Basque relative clauses: Head raising, case and micro-variation within Bizkaiera

Ager Gondra, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation establishes the syntactic representation and derivation of relative clause (RC) constructions in Bizkaiera Basque. Using native speaker introspection, grammaticality judgment under direct elicitation and formal experiments, I show that Bizkaiera follows the Head raising strategy in RC construction. Evidence for this comes from idioms, scope interaction and quantifier binding. These tests focus on the existence of a local relationship, internal to the RC, between the Head and the elements in the RC. Detecting such local relation, I conclude that the Head of the RC was inside the RC. A problem for the Head Raising Analysis is that morphologically rich languages show that the Head share the Case of the external D and not that of the internal D, which would be expected if there were Head raising (Borsley 1997). I propose the DCase Valued u-Feature Precariousness Condition, which establishes that a DCase (the one assigned by T or v) valued u-feature is precarious until it is sent to Spell-Out and therefore, the value is visible for further targeting by a c-commanding Probe. In a RC with a DP Head, the external D copies the DCase and phi-features of the internal D. Since the DCase valued u-feature of the external D is precarious because it has not been spelled-out yet, it is targetable by a c-commanding Probe (T, v, P in the main clause). When a Probe Agrees with the external D, the Goal obtains a new Case value, which is the Case value that is spelled-out for being the last one that the external D has received. The DCase Valued u-Feature Precariousness Condition is supported by the observation that the DP extracted out of an [-Q] embedded clause gets its DCase valued u-feature re-valued when it Agrees with a higher ν in the Spec-νP configuration. Furthermore, I identify two micro-dialects within Bizkaiera Basque: A PP Headed RC under a matrix ergative or absolutive Case is grammatical in micro-dialect A and ungrammatical in micro-dialect B. I claim that the difference between the two micro-dialects relies on the status of their P: in micro-dialect A the P is a Probe with unvalued D and phi-features, while in micro-dialect B the P is a Probe with just an unvalued D-feature. In a PP Headed RC, in micro-dialect A the external D copies the PCase and phi-features values of the internal P allowing it to value the phi-features of the Probe T/ν. In micro-dialect B, due to the lack of phi-features in P, the external D only copies the PCase of the internal P, which makes it not capable of valuing the unvalued phi-features of the Probe T/ν, therefore, the derivation crashes. The presence of phi-features in the P of micro-dialect A as well as the lack of them in the P of micro-dialect B can be observed in a long distance extraction: in micro-dialect A a higher ν can obtain its unvalued phi-features valued by Agreeing with the extracted PP, whereas in micro-dialect B it cannot do so.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Hammond, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Linguistics

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