Rajesh Bhatt

The Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses: Evidence from Adjectival Modification

This paper provides a new argument for the raising analysis of relative clauses. This argument is based on the observation that certain adjectival modifiers on the head of a relative clause can be interpreted in positions internal to the relative clause. It is shown that the raising analysis of relative clauses is able to generate the readings corresponding to the relative clause internal interpretation of adjectival modifiers and that two competing analyses of relative clauses, the matching analysis and the head external analysis, are not able to do so.

Late Merger of Degree Clauses

In this article, we propose that degree heads and degree clauses form a constituent not at the point where the degree head is merged, but after QR of the degree head and countercyclic merger of the degree clause. We derive a generalization originally outlined in Williams 1974 that the scope of the comparative degree quantifier is exactly as high as the site of attachment of the degree clause. This generalization is shown to follow from the derivational mechanism of countercyclic merger and a semantic property of the comparative degree head, namely, its nonconservativity

A Multi-Representational and Multi-Layered Treebank for Hindi/Urdu

This paper describes the simultaneous development of dependency structure and phrase structure treebanks for Hindi and Urdu, as well as a PropBank. The dependency structure and the PropBank are manually annotated, and then the phrase structure treebank is produced automatically. To ensure successful conversion the development of the guidelines for all three representations are carefully coordinated.

Harmonic grammar with linear programming: From linear systems to linguistic typology

Harmonic Grammar (HG) is a model of linguistic constraint interac- tion in which well-formedness is calculated in terms of the sum of weighted constraint violations. We show how linear programming algorithms can be used to determine whether there is a weighting for a set of constraints that fits a set of linguistic data. The associated software package OT-Help provides a practical tool for studying large and complex linguistic systems in the HG framework and comparing the results with those of OT. We first describe the translation from harmonic grammars to systems solvable by linear programming algorithms. We then develop an HG analysis of ATR harmony in Lango that is, we argue, superior to the existing OT and rule-based treatments. We further highlight the usefulness of OT-Help, and the analytic power of HG, with a set of studies of the predictions HG makes for phonological typology.

Expressives and Identity Conditions

EXPRESSIVES AND IDENTITY CONDITIONS Christopher Potts Ash Asudeh Seth Cable Yurie Hara Eric McCready Luis Alonso-Ovalle Rajesh Bhatt Christopher Davis Angelika Kratzer Tom Roeper Martin Walkow Müller, Gereon. 2004. Verb-second as vP-first. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 7:179–234. Nilsen, Øystein. 2003. Eliminating positions. Doctoral dissertation, OTS, Utrecht. Pafel, Jürgen. 1998. Skopus und logische Struktur. Arbeitspapiere des Sonderforschungsbereichs 340, Bericht 129. Tübingen/Stuttgart: University of Tübingen/University of Stuttgart. Reinhart, Tanya. 1983. Anaphora and semantic interpretation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sauerland, Uli, and Paul Elbourne. 2002. Total reconstruction, PF movement, and derivational order. Linguistic Inquiry 33: 283–319. Thiersch, Craig. 1985. Some notes on scrambling in the German Mittelfeld, VP and X-bar theory. Ms., University of Connecticut, Storrs, and University of Cologne.

Rightward Scrambling as Rightward Remnant Movement

Mahajan (1997) and Simpson and Bhattacharya (2003) analyze Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi-Urdu and Bangla as SVO. We argue against this position, drawing on rightward scrambling in Hindi-Urdu to make this point. We propose an account of the phenomenon in terms of rightward remnant-VP movement. This account differs from proposals that posit rightward movement of individual arguments as well as from the antisymmetric proposals mentioned above, which treat rightward scrambling as argument stranding. Our rightward remnant movement analysis better captures two empirical properties of rightward scrambling that remain elusive in the other accounts: the correlation between linear order and scope, and restricted scope for rightward- scrambled wh-expressions.

Semilinearity Is a Syntactic Invariant: A Reply to Michaelis and Kracht 1997

On the basis of data from Old Georgian (Boeder 1995), Michaelis and Kracht (1997) argue against treating semilinearity as a syntactic invariant. They claim that Suffixaufnahme in Old Georgian noun phrases is responsible for making Old Georgian a non-semilinear-growth language. We show that Michaelis and Kracht (a) draw an incorrect inference from the data presented in Boeder 1995, and (b) do not take into account certain processes of morphological reduction (haplology). Once these two factors are taken into account, the claim that Old Georgian is a non-semilinear-growth language becomes untenable

Comments on Referential CPs and DPs: An operator movement account

This paper attempts a novel and impressive assimilation of embedded clauses which predicts the distribution of Main Clause Phenomena in these clauses. Simplifying somewhat, the proposal is that a certain class of Main Clause Phenomena, namely argument fronting, are blocked by covert operator movement. Some embedded clauses have operator movement and these block argument fronting; others don’t and these allow argument fronting. Three environments are examined in this paper where argument fronting, a representative Main Clause Phenomenon, is blocked: temporal clauses, conditional clauses, and factive clauses. If these environments can be demonstrated to have the relevant kind of operator movement, then the paper will have succeeded in its goals. In this discussion, I will consider the first two cases only briefly. The first case considered is that of temporal clauses and here there is clear evidence for operator movement from the existence of high/low construals and presence of island effects.

Tense and the Realization of the Feminine Plural in Hindi-Urdu

This chapter examines the realization of the plural feature in the context of the feminine feature in Hindi-Urdu. We argue that the plural feature is only realized in the presence of a feminine feature if this plural feature is in the context of finite tense. Our analysis gives a detailed treatment of agreement morphology in Hindi-Urdu and provides an independent way of characterizing finiteness in the language.