Relatedness in Periphrasis

Abstract

Bulgarian has several relevant verbal constructions, and this chapter concentrates on those where one instance of periphrasis is embedded within another. For example, the (periphrastic) future perfect has a periphrastic form of the verb ‘be’ as one component, giving a construction with embedded periphrasis. The formal account proposed for these nested constructions combines a realizational approach to morphology with a lexical non-transformational framework for syntax. While periphrasis constitutes part of the morphological paradigm, and the relatedness of different periphrastic constructions can be understood in terms of the cross-categorization of features, the syntactic structure of these constructions does not mirror the same nesting. To solve this mismatch, and to capture the nesting effect, a set of rules for Bulgarian periphrastic forms is proposed, involving realization rules which are a composition of two separate rules. The complexity of nested periphrases receives a formal account, shedding light on the syntax-morphology interface more generally.

The diversity of inflectional periphrasis in Persian

“…This general strategy for addressing the Persian perfect, initially proposed in Bonami & Samvelian (2009), has been successfully applied to analogous data in Pamir languages (Stump & Hippisley 2011) as well as other inflectional periphrasis phenomena in Sanskrit (Stump 2013), Bulgarian (Popova & Spencer 2013), and various Romance and Germanic languages (Bonami & Webelhuth 2011, 2013). The particular formulation presented here raises one potential concern: 21 by modifying valence, rules of periphrasis as stated here are not strictly realizational in the sense of (Stump 2001: 4), because the output of a rule manifests syntactic properties distinct from those of its input.…”

Word-based morphology–syntax interdependencies: Thai passives

“… 8 The status of some periphrastic expressions as morphological was a basic assumption among classical grammarians and has recently generated increased attention as evident from numerous articles and books devoted to this phenomenon as well as the formulation of several alternatives concerning the morphology–syntax interface in theories which countenance multiword morphological entities (Haspelmath 2000, Booij 2005, Chumakina & Corbett 2013, Popova & Spencer 2013, inter alia ). This article is, thus, a contribution to this growing trend. …”