LINGUIST List 19.850: Syntax: Chandra: '(Dis)Agree: Movement and Agreement Reconsid...'

LINGUIST List 19.850

Thu Mar 13 2008

Diss: Syntax: Chandra: '(Dis)Agree: Movement and Agreement Reconsid...'

Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter <evelynlinguistlist.org>

1. Pritha Chandra, (Dis)Agree: Movement and Agreement Reconsidered

Message 1: (Dis)Agree: Movement and Agreement Reconsidered
Date: 13-Mar-2008
From: Pritha Chandra <prithahss.iitd.ernet.in>
Subject: (Dis)Agree: Movement and Agreement Reconsidered
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Institution: University of Maryland Program: Department of Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2007

Author: Pritha Chandra

Dissertation Title: (Dis)Agree: Movement and Agreement Reconsidered

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax
Dissertation Director:
Norbert Hornstein
Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation examines Agree, a narrow syntactic, long-distanceoperation underlying phi-agreement in the grammar. Taking the strongminimalist thesis (cf. Chomsky 2000) as the point of departure, itquestions Agree on both conceptual and empirical grounds. On the conceptualside, the operation is suspect first for its language-specific character.Second, it also fails to be justified on the grounds of generalarchitectural constraints and legibility requirements. Further, evidencesof various long-distance agreement from across languages examined herequestion the empirical basis for Agree built throughout the previousliterature. As far as this is true, the dissertation contends that thefaculty of language has nothing beyond Merge and Move/Internal Merge, thefirst being inevitable in any language-like system and the latternecessitated by interface exigencies. The purpose in this dissertation isto show that these two operations suffice to obtain phi-agreement innatural language.

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