TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bacskai-Atkari, Julia
T1  - Cyclical change in Hungarian comparatives
JF  - Diachronica
N2  - This paper examines cyclical changes in comparative subclauses, showing how operators are reanalysed as complementisers via the general mechanism of the relative cycle, and how this is related to whether certain lexical elements have to be deleted at the left periphery. I also show that only operators appearing without a lexical XP can be grammaticalised, which follows from the nature of the formal features associated with the various operator elements. Though the main focus is on Hungarian historical data, the framework can be applied to other languages too, such as German and Italian, since the changes stem from general principles of economy.
KW  - Comparative Deletion
KW  - comparative subclause
KW  - complementiser combinations
KW  - economy
KW  - left periphery
KW  - reanalysis
KW  - relative cycle
KW  - reinforcement
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.31.4.01bac
SN  - 0176-4225
SN  - 1569-9714
VL  - 31
IS  - 4
SP  - 465
EP  - 505
PB  - Benjamins
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bacskai-Atkari, Julia
T1  - Structural case and ambiguity in reduced comparative subclauses in English and German
JF  - Acta linguistica Hungarica : an international journal of linguistics
N2  - The paper argues that structural case assignment properties of English and German reduced comparative subclauses arise from syntactic requirements as well as processes holding at the syntax-phonology interface. I show that constructions involving both an adjectival and a verbal predicate require the subject remnant of the adjectival predicate to be marked for the accusative case both in English and German, which cannot be explained by the notion of default accusative case, especially because German has no default accusative case. I argue that a phonologically defective subclause is reanalysed as part of the matrix clausal object, and hence receives accusative morphological case.
KW  - case syncretism
KW  - comparative subclause
KW  - ellipsis
KW  - structural ambiguity
KW  - structural case
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1556/ALing.61.2014.4.1
SN  - 1216-8076
SN  - 1588-2624
VL  - 61
IS  - 4
SP  - 363
EP  - 378
PB  - Akadémiai Kiadó
CY  - Budapest
ER  -