More on 'Lexical DP Blocking' effects in the PCC: Evidence from Mixtec
Michelle Yuan
July 2024 

Sichel and Toosarvandani (to appear) (S&T) show that the Southeastern Sierra varieties of Zapotec (SSZ) display a previously unattested PCC-like pattern: object clitics of all persons are banned when the subject is a lexical DP rather than a pronominal clitic. S&T frame this as Lexical DP Blocking (LDB), in that the subject DP blocks a higher probe from Agreeing with the pronominal object clitic. This paper aims to clarify the status of full DPs within existing typologies and theories of the PCC. Drawing on comparative evidence from San Juan Piñas Mixtec (SJPM), related to SSZ, I develop an alternative account that recasts the LDB as a subject licensing failure. SJPM also displays the PCC and LDB—but the exact patterns are difficult to accommodate under the subject intervention logic of S&T. Instead, I develop an object preference account of the PCC and LDB (Bejar and Rezac 2009, Deal 2024), in that the initial step of Agree with the object may bleed Agree with the subject—not the other way around. I propose that the LDB in both SSZ and SJPM arises from independent consequences of their shared verb-initial word order, which delimits the functional heads in the clause available for subject licensing (as opposed to verb-raising).

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008174 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Proceedings of NELS 54, eds. Shaunak Phadnis, Carla Spellerberg, and Brynne Wilkinson, pp. 245-255. Amherst, MA: GLSA.
keywords:	pcc, person-case constraint, clitics, licensing, verb-initial word order, otomanguean, mixtec, morphology, syntax
previous versions:	v2 [June 2024] v1 [June 2024]
Downloaded:	635 times

 

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