The representation of phi-features - Einzelansicht

This course focuses on phi-features: person, number, and gender features. There is an ongoing debate regarding their representation. Some of the questions that are relevant in this debate are: 

- what is the inventory of phi-features? Most researchers assume that person, number, and gender, should be decomposed into smalled sub-features. The question is what exactly those features are.

- what do phi-features look like? do phi-features have values, and if so, what kind of values? (for example, + and -, or more contentful values)

- are phi-features internally structured?

- are all phi-features represented in the same way?

In this course, we'll look at numerous arguments that try to answer these questions, based on various empirical domains on the syntax-morphology interface. As such, this course provides an overview of a hotly debated issue in morphosyntax and linguistic theory in general. It introduces some prominent empirical phenomena (e.g. omnivorous agreement, person case constraint effects), and important analytical tools (e.g. theories of Agree). The course also demonstrates how we can connect a case study from a small empirical domainto a broader question of general relevance.