Remnant Raising and VSO Clausal Architecture
Subtitle: A Case Study of San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Springer
Published: May 5, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 273
ISBN-13: 9781402043000
Subjects: Language & Linguistics; Language Arts & Disciplines; Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy; Language; Grammar; Language Arts & Disciplines / General; General; Grammar, Comparative and general; Syntax; Zapotec language
Description: San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, an endangered and little-examined indigenous language of Mexico, shows a range of syntactic and morphological phenomena incompatible with standard Minimalist accounts of verb movement: verbs and clearly phrasal constituents behave identically in a number of syntactic constructions, and the ordering of verbal morphemes is problematic for standard assumptions of verbal head movement. This work proposes a VP-remnant raising account for these phenomena, motivated by Kayne’s (1992) Antisymmetry program. This work also examines consequences of phrasal remnant movement for negation constructions, question formation; and the interpretation of tense, aspect, and mood.