Area C: Noun Phrases and Context Research Results - Ongoing Research

1. Area C: Noun Phrases and Context • Research Results - Ongoing Research • C1 The Syntax of Nominal Modification and its Interaction with Nominal Structure • C2 Case and referential context

2. Area C: Noun Phrases and Context • Goals: • Focus on dependencies between properties of noun phrases • Clarify the structure of noun phrases • Identify different contextual parameter that constitute noun phrase properties / investigate the interaction between the parameters • Compare theses parameters in different languages (cross-linguistic approach / variation)

3. Project C 1 “The Syntax of Nominal Modification and its Interaction”

4. Central Question: What can modification tell us about the structure of the DP? Main Areas of Investigation: Ambiguous adjectives in Romance and Greek Ellipsis constructions in Romance Adjectives in the Scandinavian Languages Participles in Romance and Greek

5. Results: • Romance and Scandinavian DPs provide evidence that there are three different domains inside the DP: (i) the Determiner Level (ii) the Classifier Level (iii) the Quantity Level (cf. Borer 2005) 2. Languages differ as to how these different domains are realised. While the features in the DP are the same crosslinguistically, their realization differs from language to language. • Modifiers: In the area of modification, we were able to substantiate our hypothesis that ambiguity arises as a result of the availability of two distinct structures, e.g. Relative clause vs. Adjunction. • Participles: the structure of participles in Greek and Romance contains layers similar to those of the verbal passive, most notably Aspect, and Voice.

6. The Romance Languages • The distribution of modifiers in the Romance languages • Structural differences and ambiguity in the placement of e.g. French adjectives provide arguments for assuming different structural configurations for predicative vs. attributive modifiers (the “mixed approach”, cf. Alexiadou & Wilder 1998) • Adjectives occurring in pre- and postnominal position (without meaning change) can undergo Local Dislocation (a movement operation in the PF component) (Gengel 2007, 2008) • The Romanian (the cel-construction) provides arguments for a relative clause source of predicative adjectives (cf. Kayne 1994; Marchis & Alexiadou 2008) patterns with adjectives occurring in Greek Determiner Spread (only predicative adjectives are licensed in these constructions)

7. The Romance Languages 2. NP Ellipsis in the Romance Languages provides evidence for the assumption of a Classifier Phrase (CLP in Borer’s (2005) system), which licenses the NP Ellipsis construction (Alexiadou & Gengel 2008) Example: a. un problema grave - ‘a serious problem’ b. uno [e] grave - ‘a serious one’ (NP Ellipsis) Structure: [DP D un-o [NumP Num [FP Adj grave [ClassP –o/–a [NP NP]]]]]

8. Variation • Definiteness: Scandinavian languages and dialects vary with respect to the realization of modified definite DPs: Swedish, Norwegian, and Faroese display double definiteness (1a), whereas Danish (1b) and Icelandic (1b,c) make use of only one determiner. (1) a. DEF Adj-W N-DEF b. DEF Adj-W N c. Adj-W N-DEF • Adjectival inflection: depending on the choice of adjectival inflection, weak or strong, different readings can arise, i.e. inflection interacts with interpretation. (2) Legg hvert unmoden-t/e eple i denne kass-en. put every/each unripe-S/W apple in this box-DEF • Unified Structure The semantics of the articles and the adjectival inflection can be captured as follows (Lohrmann 2008): (3) [DP2 [disc] [#P [FP AP [F‘ [ident] [DP1 [sref] [ClassP [ind] [NP]]]]]]] A Unified Structure for Scandinavian DPs

9. [DP2 [disc] [#P [FP AP [F‘ [ident] [DP1 [sref] [ClassP [ind] [NP]]]]]]] • Following Borer (2005), NP contains ClassP, individuation, and #P, quantity • In the spirit of Rizzi (1997), DP is split into two layers, DP1, specific reference, and DP2, discoursereference (cf. Alexiadou, Haegeman & Stavrou 2007) • Languages differ as to whether they make use of distinct realizations of the two layers or not: - Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic (1c) have access to the full structure in (3) - Danish and Icelandic (1b) lack the lower DP (1) a. DEF Adj-W N-DEF b. DEF Adj-W N c. Adj-W N-DEF

10. Ongoing and Further Research: • Germanic/Romance parallels in partitive and appositive constructions (Germanic vs. Romance parameter?). • Investigation of semantic features in the licensing of NP Ellipsis (partitivity, specificity, reference) • Nominalized Adjectives • Structure of mass nouns vs. count nouns also in relationship to nominalization.

11. Project C 2 “Case and referential context”

12. Research Results of C2 Differential Object Marking (DOM) Parameters (context) Interaction between the parameters Crosslinguist variation Diachronic development

13. (1) Sen bitta muschuk*(-ni) urvor-ding-mi? Uzbek2Sg a cat-ACC run.over-Prf.2SG-Q‘Have you run over a cat?’ (2) Biz bu hikoya*(-ni) uqi-gan-miz. Uzbek1PL DEM stories-ACC read-Pres-1Pl‘We read these stories.’ (von Heusinger/Klein/Niyazmetowa 2008) Research Results of C2 1. Parameters of DOM (Differential Object Marking) DP parameters: animacy, definiteness

14. Parameters of DOM Research Results of C2 DP parameters: animacy, definieteness sentence-parameters: affectedness, information structure Ya conocía(a) muchos estudiantes. already knew-1Sg (DOM) many students ‘I already knew many students.’ *(A) muchos estudiantes, ya los conocía (DOM) many students, already them knew.1Sg ‘Many students I already knew.’

15. Parameters of DOM Research Results of C2 DP parameters: animacy, definieteness sentence parameters: affectedness, information structure discource parameters: saliency, discourse persistence

16. Research Results of C2

17. 1.Parameters of DOM • Interaction of Parameters Bold [Tuya-(g) yav-sn]-i daraa] yav-na • Bold.Nom Tuya-(Acc) go-Pst-Gen after go-Fut • Bold will go after Tuya went • (cf. Klein, Udo & Dolgor Guntsetseg, Klaus von Heusinger 2008) Research Results of C2

18. 1.Parameters of DOM • Interaction of Parameters Research Results of C2

19. 1. Parameters of DOM • Interaction of Parameters • Crosslinguistic variation • Diachronic Development Research Results of C2 1 Reyes 19, 1: A (14th) � e como mató todos los profetas a espada. B (16th) de como había muerto� cuchillo �todos los profetas. C (20th E) ... y de comohabía matado a espada atodos los profetas. D (20th A) ... y como había� matado a espada atodos los profetas. English ... how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

20. 1. Parameters of DOM • Interaction of Parameters • Crosslinguisti variation 3. Diachronic Development Research Results of C2

21. Parameters of DOM • Transitivity • lexical semantics of verbs • Interaction of Parameters • Partitive construction in Turkish • “bare definite nouns” in Romanian • Diachronic Development • Spanish verb classes • Development of two indefinite articles in Uzbek • Semantic Model • “referential context model” • Comparison with OT • Syntactic approaches Ongoing Research of C2

22. Area C: Noun Phrases and Context • Goals: • Focus on dependencies between properties of noun phrases √ • Clarify the structure of noun phrases √ • Identify different contextual parameter that constitute noun phrase properties / investigate the interaction between the parameters √ • Compare theses parameters in different languages (cross-linguistic approach / variation) √

23. Area C: Noun Phrases and Context • Goals of the next phase • Arguments of nominalizations vs. verbs • Case alternation of arguments • Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and ontological conditions for case marking • Discourse relation and realization of arguments • Crosslinguistic variation

24. Area C: Noun Phrases and Context • Projects of the next phase • C1 Argument realization and encoding in noun phrase • C2 Argument realization and referential context • C3 Interpretation and Discourse Structure

25. Area C • Discussion ? • Questions ? • Suggestions ?