Jenks (2018) argues that Mandarin bare NPs cannot be classified as definites simpliciter. Adopting the distinction between weak- and strong-article definites in Schwarz 2009, he proposes that Mandarin makes a lexical distinction between the two types o…
When we couple the cyclic expansion of a probe’s domain assumed in Cyclic Agree (Rezac 2003, 2004, Béjar and Rezac 2009) with the lack of formal distinction between heads, intermediate projections, and phrases emphasized in Bare Phrase Structure (Choms…
In English, simple present (plain) and present progressive constructions can make reference to the future, in constructions known as futurates. In previous literature, these two types of futurate have often been discussed separately or treated as more …
Making use of Kayne’s (2005, 2010) theory of light nouns, this article argues that light nouns are part of (simple) names and that a mass/count distinction among light nouns explains the behavior of certain types of names in German as mass rather than …
This article discusses what happens when locality requirements—which favor short dependencies—come into conflict with antilocality requirements—which rule out dependencies that are too short. It is argued that in such circumstances, certain locality re…
This article is a study of the morphosyntax of the clausal periphery in Wolof, specifically the two layers commonly labeled CP and IP. It has long been noted that (a) C and I share a number of properties, and (b) languages differ in the amount of struc…
Grano and Lasnik (2008) argue that phases should be extended if features are still unvalued on the complement of a phase head at the end of what would normally be a phase. Thus, if pronouns are bound variables with unvalued features, then the phase tha…
We present a parallel corpus study that compares the distribution of German contracted/uncontracted articles and Mandarin bare nouns/demonstratives. Work by Schwarz (2009) and Jenks (2018) leads us to predict that German contracted articles pattern wit…
The Final-over-Final Condition (FOFC) rules out head-final projections that immediately dominate head-initial projections. Syntactically inert particles are known to show (apparent) exceptions to FOFC. However, Biberauer (2017) argues that seemingly FO…
Abstract: Two classes of saltation alternations (phonological derived-environment effects) are formally distinct under Harmonic Grammar (HG), but formally equivalent under Optimality Theory (OT, with or without local constraint conjunction). The famili…