LINGUIST List 17.15
Tue Jan 10 2006
Diss: Morphology: Almansour: 'Adjective Incorporatio...'
Editor for this issue: Meredith Valant
<meredithlinguistlist.org>
Directory
1. Abdulrahman
Almansour,
Adjective Incorporation and the Morphosyntactic Interface
Message 1: Adjective Incorporation and the Morphosyntactic Interface
Date: 09-Jan-2006
From: Abdulrahman Almansour <hmansourksu.edu.sa>
Subject: Adjective Incorporation and the Morphosyntactic Interface
Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2004
Author: Abdulrahman Almansour
Dissertation Title: Adjective Incorporation and the Morphosyntactic Interface
Linguistic Field(s):
Morphology
Subject Language(s): Oromo, West Central (gaz)
Dissertation Director:
Yafei Li
Vivian Lin
Mark l. Louden
Cynthia Miller
Dissertation Abstract:
The main goal of this thesis is to uncover the component of UniversalGrammar where a morphologically-complex de-adjectival verb is formed. Weshow that although the internal structure of morphologically-complexde-adjectival causatives is empirically and theoretically predicted to beopaque to phrase-level operations (Borer 1991; Li, in press), syntacticprocesses and descriptions are not oblivious to the internal structure ofthat derived structure in Oromo and Amharic. In Chapter One, we present thesyntactic constraints that preclude the realization of the adjectivalproperties of the adjective in derived de-adjectival causatives. In ChapterTwo, we elucidate the structural properties of the causative constrictionin Oromo and Amharic. In Chapter Three, we present several diagnostics thatconclusively suggest the presence of a syntactic adjective phrase in theunderlying structure of de-adjectival causatives in the two languages inquestion. Building on a well-motivated assumption that there is nowell-formed syntactic structure into which a synthetic de-adjectival verbmight project (Li, in press), we advance in Chapter Four an argument to theeffect that both members of those derived de-adjectival causatives arelexically independent. The syntactic transparency of the de-adjectivalcausatives in Oromo and Amharic follows because all members are independentin the syntactic component. Having ruled out the responsibility of thesyntactic component for forming de-adjectival causatives in Oromo andAmharic, we contend that the burden of explanation should be shifted fromit to the mapping between the syntax and the phonology. Inspired by workdone in distributed morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993), we maintain that themerger of the members of de-adjectival causatives takes placepost-syntactically in intermediate level of representation calledmorphological structure. We show that this merger is constrained by strictadjacency requirements imposed by the mapping to the phonological structure.
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