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

not cross this distance, just as in English -er affixation. In Irish however, subjects
raise in the syntax to a position immediately c-commanded by the finite verb
(Chung and McCloskey 1987: 227). Morphology then realizes the subject as affix
or strong pronoun under adjacency (Ackema and Neeleman 2003).
The grouping in the Irish synthetic-analytic alternation of syntactico-semantic
inertness, sensitivity to arbitrary gaps, and limitation to small domains that may
cross syntactic islands, is once more the full signature of morphology in a strong
modular architecture. Beside such purely morphological alternations, others exist
that are purely syntactic: potentially visible to syntax and interpretation, blind to
purely morphophonological information and often referring to a fuller panoply of
syntactic information that morphology does, with the potential to span phrasestructurally
large domains. The French alternation of unfocussed clitics and focussed
strong pronouns can be thought of in this way. A subtler French clitic-strong
pronoun alternation is the subject of chapter 4. It is the repair of the Person Case
Constraint that stands in minimal contrast to both morphological opaque cliticization
and synthetic-analytic alternations on all aspects of the modular signature. 25
25 Syntactic models of morphophonologically-governed synthetic-analytic alternations often ensure
a weaker modular signature by restricting the syntactically visible aspects or domains of realization:
see Poser (1992), Embick (2000), Chomsky (2001). Richer models with less restricted
paradigms of synthetic and analytic constructions are Andrews (1990), Börjars et al. (2005),
Sadler and Spencer (2000). Fully amodular interaction of syntactic, interpretive, and realizational
constraints is proposed by Kiparsky (2005).
The locality prediction of strong modularity would be nuanced if an analytic construction first
spelled out according to morphophonological conditions and then could be dissociated by syntactic
movement of a part of its PF-content, as sometimes proposed for 'stylistic' rules or inert
scrambling (Chomsky 2001). Consider the Latin perfect active. It alternates between the synthetic
for most verbs, laudā-v-ī 'praised-PERF-1SG = I have praised', and the analytic for an arbitrary
set of 'deponent' verbs that are passive in perfect formation but active in syntax secūtus
sum, 'followed I.am = I have followed (transitive)'. Embick (2000) entertains the analysis where
the arbitrary property P of deponent roots blocks postsyntactic amalgamation of V with T+AGR.
V is then spelled out as the participle and may move away from T+AGR by semantically inert
syntactic movement. He favors an alternative with early insertion of P into the syntax where it
block syntactic head raising of VP to T, allowing the unraised VP to move in syntax prior to spellout,
and then be spelled out as the 'passive' participle separate from T+AGR. The third alternative,
which does not weaken modularity, would allow any V to move away from T prior to spellout,
amalgamate with T at spell-out if adjacent, and assume the 'passive' participle form otherwise.
Embicks rejects this because it would let any verb have the deponent analytic formation if
moved away from T+AGR, not only those with P (*laudātus … sum 'I have praised (active)' beside
laudāvī, p. 203). However, for ordinary transitives, the moved V would in fact not have any
form to assume, since Latin lacks perfect active participles. The content of P is precisely to allow
the perfect active vP of VP to spell out as perfect passive participle.
Kiparsky (2005) describes clearer evidence for Embick's problem. The Sanskrit analytic perfect
mostly occurs only when the synthetic perfect is unavailable: (i) regularly when a morphological
affix prevents the root from reduplicating; (ii) sometimes when a phonological reason does so;
(iii) for a handful of roots where synthetic and analytic perfects coexist. The two parts of the analytic
perfect may occur widely-separated: prabhraṅcayām yo naguṣām cakāra 'who (yo) made
(cakāra) Nagusha (naguṣām) fall headlong (prabhraṅcayām)' (Whitney 1896: §1071-2). This
does suggest that the result of an analytic formation sensitive to morphophonology can subse-
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