This thesis investigates aspects of phi-features in non-standard and minority West Germanic languages. Phi-features play a role in several parts of the grammar, and the West Germanic languages... Show moreThis thesis investigates aspects of phi-features in non-standard and minority West Germanic languages. Phi-features play a role in several parts of the grammar, and the West Germanic languages display a wealth of variation related to phi-features. Investigating phi-features in West Germanic therefore gives us a unique view on the relationship between the different components of the grammar, in particular syntax and morphology.Based on new empirical data and generalisations, this thesis presents a novel analysis of three empirical phenomena. First, it analyses position dependent agreement in Dutch dialects as the result of a phi-defective agreement head. Second, it argues that complementiser agreement in Frisian and Limburgian is clitic doubling. Finally, it shows that word order variation in Dutch and German imperatives is the result of morphological variation of verb stems. The analyses provide insight into the representation of phi-features in syntax and morphology, the syntactic and morphological requirements on clitic doubling, and the syntactic consequences of the distribution of phi-features on lexical items. Show less
This paper proposes a novel analysis of the exceptional agreement patterns in pronominal het ‘it’-clefts with the order het-copula-pronoun in Dutch. We argue that the complex interaction in clefts... Show moreThis paper proposes a novel analysis of the exceptional agreement patterns in pronominal het ‘it’-clefts with the order het-copula-pronoun in Dutch. We argue that the complex interaction in clefts between case, agreement and word order can be explained from the radical featural defectivity of het ‘it’: het ‘it’ has a third person (3P) feature, but no case, number, strength and gender features. We show that het ‘it’ is different from all personal pronouns in the major dialect groups of Dutch in that it never shows any case distinction. The absence of case on het ‘it’ makes it possible and necessary for the pronoun to occur in the nominative in a cleft. Similarly, the absence of number in the feature specification of het ‘it’ makes plural agreement with the pronoun possible and necessary in clefts. Finally, we show that Standard Dutch has two subgrammars, one of which has the additional requirement that the finite copula agree in person with both het ‘it’ and the pronoun. Show less
