Speaker and Addressee in syntax: Manipulating features through binding and agreement

• Applicant: Natalia Bogomolova, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 503029971

The project investigates the nature of grammatical dependencies such as anaphoric binding and gender-number agreement through the lens of another type of syntactic relations, namely clitic doubling in the little-studied Tabasaran language. All three phenomena exhibit similar behavior in various syntactic configurations. In Tabasaran 1/2.P pronouns and the 3.P reflexive share patterns such as local binding and also exhibit logophoric behavior in reported speech. In addition, the three phenomena demonstrate a long-distance behavior across clausal boundaries. The research examines how the syntactic dependency between a DP and other elements—whether a clitic, anaphor, or agreeing verb—varies based on the features involved and investigates syntactic constraints of three phenomena. The specific goal of the project is to study which aspects of clitic-doubling, derived through both binding and agreement, overlap with regular anaphoric binding, as instantiated by 3.P reflexives, and which aspects it shares with true agreement in gender-number.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants