Linguistics Seminar - Competition among pronouns in the grammar and processing of Chamorro

Speaker: Matt Wagers - Department of Linguistics, University of California Santa Cruz

In this seminar, I investigate the syntax and processing of pronouns in Chamorro. First, I'll show that Chamorro grammar treats reflexive anaphors differently from ordinary pronouns, even though the two types of pronouns generally have the same morphological realization. 

The details support a competition-based theory of anaphora most similar to that proposed by Safir 2014. Specifically: (a) reflexive anaphors are minimal pronouns which originate with just an index feature and acquire phifeatures later in the derivation (Kratzer 2009), (b) ordinary pronouns, which originate with phifeatures, always lose in the competition with a minimal pronoun with the same construal, and (c) any morphological differences between minimal pronouns and ordinary pronouns arise late, at spellout. 

Then, I turn to the question of how comprehenders confront the challenge of processing morphological pronoun forms in this language.