Agreement Configurations: Grammatical Relations in Modular Grammar
, M. J. Alexander 1990
This thesis presents an analysis of the relationship between grammatical agreement and so-called "non-configurationality." We argue that the properties of non-configurational languages should be made to follow from independently motivated principles of agreement. We explore the contrast, discussed in Hale (1989), between languages such as Navaho (Athapaskan) which permit co-occurrence of full noun phrases and agreement inflection and languages which show complementary distribution between these categories, such as Dogrib (Athapaskan) and Irish (Celtic). We argue that the study of these contrasts supports the analysis of non-configurationality presented in Jelinek (1984) where agreement morphemes have argumental, theta-marked status, in non-configurational languages.
We first introduce issues in the study of grammatical configurations such as word order as induced by Case and thematic-role assignment (Chapter 1). In Chapter 2, we review the literature on the issue of non-configurationality, and in Chapter 3, we follow Alexander (1986) in arguing that no bivalent (two-valued) configurationality parameter can account for observed configurational variance and we propose a four-valued opposition—the Case/Agreement distinction—which obviates the need for a separate configurationality parameter. In Chapter 4, we discuss the proper analysis of languages which show complementary distribution between nominal arguments (NPs) and agreement morphemes, arguing that the analysis in Hale (1989) cannot be supported and, further, that this analysis conflicts with the analyses of configurationality proposed in Jelinek (1984) and Hale (1984). We argue that features of theta-theory provide a superior analysis of these languages. In Chapter 5, we discuss two languages, Canela-Krahô and Hixkaryana, which cannot be subsumed under Hale’s analysis.
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Kenneth L. Hale, Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics
1 | Introduction | 1 | ||
1.1 | Where does word order come from | 1 | ||
1.1.1 | Some theoretical background | 1 | ||
1.1.2 | Word order in this work | 23 | ||
1.2 | Another question: how does agreement work | 36 | ||
1.2.1 | Some background | 36 | ||
1.2.2 | The outline of this work | 41 | ||
1.3 | Theoretical assumptions | 53 | ||
1.3.1 | D-structure representations | 63 | ||
1.3.1.1 | The lexicon | 63 | ||
1.3.1.2 | X-bar theory | 70 | ||
1.3.1.3 | Theta theory | 76 | ||
1.3.1.4 | Case theory | 79 | ||
1.3.2 | D-structure to surface—Move α | 81 | ||
2 | Approaches to configurationality | 85 | ||
2.1 | “On the position of Warlpiri in a typology of the base” | 85 | ||
2.2 | “Preliminary remarks on configurationality” | 95 | ||
2.3 | “Warlpiri and the grammar of non-configurational languages” | 109 | ||
2.4 | “Empty categories, case and configurationality” | 122 | ||
2.5 | Two alternative conceptions | 131 | ||
2.5.1 | “The configurationality of Slave” | 131 | ||
2.5.2 | The saturation parameter: Speas, 1986 | 142 | ||
2.6 | Summary of the analyses considered | 148 | ||
3 | A non-bivalent theory | 150 | ||
3.1 | On the goals of Case/agreement | 154 | ||
3.2 | Licensing theory and multiple licensers | 175 | ||
3.3 | Agreement languages: a sub-class | 187 | ||
4 | Treating the class of middle cases | 204 | ||
4.1 | A conflict between theories | 204 | ||
4.2 | Implications of inflection across categories | 224 | ||
4.3 | Inflection across categories | 231 | ||
4.3.1 | Argument languages | 231 | ||
4.3.2 | Adargument languages 1: Athapaskan | 237 | ||
4.3.3 | Adargument languages 2: Hixkaryana | 240 | ||
4.4 | Hale’s analysis and the facts of Yagua | 241 | ||
4.4.1 | Positional complementary distribution | 243 | ||
4.4.2 | Implications of Yagua | 248 | ||
4.5 | A revised incorporation analysis | 250 | ||
4.6 | A Hale-type analysis of Yagua | 275 | ||
4.7 | Two alternative views | 279 | ||
4.8 | Multiple nominals in Italian and Hopi | 283 | ||
4.9 | Conclusions | 292 | ||
5 | Incorporation and locality | 295 | ||
5.1 | Path containment in Hixkaryana | 295 | ||
5.2 | Subject complementary distribution in Canela-Krahô | 306 | ||
5.3 | Conclusions: on non-configurationality | 319 |