Semantic Effects of Head Movement: Evidence from Negative Auxiliary Inversion
Sabina Matyiku
May 2017 

Head movement and its status as a type of movement that is available in the syntactic component of the grammar has been under discussion in the literature in recent years. This discussion sprang up in part as a result of head movement's apparent lack of semantic effects. Some researchers have attempted to place head movement outside of the domain of syntax. More recently, evidence of semantic effects of head movement has led others to reconsider such a move. In this dissertation, I provide evidence for head movement as a movement that must be available in the syntax. I show that the phenomenon of negative auxiliary inversion provides evidence for the semantic effect of head movement. Negative auxiliary inversion is a phenomenon present in some varieties of English spoken in North America. This study focuses on a particular variety of English, West Texas English, and is informed by the larger theoretical background at the syntax-semantics interface. The theoretical issues that are highly relevant are negation, subject restrictions of certain types of constructions, scope, and principles of scope economy. The movement that derives constructions which exhibit negative auxiliary inversion is sensitive to principles of scope economy and movement which is semantically vacuous is disallowed. The types of subjects that are possible in negative auxiliary inversion behave uniformly in their scopal interaction with negation. This discovery furthers our understanding of why subject restrictions arise. In addition to the theoretical goals, this dissertation expands the empirical domain concerning microsyntactic variation in English. Although there are many apparent differences among varieties of English, very little theoretical work has been done on varieties other than Standard English. In this dissertation, I consider the varieties of English which allow the phenomenon and propose that the availability of negative auxiliary inversion is correlated with the availability of a higher negative projection in a variety's hierarchy of projections as well as the availability of negative concord. Additionally, I extend the analysis to account for transitive expletive constructions, another phenomenon which is present in some varieties which exhibit negative auxiliary inversion. The analysis is also extended to account for Not-initial constructions, a phenomenon available to speakers of many varieties of English. I propose such constructions to be derived by movement, though the movement I propose it to involve is phrasal rather than head movement. This distinction allows me to account for cross-linguistic variation because not all varieties which exhibit Not-initial constructions also exhibit negative auxiliary inversion constructions.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/003708 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Yale University
keywords:	negative auxiliary inversion, head movement, negation, quantification, scope, scope economy, reconstruction, semantics of head movement, english dialects, english, microsyntax, negative concord, syntax, semantics
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