Selecting argument structure: a purely syntactic approach to natural reflexives, causatives, and passives
| Author(s) | Jo, Jinwoo | |
| Date Accessioned | 2021-03-02T15:36:59Z | |
| Date Available | 2021-03-02T15:36:59Z | |
| Publication Date | 2020 | |
| SWORD Update | 2020-10-13T19:03:22Z | |
| Abstract | This dissertation proposes a purely syntactic approach to argument structure and argument structure alternation and provides comprehensive analyses of natural reflexives in French, causatives in Korean, and passives in Japanese. It is argued that there are a few functional elements available in natural language which encode essential conceptual notions into the linguistic representation such as Refl(exive), Caus(e), and Pass(ive), and that rigidity and flexibility of argument structure alternation such as reflexivization, causativization, and passivization, are attributed to the different selectional properties of the functional elements as well as the lexical predicates. Specifically, natural reflexives in French are claimed to be more productive in various ways than those in English because Refl in French selects for an element bigger than Refl in English does. In the same vein, causatives in Korean are claimed to be found on all classes of predicates unlike those in English because Caus in Korean selects for an element bigger than Caus in English. And passives in Japanese are claimed to be more productive than those in Korean or English, because Pass in Japanese is underspecified such that it selects for any VoiceP as the complement, whereas Pass in Korean or English is specified to select for initiative VoiceP only and that Japanese makes use of an additional functional element, Aff(ect), which selects for PassP, whereas Korean or English does not. The discussion in this dissertation, accordingly, demonstrates that the grammar of argument structure can be modeled in a parsimonious way in which everything is reduced to the basic structure-building operation of merge. | en_US |
| Advisor | Bruening, Benjamin T. | |
| Degree | Ph.D. | |
| Department | University of Delaware, Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.58088/na9d-az87 | |
| Unique Identifier | 1240247748 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/28801 | |
| Language | en | |
| Publisher | University of Delaware | en_US |
| URI | https://login.udel.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/selecting-argument-structure-purely-syntactic/docview/2456361388/se-2?accountid=10457 | |
| Keywords | Syntax | |
| Keywords | Argument structure | |
| Keywords | French | |
| Keywords | Korean | |
| Keywords | Japanese | |
| Keywords | Reflexives | |
| Keywords | Causatives | |
| Keywords | Passives | |
| Title | Selecting argument structure: a purely syntactic approach to natural reflexives, causatives, and passives | en_US |
| Type | Thesis | en_US |