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In recent minimalist work, it has been argued that C-agreement provides conclusive support for the following theoretical hypotheses (cf. Carstens 2003; van Koppen 2005; Haegeman & van Koppen 2012): (i) C hosts a separate set of phi-features, a parametric choice possibly linked to the V2 property; (ii) feature checking/valuation is accomplished under (closest) c-command (i.e. by the operation Agree, cf. Chomsky 2000 and subsequent work). This paper reviews the significance of C-agreement for syntactic theory and argues that certain systematic asymmetries between regular verbal agreement and complementizer agreement suggest that the latter does not result from operations that are part of narrow syntax. The case is based on the observation that at least in some Germanic varieties (most notably Bavarian), the realization of inflectional features in the C-domain is sensitive to adjacency effects and deletion of the finite verb in right node raising and comparatives. The fact that C may not carry inflection when the finite verb has been elided is taken to suggest that complementizer agreement does not involve a dependency between C and the subject, but father between C and the finite verb (i.e. T). More precisely, it is argued that inflectional features present in the C-domain are added postsyntactically via a process of feature insertion (cf. e.g. Embick 1997; Embick & Noyer 2001; Harbour 2003) that creates a copy of T’s (valued) <J)-set. It will then be shown that this account can also capture phenomena like first conjunct agreement (FCA) and external possessor agreement, which are often presented as crucial evidence of the syntactic nature of complementizer agreement (cf. van Koppen 2005; Haegeman & van Koppen 2012).
In the present-day Germanic languages, free relatives (FRs) share formal properties with indirect question in that both constructions are introduced by w-pronouns. However, at least in German (and historical stages of a larger set of languages, including English), there is an additional pattern which involves the use of d-pronouns such as German der/die/das ‘that.masc./fem./neut.’, which typically introduce headed relative clauses. Focusing on presentday German, this paper shows that d-FRs are set apart from w-FRs by a number of properties including syntactic distribution in the matrix clause, behavior with respect to matching effects, inventory of pronominal forms, and semantic interpretation. From these observations, it is concluded that d-FRs should not be analyzed on a par with w-FRs. More precisely, we argue that d-FRs are in fact regular headed (restrictive) relative clauses where the relative pronoun has been deleted under identity with a demonstrative antecedent. This apparent instance of syntactic haplology is then analyzed as resulting from the same mechanism that eliminates copies/traces in movement dependencies.
The article investigates the conditions under which the w-relativizer was appears instead of the d-relativzer das in German relative clauses. Building on Wiese 2013, we argue that was constitutes the elsewhere case that applies when identification with the antecedent cannot be established by syntactic means via upward agreement with respect to phi-features. Corpuslinguistic results point to the conclusion that this is the case whenever there is no lexical nominal in the antecedent that, following Geach 1962 and Baker 2003, supplies a criterion of identity needed to establish sameness of reference between the antecedent and the relativizer.