Looking for hidden nominal heads in Poshkart Chuvash comparatives (and beyond)

Dmitry Gerasimov
Institute for Linguistic Studies RAS

Abstract. In the Poshkart dialect of Chuvash, the past participle in ‑nƏ is used in relative clauses, sentential complements, phrasal standards of comparison, as well as independently. I argue that all these uses can be subsumed under a unified syntactic account that treats the suffix ‑nƏ as an exponent of T[ense] (or other similar head high in the extended verbal projection). Apparently nominalized participles in complement and comparative clauses can be analyzed as complements/modifiers to unpronounced nominal heads. However, an alternative analysis in terms of mixed extended projections can not be at present completely ruled out.

Keywords: Chuvash, comparative construction, degree nominals, mixed projection, nominalization, participle, relativization, sentential complementation

For citation: Gerasimov D. Looking for hidden nominal heads in Poshkart Chuvash comparatives (and beyond). Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2021. Vol. 4, iss. 2. Pp. 11–36.