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Topics in the stress and syntax of words
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
This dissertation is a study of word structure showing that words exhibit the syntactic phenomenon of phase-by-phase Spell-Out, Chomsky (2001), Marantz (2001). The analysis of data from English and Slovenian indicates that ...
Datives at large
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
This dissertation is a study of the syntactic and semantic properties of dative arguments. The main source of data is Spanish, where dative arguments can appear with all types of verbs, and can have a wide range of meanings: ...
Elements of number theory
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
The dissertation argues for the necessity of a morphosemantic theory of number, that is, a theory of number serviceable both to semantics and morphology. The basis for this position, and the empirical core of the dissertation, ...
Skepticism avoided
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
I evaluate three replies to skepticism, drawing conclusions about the meaning of "justified", the viability of foundationalism, the value of knowledge, and the role of belief in rational action. In the first chapter, I ...
Why even ask? : on the pragmatics of questions and the semantics of answers
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
This work investigates the semantics-pragmatics and syntax-pragmatics interface of interrogatives, focusing on the effect of presupposition-triggering expressions like even and Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). In exploring ...
Understanding language
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
My dissertation concerns the nature of linguistic understanding. A standard view about linguistic understanding is that it is a propositional knowledge state. The following is an instance of this view: given a speaker S ...
The syntax and processing of relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
This thesis investigates relative clauses (henceforth RCs) in Mandarin Chinese as spoken in Taiwan from both syntactic and processing perspectives. I also explore the interaction between these two areas, for example, how ...
Moral Status
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
Chapters One through Three present the following view: (i) I explain moral status as follows: something has moral status just in case we have reasons not to cause harms to it simply in virtue of the badness of the harms ...
The autonomy of the political
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
This thesis examines and critically assesses five arguments for the autonomy of the political. The arguments I examine are those of Niccol6 Machiavelli, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt, and John Rawls. After ...
Intonation and interface conditions
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003)
The thesis presents a theoretical and experimental investigation of the interaction between focus intonation pattern (FIP) and certain syntactic phenomena-especially those involving wh-questions-in Japanese. A phonological ...