Andreas Opitz

This paper provides an analysis of the typologically unusual patterns of case assignment in Tlapanec. The proposal challenges some idiosyncratic aspects of former descriptive analyses (i.e. zero-marked ergative and a novel case 'pegative') and provides a theoretically and typologically more adequate analysis instead. The theoretical approach relies on the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM). According to this theory the output of syntax can be impoverished before the lexical insertion of concrete vocabulary items takes place. This framework is modified in the account proposed here, insofar as the step of impoverishment of morphosyntactic features is designed as an optimality theoretic competition. I will show that all of the constraints that are crucial for this competition emerge from independently established prominence scales by a modified version of harmonic alignment. Thereby the process of impoverishment is given a typologically/conceptually more plausible base. mehr

This paper is concerned with the serialization of argument clauses (AC) and relative clauses (RC) in the German Nachfeld. We discuss examples provided by Haider (1994) who claims that only RC>AC is grammatical. Our claim is that in most contexts, the serialization is optional; but in some contexts, there is a gradient preference for RC>AC. There are no constraints which rule out AC>RC categorically. An experiment obtaining grammaticality judgments on sentences with permuted syntactic functions of these clauses confirms that none of the two serializations is ruled out. The preference for RC>AC arises if in the base, one of the Cps c-commands the other. We propose an approach based on Stochastic Optimality Theory in order to analyze the data under discussion. mehr