Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

(4) a. Irati-rii nesk-ak/*ekk gustatzen zai-zkik-oi / *di-oi-tek
Irati-DAT girls-ABS/ERG liking AUX-3pA-3sD / *AUX-3sD-3pE
Irati likes the girls.
b. *Irati-rii zuk gustatzen zk-atzai-zkik-oi
Irati-DAT you.ABS liking 2A-AUX-pA-3sD
c. Irati-rii zu-kk gustatzen di-oi-zuk
Irati-DAT you-ERG liking AUX-3sD-2E
Irati likes you.
(Tolosa Basque; chapter 5)
The ergative is unavailable to unaccusative subjects otherwise, even to fix
morphological problems superficially similar to (4)b, much as (3) resembles and
contrasts with (2).
In (1)/(2) and (4), there takes place an alternation between an unmarked, usual
syntactic structure (dative clitic, absolutive subject) and a marked one limited to a
context partly defined by phi-features (dative strong pronoun or locative clitic, ergative
subject). The marked structure will be analysed as a last-resort response to
the failure of the syntactic licensing of person features at the interfaces with external
systems, a 'repair'. It will be an interface algorithm set within a theory of
modularity that strongly separates syntax, realization, and interpretation. From
modularity will follow the limitations of the repair, among them the invisibility of
morpho(phono)logical and interpretive problems that arise within the syntaxexternal
modules, and the narrow bounds of its effect on the module of syntax. In
contrast to it will stand the better-known mechanisms that manipulate phi-features
within these modules, such Agree in syntax, with a different computational character,
access to different information, and blind to interface failures.
These conclusions are developed through following chapters:
– Chapter 1: Introduction to modularity, phi-features and their interpretability,
and repair or last-resort mechanisms.
– Chapter 2: The modular architecture of syntax and realizational morphology,
giving each its 'modular signature', and character of phi-feature phenomena
in morphology.
– Chapter 3: Phi-features and phi-agreement in syntax, through person hierarchy
interactions in Ojibwa, Mapudungun, and Arizona Tewa.
– Chapter 4: The person hierarchy interaction of (1)/(2) in French, or the
Person Case Constraint and its repair, their syntactic character, and the
limitation of the repair to the constraint.
– Chapter 5: Theory of the Person Case Constraint and its repairs, subsuming
(1)/(2) and (4) as well as the theory of dependent Case (ergative and absolutive),
across French, Basque, Chinook, Finnish, and Georgian.
– Chapter 6: The autonomy of syntactic from interpretive phi-features.
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