​Projects

​Prosody of V1 languages

My dissertation addresses the derivation of verb-initial word orders from the perspective of prosody. Drawing primarily from Niuean (Polynesian) data, I argue that VOS can arise in an otherwise VSO language in order to satisfy a prosodic well-formedness constraint, which I call the Argument Condition on Phonological Phrasing (Arg-φ).  

• Paper: Clemens (2019)​
• Dissertation: Clemens (2014)​​

Jessica Coon and I replicated the Niuean study for Ch'ol (Mayan), where we find that the verb and the object form a prosodic constituent in VOS structures. We've developed a head raising account of Mayan V1 that is consistent with morpheme order in the verb stem, the distribution of preverbal arguments, and VSO/VOS alternations in Ch'ol. 

• Paper: Clemens and Coon (2018a)
• Paper: Clemens and Coon (2018b)

In a recent paper, I address the extent to which prosodic structure can be used as a diagnostic for syntactic structure. The case study I use to assess the efficacy of applying acoustic cues to prosodic constituency as a diagnostic for syntactic structure draws heavily from the work linked above. 

• Paper: Clemens (2021)

Syntactic ergativity

Looking at the Tongic Polynesian languages, Rebecca Tollan and I apply an absolutive inversion approach to case assignment to explain why Tongan (but not Niuean) display syntactic ergativity and why Tongan (but not Niuean) show true VSO~VOS alternations.

• Paper: Syntactic ergativity as absolution movement in Tongic Polynesian (2021) 

Extending our account of syntactic ergativity beyond the Polynesian languages, we developed an account of syntactic ergativity based on the grammaticalization of a processing constraint against crossing dependencies (e.g. Kuno and Robinson 1972). We propose that restrictions on the A'-movement of the ergative subject arise because such movement would cross the prior A-movement path of the absolutive object. 

• Paper: Tollan and Clemens (2022)