Speaker: Faruk Akkuş (UMass Amherst)
Title: “The case for case features in syntax and morphology”
When: Wednesday, November 4th, 1pm-2:30pm (Day 1) + Thursday, November 5th, 12:30-2pm (Day 2)
Where: 32-D461
Abstract:
This minicourse presents an analysis of argument indexation, the process by which arguments in a clause are coindexed with grammatical markers that bear their features. In particular, it examines how morphosyntactic operations that phi-features are involved with relate to their morphophonological behavior. The main case study is based on varieties of Central Kurdish, whose indexation properties interact with an alignment split of the type often called ‘split Ergative.’ From this, we develop a more general theory that can be applied to many other languages, some of which will be illustrated. A key line of argument is that agreement and clitic movement operations target specific cases, in a process called ‘Case Targeting’. The approach further hypothesizes that case labels like ‘Nominative’, ‘Ergative’, and so on are shorthand for decomposed feature bundles, both in the syntax and morphology. It is these features that are targeted by syntactic operations such as agreement and movement. In addition to requiring Case Targeting, the analysis of Central Kurdish implies that syntactic operations (agreement, clitic movement) and their morphophonological reflexes may be mismatched: agreement and movement can both produce affixes and clitics, contrary to many views of morphosyntax/morphophonology relations. The implications of these points are discussed focusing on indexing effects shown by (in)transitives, possessive constructions, along with the prepositional-arguments.
[This is based on joint work with David Embick and Mohammed Salih]