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Vicki Carstens
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry 1–51.
Published: 27 March 2023
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Nguni bare or augmentless ([–A]) nominals are licit only as strict negative dependents and wh -words. They may not appear in a preverbal subject position unless local to a negation-licensed [–A] complementizer of a subjunctive clause (Pietraszko 2021). This pattern motivates an analysis in terms of negative concord and a labeling theory approach to the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) (Chomsky 2013): [–A] nouns have uninterpretable negation features that thwart agreement and labeling in [XP, YP] configurations (see also Bošković 2019, 2020 on uninterpretable features and labeling problems) unless valued by interpretable negation in a syntactic Agree relation (Zeijlstra 2008, Haegeman and Lohndal 2010, Penka 2011). A cluster of further distributional restrictions on [–A] nominals are predictable from an independently motivated Nguni clausal topography of focus (Carstens and Mletshe 2016), eliminating any role for abstract Case in explaining the facts, contra Halpert 2015 and Pietraszko 2021. The analysis is inspired by and extends to parallel restrictions in Romance languages previously attributed to the Empty Category Principle and the EPP (Contreras 1986, Longobardi 1994, Déprez 2000, Landau 2007).
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2020) 51 (2): 199–235.
Published: 01 March 2020
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This article investigates the syntax of the phrase-final focus particles kuphela and qha ‘only’ in Zulu and Xhosa (Nguni; Bantu). We show that kuphela ’s and qha ’s associations with a focused constituent respect the complex topography of information structure in Nguni and, like English only , a surface c-command requirement. However, unlike English only , the Zulu and Xhosa particles typically follow the focus associate they c-command, a fact that poses a serious challenge for Kayne’s (1994) antisymmetry theory. We demonstrate that the Nguni facts are incompatible with recent Linear Correspondence Axiom–inspired approaches to phrase-final particles in other languages and, after weighing the merits of several approaches, we conclude that kuphela is an adjunct and that syntax is only weakly antisymmetric: adjuncts are not subject to the LCA.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2015) 46 (2): 187–242.
Published: 01 April 2015
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In Xhosa VSO clauses, subject agreement exhibits default features, objects cannot be pronominalized, a subject focus reading is obligatory, and experiencer verbs with two DP arguments are precluded. We argue that impoverished versions of T and v* in VSO clauses lack the probe features involved in subject agreement, EPP, object shift, and nominative/accusative valuation within Xhosa SVO sentences. Only an unusual focus-linked strategy can Case-license full DPs in VSO clauses, but this is incompatible with inherent Cases borne by arguments of experiencer verbs. We show that CPs and augmentless NPs appear in positions where DPs cannot surface because uCase is a feature of D. Given the striking evidence for abstract Case in Xhosa, we propose Case-friendly analyses for Bantu Case-theoretic anomalies that Xhosa shares.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2013) 44 (2): 179–237.
Published: 01 April 2013
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In Lubukusu and Lusaamia, the wh -expression ‘how’ agrees in φ-features with the subject of its clause. We show that agreement on ‘how’ is not always identical to subject agreement on the verb: the two diverge in certain locative inversion and subject extraction environments. On the basis of these facts, we argue that ‘how’ is a vP adjunct with downward-probing uφ independent of the uφ that underlies subject agreement. We also explore locality paradoxes that arise in connection with agreeing ‘how’ in locative inversion constructions. These present challenges to the traditional notion of equidistance from a probe as an explanation for inversion, show that operators may have ‘‘active’’ φ-features even while they are Ā-opaque, and offer insight into the mechanisms making locative inversion possible.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2003) 34 (3): 393–412.
Published: 01 July 2003
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Agree(X, Subj) accounts for all agreement in West Germanic: complementizer agreement (CA) results from an Agree relation between uninterpretable φ-features of Fin 0 (Rizzi 1997) and φ-features of the subject; subject-verb agreement (SA) spells out uninterpretable φ-features of T 0 on V 0 raised to T 0 , even in OV clauses (Haegeman 2000). Although DPs need Case to participate in Agree relations (Chomsky 2000), deletion-marked Case remains syntactically accessible until the next strong phase (Pesetsky and Torrego 2001), allowing CA and SA to cooccur. In Frisian, ‘that’ cannot agree in embedded VO clauses because it is in Force; the verb is in Fin 0 , bearing CA (contra Zwart 1997).
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2000) 31 (2): 319–355.
Published: 01 April 2000
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Concord within DP argues that movement is driven by uninterpretable features of either the target or the moved item, contra Chomsky 1995. The uninterpretable f-features of which concord consists must be eliminated by LF, to satisfy Full Interpretation. But raising of inflected APs and KPs into checking relations with N 0 cannot be motivated, in Chomsky's system, since N 0 has no uninterpretable features that these items can check. Assuming Kayne's (1994, 1998) proposal for APs, the problem can be partially overcome, but inflected “of” constructions still lack an account. Chomsky's (1998) probe-goal approach applied to concord also encounters difficulties, avoided under revision of the (1995) system: if the f-features of APs and KPs drive them to raise for checking, correct results are obtained.