Papers by Karen De Clercq
Jezikoslovlje, 2018
We look at the internal structure of the English analytic comparative marker more, arguing that i... more We look at the internal structure of the English analytic comparative marker more, arguing that it spells out nearly all the features of a gradable adjective. When this marker is merged with an adjective in the positive degree, it creates a situation of feature recursion or overlap, where more duplicates certain features that are also present in the adjective that it modifies. We argue that such overlap must be disallowed as a matter of principle. We present an empirical argument in favour of such a restriction, which is based on the generalization that comparative markers which occur to the left of the adjectival root are incompatible with suppletion. This generalization can be shown to follow from a restriction against overlapping derivations. In order to achieve such nonoverlapping derivations, an Unmerge operation may remove previously created structure.
This article proposes a Nanosyntactic LateInsertion approach to root suppletion. We show that th... more This article proposes a Nanosyntactic LateInsertion approach to root suppletion. We show that this theory allows us to account for root suppletionwithin a strictlymodular theory of grammar, which makes no syntactic distinction between different roots. As a starting point, we first focus on the architectural difficulties that arise for amodular theory of roots in the DistributedMorphology approach. We then show how Nanosyntax circumvents these problems, and address two potential empirical issues for the Nanosyntactic treatment (multiple exponence and locality), showing that they in fact provide support for the approach proposed.
In varieties of English, the combination of would and rather (also: sooner/as soon/as well) can b... more In varieties of English, the combination of would and rather (also: sooner/as soon/as well) can be followed not just by a bare infinitive (as in they would rather leave) or by a finite clause (they would rather (that) I (would) leave), but alsobyan infinitivewithanaccusative subject (as in they would rather me leave), which can even be coreferent with thematrix subject (Iwould ratherme leave). This short paper focuses on this AcI-infinitival construction. It shows that the infinitival clause is a fully clausal complement of rather, capable of harbouring sentential negation and constituting a local binding domain for its subject, whose accusative is not an assigned case. The paper closes on some remarks about the evolution of this construction, against the background of the form and distribution of the subjunctive. Sentences of the type in (1) feature a degree-modified dispositional adjective or adverb (rather, sooner, as soon, as well) followed by a bare infinitival clause with an a...
The Romance Inter-Views are short, multiple QA Norma Schifano, lecturer in Modern Languages at th... more The Romance Inter-Views are short, multiple QA Norma Schifano, lecturer in Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham. For Distributed Morphology: Karlos Arregi, associate professor in Linguistics at the University of Chicago; Andres Saab, associate researcher at CONICET, Buenos Aires and associate professor in Linguistics at the University of Buenos Aires. For Minimalism: Grant Armstrong, associate professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Caterina Donati, professor of Linguistics at the CNRS Laboratoire de Linguistique formelle, Universite de Paris For Nanosyntax: Karen De Clercq, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire de Linguistique formelle (Universite de Paris). Antonio Fabregas, professor of Linguistics at UIT, The Arctic University of Norway
We present a theory of conversion in terms of phrasal spellout. In this approach, there are no ze... more We present a theory of conversion in terms of phrasal spellout. In this approach, there are no zero morphemes. Instead, the ‘silent’ meaning components are pronounced cumulatively within overt morphemes. As an empirical case, we discuss adjective/verb ambiguity as in narrow. As verbs, these roots have both an inchoative and a causative sense. Following Ramchand (2008), we assume that such de-adjectival causatives contain three parts: the adjective denoting a state, a changeof-state component PROC, and a causative component INIT. Adopting a Nanosyntax approach, we propose that verbs like narrow spell out a complex node with all these abstract heads. The ambiguity between the inchoative, causative and adjective falls out as a consequence of the Superset Principle (Starke 2009), which states that a lexical entry can spell out any subtree it contains. Since both the inchoative sense and the adjective sense correspond to proper parts of the causative one, we derive these readings without...
This article proposes a Nanosyntactic approach to root suppletion. We show that within this theor... more This article proposes a Nanosyntactic approach to root suppletion. We show that within this theory, there is a straightforward way to account for root suppletion within a strictly modular theory of grammar. As a starting point, we first focus on the architectural difficulties that arise in the Distributed Morphology approach to Late Insertion. We then show how Nanosyntax circumvents these problems, and address two potential empirical issues for the Nanosyntactic treatment (multiple exponence and locality), showing how they provide support for the approach proposed.
In this paper, we discuss a cross-linguistically rare pattern of comparative formation found in S... more In this paper, we discuss a cross-linguistically rare pattern of comparative formation found in Slovak. This pattern is theoretically interesting, because it violates a candidate universal on the relationship between the positive and the comparative degree. The universal, discussed in Grano & Davis (2018), says that the comparative is always either identical to, or derived from, the positive degree. This universal is violated by a number of adjectives in Slovak. These adjectives have a suffix -k in the positive degree, which is absent in the comparative. We capture this pattern in terms of a non-containment structure of the positive and the comparative degrees and the nanosyntax model of spellout (Starke 2009 et seq.).
This chapter discusses the well-known dichotomies between sentence negation and constituent negat... more This chapter discusses the well-known dichotomies between sentence negation and constituent negation on the one hand and external negation and internal negation on the other hand. It explains how the notions differ and where they show overlap. Crucial in this discussion is the presentation and critical review of some of the most relevant tests for negation as discussed by Klima (1964). The discussion leads to the observation that both sentence negation and constituent negation are umbrella terms for multiple scopal types of negation. The chapter further shows how a careful analysis of negative morphology can be insightful in putting up a more fine-grained classification that does better justice to the reality of negative markers than captured by the well-known dichotomies.
With this short paper I want to pay tribute to Dany and his extremely inspiring dissertation Oper... more With this short paper I want to pay tribute to Dany and his extremely inspiring dissertation Operators in the lexicon (henceforth OiL). In my own dissertation I did not refer to his work explicitly but the impact his work had on my thinking cannot be underestimated. In 2011, I started exploring the idea that Dany’s OiL is actually morphologically reflected in how quantifiers are built in Malayalam, a Dravidian language spoken in India. Moreover, I realized how Jaspers’ decomposition of the lexicon in terms of operators meshes well with a nanosyntactic approach, a framework that I learned about in the course of that same year. At the time, I wrote a 2-page abstract on this, but never submitted it to any conference, because I considered the ideas immature. The present paper takes a stab at developing these ideas from years ago a bit further and most importantly, wants to show that the abstract formal operators presented in Jaspers (2005) are a morphological reality in some languages s...
This paper discusses the well-known dichotomies between sentence negation and constituent negatio... more This paper discusses the well-known dichotomies between sentence negation and constituent negation on the one hand and external negation and internal negation on the other hand. It explains how the notions differ and where they show overlap. Crucial in this discussion is the presentation and critical review of some of the most relevant tests for negation as discussed by Klima (1964). The discussion leads to the observation that both sentence negation and constituent negation are umbrella terms for multiple scopal types of negation. The paper further shows how a careful analysis of negative morphology can be insightful in putting up a more fine-grained classification that does better justice to the reality of negative markers than captured by the well-known
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today
Nederlandse Taalkunde
The acquisition of [PART+AUX] and [AUX+PART] word order in Flanders. A descriptive, methodologica... more The acquisition of [PART+AUX] and [AUX+PART] word order in Flanders. A descriptive, methodological and theoretical addition to Meyer & Weerman (2016)This paper presents new data on the acquisition of verb clusters in Flemish children. The data were collected by means of a sentence repetition task and the results are in line with the development path for verb clusters in Dutch children as proposed by Meyer & Weerman (2016). While Flemish children also show a development from more 2-1 orders in the youngest group to more 1-2 orders in the older group, this development seems to happen more slowly in Flemish children than in Dutch children. In spite of the fact that the results of both the Flemish and the Dutch study refute an analysis that takes the input adult language as the main factor in verb cluster formation in children, the Flemish data suggest that the higher frequency of 2-1 orders in the Flemish context could help to explain why 1-2 orders are acquired more slowly in Flemish ...
Frontiers in Psychology, Aug 29, 2018
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
In this paper, we discuss a cross-linguistically rare pattern of comparative formation found in S... more In this paper, we discuss a cross-linguistically rare pattern of comparative formation found in Slovak. This pattern is theoretically interesting, because it violates a candidate universal on the relationship between the positive and the comparative degree. The universal, discussed in Grano & Davis (2018), says that the comparative is always either identical to, or derived from, the positive degree. This universal is violated by a number of adjectives in Slovak. These adjectives have a suffix -k in the positive degree, which is absent in the comparative. We capture this pattern in terms of a non-containment structure of the positive and the comparative degrees and the nanosyntax model of spellout (Starke 2009 et seq.).
Oxford Scholarship Online
This chapter illustrates how syncretisms can be used as a tool to diagnose hidden structure insid... more This chapter illustrates how syncretisms can be used as a tool to diagnose hidden structure inside what is usually considered an indivisible unit, i.e. a negative marker. Based on semantic, scopal, stacking, and functional properties of negative markers, it is proposed that negative markers can be classified in four groups: scalar quantity markers, classifier markers, focus markers, and tense markers. A study of these four different types of markers in a typological sample shows that meaningful syncretism patterns can be detected. If the markers are ordered in such a way that syncretic markers are contiguous and that no ABA patterns arise, then the derived sequence reflects the natural semantic scope of negation, i.e. from wide to narrow scope or from narrow to wide. This result leads to a decomposition of a negative marker into five syntactico-semantic features, i.e. Neg, Q, Class, Foc, and T.
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Papers by Karen De Clercq