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

80
fied treatment, attempted in various works including Béjar and Rezac (2009).
Kashmiri and Mohawk, for instance, have a three-step person hierarchy like
Ojibwa (albeit 1 > 2 > 3), but in the fashion of Arizona Tewa signal the inverse by
otherwise unavailable case-marking or agreement. A particularly nice illustration
of the gradations of variation is provided by Southern Tiwa, Arizona Tewa, and
Yurok. Southern Tiwa and Arizona Tewa differ minimally in the direct vs. inverse
treatment of 1/2EA→2/1O combinations and in the expression of the inverse (cf.
(99)). Yurok, in (112), like Southern Tiwa differentiates direct 1/2EA→3O from inverse
1/2/3EA→1/2O by richer case-marking on one of the arguments, but the argument
affected is the object (Georgi 2009, comparing other similar systems).
(112) a. keʔl nek ki newoh-paʔ [direct]
you.NOM me.NOM FUT see-2→1SG
b. yoʔ nek-ac ki newoh-peʔn [inverse]
he.NOM me.ACC FUT see-3SG→1SG
(Georgi 2009: 3)
Chapter 5 briefly returns to the syntactic treatment of such systems, in a theory
of direct-indirect alternations where inverse structures are last-resort repairs
when direct ones are unavailable. First however, chapter 4 examines in detail a
system where the syntax of a phi-conditioned alternation between structures is
open to detailed inspection, the Person Case Constraint and its repair in French.
Although some EA-O PH-interactions belong to syntax, others likely do not.
Chapter 2 has considered some of the latter as 'opaque agreement', where an arbitrary
set of EA-O combinations redistributes, reduces, or simply bans (gaps) the
phi-features of agreement or clitics in a phrase-structurally small domain. There is
some superficial resemblance between opaque agreement and the syntactic PHinteractions
of this chapter. Chukchi deletes object agreement in 3SGEA→1SGO
and 2EA→1O, Foru Basque subject agreement in 1PLEA→2SG/PLO, while Bermeo
Basque gaps the 2PLEA→1PLO agreement combination. All could be viewed as
subsets of inverse contexts on the 1/2 > 3 hierarchy. Inversely, Ojibwa could be
forced into the mould of opaque agreement through one set of gaps EA-O combinations
in direct syntactic structures and another in inverse ones, as seen in section
3.3.
Yet there is a wide gulf between the opaque agreement of chapter 2 and the
PH-interactions of this chapter, and there is no reason to bridge it. Opaque agreement
has been seen to have a fully morphological signature, including inertness to
syntax and limitation to a small domain. The PH-interactions of this chapter have
a syntactic signature, including syntactico-semantic visibility that has been the focus
of discussion, and operation over phrase-structurally large distances as in Algonquian
cross-clausal agreement in section 3.2. A striking difference between the
two types phenomena is the set of phi-features and phi-feature combinations to
which they must refer. Known syntactic PH-interactions make only a very limited
reference to phi-features, the 1 st /2 nd – 3 rd person distinction, in the natural hierarchy
1/2 > 3. It is susceptible to modeling by independent syntactic tools, including