Clefts and anti-superiority in Moken

Date

2016-07

Authors

Baclawski Jr., Kenneth
Jenks, Peter

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Asia-Pacific Linguistics

Abstract

We describe an extraction asymmetry in Moken that presents apparent Anti-Superiority effects. We then show that this asymmetry is not rooted in Superiority at all. Evidence from island effects is used to demonstrate that the left-dislocation of wh-phrases is not the result of wh-movement as standardly conceived. Furthermore, the same Anti-Superiority effect obtains for non-wh-phrases and clefts. At the same time, standard Superiority effects in Moken do arise in certain environments. These observations lead to the conclusion that Anti-Superiority effects in Moken are not counterexamples to the universality of Superiority, but instead arise due to a constraint on crossed dependencies between arguments and non-argument positions.

Description

Keywords

Moken, constituent question, cleft, superiority

Citation

Source

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS)

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

Open Access

License Rights

DOI

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