<OT> New Posting: ROA-941

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 941-1207

Default Case in OT Syntax

Melissa Frazier <melfraz at email.unc.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=941


Abstract:
Default case appears when a DP cannot get case through normal
syntactic mechanisms (Schütze 2001).  In an OT system,
default case is best analyzed as an example of emergence
of the unmarked.  When case cannot be assigned, the least
marked case is used.  A constraint system is developed that
includes markedness constraints for assigning structural
case and faithfulness constraints for assigning nonstructural
case (in partial agreement with Woolford 2001a).  Default
case is controlled by the ranking of constraints that penalize
the appearance of certain cases -- the lowest ranked of
such constraints correlates with the default case of the
language.  This is an argument against Woolford's (2001a)
proposed universal ranking of these constraints.  The constraint
system developed here is used to analyze bare pronoun answers
to questions (e.g. 'Who is going?', answer: 'Me.') in English
(where default case is used) and German (where default case
is not used).

Comments: 
Keywords: default case, English, German
Areas: Syntax
Type: Manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=941