Volume 29, Issue 3

This article defends the position that syllables have internal structure, through an examination of s C clusters. Although perceptual factors will be shown to account for why it is sibilants that pattern in unexpected ways in clusters, it will be argued that the behavior of s C clusters cannot be explained solely by functional considerations. Among structural approaches to the syllable, it is argued that s C clusters are best analyzed as coda+onset, not as appendix+onset. The typological patterns of s C cluster well-formedness on the sonority dimension and s C cluster repair are shown to follow only from a coda analysis of s : the patterns follow from constraints on syllable contact. In view of this, it will be shown that the two most commonly defended options for the organization of s as an appendix, the syllable and the prosodic word, can be straightforwardly captured under a coda approach, through a comparative examination of English and Italian. It will further be shown that the distribution of aspiration in English is amenable to a coda analysis of s . Finally, it is argued that some languages require an analysis of s C other than coda+onset. This situation holds in Acoma: an empty nucleus interrupts putative s C clusters in this language.

Whether a stative predicate licenses an existential interpretation of its subject (EIS) depends in part on the type of object it has. While previous theories have related this to the object's ability to function as a topic, this paper presents evidence that the quantized/homogeneous distinction between objects better captures EIS and proposes an event composition analysis of EIS for (transitive) stative predicates. This analysis points to the aspectual nature of EIS and also illuminates other aspectual behaviors of stage-level/individual-level states.

This article argues for an ellipsis approach to ATB-movement on the basis of morphosyntactic mismatches and reconstruction asymmetries between conjuncts. I will argue that ATB-moved constituents are present in each conjunct; while those in the first conjunct undergo asymmetric extraction, those in the second conjunct are elided under identity with those in the first. Ellipsis in ATB-movement is licensed by means of an [E] atb -feature whose selectional restrictions correctly single out the elements that can undergo ATB-movement. Ellipsis applies derivationally and makes the elided constituents inaccessible for further syntactic operations. Asymmetric extraction is sanctioned by a representational definition of the Coordinate Structure Constraint: At LF, the asymmetrically extracted operator can bind both its own trace as well as the trace left behind by the operator in the second conjunct. Binding into the second conjunct is only possible if both operators bear the same index; this in turn is guaranteed by the recoverability condition on ellipsis, which requires an identical antecedent. Since the operator can bind both variables, the single-identity reading characteristic of ATB is correctly derived. Finally, the reconstruction asymmetries follow from mismatches between pronouns/R-expressions and their counterparts in the ellipsis site which ellipsis is famous for, so-called vehicle change effects.

In this paper I show that in Tseltal (Mayan), constructions with aspectual auxiliary only admit third-person internal arguments, whereas embedding verbs that assign ergative case exhibit no such restriction. I offer an account of this contrast in terms of multiple-agree account of person-case constraint (PCC, Anagnostopoulou 2003; Anagnostopoulou 2005; Béjar and Rezac 2003) and inherent case theory of ergative case (Woolford 1997; Legate 2008; Aldridge 2007; Anand and Nevins 2006 inter alia). I show that the presence of PCC effects with aspectual verbs and absence of this restriction with transitive embedding verbs is predicted by these two theories. I then extend my account of PCC in Tseltal to show that some nominal ergative splits can be accounted for using the same framework.

Current minimalism takes syntactic operations Agree and Move to be triggered by underlying feature checking requirements (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001, Pesetsky & Torrego 2004). This standard version of Agree/Move suffers from at least five problems: (i) it does not explain the existence of Reverse Agree; (ii) it does not explain the existence of Multiple Agree; (iii) it does not explain the behavior of Concord phenomena; (iv) it does not explain the triggering of intermediate steps in successive cyclic movement; and (v) the [EPP]-feature itself remains unmotivated. Moreover, I argue that two recent proposals (Pesetsky & Torrego 2007, Bošković 2007) solve some, but not all of these problems. Finally, I argue that all these problems disappear once a simpler version of Agree is adopted where uninterpretable features can only be checked if they are c-commanded by a matching interpretable feature and not the other way round.