Abstract
This dissertation discusses the structure of coordinate constituents. Two general observations guide the analysis: first, conjunctions are propositional entities that reflect sentential events. Second, the conjuncts have the same status: they are both specifiers. Once these two ideas are brought together, the structure of conjoined phrases becomes similar to that of other phrases, and at the same time its crucial properties are accounted for. In essence, the structure of conjoined phrases involves duplicating an inflectional node: the higher part of it is headed by a lexically unspecified category (the conjunction) which inherits its properties from the lower part, which is a regular node (tense, aspect, agreement, etc.) The specifier of each of these nodes host a conjunct.
In chapter 1, I review the previous analyses of conjunction that have been presented in the litterature and point out some of the objections that they face. I also present the general theoretical background I will be assuming. In chapter 2, I define conjunction by extension: first, I show that it shares properties with propositional projections, in particular the ability to accept adverbs; then I show that in certain languages it is systematically related to the inflectional paradigm, for example in Switch-Reference languages and in Southern Quechua. I also argue that conjunctions are heads, and that they interact with certain other propositional heads like negation in languages like Spanish. Finally, I show that conjunction cannot affect morphological units in general. Chapter 3 presents the data concerning agreement and word order. I present two sets of languages that show agreement mistmatches with conjunction that correlate with word order: those where the agreement mistmatch has interpretive effects, those where it does not. Chapter 4 offers a preliminary account of gapping within the proposal presented in previous chapters. Finally, chapter 5 provides an analysis of comitative conjunctions in Spanish and Russian.
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