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

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Noyer (1992, 2001) for opaque agreement. Distributed Morphology is indeed
partly a reconciliation of the similarities and differences of XP and X° movement
in approaches like Rizzi (1990) and Chomsky (1995). XP and X° are both constituent
movements observing locality, cyclicity, and referring to the same features
in the Spec-Head Criterion. However, their chain links occupy different niches of
the X-bar schema, and in virtue of this, Chain Uniformity and Relativized Minimality
ensure that they do not interact, and that they present different structural
profiles in terms of the distance between chain-links and immediate c-command
among them. Other divergences include scopal correlates of overt positions for XP
chains only, and reference to affixal requirements for X° chains only. Distributed
Morphology sends the phenomena involved into two modules with a shared computation.
Principles like Chain Uniformity and Relativized Minimality impose a
weaker cleavage, but still attribute to each phenomenon a distinctive interactional,
informational, and structural profile, its modular signature. Along these lines
nanosyntax might also proceed (Rezac 2010c). 23
However that may be, these considerations show what a clear syntactic modular
signature is: visibility to other syntactic and interpretative phenomena, reference
to information systematically ignored by morphology, and hallmarks of syntactic
computation. In the next two chapters these properties bring into syntax
phenomena that superficially resemble opaque agreement and cliticization, as well
those that resemble morphological synthetic-analytic alternations discussed next.
2.3 Gaps and synthetic-analytic alternations
In synthetic-analytic alternations, a set of syntactic features sometimes has an
affixal or synthetic expression, the negation in has-n't and the tense in walk-ed,
and sometimes a nonaffixal or analytic one, has not, will walk. This heterogeneous
phenomenon comprises a natural class with a distinctive morphological signature.
They speak to the properties and limitations of morphology, and in them appears
as in a mirror the character expected of synthetic-analytic alternation in
syntax.
The morphological synthetic-analytic alternations in this section are governed
by syntactico-semantically arbitrary gaps (Baerman, Corbett and Brown 2010).
They occur when a syntactic structure is unrealizable, or 'ineffable', for reasons
other than syntax or interpretation. Examples are the absence of 1/2PL for French
23 Less adapted to the inertness of opaque cliticization and agreement seems the view of Manzini
and Savoia (2002, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010) that surface syncretism entails full identity of syntactic
structure (Rezac 2010c). This work adopts an early-insertion, surface-true analysis, where a
locative for a dative clitic is the use of a locative syntax and interpretation for something that can
also be described by a dative syntax and interpretation, like the location load hay on the wagon
corresponds to the theme in load the wagon with hay. Selection restricts such a locative to the
context of a 3.ACC clitic, a dative elsewhere, beside a generally available locative. At present,
the failure of an opaque clitic to adopt the syntax witnessed by its independent use seems a considerable
challenge, beside the issues faced by nanosyntax.