INVITED SPEAKERS

Universal Grammar, Constructions, and South Asian Languages

Tara Mohanan & K. P. Mohanan

National University of Singapore

The properties of well-known constructions like the passive, causative, complex predicates, and cleft, have been extensively investigated in theoretical linguistics in terms of universal laws (rules, constraints, principles). However, constructions that are less amenable to universal laws have attracted much less attention. In our talk, we will examine clausal complement constructions and question constructions in Malayalam and Hindi as examples of such less fashionable constructions, to illustrate their potential contribution to linguistic theory. This work is part of our research program that investigates constructions as complex multidimensional units of linguistic representation in UG, on par with universal laws and uni-dimensional linguistic units in UG such as features and phrasal categories.