This page summarizes the topics that I work on. Some of the mentioned papers are in-progress: please email me for them. For a chronological list, please consult the papers and talks pages.
Representation of morpho-phonological phenomena
Reduplication does not allow syllable copying (with Maria Gouskova)
The main example of syllable copying in reduplication does not survive scrutiny. Therefore, the theory of reduplication cannot reference syllables—the paper discusses the consequences.Morpho-phonology wug-tests and Russian vowel deletion
Underspecification theories of exceptionality are compatible with the results of morpho-phonological wug tests, contrary to earlier claims. Russian vowel deletion is the case study.Cyclicity and exceptionality (with Charles Reiss)
Underspecification theories, when combined with cyclic application of phonological rules, make right predictions for exceptional processes that are also conditioned by morphosyntactic structure.Ms. on derived environment effects
Underspecification theories, when combined with morpheme structure constraints, generate the full typology of exceptional derived environment-sensitive processes without struggling to generate any individual grammar.
Structural locality in allomorphy
Irish verbal suppletion
Fission, combined with non-terminal insertion, may create apparent non-local allomorphy.Constituent structure in complex words
If functional heads may form constituents without the root, non-local allomorphy and *ABA violations arise.Intervention in Terek Kumyk copulas
Vocabulary Insertion has to refer to spans: either as contexts, or as targets.Allomorphy in Basque xe-comparatives
Allomorphy in Basque xe-comparatives is local, given a richer structure of comparatives, argued for in the Nanosyntax literature.Generative power of Nanosyntax
Basic Nanosyntax generates ABA patterns where all three cells are portmanteau forms.Surface ABA patterns in Russian adjectival morphology
Russian adjectival morphology presents ABA patterns that Nanosyntax lexicalization algorithm with subextraction.
Structure of cross-categorial derivations
- Handout on nominalizations of Russian restructuring verbs
Russian restructuring verbs are unable to take verbal complements, when nominalized. This poses a major problem for the dominant phrasal layering approach to nominalizations.
Linearization of syntactic structure
- Handout on salvation by deletion in Russian sluicing (with Ivan Kalyakin)
Cyclic linearization overgenerates salvation by deletion configurations observed in Russian left branch extraction. The proposal: Johnson (2020)-inspired two-step model for linearization that provides a new implementation of distributed deletion and a natural account of the restrictions on LBE sluicing.
Locality of syntactic movement
Subject-object inversion in Russian (with Ivan Kalyakin, Maria Berkovich)
Russian OVS inversion involves demotion of the external argument. The A-minimality puzzle posed by inversion is thus circumvented via Spec-to-Spec anti-locality. We also show that A-minimality obtains for ditransitives: movement of internal argument over the applied argument is impossible if the applied argument raises to subject.Reconstruction in Russian long-distance scrambling (with Viktoria Zhukova)
Russian long-distance scrambling obligatorily reconstructs for quantificational scope. We show that this observation explains why it is unable to feed short wh-movement.Russian tough-movement
Russian tough-constructions involve A-movement.
Semantics-pragmatics interface
Revisionist desires
Patterns of restricted desires in false-belief contexts requires the question-sensitive formal tools used for revisionist attitudes. Overgeneration worries are tackled by a constraint that only the questions settled in the local context may be used for revisionRussian positive polarity disjunction
Russian simplex disjunction shows positive polarity behavior due to competition with simplex conjunction, which shows homogeneity effects. Two cases where the conjunctive alternative ``breaks down’’ provide evidence for it.Semantics restrictions on meta-questions in Russian (with Petr Rossyaykin)
Russian employs morphological marking of meta-questions, making it easy to study their restrictions. The current generalization is that MQs cannot target use-conditional content.Meta-meta-questions in Russian
Unlike English, Russian allows meta-meta-questions. I think this is related to availability of wh-scope marking in Russian, if a syntactic analysis of the ban on English MMQs is correct.