnostics, I determine that the Mehri nominal diminutives are best analyzed as a [DIM] feature adjoined to the nominalizing head. Next I turn to diminutive adjectives, which are similar in form to diminutive nouns but carry no diminutive interpretation. I argue that the diminutive nouns and adjectives are morphomes, a special type of syncretism, and develop an analysis for them utilizing post-syntactic feature insertion. Overall, this dissertation examines the interaction between syntactic universals and language-specific morphological rules that result in diverse linguistic phenomena. The results bear directly on the function of post-syntactic operations in the DM model as well as contribute new Mehri data to the literature on this understudied language. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was made possible only with the help and support of the following people. First and foremost, to my advisor and mentor Ruth Kramer, I owe an insurmountable debt. Over the past six years, her advisorship has helped me become a better scholar, a more effective teacher and a more compassionate human being. Thanks are due for always being in my corner, nudging me along with just the right balance of guilt and encouragement. To the other members of my committee, Donna Lardiere and Aaron Rubin, many thanks for years of guidance and invaluable feedback. Thanks are also due to various members of the faculty at Georgetown, particularly Hector Campos for (enthusiastically) introducing me to syntactic theory. I have also greatly appreciated the support of the administrative staff in the Georgetown Linguistics Department, particularly Erin Esch Pereira and Jennifer Brusstar. Thanks as well to Mark Norris for helpful feedback and discussion as the dissertation came together. The fieldwork portion of this project would not have been successful without the help of the following people and organizations. First, endless thanks are due to my consultants for their incredible patience and generosity. Additionally, thanks to Kevin Schluter and Diogo Almeida at the Neuoscience of Language Lab at NYU Abu Dhabi for their logistical support during my field research. And finally, thanks to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown v University for awarding me a Dissertation Research Travel Grant which provided critical financial support for this trip. Thanks are also due to members of the morphology reading group at Georgetown Unversity (formally known as the agreement reading group) for engaging discussions about my research over the past several years. Thanks especially to Laura Siebecker for providing guidance early in my graduate career as well as for being an exemplar of success that proved motivational long after she graduated. Brett Sutton, Katie Vadella, Colleen Diamond and Lindley Winchester were also valuable colleagues in all discussions morphosyntactic. Thanks are due to other members of my cohort at Georgetown University, especially Laura Beth Bell (née Ryals) and Stacy Petersen, for years of emotional support and encouragement. I am also grateful for an incredibly supportive family, all of whom at least pretend to enjoy learning about my research. My mom was so proud when I was accepted at Georgetown, and I know she would be even prouder today. I owe much of my intellectual curiosity to her, and I am grateful for the years of support and encouragement that led up to my first day at Georgetown. To my dad and sister, thanks are due for always believing in me. To my in-laws, thanks for sending love and cookies when I needed them most. And finally, to my husband, Dan Staley. None of this would have been possible without his fierce and unwavering support. I dedicate this dissertation to him. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction .............................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction and Themes ......................................................................................................1 1.2 Mehri in the Broader Context ................................................................................................1 1.2.1 The Semitic languages .....................................................................................................2 1.2.2 Modern South Arabian ....................................................................................................2 1.3 Data Sources and Fieldwork ..................................................................................................8 1.3.1 Fieldwork ........................................................................................................................8 1.3.2 Other sources ..................................................................................................................9 1.4 Theoretical Background ......................................................................................................10 1.4.1 Basic architecture of Distributed Morphology ...............................................................10 1.4.2 Post-syntactic PF operations ..........................................................................................16 1.5 Organization .......................................................................................................................20 Chapter Two: Overview of the Mehri DP .....................................................................................25 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................25 2.2 Nouns .................................................................................................................................26 2.2.1 Gender ..........................................................................................................................26 2.2.2 Number .........................................................................................................................33 2.2.3 Interim summary ..........................................................................................................41 2.3 Modifiers in the DP .............................................................................................................41 2.3.1 Adjectives .....................................................................................................................41 2.3.2 Numerals ......................................................................................................................44 2.3.3 Demonstratives .............................................................................................................46 2.4 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................47 Chapter Three: Pronominal Possessors ........................................................................................48 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................48 3.2 The Data .............................................................................................................................49 3.3 Analysis ..............................................................................................................................55 3.3.1 Determining the syntactic
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