Remnant Raising and VSO Clausal Architecture: A Case Study of San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec

Felicia Lee

Springer, Jun 27, 2006 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 274 pages

San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, an endangered and little-examined indigenous language of Mexico, shows a range of syntactic and morphological phenomena incompatible with standard Minimalist accounts of verb movement: verbs and clearly phrasal constituents behave identically in a number of syntactic constructions, and the ordering of verbal morphemes is problematic for standard assumptions of verbal head movement.

This work proposes a VP-remnant raising account for these phenomena, motivated by Kayne’s (1992) Antisymmetry program. This work also examines consequences of phrasal remnant movement for negation constructions, question formation; and the interpretation of tense, aspect, and mood.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Remnant Raising and VSO Clausal Architecture: A Case Study of San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec; Volume 66 of Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
• Author: Felicia Lee
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Springer, 2006
• ISBN: 1402043082, 9781402043086
• Length: 274 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Grammar & Punctuation; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Syntax