On apparent pronominal feature contradictions

Shifty agreement in Telugu

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4238152
AutoresTroy Messick (0000-0002-1453-5212, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume26
Fascículo2
Páginas137-182
Data de publicação2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSyntax (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1368-0005 • E-ISSN: 1467-9612
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/synt.12248
OpenAlexW4321596395
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas47

This article investigates so-called monstrous agreement-where a non-first-person pronoun can control first-person agreement on an embedded verb-in Telugu. Empirically, I provide the most in-depth description of monstrous agreement in Telugu to date. To account for monstrous agreement, I propose that embedded pronouns have morphosyntactic features that indicate their roles in both the matrix and embedded speech acts. This means an embedded pronoun can have first-person and third- or second-person features simultaneously. I then propose a precise set of morphosyntactic operations that allow the first-person feature to appear on the verbal agreement but not the pronoun controlling the agreement. I also show that pronouns that have these contradictory features must be bound by an operator to be licensed, and I discuss the nature of these operators and the locality conditions on the binding relationship. The theoretical consequence of this article is that apparently contradictory feature combinations on pronominal elements must be sanctioned by UG

Agreement · Feature (linguistics · Linguistics · Locality · Natural language processing · Object pronoun · Pronoun · Set (abstract data type · Telugu · Verb · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence