Evidence for nominal licensing in caseless languages

Sheehan, M.; Wal, G.J. van der

doi:doi:10.1017/S0022226718000178

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/87402

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Centre for Linguistics (LUCL)

Sheehan, M.; Wal, G.J. van der (2018)

Evidence for nominal licensing in caseless languages

Article / Letter to editor

This paper provides evidence for a kind of nominal licensing (Vergnaud licensing) in a number of morphologically caseless languages. Recent work on Bantu languages has suggested that abstract Case or nominal licensing should be parameterised (Diercks 2012, Van der Wal 2015a). With this is mind, we critically discuss the status of Vergnaud licensing in six languages lacking morphological case. While Luganda appears to systematically lack a Vergnaud licensing requirement, Makhuwa more consistently displays evidence in favour of it, as do all of the analytic languages that we survey (Mandarin, Yoruba, Jamaican Creole and Thai). We conclude that, while it seems increasingly problematic to characterise nominal licensing in terms of uninterpretable/abstract Case features, we nonetheless need to retain a (possibly universal) notion of nominal licensing, the explanation for which remains opaque.

syntactic diagnostics

Thai

Yoruba