phd dissertations soas dissertations in linguistics the following dissertations are now available from soas ( the school of oriental and african studies , university of london ) . abstracts are included further below . syntax levels of representation and argument structure in turkish . asli goksel , 1993 focus and copular constructions in hausa melanie green , 1997 movement and optionality in syntax anna pettiward , 1997 wh - movement , licensing and the locality of feature - checking andrew simpson , 1995 a study of chinese reflexives xian fu yu , 1996 phonology conditions on nuclear expressions in phonology margaret cobb , 1997 the role of the element i in khalkha mongolian phonology margaret ann denwood the phonological basis of speech recognition geoffrey williams , 1998 on pitch accent phenomena in standard japanese yuko yoshida , 1995 price including world surface postage : us $ 10 . 00 per volume , or ukstlg6 . 00 price including world air postage : us $ 15 . 00 per volume please make cheques or money orders payable to : soas orders should be sent to : soas dissertations in linguistics , dept . of linguistics , soas , university of london , russell sq , london wc1h oxg england syntax levels of representation and argument structure in turkish . asli goksel , 1993 this is a study of the argument structure of complex predicates in turkish . the thesis argues for a mono-stratal grammar where configurational hierarchy and linear precedence are characterised separately . the first chapter introduces the issues relating to the representation of complex predicates and argues against a particular multi-stratal approach , verb - incorporation . the second chapter lays the foundations of characterising syntax and logic separately . the third chapter introduces labelled deductive systems , the framework used in the remainder of the thesis . part ii is an analysis of morphological causatives , passives and reflexives in turkish . it is proposed that the causative affix in turkish has declarative content and behaves like a predicate . a unitary account is provided for passivisation and reflexivization whereby both processes are characterised in terms of logical dependency . the sixth chapter is on the combination of causatives , passives and reflexives . the final chapter discusses the status of the projection principle , theta theory , case theory , the mirror principle ) in a mono-stratal grammar . one of the main issues that is discussed is case-marking . it is proposed that case gives instructions for structure building in the combinatorial process . the proposed properties of case are tested in causative constructions and verified in passives , reflexives and their various combinations . focus and copular constructions in hausa melanie green , 1997 this thesis examines the syntax of focus constructions in hausa within a principles and parameters / minimalist framework ( chomsky 1995 ) . a unified analysis is presented to account for the properties of focus - fronting constructions in hausa , and also the properties of ( apparently unrelated ) copular constructions which are also shown to have focus properties . it is argued that the ` copula ' found in both focus - fronting and copular constructions in hausa is not a verbal or inflectional element as argued by mcconvell ( 1973 ) and tuller ( 1986a ) respectively , but instead the spellout of a functional category f ( ocus ) in the sense of brody ( 1990 ) . the thesis presents an introduction to the main syntactic characteristics of hausa , as well as a general introduction to the phenomenon of focus , including typological and comparative discussion to show the various cross-linguistic syntactic manifestations of focus . the fp analysis is also considered from a cross-linguistic perspective to see how it might account for focus and copular constructions in a range of languages related to hausa , and it is shown that although some languages present challenging cases for an fp analysis , there is considerable support for an approach of this nature . movement and optionality in syntax anna pettiward , 1997 can the operation move , construed as a copying operation ( chomsky 1993 , 1995 ) , be assumed to apply in principle to any element ( as was the operation move - alpha in the gb framework ) ? and if move is constrained by economy conditions , rather than applying or not at will , how can one characterize phenomena appearing to involve optional movement ? these are the two questions which this thesis attempts to answer ( parts i and ii respectively ) . part i proposes that all copies in a chain - as opposed to some ( cf . chomsky 1995 ) - are active in the computational system . this assumption is argued for at length on both theoretical and empirical grounds . part ii develops a multiple optimal derivations ( cf . chomsky 1991 ) theory of syntactic optionality . a detailed analysis is provided of optionality ( plus associated non-optionality ) effects from a number of languages including french ( participle agreement ) , english and swedish ( optional partial associate movement with non - case / agreement-checking expletives there and det ' it ' ) , and icelandic , german and dutch ( optional overt object shift ) . wh - movement , licensing and the locality of feature - checking andrew simpson , 1995 investigating the syntax of wh-constructions across a wide variety of languages , this thesis re-examines the assumption that feature-checking relations may only be effected within the strict locality of spec - head / head-adjoined configurations . a range of evidence from apparently optional wh-movement languages such as hindi and iraqi arabic is argued to provide a strong empirical challenge to the strict locality hypothesis and indicate instead that feature-checking relations may in fact be non - spec - head-local and effected without movement to the relevant licensing head . integrating such results with the patterning of wh-questions in english , japanese and romanian - type languages , the basic account developed is shown to allow for a model in which dynamic syntax terminates at spell - out and also permits an analysis of partial movement questions which avoids the severe problems such structures pose for standard minimalist approaches . including also a final chapter on n - word licensing and the possible parasitic relation of scrambling to feature-checking , the thesis provides a critical overview of minimalism , an introduction to the wide variety of wh-construction - types present in natural language and in depth discussion of the opacity effects created by tense for various licensing relations . a study of chinese reflexives xian fu yu , 1996 this thesis is an in-depth investigation of the distribution and interpretation of the reflexive pronouns ziji , ziji-benshen and ta-ziji and reflexive-marked verbs ( zi-verb ) in mandarin chinese . it argues that all types of reflexive pronouns can be either locally-bound or long-distance bound under certain circumstances . making reference to aspects of lexical , pragmatic and discourse structure , as well as drawing on work in traditional chinese syntax and data from historical and literary sources , the thesis provides an explanation for the local and long-distance binding effects in terms of different internal structures hypothesized for reflexive elements . local - binding is a function of being assigned an anaphoric theta role by a verb and lf adjunction to vp , whereas long-distance logophoric interpretations result when the internal structure of a reflexive incorporates a pro element . phonology conditions on nuclear expressions in phonology margaret cobb , 1997 this thesis is a principled examination of the distribution of ` tense / lax ' and ` high / low ' vowels in harmony systems . i exploit the interaction of the parameter settings of three universal mechanisms in the framework of government phonology . first i present the type of language data the thesis accounts for and evaluate other approaches in the literature to ` height ' / ' atr ' harmony . then i present the theoretical tools used in my analysis : licensing constraints ( parameters on element distribution ) , head licensing ( a condition on the distribution of headed expressions in harmony systems ) , and the complexity condition ( a condition on phonological government ) . licensing constraints and head - licensing combine to provide a four-way typology of ` atr ' - type harmony . this is illustrated with data from zulu , pulaar , turkana and akan . the basic mechanism is then also suggested to be subject to the complexity condition . i examine the harmony systems of languages which have this parameter switched ` on ' , manifesting ` height ' / ' atr ' harmony effects : natal portugese , lena bable , yoruba and ogori . finally i explore the implications the thesis has for the treatment of other harmony languages which have been discussed in the literature e . g . chukchee , chichewa , pasiego and kera . the role of the element i in khalkha mongolian phonology margaret ann denwood this thesis , which is written within the framework of government phonology , revolves around phenomena related to the element i in khalkha mongolian . the all-pervasive influence and the structural requirements of i explain the relationship between palatal and palatalised consonants and umlaut as well as vowel harmony . relationships between syllabic constituents and evidence that these do not branch lay a fopundation for the proposal that mongolian , like chinese , has a basic four position template . the number and nature of consonants involved in sequences suggest that inter-onset government takes place between onsets belonging to stem and suffix templates . the distribution and behaviour of palatal and palatalised consonants , showing that a special relationship exists between a nucleus dominating ( i ) and the preceding onset , has implications for the representation of mongolian consonants . vowel harmony is analysed as head-licensing , the revised gp analysis of atr - harmony . licensing constraints generate nuclear expressions , whilst additional constraints on a nucleus dominating a doubly-linked i element explain umlaut and related phenomena , also supporting the head-licensing analysis against an i - harmony analysis . the phonological basis of speech recognition geoffrey williams , 1998 this thesis explores an alternative approach to speech recognition based on the theory of government phonology ( gp ) . the main aim is to test a fundamental claim of the theory , that phonology is central to human speech recognition , by means of implementation and theoretical argumentation . a further claim of the thesis is that the application of gp to automatic speech recognition ( asr ) can provide insights into the nature of phonology . analysis of the central problems of speech recognition leads to the conclusion that decoding by the linear segmental model central to previous phonologically motivated work , cannot succeed since it constitutes neither an accurate nor computationally feasible model of speech processing . we propose an alternative approach based on a combination of a phonological parser and the gp elements as recognition targets . we first explore the mapping between elements and the speech signal and show that there is some support for the direct mapping hypothesis between gp elements and the signal and that they therefore can form plausible recognition targets . we then motivate the use of a gp parser in asr , claiming that constituent structure as understood in gp can be recovered fairly directly from the signal and allows for reconstruction of speech segments which are corrupted by noise or other effects . an implementation of both the parser and the element detectors , based on neural networks , is described in some detail . the final chapter proposes functional explanations for the nature of phonological licensing , and for certain distributional anomalies in a number of languages , as well as addressing the computability of phonological derivations in gp in comparison to finite-state models . we show that the limited derivational machinery of gp ensures the tractability of phonological interpretation without sacrificing explanatory power . on pitch accent phenomena in standard japanese yuko yoshida , 1995 this thesis aims to demonstrate the merits of a theoretical approach to accent assignment in standard japanese . furthermore , it attempts to show that the formal treatment of pitch accent assignment is identical to that of stress assignment in languages such as english . the proposed analysis is based on a model of government-licensing , and rejects the idea of an ' inter-syllabic foot ' construction in favour of the phonological notions of 'd omain ' and ' inter-nuclear licensing ' . another goal of this work is to expand the definition of a licensing domain - - from its minimal form , a binary licensing domain within an onset or nucleus ( rhyme ) constituent , as proposed in kaye , lowenstamm & vergnaud ( klv ) ( 1990 ) , to its maximal form , a phrase . at all levels of phonological representation ( including the skeletal level - - projection zero ) the government / licensing relation is maximally binary ( klv 1990 ) , and it is around this binarity of inter-nuclear licensing that accent assignment in standard japanese is constructed . among the issues addressed are ( i ) an explanatory account of accent assignment in so-called compounds , and ( ii ) a new approach to the assignment of pitch within sentences . these issues elucidate how high-pitch assignment reflects the syntactic structure of the compound or sentence in question .
