The Morphosyntax of Discontinuous Exponence by Amy Melissa Campbell A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Line Mikkelsen, Chair Professor Andrew Garrett Professor Sharon Inkelas Professor Johanna Nichols Fall 2012 The Morphosyntax of Discontinuous Exponence Copyright 2012 by Amy Melissa Campbell 1 Abstract The Morphosyntax of Discontinuous Exponence by Amy Melissa Campbell Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Line Mikkelsen, Chair This thesis offers a systematic treatment of discontinuous exponence, a pattern of inflection in which a single feature or a set of features bundled in syntax is expressed by multiple, distinct morphemes. This pattern is interesting and theoretically rel- evant because it represents a deviation from the expected one-to-one relationship between features and their morphological expressions. I consider cases of discon- tinuous exponence in verb agreement, TAM morphology, pronoun formation, and negation, showing the relationships among these various types and arguing that a unified analysis is in order. The empirical foundation of the work is a typological survey of discontinuous exponence in the inflectional systems of 40 genetically and geographically diverse languages. This study establishes discontinuous exponence as a robust phenomenon, worthy of study in its own right, and brings to light new generalizations about the behavior of agreement features. Working within the framework of Distributed Morphology I develop an analy- sis of discontinuous verb agreement that accounts for both the robustness and the noncanonicality of the phenomenon and extends naturally to other types of discon- tinuous exponence. My theory of Cyclic Insertion includes substantial revisions to Distributed Morphology; it rejects key assumptions such as the idea that feature insertion is feature discharge and it offers a view of vocabulary insertion that is com- pelled and constrained in very different ways than those assumed in the standard theory. Specifically, I assume that morphological insertion operates relative to mean- ing targets: insertion is motivated when it brings a form closer to its target meaning and is blocked if it cannot do so. The modifications I propose push Distributed Mor- phology in the direction of deriving discontinuous exponence more naturally. The noncanonicality of the phenomenon is explained with reference to greater complexity in its characteristic derivations. I argue throughout the thesis for a view in which F-features (agreement features) are bundled into sets. This view combines two independently motivated ideas – that 2 feature categories stand in hierarchical relations with one another and that categories themselves can be decomposed – to develop a rich, two-dimensional F-set structure. Along one dimension are the fine-grained primitive features and entailments within feature categories, and on the other are hierarchical relations among the categories. These F-sets have both descriptive and explanatory power; viewed as meaning targets they derive the patterns of discontinuous exponence, and within the system I propose they predict the phenomenon’s cross-linguistic tendencies. A thorough study of discontinuous exponence can illuminate much about the typology and theory of agreement. I will show that a commitment to accounting for the syntax and morphology of an agreement system – and the interface between the two modules – can lead to some very interesting insights about the necessary features of a good theory of agreement. i Contents List of Figures iv List of Tables v 1 Introduction 1 1.1 OverviewofThesis ............................ 2 1.2 KeyAnalyticalThemes.......................... 3 1.2.1 Complexity, Canonicality, and Frequency . .. 4 1.2.2 MeaningTargets ......................... 5 1.2.3 Rich F-Sets ............................ 6 2 A Survey of Discontinuous Exponence 7 2.1 Methodology ............................... 8 2.1.1 Languagesample ......................... 8 2.1.2 Languagefeaturesobserved . 9 2.2 Patterns of Discontinuous Exponence . .. 13 2.2.1 Verbagreement .......................... 15 2.2.2 Pronounformatives. 19 2.2.3 TAMfeatures ........................... 23 2.2.4 Negation.............................. 25 2.3 Parameters of Discontinuous Exponence . .. 26 2.3.1 Morphosyntactictype . 27 2.3.2 Morphologicalpurity . 27 2.3.3 Morphologicalcontiguity . 28 2.3.4 Referentialambiguity. 29 2.3.5 Summary: The typological space . 30 3 Noncanonicality of Discontinuous Agreement 33 3.1 TheFusionAssumption ......................... 34 3.2 CanonicalAgreement........................... 41 3.2.1 Canonicality............................ 41 ii 3.2.2 Agreementprimitives. 42 3.2.3 Principles of canonical agreement . 44 3.2.4 Canonicalmorphology . 44 3.3 Discontinuous Agreement as Noncanonical Agreement . ...... 45 3.4 Summary ................................. 49 4 The Contribution of Discontinuous Exponence 51 4.1 Desiderata for a Theory of Discontinuous Agreement . ..... 51 4.1.1 Discontinuous exponence as a single phenomenon . .. 52 4.1.2 Noncanonicality of discontinuous agreement . ... 53 4.1.3 Fullexpression .......................... 53 4.1.4 Morpheme order in discontinuous agreement . 54 4.1.5 Ambiguity............................. 55 4.2 Challenges for Existing Models of Agreement . .... 56 4.2.1 Fundamentally syntactic theories . 56 4.2.2 Fundamentally morphological approaches . .. 61 4.3 In Favor of a Morphosyntactic Model of Discontinuous Agreement . 64 5 Deriving Discontinuity: Cyclic Insertion 67 5.1 Introduction................................ 67 5.2 The Structure of F-Sets.......................... 68 5.2.1 Relationsamongfeaturecategories . 68 5.2.2 Structurewithinfeaturecategories . 71 5.2.3 Two-dimensional F-sets...................... 72 5.3 TheSyntaxofAgreement . .. .. 74 5.3.1 CyclicAgree............................ 75 5.3.2 Meaning targets: F-setsinsyntax ................ 77 5.3.3 Summary:Outputofsyntax . 78 5.4 F-SetsandtheMorphologyofAgreement . 78 5.4.1 Featureexponence ........................ 81 5.4.2 CyclicInsertion .......................... 85 5.4.3 Blockinginsertion. 99 5.5 Conclusion................................. 105 6 Applying and Extending the Theory 106 6.1 CaseStudy: ReanalyzingKaruk . 106 6.1.1 Previous analyses: Macaulay and B´ejar . 107 6.1.2 Reanalysis: F-setsandprobestructure . 110 6.1.3 Cyclicinsertion . .. .. 112 6.2 Consequences and Predictions of Cyclic Insertion . ...... 115 6.2.1 Frequency of fused agreement morphs . 116 iii 6.2.2 Frequency of subtypes of discontinuous and multiple exponence 117 6.2.3 Orderingtendencies. 119 6.3 RelatedPhenomena. .. .. 123 6.3.1 Discontinuous exponence in pronouns . 123 6.3.2 Discontinuous exponence of TAM . 125 6.4 ChallengesforFutureWork . 126 6.4.1 BlockinginCree ......................... 127 6.4.2 Problems with split probe in Georgian . 128 7 Conclusions 134 A Language Survey Results 145 B Testing the syntactic bias of Cyclic Agree 151 iv List of Figures 2.1 Morphosyntactic types of discontinuous exponence . ....... 27 2.2 Parameters of discontinuous exponence . ... 31 4.1 Encodingvaluesofperson . .. .. 60 5.1 Feature geometry for person (Harley & Ritter: 2002) . ..... 70 5.2 Encoding common values of person, number, and gender . .... 73 5.3 Fission (Noyer, Halle, Embick & Noyer) . .. 86 5.4 Fission(Arregi&Nevins) . .. .. 86 5.5 Complex agreement node generated by Split . .. 91 6.1 Parameters of discontinuous exponence (partial) . ....... 118 v List of Tables 2.1 Languagessurveyed............................ 11 2.2 Languages surveyed, grouped by linguistic macro-area . ........ 11 2.3 Schematizationofpatterns . 14 2.4 Basqueinflection(Arregi1999: 240). .. 22 2.5 Morphosyntactic types: Features, syntax, and morphology ...... 28 3.1 Germanmasculinenouns(Hock1991: 211) . 36 3.2 German present tense paradigm (Hock 1991: 212) . ... 36 4.1 Order of person and number in discontinuous agreement (Trommer 2002:89) ................................. 54 4.2 Order of person and number in discontinuous agreement (my survey) 54 4.3 Order of gender with respect to person and number in discontinuous agreement(mysurvey) . .. .. 55 4.4 Comparing Standard Minimalism against the list of desiderata . 58 4.5 Comparing Cyclic Agree against the list of desiderata . ....... 61 4.6 Comparing Distributed Optimality against the list of desiderata . 63 4.7 Comparing M-Case against the list of desiderata . ..... 64 5.1 Specifying person and number in two different language types .... 76 6.1 Karukpositiveparadigm . 107 6.2 Karukoptativeparadigm. 107 6.3 Karuk agreement morphology (B´ejar 2003: 160) . .... 109 6.4 Karuk positive and optative paradigms, first and second person . 110 6.5 Karuk positive and optative paradigms, first and third person . 111 6.6 Karuk positive and optative paradigms, second and third person . 112 6.7 Karuk agreement morphology, reanalyzed . ... 114 6.8 Number of survey patterns showing various types of discontinuity . 119 6.9 Linear order of person and number in discontinuous agreement (my survey)................................... 122 6.10 Nahuatlinflection............................. 124 vi 6.11 Basqueinflection(Arregi1999: 240). ... 124 6.12 Georgian transitive agreement patterns . ..... 129 A.1 Language survey results: Verb agreement . ... 148 A.2 Languagesurveyresults: TAM. 148 A.3 Languagesurveyresults: