Lektorin Dr. Dalina KALLULLI Beginn: 11.10.2005
160 139 „Neuere Entwicklungen der Grammatiktheorie: Topics in the Syntax-Morphology
Interface“, VO, 2st., Di, 11.30-13.00, SR1
This course will deal with theories on the nature of the syntax-morphology interface, with special
empirical focus on Balkan languages, which due to their rich morphology allow for transparent
generalisations. Topics that will be treated in some detail in this context include the role of morphology
in argument realization, nominalizations, adjectival modification, and relativization. To illustrate, across
languages unaccusatives in the standard sense systematically involve morphological marking that is
shared by reflexive and/or passive predicates. Syncretisms of this type, in which different syntactic
constructions exhibit identical morphology, are essential to the understanding of the way in which
syntax and morphology relate amongst themselves and to other components of the grammar. Under
one influential proposal (Marantz 1984) the identical morphological expression of unaccusatives,
passives and reflexives is taken to be symptomatic of a structural factor, namely the lack of an
external argument. However, the reverse construal of the role of morphology is also plausible:
unaccusative/intransitivizing (and/or other) morphology suppresses an (external) argument or
argument position (depending on the theory), as in various accounts of so-called "suppression"
phenomena involving special morphology. The issue is important since it may have an impact on the
architecture of grammar. For instance, it is not clear whether and how the conception of morphology
as an argument suppression operation in the syntax could be made compatible even with a nonlexicalist
framework such as Distributed Morphology, since here morphology simply reads off the
output of syntactic derivations by (among other things) supplying phonological content to positions in a
tree structure. However, if derivation proceeds by phase (Chomsky 2001) then possibly morphology in
one phase could influence syntax in the next phase.
Prerequisites: Einführung in die spezielle Grammatiktheorie.
Requirements for a certificate: Oral or written exam.
Selected literature:
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by Phase. In Kenstowicz, Michael (ed.) Ken Hale. A Life in
Language 1-52. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Marantz, Alec. 1984. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. Cambrigde, Mass.: MIT Press.
Marantz, Alec. 1997. No escape from syntax: Don't try morphological analysis in the privacy of your
own Lexicon. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium: Penn Working Papers in
Linguistics 4: 2, ed. Alexis Dimitriadis et.al. 201-225.
Rappaport Hovav, Malka. and Levin, Beth. 1998. Morphology and lexical semantics. In A. Zwicky and
A. Spencer (eds.) Handbook of Morphology 248-71. Oxford: Blackwell.
Alter Studienplan: 1. oder 2. Studienabschnitt
Neuer Studienplan: 2. Studienabschnitt, Code 221, 219, 4 ECTS Punkte