<OT> New Posting: ROA-611

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 611-0803

Phrase Structure Directionality: Having a few Choices

Alex Zepter <azepter at rci.rutgers.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=611


Abstract:
The thesis claims that the linear organization of specifier,
head and complement in a phrase and throughout a syntactic
tree is determined by a conflict between general violable
constraints on X-bar-structure. The adopted framework is
Optimality Theory (cf. Prince and Smolensky 1993; in syntax,
cf. Grimshaw 1997). The proposed constraint system explains
why phrase structure directionality is mostly uniform and
why only some non-uniform cases exist, while other logically
possible kinds of mixed directionality are unattested.


Central to the dissertation is the idea that head-initial
oriented languages have a greater structural conflict to
resolve inside their lexical projections than head-final
languages: The combination of a general preference for [head
- complement]-order and for a left-peripheral specifier
bars the lexical head from surfacing at an edge of the phrase.
The combination of a general preference for [complement
- head]-order and for a left-peripheral specifier still
allows alignment at one edge. This greater conflict can
be resolved in different ways, which leads to slightly more
variation among head-initial oriented languages: Not only
do we find uniform SVO-languages, but we also find VOS-languages,
VSO-languages and head-initial oriented languages with a
head-final verb phrase. On the primary examples of the Mayan
VOS-language Tzotzil, the 'strict' VSO-language Yosondúa
Mixtec, and the 'mixed-headed' languages German and Persian,
I show that mixed directionality is not arbitrary in its
ways of deviating from uniformity. The proposed system derives
various implicational universals capturing the persistently
systematic nature of phrase structure directionality. The
predictions made about the verbal domain have systematic
correlations in the domain of all other categories.

Comments: Rutgers University dissertation, 2003
Keywords: syntax, basic word order, uniform and mixed directionality, cross-categorial implications, VOS Tzotzil, Mixtecan VSO, German, Persian
Areas: Syntax
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=611