Julie Anne Legate

Research

Current/Recent Projects

• Recursion in Warlpiri. This is older work, but again topical. Here is the core of an argument for clausal recursion in and embedding of finite clauses in Warlpiri: Clausal Recursion and Embedding in Warlpiri. In a slightly different form, it appears buried in section 3.2 of my 2011 paper in Syntax : Warlpiri Wh-Scope Marking

• Under-Inheritance, whereby the A-features fail to be inherited by T, versus Over-Inheritance, whereby both the A- and A'- features of C are inherited by T. Here's a recent NELS talk: Under-Inheritance

• Restrictive Phi, whereby phi-features restrict rather than saturate the argument position. This permits a precise theoretical understanding of the so-called pronoun-agreement ``cline'': pronoun > clitic > restrictive phi > agreement. A poster from the 50 years of Linguistics at MIT scientific reunion is here . For details on the Acehnese, see below.

• Passive agreement in Acehnese (Malayo-Polynesian): (i) I argue that Acehnese has a passive where the voice morpheme registers features of the agent; (ii) I develop an analysis in terms of features that restrict the argument position; (iii) I argue for an analysis of the passive whereby it includes the agent-introducing head, but the agent's argument position is existentially closed (contra ``Smuggling''). See below for the 2012 Language paper and here for a recent NELS talk (on Acehnese, Indonesian and Smuggling): The Structure of Implicit Agents in Passives

• Acquisition of metrical stress in the presence of exceptions (with Charles Yang). Email us for a draft. Also, here's a poster from the 50 years of Linguistics at MIT scientific reunion: Learning Metrical Stress Unsanitized .

• Syntactic ergativity in Dyirbal, which argues for abstract Case in the syntax: here's an LSA talk: Dyirbal Ergativity

Selected Publications

• 2012. Subjects in Acehnese and the Nature of the Passive. Language 88.3.

• 2010. On how how is used instead of that . Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 28.

• 2008. Morphological and Abstract Case. Linguistic Inquiry 39.1.

• 2008. Warlpiri and the Theory of Second Position Clitics. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 26.1.

• 2007. (with Charles Yang) Morphosyntactic Learning and the Development of Tense. Language Acquisition 14.3:315-344.

• 2005 Split Absolutive In Alana Johns, Diane Massam, and Juvenal Ndayiragije, Ergativity: Emerging Issues. Kluwer. (link is to prefinal draft)
  (This is sometimes cited as 2003 Split Ergativity in Warlpiri)

• 2005. (with Charles Yang) The richness of the poverty of the stimulus at the LSA Institute, Happy Golden Anniversary, Generative Syntax Workshop

• 2005 Phases and Cyclic Agreement In Martha McGinnis & Norvin Richards (eds.), Perspectives on Phases . MITWPL.

• 2003 Some Interface Properties of the Phase. Linguistic Inquiry 34.3.

• 2003 The Morpho-Semantics of Warlpiri Counterfactual Conditionals. Linguistic Inquiry 34:1.

• 2003 The Configurational Structure of a Nonconfigurational Language. Linguistic Variation Yearbook.

• 2002.(with Charles Yang) Empirical Re-Assessment of Stimulus Poverty Arguments. Linguistic Review 19, 151-162.

• 2002. My dissertation: Warlpiri: Theoretical Implications

• 1999 The Morphosyntax of Irish Agreement. In Karlos Arregi, Benjamin Bruening, Cornelia Krause, and Vivian Lin (eds), Papers on Morphology and Syntax, Cycle One. MITWPL. (link is to prefinal version)