Syntactic edges and linearization

In this thesis, I investigate the question of how the units of a linguistic expression are linearly ordered in syntax. In particular, I examine interactions between locality conditions on movement and the mapping between syntax and phonology. I show that Cyclic Linearization of syntactic structure and constraints on domain-internal movement of multiple specifiers predict unique ordering restrictions at the edges of syntactic domains. As a consequence of cyclic Spell-out and conditions on syntactic agreement, elements externally merged as a constituent at the edge of a Spell-out domain cannot be separated by a domain-internal element. This proposal provides a unified account of a variety of types of ordering restrictions in scrambling - in particular, floating quantifier and possessor constructions in Korean and Japanese. Evidence is drawn from interactions among various factors, which include: scrambling, the scope and syntactic position of adverbs, depictive and resultative predicates, possessor constructions, and varieties of floating quantifiers, among others. It is argued that the domain of cyclic Spell-out must include the edge as well as the complement of a Spell-out domain.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Ko, Heejeong

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Pesetsky.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33698

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33698