Person matters in impersonality

Bibliographic Data

ID4238312
AuthorsAne Berro (0000-0002-6818-506X, Universidad de Deusto, corresponding author), Ane Odria (0000-0002-9636-4161, University of the Basque Country), Beatriz Fernández (0000-0002-7632-7777, University of the Basque Country)
Year2022
Volume25
Issue2
Pages147-187
Publication date2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSyntax (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-0005 • E-ISSN: 1467-9612
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/synt.12230
OpenAlexW4225374909
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited64

The Basque impersonal is a detransitivized construction where the internal argument is the only overt argument and the external argument, although semantically present, does not have any morphological reflex. This article argues that, despite its intransitive shape, the impersonal involves a particular kind of Voice projection that we termdefective. For case and agreement, being defective means having no uninterpretable φ features and no Case to assign. However, a silentpersonpronoun is introduced in its specifier position, and thus, there are two arguments within VoiceP. The two arguments compete to value the φ features of the next functional head, namely T. With this analysis we account for the main properties of the impersonal, such as the syntactic activeness of the implicit external argument and the person constraint on the internal argument

Algorithm · Argument (complex analysis · Constraint (computer-aided design · Epistemology · Geometry · Head (geology · Linguistics · Physics · Projection (relational algebra · Pronoun · Term (time · Value (mathematics · Basque language and culture studies · Mathematics · Philosophy · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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