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University of California, Los Angeles |
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Papers |
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Instants and Intervals in the Event/State Distinction
(October, 2009). This paper advances the thesis that the primary distinction
between stativity and eventiveness is duration. Stative predicates hold at
moments, or instants, of time, while eventive predicates hold at intervals.
This proposal is motivated by similarities in the semantic and syntactic
behavior of stative and progressive predicates, and correctly predicts
dissimilarities in the semantic and syntactic behavior of stative predicates
with and without duration adverbials. Beyond the event/state distinction, the
conclusions drawn here have consequences for the analysis of the progressive,
duration adverbials and tense. Definiteness in Inuktitut (August, 2008). An
investigation of the relationship between Case and definiteness in the Inuit
language Inuktitut, demonstrating that (1) common noun NPs in Inuktitut
receive a definite interpretation in the ergative and absolutive case, but
also that (2) definiteness in Inuktitut is not quite like definiteness in
English, in that Inuktitut definite NPs have a default existential
interpretation when no discourse antecedent is available. Definiteness in
Inuktitut is analyzed as an existential assertion with a uniqueness
presupposition, ensuring that a definite NP is identified with an available
antecedent, but allowing definites to introduce a new discourse referent when
no antecedent is available. Proportions in Time: Interactions of Quantification and Aspect (March, 2009; appears in "Natural Language
Semantics", 17:1 29-61, available from Springer Online).
This paper discusses the revealing semantic behavior of proportionality
quantifiers in the progressive aspect in English (e.g. "The software was
detecting most errors"), showing that this behavior supports the claim
that the progressive imposes an activity interpretation on its VP argument.
The matter of how telic verb phrases (as in "John was crossing the
street") are compatible with an activity interpretation is also
addressed. Such VPs are claimed to be underlyingly atelic, and only become
telic in conjunction with a telicizing operator. It is the underlying atelic
reading that surfaces in the progressive. Causativity and Transitivity in Arabic
(October, 2006). This paper shows that morphologically causativized verbs in
Arabic behave differently in certain respects from 'basic' transitives,
indicating that transitive verbs are not simply causatives whose base happens
to not be attested, as per the 'little-v' hypothesis. However, it is
nonetheless the case that lexical arguments of a root and arguments added by
causativization are indistinguishable vis a vis a global constraint that
limits a verb to at most three direct arguments. That is, arguments of basic
transitives 'use up' slots in a syntactic three-position template just like
causers, suggesting that there is a structural dimension to 'basic'
transitivity after all, just not necessarily causativization. On a Categorial Distinction between Stative and
Eventive Verbs (In Davis et al, eds., "Proceedings of the 36th
Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistics Society", GLSA, Amherst,
Mass., 2006). This paper is essentially the continuation of
"Constituency and Agency in VP" below. It claims that constructions
in which propositional complement verbs are followed by 'so', as in 'believe
so', 'think so', 'guess so', etc., are parallel in structure to 'do so', in
which 'do' is expletive. As a consequence, stative propositional complement
verbs do not occur in the same position as eventive verbs, since they are not
stranded by 'so'-replacement. Case, Scope and Linking (May, 2005). This paper
claims that scope freezing in the double object construction (and scope
variability in the related dative construction, among other contexts) falls
out from a constraint on the relationship between phases of a syntactic
derivation. The constraint requires a DP in a given phase to link to the same
theta role that it links to in every previous phase. Which theta role a DP
links to in a given phase is determined by its Case and its scope with
respect to other DPs in its phase. Constituency and Agency in VP (in Schmeiser et al,
eds., "Proceedings of WCCFL 23", 304-317, Cascadilla Press, 2004).
This paper analyzes the internal structure of the pro-VP 'do so'. It argues
that 'so' is a pro-big-VP and 'do' is a pleonastic little-v. Quantifiers in Arabic (January, 2005). Entry
in the forthcoming "Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics
(vol. 3 or 4, not sure which)" from Brill Academic Publishers. Surveys
the semantic, syntactic and morphological behavior of expressions denoting
quantificational relations in Standard Arabic. Interfaces in Arabic (in Versteegh et al,
eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 2, Brill, 2006).
Survey of properties of Arabic related to the phonetics-phonology interface,
the phonology-morphology interface, the morphology-syntax interface, and the
syntax-semantics interface. NP-Interpretation and the Structure of
Predicates (a revised version appears in "Language" 80:4,
707-747, 2004). This paper investigates syntactic complexity in
transitive verbs by way of a survey of the repertoire of NP positions in
English, and concludes that syntactic structures are composed of
reiterative building blocks consisting of a predicate and a
quantifier-licensing superstructure for that predicate's argument. The Formal Symmetry of Selection and Feature
Checking (a portion of this paper appears as "Symmetry in Structure
Building" in "Syntax" 7:1, 79-100, 2004). This paper
defends three interconnected claims: (1) selection is the only
licensing procedure available to UG; specifically, checking is an instance of
selection, (2) selection obtains in the mutual c-command relation, and (3)
though a head does not mutually c-command its own specifier, it mutually
c-commands the specifier of its complement (which follows from the
specifiers-as-adjuncts analysis of "Antisymmetry" (Kayne 2004)).
This analysis eliminates the spec-head relation. On the Derivation of Verb-Final and its Relation
to Verb-Second (a shorter version appears in Hirotani et al, eds.,
Proceedings of NELS 30, GLSA, 2000). This paper argues that the position of
the finite verb is invariant across clauses in German and Dutch, and that
verb-final word order is a subcase of verb-second. In the syntactic
template CXV[SO...], X may be filled by either a topic or (under selection by
overt C) the entire constituent [SO...], stranding the finite verb in
clause-final position. The analysis is contrasted with the standard V-to-C
analysis of the V2/V-final alternation. The Structure of Predicates: Interactions
of Derivation, Case and Quantification (April, 2000). This is my
UCLA dissertation. It argues that the boundaries of syntax lie quite a
bit deeper in the territory of lexical morphology than is often maintained.
In general, the individual properties of a word are instantiated in their own
syntactic nodes. These nodes, which have little lexical structure, are the
basic building blocks of syntax. Passive in English and Arabic (a shorter version
of this paper appears in Benjaballa, ed., "Morphology 2000", John
Benjamins, 2002). A comparison of the passivization process in English,
Standard Arabic, and spoken Lebanese Arabic which indicates that in all three
languages, passivization is a separate process (null in English) from passive
participle formation. I.e., "-en" is not itself valency reducing. The Structure of Agreement Failure in Lebanese
Arabic (in Billerey and Lillehaugen, eds., Proceedings of WCCFL 19,
178-190, Cascadilla Press, 2004). This paper treats a peculiarity of Lebanese
Arabic that in the order VSAdvO, the adverbs ktiir (a lot)
and 'aliil (a little) block subject-verb agreement and the possibility
of quantifying the subject. I claim that the VP raises with the subject
inside, meaning the subject never moves into the
inflectional/quantificational domain. Reiterative Syntax (1997; a revised
version appears in Black & Motapanyane, eds., "Clitics, Pronouns and
Movement", 87-131, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 1997). This is my UCLA MA
thesis. It investigates the hypothesis that sentences consist of end-to-end
reiterations of blocks of functional structure, consisting of a small number
of function projections in a strict hierarchical order, representing the
'molecules' of syntactic composition (X' projections being the 'atoms'). The
proposal, if true, lessens the learnability burden. Lebanese Arabic Verb Table. This and the Summary below are the result of (ongoing) field work on
Lebanese Arabic. The table lists a number of simple ('form I') verbs
from Lebanese Arabic and gives their exact phonetic form in the IPA (the
phonemic form of these verbs is part of what is at issue here).
Agreeing and non-agreeing perfect and imperfect forms of the verb are given
and various extant participles (there are various adjective-forming templates
in Arabic). Summary of the Interactions of Agreement, Predicate
Class, Definiteness and Subject Position in Lebanese Arabic. This
short descriptive text presents some data firstly on relations between
derivational morphology and predicate class in Lebanese Arabic (templatic participles
are eventive, concatenative participles are non-eventive), and secondly on
how predicate class, agreement and definiteness influence the distribution of
the subject. Arabic subjects may follow both the auxiliary and the main
predicate, giving rise, in this case, to three possibilities for the surface
subject position:
Which position the subject may occur in depends on the choice of predicate,
the definiteness of the subject, and whether the auxiliary and/or the
predicate agree with the subject in intricate ways illustrated here. |
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