| ROA: | 299 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Explaining Morphosyntactic Competition |
| Authors: | Joan Bresnan |
| Comment: | 49 page postscript file |
| Length: | |
| Abstract: | Explaining Morphosyntactic Competition Joan Bresnan February 23, 1999 Morphosyntactic markedness theory classically assumes dynamic competition among the members of a paradigm (Jakobson 1984). In generative grammar this kind of competition has been viewed as morphosyntactic blocking: morpholexical forms compete for insertion into the same syntactic position, and a more specific or featurally complex form preempts a more general, featurally simple form (Andrews 1982, 1984, 1990; Blevins 1995; Lumsden 1992; Halle and Marantz 1993; Bonet 1995). Though blocking has been thought to apply only to structurally local regions of syntax (Poser 1992), in fact morphological forms can compete with large syntactic constructions, a property that is captured by modern constraint-based theories of syntax (Andrews 1990, Blevins 1995, Ackerman and Webelhuth 1998). These modern, constraint-based theories limit the contents of competing forms by featural subsumption. An examination of negation in several English dialects shows that a morphological form of negation (suffixal -n't, Zwicky and Pullum 1983) is actively competing with syntactic forms (not, no, nae), but that neither featural subsumption nor structural size is the determinant of blocking. In this paper I show how OT can capture both the classical morphosyntactic blocking effects, and these cases where syntactic forms block morphological forms and featural subsumption fails to hold. The data come from several dialects of English, including Scots: 1a) *I amn't your friend. b) I amnae your friend. 2a) Amn't I your friend? b) *Amnae I your friend? What is most striking about the use of negation in these English dialects is that the specific properties of the output form depend upon the other surface forms (both morphological and syntactic) that actively compete with it, and not on the details of the derivation of its formal structure, as in the classical generative approach to syntax. The results are attained by letting surface morphological and syntactic forms express the same kinds of abstract information, as in the feature-structure representations of syntax. Optimality Theory, incorporating a feature-logic based theory of the candidate set, shows that small (and even externally motivated) differences in the evaluation of surface forms of expression can have visible and unexpected repercussions in the syntax and semantics of verbal negation and inversion. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |