Sandra Chung

Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian

* Preface * Abbreviations Symbols *0. Introduction *0.1. The Polynesian Languages *0.2. Phonological Morphological Features *1. An Overview of Surface Syntax *1.1. Structure of the Clause *1.2. Structure of the Verb Complex *1.3. Structure of the NP *1.4. Rules Affecting Pronouns * Notes *2. The Morphology of Case Voice *2.1. Case Marking *2.2. The -Cia Suffix: Passive, Transitive, or Perfective? * Notes *3. Case Marking Grammatical Relations *3.1. Two Positions on Case Marking Syntax *3.2. Subject-Referring Rules: Equi *3.3. Subject-Referring Rules: Raising *3.4. Direct Object-Referring Rules *3.5. Other Major Rules *3.6. Conclusion * Notes *4. Case Assignment in the Ergative Languages *4.1. Two Proposals for Case Assignment *4.2. Case Assignment in Middle Clauses *4.3. Some Rules That Are Sensitive to Case Marking *4.4. On the Role of Case Marking in Syntax * Notes *5. Previous Approaches to the History of the Case System *5.1. Pro to-Polynesian as an Accusative Language *5.2. Proto-Polynesian as an Ergative Language *5.3. Summary * Notes *6. The Passive-to-Ergative Reanalysis *6.1. A New Proposal *6.2. On Reconstruction *6.3. Proto-Polynesian *-Cia *6.4. Proto-Polynesian *i *6.5. Proto-Polynesian *e *6.6. The Proto-Polynesian Case System *6.7. The Rise of Ergative Case Marking *6.8. Conclusion * Notes *7. Reanalysis Pukapukan Syntax *7.1. The Passive-to-Ergative Reanalysis *7.2. Pukapukan *7.3. Testing the Prediction *7.4. An Account of the Facts *7.5. Two Further Examples *7.6. Conclusion * Notes * Appendix A. Orthography * Appendix B. Sources * Bibliography * Index

Transderivational Relationships in Chamorro Phonology

The Saipan dialect of Chamorro displays certain transderivational relationships that hold optionally between complex words and the non-complex forms from which they are derived. These relationships are examined, and it is argued that phonological theory must either allow optionally-cyclic rule application, or else recognize a class of transderivational phenomena for which the cycle cannot account.*

Syntactic Identity in Sluicing: How Much and Why

Research on sluicing has not yet reached consensus on whether the identity condition on this ellipsis construction is syntactic or semantic. Evidence from Chamorro and English is presented that over and above semantic identity, sluicing requires limited syntactic identity. The limited syntactic identity condition involves argument structure on the one hand and abstract Case on the other. This approach is shown to account for a range of novel and familiar sluicing patterns in the two languages. It also provides new evidence for the idea that the Chamorro antipassive is an implicit argument construction.

On Reference to Kinds in Indonesian

Chierchias (1998) theory of noun denotations, formalized in the Nominal Mapping Parameter, makes the prediction that no language will have both a generalized classifier system and a singular – plural contrast in nouns. Evidence presented in this note suggests that Indonesian is just such a language. The evidence is used to raise the more general issue of the extent to which the morphosyntax of nouns can be reliably predicted from the routes by which they are mapped into their denotations (and vice versa).

VP's and verb movement in Chamorro

Most GB analyses of VSO languages have assumed that these languages have an SVO clause structure in which surface order is derived by leftward movement of V — usually, movement of V to Infl. This paper argues that that there is another possible route to VSO-hood, which is instantiated by the VSO language Chamorro. I argue for a view of Chamorro clause structure that consists of three claims: (i) there is a predicate XP constituent separate from the subject; (ii) this predicate XP precedes the subject, in other words, the clause structure of Chamorro is fundamentally VOS; (iii) surface word order is produced not by V Movement, but by adjoining the subject to the right of some projection of a [+V] category, essentially as proposed by Choe (1986) for Berber. Evidence supporting these claims is drawn from proper government in WH-constructions, from the syntax of nonverbal predicates, and from coordination.

The Syntax and Prosody of Weak Pronouns in Chamorro

In the modular linguistic theory assumed by many generative linguists, phonology and syntax are interconnected but fundamentally independent components of grammar. The effects of syntax on phonology are mediated by prosodic structure, a representation of prosodic constituents calculated from syntactic structure but not isomorphic to it. Within this overall architecture, I investigate the placement of weak pronouns in the Austronesian language Chamorro. Certain Chamorro pronominals can be realized as prosodically deficient weak pronouns that typically occur right after the predicate. I showthat these pronouns are second-position clitics whose placement is determined not syntactically, but prosodically: they occur after the leftmost phonological phrase of their intonational phrase. My analysis of these clitics assumes that lexical insertion is late and can affect and be affected by prosodic phrase formation-assumptions consistent with the view that the mutual interaction of phonology and syntax is confined to the postsyntactic operations that translate syntactic structure into prosodic structure.

On the Notion “Null Anaphor” in Chamorro

Virtually all GB research on empty categories has proceeded from two fundamental assumptions. First, a commitment to the PROJECTION PRINCIPLE, the hypothesis that thematic structure must be directly mapped into phrase structure at every syntactic level of representation. It is this principle that dictates that empty categories must occur in all the positions where they are standardly posited. These include the origin sites of NP-Movement (occupied by NP-trace) and Wh-Movement (occupied by Wh-trace), the subject position of control complements (occupied by PRO), and the missing argument positions of clauses in pro-drop languages (occupied by pro). Second, nothing besides the lack of phonetic content is supposed to differentiate empty categories from their overt counterparts. Thus it is widely assumed that both overt and empty NPs are cross-classified by the features [anaphor] and [pronominal]. In Chomsky’s (1982, 78–81) classification of empty NPs, NP-trace is an anaphor but not a pronominal; Wh-trace is neither an anaphor nor a pronominal, PRO is both an anaphor and a pronominal; and pro is a pronominal but not an anaphor.

Sentential Subjects and Proper Government in Chamorro

The problems of representation posed by VSO languages arise in some form in every current syntactic theory. How is clause structure represented in these languages, what is its relationship to surface word order, and how does it differ (if at all) from the clause structure of languages such as English? One way of approaching these questions within Government-Binding Theory is to rephrase them as questions about the government properties of the subject. If the subject position in VSO languages could be shown to be properly governed, then there would be some reason for supposing that the clause has an S-structure different from that assumed for English: either a flat S-structure, as in (1a), or else an S-structure in which Infi supported by V (1b), or perhaps Infi alone (1c), properly governs the subject. (For discussion of the specifics of the structures shown below, see the works cited.)

Grammatical licensing and relative clause parsing in a flexible word-order language

Evidence from two experiments reveals that in Chamorro, a verb-first language, the comprehension of relative clauses (RCs) is sensitive to the order of the RC with respect to the head. Unlike most other languages, Chamorro allows both postnominal and prenominal RCs, so it is possible to compare how the two types are processed within the same language. Moreover, Chamorro is a small language whose speakers do not fit the typical profile of participants in cognitive science experiments. We found that RC comprehension is affected by the relative order of RC and head, and by other language-specific factors. However, we also found new support for a subject gap advantage in all RC types. This advantage emerged in early response measures and was reinforced in postnominal RCs, but often outcompeted in prenominal RCs by other pressures. We frame this competition in terms of a model in which grammatical licensing requirements play a key role in comprehension.