John Benjamins Publishing Company
Possession syntax in Unua DPs
Abstract
The Unua dialect of Unua-Pangkumu, like other Oceanic languages of Vanuatu, has contrasting Direct and Indirect Possession constructions. Although these constructions are well-known from the literature, they have not yet been subsumed into a formal syntactic framework. In the terms of such a treatment, the present paper argues that in Unua the Direct Possessor argument is the syntactic complement of the head noun, whereas the Indirect Possessor argument is freely merged in an intermediate level of the DP structure. The “mirror-image” surface orderings of both types of possession constructions are then shown to be derivable by iterative phrasal movements on a right-branching base hierarchical structure conforming with the Linear Correspondence Axiom of Kayne (1994).
Abstract
The Unua dialect of Unua-Pangkumu, like other Oceanic languages of Vanuatu, has contrasting Direct and Indirect Possession constructions. Although these constructions are well-known from the literature, they have not yet been subsumed into a formal syntactic framework. In the terms of such a treatment, the present paper argues that in Unua the Direct Possessor argument is the syntactic complement of the head noun, whereas the Indirect Possessor argument is freely merged in an intermediate level of the DP structure. The “mirror-image” surface orderings of both types of possession constructions are then shown to be derivable by iterative phrasal movements on a right-branching base hierarchical structure conforming with the Linear Correspondence Axiom of Kayne (1994).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Phonetics/Phonology/Morphology
- The role of larynx height in the Javanese tense ~ lax stop contrast 7
- Reduplication in Tanjung Raden Malay 25
- Discontiguous reduplication in a local variety of Malay 45
- Phonological evidence for the structure of Javanese compounds 65
- Intonation, information structure and the derivation of inverse VO languages 81
-
Syntax
- The case of possessors and ‘subjects’ 103
- Genitive relative constructions and agent incorporation in Tongan 117
- Possession syntax in Unua DPs 141
- Seediq adverbial verbs 163
- On the syntax of Formosan adverbial verb constructions 183
- Specification and inversion 213
- VSO word order in Malagasy imperatives 231
- A unified analysis of Niuean Aki 249
- Deriving inverse order 271
- The impersonal construction in Tagalog 297
- Anaphora in traditional Jambi Malay 327
- On parameters of agreement in Austronesian languages 345
- Index 375
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Phonetics/Phonology/Morphology
- The role of larynx height in the Javanese tense ~ lax stop contrast 7
- Reduplication in Tanjung Raden Malay 25
- Discontiguous reduplication in a local variety of Malay 45
- Phonological evidence for the structure of Javanese compounds 65
- Intonation, information structure and the derivation of inverse VO languages 81
-
Syntax
- The case of possessors and ‘subjects’ 103
- Genitive relative constructions and agent incorporation in Tongan 117
- Possession syntax in Unua DPs 141
- Seediq adverbial verbs 163
- On the syntax of Formosan adverbial verb constructions 183
- Specification and inversion 213
- VSO word order in Malagasy imperatives 231
- A unified analysis of Niuean Aki 249
- Deriving inverse order 271
- The impersonal construction in Tagalog 297
- Anaphora in traditional Jambi Malay 327
- On parameters of agreement in Austronesian languages 345
- Index 375
