LINGUIST List 25.2852
Mon
Jul 07 2014
Diss: Georgian;
Morphology: Wier: 'Georgian Morphosyntax and
Feature Hierarchies in Natural
Language'
Editor for this issue:
Danuta Allen <danutalinguistlist.org>
Date: 07-Jul-2014
From: Thomas Wier
<t.wier
freeuni.edu.ge>
Subject: Georgian Morphosyntax
and Feature Hierarchies in Natural Language
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Institution: University of Chicago
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2011
Author: Thomas R Wier
Dissertation Title: Georgian Morphosyntax and
Feature Hierarchies in Natural Language
Dissertation URL:
https://www.academia.edu/2056386/Georgian_Morphosyntax_and_Feature_Hierarch
Linguistic Field(s): Morphology
Subject Language(s):
Georgian (kat)
Dissertation Director:
Amy Dahlstrom
Victor Friedman
Michael Silverstein
Jerrold Sadock
Dissertation Abstract:
What are linguistic features, and how do they
manifest themselves in
natural languages? The Georgian language
provides a particularly
acute set of challenges to linguists in the way
it questions received
assumptions about grammatical functions,
thematic relations, and
natural language categorization. This
dissertation tackles these facts
by examining first what the evidence for
different domains of grammar
are in Georgian. How do data from Georgian verb
morphology
challenge traditional assumptions underlying
lexical incremental
assumptions behind the morpheme? Do inversion
facts argue for
monostratal or multistratal conceptualizations
of grammatical
functions? The answer to both of these
questions is highly
complicated, and requires an extensive look at
the Georgian systems
of case, agreement, tense, aspect, and
modality. In particular I assess
the viability of classical treatments such as
Harris (1982), Anderson
(1993), Marantz (1992), and Stump (2001) and
find that Georgian
poses problems for each one. I go on to assess
in the second part
how differential feature hierarchies in
morphology versus syntax argue
for the existence of distinct feature
geometries. Feature hierarchies, it
turns out, are epiphenomena of set-theoretical
properties of these
geometries. In the last chapter, I discuss the
literature on feature
hierarchies arguing how many scholars have
understood this highly
abstract area of grammatical theorizing.
Page Updated: 07-Jul-2014