Revisiting Phrasal Units in the Nominal Domain

• Applicant: Dr. Andreas Blümel
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 499585967

The right syntactic analysis of Phrasal Units in the Nominal Domain (PUNDs) like “the car” is an unresolved issue. This project considers recent theoretical developments and explores a uniform, novel analysis of PUNDs as a “third way” beyond the NP- or the DP-hypothesis. The results will deepen our understanding of PUND-phenomena in a variety of languages with important empirical and conceptual implications. The central hypothesis is that the nominalizing functional head n is parametrized: strong and weak (Nominal Strength Parameter, NSP). Couched within the Principles & Parameter tradition (Chomsky 1981 et seq; Borer 1984) and Labeling Theory (Chomsky 2013, 2015), the project investigates if morphological richness and poverty of nominal inflection paradigms indicates the labeling strength and weakness of the functional nominalizing elements (compare Russian "mašin-a", car-NOM.SG.F to the morphologically caseless English counterpart). It aims to pinpoint the axis of cross-linguistic variation as preliminary results suggest that the NSP delivers a novel classification of languages which sharpens previous approaches relying on the DP-NP-divide (Bošković 2005 et seq).To test the NSP-hypothesis, the project identifies three inter-related PUND-phenomena: the derivation of DET-categories (possessors, demonstratives, wh-determiners, etc.), affixal definiteness markers and nominal concord. In the first phase, the project investigates 19 languages from 10 different language families, which allow for Left Branch Extraction (including many Slavic languages and Latin). Based on previous data and new data by direct elicitation, it will be tested to what extent these languages exhibit morphologically rich nominal inflection paradigms compared to languages which obey the Left Branch Condition and obligatorily require the presence of a DET-category in most nominal contexts (e.g., English, German and Italian). The second phase reconsiders the morphosyntax of definiteness affixes, given the NSP. Focusing on Danish, Hebrew and Swedish, it will test the main idea that the nominalizing functional head is the syntactic locus of definiteness affixes (cf. Swedish "hest-en", horse-DEF, 'the horse'), rather than the functional head D. Given positive results, free standing definiteness markers (cf. Swedish "den hest-en", DEF horse-DEF, 'that horse') can be analytically assimilated to, e.g., articles in languages like English, and this will yield further insights about PUNDs in these languages. In the last phase, nominal concord and the morphosyntax of adjectival modification in Danish, German, Hebrew, and Swedish will be reconsidered. It will be tested if the nominalizing functional head is responsible for the spread of morphological reflexes on adjectival modifiers like gender, number, and case inflection as well as definiteness marking (cf. Hebrew "ha-yeled ha-xaxam" DEF-boy DEF-smart 'the smart boy').

• DFG Programme: Research Grants