On the interpretability of φ-features
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Roberto Zamparelli
Abstract
The paper reconsiders the evidence for the interpretable status of φ-features within DP in Romance languages, focusing on Italian. The conclusions are that, given a reasonably local interpretation of what counts as interpretable, gender is not an interpretable feature, and number (or plur, in the sense of Heycock & Zamparelli 2005) is interpretable, but is not sufficient to drive the process of verbal and predicative agreement. The notion of “default”, particularly with respect to the Person feature, is discussed and various alternatives are explored.
Abstract
The paper reconsiders the evidence for the interpretable status of φ-features within DP in Romance languages, focusing on Italian. The conclusions are that, given a reasonably local interpretation of what counts as interpretable, gender is not an interpretable feature, and number (or plur, in the sense of Heycock & Zamparelli 2005) is interpretable, but is not sufficient to drive the process of verbal and predicative agreement. The notion of “default”, particularly with respect to the Person feature, is discussed and various alternatives are explored.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction xi
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Part 1. Clitics and agreement
- Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance 3
- On different types of clitic clusters 41
- Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu 83
- The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology 111
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Part 2. The structure of DPs
- DP in Bantu and Romance 131
- On the interpretability of φ-features 167
- Agreement and concord in nominal expressions 201
- A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns 239
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Part 3. Information structure
- The fine structure of the Topic field 261
- Focus at the interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu 293
- Agreement in thetic VS sentences in Bantu and Romance 323
- Index of languages 351
- General index 353
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part 1. Clitics and agreement
- Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance 3
- On different types of clitic clusters 41
- Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu 83
- The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology 111
-
Part 2. The structure of DPs
- DP in Bantu and Romance 131
- On the interpretability of φ-features 167
- Agreement and concord in nominal expressions 201
- A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns 239
-
Part 3. Information structure
- The fine structure of the Topic field 261
- Focus at the interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu 293
- Agreement in thetic VS sentences in Bantu and Romance 323
- Index of languages 351
- General index 353