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Symmetrical objects in Moro: Challenges and solutions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2015

FARRELL ACKERMAN ,
ROBERT MALOUF  and
JOHN MOORE
FARRELL ACKERMAN*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
ROBERT MALOUF*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
JOHN MOORE*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
*
Author’s address: Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego, 0108, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0108, USAfackerman@ucsd.edu
Author’s address: Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-7727, USArmalouf@mail.sdsu.edu
Author’s address: Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego, 0108, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0108, USAmoorej@ucsd.edu
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Abstract

This paper examines the syntactic and semantic behavior of object arguments in Moro, a Kordofanian language spoken in central Sudan. In particular, we focus on multiple object constructions (ditransitives, applicatives, and causatives) and show that these objects exhibit symmetrical syntactic behavior; e.g., any object can passivize or be realized as an object marker, and all can do so simultaneously. Moreover, we demonstrate that each object can bear any of the non-agentive roles in a verb’s semantic role inventory and that the resulting ambiguities are an entailment of symmetrical object constructions of the type found in Moro. Previous treatments of symmetrical languages have assumed a syntactic asymmetry between multiple objects and have developed theoretical analyses that treat symmetrical behaviors as departures from an asymmetrical basic organization of clausal syntax. We take a different approach: we develop a Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar account that allows a partial ordering of the argument structure (arg-st) list. The guiding idea is that languages differ with respect to the organization of their arg-st lists and their consequences for grammatical function realization: there is no privileged encoding, but there is large variation within the parameters defined by arg-st organization. This accounts directly for the symmetrical behaviors of multiple objects. We also show how this approach can be extended to account for certain asymmetrical behaviors in Moro.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , 01 February 2017 , pp. 3 - 50
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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