Bresnan and Mchombo's analysis of Chichewa

George Aaron Broadwell g.broadwell at albany.edu
Mon Nov 12 15:41:26 UTC 2001


Dear colleagues,

I have  student working on Amharic.  This language has optional object
agreement.  When the object agreement is present, several lines of evidence
suggest that the overt NP object is functioning as a clausal topic.  When
the object agreement is not present, the NP seems to be an ordinary,
non-topical object.

This seems to us reminiscent of Bresnan and Mchombo's well-known analysis
of Chichewa.

My student would like to work on a paper that compares the LFG treatment of
these phenomena with a possible HPSG analysis.

Could anyone direct me to literature that examines problems of this sort in
HPSG?

Many thanks,
Aaron Broadwell
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George Aaron Broadwell,  g.broadwell at albany.edu
Dept. of Anthropology, Program in Linguistics and Cognitive Science
UAlbany, Albany NY 12222
(518)-442-4711   Web page: http://www.albany.edu/anthro/fac/broadwell.htm
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