Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

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2005 - 200912010 - 20161

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    On Experiencers and Minimality
    (2016) De Oliveira Almeida Petersen, Maria Carolina; Hornestein, Norbert; Lasnik, Howard; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation is concerned with experiencer arguments, and what they tell us about the grammar. There are two main types of experiencers I discuss: experiencers of psychological verbs and experiencers of raising constructions. I question the notion of ‘experiencers’ itself; and explore some possible accounts for the ‘psych-effects’. I argue that the ‘experiencer theta role’ is conceptually unnecessary and unsustained by syntactic evidence. ‘Experiencers’ can be reduced to different types of arguments. Taking Brazilian Portuguese as my main case study, I claim that languages may grammaticalize psychological predicates and their arguments in different ways. These verb classes exist in languages independently, and the psych-verbs behavior can be explained by the argument structure of the verbal class they belong to. I further discuss experiencers in raising structures, and the defective intervention effects triggered by different types of experiencers (e.g., DPs, PPs, clitics, traces) in a variety of languages. I show that defective intervention is mostly predictable across languages, and there’s not much variation regarding its effects. Moreover, I argue that defective intervention can be captured by a notion of minimality that requires interveners to be syntactic objects and not syntactic occurrences (a chain, and not a copy/trace). The main observation is that once a chain is no longer in the c-command domain of a probe, defective intervention is obviated, i.e., it doesn’t apply. I propose a revised version of the Minimal Link Condition (1995), in which only syntactic objects may intervene in syntactic relations, and not copies. This view of minimality can explain the core cases of defective intervention crosslinguistically.
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    Minimality and Turkish Relative Clauses
    (2005-12-08) Cagri, Ilhan Merih; Hornstein, Norbert; Pietroski, Paul; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Turkish relative clauses display a subject/non-subject asymmetry. The subject relative (SR) is licensed for relativization from [Spec, TP]. Whereas the non-subject relative (NSR) is never acceptable for subject relativization, the SR is licensed in clauses where there is no external argument, and when relativizing a non-subject in clauses where the subject is non-specific. Within the framework of the Minimalist Program, Turkish RCs are explained in terms of satisfaction of the EPP of T by a D feature and Minimality effects. As long as no nominal expression intervenes between the relative head and [Spec, TP], the SR is licensed. The SR, then, can be used as a diagnostic for movement through TP. Minimality effects are incurred when there is an intervening nominal between T° and the RC head, and the SR becomes unacceptable. The proposal is that in Turkish, specific nominals, +human nominals, and Experiencers of psych verbs all contain a DP projection. Non-specifics are NPs which cannot satisfy the EPP. NP subjects cannot move to [Spec, TP], and thus permit the SR form for relativization of non-subjects. NPs create intervention effects, as does PRO, with the exception of subject control PRO which is perhaps a trace of movement. Scrambling ameliorates intervention effects. Once scrambled, expressions are frozen but remain porous for movement of a subconstituent. Differences between inherent and structural Case are suggested with structural case assignment limited to DPs and in a Spec-Head configuration. Structurally case-marked DPs are barred from moving to case-assigning positions unless there is a morphological match. Further proposals include structures for verb classes, including Psych verbs, and structures for infinitivals and +human DPs. Contrastive focus is briefly addressed. Though superficially complex, relativization in Turkish can be accounted for with a minimum of technology. The suggestions here have implications for the theory of the EPP, Case, its assignment and interface conditions, feature satisfaction, and movement.