ABSTRACT This project is a fine-grained investigation of the relationship between syntax and semantics in linguistic theory. The investigator aims to explain the correlation of the semantic phenomenon of specificity with case morphology and word order. Specificity is the semantic property of reference to a particular individual, as in "a certain policeman" or "one particular student". The beginning hypothesis is that specific and nonspecific noun phrases (NPs) do not have the same syntax, and that both the determiner and the noun of a nonspecific NP are either incorporated into the verb or reanalyzed with the verb. As a corollary, only specific NPs occur in argument positions. The research will be organized into three phases: 1) study of Turkish, a language which exhibits interesting surface correlations between the semantics and the morpho-syntax of NPs; 2) study of English, a language significantly different from Turkish in terms of surface case morphology and word order; and 3) a typological study to investigate the cross-linguistic behavior of specifics and nonspecifics. In each phase, support for the incorporation/reanalysis hypothesis will be sought from morphological and syntactic evidence, including i) case morphology, ii) word order and iii) argument structure and argument projection strategies. The rare phenomenon of nonspecific subjects of unergative and transitive verbs, observable in Turkish, will be investigated in relation to the incorporation of subject nouns, which once again is rare and observable in Turkish.
