Julie Legate

• University of Pennsylvania

The volume is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Noam Chomsky's groundbreaking Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.

This chapter argues for a distinction between VoiceP and vP, whereby VoiceP introduces the external argument, is the source of accusative case, and is the locus of voice in the clause, while vP introduces causative semantics. The chapter analyses Acehnese causative constructions, which show quite transparently that Voice is morphologically and dist...

This paper argues that split ergativity based on nominal type is a morphological phenomenon, not a syntactic one. We use three tests to identify the source of this type of split ergativity as morphological syncretism: (i) case agreement, (ii) syntactic ergativity, (iii) coordination. We illustrate the complex patterns of attested splits, demonstrat...

Levinson 2013 (L13) argues against the idea that ‘recursion, and especially recursive center-embedding, might be the core domain-specific property of language’ (p. 159), citing crosslinguistic grammatical data and specific corpus studies. L13 offers an alternative: language inherits its recursive properties ‘from the action domain’ (p. 159). We arg...

In Voice and v, Julie Anne Legate investigates the syntactic structure of voice, using Acehnese as the empirical starting point. A central claim is that voice is encoded in a functional projection, VoiceP, which is distinct from, and higher than, vP. Legate further claims that VoiceP may be associated with phi-features that semantically restrict th...

This chapter discusses the acquisition of the English metrical stress system. It shows that there is now a reasonable body of developmental data on stress acquisition, both longitudinal and cross-sectional, and that the main (early) stages in the metrical system of children can be identified. This allows the phonological theory of stress to be link...

This article reexamines a controversial construction in Acehnese (Lawler 1977 versus Durie 1988). I demonstrate that the construction is a passive, even though a verbal prefix bears the features of the agent rather than the surface subject. I analyze the prefix as a morphological realization of the functional head that introduces the external argum...

This volume explores and develops the framework of phases (so-called Phase Theory), first introduced in Chomsky (2000). The antecedents of such framework go back to the well-known notion of “cycle”, which concerns broader notions, such as compositionality, locality, and economy conditions. Within generative grammar, this idea of the cycle took a co...

This paper makes two main contributions to our understanding of ergativity. First, it supports the claim that ergative is an inherent case, through a study of the Warlpiri lexicon: no ergative-marked subjects are derived, in accordance with Marantz’ Generalization. Second, it reanalyses syntactic ergativity in Dyirbal. It demonstrates that the lang...

. This article analyses the wh-scope-marking construction in Warlpiri. The literature on wh-scope-marking constructions in other languages debates the relative merits of two types of analyses—the direct-dependency account, which posits covert movement of an embedded wh-phrase to replace a matrix expletive, and the indirect-dependency account, which...

This article examines a construction in English which has hitherto escaped attention in the linguistic literature, whereby a declarative embedded clause is introduced by how rather than that. We investigate the properties of this construction, revealing that it consists of a definite DP, rather than a simple embedded CP. KeywordsEnglish-How-Free r...

This article examines the relationship between and morphological case, arguing that morphological case realizes Case features in a postsyntactic morphology, according to the Elsewhere Condition. A class of prima facie ergative-absolutive languages is identified wherein intransitive subjects receive nominative Case and transitive objects receive acc...

This paper examines the placement of aspect and agreement clitics in Warlpiri. A common misconception regarding clitic placement in Warlpiri is cleared up: clitic placement does not depend on syllable count. It is also shown that these clitics do not uniformly appear in second position, syntactically or phonologically, making the standard label of...

In this paper, we propose that the Root Infinitive (RI) phenomenon in child language is best viewed and explained as a morphological learning problem. We make the following specific suggestions: • The optionality in RI reflects the presence of a grammar such as Chinese which does not manifest tense marking. • The gradual elimination of the Chinese-...

This squib has two goals: to identify evidence for (strong) phases (Chomsky 2000, 2001), and to use this evidence to investigate the extensional definition of a phase. Chomsky (2000) states that CP is a phase, whereas TP is not, and (transitive) vP is a phase, whereas passive and unaccusative verb phrases (VPs) are not. The A. argues here that unac...

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In this article, I present evidence for hierarchy and movement in Warlpiri, the proto-typical nonconfigurational language. Within the verb phrase, I identify both a symmetric and an asymmetric applicative construction, show that these are problematic for an LFG-style account that claims Warlpiri has a flat syntactic structure, and outline an accoun...

eceive its usual past tense interpretation. Iatridou proposes that the past morpheme is better analysed as an exclusion feature (ExclF), i.e. an underspecified morpheme which results in a past tense interpretation when it ranges over times and a counterfactual interpretation when it ranges over worlds: 3 (2) ExclF = T(x) excludes C(x) T(x) stands f...

iled examination of the derivation of #1d# in the DBP system. It is a good illustration of how the system is intended to work. At an early stage, #2# is built: #2# # Prt Num# # Case# # # kill someone Num#sg# Per#3# Case# # ## Only the syntactically relevant features are shown. The nominal someone enters the derivation with a full set of #-features...

Introduction This paper examines the complementary distribution between agreement and pronouns in Modern Irish. I demonstrate that the Irish agreement patterns are crucially di#erent from those found in more well-studied pro-drop languages, and thus require a di#erent explanation. One explanation previously proposed, that pronouns undergo incorpora...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2002. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-283). Photocopy.