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Title:
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Telicity and the Syntax-Semantics of the Object and Subject
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Author:
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Miren Hodgson
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Massachusetts at Amherst
, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
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Degree Date:
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2006
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Semantics
Syntax
Language Acquisition
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Subject Language(s):
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English
Spanish
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Director(s):
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Thomas Roeper
Peggy Speas
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Abstract:
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This dissertation presents a study on the acquisition of telicity by
Spanish and English native speakers. In addition to the study of
acquisition, it investigates the syntactic and semantic properties of
locatum constructions (e.g., the water filled the bucket), which are
sentences that contain two internal arguments and whose subject is
non-agentive. This dissertation explores the syntactic and semantic
properties of elements of the verb phrase that had not been previously
considered in the interpretation of telicity, such as the role of
non-agentive subjects and the type of movement that takes place in the
checking of the verb’s telic features.
Contrary to the assumption that only the direct internal argument of the
verb can delimit an event, I argue that objects generated in the lower verb
phrase, by virtue of being an internal argument of the verb can delimit an
event. An object delimits an event by checking the verb’s telic features
in spec-AspP, either by covert or overt movement. If a predicate contains
one internal argument (e.g., the boy filled the bucket) the checking of the
verb’s telic features takes place via covert movement. That is, only the
NPs specific quantification features move covertly to check the verb’s
telic features in spec-AspP. However, if the predicate contains two
internal arguments (e.g., fill the bucket with water), the surfaced subject
(e.g., the water filled the bucket) by virtue of being an internal argument
of the verb, checks the verb’s telic features as the category and its
features move overtly to subject position.
The study shows that young children understand telicity when the verb’s
telic features are checked via overt movement, but have difficulties
understanding telicity when the verb’s telic features are checked via
covert movement. I propose that predicates whose telicity involves overt
movement should be acquired earlier than predicates whose telicity involves
covert movement because overt movement is an operation that happens between
D-structure and S-structure before the sentence is pronounced. Predicates
whose telicity involves covert movement might be acquired at a later age of
development because covert movement happens between S-structure and LF
after the sentence is pronounced.
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