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Abstract
This dissertation seeks to expand the landscape of syntactic microvariation (Kayne 2000, 2005, 2013) as well as that of idiolectal variation (Henry 2005). Specifically, it investigates microvariation of definite article contraction in Galician. Galician is a minority language spoken in the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. The language has been subjugated to Spanish for hundreds of years, which has led to complex dynamics concerning variation, language attitudes, and questions of bilingualism (among other matters). Although previous analyses of article contraction have been proposed (Uriagereka 1988, 1996, Bošković 2013, 2020, Gravely 2019, Gravely & Gupton 2020), this dissertation accounts for a wide range of microvariation across idiolects of Galician.
I focus on contraction between the article and nominal- and clausal-level elements. I argue that nominals in Galician are regulated by the same type of abstract case system proposed for nominals in Zulu (Halpert 2012, 2016). Nominals either must be structurally case licensed by functional heads, or else must be intrinsically case licensed. Contraction is assumed to be a bipartite phenomenon, generated in part by case licensing in the syntax and in part by operations at PF. I advance an approach to syntax-prosody mapping in which PF operations depend upon prior operations in the syntax: the application or non-application of operations in the syntax feed or bleed PF processes, respectively. More precisely, I propose that structural case licensing feeds leaning/rebracketing (Zwicky & Pullum 1983, Embick & Noyer 2001), which consequently feeds a phonological rule triggering the relevant segmental changes of contraction. In contrast, intrinsic case licensing bleeds such interactions between operations: intrinsic case bleeds application of licensing, which bleeds application of the phonological rule.
I identify three types of idiolects displaying distinct patterns of article contraction at the clausal level. One type allows contraction from external and internal arguments; another allows it only from internal arguments; and a third allows it from neither. I account for these idiolect types by positing a series of structural-case licensing heads increasing in height along the clausal spine. The more permissive an idiolect is, the more structural-case licensers it possesses. Less permissive idiolects have fewer structural-case licensers; these licensers are also lower in the structure. That is, an idiolect in which external and internal arguments licitly launch contraction has the most (and highest) structural-case licensers. An idiolect in which only internal arguments licitly launch contraction has fewer structural-case licensers. Finally, an idiolect in which neither kind of argument launches contraction has no clausal-level structural-case licensers. Variation is therefore cumulative. Additionally, this analysis accounts for implicational relationships between contraction from arguments: if an idiolect allows contraction from an external argument, it also does so for an internal one.
Variation in contraction as the nominal level is assumed to be the result of whether a particular nominal-level element licenses structural case. When contraction between the article and a nominal-internal element is licit, that element is taken to be a structural-case licenser. When contraction in that same environment is illicit, the element is assumed not to license structural case.