Capturing variation in the languages from India: Populating, expanding, and developing SSWL and TerraLing

In order to explore syntactic variation from a current theoretical perspective, we need to build databases and tools that allow us to do so. My classes will have a very practical goal: to introduce SSWL (the Syntactic Structures of the World's languages) database, and its further development and future host TerraLing, and to further develop and expand it with and for Languages from India so as to build a tool in support of theoretical research.

SSWL is an open-ended, open source, expert crowd sourced database of syntactic (as well as semantic and morphological ) properties of the word's languages. The database is open-ended in the sense that new properties can be added infinitely (which will happen gradually over time), and is intended as a tool to support research, eventually run by the community and for the community. Terraling is the next generation of the database project: it provides a flexible platform for linguists to set up their specific individual projects (this could meet specific projects around variation for Indian languages) and allow using the tools that come with the database.

The plan will be to focus on the (expansion of) properties in the nominal domain, as well as on some properties around subject and object marking. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of topics that I'd like to touch on from a theoretical point of view. (There is quite extensive literature on most of these topic.)

• For the nominal domain, building on Cinque's Universal 20 paper (Cinque, 2005), and the "generalized U20", I will focus on issues sur- rounding:
1. adjectives (cf Cinque 10)
2. relatives (in particular reduced relatives, (participial) relatives)(week 2/3)
3. Indefinites and definites: (DP internal distribution and DP ex-ternal distribution)
4. the functional adjective "other"
5. the distribution of "nominal complements": PPs and CP
6. ellipsis
7. demonstratives (definite and indefinite) (and determiners)
8. numerals
9. partitives
10. possessor properties (binding, extraction, external possessors and PP extraposition/scrambling)
• In the clausal domain, the focus will be on:
1. the distribution and marking of objects ("compounds"/ incorporated, generic, animate/inanimate, indefinites, specific indefinites, definite, quantified, focused, "silent", pronominal... )
2. the distribution of inanimate subjects (cf in relation to specific objects) (cf my work on samoan ergativity. )
3. the distribution of oblique subjects

The plan is to balance theory, analysis, and practical work.

Background Readings

Core readings:

• Aissen (2003)
• Cinque (1999)
• Cinque (2005a)
• Cinque (2010)
• Koopman (36: 601-633)
• Koopman (2011)
• Koopman (2012)
• Kayne (2006)

Additional readings: Selected readings from:

Rizzi (2013) (ed) (Special issue, Lingua), papers published individually on Lingua, but not bundled assigned to a volume yet. Rizzi: Introduction: Core computational principles in natural language; Rizzi Locality, Sportiche, Marantz,

• Kayne (2012),
• Abels and Neeleman (2012)
• Bresnan and Ford (2010)
• Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts (2008)
• Cinque (2005b)
• (Cinque, 2006)
• (Holland, 1976) (Koopman and Szabolcsi, 2000)
• (Longobardi, 2011)

References

1. [Abels and Neeleman2012] Abels, K. and A. Neeleman. 2012. Linear asymmetries and the lca. Syntax, 15(1):25-74.
2. [Aissen2003] Aissen, Judith. 2003. Dierential object marking: Iconicity vs. economy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21(3):435-483.
3. [Biberauer, Holmberg, and Roberts2008] Biberauer, T., A. Holmberg, and I. Roberts. 2008. Linearising disharmonic word orders: the final-over-final constraint. Perspectives on Linguistics in the 21st Century, pages 301-318.
4. [Bresnan and Ford2010] Bresnan, Joan and Marilyn Ford. 2010. Predicting syntax: Processing dative constructions in american and australian varieties of english. Language, 86(1):168-213.
5. [Chomsky2013] Chomsky, Noam. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua.
6. [Cinque2010] Cinque, G. 2010. The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study.
7. [Cinque1999] Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads : A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
8. [Cinque2005a] Cinque, Guglielmo. 2005a. Deriving greenberg's universal 20 and its exceptions. Linguistic inquiry, 36(3):315-332.
9. [Cinque2006] Cinque, Guglielmo. 2006. Restructuring and Functional Heads. Oxford University Press, NY.
10. [Holland1976] Holland, G.B. 1976. The shift from postposition to preposition: Evidence from early greel. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2:413-425.
11. [Kayne2006] Kayne, Richard S. 2006. On parameters and on principles of pronunciation. Organizing Grammar. Linguistic Studies in Honor of Henk van Riemsdijk, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pages 289-299.
12. [Kayne2012] Kayne, Richard S. 2012. Comparative syntax. Lingua.
13. [Koopman36: 601-633] Koopman, H. 36: 601-633. Korean (and japanese)morphology from a syntactic perspective. Linguistic Inquiry.
14. [Koopman2011] Koopman, Hilda. 2011. Recursion restrictions: when grammars count. to appear in Tom Roeper and Peggy Speas (ed) Recursion.
15. [Koopman2012] Koopman, Hilda. 2012. Samoan ergativity as double passivization. Functional Heads: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 7: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures,|, 7.
16. [Koopman and Szabolcsi2000] Koopman, Hilda and Anna Szabolcsi. 2000. Verbal Complexes. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
17. [Longobardi2011] Longobardi, G, C Guardiano G. Sivestri A. Boatinni A. Ceolin. 2011. Towards a syntactic classification of indo-european languages.