Fwd: 23.3641, Diss: Goidelic/ Linguistic Theories/ Semantics/ Syntax/ Irish: Oda: 'Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish'

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Thought this dissertation on Irish syntax would be of interest to the group.

Elizabeth
Begin forwarded message:

> From: linguist at linguistlist.org
> Subject: 23.3641, Diss: Goidelic/ Linguistic Theories/ Semantics/ Syntax/ Irish: Oda: 'Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish'
> Date: August 31, 2012 11:05:13 AM EDT
> To: LINGUIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Reply-To: linguist at linguistlist.org
> 
> LINGUIST List: Vol-23-3641. Fri Aug 31 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
> 
> Subject: 23.3641, Diss: Goidelic/ Linguistic Theories/ Semantics/ Syntax/ Irish: Oda: 'Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish'
> 
> ================================================================  
> 
> 
> Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:04:25
> From: Kenji Oda [kenji.oda at mail.utoronto.ca]
> Subject: Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish
> 
> E-mail this message to a friend:
> http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=23-3641.html&submissionid=4552641&topicid=14&msgnumber=1
> 
> Institution: University of Toronto 
> Program: Department of Linguistics 
> Dissertation Status: Completed 
> Degree Date: 2012 
> 
> Author: Kenji Oda
> 
> Dissertation Title: Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish 
> 
> Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories
>                     Semantics
>                     Syntax
> 
> Subject Language(s): Irish (gle)
> 
> Language Family(ies): Goidelic
> 
> 
> Dissertation Director(s):
> James McCloskey
> Michela Ippolito
> Diane Massam
> Elizabeth Cowper
> Daphna Heller
> 
> Dissertation Abstract:
> 
> Although the syntax of the left periphery of the Irish clausal architecture 
> has been the subject of considerable research within the generative 
> paradigm, many questions remain unresolved. The general goal of this 
> thesis is to explore some of these understudied territories. Specifically, 
> I consider two distinct, but ultimately related phenomena: headless 
> relative clauses and dependent verbal morphology.
> 
> 
> I will make four major claims: The first two concern the syntax (and 
> semantics) of the headless relative clause. First, despite the fact that 
> the particles that appear in resumptive relative clauses and in headless 
> relative clauses are morphophonologically identical as aN, headless 
> relative clauses are derived by movement, not by means of resumption, 
> and thus the particles in these two constructions are not the same. 
> Second, headless relative clauses are amount relative clauses, in the 
> sense of Carlson (1977); and thus I claim, adopting Grosu and 
> Landman's (1998) notion of complex degree, that the element that 
> undergoes A′-movement in a headless relative clause is a complex 
> degree, causing degree-abstraction in the semantics. The 
> maximalization operator then applies to the degree-abstracted relative 
> CP. I argue that it is this operator that triggers the appearance of the 
> particle aN in the headless relative construction.
> 
> 
> The latter two claims concern the morphosyntax of the left periphery of 
> Irish syntax: First, I claim that there are two tense features in a single 
> finite clause domain of Irish, and that the so-called dependent forms of 
> irregular verbs are the surface realization of the two tense features. 
> This account provides a stepping stone to my final claim that a feature 
> agreeing with the maximalization operator, but not the operator itself, is 
> realized in the headless relative particle aN and that the particles found 
> in resumptive relative clauses and in headless relative clauses are in 
> fact distinct Vocabulary Items and thus they are homophonous.
> 
> 
> This thesis thus fills a gap in the descriptive account of Irish syntax, 
> and provides new insights to the theory of relativization. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> LINGUIST List: Vol-23-3641	
> ----------------------------------------------------------

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer/Lecturer in Linguistics
Penn State University
ejp10 at psu.edu
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/

Got Unicode Blog
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/gotunicode/index.html



o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o
CELTLING

Post: celtling at lists.linguistlist.org OR celtling at listserv.linguistlist.org
Archives: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/celtling.html>
Subscribe/Unsubscribe - Go to 
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=CELTLING&A=1 

Website: <http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/celtling>