Julie Anne Legate

Research

Current/Recent Projects

• Recursion. Here's a recent paper, coauthored with David Pesetsky and Charles Yang, replying to Levinson 2013 (Language): Recursive Misrepresentations.
  Also, 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

• The evolutionary trajectory of the Icelandic new Impersonal Passive. (With Anton Karl Ingason and Charles Yang.) Email us.

• Restrictive Phi, whereby phi-features restrict rather than saturate the argument position. On Acehnese, see 2012 paper below. On Icelandic Impersonal passives, email me for a chapter draft.

• 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 2012 paper below. Here's a NELS talk (on Acehnese, Indonesian and Smuggling) The Structure of Implicit Agents in Passives. Also email me for a chapter draft.

• 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 NELS talk: Under-Inheritance

• Causatives in Acehnese. Email me for a chapter draft.
• Typology of Ergativity. Email me.

Selected Publications

• 2012. Subjects in Acehnese and the Nature of the Passive. Language 88.

• 2012. (with Charles Yang) Assessing Child and Adult Grammar. In Robert C. Berwick & Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini (eds.), Rich Languages from Poor Inputs: In Honor of Carol Chomsky. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (On the acquisition of stress in the presence of exceptions.)

• 2012. Types of Ergativity. Lingua 122.

• 2011. Warlpiri Wh-Scope Marking. Syntax 14.

• 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)