PROSPECTUS FOR A BOOK IN THE STUDIES IN NATURAL LANGUAGE
SERIES
1. Proposed Title: LONG DISTANCE AGREEMENT AND MOVEMENT IN
QUECHUA
2. Proposed Author: Liliana Sánchez. See CV attached.
3. Rationale for the volume and its scope: This book is an in-depth study of a
morphologically rich non-indoeuropean language from a minimalist perspective. Such
studies are rare to find and will be welcomed by the community of scholars interested in
morphosyntactic properties that are not overtly found in Indoeuropean languages. The
volume presents the main aspects of Quechua syntax from a minimalist perspective. It
focuses on the tension between long distance agreement in a morphologically rich
language and movement. The main proposal is that in Quechua movement is motivated
by the interaction of focus features and topic operators in the higher layers of the clause.
All other licensing relationships are obtained through long distance agreement.
4. Relationship to other books on the topic that have been published recently. Books on
Quechua syntax are rare. The most widely recognized book on the topic of Quechua
syntax is “Mixed Categories: Nominalizations in Quechua” by Lefebvre, Claire and
Pieter Muysken. 1988. Kluwer Academic Publishers. However, issues in Quechua syntax
as a configurational language figure prominently in books such as: “Incorporation: A
Theory of Grammatical Function Changing” by Mark Baker. 1988. University of
Chicago Press and are also discussed in “The Polysynthesis Parameter” 1998 by the same
author. Oxford University Press. Articles on several aspects of the syntax of Quechua
have also been published in journals specialized in syntax such as Linguistic Inquiry and
Lingua. The non-configurational nature of Quechua syntax and the importance of person
agreement in the language are topics that are of great importance within the Minimalist
Program (Chomsky 1998) as they support the view that human languages may resource
to the use of long distance agreement mechanisms to avoid costly syntactic operations
such as movement.
5. General description of the volume
Chapter 1 is an introduction to the main properties of Quechua morphosyntax. It will be
argued that Quechua is a non-configurational language with strong agreement values for
argument-related functional features. In this chapter, the argumental structure of verbs in
Quechua will be presented and it will be argued that Quechua exhibits the properties of
non-configurational languages, that is, in Quechua null categories are in argumental
positions and overt noun phrases occupy non-argumental positions (Baker 1998). It will
also be argued that strong agreement values are at the basis of such nonconfigurationality (Baker 2000). The notions of predication and subordination in
Quechua will also be discussed as they involve a relationship between predicates and
their arguments that is not necessarily mediated by agreement. A brief overview of
morphosyntactic variation between the different Quechua dialects will be presented.
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Chapter 2 will be dedicated to the structure of Nouns Phrases and will present a clausal
analysis of Noun Phrases for which the notion of Person agreement is central in order to
account long distance agreement relationships between possessive, agentive and theme
arguments and nouns. Movement outside of Noun Phrases will be argued to take place
only to satisfy focus/topic requirements.
In Chapter 3 a detailed analysis of the verb phrase structure will be presented with
particular focus on the relationship between argumental structure, case and agreement.
The issue of accusative case marking of nouns and adverbials will be discussed also as a
case of long distance agreement. Reflexives and reciprocal suffixes will be analyzed in
detail as morphological processes that affect argument structure and are different from
their pronominal counterpart in most Indoeuropean languages and do not require
agreement.
Chapter 4 focuses on functional features that are apparently non-argumental and involve
strong agreement relationships such as tense, aspect and evidentiality. It will be argued
that categories such as tense act as predicates and take clausal-level arguments. This
results in strong agreement requirements. .
Chapter 5 contains an explanation for the motivation for movement in a morphologically
rich language based on the information structure of the sentence.
Chapter 6 will present evidence in favor of analysis of coordination in Quechua as
involving different functional projections and that is compatible with the view that
Quechua is a language sensitive to agreement in sub-sets of features that are part of a
functional head.
Chapter 7 provides and overview of phenomena that have been observed by researchers
in the areas of Quechua first language and bilingual acquisition that are related to the
acquisition of person agreement, word order and negative concord and to interference in
Quechua-Spanish bilinguals in phenomena that involve some form of agreement
morphology.
5. Table of contents.
1. Overview of the grammar
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Quechua as a non-configurational language
1.3. Argument Structure
1.4. Predication
1.5. Subordination in Quechua
1.6. Dialectal variation in syntactic structures
2. The Noun Phrase
2.1. Argumental modifiers, case and possessive structures
2.2. Adjectival and nominal modification
2.3. Null determiners and demonstratives
2.4. Agreeing and non-agreeing quantifiers
2.5. Relativization
3.The verb phrase
3.1. Transitive verbs and case marking
3.2. Noun incorporation
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3.3. Ditransitive verbs and complex object agreement
3.4. Reflexive and reciprocals
3.5. Causatives
3.6. Complement subordinates versus adjunct subordinates
4.Tense, aspect and evidentiality
4.1. Tense and aspect
4.2. Tenses and evidentiality
4.3. Switch reference
4.4. Morphosyntactic aspect
4.5. The checking of Force features in CP
5. XP and x0 movement
5.1. Focus and v-to-C0 movement
5.2. Topicalization and case marking
5.3. Focalization of XPs: base generation vs. movement
5.4. Wh-movement vs. wh-in situ
5.6. The scope of negation
6. Coordination
6.1. Event/Tense coordination
6.2. Argumental coordination
7. Acquisition and development
7.1. Quechua as a first language
7.1.1. Morphology
7.1.2. Syntax
7.1.2.1.Word Order
7.1.2.2. Negation
7.2. Bilingualism in Quechua and Spanish Portugese
7.2.1.The emergence of functional features
7.2.2. Word order
6. Intended readership. Scholars with a strong interest in morphologically rich nonconfigurational languages and the syntactic processes involved in such languages as well
as scholars with a particular interest in the study of Amerindian languages.
7. Proposed length of the book and intended completion date. The proposed length of the
book is of 250 pages and the estimated date of completion of the manuscript is December
2004.
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