Whamit!

The Weekly Newsletter of MIT Linguistics

Syntax Square 9/24 - Sam Steddy

Speaker: Sam Steddy
Title: The syntax of distributive and collective pluralities
Date/Time: Tuesday, Sept 24, 1-2p
Location: 32-D461

I argue that distributivity, over collectivity, is a linguistic primitive. DPs which convey some plurality, whether transparently (“the cats”) or obliquely (“the team”), may be ‘distributivised’ by a syntactic head ‘#’, merged at the top layer of their DP, which acts as a plural goal for morphological agreement. I will present a number of ‘agreement mismatches’ that show that # is not solely a semantic operator but has an influence on syntax. The optionality of merging #, combined with LF-raising operations creates nuanced semantic interpretations. Finally, #’s phonology will also be shown to cause the different agreement of British and USA English.