The Syntax-Semantics reading group and MULL-lab will be meeting on Thursday, January 11th at 1pm in Rm. 117 of the McGill Linguistics department, with a Zoom room open for those unable to join in person.
This week, Austin will be presenting a MULL-themed talk entitled: ‘Numerals and relativization in Javanese DPs’.
I present an in-progress account for the two positions in which a numeral can appear in a Javanese DP: before the noun (Numeral-Noun) or after it (Noun-Numeral). I provide data to substantiate intuitions from Ishizuka (2008) and Syed (2020) that numeral position is not trivial but tracks a semantic distinction. To derive the differences in interpretation and constituent order, I propose that Numeral-Noun DPs are instances of relativization, with evidence from partitive constructions. The possible DP-internal word orders can then be accounted for using standard limitations on movement, such as phasehood or islandhood. I compare this proposal for Javanese DPs to definiteness-driven movement for Bangla DPs (Chacón 2012, Dayal 2012).
Please register in advance HERE to receive the Zoom link. You can also share this link with others who may want to join.