Category Archives: Morphology

Faruk Akkus’ book to be published at Oxford University Press

Faruk Akkus’ monograph (with David Embick and Mohammed Salih), titled “Case and the syntax of argument indexation”, has been accepted for publication at Oxford University Press (Studies in Theoretical Linguistics)!

The current version is available on lingbuzz: https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/007378

A short description of the monograph is below:


Abstract:
This book deals with case and the syntax of argument indexation. We argue for an approach in which case labels (‘Nominative’, ‘Ergative’, etc.) are shorthand for bundles of decomposed features; crucially, these features are part of the syntax, and also referred to in the morphology. A key idea in the approach is what we call Case Targeting: the idea that probes may target arguments with specific case features. Importantly, syntax and morphology can refer to these features differentially, leading to various interesting mismatches. This includes allowing Clitic Movement in syntax to produce both morphophonological clitic and affix on the PF side. Conversely, Agreement operation in syntax can produce morphophonological clitic and affix on the PF side. We focus primarily on Sorani Kurdish varieties (Iranian languages), but also investigate and apply our approach to other Iranian languages (Kurmanji, Zazaki, Laki, Persian, Rushani, Shughni), Indo-Aryan (Hindi, Nepali, Gujarati, Maithili), Semitic (Arabic, Neo-Aramaic), and Polynesian (Nukuoro). We elaborate on various implications of the approach for implicational hierarchies, case containment, case assignment mechanisms etc. We maintain that discussions of inherent vs dependent case approaches should be approached at a fine grain, one that is informed by the representation of case features that we argue for.

Shay Hucklebridge Receives Multiple Grants to Support Fieldwork

We’re very happy to share the news that recent alum Shay Hucklebridge has received two highly competitive grants to support her fieldwork on the Dene languages of Northern Canada.

Shay was selected for both a Jacobs Research Fund grant (for $4077) and a grant from the Phillips Fund for Native American Research (for $3200). This is in addition to the $115,000 SSHRC postdoctoral research fellowship that Shay was awarded last year, and which continues to fund her scholarship at Memorial University in Newfoundland.

This summer, Shay will be conducting fieldwork on the Northern Dene languages of the Mackenzie Subgroup, including Tlicho Yatii, Sahtúgot’iné, K’ashógot’ine, and Shíhgot’ine. The project will be focusing upon the the languages’ future-marking morphology, and the possible variation in their semantics, as either temporal operators or modal operators.

Please join us in congratulating Shay!

Kimberly Johnson Accepts Full Time Position at Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program

Please join us in congratulating alum Kimberly Johnson, who has just accepted a full time position as the Lead Transcriptionist for the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program.

Starting this May, Kimberly will be working alongside Dr. Samantha Cornelius and Dr. Juliet Morgan, to advance the documentation of the Chickasaw language, including the development of a searchable database of Chickasaw.

Congratulations, Kimberly!

Mariam Asatryan gives talk at Theoretical Linguistics and Languages of the Caucasus (TLLC), in Istanbul

On June 18th, Mariam Asatryan presented her research in a talk at Theoretical Linguistics and Languages of the Caucasus (TLLC), held at Istanbul Bilgi University.

The talk, titled “Inq: An Uncompetitive Pronoun in Eastern Armenian and Its Challenges to Binding Principles”, is a development of her first Generals Paper. She will also present this work again later this summer, as a flash talk at GLOW in Asia XIII (details to be announced later).

Kimberly Johnson in Natural Language Semantics

A paper by our own Kimberly Johnson appears in the newest issue of Natural Language Semantics. Based upon her recent doctoral dissertation, “Time and Evidence in the Graded Tense System of Mvskoke (Creek)“, provides a detailed description and analysis of the evidential meaning of tense & aspect morphology in the Mvskoke language. The abstract is copied below.

Congratulations, Kimberly!

Abstract: “In recent years, much attention has been given to the puzzling relationship between tense and evidence type found in languages where a single morpheme appears to encode both reference to time and to the evidential source for the assertion. In natural language, tense has long been understood as serving to locate the time at which the proposition expressed by the sentence holds. The two main theories of evidentials both agree that these morphemes serve to identify the type of evidence the speaker has for their assertion. In languages with evidential-tense morphology, these two categories of meaning are intertwined in ways that are unexpected given our understanding of both phenomena. Specifically, these evidential-tense morphemes appear to encode reference to a time that is linked to the situation in which the speaker gains evidence for their assertion. Two competing approaches have emerged in the literature as to whether these evidential-tense morphemes make crucial reference to the time evidence was acquired (Lee 2013; Smirnova 2013) or to the time and place of the speaker with respect to the event (Faller 2004; Chung 2007). This paper examines the temporal and evidential properties of the Mvskoke (or Creek) graded past tense system and finds novel support for the view in which evidential-tenses encode Evidence Acquisition Time (EAT). Mvskoke is shown to have three evidential-tenses which form part of its graded tense system, comprising recent, middle, and distant past. The main proposal is a formalization of EAT as a moment of belief-state change, i.e., the moment the speaker comes to believe the proposition. It is shown that Mvskoke’s evidential-tenses are compatible with a range of evidence types, and this distribution is explained through interactions with viewpoint aspect.”

Paper by Kimberly Johnson Published in Natural Language Semantics

Kimberly Johnson’s paper “Time and evidence in the graded tense system of Mvskoke (Creek)”  has just been published in Natural Language Semantics. Based upon portions of her recently defended dissertation, this paper explores the direct and indirect evidence inferences associated with four past tenses in Mvskoke (Creek), an indigenous language spoken in Oklahoma. Access the full text of her article here: https://rdcu.be/cKGzl

Akkus publishes at Linguistic Inquiry

Faruk Akkus’ paper titled “Evidence from Sason Arabic for ?-Movement Feeding Case-Licensing Relations” appears at Linguistic Inquiry. The abstract of the squib is as follows:

This squib presents an argument for a locality-based, Case-theoretic licensing approach to configurations in which certain positions cannot be occupied by overt material at Spell-Out. Investigating an indirect causative construction in Sason Arabic, I demonstrate that the embedded agent is separated from its licenser by a phase domain, and as such cannot be Case-licensed. ?-movement makes licensing possible, placing the embedded agent and its licenser in a local configuration. I also show that this approach fares better than alternative hypotheses such as the Exfoliation account or a PF-based account.