LINGUIST List 23.3641
Fri Aug 31 2012
Diss: Goidelic/ Linguistic Theories/ Semantics/ Syntax/ Irish: Oda: 'Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish'
Editor for this issue: Lili Xia
<lxialinguistlist.org>
Date: 30-Aug-2012
From: Kenji Oda <kenji.oda
mail.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish
E-mail this message to a friend
Institution: University of Toronto
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2012
Author: Kenji Oda
Dissertation Title: Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish
Linguistic Field(s):
Linguistic Theories
Semantics
Syntax
Subject Language(s):
Irish (gle)
Language Family(ies): Goidelic
Dissertation Director:
James McCloskey
Michela Ippolito
Diane Massam
Elizabeth Cowper
Daphna Heller
Dissertation Abstract:
Although the syntax of the left periphery of the Irish clausal architecturehas been the subject of considerable research within the generativeparadigm, many questions remain unresolved. The general goal of thisthesis is to explore some of these understudied territories. Specifically,I consider two distinct, but ultimately related phenomena: headlessrelative clauses and dependent verbal morphology.
I will make four major claims: The first two concern the syntax (andsemantics) of the headless relative clause. First, despite the fact thatthe particles that appear in resumptive relative clauses and in headlessrelative clauses are morphophonologically identical as aN, headlessrelative clauses are derived by movement, not by means of resumption,and thus the particles in these two constructions are not the same.Second, headless relative clauses are amount relative clauses, in thesense of Carlson (1977); and thus I claim, adopting Grosu andLandman's (1998) notion of complex degree, that the element thatundergoes A′-movement in a headless relative clause is a complexdegree, causing degree-abstraction in the semantics. Themaximalization operator then applies to the degree-abstracted relativeCP. I argue that it is this operator that triggers the appearance of theparticle aN in the headless relative construction.
The latter two claims concern the morphosyntax of the left periphery ofIrish syntax: First, I claim that there are two tense features in a singlefinite clause domain of Irish, and that the so-called dependent forms ofirregular verbs are the surface realization of the two tense features.This account provides a stepping stone to my final claim that a featureagreeing with the maximalization operator, but not the operator itself, isrealized in the headless relative particle aN and that the particles foundin resumptive relative clauses and in headless relative clauses are infact distinct Vocabulary Items and thus they are homophonous.
This thesis thus fills a gap in the descriptive account of Irish syntax,and provides new insights to the theory of relativization.
Page Updated: 31-Aug-2012