Topics in Bulgarian morphology and syntax: a minimalist perspective

Abstract

This paper offers a minimalist view of a variety of topics that in Bulgarian are at the crossroads of lexicon, syntax, morphology, and phonology. It discusses syntactic characteristics in periphrastic tenses with biclausal structures and the formal properties of Balkan control/raising constructions. It sketches accounts for clitic templates, person restrictions, and reflexive haplology that combine syntax and morphology, and assign an important role to person in postsyntactic morphology. It reviews some minimalist-oriented displacement analyses of the distribution of interrogative li. It examines the construction with an obligatory clitic Trese me ''I am shivering,'' proposing that lexical structure and syntactic conditions on clitic pronouns and doubling account for its characteristics. It compares two prominent GB/minimalist views on reflexive marking and applies them to inherent reflexive verbs. It ends by discussing word order in auxiliary complexes, and touches on left branch phenomena, and on the relation between displacement and information structure. #

Animating the narrow syntax

“…We then argue that this agreement controllers compete for the same agreement slot. Similarly, both Rivero's (2005) analysis of Bulgarian clitics and Lomashvili's (2011) analysis of Georgian complex predicates require that different syntactic constituents compete for spell-out in a single morphological slot. Trommer (2006) also assumes that the mapping from syntax to morphology is many to one in his exploration of a range of genetically unrelated languages in which a single vocabulary item combines the content of two syntactic heads.…”

A Balkan View on the Left Periphery: Modal and Discourse Particles

“…Note that Rivero ( 2005) also argues that the future particle (along with other clitic auxiliaries) in Bulgarian is part of the extended projection of the verb; the restriction to a single EPP position unifies them as "one" verb. Despite sharing this idea, the present account differs from that of Rivero (2005) in that it does not extend it to the subjunctive particle, among other things. The other pattern with the future particles is the one in (14b), i.e., Future particle + Subjunctive clause.…”

“…The question as to whether these formations are mono-clausal or bi-clausal has been a topic of debate in the literature. For example, with respect to Bulgarian, Rivero (2005) argues in favor of a bi-clausal structure, while Hill and Mišeska-Tomić ( 2009) argue in favor of a mono-clausal analysis for Balkan Slavic and Balkan Romance. Given, as we saw above, that the subjunctive particle occupies a position in the left periphery of an articulated structure, which is arguably above M, as the position of negation indicates, we can assume that the future particle embeds a clausal complement.…”

Cross-linguistic variation in imperfectivity

“…RM forms contain a past morphological component, and exhibit a full paradigm of (often periphrastic) tenses (Scatton 1983;Rivero 2005). Thus, they can allude to past, present, and future, in parallel to tenses of the Indicative Mood, which according to Izvorski are understood as based on direct evidence justifying belief.…”