LINGUIST List 15.1204

Tue Apr 13 2004

Books: Syntax: Juarros

Editor for this issue: Neil Salmond <neillinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. glsa, Argument Structure and the Lexicon/Syntax Interface: Juarros

Title: Argument Structure and the Lexicon/Syntax Interface
Publication Year: 2004	
Publisher: Graduate Linguistic Students' Assoc., Umass
	 http://server102.hypermart.net/glsa/index.htm
			
Author: Eva Juarros

CD: Price: U.S. $ 12

			
Abstract:
			
This dissertation addresses two questions: (a) how do we explain the
limited set of argument structure types?; and (b) how do lexical
structures relate to syntactic structures? This work is situated
within the approach of Hale and Keyser (2002, henceforth H&K), whose
purpose is to ascertain the role that structural factors play in the
behavior of lexical items.

As for the first question, H&K argue that argument structures are
restricted by the combination of primitive lexical categories defined
solely by structural properties. The present study points out that the
restrictive power of H&K's theory is undermined by allowing
unrestricted recursive combination of such primitive units. It is
shown that by restricting this type of lexical recursion, we can make
this problem disappear.

As for the second question, this dissertation argues that two
adicity-changing processes, transitivization and detransitivization,
are key to understanding the relation between lexical and syntactic
structures. We investigate these processes in Catalan and Spanish. It
is proposed that there are two types of verbal affixes: one plays no
role in the argument structure of the verb (but refers instead to its
aspectual properties), while the other is responsible for the
aforementioned processes. It is also maintained that the affixes of
the second type correspond to a functional category that bridges over
from lexical to syntactic structures. After identifying these two
types of affixes, the present study reanalyzes some data from O'odham,
Navajo, Miskitu, Ulwa, and Yaqui, which are problematic to H&K's
approach.

Finally, this dissertation addresses an important extension of H&K's
theory, namely the 'manner index'. Such index is either proximate
(bound by the internal argument), or obviative (bound by other than
the internal argument.) In H&K's theory, the type of index associated
with the root determines a particular structure, which in turn
determines the behavior of the corresponding verb. The present study
derives two typologies by breaking the determination relation between
index and structure. First, by combining the structural
type('put'/'get') and the index type (obviative/proximate), we obtain
a four-way paradigm. Spanish prepositional verbs present the predicted
patterns. Second, we account for two alternations:
unergative-unaccusative in Italian, and unergative-transitive in
English. Given the explanatory power of the obviative/proximate index,
it is concluded that this is a welcome addition.


For more GLSA publications or to order on-line, please visit our
website: http://server102.hypermart.net/glsa/index.htm.
			

Lingfield(s):	Morphology
		Syntax
			
Subject Language(s):	Catalan-valencian-balear (Language Code: CLN) 
			Italian (Language Code: ITN) 
			M�skito (Language Code: MIQ) 
			Navajo (Language Code: NAV) 
			O'odham (Language Code: PAP) 
			Sumo Tawahka (Language Code: SUM) 
			Yaqui (Language Code: YAQ)

Written In: English (Language Code: English)

 See this book announcement on our website:
 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=9650.