Category: Syntax

We are happy to announce two talks by Kwaku Sasu (GU) and by Ateş İsmail Çalışır (GU) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: January 29, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Kwaku Sasu: Title: "Negation in Anufo” Abstract: The talk looks at Negation in Anufo, A Niger-Congo language spoken in Northen Ghana. A general overview of negation patterns in the language and other aspects of negation in the language will be discussed. Ateş İsmail Çalışır: Title: “Biased Polar Questions in Turkish” Abstract: Biased Polar Questions are a cross-linguistically observed phenomena, closely related to High and Low negation in polar questions. In this talk, I will try to argue for a biased polar question analysis in Turkish and potential consequences and evidences regarding their syntactic and contextual status....

We are happy to announce a talk by Feras Saeed (Göttingen) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: January 22, 2024 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: "On the morphosyntax of nominal modification: patterns of adjectival agreement” Abstract: In this talk, I look at three different patterns of adjectival agreement which arise in two different contexts in the Arabic noun phrase. In the first context, the adjective is postnominal [NA], hence it agrees with the modified noun in all features. In the second context, the adjective is internominal in the [N1-A-N2] configuration, i.e. cases where an adjective modifying a following noun ([N2]) is preceded by another noun ([N1]). Here, the adjective can, unexpectedly, display two different patterns of agreement, the choice of which depends on the morphosyntactic properties of the modified noun [N2]. Thus, if [N2] is nominative and cannot inflect for definiteness, the adjective shows split agreement, agreeing with [N1] in definiteness and case and with...

We are happy to announce a talk by Viktor Köhlich (GU) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: December 18, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: "te-no clauses in Japanese” Abstract: In this talk, I look at a type of noun-modifying clause in Japanese that has not received much attention in the literature. Although verbs can DP-internally never co-occur with the element -no, which is otherwise obligatory with most other word classes, they do when the suffix -te is attached beforehand, normally used for coordination of clauses among others. An example is (1). (1) [masuku-wo tsuke-te-no] jugyō mask-ACC put.on-TE-NO class `a class in which you wear your mask' Compared to ordinary relative clauses, this type of clauses is subject to more restrictions. The modified noun for instance cannot be an argument of the modifying clause and needs to depict an event. After presenting all relevant facts about this construction, I will attempt at a tentative analysis. Specifically, I will propose that these clauses are instances of TPs...

We are happy to announce a talk by Malte Zimmermann (Uni Potsdam) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: December 11, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: "The structure and meaning of (seeming) OBJ-sharing SVCs in Igbo and Akan” Abstract...

We are happy to announce a talk by Daniel Aremu (GU) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: December 04, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: "A tale of two ‘onlys’ in Mabia” Abstract: A tale of two ‘onlys’ in Mabia Earlier studies on the syntax-semantic mapping of the exclusive particle ‘only’ have proposed that while adverbial-only (1) corresponds to the semantic property/meaning of ‘only’, as a proposition operator, adnominal-only (2) poses a problem with respect to the proposition meaning of ‘only’. A proposal for salvaging the problem is to assume that adnominal-only is capable of type-shifting to compose with its DP associate, and then undergoes quantifier-raising to a scope-taking position at LF- the QR Approach (cf. Chomsky 1976, Rooth 1985, 1992, Wagner 2006). However, recent studies have shown that the problem can addressed in a more syntactic way. Thus, Adnominal-only maintains its structural position, while a (c)overt exclusive operator occupies a scope position higher in the clause. In other words,...