morphosyntactic feature geometries

[Daniel L. Everett]

Martha,

> I'm not sure I understand (ii).  Is the idea that some features could
> be present only in the morphology, not in the syntax?  Dave Embick
> has argued (within a DM framework) that this is indeed the case. He
> calls such features "dissociated".  His argument for such features
> are based on Greek NonActive morphology (in a MITWPL paper), and I
> believe also the Latin perfect (in an LI article).  Dave, feel free
> to chime in here if my references are out of date.
>

Thanks for this additional reference. This is indeed what I have in
mind.

>> Besides compositional analysis of morphosyntactic nodes, is anyone
>> looking at agreement from this Harley-Ritter perspective? This would
>> seem an ideal area to look for answers to Martha's queries.
>
> I am, but not in detail.  It would be an interesting topic to cover
> systematically.  Anyone looking for a thesis project?
>
> -Martha
>

I am currently working on some interesting types of agreement in
Amazonian languages (Bob Dixon documents a related case, but takes a
very different approach to the problem in an article in the Journal of
Linguistics, 2001, on Jarawara), in which there are two types of
agreement on the verb, one semantically motivated and one
morphosyntactically motivated (Dixon argues that both are
morphosyntactically motivated, but only at the expense of allowing the
possessor to be the head of the NP in some cases but not others). This
is not number agreement, but it does, I believe, show independence
between the semantics, morphology, and syntax of agreement (along lines
predicted by the W&Z book, though not identical).

-- Dan

Any DMrs going to the numerals  conference in Leipzig next month? Looks
like a good conference. Some issues related to this discussion will
likely arise, though numerals aren't number.


------------------------------------------

Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics & Phonology
Postgraduate Programme Director
Department of Linguistics
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, UK M13 9PL
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de
Fax: 44-161-275-3187
Office: 44-161-275-3158