Across languages, the morpheme expressing conjunction frequently has other uses as well. Several linguists have attempted to unify all uses of conjunction morphemes under one general algebraic scheme. We argue in favor of a more limited unification and propose a universal decomposition of conjunction structures: We propose that there exist both a “nominal” e-type and “verbal” or “clausal” t-type junctor. Our account is substantiated with evidence from synchronic typology and diachrony. Our analysis hinges on a generalisation, that e-conjunctors, but crucially not t-conjunctors, may have non-conjunctional quantificational meanings. Historically, we invoke the same principle to explain the change in the conjunction grammar of Indo-European which uniformly abandoned the e- and adopted the t-level conjunctions across the board.

This paper provides a new syntax and semantics for kakarimusubi (KM), a focus construction prominent in the grammar of Old Japanese (OJ) and Early Middle (Classical) Japanese (CJ), which diachronically developed into the interrogative construction in Modern Japanese (MdJ) headed by the ka particle. Adopting Chierchia & Caponigro's (2013) novel analysis of Free Relatives (FRs) as embedded interrogatives, an FR-based analysis of KM is proposed so as to obtain a compositional semantic analysis of this focus construction as well as an account of the adnominal marking of the presuppositional musubi component of this grammatical construction.

This chapter presents a case study of word order change in coordinate constructions across a wide range of Indo-European languages. Early Indo-European languages had two available patterns of coordination at their disposal: one in which the coordinating particle was placed in first and another in which it was placed in the second position with respect to the second coordinand (‘Wackernagel effect’). Diachronically, the two competing configurations reduce to a single winning one, namely the head-initial one that all contemporary Indo-European languages retained. This is accounted for as the result of the loss of ‘Wackernagel movement’ and the development of a lexicalized J(unction)-morpheme. Resting on the notion of Junction, the analysis succeeds in explaining the bimorphemicity signature of initial conjunctions by deriving the morpheme count as a fusional exponent of two functional heads. The analysis stands on the assumption that narrow- and postsyntactic processes operate in derivationally delimited chunks, qua phases.

This paper examines how adjectives are derived within a featural system comprising only two categories. It argues that adjectivisers, a heads, do not exist, leaving the repertory of categorisers with two members only: verbalisers, v heads, and nominalisers, n heads. We proceed to argue that the adjective category is possibly universal insofar as it involves prima facie dual categorisation: adjectives obtain when a root or an already categorised element combines with a complex categorial structure, one that involves both a verbaliser and nominaliser. This proposal is supported by grammar-internal evidence (viz. the external modification of adjectives by adverbs and the nominal character of their internal structure) and by broader typological facts (the distribution of which follows from our analysis). Several consequences and predictions are beneficially derived.