Comparative Morphosyntax Overview

Comparative Morphosyntax Notes

• Syntax: The study of how sentences are formed, the grammatical module for sentence formation, and operations/rules used to create sentences.
• Syntax Modules: Phonological form (PF) and logical form (LF)
• Syntax Components: Narrow syntax (CS), conceptual-intentional (CI), and sensory-motor (SM).
• Generative Grammar: Sentences are generated by subconscious procedures (like computer programs) part of our minds. Syntactic theory models these procedures. Universal Grammar (UG) is considered innate.
• Universal Grammar (UG): Children perceive prosody at birth and possess language bias. They can filter and recognize linguistic signals.
• Intuitions: Native speakers possess intuitions about syntax. A theory of grammar attempts to model this competence.
• Native Speaker Competence: Understanding grammatical and ungrammatical combinations.
• Features of Generative Grammar: Commitment to the scientific method (hypotheses, data confrontation), and the study of unconscious knowledge. Language is the "software" in the brain, functioning like an operating system. Syntax is the blueprint of language structure.
• Neurolinguistics: Views language from a brain perspective, focusing on optimal language solutions for interface requirements.
• Biolinguistics and Psycholinguistics: Examine how syntax interacts with other communication systems within the brain.
• Theta Criterion: Every argument carries one theta role, assigned to one argument.
• Example: Alex eats an apple (Agent [Alex], Theme [apple]).
• Word formation in Turkish: Complex words are formed by adding suffixes to a root, rather than combining multiple words. This is an example of morphologically complex words.

Week 1 Morphosyntax Seminar

• Dates: Submission deadlines for essay drafts and final versions.
• Essay topics: Descriptive and comparative analyses of languages with similar phenomena.
• Essay Format: Short paper (3–4 pages).
• Data collection and analysis: Look at examples (snippets) rather than formal analysis.
• Writing style: Consistent formatting.

Barrie Chapter 4 Notes

• Example format for analyzing foreign languages: Providing a model for glosses, translation, and analysis of foreign language examples (including grammatical information, e.g. neg, 3-pss sg, poss.1sg).
• Reflection on feedback: Essay requires appendix reflecting on feedback (acceptances/rejections) and collaboration processes.

Week 2 Lecture

• Possessor: The entity that owns something, often presented as a noun phrase within a larger phrase (DP): for example, John's book
• Pronouns: Replace full nominal phrases (DPs), occupying specifier position in a sentence.
• Tense Phrase (TP): Head of a sentence, followed by the tense head (T). Tense encodes time and agreement between subject and predicate. Temporal encoding can be separate from VP. -Affix-hopping/T-to-V movement: putting the past tense affix on the verb.
• Complementizer Phrase (CP): Syntactic structure with a complementizer (C), such as that, if, or whether; introduces subordinate clauses, and handles questions (yes/no and wh-questions)

Week 2 Seminar

• Constituency Tests: Methods for determining if a group of words forms a constituent unit within a sentence: -Substitution (pro-form) -Movement (clefting, pseudo-clefting) -Question formation -Stand-alone analysis -Coordination (joining constituents) -Dislocation (passivization, topicalization, scrambling) -Right-node raising
• C-command: Node B c-commands node C if every branching node dominating B also dominates C, and B does not dominate C. Antecedents must c-command pronouns in the structure.
• Head-gives-category: A head is necessary to have a phrase.

Week 3 Seminar

• Light verbs: Verbs carrying little meaning, frequently used with triadic/dyadic verbs (requiring objects or subject, indirect object): an example (solid-ify)
• Overt light verbs: verbalizers, active verbs from other verbs
  • Ex: Verbalize, prioritize, formulate, active
• External argument: receives theta role from v
• Internal argument: receives theta role from v
• Floated quantifier: quantifier that appears separately rather than preceding the noun phrase. Examples include "all," "both," and "each."
• Examples: Given sentences with phrases or quantifiers, provide correct analysis of the structure (e.g. external and internal arguments).

Week 3 Exercises

• Floated quantifiers: Examples are analyzed and explained. (e.g., "all the children have tasted the chocolate").
• Sentences have subject-verb agreement : analysis of the sentence structure

Weeks 4-5 Seminar

• Case and Case-marking: Case is a marker indicating the grammatical function (subject or object) of a noun within a sentence.
  • Nominative case marks the subject
  • Accusative case marks the object
  • Some languages use overt case marking (e.g., Latin, or Korean), while other languages use word order or other approaches
• Case Filter: All nominal phrases (DPs) must be assigned a case. This determines grammatical subject and object roles, preventing grammatical errors
• Case assigners (V,P): Case is assigned by verbs and prepositions to their complements. Nominative or accusative case are assigned by the verb (V)
• Head-initial / Head-final: Languages differ in whether the head of a phrase precedes or follows its dependents
• Case Filtering: all noun phrases must be assigned a case one time and only once.
• Nominative/Accusative: In nominative/accusative languages, the subject is usually marked with nominative case and the object is marked with accusative.

Week 5 Lecture

• Agreement: words change form based on other words
• Probe: An element examining semantic/formal properties in other elements of a sentence ("Controller" determines the ending of another element, the "target" changes its form)
• Head-marking: languages indicate subjects/objects morphologically.
• Dependent-marking: agreement morphology is marked on dependencies

Weeks 6 and beyond

• Morphosyntactic Alignment: Languages vary in how subjects and objects are marked grammatically or thematically (e.g. SVO vs. SOV).

• Ergative-absolutive: Subject of a transitive clause takes the ergative case, while object receives the absolutive case. The Nominative/Accusative system is the opposite, where the subject receives a nominative case and the object an accusative case.

  • Some languages show different morphologies depending on the grammatical function, whereas others do not.

• Coordination with Gapping: A gap in coordination. Example: He saw her and returned -> he saw her and he returned (same case is used)

• A receives ergative case, S and O receive absolutive case (In ergative-absolutive languages)

• Unergative: an intransitive verb with properties of an active agent

• Unaccusative: Intransitive verb whose subject is fundamentally similar to an object

• Semantics: Meaning of words, role of words within a phrase

• Syntax: Grammar of words in how a phrase, and then a sentence is constructed.

• Morphology: Structure, formation of words (affix forms)