UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ CASE, AGREEMENT, AND SENTENCE PROCESSING IN GEORGIAN A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LINGUISTICS by Steven Foley June 2020 The Dissertation of Steven Foley is approved: Professor Matt Wagers Professor Sandy Chung Professor Amanda Rysling Professor Maziar Toosarvandani Quentin Williams Acting Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Steven Foley 2020 Table of Contents List of Figures vi List of Tables viii Abstract x Dedication xii Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Overview . 1 1.2 A snapshot of Georgian morphology & syntax . 9 1.3 Clarifications and caveats . 13 1.3.1 Terminological notes . 13 1.3.2 Glossing and transliteration conventions . 17 1.3.3 Data transparency . 18 2 Harmonizing animacy & Split Ergativity 23 2.1 Case alignment and incremental processing . 23 2.2 Case alignment in Georgian . 31 2.3 Experiment 1a: Humans in Transitive Clauses . 40 2.3.1 Method . 40 2.3.2 Results . 44 2.3.3 Discussion . 48 2.4 Experiment 1b: Inanimates in Transitive Clauses . 53 2.4.1 Method . 54 2.4.2 Results . 56 2.4.3 Discussion . 59 2.5 General discussion . 63 iii 3 Processing relative & correlative clauses 66 3.1 Introduction . 66 3.2 Previous research . 74 3.2.1 Prenominal relative clauses and the subject gap advantage . 75 3.2.2 The Subject-Gap Advantage in Ergative languages . 80 3.3 Background on Georgian . 89 3.3.1 Case alignment . 90 3.3.2 Case processing in Georgian . 91 3.3.3 Relativization strategies . 93 3.3.4 Predictions . 100 3.4 Experiment 2a: Processing relatives & correlatives with rom ........ 105 3.4.1 Method . 105 3.4.2 Results . 109 3.4.3 Discussion . 109 3.5 Experiment 2b: Processing more (cor)relatives with rom .......... 113 3.5.1 Method . 113 3.5.2 Results . 116 3.5.3 Discussion . 117 3.6 Experiment 3a: Processing wh-relatives . 118 3.6.1 Method . 118 3.6.2 Results . 122 3.6.3 Discussion . 124 3.7 Experiment 3b: Processing more wh-relatives . 125 3.7.1 Method . 125 3.7.2 Results . 128 3.7.3 Discussion . 129 3.8 General discussion . 133 4 Balancing subject and object agreement 137 4.1 Introduction . 137 4.2 South Caucasian agreement . 143 4.3 Accounting for the generalizations . 152 4.3.1 Accounting for tense–aspect–mood suffixes . 153 4.3.2 Accounting for plural suffixes . 156 4.3.3 Accounting for prefixal agreement . 157 4.3.4 Another look at dative-subject constructions . 161 4.4 Filtration and Minimal Compliance . 170 4.4.1 Motivating Postsyntactic Filtration . 171 4.4.2 Motivating the Principle of Minimal Compliance . 177 4.4.3 The Analysis Illustrated . 185 4.5 Conclusion . 194 iv 5 Conclusion 198 5.1 Summary of key findings & conclusions . 198 5.2 Directions for future research . 201 v List of Figures 2.1 Architecture of eADM . 28 2.2 Reading times (Experiment 1a) . 44 2.3 Reading times (Experiment 1b) . 57 3.1 Incremental gap disambiguation in a wh-relative . 102 3.2 Reading times (Experiment 2a) . 110 3.3 Reading times (Experiment 2b) . 117 3.4 Reading times (Experiment 3a) . 123 3.5 Reading times (Experiment 3b) . 130 3.6 Effect of animacy on RTs (Experiment 3b) . 132 4.1 The South Caucasian verbal template . 143 4.2 Deriving 1≫2 agreement . 186 4.3 Deriving 2.dat≫1 agreement . 188 4.4 Deriving 1≫3 agreement . 190 4.5 Deriving 3≫2pl agreement . 192 vi 4.6 Deriving 3≫1pl agreement . 193 vii List of Tables 1.1 Transliteration scheme . 19 2.1 Georgian case alignment . 37 2.2 RT model for the NP2 region (Experiment 1a) . 45 2.3 RT model for the verb region (Experiment 1a) . 46 2.4 RT model for the first spillover region (Experiment 1a) . 46 2.5 RT model for the verb region; data culled (Experiment 1a) . 47 2.6 RT model for the verb region; special contrast coding (Experiment 1a) . 48 2.7 Comprehension data (Experiment 1a) . 49 2.8 RT model for the verb region (Experiment 1b) . 57 2.9 RT model for the NP1 region; special contrast coding (Experiment 1b) . 58 2.10 RT model for the verb region; data culled (Experiment 1b) . 59 2.11 Comprehension data (Experiment 1b) . 59 3.1 Predictions of three theories of the SGA . 72 3.2 Monotransitive case frames in Georgian . 92 viii 3.3 RT model for the coargument region (Experiment 2a) . 110 3.4 RT model for the verb region (Experiment 2a) . 111 3.5 Reading times (Experiment 2b) . 118 3.6 RT model for the adjective region (Experiment 3a) . 122 3.7 RT model for the verb region (Experiment 3a) . 124 3.8 RT model for the verb region (Experiment 3b) . 129 3.9 Effect of animacy on RTs at the verb (Experiment 3b) . 131 3.10 Effect of animacy on RTs at the head noun (Experiment 3b) . 132 ix Abstract Case, agreement, and sentence processing in Georgian by Steven Foley This dissertation examines a few dimensions of morphosyntactic complexity in Georgian. Central are the language’s split-ergative case system, whereby clausal arguments are assigned different case morphology across different tense–aspect–mood categories, and its verbal agreement paradigm, in which j-agreement morphemes interact in complex but systematic ways. Three pairs of self-paced reading experiments probe the ramifications of Georgian split ergativity for online sentence processing, in ordinary transitive root clauses and also relative clauses. The Georgian comprehender is often faced with arguments whose case morphology does not unambiguously indicate their syntactic roles. Results show that comprehenders navigate these temporary ambiguities by harmonically aligning animacy and syntactic role — all else being equal, human arguments are parsed as transitive subjects, and inanimates as direct objects. Interpreted as garden path effects, the specific distribution of reading-time disruptions add nuance to this parsing heuristic, suggesting that comprehenders have fine-grained by not unlimited access to their abstract grammatical knowledge. Moving to relative clauses, I find that priorities are subtly readjusted during the comprehension of filler–gap dependencies. With both Accusative- and Ergative-aligned relative clauses that can either precede or follow their head nouns, Georgian is uniquely well equipped to disentangle theories of filler–gap processing. And in relative clauses of all x stripes, cues that eliminate the possibility of a subject-gap parse regularly lead to process- ing difficulty. This observation lends support to theories in which the structural distance between fillers and gaps — rather than the linear distance, or the informativity of ambient morphological cues — is the primary predictor of relative-clause processing difficulty. The thesis is rounded off with a detailed formal investigation of argument–verb agreement in Georgian and its sibling languages. I identify a few generalizations that re- veal key systematicities within superficially complex paradigms. These motivate an analy- sis deriving agreement patterns from the interaction of narrow-syntactic and post-syntactic mechanisms. Specifically, a syntactic principle independently motivated by non-agreement phenomena in other languages permits syntactic locality constraints to be loosened in cer- tain circumstances; resulting derivational indeterminacy is obscured by morphological con- straints that filter out all but the most expressive and economical combinations of agreement morphemes. xi To Jim Foley xii Acknowledgments Without the help, friendship, and boundless generosity of Marina Rcheulishvili, Ana Chutkerashvili, Elene Kadagishvili, Mariam Matiashvili, Mariam Rukhadze, Ana Kol- khidashvili, Salome Kobalia, Natia Botkoveli, and especially Irma Miminoshvili & Mariam Navadze, I could not have conducted my research on Georgian. Gmadlobt, da gagimarǰot. I will always be grateful to the people of Santiago Laxopa, who welcomed me into their community, shared their beautiful language, and ensured that I didn’t die of appendicitis in the mountains of northern Oaxaca. They include Fe Esperanza Silva Robles, Raquel Díaz, Vianey López, Olivia Maldonado, Amelia Vasquez Reyes, Sara Reyes, Venustiano López, Evaristo López Velázquez, Nereida Robles Vásquez, Raúl Díaz, and the presidents of Laxopa in the summers of 2018 and 2019, Celestino Robles Ramírez and Óscar Benites Celis. Duxklenle. Finally, I wish to acknowledge that land where I lived and worked during gradu- ate school is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe. The Amah Mut- sun Tribal Band, comprising the descendants of Indigenous people taken to missions Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast, is today work- ing hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma. xiii Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview This thesis investigates a set of interconnected questions about the mental repre- sentation of morphological and syntactic grammars. The meat of that investigation com- prises a set of self-paced reading experiments and an in-depth formal analysis. Engaging primarily with one particular language, Georgian, these studies focus on three phenomena prominent in its syntax and morphosyntax — Split-Ergative case alignment, relativization, and argument–verb j-agreement. The experiments interface most readily with theories of syntactic processing, and the formal analysis with theories of abstract grammar. Together, I hope they provide some insight into the psycholinguistic and formal consequences mor- phosyntactic complexity, both in a single language and more generally. The primary goals and findings of these projects are summarized in the rest of this subsection. Chapter 2 investigates the role animacy plays in the online comprehension of 1 temporary syntactic ambiguities, using as a lens Georgian’s Split Ergativity. Consider a verb-final language — or more precisely, a language where verb-final clauses predominate, preverbal argument order is flexible, and argument omission is frequent.