Abstract Dependent case theory claims that ergative case and accusative case are both assigned when one NP c-commands another NP in the same domain. This suggests that, in languages with both cases, the subject is ergative if and only if the object is accusative. This is false for Hindi, where ergative case depends on the Aspect of the clause (split ergativity) but accusative case depends on the specificity/definiteness of the object (Differential Object Marking). First, the chapter argues that ergative and accusative are indeed both structural dependent cases in Hindi. Then it shows how the seeming-contradiction can be resolved if ergative and accusative are assigned in different domains: ergative in vP and accusative in TP. Finally, it argues that dative subjects never trigger accusative case on direct objects because of the special status of c-command relationships that are established the first time NPs are spelled out.

Long distance (or “exempt”) uses of anaphors in Eurasian languages are often compared to the special logophoric pronouns found in certain West African languages. By undertaking a close comparison, we show that Ibibio’s (Nigerian) dedicated logophor imọ and Japanese’s anaphor zibun display both striking similarities and some systematic differences, which we capture using control theory. Although imọ is intrinsically a pronoun and zibun an anaphor, both can be analyzed as bound by a null DP operator in the left periphery of the clause. We claim that when the containing clause is a complement or adjunct clause, the null DP operator undergoes obligatory control, such that the argument of the matrix verb that best matches its thematic role controls the null DP and becomes the ultimate antecedent of imọ or zibun . This captures the similarities between the two. The differences appear when the clause containing imọ or zibun is not in a position where obligatory control applies, as a relative clause or a root clause. In these contexts, Ibibio’s version of the null DP is ruled out, whereas Japanese’s version is permitted, being assigned a prominent (empathetic) antecedent from the sentence or discourse. This new use of control theory thus sheds light on both the similarities between logophoric pronouns and long-distance anaphors and their differences.

The Magahi language is rich in honorification morphology: it has three versions of ‘you’ (nonhonorific, honorific, and high honorific) and makes honorific distinctions for third person nominals as well as second person nominals. This work uses these empirical riches to develop a formal syntactic theory of honorific marking. It argues that Magahi’s honorific distinctions can be decomposed into two binary features, [+/–HON] and [+/–HIGH]. These features are specified on an Hon head that is part of the extended projection of any nominal phrase in Magahi; from there they can be copied onto verbal functional heads by Agree. It goes on to argue that Hon heads in Magahi bear a first person designated index that specifies the individual with respect to which the social standing of the person referred to by the nominal inside HonP is evaluated. This first person index is used to account for the intricate ways in which honorific marking interacts with indexical shift in Magahi.

AbstractThis chapter investigates the relationship between object clitic doubling and object agreement. It is shown that, in Amharic and similar languages, the clitic on the verb is a separate pronominal element, which can trigger weak crossover and binding theory violations. At the same time, it acts like it enters into an Agree relationship with the doubled object, even though it does not c-command the object. It is shown that this unusual cluster of properties can be explained by analysing object clitic doubling on the model of how switch-reference has been analysed in recent work—particularly object=subject switch-reference in Shipibo and Yawanawa. In both constructions, particular functional heads enter into Agree-Link relations with nearby nominals, and the pointers created by this are interpreted as referential dependency holding between non-c-commanding nominals at the level of LF.

Switch-reference has recently been argued to be the result of clausal functional heads entering into Agree with two nearby noun phrases, creating pointers to those noun phrases but not actually copying their morphosyntactic features. Instead, the semantic component interprets the pointers as referential dependency holding between pointed-to noun phrases. This article applies this analysis to reflexive voice constructions in which a feature-invariant affix appears on the verb to indicate that the (highest, direct) object is referentially dependent on the (thematic) subject of the same clause. First it surveys the properties that such constructions should have if reflexive voice is maximally like switch-reference. Then it argues that the Bantu language Lubukusu has just such a construction, the verbal affix i partnering with the overt anaphor omweene to create reflexive clauses. Dravidian reflexive voices are presented as another possible case. Finally, it turns to reflexive and reciprocal voice constructions in Shipibo (Panoan), which seem to have a detransitivizing effect. However, no major detransitivizing account fits all the facts. Rather, reflexive voice in Shipibo is like Lubukusu, except that the anaphor is phonologically null and deficient in phi-features, failing to trigger ergative case on the subject for that reason. True detransitivization may happen in some languages with reflexive voice, but not in all, and it will take considerable care to sort out which are which.

This chapter provides a flavor of Chomsky's ideas relevant to linguistic diversity, and what can be taken away from them in the contemporary scene. The chapter also focuses on a variety of topics in syntactic theory and English syntax, a few in some detail, several quite superficially, and none exhaustively. Chomsky's focus on English seemed like a retrenchment. Chomsky is famous for his views about Universal Grammar, which have evolved over the years. Chomsky's early seeming neglect of crosslinguistic diversity was a tactical move that has served the study of linguistic diversity very well. Lectures on Government and Binding has comments on all these developments, as Chomsky's vision burgeoned outward toward a fuller engagement with language diversity. The chapter concludes with some brief discussion of how the most recent phase of Chomsky's research, inaugurated by The Minimalist Program, affects his legacy in the study of linguistic diversity.

Although cognitive science has often been presented as offering a purely materialist theory of intelligence, in fact it is compatible with a dualist picture that includes souls as well. First, cognitive science is neutral as to what kind of thing is doing its computations, material or not. Second, cognitive science is incomplete as a theory of the mind: it works well for automatic subconscious information processing, but has no account of abductive reasoning, free will, intentionality, or conscious experience. Finally, cognitive scientific accounts of why people all over the world believe in some kind of soul are technically incomplete and neutral as to whether those beliefs are in fact true or not.

Abstract: This chapter reviews fifty years of literature on switch-reference (SR), a grammatical phenomenon found in more than 70 North American languages and at least six South American families, in which one clause is morphologically marked to show whether or its subject refers to the same entity or entities as the subject of a structurally nearby clause. Our review is organized around three central issues: to what extent is SR a semantic phenomenon or a syntactic phenomenon, what sorts of clauses can be marked for SR, and what counts as a subject for purposes of SR marking. We also briefly point out some similarities and differences between SR and some other reference-tracking devices found in American languages.

We show that the same Universal Grammar mechanism of Agree can have two quite different grammatical effects: normal agreement in person-number-gender features, or inducing a referential dependency between two designated DPs. As an instance of the latter, we study the switch-reference systems of two Panoan languages, Shipibo and Yawanawa. In addition to the fairly widespread distinction between same-subject (SS) and different-subject (DS) adjunct clauses, these languages also have clauses that are marked as having the object of the adjunct clause coreferential with the matrix subject (OS). We show that the coexistence of SS and OS makes it extra-clear that Agree is at work to establish a relationship between the switch-reference head and the "pivot" DP, since the relationship has all the properties characteristic of Agree: c-command, intervention, phase-restrictedness, and sensitivity to oblique case. We claim that SS and OS are the result ofAgree-Linkapplying to create a pointer from a functional head to a DP, butAgree-Copynot applying to copy phi-features from the pointed-to DP back to the head ("Agree without agreement")-a distinction that is independently motivated by recent studies of phi-agreement. When Agree-Copy does not apply, the pointers created by Agree-Link survive to LF, where they are interpreted as referential dependency. In contrast, DS is a default construction, used wherever SS and OS cannot be. We conclude by showing that this analysis of switch-reference extends naturally to account for the reflexive voice construction in Shipibo and other languages, illustrating the generality of the approach.

Dan, a Mandean language of the Ivory Coast, marks the alienable possessors of simple nonrelational nouns differently from the inalienable possessors of relational nouns: only the former occur with the particle 'ɓa'. This difference also shows up in nominalizations. When a verb is nominalized, its theme argument is expressed like the possessor of a relational noun, without 'ɓa', whereas when an adjective is nominalized, its theme argument is expressed like the possessor of a nonrelational noun, with 'ɓa'. We show that this generalization holds for both a low type of nominalization, in which the nominalizer combines directly with the root before that root combines with any arguments, and for a high type of nominalization, in which the nominalizer combines with a larger phrase. We account for this difference between deverbal nominalization and deadjectival nominalization using Baker’s (2003) theory of the lexical categories, according to which verbs intrinsically combine directly with a theme argument, whereas adjectives do not, but only become predicates of a theme argument with the help of a functional head Pred. This theory also accounts for the fact that denominal nouns like ‘childhood’ pattern with deadjectival nominalizations in this respect. This study thus provides new empirical support for Baker’s theory of lexical categories, as opposed to theories which assume a stronger parallelism across the various lexical categories.

This chapter focuses on a gap in existing cognitive scientific explanations of religion: although they may explain various religious beliefs, they are weak at explaining religious experiences—including the very perception-like experiences that believers often take as grounding their belief in God. The account argues that cognitive science of religion (CSR) to date provides neither the full-blown concept of a deity nor dedicated cognitive resources for arriving at the perception of one. The gap is not inevitable, however: it is shown how certain religious experiences could indeed qualify as direct perceptions of God, on a traditional model of perception. Moreover, one can explain how humans acquired the conceptual and computational resources to perceive supernatural beings by supposing that human beings have actually interacted with such beings in evolutionarily significant ways throughout history. The chapter closes with some epistemic implications of looking at CSR in this “reformed” way.

Languages seem to have as many similarities in their structure as they have dierences. While it is not quite true that all languages have the same grammar, it is much closer to being true than you might have thought.

In many languages, overt case marking hides phi-features from agreement probes. In some languages, such as Hindi, this effect is absolute. But in Adyaman Kurmanji, our focus here, the effect is partial: the number feature of third-person oblique subjects can be registered on the verb. We account for the difference by saying that overtly case-marked nominals are in fact agreed with in the syntax, but the actual transfer of phi-feature values happens at PF, where it is sensitive to postsyntactic operations like Fusion. All and only heads that fuse with case (a K head) can feed valuation and thus be realized on the agreement probe. Adyaman Kurmanji is a language where number fuses with K and this feeds agreement, resulting in partial agreement with overtly case-marked nominals (in number but not person), whereas Hindi is not. The possibility of object agreement in these languages is, we claim, the result of Multiple Agree, which creates complex feature bundles on agreement probes that are only partially realized morphologically at PF. We further support our theory by applying it to Icelandic and Faroese, languages that are often thought not to have agreement with oblique subjects but that may allow agreement in very specific situations, which our theory elucidates.

Controversy and uncertainty have plagued the question of whether “object markers” (OMs) are object pronouns cliticized to the verb or realizations of object agreement. Using data from Amharic, we address this question from a new perspective. Specifically, we claim that Amharic OMs should be analyzed as clitics because they are unable to double nominals that are quantified, anaphoric, or contain a variable bound by a quantifier. These restrictions can be derived from familiar principles of grammar—the Weak Crossover condition and the Binding theory—if and only if the OM is taken to be a pronoun (D) adjoined to v at LF. We then explain in terms of syntactic structure why these OMs can double even nonreferential DPs in experiencer subject constructions, whereas they cannot double theme arguments in unaccusatives or passives. Finally, we consider whether our analysis provides a diagnostic that distinguishes pronominal clitics from agreement morphemes across languages. OMs in Greek, Bulgarian, and Spanish seem to work broadly like Amharic, confirming that they are pronominal clitics. In contrast, OMs in Burushaski and Sambaa behave like agreement, even though certain other putative diagnostics suggest they might be clitics. We thus confirm that both object clitics and object agreement exist.

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The fundamental importance of lexical categories is uncontroversial within both formal and functional approaches to grammatical analysis. But despite the familiarity of this topic and its foundational nature for grammatical description and analysis, it is paradoxically not among the best-studied or - understood topics from either the functionalist or formalist perspective. Both schools of linguistic theory have inherited their basic assumptions and instincts about lexical categories from the structuralist practice of distributional analysis. Webriefly survey approaches to the various lexical categories. We then comment on a few issues of strategic value that arise from these approaches, including the importance of clearly distinguishing roots, stems, words, and syntactic units when it comes to issues of lexical categories; the importance of recognizing when distributional tests are similar across languages in principled ways; and the need for the choice of distributional tests to be informed by theoretical hypotheses.

This chapter analyzes ergative case in the Burushaski language as a strictly structural case, not subject to arbitrary lexical variation. More specifically, ergative is a dependent case: an NP is ergative if and if it c-commands another NP in the same local domain (phase). Three apparent deviations from canonical ergativity are considered: verbs that take two absolutive arguments and no ergative, verbs that take an ergative NP and a dative NP but no absolutive, and clauses in future tense in which the transitive subject can be absolutive. In each instance, it turns out that the syntactic structure is more complex than it appears, as shown by independent tests such as agreement. Once the structures in question are properly understood, ergative case can be assigned purely structurally, with no direct sensitivity to semantic nuances or idiosyncratic lexical properties.

The Sakha language has a special partitive case used only on nonspecific direct objects in imperative sentences. This is neither a canonical structural case, nor a canonical inherent case. We show that its basic properties can be explained within a configurational case theory by assuming that partitive is unmarked case assigned to any NP within the VP complement of vImp, a special v head found only in the scope of imperative (Jussive) heads and a few semantical similar items. This theory is briefly contrasted with one in which partitive is assigned by agreement with a special v, and one in which partitive is the feature V copied onto a nearby NP.