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SUMMARY:Talk A - Drift\, Markedness and the Final-Over-Final Constraint - 
 Alastair Appleton\, Department of Linguistics
DTSTART:20100222T170000Z
DTEND:20100222T180000Z
UID:TALK20175@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise Radok
DESCRIPTION:This paper takes as its starting point the well-known observat
 ion that the word order change OV>VO is more common and seemingly more ‘
 natural’ than the change VO>OV (Newmeyer 2000). Indeed\, Li (1977) claim
 s that all non-contact induced changes are OV>VO. While Newmeyer reviews v
 arious functionalist explanations for this drift\, I put forward a theoret
 ical account for why internally-driven change might be expected to occur o
 nly in this direction.\n\nI first adopt Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspond
 ence Axiom [LCA]\, meaning that that rigidly head-final (OV) languages mus
 t be derived by leftwards movement\, or “roll-up”. In the simplest cas
 e\, the complement (e.g. a DP object) raises past the head (e.g. V). This 
 movement can be driven by an EPP-feature associated with the c-selectional
  feature of a head – i.e. V [ __ D\, EPP]. Following Roberts & Roussou (
 2003) and Roberts (2007) respectively\, I also adopt the notions that (i) 
 movement is a marked option and systems with more EPP-features are more ma
 rked than those with fewer such features\; and (ii) the unmarked option is
  for all heads to have EPP-features iff V also carries an EPP-feature\, wi
 th no EPP-feature being the unmarked option otherwise. We thus expect rigi
 dly head-initial languages to be maximally unmarked systems\, followed by 
 rigidly head-final\, then languages with successively more instances of ro
 ll-up movement.\n\nFinally\, I assume that Biberauer\, Holmberg & Roberts
 ’s (2009) Final-Over-Final Constraint [FOFC] holds. Informally\, FOFC st
 ates that a head-final phrase may be dominated by a head-initial or head-f
 inal phrase\, while a head-initial phrase can only be dominated by another
  head-initial phrase. If head-final structures are derived by movement\, t
 his observation can be captured if we require lower heads’ c-selectional
  features to carry EPP-features in order for higher heads to do so. This h
 as consequences for change: if a language switches from rigidly head-final
  to head-initial\, it must lose EPP-features from the top downwards. Featu
 re loss starting in some intermediate position would generate a head-initi
 al phrase dominated by a head-final one\, violating FOFC. Once the topmost
  EPP-feature is lost though (presumably by grammaticalization of complemen
 tisers – cf. Roberts & Roussou 2003\, ch. 3)\, we are left with a highly
  marked system. We might expect a pressure to reduce the markedness of the
  system\, and so the remaining EPP-features are lost resulting in VO order
 . The three notions above thus conspire to provide an account of endogenou
 s OV>VO drift\, with no corresponding notion for exogenous change.
LOCATION:GR-05\, English Faculty Building
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