ComSyn Lectures

The Com(parative) Syn(tax) Meetings will resume in September.
We wish you a very nice summer!

Kind regards,
The ComSyn organizers

Speaker: Norma Schifano (University of Cambridge)
Title: The paradigmatic instantiation of TAM: a novel approach to Romance Verb-Movement
Venue: Lipsius/235C
Time: 13:15 – 15:00

Abstract
The aim of this talk is to explore the placement of the finite lexical verb across Romance and to show that, once a rich clausal structure is adopted, as mapped by the cartography, at least for different typologies of V-movement can be identified. The novel approach which will be then presented will show that the attested patterns are not accidental choices of these languages, but rather stem from a compensatory mechanism between syntax and morphology in the licensing of the TAM interpretation of the verb and can be successfully predicted by looking at the properties of the verb paradigms devoted to the expression of Mood, Tense and Aspect.

Speaker: Caterina Donati (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
Title: What do labels do: deciding between the external and internal definition
Time: 15:15-17:00
Venue: Lipsius/148

Date: Thursday 27 March 2014
Title: Adapting to atypical prosody: contrastive noun phrases in Dutch and Italian
Time: 13.15-15.00u
Venue: Lipsius 235c

Abstract

This study investigates to what extent the prosody produced by speakers in a conversation is dependent on the prosody of their interlocutor and to what extent on constraints imposed by the prosodic rules of the speakers’ native language. We know from earlier work that speakers may adapt to the pitch level (F0) of their interlocutors. In addition, we know that the speaker’s native language requires a certain prosody that may be language-specific, for instance regarding the distribution of pitch accents. In particular, languages differ in the extent to which intonation patterns can be shifted, with so-called plastic languages such as Dutch being more flexible than non-plastic languages such as Italian in this respect. In this study we investigate how these differences relate to the extent to which speakers adapt their prosody to their interlocutor. Therefore, a production experiment elicited contrastive noun phrases from Dutch and Italian speakers, interacting with an interlocutor who produced prosodic structures that were either typical or atypical in the language. Analysis of the produced pitch and perceived prominence of the NPs indicated that speakers of Dutch adapt their accent structure to that of an interlocutor, while speakers of Italian do not adapt in this way.

Speaker: Luis Lopez (UIC)
Title: Remarks on the syntactification of morphology
Time: 15:15-17:00
Venue: Wijkplaats 4/001

Abstract

Taking a Distributed Morphology model as a starting point, the talk will present the hypothesis that parallel computations drive some word-formation processes. It will be argued that complex event structure is independent of the presence of a verbal phrase. Nominalizations in Spanish, which often exhibit verbal thematic vowels between the root and the nominalizing affix, turn out to be an ideal playground to test theoretical hypotheses. The larger aim of this project is to explore in depth the consequences of the hypothesis that word formation and phrasal syntax constitute one single module (as in Marantz 1997 i.m.a.).

Speaker: Marko Hladnik (Universiteit Utrecht)
Title: The diverse origins of resumption – Feature recoverability and processing in relative clauses
Time: 13:13-15:00
Venue: Lipsus/235C

Abstract
Relative clauses in Slavic languages can be formed in two ways: they are either introduced by a relative pronoun or a complementizer, with the latter case involving resumption. I argue for a uniform syntactic analysis of the two constructions, wherein the differences only emerge at PF, where resumption is a necessary result of recoverability requirements. Apparent optionality of resumption such as we find in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Polish has deeper syntactic causes, i.e. the two options are actually the result of separate syntactic derivations.

It is necessary to keep apart different types of resumption with distinct properties, which have often been conflated under the same label in the literature. Resumption as repair differs from obligatory resumption as a primary strategy in relative clauses, whereas yet another type is shown to be driven by processing, not syntax.

In addition, processing considerations – rejected as a source of resumption in short relatives – also play a role when it comes to the choice between the two available alternatives. While both options are always available and neither is prescriptively discriminated against, a corpus study reveals that the choice between the two observes a complexity hierarchy of relativized positions. An increase in position complexity is coupled with an increase in preference for the pronoun construction.

Speaker: Gertjan Postma (Meertens Instituut)
Title: A Germanic language island in Brazil: generalized T-to-C in Brazilian Pomeranian
Time: 13:15 – 15: 00
Venue: Lipsius/235C

Abstract

Pomeranian is the coastal dialect of Continental Germanic between the Oder river and the Vistula river, an area which is called Hinter-Pommern. Until 1945 it was part of Germany, but lays in present-day Poland. While Pomeranian is not used anymore in cohesive communities in Europe since 1945, it is still in full use in various parts of Brazil. These communities derive from immigration as early as 1850, and were rather isolated until recently.
In this talk we report on new fieldwork on Brazilian Pomeranian in the state of Espirito Santo (ES). We study some morphosyntactic innovations found in these 19th century settlements. We focus on the merger of the verbal prefix tau ‘to’ (German zu), with the complementizer um ‘for’, giving rise to the complex complementizer taum.

(1) du bust nog nich grot naug um an Flasch Wiin ut-tau-drink-en (European Pomeranian)
you are yet not big enough for a bottle wine out-to-drink.gerund
‘you are not big enough to drink out a bottle of wine’
(2)  Dai lüür häwa kair gild taum sich air huus ø buug-en. (Brazilian Pomeranian)
The people have no money for-to themselves a house ø build.gerund
‘The people have no money to build themselves a house’

We argue that the form taum, which used to be a preposition tau + a Dative case marker (-m), was reanalyzed in Brazilian Pomeranian as a complex complementizer um + zu (for+to), which we also encounter in Middle English (3).

(3) A modir is not bounde forto alwey and for euere ø fede her children  (Middle English)
‘a mother is not bound to always and for ever feed.inf her children’

We analyze this complex complementizer as a realization of (C+T). As V remains clause final, it implies that V and T are split, similar to what happens in the history of English (split infinitives). We discuss two other instances of absence of V-to-T: daua-support, and the complete absence of suffixal past tenses in Brazilian Pomeranian: *walked. Only irregular past tenses survive.

Speaker: Jenneke van der Wal (University of Cambridge)
Topic: From macroparameters to nanoparameters: a comparative Bantu case study
Time: 13:15 -14:30
Venue: Eyckhof 2/006

Abstract
According to the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture (Baker 2008), all parameters of variation are attributable to differences in the features of the functional heads in the lexicon. Parameters thus concern the presence and distribution of formal features on heads, e.g. phi features on v and T. In “size” terms, we might expect parameters of different kinds, depending on this distribution (Biberauer and Roberts 2012):
(1) For a given value vi of a parametrically variant feature F:
a. Macroparameters: all functional heads of the relevant type share vi;
b. Mesoparameters: all functional heads of a given naturally definable class, e.g. [+V], share vi;
c. Microparameters: a small subclass of functional heads (e.g. modal auxiliaries, pronouns) shows vi;
d. Nanoparameters: one or more individual lexical items is/are specified for vi.
We test this idea in Bantu languages, where parameters of different “sizes” are indeed found. A proposed macroparameter relates to abstract Case (Diercks 2012), which seems to affect the presence/absence of [uCase] features for a whole language. On a meso-level, we can think of subject and object agreement, uϕ being restricted to the extended projection of V. But object agreement also figures in microparametric variation, for example in sensitivity to animacy. Finally, the extremely restricted locative classes in Tswana can be thought of in nanoparametric terms.
For Bantu, then, it seems possible to identify parameters corresponding to all of the types in (1). Moreover, we see evidence from within this family that languages may vary as to the “grain” of their parametric settings: what is macro in one system could be nano in another. This suggests that it may be productive to pursue the kind of hierarchical approach to parametric variation currently being pursued in the context of the ReCoS project (see http://recos-dtal.mml.cam.ac.uk).

Speaker: Bettina Gruber (Universiteit Utrecht)
Title: The Spatiotemporal Dimensions of Person
Time: 13:15-14:30
Venue: Eyckhof 1/003C

Abstract
In this talk, I will take a closer look at the deictic and grammatical category person and its associated linguistic expressions: indexical, i.e. first and second person, pronouns. I argue that person is derivative of spatiotemporal information: Firstly, temporal information is argued to restrict the interpretation of indexical pronouns to a contextually relevant temporal stage. Secondly, spatial information contributes the necessary contextual anchoring. In other words, indexical pronouns are defined by the where and when of their referent. Based on data from Dutch, English, German, Italian, Armenian (Indoeuropean), Turkish (Turkic), and Blackfoot (Algonquian), it will be shown that these spatiotemporal components are also encoded morphosyntactically in the internal structure of indexical pronouns.

We wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Click here for our Christmas wishes!