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The Annual Conference of the British Linguistics Association

Complementizer Agreement in VSO Contexts ​​with Reference to Phase Theory

Dr. Marwan Jarrah p​resented a paper on complementizer agreement in VSO contexts​​with reference to phase theory at the Annual Conference of the British Linguistics Association held at Newcastle University.

Abstract:

This study offers novel evidence, which is based on complementizer agreement patterns in Jordanian Arabic (JA), that head movement is a narrow-syntax operation (contra Chomsky 2001, but consistent with Matushansky 2006; Roberts 2010 among others). This evidence draws on the fact that head movement (particularly the movement of a phasal head) extends the edge of a phase which is widely assumed to be a narrow-syntax object.