Event

Johanna Benz will be defending their dissertation, "Structure and interpretation across categories" on Friday, May 30th at 10am ET. 

The defense will take place in the Linguistics department library, and on Zoom.

An abstract is provided below. 

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Title: Structure and interpretation across categories

Supervisor: David Embick

Committee: Rolf Noyer, Florian Schwarz

Abstract: This dissertation takes as its starting point the assumption that word formation is syntactic (and piece-based, with Distributed Morphology and related frameworks), and focuses on a point of tension that is inherent to this assumption: If word formation is syntactic and `words’ are really just smaller syntactic structures, then why do they appear to behave differently from larger syntactic structures for purposes of interpretation at the interfaces? Why are they so selective in determining which pieces may become a part of the structure? Why do they show so many idiosyncratic and unpredictable forms and meanings?

These questions are investigated in the empirical domain of German derivational morphology, with a focus on phenomena involving prefixation and category change. In a syntactic theory of word formation, morphologically complex structures are syntactically complex, involving Roots, categorizers, and preverbal elements all as syntactically distinct components of the structure. These small but complex structures are the testing ground for hypotheses in response to the questions posed above. 

Three case studies from German are presented. The first explores the `content’ reading of nominalizations, in which a nominalization is identified with the propositional content of its CP complement (`the observation that dolphins have returned to the region’). I argue that the content reading sheds new light on the systematic polysemy of deverbal nominalizations and tests the implications of allosemy. 
The second case study is concerned with verbal prefixes, particles, and resultatives. I argue that the three-way comparison between prefixes, particles, and resultatives exposes contradictory assumptions in the previous literature, and leads to a refinement to our understanding of the locality domains of allosemy. 
The third case study combines an investigation of the nominalization of prefixed verbs with a discussion of the limits of multiple derivational affixation: I argue that these limits involve the conditions that allow derivational morphemes to interact with the syntactic and semantic properties of their hosts.