Second-Position Clitics in the vP Phase: The Case of the Armenian Auxiliary

Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan; Megerdoomian, Karine

doi:10.1162/ling_a_00033

Cited by 13 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…A closer investigation based on adverb interpretation and the positional distribution of specific and nonspecific objects reveals that the elements that host the auxiliary in (3) occupy the leftmost position within the vP domain, whereas the marked elements in (1) and (2) are in a focus position and are structurally higher in the sentence. We have argued that the domain of cliticization in Eastern Armenian is the vP or more accurately the lower phase (as elaborated in Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian and briefly reviewed in this paper) and that the auxiliary marks the element at the edge of this domain. In the presence of focus, we argue here that the lower phasal domain is extended to include the focus phrase (following Bošković ) and as such the appearance of the auxiliary after the focused constituent is consistent with the second position in the phasal domain generalization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…In this section we provide a brief overview of Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian , in which we presented an account of the distribution of the Eastern Armenian auxiliary in focus‐neutral contexts. Owing to the overview nature of this section, we abstract away from a detailed presentation of the facts and arguments for our analysis.…”

Section: Focus‐neutral Contexts (Kahnemuyipour and Megerdoomian )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian , we closely studied the positional distribution of the auxiliary in transitive sentences, underlining a clear hierarchy of the elements that trigger auxiliary attachment in nonfocused contexts, schematized in (6). The auxiliary follows the manner/measure adverb if there is one.…”

Section: Focus‐neutral Contexts (Kahnemuyipour and Megerdoomian )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building on previous work on the positional distribution of the Eastern Armenian auxiliary in focus‐neutral contexts (Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian ), this paper aims to account for its distribution in informationally marked sentences and proposes a unified approach for the two accounts. A closer investigation based on adverb interpretation and the positional distribution of specific and nonspecific objects reveals that the elements that host the auxiliary in (3) occupy the leftmost position within the vP domain, whereas the marked elements in (1) and (2) are in a focus position and are structurally higher in the sentence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In section , we provide a brief review of the analysis of the distribution of the Eastern Armenian auxiliary in focus‐neutral contexts found in Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian . Section explores the interaction between the position of the Eastern Armenian auxiliary and focus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the Positional Distribution of an Armenian Auxiliary: Second‐Position Clisis, Focus, and Phases

Kahnemuyipour

Megerdoomian

2017

Syntax

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This paper investigates the positional distribution of an auxiliary clitic in Eastern Armenian in informationally marked sentences. The paper builds on previous work on the distribution of the auxiliary in focus-neutral contexts (Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian 2011), where its placement was analyzed as second position within the lower phase domain (or vP), thereby extending the inventory of known second-position phenomena from the clause to the smaller verbal domain. To account for the distribution of the auxiliary in sentences with focused constituents, it is proposed here that the relevant phase in this context is the Focus Phrase, with the auxiliary appearing in the expected second position. This falls into place under a dynamic view of phasehood that defines the phase as the highest projection of a lexical category and takes low focus to be part of the verbal domain and its corresponding phase (Bo skovi c 2014). These proposals rely highly on the parallelism between clausal and verbal domains both in terms of their status as phases as well as their structural makeup. To the extent that these proposals succeed in accounting for the facts we discuss, they provide further evidence for the dynamic conception of phases as well as the CP-vP parallelism.We would like to thank the participants of the following conferences: LSA 2008, Meeting Clitics 2008, and WCCFL 2010, as well as audiences at the University of Toronto, Michigan State University, and MIT for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. We are also grateful to three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Syntax for their constructive feedback.1 Armenian is an Indo-European language; the Eastern dialect is spoken in Armenia and Iran and in the diasporan communities originating from these two countries. Examples here represent the colloquial Iranian-Armenian dialect.2 In this paper, we use clefts to mark focus in the English translations for convenience. 3 The nominative marker in Armenian has two allomorph variants, the schwa and -n after vowels. According to Vaux (1998:170), this alternation results from the addition of -n, which triggers schwa epenthesis and then deletes when not followed by a vowel. 4 The following special abbreviations are used in the examples: LOC = locative, INST = instrumental, SP = specific object, NSP = nonspecific object, PRS = present tense, PST = past tense, AOR = aorist, PROG = progressive aspect, PFV = perfective aspect, CAUS = causative, REDUP = reduplication, PASS = passive, CL = classifier, and DO = Direct Object.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Focus‐neutral Contexts (Kahnemuyipour and Megerdoomian )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Focus‐neutral Contexts (Kahnemuyipour and Megerdoomian )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the Positional Distribution of an Armenian Auxiliary: Second‐Position Clisis, Focus, and Phases

Kahnemuyipour

Megerdoomian

2017

Syntax

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Tonal reflexes of movement in Asante Twi

Korsah

Murphy

2019

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Non-canonical agreement in copular clauses

Béjar

Kahnemuyipour

2017

J. Ling.

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In this paper we investigate cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of copular clauses, focusing on agreement patterns in binominal structures [NP1 BE NP2]. Our starting point is the alternation between NP1 and NP2 agreement, which arises both within and across languages. This alternation is typically taken to be confined to specificational (i.e. inverted) clauses, and previous analyses have strongly identified NP2 agreement with the syntax of inversion. However, we show that NP2 agreement is attested in a broader range of contexts, specifically in (assumed identity) equative structures, suggesting that it should not be correlated with specificational syntax. We present contrasting data from two languages – Persian and Eastern Armenian – for which the syntax of copular clauses is understudied. Whereas in Persian we see NP2 agreement in specificational structures but NP1 agreement in assumed identity equatives, in Eastern Armenian both types of structure yield NP2 agreement. We argue that the contrast between Persian and Eastern Armenian supports an approach that takes the NP1–NP2 alternation to arise as a phi-sensitivity in the probe–goal mechanics of Agree in a minimalist framework. Under this view, NP2 agreement is independent of syntactic inversion and is the result of the probe structure being articulated in such a way that certain NPs fail to Agree.

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Second-Position Clitics in the vP Phase: The Case of the Armenian Auxiliary

Cited by 13 publications

References 7 publications

On the Positional Distribution of an Armenian Auxiliary: Second‐Position Clisis, Focus, and Phases

On the Positional Distribution of an Armenian Auxiliary: Second‐Position Clisis, Focus, and Phases

Tonal reflexes of movement in Asante Twi

Non-canonical agreement in copular clauses

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