Speaker: Tom Leu (UQAM)
Title: German oblique case morphology: A contextual allomorphy approach to a syncretism pattern
Time: Wednesday 11/23, 12:00–1:00
Where: 1085 Dr. Penfield, room 117
German dative and genitive case morphology exhibits an interesting syncretism pattern with the three morphs `s, m, r’ each filling two paradigm slots. Intriguingly, a close look at their syntax reveals that each of these morphs has a different syntactic distribution within the noun phrase, with `s’ higher than `m’ higher than `r’. I discuss a way to relate these observations, concluding that the three morphs are contextual allomorphs of a single morpheme. The conclusion has exciting consequences, which – time permitting – I will address.